Alright so this story will be a little different from my other stories, but I hope you'll like it anyway. The title is a Serbian/Romanian proverb (honestly, I don't know, I used to think that it was a Romanian one but I googled it yesterday and I discovered that it was a Serbian one-talk about coincidences :P). Anyway, its equivalent would be "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Secondly, this won't be very Teslen in the first chapters, but I am getting there, so don't worry;).

Thirdly, reviews are appreciated, as usually;).

Oh, and before I forget-Helen Magnus was born on the 27th of August 1850, or so I heard in an interview...

One. Two. Three. He mentally counted the noises of the grandfather clock. 3 o'clock… If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have a key to the universe. From this point of view, 27 was his favorite number. Of course, this was also related to the 27th of August 1850, but that was a whole different story. What bothered him was that it was 3 o'clock in the morning and he was still awake, unable to sleep. He knew that he needed it now that he was mortal, but his mind wandered, not letting him to get the sleep he needed. His brain had been invaded by a thousand thoughts. His new powers. Helen. His experiments (he really had to begin to work on something because otherwise he knew he was going to go crazy.) Helen. World domination. Helen. He tried to banish the thought, but it was an impossible task and he knew it all too well. He was mortal now; he had to find a solution for this, because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to be around her for too long. Around Helen. Over the years, he had tried to forget her, to pretend that he didn't need her, but it didn't change the truth. He loved her, he needed her presence, and he wanted to get lost in those blue eyes, to taste those unfairly tempting lips… Why hadn't he been able to tell her that she was the only thing that mattered to him, why the hell hadn't he kissed her the night he had lost her powers? He loved her and the thought scared him. It scared him because love was something complicated, too complicated to be scientifically explained and he hated the thought.

Since their previous meeting, he had analyzed her reactions a thousand times. The look on her face when she had been tied up, her sadness when he had lost his powers, the way she smiled when he discovered his magnetism… Why would she do all that if she didn't have any feelings for him? And if she did, why didn't she kiss him, why wouldn't she at least admit her feelings? So many questions and not a single answer…

Nikola's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a glass breaking in his laboratory. Bloody hell.What had happened? With a sigh, he got off his bed and went to check on his laboratory.

He opened the door with a squeaky noise, but what he saw in his laboratory made him gasp.

"This can't be real. It can't be. You're…"

"…dead. I know, Tesla. Thanks for reminding me." The blonde girl hovered over his desk, all dressed in white and threw him an ironical look he knew all too well.

"Ashley?" Nikola barely managed to pronounce her name. For God's sake, there had to be a scientifical explanation for this, it had to!

"Yeah. That's me. Well, almost. I am a ghost, Tesla. You know, Earth bound spirits and all that."

"That's impossible."

"Said the ex-vampire to the ghost. Honestly, Tesla, you used to work with my mom, I expected you to know that using the I word is completely inappropriate."

"No. I am not going to accept that I'm talking to a ghost. I am probably dreaming." His rational mind refused to embrace the truth. Ghosts were scientifically impossible; there was absolutely no physical proof for their existence…

"We both know that I am not the Magnus you dream of daily, so let's accept that I am real, for our own good, alright?"

"What do you want, Ashley?" Nikola asked exhausted. "I would love to chat with you, but you know, it's three o'clock in the morning and I was trying to get some sleep."

"If my mother came to your place at this hour of the night, you would have acted differently."

Ashley's remark made his mind go into the craziest places possible. Helen. All dressed in leather, coming to him with a bottle of the best wine she had in her cellar…

"Tesla, would you please focus? I need your help."

"Why me? Why not your mother or your beloved father?"

"Well, I don't exactly know where to find my dad." Ashley admitted.

"He is probably out in the city having fun. Try the bawdy houses, he used to find them… entertaining back in the 19th century." Nikola said sarcastically. He asked himself if he did the right thing by being so mean, but he hated Druitt and nothing was going to change that too soon. After all, he had stolen Helen from him; he had stolen the only woman Nikola had ever loved.

"Tesla, please." The ghost paced the room, and placed her hand over Nikola's. It felt as if he had sunk his hand in a bucket full of ice, but the only thing he noticed were Ashley's eyes. Those blue eyes… He knew them all too well. The mixture of warmth and boldness in them... They were not Druitt's eyes. Long time ago, those eyes had been the ones that helped him face the world, that gave him the power to embrace his new vampire nature…those were the eyes he had been dreaming of for over a century. And even if Ashley was Druitt's daughter, he could never say no to someone that had Helen's eyes. He simply couldn't.

"How can I help you, young lady?" He asked with a sad smile.

"My mother is in trouble. We need to find her."

"Helen is in danger? Why the hell didn't you say so from the beginning?" he asked, half angry and half scared.

"You would better pack things up, this is going to be a long journey." Ashley said, disappearing through a wall and leaving him confused. What have you gotten yourself into, this time, my sweet Helen?