Plain Brown Wrapper

by fewthistle

Helena convinces Myka to help her retrieve a certain item from the Univille Post Office. Another, shorter attempt to re-write the horrendous waste of a character that was the ending of Season 2. Written for International Femslash Day 2011.

Plain Brown Wrapper

Fewthistle

Disclaimer: Alas, they do not belong to me.

Author's Note: This is set after "Where and When" but before the trite, terrible events of "Buried" and "Reset", which do not occur, although an artifact mentioned did appear in those episodes. Any errors are mine and should be overlooked because I'm so damned adorable. Seriously, forgive any changes or perceived errors in storyline or canon. And the whole "warnings go off if an artifact is in town" thing. It spoils the story :)

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She'd always had a problem with the word 'no'. She wasn't sure if it was simply an unhealthy need to please other people or that she was, as Pete so often pointed out, a push-over. Given her propensity to acquiesce to requests big and small, regardless of who was asking, the chances of Myka looking into teasing dark eyes and actually saying 'no', were pretty slim. Even if the owner of those dark eyes was asking her to do something that, on a good day could be construed as unethical, and on a bad day, friggin' illegal.

So, she said yes.

Which was how she found herself standing guard outside the Univille Post Office while Helena 'liberated' a package from the vast wasteland known as 'unclaimed mail'. Of all the places she might have expected to find herself at one a.m. on a Tuesday morning, this would not have topped her list. She cinched the belt of her coat a little tighter around her waist and stepped a little further back into the shadow of the squat brick building.

The streets of the small town were deserted, every sound magnified by the silence, so that the scuffing of her shoe against a rough spot of pavement seemed to echo, sending a shiver of apprehension along her spine. Helena had disappeared around the back of the building about ten minutes ago, her black-clad figure melting into the darkness as she moved quickly down the alley between the Post Office and the drug store.

Despite being pressed to reveal what it was that she was hoping to find amid the lost mail, Helena had been steadfastly silent, her only response an odd light in her eyes and a slightly grim smile. Eventually, Myka had given up trying to elicit any information and simply gone along for the ride; or rather, the stand.

She had been lingering in the shadow of the building for what seemed like hours now, the sharp wind stealing mercilessly into every small crevice and crease of her clothing, sending a fresh round of shivers along already frozen skin with each frigid blast of air. Her feet were starting to ache, dull pains that echoed along her shins as she shifted from one foot to the other.

"Dammit, Helena, where are you?" Myka muttered, the words inaudible even to her own ears as a gust of wind swept the sounds along the empty street.

Inside the Post Office, Helena had quietly and efficiently made her way to the dank closet that served as the often final resting place for unclaimed, misaddressed or simply misplaced mail for Univille. She knew that the package she was looking for had been intentionally misaddressed, not to mention knowingly unclaimed, since she was the one who had sent it, dropping it into a post box on a desolate corner in Hackney.

Now all that she could do was pray that it hadn't been carelessly misplaced. There was too much riding on finding the package and making certain that its dark and scary contents were returned to the dark and scary place from whence it came. Not her original intent, but life was changeable and fluid and Helena had learned long ago that Mr. Burns had been correct; more than plans oft went awry.

The beam of her flashlight illuminated shelves of crumpled cardboard boxes, stacks of letters, some yellowed along the edges. Dust motes hung suspended in the stream of light, universe on universe swirling in space, no more or less substantial than her own. She began to sort through the smaller packages, pausing occasionally as something on the label or in the handwriting caught her eye. A few times she was tempted to slip the edge of her knife along a seam, slicing through brittle tape to reveal what made such an intriguing rattle, but each time she pushed the thought aside and continued with her search.

If the world were a logical place, her package would be somewhere near the top of one of the piles, as she had only sent it a few months ago. However, as Helena had discovered at a tender age, there was no logic, no reason, no order in the world; only chaos, confusion and disarray. And pain. Always pain.

"Dammit, where are you?" Helena muttered, unknowingly echoing Myka's sentiments.

So far, there was no sign of the flat, square box she had sent, addressed simply to: Mr. Marvel, Univille, SD. She'd asked a particularly fetching librarian at the Bromley Central Library to check the census records for Univille and the surrounding area for any Marvels. There had been none to be found, and Helena had left the library with a pleased smile, although in truth, at least a tiny bit of the spring in her step had been due to the invitation for a curry sometime with her lovely librarian.

Still, as far as she knew, there had been no one to whom the Post Office could have erroneously delivered her package. Which meant it must be here. Rubbing the back of her hand wearily across her forehead, Helena sank to her knees on the cold concrete floor and began rummaging anew, determined to find a small piece of redemption in a plain brown box.

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," Myka grimaced, gloved hands rubbing vigorously along nearly frozen arms. "It's not like anyone is going to come along and spot Helena climbing out of the Post Office window. Apparently, I'm the only idiot foolish enough to be standing around on a night like tonight. She said she'd be gone a few minutes, not a few hours."

Myka knew that she was exaggerating a bit, but given the current lack of feeling in her extremities, she wasn't in the mood to be all that charitable. Edging her way along the alley, she scanned the side of the building, eyes peeled for Helena's means of entry. Around the back of the brick building, Myka spied a window halfway up the wall, open to the night air. Myka glanced carefully around, making sure there were no prying eyes, then reached up and snagged the exterior of the window frame. Placing her feet against the wall, she pulled herself up, swinging one leg over the ledge and into the building.

Myka lowered herself down, long legs giving her an advantage as her feet reached solid ground. She paused for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, shapes coming into focus, shelves and carts and boxes. She moved slowly toward the lighter shadow of the doorway, stepping cautiously out into what appeared to be a hallway. In her mind, the blue print of the Post Office was laid out from the Warehouse's previous encounter here with Philo Farnsworth's projector and she moved quickly and silently toward the "dead letter room".

As she approached the door to the storage room, Myka could hear muttering and the rustle and muted clatter of boxes and papers being moved around. Easing open the door, Myka couldn't stop the slight grin that appeared on her face at the sight that met her. Helena was kneeling in the middle of the floor, her flashlight held between her teeth as she rifled through the pile of packages strewn about the concrete. Myka chuckled softly, the sound causing Helena to whip around, rising to her feet in one smooth motion, a Tesla appearing in her hand seemingly from out of the ether.

"Whoa! It's me!" Myka said sharply, her voice a loud stage whisper, her hands automatically rising defensively in front of her.

She could see Helena's body deflate as her muscles relaxed. The older woman turned away from her with a disgusted sigh, the fingers of one hand raking through long, dark hair.

"I take it you haven't located what you came here to find?" Myka asked, taking a step or two further into the room, as her eyes took in the scene of organized chaos.

Helena's only response was an exaggerated roll of her eyes and another, even more disgusted sigh. She sank gracefully back down to the floor, this time sitting cross-legged amid the mounds of boxes, large and small.

"Who would have thought that a place this miniscule, this completely obscure would have so much bloody unclaimed mail? I mean honestly, there are less than a thousand people in this town, most of whom have lived here all their lives. How is it possible that this many people have sent all these undeliverable, unclaimed letters and packages to Univille, South Dakota?" Helena griped, a slight note of bewildered wonder in her voice.

"Um, maybe it's some sort of postal black hole?" Myka offered, picking up an oddly shaped package held together by what appeared to be dental floss and turning it over in her hands.

"Black hole?" Helena queried, glancing up at Myka with a quizzical rise to her eyebrows.

"It's an extremely dense celestial object or region of space that has a gravitational field so strong that nothing, including light, can escape it," Myka explained. "It's become synonymous with an abyss or void, someplace that things are drawn into and can't be retrieved. Like where missing socks go, or in this case, missing mail."

"Gravitationally collapsed objects in space, you mean?" Helena questioned. Even in the darkness of the room, Myka could see the spark of brilliance in Helena's eyes. The eternal scientist, for the moment her quest for the missing package was forgotten. "Michell and Laplace theorized about them, but have they since been proven to actually exist?"

"I'm not really an expert in astrophysics, but I think that it's still mostly just a theory. A much more defined theory that incorporates Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but I don't think they've actually found a black hole. Although I'm pretty sure there have been possibilities discovered," Myka answered a trifle haltingly. "Um, maybe check out Stephen Hawking's books?"

"Hawking, you say?" Myka could see Helena file the information away for future research. "I shall seek them out at the first opportunity. For now, however, I'm afraid that this 'black hole' is indeed proving to be a rather massive void, one which seems to have swallowed my package whole."

"I'd offer to help you look, but that would require you telling me what the heck it is we're looking for, and considering the look you gave me the last time I asked…," Myka replied, her voice trailing off with a rather pronounced look of her own.

Myka watched as Helena's head dropped forward, dark hair falling around her face, a curtain that blocked out the world; blocked out Myka's intense stare. Helena was motionless, slender fingers splayed across the black fabric of her thighs. The building was silent except for the low hum of the central heating and the soft exhale of their breathing.

"It's a package," Helena finally spoke, her voice tired and dispirited.

"I kind of got that idea," Myka countered, slightly acerbically, her hand sweeping in front of her in a gesture that took in the piles of boxes littering the floor. "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that."

The only response was silence, a silence that dragged on from seconds into minutes. Eventually, Helena sighed again, this time less in frustration than resignation. Myka was beginning to wonder if that non-verbal expression was going to be the extent of the other woman's reply when Helena spoke, the normally mellifluous tone gone. Her voice was as dull and flat as an iron.

"It's a small box. Approximately eight inches by ten inches by six inches. Brown cardboard. London postmark. Addressed to a Mr. Marvel in Univille."

"Mr. Marvel?" Myka asked quizzically. "As in, Mr. Marvel from The Invisible Man?"

Helena glanced up, a slight smile of surprised approval touching her lips. "Yes, that Mr. Marvel." The next instant the smile faded, and Myka was treated once again to a view of the top of Helena's head.

"Okay, then. Small box, plain brown wrapper, Mr. Marvel. Gotcha," Myka said quickly, squatting down to begin her own perusal of the scattered packages.

For the next ten minutes, neither of them spoke. Myka had to admit that she spent as much time staring at Helena as she did sorting through the boxes. Their relationship over the past few months had slowly segued from sworn enemies to friends to something neither of them had yet to publicly define. Myka knew that Helena had been battling more than her fair share of demons, monsters of regret and recrimination, of immense guilt and frustrated anger. Emerging from the bronzer unscathed after a century would take more than even Helena's formidable will.

Still, there was something more, something else that had clearly been bothering Helena for weeks now. She'd become increasingly inclined to fits of melancholy, dark moods that descended on her without warning, leaving her morose and short-tempered. That these humors seemed to leave as quickly as they came was almost as troubling. So, when Helena, eyes twinkling with a teasing light, had inveigled Myka to join her on this little midnight jaunt, the younger agent had been unable to resist.

She wondered now if she should have said 'no'.

In her younger days, there had been moments when Helena had envied Catholics. Not for the fervency of their faith, nor for the trappings of their religion. Helena was not a believer. She had decided at the age of six, standing over the still body of a beloved puppy, that the existence of any kind of Supreme Being was the stuff of fairytales. No, she had envied them the security and sureness of the confessional. With a penitent heart and a few Hail Marys, sins could be erased; transgressions forgiven with the intoning of an 'Our Father' or two.

In the intervening years since age six, there had been many occasions, many offenses for which Helena would have liked to have found forgiveness, if only within the depths of her own soul. Sadly, with a deep understanding of the foibles and failings of her fellow human beings did not come an equal understanding of her own, much less an ability to overlook her own sins. Still, the longing to find some means of redemption had never entirely left her.

She watched as Myka rummaged through the stacks and piles of mislaid mail, the circles of light thrown by their flashlights intersecting against the dank gray of the concrete floor. Things had not gone according to plan. She was supposed to have slipped into the Post Office, located the box, slipped out and been back at Leena's, her lovely look-out in tow, in record time. Not been here an hour later, with no sign of the package, and Myka far more involved than Helena had ever intended for her to be.

"We should go," Helena said tiredly, pushing herself to her feet.

"I haven't even started on this pile over here," Myka protested. "It's not that late. Or early. Anyway, no one will be here for at least another hour or two, so we've got time."

"No, it's pointless. I've been through all of these packages and it's not here. I'm going to have to assume that, against all the laws of statistics, my package, the one deliberately misaddressed to a fictional character, managed somehow to be delivered," Helena stated, the frustration in her voice tinged with a trace of bitterness at the vagaries of fate.

While Helena had been talking, Myka had continued her examination of the myriad boxes. Leaning over to pick up one that had fallen towards the tall shelving, Myka's head twisted sideways. Before Helena could ask her what in the world was wrong, Myka was lying flat on her stomach, her arm and part of her upper body extended way to the back of the bottom shelf. Moments later, with a somewhat unladylike grunt, she emerged triumphantly holding a box.

Or what had at one point in its existence been a box. It was no longer square but had much more of a squashed rhombus shape to it. The cardboard, once standard brown, was now dark and discolored and what writing there was on the label was faded and smeared.

"Um, it looks like it might have gotten a little wet," Myka commented, holding the box in one hand as she maneuvered her way back into an upright position.

"A little wet? A little wet?!" Helena mouthed incredulously. "It looks like it did the breaststroke across the entire bloody ocean!"

"So, is this the one you were looking for?" Myka asked, rising to her feet, although oddly, not extending the package for Helena to take and examine.

Helena reached out for it, only to have Myka step back a few paces, a speculative expression on her face. "Myka? I can hardly ascertain if it is indeed my package if I can't even look at it, now can I?" Helena queried, attempting to keep her tone light and a trifle playful.

Myka picked up her flashlight and played it over the warped top of the box, trying to decipher any of the smeared lettering. Helena stepped closer. She seemed to be attempting to study the label as well, but in fact, her focus was on the woman holding the package. Clearly Myka was not going to hand over the package without demanding something from Helena, and Helena was quite certain that what Myka wanted-an explanation for this little quest, not to mention information about the contents of the box- was something that she wasn't willing to proffer.

"It is the right shape and I'm fairly certain it must be the right package," Helena volunteered, reaching out and once again attempting to liberate the box from Myka's grasp. And once again, Myka neatly sidestepped Helena's efforts and removed herself, and the package, to a safe distance.

"I guess the only way to be sure that this is your package is to open it and see what's inside, huh?" Myka proposed archly, her lips pursed in speculation, eyes narrowed as they regarded Helena.

Helena was not happy. Not amused. Not anything but filled with a sudden and nearly overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety. She had known that inviting Myka to come along on this expedition had been foolish, even as she had asked, but she had found herself unable to not ask the younger woman. There was something about Myka that brought out the devil in Helena, made her want to tease and flirt and behave with all the prudence of a badly brought up adolescent. Which was what had brought her to this particular set of circumstances.

Rock.

Helena.

Hard place.

"I don't suppose that you would believe me if I told you that you really don't want to know what is in that box, would you?" Helena sighed, the feeling of dread pushing down on her like the weight of gravity, slow and inexorable and unassailable.

"No, not really," Myka answered, eyes still narrowed as she regarded the other woman, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. "Helena, if you didn't really want my help and you don't want me to know what's in the box, why did you ask me to come with you?"

Helena considered turning on what all and sundry admitted were considerable charms and attempting to sidestep the issue, but the set of Myka's shoulders and the diffident, almost pleading tone to her voice changed Helena's mind.

"I considered telling you that I simply can't stand being away from you, but, though undeniably somewhat more accurate than I'm comfortable admitting, that isn't actually the reason I asked you to join me," Helena said slowly, forcing herself to meet Myka's green eyes, which had widened slightly at Helena's words. "I knew that sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night might be seen as somewhat suspicious, should it become known, and that certain people would assume that I had done so for nefarious purposes. I thought that, if you were with me, even if Artie did find out, it would seem a trifle less suspect."

"So, in other words, I'm your security, your ace in the hole if you get caught?" Myka asked, her tone less bitter than hurt. "Nice. So, just what is it that I'm protecting you from, Helena? I think I deserve to know that if nothing else."

"Myka," Helena said tenderly, willing the truth of her feelings into her voice, into her expression, "you know that isn't the only reason. You're the only one here that I truly trust and, God knows, you're the only one who trusts me. I needed help and I turned to the one person upon whom I could rely."

Myka appeared slightly mollified by Helena's words, although clearly not completely, if her next words were any indication. "What's in the box, Helena and why is it important enough to risk further enflaming Artie's already burning dislike of you, not to mention making me doubt your motives for being at the Warehouse?"

Helena hesitated, torn between a desire to unburden herself and the almost sure knowledge that whatever she said, however adamantly she attempted to convince Myka of her good intentions, the other woman would not believe her.

If MacPherson hadn't freed her, if she hadn't tricked Pete and Myka and taken the Imperceptor Vest, if she hadn't killed MacPherson. If she had turned herself in to the Regents immediately. If she had been honest about her movements and plans. If. The monstrous litany of 'ifs' almost shouted down the small voice in the back of her mind that tried to remind her that Myka was different, that Myka trusted her. That Myka cared for her.

Almost.

"If I promise to tell you, to be completely honest, would you do me the courtesy of listening to the entire, sad tale and not rush to judgment?" Helena asked quietly.

"Of course I'll listen. And I promise, I won't judge," Myka assured her almost instantly, green eyes glowing with sincerity.

"Oh, Myka, if only I could believe that," Helena thought, with a tired smile.

"May I?" Helena said aloud, gesturing to the tattered package still cradled in Myka's grasp. Myka handed it to her, watching as Helena slid the blade of her knife along the ragged edge of the box.

Reaching inside, Helena pulled out the corrugated plastic in which she wrapped her item. She had known from the moment that Myka recovered it from its ignominious resting place that it was her package. She'd just hoped to be able to wrest it from Myka's grasp and open it in private, without the world's most honest witness.

She carefully unwrapped the small, flat object, holding it gently in the palm of her hand so that the light from Myka's flashlight reflected the dull gleam of the metal.

"It's a compact," Myka stated rather unnecessarily. Her expression was puzzled as she raised her eyes from the round, gold disc to Helena's face. "Um, what's so special about a compact?"

Helena turned the object over slowly, running a finger along the curves and lines of the initials etched into the cover. L-A-B.

"It's an artifact. L-A-B. Lizzie Andrew Borden. It causes whoever looks into the mirror inside to kill those that he or she loves," Helena explained softly, expression unreadable. "I liberated it from the Escher Vault along with my ring and locket."

"Of all the artifacts in the Escher Vault, why would you want to take Lizzie Borden's compact?" Myka asked, a frown creasing her forehead. She hesitated for a few seconds, other questions clearly clamoring to be asked, before she spoke again. "I've always wondered…I mean, we assumed…what I'm trying to say is, what were you going to take out of the vault? I mean, if you had followed MacPherson's plans? Or were they your plans…?"

Helena drew in a deep breath, her eyes closing for a moment as an inner battle was fought. Myka didn't speak again, her own eyes focused on Helena's face, the glow from the flashlights casting shadows across the planes of cheeks and forehead. At length, Helena opened her eyes and met Myka's stare, feeling the intensity of it as if from a physical blow.

"Perhaps this isn't the proper venue for this particular conversation," Helena murmured, "It will, no doubt, be rather lengthy and the good people who work here will be coming in quite soon, I believe. We should attempt to put this place back in some semblance of the disorder in which I found it and leave before that happens."

"Helena, if you don't want to tell me…" Myka began, only to be cut off by a grimace from Helena and a raised hand.

"I assure you, I am not trying to put you off or avoid answering your questions. I promised that I would tell you and I will. I do think, however, that we should continue this conversation elsewhere," Helena said firmly. The smile that she gave Myka held a great deal more melancholy than joy. "I've been given to understand that confession is good for the soul. Heaven knows, my soul could use a bit of help."

Forty-five minutes later they were back at Leena's, rather more comfortably and definitely more warmly, ensconced in Myka's bedroom. Myka leaned back against the headboard of the bed, long legs crossed in front of her. Helena had perched for an instant on the edge of the chair by the window, but only for an instant. The next moment she was up and pacing slowly about the room, one hand clenched tightly by her side, the other often raking through long, dark hair. She hadn't spoken all the way back to the house and Myka didn't push her.

Myka's eyes followed the slender figure as it paced the floor, struck as she often was by the lithe grace of Helena's movements. Even wearing boots, her steps barely sounded on the hard wooden floors. Myka could see the tension in every line of Helena's body, the conflicting emotions that found expression in the tightening of a fist and the sound of stuttered breathing.

Finally, Helena paused in mid-stride and turned towards her, the planes of her face hardened in determination. She began to speak in a low monotone, dark eyes as dull and emotionless as her voice.

"When I requested of the Regents that I be bronzed, I was, quite literally, out of mind with grief and rage. My daughter had been horribly, senselessly murdered and while I had wreaked my vengeance on the men who killed her, I kept clinging to the hope that something, some artifact, some magic, could bring her back to me. When, after years of searching and trying to find some means of returning Christina to me, I was wholly unsuccessful, I became increasingly desperate, and, I am sorry to say, increasingly more dangerous, to others and to myself.

"The woman who went into the bronzer was irreparably damaged, filled to the brim with impotent rage and grief. She spent a hundred years living with those emotions, festering inside her. She cultivated them, encouraged them to grow and spread like a disease within her. That was the woman that MacPherson freed from her bronze prison."

Myka tried to speak around the lump in her throat, her eyes moist. "Helena," she managed to get out, "I am so sorry about Christina. I can't imagine losing a child…" Helena interrupted her, a pained expression on her face.

"Please, Myka, if I'm to do this, to tell you what you wish to know, then I must do it as quickly as possible, with no interruptions, however well-intentioned."

Myka nodded jerkily, sitting up cross-legged on the bed and clenching her hands in her lap.

"Thank you," Helena said with a small, grateful smile. "I had no idea who MacPherson was, or why he had debronzed me and taken me from the Warehouse. I was disoriented, weak, and I'm afraid, initially easily influenced by my new benefactor. It was only after a few days that I realized that he had no idea of the true circumstances of my bronzing. He had assumed, as I am certain most people had, including Artie and you, that I had been placed in suspended animation because I had committed some heinous act, something unforgivable and was a villain of the highest, or lowest, caliber.

"He thought he had managed a tremendous coup d'état, enlisting the aid of a master criminal. He told me of his plans to further infiltrate the Warehouse and 'liberate' artifacts that would not merely be of use to humanity, but fill the coffers of his own bank accounts," Helena explained slowly, her lack of inflection lending the recitation a gravitas that it might otherwise have lacked.

Myka opened her mouth to speak and then, recalling Helena's request, closed it again with a sigh. Nodding to Helena to continue, she gave the other woman an encouraging smile.

Helena's reaction to the smile was not what Myka had anticipated, however, as the older agent flinched and seemed to withdraw further into herself at the sympathy in Myka's face. After several deep breaths, Helena continued.

"Of course, by this time, I had been apprised of how long I had been in the bronzer and been made aware of how drastically the world had changed during my 'incarceration'. I had always assumed that the Regents had made some provision for my release, and to discover that they had not, that they had left me for over a century in that hell, was almost more than I could bear. All those years with only my memories, trapped inside my own mind, filled with anger, had twisted my thinking and I had formulated the most exquisite of plans, plans that would, of course, require assistance. MacPherson imagined that I would serve to further his machinations. In truth, he provided the vital link in mine. I had a hundred years to conceive a plan to wipe the world clean. To begin a new age."

As she spoke, Helena's voice had altered, her expression had changed and the glimpse of that woman, the one Helena described, standing not three feet away from her in the confines of her bedroom, sent a chill down Myka's spine. This was not the Helena she knew. Not the Helena she had come to care for far more than she wanted to admit to herself. No, this woman was damaged and bitter and more than capable of causing immense destruction.

This woman frightened her.

Something of Myka's fear must have shown in her face, for Helena, focusing her gaze on the woman seated on the bed, drew in her breath sharply, all the anger and coldness fleeing her expression, to be replaced by concern and intense shame.

Helena took a tentative step forward, then another, until she was standing by the bed. She lowered herself slowly down, until she was seated on the very edge of the mattress. She reached out a hand, laying it gently on Myka's knee, her movements those of a person attempting to touch a terrified animal.

"Myka, I'm sorry. It was never my intention to frighten you. I…," Helena's words failed her as she met Myka's still anxious gaze. "I simply needed for you to understand who I was, what I was when MacPherson freed me. I'm not that person anymore, I swear it."

"Why do have Lizzie Borden's compact?" Myka asked, the need to know even more urgent now that she had seen and felt the truth of Helena's experiences.

Helena grimaced, and Myka could feel the desire to flee this confessional, as Helena put it, in the tension coursing through the hand still resting on her knee. Helena didn't leave, however. With another deep sigh, she resumed her recitation.

"I acquired the compact before I was bronzed. No one at Warehouse 12 knew that I had it, or even were aware of its existence. I told you that I found the men who murdered my daughter? No, wait, I told Claudia. Although I'm certain that she shared that information with you, didn't she?" Helena asked, forcing herself to continue as Myka nodded silently. "Before I killed them, I wanted them to suffer. I sent it to each of them in turn, so that they might know the anguish of having murdered someone they loved, if they were capable of such feeling; of seeing the blood of their own family on their hands.

"When I went in the Escher Vault, I was determined to retrieve my belongings, especially the locket with Christina's picture. The compact was there so I took it, as well. When I made up my mind to return to the Warehouse, I mailed it here. I had no definite plans, but I knew that I couldn't have it in my possession. I know that I should have turned it in the Regents when they reinstated me, but there were too many questions that would have come of that, questions I had no wish to answer."

Myka knew that she should be filled with revulsion, that she should be feeling disgust for the woman seated beside her, but she found that instead she was overwhelmed with sadness and compassion. Helena had just admitted to torturing and killing three people. Whether they, themselves, were responsible for the terrible murder of a child, and who knows what other crimes, they were human beings and Helena had played judge, jury and executioner. Surely, Myka should condemn her for that? And yet, she realized she couldn't. Moreover, she realized why she couldn't.

She loved Helena.

Not the evil genius who plotted to destroy the world. Not the wounded, dangerous animal who hunted down the men who murdered her child. But the woman whose sheer strength of will and determination had transformed those parts of her into something infinitely greater.

She loved the woman that Helena had become. The Helena who had almost died trying to save Artie's life. The one whose childlike delight at jumbo jets and iPods and microwaves brought an matching grin to her own face.

The one who made her weak in the knees sometimes when she looked at her, whose voice resonated somewhere deep inside her, finding a corresponding vibration that answered eternal, unasked questions.

"You were going to put it back, weren't you? The compact, I mean. Put it back in the Warehouse where it belongs?" Myka covered Helena's hand with her own, the astonished, incredulous relief and happiness that flooded Helena's face bringing another prick of tears to Myka's eyes.

Helena simply nodded, unable for the moment to formulate words. Clearly, of all the reactions she had been expecting from Myka, this complete acceptance and understanding had not even been in the realm of possibility.

A silence lay between them, one they both seemed loathe to break, as Myka turned Helena's hand over and threaded their fingers together, a shy smile on her face as Helena slowly regained her composure and use of her tongue.

"Well, then. That's the end of my confession. I'm ready for my penance," she said, trying to keep her voice light and failing miserably.

Reaching out her other hand, Myka gently grasped Helena's chin, raising her face so that their eyes met. "I'm pretty sure that a hundred years in Purgatory was a far worse sentence than anything a priest or judge could have handed down. I promised you I wouldn't judge and I'm not. I couldn't. For what it's worth, I believe you. I believe you aren't that person anymore.

"Tomorrow, we'll sneak the compact back into the Warehouse and put it where it will never cause any more pain, okay? For right now, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. You need sleep. I need sleep."

Swallowing visibly, Helena again nodded, not certain she trusted her voice. She started to stand, only to be tugged back down by Myka's hand, which was still holding hers tightly.

"I didn't mean we had to sleep in separate places," Myka murmured softly. A look of uncertainty ghosted across her features. "Unless, you know, you wanted to go back to your own room?"

Helena didn't answer, just pulled off her boots, turned off the lamp on the bedside table and climbed onto the bed. Myka slid down so she was lying facing the window. Helena lay down beside her, her back to Myka, who slid closer and slipped her arms around Helena's waist. As the whole of their bodies melded into one form, penitent and confessor found both sleep and redemption.

Clearly, not being able to say 'no' had its rewards.

Fin