Set late in season 2. Helena has just been reinstated as a warehouse agent.
/
Myka can feel Helena's presence behind her before she turns her head and looks up from her book.
"My first day off is coming up this Friday," Helena says when Myka's gaze falls upon her. "… and I was thinking, if you're free, you might want to go clothes shopping with me?"
She looks hopeful, and, Myka notices, nervous?
"If you don't have other plans, that is," Helena adds, and yes – definitely nervous – but why?
Malls have never been a place where Myka has felt comfortable. She does most of her shopping online, has some standard model clothes she usually buys and knows which sizes normally fit her. It's not that she has anything against fashion – or clothing in general – she quite likes it actually. The shopping is what bothers her. Too many judging eyes, maybe. But she really wants to help Helena acclimate to this new life of hers, and the prospect of spending a day off in Helena's company makes Myka's stomach flutter.
She says, "I suppose you don't own a lot of clothes huh?"
Helena relaxes visibly. "That would be a correct assumption."
"Well, I could use a few new things myself," Myka says, thinking about her wardrobe filled with Secret Service approved work clothes.
"Aces!" Helena nods, and turns on her heel to leave Myka alone with her thoughts.
/
They leave right after breakfast Friday morning. Myka is driving. "Feel free to put some music on," she says, "It's a bit of a ride."
It's a wonder Myka is voluntarily letting her touch any technical equipment after her minor mishap with the toaster that same morning, Helena muses, but doesn't comment. Instead she starts browsing the radio stations.
She comes upon a channel playing a Brahms piece she knows and quite likes, but today is about new things, so she searches on, stopping somewhere in the middle of a song that sounds new.
Myka gives her a look. "You like Shakira?" she questions.
"I wanted something new for our new day," Helena says and then mentally slaps herself, because really? that sounded far too sentimental. But Myka nods, and is soon humming along with the music. A warm feeling spreads inside Helena's chest.
Getting attached to someone had certainly not been part of her carefully thought through master plan. Yet, here Helena finds herself, desperately wanting Myka's approval. As the days go by, these moments where she loses her main focus have been happening with growing frequency. Asking Myka to come shopping with her had felt almost like asking her out on a date. That was what people called it these days, Helena had learned.
/
Myka keeps her eyes on the road as she drives, but her thoughts are split between the road and Helena. In a very short amount of time, Helena has taken up a place in her life. She has become someone important. Someone Myka really cares about.
/
Helena is glad to have help with her. She did her fair share of shopping back in the day, but these huge malls are somewhat overwhelming.
Under the guise of buying clothes for her brother (which he had her do, as he was of the opinion a man couldn't do that for himself), she had found herself quite the wardrobe.
It's with an almost fond smile she remembers tricking the sales-girls into thinking she had two brothers, one smaller than the other, and then went home to alter the clothes she'd bought to fit her figure. She was quite nifty with her needle and thread, if she dared say so herself.
Of course she'd owned traditionally female clothes as well. But although she enjoyed the feeling she got when entering a room in a beautiful dress – all eyes on her – she had always felt like she was in costume, playing the part of "woman".
It was a part she had learned to play well, using men's desire for her and their assumptions about her modest competence in "manly" areas to her advantage, both in her personal life and in her work for the warehouse, but still a part.
She admits to herself that wearing trousers and working "like a man" could also easily be seen as a part to play, and maybe it had been. But she had been comfortable.
Helena had dreamed of a future where one could be seen as both. Both intelligent and desirable, both motherly and capable, taken seriously no matter what one choose to wear or what was hidden underneath those clothes. She had longed for a world where trousers or skirts said no more about the person wearing them than that the person liked the garment.
Her dreams for the new world had not been fulfilled.
It had been one of the first things she'd noticed. She had seen women wearing trousers. She had seen women doing "men's work" – and she had seen them being treated as lesser than men. Still.
She had also seen Myka.
/
Myka takes Helena to one of the stores she frequently buys clothes from.
The first thing they look for are shirts, and they pick out a couple of button-ups in different sizes for Helena to try on.
"I'll give you some privacy," Myka says when they reach the dressing rooms.
"Nonsense darling, nothing you haven't seen before," Helena says and winks at her.
"Right," Myka mumbles. What did Helena mean by that? Was she really going down the "we're both women with women parts" road? Myka had always considered that a strange saying, since all women did not look the same! And all women definitely didn't affect her in the way Helena did. But oh – oh – could Helena have been suggesting she thought Myka had seen other women getting undressed before her eyes, like in a non-straight way?
Myka realizes she's overanalyzing and tells herself to calm down. An expression is probably all it was. Not everything Helena says has a hidden message.
"What do you think of this one?" Helena says then, and Myka is stunned. She missed it. She was thinking so hard she didn't get to see Helena sans shirt. Myka is not a person who misses things. She shakes her head.
"No?" Helena says.
"No, what?" Myka answers.
"You shook your head. Did you not like the shirt?"
"Umm," Myka says, "turn around so I can get a better look."
Helena turns. It is a really nice shirt. Also with a very nice-looking person underneath it, but the shirt is nice. Myka tells Helena the shirt is nice.
/
Trousers are the next thing they look for.
They do not have to leave the women's section of the store to do this, which Helena is fairly happy about, but she also cannot help but mutter about stores still keeping gendered sections.
Her bitterness all but evaporates however, when Myka smiles at her muttering, saying "I know."
Myka knows how this makes Helena feel. She is not the only one.
"We'll go look for 'men's clothes' after this, if you want," Myka says, the quotation marks loud and clear, and Helena feel so light.
/
Myka finds a stack of fitted pants and starts rifling through them. Most of the pants she owns are part of a suit, and not very tight. She knows these are more like the pants Helena favors, but so what if she wants to vary her style a little? People do that.
/
"Oh Helena, you'll never find a proper man to marry wearing that!" Helena mimics in a snotty voice.
This makes Myka look up from the pile of trousers she's currently going through and look at Helena for a while – to gauge her mood Helena thinks – before smiling crookedly and putting on that same voice as she says, "Myka my sweet girl, it's a dance! That's what you're wearing?"
Delighted that Myka is playing along, Helena continues, "Helena dear, I am only looking out for your best interests here, really."
Myka snorts. "Always so helpful," she says in her own voice.
"I used to answer I had no interest in proper men," Helena smirks. "Almost shocked the life out of my grandmother with that one."
Myka chuckles and bends her head lightly as she keeps searching for the right size in the pile before her. A loose curl falls forward, and Helena has to restrain herself from reaching out to put it back in place.
She had been certain there was something between them, a tension of sorts, but now she's unsure. When taking her shirt off, standing right before Myka's eyes, Helena had watched and waited for Myka's reaction – and not even a glance. Odd.
She decides to make her own stand clear later.
As they make their way over to the dressing rooms, Helena says, "So, no proper male suitors in your burgeoning youth either?"
Myka's mouth turns into a sad half-smile. "My sister Tracy… she was the one who had that look all the boys went for."
Stupid, stupid boys, Helena thinks.
"Then you must've been the one all the girls went for?" she says.
Myka actually looks a little taken aback by that comment, and Helena worries she's gone too far. But then Myka laughs. "I wish," she says.
/
Myka can't quite believe how much she is enjoying herself. She is shopping, and it is fun. Helena makes it fun. It is also highly probable that Helena is flirting with her. And that she, Myka Bering, is flirting back.
/
Helena has a plan. She is going to give Myka an obvious appreciative once-over when she's changing. Then Myka will know she's definitely interested, and can do with that information as she pleases. Hopefully what Myka pleases will line up nicely with what Helena wishes for.
"I will be right out to show you how they fit," Myka says, and Helena is a little surprised when Myka closes the curtain to change.
Her surprise turns into something else entirely when Myka steps out a minute later, wearing a pair of pants much tighter than her usual style. Helena swallows, her mouth suddenly quite dry.
"So?" Myka says.
LEGS, Helena's mind helpfully answers. Her eyes are trailing from feet and up, and this was supposed to be her stealthy move, but it's really hard to focus when those muscles of Myka's are moving like that.
"I'm not sure if I like the way they look from behind," Myka says then, and turns around.
Helena gulps. "They look fine," she manages.
She knows she's staring and she can't stop. Heat is rising to her cheeks and ears, and she feels decidedly warm in her lower regions as well.
"You should buy those," she mumbles. As she forces herself to turn her eyes away she adds, "and then let's find a nice coffee shop. We could use a break."
/
A break is definitely what Myka needs. Her stomach is doing that tingly thing again, and she needs to breathe. She had wanted Helena to like the pants. If she was being honest with herself, she had wanted Helena to like her in the pants. She had even turned around on purpose to see how Helena would react. What she hadn't expected was for Helena to completely lose her composure. Myka had practically been able to feel Helena's eyes hungrily trail up her body, and that gaze had hit her hard.
She just has to decide what to do about it.
/
Myka is walking briskly one step ahead of her. She doesn't seem offended, so that's good, but on the other hand, she doesn't act flustered either. Shouldn't she at least be a little flattered? There are certainly people out there who would give a lot to have Helena's attention, she says to no one but herself. Does Myka not find her charming? Helena silently curses Myka's ability to not let her feelings show. Maybe she hadn't noticed where Helena's mind had been? She huffs at that thought. Of course Myka noticed.
They end up seated at a small table in the middle of a crowded coffee shop.
Helena holds her mug in a tight grip, trying to think of something to say. She looks down at her hands, willing them to still, and then her gaze wanders over to Myka's hands. Myka has remarkable hands. Right now, Myka is lifting those hands, with her cup, up to her lips. Her beautiful lips. Helena finds herself staring at those lips, and the tip of Myka's tongue that peeks out to lick them. She quickly looks up, only to meet Myka's eyes. Eyes that are intently focused on her.
Myka leans over the table and gestures for Helena to turn her head so she can speak directly into her ear. That's how they make themselves heard in this crowded place, and Helena braces herself for what Myka is about to say.
"I can't stop thinking about kissing you either," Myka breathes.
Then she leans back in her seat as if they've been talking about this this whole time.
Helena can feel herself gaping. She is the one making the moves. She is the one to control these sorts of things. At least, she always has been before, but with Myka, everything is turned upside down. And Helena quite enjoys that.
"Wanna leave?" Myka mouths over the loud coffee shop clatter. She holds out her hand, waiting for Helena to accept it.
Helena closes her mouth and nods, taking the outstretched hand.