A/N: Set sometime around Animus, while they're working on the map, but before Breach. This is my first Sanctuary fic! It's a fluffy little ficlet, basically me just getting to know the character voices. Also, I know nothing about wine. (It makes me wheeze lol so I hardly ever drink it.) Sorry if the random stuff I pulled off google makes no sense.

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye

...

"Pilfering my cellars again, Nikola?" she says from the stairs, making him turn. He hadn't expected to be followed; usually he has the run of the place.

"Please, you make it sound so cheap and dirty," he says, retracing his steps to meet her as she reaches the cellar floor. "Which I quite like, come to think of it. Ever the temptress, Helen, keeping me enthralled with the promise of your hidden pleasures."

She snorts. "You keep yourself enthralled."

"And who can blame me?" He turns an expansive circle, arms spread wide, before focusing back on her. "Your hidden pleasures got game."

She tilts her head. "True. So what will it be tonight?"

"Join me, won't you? Help me choose - it is your stash, after all."

"Is it? Sometimes I wonder," she says rather dryly.

"You sound bitter, it's very unattractive in a woman."

This earns him a baleful look while he grins and waits for her to join him in the stacks, which she does.

They browse.

"This is a nice sauv blanc," she says after a minute, drawing a bottle halfway from its berth, "The Sydney Sanctuary sent a case over last Christmas."

He peers over her shoulder. "Not bad, I've already finished two of them."

Helen huffs. "Is there anything down here you haven't sampled?"

"Well..."

He's spied a 1978 Montrachet the last few times he's been down here. He hasn't laid a finger on it yet, weighing the possibility of Helen not noticing it missing for some time against the probability that he would still be in the vicinity when she inevitably did.

He doesn't make a habit of staying in the one place too often or too long. But since being reintroduced to Helen and her Sanctuary - well he keeps finding himself back here, doesn't he? Making it hardly a safe bet.

Well, that's a thought problem for another time - he can't very well abscond with one of the prizes of her collection while she's providing an escort.

"It's a big cellar, Helen," he finishes. "I mean, I'm dedicated but I'm only one man."

She throws him a half-amused, half-exasperated look. "Thank god for small mercies."

"Never mind, Helen, just close your eyes and think of Hollow Earth."

She rounds on him, arms stretching out to touch the shelves on either side, effectively blocking his way. The exasperation has won out. "And just let you get away with anything?"

"Helen Magnus, professional doormat - that's what we call you behind your back."

It gets a genuine laugh out of her, and her arms drop to her sides. But when he goes to move past her, she quickly sidesteps into his path, apparently not finished with him. He's undaunted and not finished with her either, come to it, and quite willing to play. Just as quick, he catches her round the waist turns her body with his, making a dance of it. He swings her around in a makeshift two-step, made precarious by the precious glass vessels surrounding them on all sides. But she's cooperating, a tolerant laugh escaping her lips as he grasps her hand and draws it to his chest. They slow, swaying together cheek to cheek.

There's an amused huff in his ear. "You're in a mood," she says.

"A good one. And so are you, clearly." He pulls back just far enough to see her face. "I think you'd let me get away with just about anything."

She neither confirms nor denies but the look in her eyes says 'try me'.

Another lazy circle followed by a quick step-change and he rounds her up against one of the stacks, bottles clinking in their grooves. She doesn't flinch, not that he expected her to, although another laugh and a shove to send him backwards wouldn't surprise him. She doesn't do that, either, just regards him evenly, a small, daring smile playing at her lips. Try me.

Her hand is still clasped in his and he lifts it between them, lowering his lips to graze her knuckles - it's only a distraction as his other hand darts away from the small of her back.

He slides the bottle out of its place and holds it up suddenly in her field of vision.

"What about this?"

Her eyes dart from his to the bottle, to their joined hands still lingering under his lips, and back again. "The '78? I'm not in that good a mood."

"Well give me a minute, maybe we can work up to it."

"Honestly," she breathes with a slight roll of her eyes.

Her hand slides behind his neck suddenly and she kisses him. Of course she does; she's never been one to wait for someone else's first move when there was one to be made.

To be honest, it stuns his mind a little, the warm press of her lips, insistent and seductive in the extreme. It's Helen Magnus and he refuses to take the blame for his utter failure to notice how deftly she levers the selected bottle from his suddenly loosened grip and neatly returns it to its place of honour behind her. All while subjecting him to one hell of a kiss.

Then he catches up and pulls back from her two-faced seduction. "Spoilsport." She grins, unashamed, which is so typical of her. He grins back, of course. "I'll let you make it up to me."

She reaches over her head, grabs another bottle blindly and only glances at it once before turning it to show him. "This do?"

He peruses the label - because even with her fingers idly teasing the hair at the back of his head this isn't something he can do half-assed - and while it's not a drop on the vintage she just suckered him out of, he's willing to concede. In the list of concessions he has and would and will make for this woman, it doesn't rate all that high.

"We could share it," she adds.

"Among other things. First your wine cellar, who knows where it could lead?" Her bed, for example, would be nice. "You know of all your admirable traits, I've always most appreciated your generosity of spirit."

"Do shut up, Nikola," she responds cheerfully, linking her arm in his and turning him in the direction of the stairs.

"You kissed me, not the other way around, don't think I'm going to forget it."

"Who says I want you to?"

He lets himself be drawn along in her irresistible wake. It occurs to him that the '78 will always be there another day. And, more than likely, so will he.