Okay, this is set post-Awakening, and is Helen/Nikola. Because they're just too damn cute, and Helen needs to admit that she's madly in love with him too ;)

Enjoy!

ZS

She was covered in dirt and grime and Lord-knows what else when they returned to the Sanctuary. They'd taken the chartered plane back straight from the private air-strip, with barely enough time to freshen up. Nikola had been so distracted by his re-vamping that he'd barely bugged her on the plane. It should have been welcome release, but it annoyed her more than it should have.

She spent the journey valiantly trying to ignore the pestering thoughts. She was all too aware of Nikola's presence beside her, the constant lengthening and retracting of his claws, as he experimented with his rebooted abilities.

She was trying not to think about what had happened down in the caves. She hadn't been able to stop the desperation flowing through her body, pushing her on, before re-vamping Nikola. The stark realisation of his mortality had hit her harder than any physical blow could have. It hadn't really sunk in until that moment, when he had been lying on the ground, blood seeping through his fingers. He was mortal. He wasn't invincible anymore.

Then when he had started talking like he had, it had ripped at her heart strings and had shattered the carefully constructed walls she'd erected so many years ago.

He had been so open, delirious, telling her more with his looks and subtly chosen words than blatant proclamations ever could.

She had been so stupid.

She had been so terrified of losing him in that moment. She had been more frightened that she had been for so long. The thought that she could actually lose him – her Nikola – had scared her so much. But, what scared her more, was that in itself.

To need someone that much was the thing that terrified Helen Magnus more than monsters, more than villains and more than her own mortality.

She had seen too many people she cared for die. They would leave her one after the other, through no fault of their own aside from remaining true to their human nature. She was the oddity, the ever-present soul.

She didn't want to admit to the feelings that had been coursing through her down in the caves. It was easier to deny them, ignore them. It was easier to push them to the back of her mind so that she wouldn't have to face them. If she pretended they didn't exist, then she could foolishly believe that perhaps she didn't need him as much as she did. Because loving someone with her entire being was Helen Magnus's greatest fear.

/|/|/

"Helen," Nikola said, as they entered the front door of her Sanctuary.

It was the dark of night, and her children would be asleep.

"Helen," he repeated, grabbing her arm. She turned abruptly, her eyes suddenly on fire with an inexplicable rage. He didn't know what he had done this time to incite such a reaction.

"What, Nikola?" she snapped, "You have your powers back, what more can you possibly want from me?"

He stood stuck for a moment. Is that what she really thought of him? He just hung around for that? Because he wanted her to find some way to get his powers back? They had been so close at Oxford, friends before John and the Five. There was a time when he'd thought that she may even love him too, and had wanted to ask her to marry him when he got the courage. He had even made her a ring himself.

But he had waited. Damn his foolish notions. He had waited and lost his chance with her, the only woman he had ever loved.

He had been poor, a foreigner with huge dreams and little means to achieve them with but his eccentric brilliant mind. He had wanted something to offer her besides half mad dreams of greatness and electricity. What a fool he had been. He had waited too long and Druitt had gotten her.

"Want from you, Helen?" he replied after the palpable pause. "Have you really become that cynical?"

"I'm tired Nikola," she sighed, "I'm in no mood to play your games. I'm going to shower and then go to bed. If you're not here in the morning, then goodbye, until you show up when you need something."

With that, she stalked off, wrenching her arm free of his grip. He barely noticed until she was already gone, staring at the spot she'd been standing.

Is that what she really thought of him? Had he really been that horrible that she thought he thought so little of their friendship? Did she not know that she was everything to him?

He had thought that she had seen beyond the mask. She had always known him better than anyone else ever had. She knew that most of his bravado was just a cover for the often-scared and unsure boy beneath. But she had cared for both the boy and the man. How could she, of all people, not see how much she meant to him?

He sighed where he stood.

Maybe she was better off without him. She didn't love him. She never had, not more than friends anyway, not in the ways he wanted. She had loved John (psychopath that he was) back then instead of him, what had foolishly possessed him to think this time would be any different?

If Helen wanted him gone, then he would go. As her love-sick protégé had said, he was a thorn in his Helen's side. Perhaps he always had been. Well, he wouldn't trouble her any longer.

Don't hate me TESLEN shippers! This is a Helen/Nikola story after all. They're just both so stubborn.