I officially hate epilogues.

To anyone who is still with me: *Falls at feet of dear readers and begs* It's been so long; my sincerest apologies! I had half of this written and then got Sanctuary writers block until I noticed that August had just slipped by and this was last year's challenge for that month!

So just over a year later it's finally finsihed: I'm not sure whether I love or hate the ending because it was a really tough one to write. I hope it's to your liking though.

For those of you who can't remember what has happened (I had to re-read this entire thing before I wrote this) here is a brief reminder. Although feel free to re-read the whole thing too is you so wish :P

The story thus far...

Helen gets hurt trying to track an abnormal in England, reminisces about her and Nikola star-gazing back in thier youth. The team call Nikola in and he saves her by giving her his blood and his shirt. (Fangirls squee).

After Nikola was made mortal by the de-vamper he goes to Tasmania following rumours of vampire like creatures. They turn out to be an evil scientist's were-wolf like lab rats, Nikola frees them and gets himself shot. Helen saves him by giving him her blood (some of which was originally his). The long term effect is uncertain, but his test results start to look like Helen's.

Somewhat heartfelt discussions are had and they make out. Reader's imagination takes over...

Five years later

Kate looked at the collected data one last time, just to confirm what was obvious at first glance.

"Yep, no change." She muttered, before snagging the duplicate files from the tables and heading out. To be honest it was what they'd all suspected after a few years, but Kate had seen the project through to the end at the boss' insistence, so now they had the documentation to prove it.

On her way to Magnus' office she bumped (literally) into Will.

"Oof!"

The files scattered everywhere.

"Aw man!" Kate groaned.

Will winced, "Ah…whoops?"

"Watch where ya going next time. Yeesh."

"Sorry. How's the leg by the way?"

"Bad enough that I'm not picking all that up." She raised an eyebrow at the strewn papers, and glared at Will until he got the message.

"Ah, right, yes." He gave a small embarrassed grimace before dropping to the ground to pick up the sheets as his friend looked on. After a few seconds he paused, his hand hovering over one image. "So it's true? He's really not-"

"Yep. Boss'll be happy."

"What? Why? He'll be around longer to annoy her."

Kate stared down at him incredulously. "Are you serious?" she asked. "Oh my god you are." Will blinked in surprise, doing a rather good owl impression. "They're in love!"

"What? No. I mean I know they're…you know…" He made some crude gestures as Kate raised her eyebrows at him. "Yeah, but Tesla's too self-absorbed and Magnus is married to her work!"

Kate rolled her eyes. "Sometimes you are so dense!" Then she relented. "You haven't seen them together – Boss still thinks she has to hide it from us, it's kinda cute. But they've been together five years now; surely you can't miss that sign."

"Exactly! Five years and Magnus is still uncomfortable about her feelings; that means she's unsure."

Kate resisted the urge to growl. She couldn't blame him really; he wasn't the one who had to sit through the two oldies making eyes at each other across the room. Ever since Will had been transferred part time down to London to help Declan pick up again after half his staff were killed, he hadn't been around enough to see what was going on at Old City.

"Okay, fifty bucks says he asks her to marry him before the month's out."

"You really think…?" Will gathered up the last of the documents back into their bundle, before standing up to ponder for a minute, wondering if he'd missed something obvious in his continuing character studies. "Fine. You're on. But I only pay if she says yes."

Kate grinned, grabbed the files, and headed off again, leaving Will staring down the corridor after her.

SANCTUARY

Helen sighed as she stared over the latest mission report. She'd sent Henry and Kate off alone on a simple retrieval and Kate had ended up almost getting shot (again), the bullet in fact nicking her thigh, but luckily not deep enough to cause any serious problems.

But that wasn't the point. It could have been.

She constantly worried about them, even thought they'd proved more than adept at looking after themselves. But Kate, Will (when around), Henry and even the Big Guy seemed to love throwing themselves into danger and leaving her waiting for their calls to come in when she wasn't with them. Helen was still the leading operative in the field, but more and more it seemed like they were going out on their own, and whenever she wasn't watching their backs she felt helpless.

And then of course there was Nikola.

"Stop fretting: they always come back safe."

Helen looked up as the man in question made his presence known.

"And when they don't?" she asked, long since used to his almost mind-reading qualities.

"You know what happens then m'dear, as well as I do."

Helen closed her eyes at that, making Nikola sigh and walk further into the room to lay his hand on her shoulder in comfort. He'd been standing in the doorway to her office or several minutes, watching his partner curled up on her new sofa from his vantage point. He liked to watch her, especially whilst she was thinking, but in this case she'd looked rather more concerned than thoughtful, and it didn't take a genius – even though he was one – to figure out what was bothering her. So he'd stepped in to remind her of what she already knew.

But of course it didn't help.

"That doesn't make it any easier Nikola." She reached up and grasped the hand he'd laid on her shoulder, glad for his presence even though she'd never admit it.

"If it did we'd be laughing."

She couldn't resist a small quirk of her lips at that, morose undertones and all. "That we would."

In the following silence she shuffled over to make room for him, and he obliged by flopping down onto the sofa, making sure he was just that little bit too close – she never complained. Except when he had cold feet, which was always.

Nikola eventually broke the silence. "You could leave you know." He'd waved the words around his own mind enough, had this conversation with her so many times in his head that now it was time to see if all his predictions would come true. Time to hope they didn't.

Helen looked over at him, startled, obviously not expecting that. "What?" she asked.

"Get out before everything goes to hell again." At the complete lack of understanding in her features he continued. "This peace won't last – this place won't last; people will die and it'll hurt. You'll blame yourself of course," he scoffed at that, "and slowly start to self-destruct and we'll all suffer for it." He turned his best pleading eyes on her, but her face remained a stone. "Please Helen, at least consider-"

"No." She cut him off sharply, turning her face away so he wouldn't see the doubts he'd struck, the doubts that had been tormenting her mind ever since Will had died (again) and been resurrected (again). Because one day they weren't going to be so lucky. "I'm needed here."

"Helen," Nikola pushed, wondering if she'd always been this stubborn whilst already knowing the answer. "You've done enough!" He watched as she shook her head and got up to pace in front of him. "So when?"

And suddenly she was shouting. "It's never enough! It never will be enough. There's always someone else to save and someone else to lose-"

Nikola jumped to his feet to face her down, grabbing her shoulders to force her to remain still. "Listen to yourself! This is why you need to get out! You'll keep giving everything you've got until one day you've got nothing left to give because it'll be your body on the table instead of one of theirs!"

"THEN IT'LL BE WORTH IT!"

Suddenly the room was filled only with the harsh sounds of their breathing, as they both took in what had just been said. It was something they'd both considered; something that haunted nightmares both waking and sleeping as they crept down dark alleyways with guns ready and waiting. One day one of them would be crying over the other's body; because longevity (even though technically unconfirmed in Nikola) didn't mean bulletproof.

But it was something they lived with.

Finally Helen broke away from her partner's clutches, stalking around him until she flopped back down on the couch. Nikola followed; he always did.

"What about you?" she asked, reaching for some papers on her desk as if disinterested in his answer. "I keep expecting to wake up one morning to find you've upped and left, just like you always did. I'm surprised you've managed to stick it out this long."

Nikola sighed, slowly inching his arm along the back of the sofa until it was practically draped around her neck. She didn't push him away this time.

"I've grown rather fond of this place, more specifically someone here in particular. Someone worth sticking around for."

"Oh?" The small sigh was the only thing Helen could be bothered to get out. It wasn't that she didn't like what he was doing – it was very sweet after all – but she was trying to be at least partially angry with him still.

Nikola bit back a growl at her lack of interest.

"Hmm, yes. The most beautiful person I've ever met. Charming, witty, fiendishly clever and somehow manages to put up with me even though I can be such a pain..."

"Uh, boss?"

Helen looked up to see Henry walk through the doorway, tablet in hand, almost buzzing with excitement in his keenness to report to her about whatever it was. However, before she could answer Nikola spoke up, his face the picture of innocence.

"Ah, Henry, I was just talking about you."

Helen rolled her eyes and batted her partner in the chest with the files she was supposed to be working on. And just like that they'd moved on, their argument of just a few minutes before forgiven if not forgotton.

"Urr…you were?" Henry asked, completely baffled.

"No." Helen confirmed, glaring at Nikola and mentally berated him for teasing her poor friend. She turned back to Henry, "What have you got for me?"

"Umm…" Henry blinked, trying to keep track of the conversation. "Yes, urr…new toys! You have got to see the power behind some of these babies!" Having sufficiently regained his composure, he thrust his tablet almost into Helen's nose and started gibbering on about technical stuff as he was wont to do.

Nikola tuned out, uninterested in such primitive matters, and let Helen handle it. Soon enough however he became bored, and so decided that running his fingers along his lover's leg would be a more worthy pursuit.

She didn't agree.

Helen continued to speak, at first only peripherally aware of what he was doing. "How much is it going to cost me?" she asked Henry.

"Oh, umm, well relatively not that much cos…"

The strokes became little figures of eight against the back of her knee, a spot which Nikola knew was rather…sensitive.

"Nikola! Stop that!" she finally snapped.

"Stop what?" he asked innocently as Henry stared and Helen glared.

"That!" she hissed, unwilling to mention what had actually going on in front of someone she considered like a son. That, and she wasn't up for playing Nikola's games.

"What this?" he asked before attacking her leg again, this time coupled with tracing the same strokes up and down her opposite arm.

Helen shivered under his touch as Henry stared on in something akin to horror. And then she pounced (not in a good way) and Nikola found himself brutally being battered by some rather heavy files.

"Oww oww owwwww!" he quickly scrambled away from his brown haired maniac, retreating to the other end of the sofa and just out of reach of those lethal arms. "What was that for?" he pouted, nursing a small paper cut on one arm.

Helen raised an eyebrow, puffing out a breath of warm air as she regained her equilibrium: Nikola always managed to throw her off balance.

"Urr…" Henry stuttered from his place in the doorway, his face somewhat flushed and awkward looking.

"Yes Henry?" she asked politely.

"I'll come back later." Helen opened her mouth to argue but Henry was already spinning around in preparation to flee. Unfortunately that plan was prematurely halted as he slammed straight into Kate who'd been approaching the door, her precious findings clutched in one hand.

Her precious findings scattered all over the floor.

"Seriously?" Kate groaned. "Again? What have I done to deserve this?"

Henry did a goldfish impression before quickly dropping to the floor and attempting to pile the photos up again. And then he stopped.

"Is this what I think it is?"

"Yep," Kate agreed. "Project Tesla."

Nikola jumped up at his name, previous injuries forgotten as he hurried over to stare down at the numerous photos of his face on the floor., each neatly marked with a date ranging from five years ago to yesterday. Photos that all looked exactly the same.

"Do you know how creepy this looks?" he asked.

"Try having them stuck to all four walls of a small enclosed room."

"I think even I would be sick of my handsome face by then. Someone obviously likes me." He smirked at Kate who just rolled her eyes and struck a 'well duh' face. Nikola flashed a small grin at Helen before peering down closer over Henry's head to study the mug shots.

Despite first appearances they weren't all the same. Each photo had subtle differences: the length of his hair shifted between the now unorganised frames; the shadows cast on his face longer or shorter depending on when Kate had had a free moment; the slight changes in his expression depending on his mood at the time and what he'd been interrupted from.

Every photo was different, but in all of them one thing remained the same: he didn't look a day older.

He cleared his throat, finally looking directly at his personal photographer for the last few years as she leant against the doorway. "You're sure? I'm not…?"

Kate smiled slightly. "I think these speak for themselves," she confirmed, gesturing to the mess on the floor.

And then Nikola smiled; a full-bodied, sparkling, utterly joyous smile. Kate didn't think she'd ever seen him smile quite like that. She'd seen him happy; since he and the boss had got it together sometimes he'd even buzzed with bliss, but under it all there was always the lingering sadness that logical minds seemed to posses. Because there was always a chance something would go wrong, and everything would be snatched away from him before his eyes for the millionth time.

That was still true now, but it was much less likely.

He turned his grin on Helen then, opening his mouth to declare the findings to her, but he looked so gleeful that Helen really had no choice except to stride over, fling her arms around his shoulders and kiss him senseless; all previous reluctance about displaying affection in front of the children apparently deserting her.

The children in question locked eyes before Kate swiftly pulled Henry to his feet and out of the door, making sure to shut it firmly behind them.

"We should leave them to celebrate," she told him as she started marching off down the corridor. "Once those two start there's no stopping them; learnt that the hard way."

Henry blinked as his brain finally kicked back in and he dashed after her. "But what are they celebrating?" he asked when he'd caught back up. Kate stopped walking and fixed him with an incredulous stare as he also staggered to a standstill.

"Hank, keep up! Tesla's not ageing, just like Magnus."

"Yeah, but we already knew that…"

"No…" she drew out the word, leaving it hanging in the air between them. "We thought it. Now we know it. Biiiiggg difference as far as scientists are concerned."

Henry licked his lips. "Ah."

"Yes, ah. Now come on; let's go find Will and the Big Guy and stay far away from that room for a very long time."

"Agreed."

SANCTUARY

They'd had adventures, inadvertently started not one, but two world wars – Helen still maintained that it was mostly Nikola's fault, and Nikola still maintained that it wasn't his fault people used his inventions for evil purposes, it was hers. She never had understood that last bit, but had long since learned that arguing with Nikola just made him smile, and she never had been able to resist that smile.

They'd both almost died; been mortally wounded only to be given the chance to live again by the other. And here they both were, finally, shining brightly over the world, forever admired and gazed upon from afar, only those select few to whom they were really close save each other: not that they were lacking in friends or family.

Even when they eventually died – if they ever did or even could (neither had felt like testing the theories out) – they would both be remembered for as long as there was a lust for knowledge and curious human minds about.

Castor and Pollux, Helen and Nikola. Gender differences and relationships aside, they weren't that different after all.

And maybe that was a good thing.

THE END

P.S: Kate won the bet.