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Helen was fiddling with the ring on her finger.
It was a toss-up as to who noticed it first. Nigel was staring with a surprised, slightly concerned expression, and Nikolija was following his gaze to the unassuming gemstone on Helen’s hand, when James spoke.“So, who's the lucky man? Did John finally propose like he's been wanting to for months now?”“James! That was told to you in confidence!” John set down the preparation he was currently examining. “What if it hadn't been me?”“Please. Unless our Helen has a beau on the side — who would be feeling very neglected, considering the amount of time she spends with us, not to mention that we'd likely have at least heard of his existence by now — you were the only possibility.”Nikolija sucked in a breath, her gaze leaping back to Helen working across the table from her. “You accepted him?” softly, she asked.“Of course,” Helen said, so matter-of-fact, but the was a softness in her tone and a brilliant light in her smile, and somewhere in Nikolija’s chest was sweetly sore in the face of it.She nodded. “I wish you both every happiness,” and she meant it, she did. She wanted Helen to be happy, and Helen was smiling a little more often today, small, candid grins Nikolija didn't even think Helen was aware of. It was a lovely sight, and Nikolija averted her eyes and went back to her work, carefully adjusting the metal coils.The men were still bickering good-naturedly. “That's still no excuse for just blurting out someone's secret, James.”“Very well, very well, I apologize. Now, tell us, when did this happen?”“That was hardly very sincere.”“‘E’s just jealous.” Nigel clapped John's shoulder. “We all know none of the rest of us ever stood a chance. Congratulations, mate.”“I'm hardly jealous! I’m quite happy, for both of you. It was high time, if you ask me.” James did sound entirely sincere now, and held out his hand. “Congratulations.”John shook it, smiling. “Last night. We took a ride through the city in the evening. We don't get much time alone, otherwise, not with you lads and the Serbian around.” It was said fondly, for the most part.“And her father?” Nigel crossed his arms. “Have you smoothed things over with him?” Dr. Gregory Magnus hadn't been in the least pleased that one of her patients was courting his daughter, and even less so that she had allowed it, and his and John's relationship hadn't improved at all since then.“He doesn't know yet, but Helen has assured me she'll speak with him soon.”Nigel made some wary, noncommital noise. “He won’t be pleased.”“I am thirty-five years old and my own woman. My father has no say in whether or not or in whom I marry.” Helen raised her voice to be heard by the other three, though she didn't turn from her work. “Now, gentlemen, I believe we’re all here for a purpose…?”They took the hint and dispersed, as it were, to their own portions of the experiment again, and James began only slightly reluctantly to work through the various chemical formulas aloud one more time. Helen shook her head, leaning forwards to speak to Nikolija, though her voice was easily heard by the rest of the room. “And men say women are the gossips…”“Oi!” Nigel protested.Helen shot him a cheeky grin, and then her gaze slid to John, and softened, and lingered for a brief moment, and Nikolija focused very intently on the apparatus on the table in front of her. ***** “You didn’t say much, earlier.” Nigel glanced at her as they walked back to his and “Nikola’s” adjacent dormitory rooms. “You feeling all right?”“I am fine.” The accent Nikolija hadn't quite yet eradicated became more pronounced at the at the end of the day, when she longed to curl her tongue around the smooth, comfortable angles of her native language.Nigel’s gaze remained on her. “You sure? You didn’t even say anything about Helen and John’s engagement.”It had continued to be brought up over the course of the evening, from when the wedding was planned for (“For heaven's sake, he only just proposed!” — “That doesn't mean we can't start thinking about it, darling. I for one confess myself quite eager to be married. This coming March, in six months, perhaps?” — “We'll see...”), to how appropriate the method and timing was (James had found it a bit lacking — a sentiment Nikolija shared but didn't voice — which of course had offended John again, and Nigel confessed to finding the quiet, no-fuss, everyday sort of affection the most profound), to how long it would be until they had their first child and what he or she would look like (something Helen adamantly refused to speculate about, shaking her head with her lips tightly pressed together, and admonishing the men to focus on their work when Nigel and James started ribbing John again).“I wished her happiness. You know I am not so fond of John.” It had begun with the first tentative meeting of what would become the Five, when John had obviously not been expecting “Nikola,” and had subsequently demanded whether or not Helen “truly must take every little foundling and oddity under her wing...?”
He respected Nikolija, now, for her intellectual abilities if nothing else, but there was still no love lost between them.
Nigel had been on the butt-end of one or two of John’s more scathing comments as well, though he always gave as good as he got, and seemed to actively enjoy being underestimated.“Well, he does make Helen happy…” Nigel lifted his shoulders.“I know,” she replied, with a little too much force. He lingered outside his room, as she set her hand on the door to hers.“I won’t be sleeping for a while yet. Care to join me for a drink or two? I just got my hands on a bottle of wine…” He grinned at her, and she tilted her head fondly.“Just for me? I'm touched.”He was wearing that concerned expression, the one where he thought there was something else to pry out of her, and though usually there was, tonight she wasn’t sure what for the life of her that might be.
There was nothing untoward behind his offer, neither in appearance nor in spirit, and she wouldn't be going to bed for at least an hour or so, either.“Bring the wine in ten minutes,” and she headed into her own room to change.Men’s clothing in and of itself was comfortable, as were, but she was always relieved at the end of the day when she could unbind her chest, and peel off the itchy faux mustache, and untie the hair she hadn't quite been able to bear cutting, to comb her fingers through it.Still in a shirt and trousers, but looking far more feminine now, she hid behind the door so as not to be seen from the hall as she let Nigel in, and locked the door behind him. He set the bottles — whiskey for himself and wine for her — as well as two small, chipped glasses down on her nightstand, beside the slightly precarious stack of books, and settled on on the edge of her bed, the only really comfortable place to sit in the small and fairly spartan room.“You make a far handsomer woman than a man. Even if you’re not in a dress.” It was an offhanded, uninterested compliment, and he wasn’t looking at her as poured their drinks, only a little alcohol to begin with.“Why would you be any judge of what a handsome man looks like?” She smirked as she sat down beside him, crossing her legs. “You are not one who is interested in them.”“I do know what looks good, and what doesn’t. But you’ve got a point. I am a bit biased.” He took a drink almost immediately, pressing his lips together and wrinkling his brow in the way he did when he was thinking, or concentrating hard. “Wondered if I was, though, f’r a bit. If I was that sort.”She turned her head sharply, arching her eyebrows. Usually they edged into the hard, deep, murky things a little less abruptly. “Why?”“I’ve never been all that enamored of women, neither, ‘least not like the others seem to be.”“I have not yet found any man particularly attractive. So?” Nikolija gently swirled the wine in her glass, inhaling the aroma, before taking a small sip. She held it on her tongue for a moment, then swallowed with a satisfied hum. “This is good. Where did you get it?”“You’d ‘ave to ask Jonathon that.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Down the hall. Left his door unlocked the other day, and I just couldn’t resist. He had more than one of ‘em!” he protested when she side-eyed him with she-wasn’t-sure-what-emotions. “Besides, you’re drinkin’ it, now you’re an accomplice.”Nikolija rolled her eyes at his suddenly cheeky grin, drained the last two swallows in her glass, and poured herself another.“That’s the spirit.”“That was an ambush. I take no responsibility.” She laid partially back on the plain, brown wool blanket, twisting onto her side and propping herself up on one elbow.Nigel suddenly began twirling his glass in his hand. “I just wanted to say… I know about how you feel. About Helen. An’ I’m not judging you. Truth be told, I think James feels the same way about both of ‘em. Could turn into a right bloody mess. If it isn’t already.”“How I feel about Helen?” She frowned, and arched her neck against the sudden tension in her shoulders. “What do you mean?”A split second of hurt flashed across his face. “You don’t ‘ave to pretend, is what I‘m sayin’. If you want to talk about it. But if you don’t, that’s fine, too.”
He drained his glass, set it down, and sprawled back, putting his hand behind his head and closing his eyes. “We’re makin’ good progress. At this rate, we might be able to actually inject the serum in a week or two.”It was the other thing that had been on their minds lately — the Sanguine Experiment, as they called it. But for once, Nikolija wasn’t distracted by science. “What do you mean? I’m not pretending anything."He opened one eye to peer up at her. “I said it was fine, if you didn’t want to talk about it.”“And I have no clue what you’re thinking I might possibly want to talk about.” She glowered at him, and then he finally stared back at her properly, both eyebrows shooting up.“Blimey. You really don’t.”“Of course not. Now tell me what on earth you’ve been insinuating.” She took a sip of her wine, watching him intently.“It’s just — these looks you give her, sometimes. Helen, I mean. And how you smile. Completely bloody smitten, like.” Nigel wore a wry, awkward half-smile himself, head turned towards her but his gaze fixed somewhere beyond her, to make this easier on both of them, she suspected, even if she wasn’t sure what this was.
“You work with her any chance you get. Stay with her in the laboratory at all hours of the night. You’ve been with her to the theater, twice, when she wanted to see that one play again, and I know for a fact” — he extended his pointer finger towards her, to underline his point — “you hated it the first time around. I just, one day I just thought: if you were a man, I’d say you were in love with her.”“And because I have been acting as a man, I have begun to think as one? Is this what you thought?” She felt vaguely offended, though she wasn’t sure at what. It didn’t seem such an illogical hypothesis — its lack of veracity aside.“No, I just wondered why you’d have to be a man for me to think that in the first place. Since I’d wondered, myself, before. If I was attracted to my own sex.” He wasn’t looking at her, now, and Nikolija drained her glass and leaned to set it on top of the trunk at the foot of her bed.“I’ve heard about… what some women get up to, with their women friends.” He suddenly took both his lips between his teeth. “Or — do you an’ her already have some sort of arrangement?”What they get up to… It wasn’t like — well, maybe it was like she didn’t know, not well, anyway. It wasn’t exactly talked about, especially not among the young men, who were rarely privy to girls’ relationships with one another.
“Good God, Nigel.” Nikolija glanced up at the ceiling. “Whatever you’re envisioning, I can assure you, me and Helen… nothing like that is going on. I’m not upset by her engagement, and I’m —” something curled tight in her throat, and she cleared it and swallowed, “I am fine.”
But she had never liked seeing the evidence of Helen and John’s coupleness: the quiet murmurs, however rare those were; the way they always seemed to position themselves close to one another, at a table, or in a carriage, or anywhere; recently, the hand-holding; and now the ring.He peered up at her, out of one eye again. “From that expression alone, I say that’s bunk. An’ you know it.” He closed his eyes and wriggled slightly, adjusting his position and wrinkling his clothes in the process.Nikolija wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like seeing… their relationship.” She lifted one shoulder. “That is all. It is between them. A private thing.”“Are you going to tell me it’s ‘improper’ next?” His tone was only gently mocking.She nearly did, except that John and Helen really didn’t “carry on” very much at all — and as for “improper,” well, Nikolija was hardly one to talk. “I am only here for knowledge. I do not care about — that.”He sat up, suddenly, to pour himself more whiskey, a particularly cheeky grin on his face, and Nikolija was immediately wary. “All right. I’ll tell you what. I still say you’re in love with Helen, but you tell me you’ve never thought about kissin’ her, and I’ll lay it to rest. Won’t speak of it again.”She stilled, for a split second, not quite breathing, before firmly repressing the thought, not even fully realized. Looking away, she leaned over to pick up her own glass again, and held it out for him to pour, seeing as he was closer to the bottle.
“I don’t need to tell you that. Of course I love Helen. She’s likely the best friend I have here — aside from you, and I knew her first.”They both watched as the burgundy liquid filled the glass. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, “An’ you know it.”She nodded for him to stop when it was about half full, and raised it to her lips, blinking. And suddenly it wouldn’t be kept at bay: Helen’s lips on hers, a stuttered inhale, blue-gray eyes ablaze with surprise and delight, tentative pressure, a quiet murmur of pleasure, then slipping her tongue between her lips and Helen…“I'm her friend. That's all.” She said it a little too forcefully, practically glaring him in the eyes. “And no, I had not thought about kissing her before your suggestion.”He stiffened, pressing both his lips between his teeth again. “All right.”They both sipped in silence, for several moments. Nikolija cast her gaze about the room, skipping over the chipped washbasin, the small mirror, her shirts and coats and trousers hanging in the opened wardrobe, the one dress she still owned buried at the very back, the bare off-white walls, the wooden desk in front of the window strewn with papers and books, and saw nothing. Was she jealous of John? Of the fact that he enjoyed that sort of open affection with Helen?“Have you got notes or somethin’ from the chemistry lecture, from Monday? From when I ‘ad that cough.” Nigel cleared his throat.Nikolija gestured vaguely towards her desk. “I will find them and give them to you tomorrow.”“‘Preciate it, ‘Lija.”She nodded, absently. Fine. Yes. She’d like to kiss Helen. Just to satisfy her curiosity, that was all.
And maybe she missed the days when it had been just the two of them, the Oxford oddities, before Nikolija had met Nigel and Helen had befriended James and before John had started finding more and more time, in between his own lectures on the finer points of the law, to sit in on their scientific study sessions. When she had Helen’s full attention and confidence — not that she didn’t still have it, she thought, but more often than not it was John to whom Helen went first when she wished to talk, now, or occasionally James.“What was the point of this little exercise?” Nikolija suddenly turned to Nigel, with a soft anger in her grimace. “To torture me? I mean, whether I want to or not — if I wanted — I can’t —” She gestured, glass in her hand, vaguely.By the way Nigel met her eyes and glanced down, she believed he understood her nonetheless. “I thought — just wanted to —” He shook his head, subdued, and dared to look at her again, his gaze a quiet challenge. “We’re in the business of looking for truth, not deluding ourselves.”She let out a half-laugh, slightly bitter in her ears, and swallowed a gulp of her wine. “And what good will this particular truth do me?”“None at all, I’m afraid.” Nigel tried an apologetic smile, and half-succeeded. “I do offer my condolences, a sympathetic ear, and wine.”Nikolija tipped her glass back, draining it again, trying to wash away the urge to dwell on Helen, on the pleasure of her company, the brilliance of her smile, the spark in her eyes, what her lips might taste like... It likely wouldn’t do any good; Nikolija was a scientist, and once a fascination was kindled it didn’t just die, and this one was not entirely new, and far from weak. She was likely already well on her way to being tipsy in a half-hour and miserable in the morning, but she wasn’t feeling the effects yet, and she held the glass out for Nigel to pour her more.
Buried beneath exasperation, a fond undertone crept back into her voice. “Just give me the bloody wine.”