teratologist | Not an epilogue, the next chapter.

Not an epilogue, the next chapter.

It took time to settle in to the new Sanctuary. No longer the world wide network but one main facility with tiny satellite branches for necessary local use hidden about world. For starters it was massive, the subterranean grounds made some of the worlds major cities look shabby and small.

The venture had taken careful planning to grow through the 113 years of her hiatus from humanity, ending with an achievement Helen was exceptionally proud of. This single unit of habitats could house most, if not all, of the abnormal population of the world; with that came certain precautions.

Helen dare not let anyone into the confidence of it all until she was absolutely sure things were running as well as could be. This was by now a labor of love, and no one had the experience or commitment to preserving both spirit and letter of the Sanctuary foundation than she did. Eventually she brought the others in, Henry of course and her faithful companion Bigfoot came along right away. Will soon followed and Kate not long after, but there were others that required..well..the proper timing.

She had to give Nikola credit, he'd been vastly determined to not only locate her but try and gain entrance to the facility. She had enough time to plot this out though and Occam's razor prevailed. Nikola remained the last vampire on Earth, if she wanted to keep him out explicitly, she need only block that DNA. No matter how sophisticated a trick or trap he could make, the watchful eye of security would not allow him to pass, not until she was ready.

Three months, blink of an eye to their life times, but three months of denial was surely torture for Tesla. So, when it finally arrived the invitation came also with the balm a 2003 Opus One Bordeaux blend. Of course he couldn't have made finding him easy, it required most of her considerable resources and a bit of hunting by Henry to track down the genius and see that her invitation was passed along. So there it would arrive, a bottle, a single long stemmed blush rose and a rather poetic invitation written in Praxian so only they two would know what it said.

Nikola,
Forgive me the rudeness, but until now I'm afraid things weren't quite ready for you. But, if you're willing, you'll know how to find me.

Helen

Defenses down, his entry allowed, the new Sanctuary welcomed Nikola Tesla.

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In the end, he wasn't sure how to take it. He'd been fairly sure she'd survived. But not certain, not absolutely certain. Had that kiss been a request for trust, or a kiss goodbye? It plagued his mind. And he couldn't even get near the site he knew she had put aside. Not without an earth borer and he was willing to bet that there were defenses against that possibility, as well.

Three months of uncertainty had been, in essence, a slow torture. Then, of course, there was the added question of whether or not she even wanted him there. The defenses seemed, crucially, rather geared towards keeping him out, specifically.

Then her damned note arrived. Wine and a rose and...what? If he were willing? And not quite ready before? What on earth needed that much time?

He pondered the note for days. Even analyzed the wine before drinking it. Helen had increased her abilities in terms of the long, subtle game tremendously - he was now fairly certain that either everything that had happened for a century had been according to her will, or more likely than not she'd found some extra time somewhere. Thus he had to wonder. He wanted to trust her, but she'd kept him in the dark for three months. Without even a note telling him she was alive.

With all the means in place to keep him out, the question became why?

But he came, regardless. He'd trusted her before, and he'd choose to trust her still. He approached the new Sanctuary with some concern, thus, but also considerable wonder. It was, after all, excellent work.

He stood outside, watching the waterfall. She could come to him.

Come to him she would, soft echoing steps brought her out from the main hall along the entryway to the landing. "I find this view rather magnificent." She joined him, hands folded and resting in front of her.

"Thank you for coming, and I am sure you have questions. But I would beg your indulgence for a moment to allow me to explain some thing that I feel may clear up a great many things." She would of course deffer to him, if he chose to barge ahead with questions she'd answer, but the choice had to be his. She'd made him wait and it was only fair to let him speak his peace.

He stood, watching the water cascade for a long moment, considering her words.

"Full marks to your architect," he said, after a long moment. He looked at her, as if searching for more words.

Then he just nodded, giving her the opportunity to explain.

"I thought you'd say that, some of the designs are based off old sketches you made decades ago. Marseille if I remember correctly, summer of 1912 you had a flirtation with architecture and aesthetic design." He was a genius and always did have a good eye, so why should she not have incorporated some of that?

Helen stepped forward to rest her hands on the rail and take in the sight for a quiet moment as she gathered her thoughts. Once she seemed satisfied with her thoughts, she turned and leaned back against the rail. "As you have no doubt surmised, I had not spent my 113 years of catching up with the world, in utter isolation. I was fortunate enough to know what was coming and what would need to be done about it."

She studied his profile but he was not letting much slip through that placid mask at the moment. "My moments required a certain amount of delicacy and obfuscation; I'm sure you understand. I couldn't afford to alter the time line directly and effect the course of events the world had already lived through."

Her gaze moved down and there some a softening to her voice, a hollow note in the next. "There were a great many things I would have changed if I could Nikola. Losses I would rather have spared everyone, especially myself. I could not tell you or anyone what I was doing. I couldn't even attempt to save my daughter. I knew what was coming for over 100 years and knew that all I had to do was not send her on that mission. But it would have destroyed everything we knew. There were sacrifices I had to make through the intervening years, I hope you can understand those."

When she looked back up the Magnus composure was in place again. "As to why this place might have seemed to exclude you specifically, it didn't. It was meant to keep everyone out until i was ready, you ...as always Nikola you simply required special attention."

"I knew...all that." He said, after a long moment. "I know how much it must have hurt, having to watch. I don't mind that you couldn't share that burden with me, by choice or necessity."

He looked at her for a long moment, tapping his fingertips on the railing.

"Three months, Helen. Not knowing whether you were alive or dead. Just...guessing. Belief. For all I knew it was Will running the thing, and heaven knows he'd keep me away. You...you kissed me, then just headed off into the unknown, and it killed me to let you do it. I trusted you then, absolutely. But then months went by."

"I'm not good with uncertainty," he said, after a moment. "It was worse, that way. Worse than leaving you face Caleb alone."

"Three months of not being able to share things with the one person in the world I have left who really knows me. I had concerns, and frankly this facility was a target. I couldn't risk that you were being followed by SCIU or another agency that might stumble across this place or that you had been given another position."

She wasn't sugar coating it, he could take the truth even if it wasn't flattering. "I wanted to tell you, I think I even wanted you here. But i had to be sure it wouldn't be dangerous for either of us. You're ousting from SCIU has done nothing to take you off watch-lists you know. Ties to the Sanctuary would be one more thing they could use against you and I could not allow that."

She had given everything in an effort to preserve not just this place but the health and happiness of those she cared for.

Edited 2012-07-09 01:54 (UTC)

"Another position? Do you really think I'd go back there, for any reason, knowing what they were? What they tried to do with my work? How my presence there hurt you?"

He turned away, running a hand through his hair.

"I've been giving them the slip for about two months. Evaded what I'm fairly sure was a hit squad two weeks after your 'death'. Believe me, that was a fun piece of work. And yes, it was important, and yes I understand - but not even a sign, Helen!"

He gestured at her. "You've mastered the long game, you're a past master at subtlety - anything I could have worked with. Anything. Rather than...anti-vampire scanners and uncertainty!" He paused, calming himself. "A hint would have been nice," he said, as an understatement.

Petulant or not, childish or not, it mattered to him. He cared about her, deeply, and always had, even in his worst moment.

"No, I don't." She agreed and was touched by his concern. "But I also know you well enough to know the idea of destroying the enemy from within crossed your mind. They did, after all, add insult to injury." Nikola was not one to let that pass.

She nodded, she knew because though she hadn't made contact she had been monitoring him. Some sort of silent guardian angel. "It was no accident you were a target, as I said, I refused to put you in greater danger than I already had."

But that last, oh how she turned with a broad smile now. "Do you honestly believe I would have left nothing had I died? I've had instructions lined up for years in the eventuality of my passing. Had Caleb been able to end my rather lengthy existence this would have passed on to you." Her hand gingerly moved to rest on his.

"With, of course, Will and Henry to co-chair with you."

"Helen..." he paused, "we had a conversation once. 1949. And after all I'd see, in those camps in Germany..." He slammed a fist against his thigh. "They used my designs to try for genocide! You know how that feels. I couldn't...I couldn't work inside even if I tried. Frankly, I wanted to annihilate them. Every last one. Stop them before they could do it again. But I'm...not that man now. Thanks to you. So I went...far away from them. As far as I could. Else I'd be tempted to do things I regretted forever."

That conversation in 1949 had led to their sixty years apart. A time in which he had watched humanity fail again, and again, and again - including his own homeland. It haunted him.

"They're the enemy, Helen, and they're still walking under the light of day. Danger? Hell, I'll be in it up to my neck, because I'm not letting them remain what they are."

He shook his head, pacing as he did when he was upset.

"Ah, yes, to keep an eye on me. You know that'd always be a two-to-one vote." He smiled, kindly enough. "Without you there to mediate it..." He shrugged. "But I would have wanted to know, Helen. The uncertainty ate at me, every day. And to find supposedly friendly doors closed to me..."

"I had to be sure, as much as I think I know of you Nikola you are still an enigma. Also as I mentioned this would make you more of a target."

Her palms raised to diffuse his anger, she let him speak but kept her own expression neutral and understanding.

"I had to be sure for so many reasons Nikola, not the least of which is that," She took a breath and clasped her hands together in front of her again. "This was so much easier in my head. Not the least of which being that I want you to be here. I needed to know I could trust you implicitly and to that world, to know you would continue on even if I had died. Because I don't think you would make a very good partner for me here if you did."

The gravity of that should hit him, but in case he was still unclear of her agenda. "I've been carefully gearing our interactions since I went back to 1898. I knew this would be too much for me alone, I needed someone someone brilliant that I could trust to head up the new Sanctuary with me."

So there it was.

"If you accept the job, of course."

He paused, blinking at her a few times when she spoke.

"Head it up? Really?" He shook his head then, entirely stunned. "Pretty much everybody who isn't you will hate that." He stopped then, for once genuinely at a loss for words.

"Helen, anything you need? I'd give. Without reservation. But do you actually think I could be that sort of man?"

Because, truthfully, he wasn't sure himself, some days.

"As I see it the decision is mine alone. If others don't like it, well they are welcomed to voice their concerns. Given what you have done in the name of this place, I think your merit stands on it's own." Oh yes Nikola, your efforts were not as shadowy as you might have liked.

"I'm afraid I may have slightly ruined your reputation by suggestion you for this and giving my reasons for it." She did have to back up her choice of course. Not just with Will and Kate and Henry, but with the rest of the new Sanctuary Network.

"I hope so, I've been trying to groom you for this for decades." She smiled pleasantly to him. "I have absolute faith in you, or I would not have offered you the position."

"You've been playing me for decades," he said, with an astonished shake of his head. "Here I thought for all this time that you just wanted to see me. But you were arranging."

Well, that put paid to some theories, and raised others.

"Absolute faith," he repeated, which was something he had even more trouble believing. He turned aside, watching the water cascade for a long moment. Then he turned back, hands on his hips.

"You're asking me to join you in such a way that not only will it annoy your erstwhile protege, it'll anger pretty much everybody who has ever met me whose name isn't Henry Foss. You're starting a new network that requires patience and mature wisdom, and you're surrounded on all sides by powerful enemies."

For a moment he held a stony expression, then a smile spread across his face.

"Well, you make it quite hard for a fella to say no to you."

Edited 2012-07-09 04:50 (UTC)

"Don't tell me you're offended, if anything I would have thought you might respect me for it."

He was silent a long while, long enough that it worried her. Was he honestly offended? Was this too much to ask of him? Was he so angry over the last three months that he would say no?

"Well," She couldn't really do more than offer short and unfinished rebuttals to any of the reasons he named off. In the end all she could do was nod and wave her hands in a gesture of supplication.

"I should hope so, because I want you to be here Nikola. I can't think of a better partner to share the future with."

"Offended? No. Surprised, yes. And I respected you already, Helen, and more. You know that."

"And really," he added, almost conversationally, "I honestly was starting to think you just wanted a future that had nothing to do with me. A clean break. It's nice to be wrong, now and again."

He watched her for a long moment. She clearly believed in his abilities far more than he did. He'd never viewed himself as a leader, or partner material in an enterprise like this. But she did, clearly. Perhaps she saw what he didn't. Perhaps not. But there was really only one way to find out.

"Never let it be said that Nikola Tesla turned down the chance to be around Helen Magnus."

"There were necessary steps, I had to give certain appearances at certain times. I had a plan, I had to have faith that it, and you, would rise to the occasion."

Helen slid her arm through his and turned them toward the large double doors of the main hall. "So, I can give you the tour, at least part of it. We can discuss business over dinner, if you'd like."

He sighed, looking at her. "You always did know how to convince me of anything."

He started to walk with her. "In any event, dinner sounds fantastic - and damned if my curiosity isn't running wild with me right now. I want to examine the whole place. How big is it in comparison to the old one? Landscaping aside, you've got some serious square footage here."

"It was an acquired skill." She laughed quietly.

"It's rather a bit larger, if it was necessary we could house the known population of abnormals here. That is just the residential quarters, wait until you see the lab and experimental sciences wing." She knew that would catch his attention.

He grinned, shaking his head.

"You are the absolute master of continuing to sell once the target has been most thoroughly hooked."

Then he stopped for a moment, turning to regard her.

"There is...more we need to talk about. I think you know what. But because I am thrilled beyond all measure to see you safe, it can keep for a while longer. Just know that it will be there. But not tonight."

"I know."

There was very much they would need to talk about, and that was perhaps the one reason for keeping him away all this time that she might never admit.

Things had change between them rather drastically in what for him had been three short years and for her, well quite a bit longer. She had seen Tesla as he was and as he became oft without him even knowing she was there.

"There is so much time for that, but so much more to see before then. So a brief tour and then dinner and more serious talk about you as my right hand here."

He affected a look of mock annoyance.

"This is that patience thing you've been trying to teach me, isn't it? Ah, well. I think I can manage it."

He smiled, walking with her, for a moment as if nothing else had happened. "I hope there's a better kitchen set up this time. If I'm going to be your right hand - and maybe I'll be the scary enforcer one, so people are all the more eager to make better deals with you - I expect late night kitchen privileges."

"You're doing well already, no badgering." She gently nudged his shoulder with her own and smiled as they walked through the entryway.

"Gourmet kitchen, latest appliances and convinces and we're on our own natural gas grid. I know how dear you have loved electricity but it is really not the best for cooking." Another jest, things were easing down comfortably for her.

"Oh, and 113 years gives one quite the amount of time to collect wine, you have your own cellar, unless part of the appeal was stealing it all from mine."

"Only a small part of the appeal," he replied, with a slight grin. "You simply had marvelous taste and better resources in terms of acquisition than I had for a long while."

He paused, as he remembered an incident.

"Look, if you're referring to those steaks I cooked in Bolivia with my bare hands, they weren't that bad. Certainly not bad enough for you to wander off into the jungle looking for greens." He grinned, chuckling just a bit.

It had been a fun time, however.

"If it increases your enjoyment, consider it my wine then." She gestured to the left to begin their tour in the upper containment and residential areas. The Sanctuary was every bit as impressive and expansive on the inside as the outside.

"I have almost forgotten that, thank you for so kindly reminding me why I never let you cook." Though it was said with a smile and soft laughter.

"That was some time ago, and one can only batch it - or perhaps botch it - so long before one learns some rather important lessons in that regard."

He did, also, comment extensively on what he was seeing - and there wasn't even the tiniest shade of criticism from him. Aside from a remark about missing the wood paneling of the old Sanctuary. A fan of the classics, him.

But not really a criticism, per se.

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