Dear Readers,

So I just watched "For King and Country," and I was a bit upset by the lack of Nikola being distressed over Helen dying. So I conjured this fic up as sort of a missing scene before the final scene of the episode. I hope it's better than I think it is.

Best regards from a Tesla-obsessed bookworm,

Miss Pookamonga ;p

The Power to Save

She was dying.

His Helen, his precious Helen, was dying. And he was at a loss of what to do.

What could he do? He wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her, but that would solve nothing. He wanted to miraculously reverse the effects of her travel through the rift, but despite his abilities, he was far from being God. There were no options. Only a tortured man's word that the cure lay deep within the earth in a city seen only by the dead.

The moment he had learned of Adam's revelation, Nikola knew with absolute certainty that Helen would never allow the man to get his hands on that map. And Nikola was right. She had adamantly refused to show Adam anything, lest Hyde bare his face and use the power to his sick advantage. Despite her worsening condition and despite his own desperate pleas and those of John, Will, and Henry, Helen remained stubborn. No amount of arguing could coerce her into changing her mind, even if it meant that she was to lose her life. She wasn't going to risk anyone else's safety for her sake, not anymore.

They were at a dead end. The city was the only way to save her, yet she wouldn't allow them to use Adam as a key to unlock its secrets.

"DAMN IT!" Nikola yelled in frustration, hurling yet another book to the library floor.

He had been in this place for hours, trying to find something, anything in Helen's countless store of written knowledge that would be able to save the only woman he'd ever truly loved. Yet all he had found were words, lines and lines of useless words strung together to form nonsense that was of no help to him. There was nothing. She was going to die, and he was powerless, utterly powerless, to change her fate. He was going to watch her slip away, just like he had watched Dane…

"Save her."

The cool, quiet voice was so familiar to him that he didn't even turn around to look and see the face of the one who had spoken, of the boy who wasn't really there.

"I can't. You know I can't," Nikola croaked, driving his trembling fingers through his hair once again.

The boy continued to speak in his native tongue. "I thought 'impossible' was not a word in your vocabulary, dear brother," he almost sneered.

Nikola let out a strangled cry of desperation and whirled around to face his vision. "DON'T TAUNT ME, DANE!" he screamed in Serbian. "You KNOW I'm at the end of my rope here!"

"And so the brilliant reign of Nikola Tesla finally comes to an end," Dane hissed, staring coldly into his brother's eyes. "The GENIUS finally falls!"

"STOP IT!" Nikola cried, clutching at his face. "I can't…she won't…let us…it's not my fault…"

"You've been saying that for the last century and a half, brother. But we both know that EVERYTHING IS YOUR FAULT! EVERYTHING!"

"Please, Dane, stop…please…" Nikola sobbed, collapsing against the wall and sinking to the floor. "I didn't mean—"

"To kill me?" the pale-faced apparition retorted. "To play with your stupid little pop gun when you knew it could go off at any moment and spook the horse? You watched me die, and now you're going to watch her die too, you worthless, miserable little bastard!"

"Stop…please…"

"If you hadn't been so arrogant at Oxford, none of this would have happened," the vision growled. "You knew Adam was as brilliant as I was, but you didn't want to live in my shadow anymore—"

"That's not true! I made a mistake, I was an idiot—we all were. But I never…I never resented you, never wanted you to die—"

"THEN PROVE IT!" the ghost screamed. "Find a way to save her in this godforsaken place!"

"I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO LOOK!" Nikola screamed into his hands, hot tears pouring down his face.

When he looked up, Dane had already left his mind.

"I don't know where…" Nikola's voice trailed off into anguished sobs, his false brother's accusations echoing through his exhausted mind.

And then it hit him.

In this godforsaken place. Find a way to save her in this godforsaken place.

In the Sanctuary. In the very roots of the Sanctuary itself. The answer lay in the very roots of Helen's own Sanctuary…

Nikola jumped to his feet and scrambled through the mass of papers scattered before him to find the one document that now mattered to him. Finally, he spotted it lying beneath a pile of old, battered books. He frantically shoved the books aside and snatched the coveted paper in his hand.

The Sanctuary Charter.

If he didn't have the power to save her, maybe someone else did…

"Thank you, Dane," he whispered, before grabbing his jacket and sprinting out of the library.

FINIS