Hey, now I know I should be updating Telepathic (and I will), but this idea kept nagging at me and wouldn't leave me alone, like a thirsty Nikola locked out of the wine cellar. ;)

Since I'm such a Teslen shipper (oh the shock! You didn't see that one coming, did you? :P) I just had to do a Teslen version of ITB. It couldn't be helped.

I also just randomly noticed that a lot my Sanctuary fics start with the letter 'T', which is a complete accident, but I'm going to pretend it's deliberate. Even though I just told you it's not. Sorry for that ramble.

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2011 (The end of 'Uprising')

"Years?" Will echoed. His mind was instantly kicked into rearing at a hundred thoughts a second, considering the possibilities, the logistic of what she was saying being true – the magnitude of it if it were. One hundred and thirteen years, hell, he hadn't even lived for a half of that time.

"Oh, that's not even the beginning," Helen said, her lip quirking upwards in that Magnus fashion.

"There's something more shocking than you following a madman back in time and then reliving a hundred and thirteen years from the sidelines?" Will said sceptically. She smirked once again in her Magnus way. "I need to be sitting down for this, don't I?"

"Mmm," she agreed with a little smile, "With a '56 Bordeaux I should think."

Will couldn't suppress the nagging feeling as she said that. He narrowed his eyes slightly as the lift dinged to signify its readiness to transport it's passengers. Helen held out arm to gesture to the lift.

"Shall we?"

She didn't wait for a response, as if she ever did, and entered the lift, leaving her confused protege to trail in her wake.

"Don't tell me," Will couldn't hide the sigh that escaped his lips, "It's a long story."

"Oh, you have no idea," Helen said.

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Will followed Magnus as she exited the elevator. Her heels clacked on the polished wooden floors and he realised they were headed to the library. It was as good a room to do this as any, he supposed. Though why they weren't going to her office he didn't know. He'd had another thought though in the elevator ride and he was trying to make a few quick calculations in his head. Magnus grinned and he realised he must be busted.

"It makes me two-hundred and seventy three, Will," she said.

"I wasn't..." he said, awkwardly. His mother (from those precious fragments of her he could remember) had always told him it wasn't nice to inquire as to a woman's age. The story behind that particular lesson had derived from an awkward incident with one of her colleagues, but that was another issue. The lesson had stayed with him nonetheless. But, then again, he doubted his mother had had a two-hundred and seventy-three year old woman in mind while dishing out that particular life lesson.

Magnus, for her part, just grinned knowingly.

She pushed the door to the library open and walked inside. It must feel odd for her, being back here in the place that was so much a part of her, after such a long absence. His chest immediately panged for her when a realisation hit of just how hard it must have been for her, and here they'd only been without her for a few hours.

They didn't stop at any of the regular central tables in the library, but he followed as she weaved through several shelves to a more secluded area. Two chairs and a settee all in matching green velvet and gold trimming were set up to make a small, private reading area. He was sure the furniture held an interesting story – as so many of Magnus's possessions often did – but he'd never got around to hearing about it.

On the coffee table between the pieces sat a bottle of what Will assumed was the 1956 wine. But what confused him was that there was not two but three wine glasses to accompany the bottle.

It was then that he noticed the figure seated in one of the chairs.

"You took your time, ljubavi," Nikola Tesla drawled. He was seated in a relaxed manner. But Will had known the cocky vampire long enough to know he was still scrutinizing the situation with keen perception.

"I had a few loose ends," Magnus offered with a small, apologetic smile.

Will looked at her, and then at the vampire, and frowned. They seemed to be having a silent communication and it disconcerted him. It screamed of intimacy and comfort. Didn't they usually spend their time bickering? Wasn't Magnus's go to response to Tesla a sigh of exasperation?

"I see that poor protege is confused, my dear," Nikola said. He grinned wolfishly – or perhaps 'vampishly' – as he stood and brought his hands together.

"Nikola, I did just tell him I've been gone for over a hundred years," she said. Ah, exasperation, that was a good sign. Wasn't it? But it felt more amused. It was more like they were playing, were teasing, and Will wasn't sure what to make of it. Sure, they teased a lot before, if you could consider it that, but this felt different. Something about them felt different.

"Helen, he wasn't the one who travelled in time," Nikola said.

"Come, let's sit," Helen said, ignoring Nikola for the moment.

Will usually wasn't much of a big wine drinker, but he decidedly needed a drink now. He sat next to Magnus on the settee and Nikola reclaimed his armchair. Helen swiped the bottle of Bordeaux before Tesla could, offering the vampire a pointed look as she did so too – to which Nikola chuckled – and poured a generous amount into each glass.

"Magnus," Will said, a bit softly, still aware of Tesla's presence. But he wanted to say this now instead of waiting for the vampire to vacate the room. When it came to Magnus, one never knew when Nikola would be gone, he tended to hover around her.

"What is it, Will?" she said.

"I..." he said, not sure how to say what even he himself wasn't sure of, "I just want you to know that... I'm here if you ever need to, you know, talk. I am a psychiatrist after all and what it must have been like for you...all those years."

"That's sweet, Will," she placed a gentle hand on his arm, "Though I doubt you could truly understand. No one could... except." her eyes drifted over to Tesla.

Will looked over at Tesla too. He was grinning from ear to ear again in that alarmingly vampiric way. His mind was once again thrown into overdrive by Magnus's statement and he turned his eyes back to his ever-confusing boss. He must have been looking more like a lost puppy than even he'd thought because Magnus soon took pity on him.

"Yes, Will," she said, "I wasn't alone all of those years, nor was I alone upon journeying into the past. Nikola too travelled back to 1898."

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2011 ('Into The Black')

"My father's walking stick," she said. There was a breathy edge to her voice as her eyes remained transfixed, yet unseeingly, on the ornate cane. She'd already lost him once, twice even, she didn't know if she could handle losing him again. He had been the first person she had truly lost. She'd been so young, comparatively and even not, and they'd only just injected themselves with the blood. Then she had lost her father. It had been the pebble before the avalanche of death, and yet it had been the one that had hurt her the most up until Ashley.

"I'm sorry, Helen," John said, and she believed him. He did seem to be regrettable about Gregory's death. But she wasn't sure as to the extent of his apology. It couldn't bring Gregory – or any of the thousands of lives that had been lost in the destruction of the great city – back. Hollow words in the hollow city, how apt.

She steeled herself. There would be time for mourning later. Now, she had a job to do. If there was one thing she could say about her experience with loss it was that she had become good at compartmentalizing. Though she wasn't sure that was a good thing at all.

"Adam's lab was this way, in the tunnels," John said. He seemed to, thankfully, understand her need to just focus on the task at hand here. Or perhaps he recognized, and for once respected, that she didn't want to speak to him in this moment.

She allowed John to lead her down into the tunnels towards Adam and his impossible experiment. She couldn't believe what he was trying to do. Even if time travel were somehow possible, and she'd seen far too much to simply rule it out, it was too dangerous to ever dapple in. How did they know what the simplest of actions could irreparably alter in the future? No, it was territory that even Helen Magnus's desire for knowledge did not dare dwell for too long. Even she would not dare go there like Adam was, even for his daughter.

For the briefest of moments, the thought of being able to save Ashley had flitted through her mind. But she couldn't do that, not at the expense of millions, billions, of lives. She'd been forced to make that choice once and it had killed a part of her along with her daughter. But she wasn't selfish enough to callously erase the lives of others for her own gain. She wouldn't able to live with that and nor would Ashley.

They'd found Adam's seemingly abandoned lab, and Helen had sent John back to warn the others while she worked. She had been able to sense from the start that something wasn't right. There was something John wasn't telling her, or the answer was hiding in plain sight. As it was, the answer – or at least the man they sought – was quite literally hiding in plain sight.

"There's my favourite dysfunctional couple," Adam was grinning. He was going to enjoy bantering with them. He must be close if he wasn't worried that they would stop him. That thought sent a ripple of fear through Helen's body. What if he did it? What if he went back to 1898? What would happen to them, to the world as they knew it?

"And now the party is really starting to get good," Adam grinned, looking past where Helen and John stood to the entrance of the tunnel. Both turned to follow Adam's sight.

Nikola stood with his hands touching at the fingertips held in front of his chest and a toothy grin on his face.

"You didn't think you could throw this little soiree without me, did you?" he said, walking further into their alcove. "Really Helen, you should know better than to leave me out. Time travel of all things! HG would be ecstatic."

"Nikola, I didn't really have the time to track you down and drag you along," Helen pointed out.

"I see you're back to your bloodsucking claws and fangs variety, old boy," John said. His tone was dripping in amusement at the last part and Nikola frowned. Helen let out a small exasperated sigh at their constant bickering.

"Yes, all the more immortality for me to spend with Helen," Nikola's smirk returned. John stepped forward but Helen spoke, stopping them from going further.

"Really, gentleman, is now the most apt time for your school yard bickering?" she said.

"Now there's my favourite dysfunctional threesome back in action," Adam grinned. John glared and Nikola glowered.

Adam had soon dissolved back into thin air, leaving the threesome desperate and lost. When it became apparent that they needed to draw enough energy from Adam's machine, Nikola immediately inspected the two power sources.

"We don't have much time," Helen said, worriedly.

"I can only siphon off their power one at a time," Nikola relayed. "They're derived from separate sources."

"There's not enough time," Helen said, feeling her hope slowly slipping away. Adam could very well be starting up his time machine – or whatever it was – as they spoke.

"As much as I appreciate the irony," Nikola said, "I know, but I can only do them individually."

He ripped the wires within the first silver tube easily after 'vamping out' as Kate seemed so fond of calling it. She winced as the sparks of blue shot over him. She knew it didn't hurt him, but the memories of him walking through that chamber two years ago to retrieve his source blood key still lingered.

"He could be gone by now," John said, thoughtfully. Helen shot him a harsh look.

"You have no one to blame but yourself," she hissed. He wouldn't get away with this one. There was no knowing how many millions of lives he could have affected through his rash notions of twisted romance.

A dark look flittered across his face and she could have sworn she saw remorse. But with John one could never be too certain. But then his features turned to a grim determination and she knew he was about to do something else rash, and possibly heroic. That seemed to be his pattern, continue to do bad and then occasionally swoop in to clean up the messes he'd made.

"John..." she said warningly.

"I have to make this right," he said.

Before she'd even realised what he was doing, John walked over to the remaining power tube and ripped out the wires in a similar method Nikola had. Helen watched frozen in horror as the electricity streamed over his body. His face was twisted in an expression of pain. The creature was growing stronger.

Helen barely had time to call out as she heard a crackling noise behind her. She spun around to see Adam's makeshift lab once more. He had a look of shock.

"I always knew you were mad, Johnny, but this...?" he said.

His machine crackled and let out a few sparks before the air literally appeared to rip in front of them, leaving a colourful swirl in its wake. Adam grinned.

"But you're too late," he said, picking up the bag that held his daughter's cure, he offered Helen one last smirk before setting off into his time-rift.

"Bloody hell," Helen murmured, for lack of anything better to describe what she had just seen.

"You can't blame me for the dream," John said. His voice was heady with madness and even Nikola was watching him with what she was sure he would never admit was a tinge of sadness.

After all, Nikola had been part of the Five too. Even if he and John had never really got along they had derived pleasure from their own petty competitions and fights.

Helen gazed at the swirling mass of light and colour that Adam had stepped through. If she didn't go, then all she had done would be for nothing. Did she really have a choice?

"To hell I can't," she ground out.

Nikola, who had been watching her, seemed to have realised her train of thoughts before she'd even uttered those words and stepped towards her.

"Helen..." he said.

"Nikola, he could change everything," she said, looking into his eyes, pleading with him to see. "What choice do I have?"

Nikola seemed to be thinking deeply, and then a grin spread across his face.

"Surely you meant to say what choice do we have," he amended, "But I will forgive the grammatical slip up in wake of the metaphorical – and physical – hole in physics Adam has just ripped."

"Nikola..." Helen said.

"Whatever we face we do it together," Nikola said. Her lips twitched at his use of her words from months ago. "Even without the vows. Besides, you don't really expect me to stay behind and tend the phones while you go off gallivanting through time do you?" He scoffed. "Come on, Helen."

She smiled slightly too now. It would be better to have a friend along, and Nikola could be very useful, especially after his re-vamping.

She nodded almost imperceptibly, but she knew Nikola could read the shift in her features.

"This really is going to be one of our best adventures yet," Nikola said, as he and Helen walked towards the lights display. She shot him a look.

"Could you please try and curb your excitement for a moment? There is still a mad-man running loose hell-bent on altering history," Helen pointed out. Nikola sighed dramatically.

"Always so practical, Helen," he said, teasingly.

They exchanged a smile as they stood on the precipice between their time and their past time. A grin spread on both of their faces, she couldn't help it. Even though Adam was about to do God-knows what to the past, they were about to do what they'd always thought impossible. Helen and Nikola had always been irrepressibly adventurous, more so than the other three of the Five. They'd always craved adventure and excitement, a little too much as James had always said.

So together they stepped through the lights, leaving a maddened and menacing John, and their own time behind. They landed on the cobbled streets of nineteenth century London seconds later (though technically it was a hundred and thirteen years earlier, but the mind-boggling-ness of it all was too much to consider that right now). God, it felt so bizarre to be back. To be back home.