Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no infringement is intended. Everything here belongs to Syfy and the other lucky bastards.
AN: Also, there is only a passing meeting of actual fact and this story. I do not know the actual conditions at the time to say this is fact, as to treatment, but I've gleaned bits over time to think it's not too far off. Any errors here are my own.
The room was quiet. Dark. The curtains were drawn, so the scant moonlight didn't intrude. Everyone else was finally asleep so the only sounds were the faint humming of the heat, and hoot of the owl that nested outside Myka's bedroom window. But there was smell, and feel. The air was heavy, rich with their lovemaking and Myka's skin was slick, soft under her fingertips. Perfect. Hair tickled her nose, and Myka's taste was still thick on her tongue. Her body shivered as nails dragged down her own spine, smoothing back up only to tug gently on the short hairs at the base of her skull.
"Do you know why I began to write?" The fingers stilled for a moment before laying flat and a full, warm hand, changed directions and smoothed out over her flank. "Tell me." Helena shifted further under the covers and she added Myka's heartbeat to the soft noises of the evening.
"You know enough about the past to realize it wasn't done. My family was well off, gentry. We had houses in town, in the country, a villa in France. I could have a new dress for any occasion necessary. My father preened for a week when I was a child when he was able to get oranges for Christmas. Not just one or two, as some of our acquaintances, but a full sack. Myka, there were five year olds working in the mines ninety hours a week just trying to get bread, and my family had oranges. Women in my station did not write. We sent letters, we composed vapid little poems during picnics to woo vapid little men into purchasing us. We did not write."
A small flare of pain scorched her, making her breath shaky as Helena remembered every sour word, every reprimand from the man should have loved her without reservation. The body beneath her shifted, pulling her closer, and Helena reached out to idly trace the vein that ran alongside Myka's right nipple, blue under thin, peachy, skin.
"I was not the ideal Victorian girl; I was not the ideal Victorian anything. My father loved me, as well as he was able, but children were seen, not heard. We were meant to be tiny adults, serious and reserved, or, in the case of girls, demure and submissive while still able to exhibit at the drop of a hat. I did not want to be demure, and I have never been submissive. I was censured, and my ears were boxed more than once. There is only so much of that a small child can take before it affects them. I began to doubt myself."
"I cannot imagine a self-conscious you. I always pictured you coming out of the womb, trousers on, grappler in one hand and a suffragette sign in the other." Myka's tone was light, faintly teasing, but so tinged with warmth around the edges that, despite the memories, Helena could smile ruefully.
"No, not in deeds, not even in thought, but in words. It wasn't so bad as a stutter. I am thankful for that, given how badly society treated those poor souls. I saw a boy pelted with eggs once. His family called him unnatural. No, it was as if my brain and my tongue were eternally quarrelling. I would think one thing, get most of it out, but I would trip over a syllable, misspeak a word, or my tongue would chose a wholly different word better to its liking. I was perpetually afraid of what would come out of my mouth, which silenced me as my father never could. He was rather pleased." She could still remember the smug grin when she withdrew into herself, simply agreeing for the sake of silence.
"So, I turned to the written word. There were no ill-spoken words, no ill-chosen words, no ill-timed words. There were simply words. My words. As I intended them, in all their glory and meaning, as I would have them. They were my freedom, my sanctuary without the confines of scripture. They were me when I could not be."
Helena's voice trailed off, choked as it had been so many years prior. She hadn't thought of that time in so long, the shame of it still sitting in her belly. She may not have been a typical Victorian, but that didn't mean some of the fears, the attitudes, didn't rub off, even a little. But she took solace in the heat beneath her cheek. It as solid and constant. She was not in her time anymore.
"I started with small things, drabs really. Short stories, poetry that could have made a fop roll his eyes, even overly enthusiastic lists for fabric and meat. I even had a fable involving a hare a penny farthing. I burned that one out of a well-honed sense of self-preservation of my pride." His name had been Wally. Poor Wolly never understood why she grinned every time she used his name. Helena's eyes turned dark, sorrowful, her voice roughened. She felt lips at her crown and clung to Myka.
"I was still quite young, younger than Claudia is now, but age was different then. Most of my friends were getting married off, or at least seriously courting some young man with the hopes of securing him. It was the first time I—I had never felt anything li—Her name was Rebecca. She had the most amazing red hair; it was like looking into the sun with waves that curled when she exerted herself. Her eyes were a shining blue, deep like the ocean, and she would get a furrow in her brow every time she did the kitchen inventory. She was only a couple of years older than I was, but she was a member of the house staff. I was enamored by her." Myka stiffened slightly, and it was Helena's turn to soothe. It did no good to be jealous of the dead.
"Using the staff was a common practice then, as I imagine it still is to some degree in the landed families. At least, it was for the men. My father loved mother as he did nothing else. She was the only soul I ever knew to truly make him smile. He slept with every head cook we had from the time I was five, probably before. That was just when I heard mother yell from her bedroom to remove his whore from the house, and to take his bastard with her. It was a different time." Myka scoffed and Helena grinned. It wasn't right, just the nature of the beast. It is always easier to judge an era when one is not embedded in it.
"Did you know companionship between women wasn't a crime at the time? Men, yes. Poor Oscar found that out, and there was a royal guard publically flogged on the Tower green, but for women, it was considered a mental defect, a disease to be cured, if it was acknowledged at all. Those in lower stations would send their daughters to treatment centers for help, but it could cost them standing in the community, depending on the family and the depth of the illness." The pipes rattled when the boiler turned on below, and she could hear someone walking the hall toward the bathroom, failing to miss the squeaky floorboard.
"They were little more than sanatoriums, bleak stone cells with holes in the floor for waste and no windows where women were left to rot on Laudanum and opium, restrained and actually driven insane by their situation. Dante got Hell wrong. Hell was Victorian mental care. Thankfully, a family of our wealth couldn't afford the scandal; it could have ruined us, cost us everything. There would have been no servants, no country home, no oranges." Myka didn't flinch when the tear trailed along the inside of her breast.
"My mother walked in on us. I was taking a bath and needed more hot water, and the cook sent Rebecca to me with the bucket. Plumbing was still quite new, and our system of indoor delivery was being repaired at the time. There had been glances for months; we both knew what it was, and when mother walked in, Rebecca's hands we decidedly not on the bucket. She was my first. She was good, and kind, and gentle. She ended up on the street, never to be hired again. She died of Typhoid two years later, whoring, long before my parents died and I joined the Warehouse." She took a deep breath and just let it all wash over her for a moment.
"I was locked in my rooms for a month, only the servants to bring me food, forbidden to talk with me. Mother never looked me in the eyes again. That was when I made a decision. I wouldn't use my words for trifles any longer. I wouldn't hide who I was, even if I had to amend that thought a touch for the sake of reality. My tongue and mind reached détente, and H.G. Wells was born. My spoken word smoothed and refined, joining the game that was society, while my written words, my agents, my little rabble-rousers, spoke of a better world. I wanted my words to find a world where Rebecca didn't have to die, and I could wear trousers without making my mother cry. Then, some years later, I wanted a world that could give everything good to my Christina. So, I wrote." Her fingers wrapped around the locket she never took off. Her darling girl had loved words. Helena had made sure her words never stumbled, never fumbled.
"After everything, imagine my surprise when I discovered it worked. I woke to this new world, where I couldn't see the forest for the trees, and almost ruined it all for my foolishness. Because I didn't see. Not then." Helena lifted herself up on one arm, fingers burrowing themselves in a riot of curls. Eyes dilated as she drew closer, breath quickening as thigh slid against thigh and lips drew back against teeth. She leaned forward, sharing her heat, sharing her breath, sharing her words with all that was good in her life.
"It worked, Myka. My words found you."