Chapter 4 – Just A Dance
~~~~New Years Eve 1877~~~~
Nikola guarded the door to the broom closet in the Oxford Science building. He checked his watch absentmindedly and nodded at the few Professors that occasionally walked by. Making sure no one snuck into the room behind him.
"Nikola! This is ridiculous!" came Helen's voice from the other side of the door.
"Can you think of a better idea?" he smirked, leaning against the cheap pine.
"Most normal people go to parties on New Years Eve and…socialize," said Helen.
"Since when have we ever been normal, besides, we are going to a party, our own private party, now hurry up," he could almost sense her discomfort but he knew it was going to be worth it.
"I'm done, just, get in here and help me for a second," he smirked again and slipped inside the tiny room.
He smiled when he saw her, dressed in his clothes.
"My, my Helen, you make a strapping young lad," he grinned even wider and she glared at him.
"Please remind me, what is the point of this?" she gestured to her attire, she was dressed in some very tasteful grey men's trousers, a clean cotton Oxford shirt, a brown vest and grey waistcoat. Aside from the long blonde hair she could've been any man's son.
"You are my cousin visiting from Serbia for the New Years, you're very shy and you don't speak any English, I invited you over to my dorm room for New Year Eve, hold still," Nikola pulled out a strip of something from his pocket and stuck it on her upper lip.
"What the bloody hell is that?" asked Helen, a little freaked out.
"False facial hair, it's ingenious!" he laughed proudly.
"It itches!" she grumbled.
"Well you can remove it once we get to my dorm," he turned her around and twirled her long blonde hair into a bun and securely stuck it underneath a poor boy cap.
"You look fantastic!" he turned her around and clapped with excitement.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea, I mean it's your dorm room, it's kind of scandalous," Helen could feel her cheeks redden.
"I promise not to compromise your honor, I am a gentleman!" Nikola raised one of his hands and placed the other one over his heart like he was swearing an oath.
"Yes, and we're just…testing a theory, what can go wrong?" Helen laughed nervously.
"Well we could blow up…" Nikola said and she hit him on the chest.
"That's not funny," she scowled at him and he laughed some more.
"Can we get out of the closet now?" he asked and she sighed.
"Fine, let's get it over with," she handed him all her clothes which he placed in a burlap sack and slung over his shoulder.
They quickly exited out of the building and across the park to the dormitory.
Luckily for them most of the guys were out at the pub setting up for the evenings festivities of drinking, singing, gambling, and more drinking.
The few men still wandering around the dormitories paid no heed to Nikola and his new friend with the badly cut mustache.
They had reached his room precisely at 10:05.
"That was easy," smirked Nikola.
"Yes, quite so," sighed Helen, she walked over to the small bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror letting out a squeak of laughter at the mustache. "I look like I got a shave from a blind barber!"
Nikola laughed.
"Still worked!" he hopped over to his small liquor cabinet as she removed the pesky thing from her lip.
He took out a bottle of champagne he'd been saving for this occasion and poured a glass for both of them. Helen came out of the bathroom, still in her men's attire, but her blonde curls were set free from the cap and her mustache was discarded in the waist basket.
"Do you really think we should be drinking?" she gave him a funny look and he smirked.
"Come one, Helen! What's New Years Eve without a little alcohol, we've gone drinking together many times." He handed her one of the glasses and she eyed it.
"Yes, but never in your dorm room," she eyed him suspiciously and he sighed.
"Do you trust me?" he said sternly.
"Of course," she didn't even hesitate to answer.
"Then drink," he pushed the glass into her hands and she relented, taking it with a roll of her eyes.
She gingerly sipped the sweet liquid then put the glass down.
"Shall we get to work now?" she perked up.
"Oh wait! I want to show you something! Just sit there!" he scurried off to his bed and pulled something from underneath it. It was a small memory chest, made from oak most likely, handcrafted, obviously a family heirloom.
He placed it on the table and perused through it before finding what he wanted and turning away.
Inside were pictures, and bits of things that held significance to him, she lifted up one of the pictures. It was of a young boy, maybe 8 or 10 holding a small infant on his lap, both were smiling.
"Is this you?" she held the picture in front of him. She pointed to the boy.
"No, this is me," he pointed at the infant in the boy's arms.
"Who is the boy that is holding you?" she asked.
"My brother, Dane," he said without emotion.
"You never mentioned you had a brother," she looked at the photo again.
"It's not something I talk about, he died when I was 5," Nikola took another sip of his drink.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know…"
"It's ok, just memories, those were good times," he flashed his smile at her again and took her hand.
"Come see this!" he pulled her over to a little device with a crank on it.
"What is it?" she stared at the thing.
He smirked and turned the small crank around and around and the device started to whir and an image came out of it, it seemed almost real, like a small little person, and as he cranked the image started to move, a small simple movement over and over.
"What magic is this?" she laughed incredulously at his.
"Not magic, my dear, science! Electricity, magnets and a sequence of images!" he smiled proudly.
"But that's me!" she cried out with excitement.
"A sequence of images of you, yes," he stopped cranking and the image died.
"That's marvelous!" she clapped her hands.
"That's nothing, Helen, when I'm done here at Oxford I'm going to make that little device look like a child's toy," he grinned at her.
"Child's toy or not, I think it's simply magical," she fixed a stray hair of his.
"Come here," he took her hand and led her to the middle of the room.
"What are you going to show me now," she giggled as he moved away from her and to a small gramophone in the corner of the room. He put on a record a music softly filled the room.
"Nikola, what are you up to?" she eyed him suspiciously as he came back to where she was standing.
"What does it look like? I'm dancing with you," he took her hands gently and she chuckled nervously.
"I thought we were supposed to be working!" she sighed moving slightly with him.
"It's New Years Eve, Helen, we can work every other 364 days of the year! One dance is not going to kill you," he smiled spinning at her.
"You know what dancing leads to," she gave him a look and he chuckled.
"What?" he asked.
"Kissing," she said flatly.
"Oh the horror!" he mocked.
"And we're in your dorm room," she said, again flatly.
"That point has been made quite clear by now," he chuckled, swaying them slightly.
"And you're not to be trusted," she teased.
"Why?" he asked innocently.
"Because you're foreign, and foreign men are tricky," she teased some more letting out a small giggle, he laughed as well.
"I thought you said you trusted me," he pretended to act hurt and she giggled again and kissed his smooth, clean shaven cheek.
"About as much as I trust a fox to guard a hen house," she teased and stopped the dance. "Now we should really get to work."
He smiled at her even more deviously.
"Aww, come on, Helen, it's just one dance," he said sincerely and softly that Helen couldn't help but place her hand back in his and let him sway her to the music coming from the gramophone.
~~~~January 1, 1878~~~~
Helen woke up with the biggest headache she had ever had in her life, she felt blinked her eyes at the sunlight and groaned, turning around to face away from it.
She was warm and extremely comfortable, so much so that she didn't see the face lying two inches in front of her; not until she hit it, that is.
Helen sat up holding her head painfully.
"Bloody hell," she murmured to herself.
She heard someone mutter something foreign beside her and she looked over seeing Nikola lying next to her.
"Oww…"he grumbled into the pillow.
Helen inhaled sharply.
"Nikola!" she hit his leg and he groaned again.
"Go away!" he muttered.
"Nikola, get up!" she hit his leg again and he lazily sat up.
"What's wrong?" he rubbed his head.
She gestured to them, together in his bed.
He stared at her stupidly.
"Does this not seem wrong to you?" she cried.
He winced at her voice, obviously suffering from the same hangover she had.
"How much did we drink last night?" she rubbed her head.
"Well, I see…1…2…5 bottles of wine on the floor, so assuming that did most of the drinking, probably a lot," he mumbled sleepily.
Helen looked down at the two of them.
They were both fully dressed in the same clothes they were in last night, minus a few undone buttons.
She let out a sigh of relief, while Nikola was still hazy on the whole thing.
"One dance my foot," she glared at him.
"What with the foot?" Nikola blinked at her dumbly and she let out a small laugh.
"My father's going to kill me," she dropped her head in her hand.
"If you think that's bad what do you think he's going to do to me," Nikola leaned his head on her shoulder and she laughed giving him an awkward side hug.
"Well, nothing happened right?" she looked at him for assurance.
"Nothing I remember…"
"Good, and we're going to keep it that way, now get up, you got me in bed the least you can do is buy me breakfast," she shoved him off the bed and he fell to the floor with a thud and she giggled at him.
"I definitely drank more than you," grumbled Nikola as he got up and headed to the bathroom to change.
~~~~Author's Notes~~~~
Ok i did a little research, and the story was originally set in 1880, but i realized when reading a biography on the real Tesla he went to Budapest in 1881 to work as a Electrical engineer, and that really didn't give me enough time to write the story i wanted to write , and with no specific date on when The Five was actually formed i set it back a few years in 1877, the Five will form 1879, They inject the source blood 1880, they part ways, James going to work for Scotland Yard, Helen and John courting and whatnot, Nigel making it on his own as Invisi-boy, and Nikola trying to make it as an electrical genius all in 1881, Nikola reunites with them 1883, sails to New York 1884, returns at the awful news of John's Jack-ness in 1888, mostly to console his beloved Helen, leaves again, comes back to find Adam Worth 1890, after that adventure leaves for New York, doesn't see Helen till 1942, fakes his death January 7 1943, comes back in Rome 2008! I think this time line makes sense, if i'm off please tell me, i did use wikipedia, but searching through Nikola Tesla's wiki page, Jack The Ripper, and the show's timeline this one makes sense to me, so this is what i'm going with, because if it doesn't coincide with the rest of the history it's going to really bug me.