Dear Readers,

I will begin by saying that this fic was not supposed to be angsty. In fact, I was going to make it quite fluffy. I thought it would be nice to have Nikola and Helen dance in the rain on the roof of the tower or something, after watching the "rain dance" scene from the movie Dead Again. But that idea quickly turned into angst when I listened to the song "Remember When It Rained" by Josh Groban again, and then I scrapped the dance idea altogether after getting another idea (which will be revealed later in the fic) which turned into something similar to the end of one of my other fics, although the premise of this is completely different. But essentially, you are all going to hate me for this ending. I apologize, but I just had to write it, because it fit so perfectly...yes, I am deliberately torturing Helen here, because I'm a bit angry at her. So, sorry. If you haven't figured out by now, this IS for the April Teslen fic Challenge, and the prompt is "rain." And despite the overwhelming angst, I hope you enjoy.

Best regards from a Bookworm (and devoted Teslen fan),

Miss Pookamonga ;p

Remember When It Rained

"Ooh, remember when it rained?
I felt the ground and looked up high

And called your name
Ooh, remember when it rained?
In the darkness I remain…"

—Josh Groban, "Remember When It Rained"

It was raining.

In the long, torturous years that would follow that fateful night, it would always be the first thing Helen would remember.

It was raining.

Ever since that night at Oxford, when she had unexpectedly found the man staring intently out a window with a look of pure wonderment covering his face, Helen Magnus had known where to find Nikola Tesla during a thunderstorm. He always managed to find a vacated space where there just happened to be a colossal window overlooking the distant world below, and for the entire duration of the storm, he just stood there, gazing upon the violently breathtaking display with that glint of awe shining brilliantly in his eyes. Tonight, she knew he would be spending his time in the uppermost room of the North Tower—the empty room she had always preserved as the Sanctuary's "overlook" and as her own refuge for when she was unable to escape to the roof. The room was surrounded by enormous gothic-arched glass windows on all four sides, and ever since he had begun to stay at the Sanctuary, Nikola had spent every stormy night basking in the incredible view the tower room granted him. On nights like these, Helen normally left Nikola alone in peace, knowing all too well that the scientist preferred not to be bothered during his storm-watching, but tonight was different.

Tonight, for some odd reason, she felt like talking to him.

As if she needed to.

So it was this strange urge that compelled Helen to ascend the winding staircase, spinning and whirling around a seemingly endless series of stone corners, until she arrived at the upper room.

And, as she expected, she found him there, standing with his back to her and facing the tempest that raged just beyond the layer of glass separating him from the outside world. For a split second, Helen stood still on the landing, her breath catching as a great bolt of lightning suddenly illuminated his silhouette in a blinding flash of white, the shadowed form of his domineering pose—head held high and hands planted firmly on his hips—contrasting sharply with the dazzling light gleaming through the windows. And then, as soon as the moment had come, it was gone. Helen was suddenly reminded of her purpose for being where she was, and she tentatively began making her way towards the figure on the opposite side of the room.

"I know you're here."

The resonant echo of his voice stopped her dead in her tracks, and Helen briefly glanced down at her padded slippers in wonder.

"Just because I'm no longer a vampire doesn't mean I can't still hear you walking." He spun around to face her, one arm dropping to his side. In the dim bluish light of nighttime, his face was nothing more than a shadow to her from where she was standing.

"And how could you hear me over the storm?" Helen resumed walking towards him. She could tell he was smirking even though she couldn't quite see him well enough.

"A trained ear, my dear Helen," Nikola answered, cocking his head to the side. "I'd recognize your footsteps even if I was in the presence of a thousand screaming banshees."

Helen snorted. "I have to say, that was one of your worst ones yet," she teased, stepping up beside him.

"Oh, I have far worse ones than that. I can tell all of them to you if you like." She could see his toothy smile glinting in the low light now.

"That's very kind of you to offer, but I didn't come up here to be subjected to a stream of mediocre jokes," she replied, offering a smirk of her own before turning to stare at the steady downpour of rain hammering against the windowpanes.

"Oh? Then what did you come up here for? I sincerely hope it wasn't just to annoy me by interrupting my viewing of this brilliant show—"

"Of course not."

The sharp tone of Helen's voice caused Nikola's face to suddenly contort into a confused—and perhaps concerned—frown, and he stepped closer to her. "Helen?"

A light shudder rippled through Helen's body at the softness of Nikola's tone. Another lightning bolt streaked across the darkened sky, more white light flickering across their faces before it disappeared into a rumble of thunder. She sighed. "Sorry…it's…nothing."

She was surprised when she suddenly felt cool fingers brushing against her cheek, moving to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. Her head instantly spun towards the source of contact, and she found herself staring into Nikola's eyes. Unnerved by the unexpected moment of intimacy, Helen quickly averted her gaze back to the rain droplets that were now etching tiny rivers into the glass.

"Helen, tell me what's wrong."

His palm pressed gently against her skin, and her eyes unwittingly fluttered closed as he cupped her cheek.

For a few sacred moments, neither moved nor said anything.

And then Helen felt the hand drop from her cheek suddenly, and her eyes snapped open.

"Of course."

Helen lifted her gaze in confusion, only to find that Nikola had turned and paced away from her, his lips pressed together in a firm line and his arms crossed tightly across his chest.

"Nikola?"

"Of course you won't say anything," he continued in the odd, darkly sarcastic tone he had just adopted, as if she had never spoken. "You never do."

Helen's eyes widened, startled. "What are you talking about?"

To her surprise, a small laugh rippled forth from Nikola's throat, a twisted smile contorting his features in a ghastly way beneath the nighttime shadows. "Goddamn it," he muttered, shaking his head.

By this time frustration and unease had overcome Helen's confusion at Nikola's strange behavior. "Nikola, what the he—"

"You just don't get it, do you?" He whirled around so quickly that Helen nearly stumbled backward in shock. Another flash of lightning streaked past the windows, a loud roar of thunder following in its wake and momentarily drowning out the steady thrumming of the rain.

"Nikola, I don't—"

"Every time. Every damn time I try to talk to you, you just clam up and pretend like nothing's happened."

Helen was struck dumb. Her mouth dropped open and she just gaped at him blankly, trying to process his words in her mind.

As the lighting and thunder continued their catastrophic dance across the sky, Nikola swerved back around and began stalking off in the opposite direction. "Every time." He threw his arms into the air. "Every time you need someone to talk to, every time there is obviously something wrong and you just need a shoulder to lean on, I try to be there for you, and you just—"

"Nikola!" Helen finally shouted.

"Ah," he chuckled sardonically, spinning around so Helen could see that unsettling grin still plastered on his darkened face. "So there's your voice."

"For God's sake, Nikola, what the hell is this all about? I just came up here because I felt like talking to you and you suddenly explode for no reason!"

Outside, another bolt of lightning shattered the surrounding darkness.

"Oh, so now you feel like talking to me. How wonderful."

Helen gritted her teeth angrily and strode towards Nikola as he continued to stride away from her, her eyes flashing dangerously like the streaks of lighting in the storm. "You're acting as if I've never talked to you in my life."

"You might as well haven't," Nikola nearly spat, his sarcastic grin disappearing into the shadows as his eyes turned to ice. "We haven't talked in so long that it practically has been a lifetime since we last—"

"Since we last what?" Helen interrupted indignantly, her face flaming. "Since we last had a conversation that didn't end in some stupid argument about nothing?"

"Nothing?!" Nikola nearly bellowed, the muscles in his face clenching suddenly. "You think this is nothing? Dear God, Helen, is that what you think of us now? Just nothing?"

For the second time that night, Helen was shocked into utter silence.

Nikola shook his head once more, turning away from her yet again and driving a hand through his already rumpled hair. When he spoke again, it was in a much softer voice. "What happened to us, Helen?" he nearly whispered so quietly that Helen could barely hear him over the pattering of the rain on the windowpanes. "We used to be so close…we used to talk about everything, anything…and now we can't even do that without fighting."

An eerie silence settled over the room, broken only by the tapping sounds of the raindrops hitting the glass. Helen gulped, tearing her gaze from Nikola and choosing instead to stare intently at the serpentine paths the droplets were tracing across the windows.

"I don't know," she finally whispered back, following the path of one particular raindrop as it streaked across the glass and collided with another tiny stream of water.

She heard Nikola sigh heavily behind her as his footsteps echoed forlornly throughout the empty room. "All I wanted…ever since I met you…was to help you. To just be there when you needed someone. To be the one you could open up to when no one else would listen. All these years I've tried to be that for you, and you've just pushed me away—"

"That's not true!" Helen retorted angrily as she whirled around to face him this time. "I let you get away with so many things, I wrote you, I supported your insane ideas for inventions, I defended you against Edison—hell, I faked your death—"

"Oh, but when you were feeling lonely, when you were so overwhelmed with grief over that damned idiot Druitt that you could do nothing but curl up and cry like a helpless child, who did you run to?" Nikola screamed as another lightning bolt flashed brilliantly behind him. "Was it me? NO! How many strangers' arms did you fall into, Helen, just to feel like you were protected again? How many men did you bed with—how many women—how many times did you throw yourself at someone just to forget—when all the time you had me?!" There were hot tears streaming down his face now, just like the countless raindrops rolling down the windowpanes, and his chest was heaving furiously which each breath he took. "Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason I wanted to 'die' was because I couldn't bear the thought of you running past me again to find false comfort in someone else's arms? That I couldn't bear it anymore because I loved you so damn much that I saved all of myself for you, only you, but you could never do the same for me? God, Helen, I was always there waiting for you with open arms, but you always ran away! And you're still running!"

Helen's back thudded against the wall.

And all of a sudden, as the thunder cracked beyond the windows once more, she felt the weight of a century's worth of guilt come crashing down upon her.

Dear God, he was right.

All these years, she had done nothing but run away from him.

During their time at Oxford together, before the rest of The Five had come into the picture, the two had been practically inseparable, and had confided in each other every secret, every wish, every desire. Every pain, every loss, every moment of despair. They had been each other's stronghold for that time, fiercely loyal to one another and always lifting up the other when one couldn't stand on his or her own. But the minute the other three had entered their lives—or, more specifically, John had entered their lives—nothing had been the same. Over the years following the tragedy, the tight-knit bond between them had gradually begun to stretch apart and fray, their connection with each other growing looser and looser with the passing of time. Their once intimately sincere conversations had lapsed into nothing but awkward exchanges of wry banter and little spats over which one of them was "crazier" than the other. And the openness they had once shared between them had filled, had become barred by the negligence of time and the unwillingness to let loose terror and pain and fury for fear of becoming vulnerable. And, as Helen stared into the sobbing, utterly broken face of the first man besides her father that she had learned to trust, a horrifying realization struck her as if she had been backhanded by her own denial.

It was all her fault.

Nikola had always been there. Always. Even after she had chosen John over him, even after he had left for America to start a new life. Even after he had been on his way to becoming the richest man on earth. He had done nothing but write her, send her telegrams, call, visit whenever he could. He had been relentlessly devoted to her, and she had ignored him. Ignored the fact that he had been there, that he had willingly given up his time to just make sure that she was all right, and had instead tried to find solace in places where she knew no solace existed. He had put his heart, his life, his whole being on the line for her, and she had run away. Had given herself away to others who had never given themselves back in the way he would have.

And, as he had so bluntly put it, she was still running, even now.

Helen had become so caught up in her thoughts that she had barely noticed the tears welling up in her eyes. Now that she was aware of them, she could hardly hold them back. She bit her lip in vain as a single hot tear escaped her eye and rolled slowly down her cheek, mimicking the movement of the raindrops on the windowpanes. A lump rose in her throat as she continued to stare at the dejected figure before her, whose normally erect posture had slumped over hopelessly and whose face had once more turned away from her, either for shame at his own tears or to hide yet again from the one who had inflicted so much pain upon him for over a century.

"Oh, Nikola…"

"I should just go."

Helen's heart plummeted in fear. "What—no—"

"Helen, I know a lost cause when I see one," he cut her off in a raspy voice, dipping his chin towards the floor but refusing to look at her. "It just took me longer to see this one."

"Nikola, please don't talk like that," she murmured imploringly. She took a step towards him, but he visibly flinched, causing another pang of anguished guilt to strike at her heart.

"No, no, it's true. I should have been smarter not to spend so much time on something I knew would never amount to anything…" He trailed off, walking almost aimlessly towards the staircase. Helen's first instinct was to stop him, but for some reason she couldn't will her limbs to move.

"Ni—"

He finally turned around. When his eyes met hers, Helen could hardly bear the sight of the indescribable agony pooled in those darkened irises. They were so wide, so terrified, like a frightened child's. He looked so small, so helpless, so alone—

"Goodnight, Helen" he whispered softly, his eyes roaming over her figure one last time before he turned his back to her again and began the long descent to the bottom of the tower.

"Nikola, wait!"

But Helen didn't run.

She couldn't.

For some reason she could only stand there, frozen, staring into empty space as the rain tortured her with its ceaseless drumming, interrupted only by the occasional blaze of a lightning flash and a deafening crash of thunder. She didn't know how long she stood there, listening to the cacophony of the storm outside pounding into her ears, replaying that last moment with Nikola in her mind over and over again like a broken film reel. She couldn't move, couldn't do anything, until suddenly, some time later, she heard an almighty BOOM, and a terrifyingly radiant beam of blue-white light burst through the window for a split second before disappearing entirely into the clouded sky.

Then she heard the unmistakable sound of the entire power system shutting down.

It only took her a few seconds to piece the puzzle together.

And then Helen was flying down the staircase, spinning and twirling around and around dizzily until she reached the bottom and made a mad dash through the darkened hallways, past a confused and somewhat irritated Henry, and across the front hall to the door. Without wasting a moment, she unlocked it and flung it open as best she could. She sprinted out into the driving torrents of rain, splashing through puddles and kicking up cold water onto her already ruined nightgown, until she was a few feet away from the front gate.

Where she froze.

The blackened, shriveled mess of wires that had once been the keypad to unlock the gate was an all-too clear sign of where the lightning had struck the EM shield. Slowly, almost terrified of what she would find next, Helen let her eyes travel downward to the ground, her stomach knotting as the rain began to pelt at her even harder—

"NIKOLA!"

For the first time in over a century, Helen ran to him.

Only to collapse on her knees next to his listless body.

"NIKOLA!" she shrieked in horror as she scrambled to grab his limp face in her hands. "NIKOLA, WAKE UP!" She screamed his name over and over again, shaking his head in her hands, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him even harder. "Nikola, Nikola, NIKOLA! Oh, God, PLEASE—Nikola, NO! I'm sorry! I'm SO sorry—NIKOLA-A!"

Nothing.

Helen let out a loud wail of anguish as she drew the lifeless form of Nikola Tesla against her and lifted her head to face the thousands of rain droplets plummeting down towards the ground. She screamed his name again, clutching him desperately to her chest and rocking him back and forth, as the rain mingled mockingly with her tormented tears…

But this time, her cry was all but drowned out by the monstrous roar of thunder.