Based on the following prompt from tantedrago: "I want a story about one of them being invisible. (Artifact? Artifact!) Steamy scenes allowed."
TW: Myka's cancer is not the center of this story but it does feature prominently. On principle, I try not to pull punches when I write about cancer because I've watched too many loved ones go through chemo. Everything I describe here is based on things I've really seen happen.
Also, the numbered sections are inspired by a structure often used by Journaliar over on AO3 (whose fics are really, 100% the best in this fandom. Go read them if you haven't). I had a hard time figuring out how to make the story timeline work and this strategy did the job.
I.
Myka had always been beautiful, but Myka on the far side of cancer shone brighter than any star Helena had ever seen.
In this moment, though, Helena couldn't see that. She knew, of course, what Myka looked like. She knew the fall of her hair, the shape of her jaw, the length and swing and weight of her stride. She remembered, from years ago, what Myka looked like nude, when her body arced and trembled in rapture.
She remembered what Myka had looked like naked when her body was ravaged by cancer and chemotherapy.
(Helena had only seen Myka that way once, a miserable morning when the retching had seized her with such force that she'd lost control of her bladder while kneeling over the toilet. Helena had cleaned up both Myka and the mess, while Myka studiously avoided her gaze.)
Myka had asked her to forget that day, by artifact if necessary. Helena refused. It was important to her to have this memory of what she come so close to losing in so many ways; this person who was, in whatever unusual (invisible) form, stretched out chastely along Helena's side on the expansive bed of this quaint hotel room, a hand resting on the lapel of Helena's jacket and her chest evenly breathing through the instinct to panic.
Helena knew what Myka looked like even if she couldn't see her now.
II.
The moment Helena had heard about the cancer—a frantic, secretive phone call from Pete asking her to please, please come quickly, because there was a "serious code-red emergency" at the Warehouse but he couldn't bear the thought of Myka waking up from surgery alone—she'd gotten in the car. She stayed for four days, that first time; long enough for Myka to be settled back into the B&B and for the Warehouse crisis to be resolved (Claudia safely returned home) so that Pete and everyone else could be around to support her.
Two weeks after that, Helena had gotten another call from Pete. Could she come for just a few days, while Claudia worked with Mrs. Frederic on Caretaker business, and he and Steve went to track down an artifact in Georgia? Myka was starting to talk about going back to Colorado for her treatment ("I'll just be in the way if I stay here," she'd said, apparently) but everyone knew she didn't really want to go and that her parents wouldn't be the most helpful people to support her while she healed. Pete was pretty sure Helena was the only person besides him for whom Myka might drop her "tough-guy act" (Pete's words) and ask for help if she needed it. Or so he said, anyway.
Helena bought a plane ticket that time, and stayed in South Dakota for six days—two days beyond Pete and Steve's return with a snagged-and-bagged civil-war era cufflink.
She travelled back and forth between Wisconsin and South Dakota for some time. If Nate noticed that her stays in Univille seemed to be getting longer while her stays in Boone got shorter, he didn't say anything, not for awhile. Not until two and a half months into Myka's treatments, when Helena had been in Univille for ten days following only a three-day return to Boone, had Nate had phoned and said that while he completely supported Helena's desire to be there for Myka, he was starting to wonder whether there was, well, more than that going on here.
Helena had found herself unable to answer. "Think about it," Nate, patient Nate, had said. "I really hope I'm wrong, but… I don't think I am."
That night, Helena had been near sleep in the B&B's extra room when she heard the tell-tale sign of two nearby doors opening in quick succession. She found Myka on her knees with her chin resting on the toilet seat, arms curled around the bowl, eyes closed as she tried to breathe through the lingering nausea after this latest round of vomiting.
"I'm okay," she had said, without opening her eyes. "You can go back to bed—" and then she was retching again, the force of it rattling her rickety joints and bones against the tile floor.
"Oh, Myka," Helena had murmured. She shrugged out of the chenille robe she had pulled on over her pyjamas and draped it over Myka's shoulders as she knelt down beside her, a hand resting lightly over the bumps of a protruding lower spine. That was when, for the first time, Helena saw Myka cry. Not careful, contained tears like she had seen in the chess lock—these were sobs that shook Myka's body as badly as the vomiting had done. All Helena had been able to do was hold her, feel the fuzz of Myka's fleece hat tucking under her chin and then hot tears of sadness and fear and rage and embarrassment sliding down her neck. Helena had held her, had tried and failed to ignore how easily her palms could cup Myka's upper arms, how the soft bump of Myka's chemotherapy port pressed into Helena's shoulder, how Myka's collarbones, vertebrae, scapulae protruded like gargoyles under her skin while her face and belly were swollen and rounded from the prednisone.
Helena remembered, from a time so long ago it might have been a previous life, when she had known that skin intimately, pulled taut over firm muscle, sensitive and responsive to Helena's touch. Could the cancer have been growing even then?
Myka had cried herself to sleep tucked under the robe with her head on Helena's lap, there on the bathroom floor. Helena shifted just enough to lean against the side of the tub. In the morning Pete had found them like that. Myka awoke as Pete gently tried to pick her up to carry her back to her room; she batted him away as she slowly raised herself up off the bath mat.
"The day I can't walk myself from the bathroom to my bedroom is the day I really will move back to Colorado Springs," she said, with annoyance. She let him pull her up by the hand, though, and Helena stood more slowly behind her to catch her if she fell. She brushed her teeth at the sink before making her way back across the hall.
"I'm really glad you're here," Pete had said to Helena, as he closed Myka's bedroom door after they had watched her body disappear under her duvet. "Get some sleep. I'll keep an eye on her. Inventory can wait."
Helena called Nate an hour later and asked him to ship her things.
III.
They all celebrated Myka's last round of chemo with board games and a movie night. Helena had watched Myka fall asleep curled under Pete's arm on the sofa during the movie, and wondered, not for the first time, whether this whole ordeal might prove the catalyst for their becoming lovers if (when) Myka recovered. She swallowed down the hot burn of jealousy that piqued at the thought. Pete, with his unerring loyalty and unwavering commitment, was the kind of person Myka deserved, and the kind of person deserving of Myka.
A month after that, she had sat with Claudia in the oncologist's waiting room until Myka and Pete, teary-eyed and smiling, had emerged, arm-in-arm, words like "cancer-free" and "remission" on their tongues.
And then, over the following months, Helena had watched Myka's body rebuild itself. Her appetite returned, her pallor receded. Muscle fleshed itself out. Dim eyes rediscovered their gleam. Until somehow this new Myka, this reborn Myka, caught up to old Myka and surpassed her. Her muscles hadn't yet recaptured their previous strength, her endurance still remained at a fraction of what it had been, but something about her became positively radiant. She smiled easily – that broad, crooked, teeth-baring smile that tugged at Helena's diaphragm. She laughed loud when she ran her fingers through short, unruly curls; one day she drove into Featherhead and returned with her hair trimmed and reshaped into a short, trendy style that curled coyly at her temples and nape and somehow made her captivating eyes feel even larger and more luminous than before.
("I can't wait to have all my hair back," she said, "but why not have some fun along the way?")
Myka sat with Claudia and let her explain every detail of whatever new gadget she was working on. She learned to meditate from Steve. She punched Pete less and hugged him more and Helena became positive that their relationship had shifted into something new, something deeper.
("You've a light that fills the room nowadays, Myka," Helena had said, smiling, as they drank tea together in the library one evening. "More so than before, even."
Myka shrugged and looked down, blushing pink. "It's just… it feels so good to be whole again, after being nothing but a shadow of myself for so long."
That night, curled around a spare pillow, it was Helena's turn to cry.)
IV.
Helena took a new job at the local county coroner's office in Featherhead shortly after the announcement of Myka's remission. She decided, that night, that she would stay in Univille until Myka was cleared for fieldwork, and then she would move on. She wasn't sure where. Boone was in her past, now, too. She had no desire to return to work for the Warehouse. There was no love lost between Helena and the institution that had first bronzed her, then disembodied her, and then sent her on the run indefinitely. She'd be a fool to return for more punishment. But even with her new job, she didn't think she could stay to watch Myka build… whatever she seemed to be building with Pete.
(Sometimes she remembers Myka in Nate's kitchen in Boone, and she thinks that may be she should stay and watch Myka with Pete. She deserves it, doesn't she, after she put that look of hurt into Myka's eyes.)
V.
When Myka was cleared for duty, Steve, originally, was going to accompany Pete and her to Las Vegas so they would have an extra set of hands if the work proved too exhausting for Myka. But then they got a second ping in Newfoundland, Canada, of all places, so Steve and Claudia went there and Helena found herself agreeing to chaperone Myka and Pete.
("I know you don't want to deal with artifacts anymore," Myka had said. "You would only have to if there was an emergency that I couldn't handle. Please. If you don't go then I can't go, and we'll have to send Artie into the field with Pete, who will never let me hear the end of it."
Helena was almost ready to admit that she was powerless to resist when it came to Myka.)
They weren't sure what they were looking for, exactly. An epidemic of psychological episodes—the kind of thing that usually happened after trauma—had been traced to a particular boutique hotel a few blocks off the strip. It seemed to be affecting guests and cleaning staff in equal numbers.
"Only my best cleaning staff," the manager said. "I mean that seriously. The good ones all have, like, nervous breakdowns and quit on me, and I swear I'm not that bad of a boss."
They checked into three adjacent rooms on the second floor. Helena indulged in a long shower to wash away the grime of the plane, and then, hungry, decided to see if Myka or Pete would be interested in finding some lunch before they began their investigation.
Helena was surprised, and then unnerved, to find the door to Myka's room half-open, her suitcase just inside with its pull-handle still extended and her briefcase resting on top. Her cell phone, wallet, and Farnsworth were sitting on the entryway table beneath the decorative mirror.
"Myka?" Helena said tentatively, as she pushed the door open and stepped in. "Are you here?"
A quick glance around the room revealed that she wasn't. This was unsettling, to put it mildly. To leave all of her possessions, including a Farnsworth, in plain sight of the hallway? It violated everything that Myka's precise and organized personality held dear.
(The only occasions Helena had ever seen Myka break her careful organization had been, again, in that previous life when they would take advantage of the relative privacy of hotels to fly into bed together with an abandon they couldn't share in the B&B's close quarters with its thin walls.)
Myka was with Pete. Surely.
Helena leaned into the hallway and glanced toward the door of Pete's room. It was closed. Helena fought down an overwhelming urge to walk over and press her ear to it. She didn't want to hear what was happening inside. Not really.
Swallowing, she turned around and stepped back into Myka's room. "Oh, Myka," she sighed to herself. "Myka, Myka, Myka, Myka." If she said it often enough, she thought, perhaps she could make the word lose its meaning, dissolve it into nothing but phonemes.
She moved the suitcase out of the way of the door, and—
Knock-knock.
Helena looked up, then back over her shoulder. Someone knocking on a door in the hallway, she supposed. She reached for the stack of Myka's possessions on the table and began to flip through, looking for a room key—
Knock-knock.
Helena glanced up again. This time, she leaned back out the door into the hallway and glanced around. It was empty. Then she stepped back into the room and stared at the adjoining wall between Myka's room and Pete's.
Oh, hell, she thought. If she needed proof of what was happening over there, well, she had it. She sighed and shook her head. Her fingers stumbled onto the little paper sleeve with two room keys nestled inside; she pulled one free so she'd be able to let Myka back into the room after she closed the door.
Slap! A louder noise, this time, like somebody had slapped a table-top with an open hand. Helena's head shot up. That sound – it had definitely come from inside the room. She stepped back and cautiously closed the door behind her.
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-
Helena looked in the bathroom again, then in the closet and behind the curtains as the knocking persisted, an endless chain of rapping sounds.
Finally, she inhaled sharply and said, "Myka?"
The rapping stopped.
Oh, BLOODY hell. "Myka—is that you?"
Knock-knock.
Helena's eyes darted around the room. "Myka, if that's you, knock three times."
Knock-knock-knock.
Helena sighed. Bollocks. "Righty-ho, then," she said, straightening her shoulders. "Knock once for 'yes,' twice for 'no,' three times for 'I don't know.' Can you do that?"
Knock.
Helena carefully moved to perch at the foot of the bed. "I take it you've been struck by an artifact," she said.
Knock.
"And this artifact has made you… invisible?"
Knock.
"And I assume it has also rendered you unable to speak?"
Knock.
"Are you hurt?"
Helena gritted her teeth through a long pause before: knock-knock-knock.
Damn. "All right. Are you – are you in any pain?"
Knock-knock.
"Well, that's one thing going for us, at least. So the artifact is in this room, then?"
Knock.
"Based on where your belongings are standing, I suppose the artifact is near the door?"
Knock.
Helena pursed her lips. This would be so much easier if they weren't limited to yes-and-no questions. Although… an idea struck her.
"How are you making those knocking noises?"
Silence.
"Forgive me, that was a foolish question. It sounds to me like you're making those noises by rapping on… on the dresser, perhaps? With your knuckles?"
If a knock could possibly sound enthusiastic, that one did.
"All right. So you can touch things." Helena leaned over and grabbed the hotel notepad and pen from the nightstand, setting them down beside her on the bedspread. "Here," she said. "Can you write down what the artifact is?"
Helena sat for a moment, watching the pen and paper, waiting for them to move. It still caught her completely off-guard when she felt something brush against her knee as it moved past. Long seconds stretched into one another and then she felt a brush against her foot again, and then:
Knock-knock.
"You can't write with the pen?"
Knock. Pause. Knock-knock. Pause. Knock-knock-knock.
Helena's eyebrows furrowed, and then she chuckled.
"I'm sorry, darling, that was terrible of me. Let me rephrase: Am I correct in thinking that you cannot write with the pen?"
Knock.
Helena paused, mind whirling. "Am I correct in thinking you can't pick up an object?"
Knock.
"But you're still making noise. And I felt you when you walked past me."
Knock.
"So you can touch things? But not move them? Is that right?"
Knock.
Helena frowned. Then her eyes widened and she said, "Wait here. I've an idea."
She darted out of the room and back to her own. In a moment, she returned with her tablet computer, open to a text processor.
"Let's try this, darling. Can you type on this touch-screen?" She resumed her seat and set the computer down on the bedspread beside her. Again, she sensed motion near her legs, and then she looked down at the screen.
She sighed in relief and smiled when the words I really hope this works oh thank god appeared on the screen.
"What's the artifact?" Helena asked.
It's the mirror by the door.
Be careful. I think it's safe to look at but not to touch.
"All right. Have you any gloves in here? Neutralizer?"
Gloves and static bags in my briefcase. I think it'll fit in a big one.
Helena nodded. Once properly equipped, she carefully lifted the decorative mirror from the wall and looked it over. On the back was a plaque. "This mirror was made from a set piece from David Copperfield's permanent show at the MGM Grand," Helena read aloud. "Funds from the sale of these mirrors have gone to support Copperfield's Project Magic charity."
Helena turned it back around and looked more closely at the glass. It was smoked in one corner, so that it looked dirty; it was easy to see why Myka, and many before her (including attentive cleaning staff) might have touched it.
"I suppose this was a mirror Copperfield used to make things disappear," Helena mused. "Literally, in this case."
Carefully, she opened the static bag and shielded her eyes as she dropped the mirror inside. As expected, it loosed a shower of sparks.
"There's a mirror just like this one in my room, too," she said as she sealed the bag. "I imagine the set broke down into a lot of mirrors this size. I wonder if they're all, artifacts, or if there's something special about this…"
She trailed off as she turned to face back into the room, bagged mirror in hand. Myka was still nowhere to be seen.
"Myka?" she said, to the room. Helena set the mirror down against the wall and walked back to the bed. She tapped on the power button on the tablet to wake it up, and almost immediately words began to appear.
Still here. Still invisible, apparently, Helena read, and groaned.
"All right. We should contact Pete and Artie, I suppose?"
Yes. Artie first, then Pete once we know what we're working with.
Artie, as it turns out, didn't have much to say, except there was no evidence to suggest that anybody had disappeared permanently from exposure to this artifact. They probably just had to wait for it to wear off. The mental breaks and psychotic episodes were more worrisome, but beyond neutralizing the artifact, he wasn't sure there was anything to be done but stay with Myka and monitor her as best they could. He would alert both Abigail and Dr. Calder to be available to take emergency calls if Myka began to show aberrant behavior.
When Helena called Pete on the Farnsworth, he was in a busy restaurant.
"Wassup?" he asked, mouth full.
"Pete? Where are you?" Helena asked.
Pete swallowed. "The Bellagio. All-you-can-eat-buffets, H.G.! Second-best part of Vegas!"
Helena fought the urge to roll her eyes.
(Much later, when this was all through, she would ask him what the first-best part of Vegas was.
"Showgirls, H.G." Pete would say, nodding sagely. "Showgirls.")
"So, uh," he waggled his eyebrows, "you and Myka done yet? 'Cause we have an artifact to find, and—"
"Done?" Helena's forehead furrowed. "I'm not sure what you mean, but—"
"Oh, come on, H.G. Don't play coy with me," Pete smirked. "I saw it, the open door, her stuff just… standing there. Just like old times. Except it always used to be your stuff." He raised what appeared to be a ketchup-covered French fry to his mouth.
Helena's heart stumbled a few beats as it wrapped around the implications of Pete's assumption, but she swallowed once and shook her head. She rolled her eyes to cover herself. "Oh for heaven's sake, Pete, Myka's been – she's been 'whammied,' as you say."
Pete's face stilled mid-chew.
"Is she okay? What happened?" he asked. The picture moved as he stood up and, outside the frame, one hand moved to gather his things.
"The artifact's been neutralized but apparently we need to wait for its effects to wear off. She's invisible, and she can't talk, but… I think she's otherwise well? Is that fair to say, Myka?" Helena's eyes dropped to the computer screen.
I'm okay, I think. Tell him not to rush back. He might as well enjoy his buffet—there's nothing he can do here.
Helena read Myka's message to Pete.
"Wait, how is she communicating with you?" Pete's eyes narrowed accusingly.
"My tablet, Pete. She can hear me and work its touch-screen."
Pete nodded. "Okay. Well, Myka, don't be stupid. Of course I'm coming back."
Words immediately began to appear on Helena's screen. Helena read them, and said, "Wait, Pete… she's specifically asking that you not come."
"What?"
"Here." Helena turned the Farnsworth so its lens faced the screen, and she slowly moved it across the text that said:
Ask him not to come. Please.
When she turned the Farnsworth around again, Pete was shaking his head. "Come on, Myka. Like you'd ever not come if I got whammied."
Please appeared on the screen.
Helena swallowed. "I think she really doesn't want you here right now, Pete."
"Okay, uh… why?" Pete tentatively sat back down again.
Helena watched the words appear, and then said, "She says… she says, and this is a direct quote, 'I need this time. Please.'"
Pete looked puzzled, and then, slowly, a wide grin spread across his face. "Oooooooh," he said, wiggling his eyebrows again. "I gotcha, partner. Okay. I'll stay away. You change your mind, you get H.G. to call me and I'll get there as fast as I can."
Thank you, Pete.
"Think nothing of it. See you later. Over and out." Pete grinned again and closed his Farnsworth before Helena could reply.
Helena shook her head and reached to put her Farnsworth on the nightstand. "What was that about?" she asked.
The pause stretched out in the room that looked empty but didn't feel it. Finally, words began to appear:
It's a Vegas buffet. That's Pete Heaven. For months now, Pete's dropped everything for me whenever I needed it. I can't ask him to leave that, too.
Pause.
I'm tired of keeping him, and you, from the things you both love.
"Myka," Helena said quietly. Unconsciously she reached out toward the touchpad and her fingers came to rest on the familiar sinews of the back of one of Myka's hands. "You know you've never been a burden for either of us." Her fingers stroked along the tendons gently.
The next message appeared slowly, erratically:
Cant type can barely move that hand while yours is on top of it just like I couldnt lift the pen
"Oh!" Helena withdrew her hand suddenly. "I'm sorry."
Don't be. It helped, actually.
"Helped?"
The following letters appeared more slowly, with frequent erasures and edits along the way.
Before you ask, I'm not in any pain, but this just… feels really bad. I feel like I'm going to float away. Like I'm nowhere.
I can definitely feel why this led all those people to come unhinged. It's like I'm not really here.
Like I've become the thing I spent months terrified of becoming.
Helena exhaled loudly through her nose, and then bit her bottom lip. "What thing is that?"
The beats of the cursor pulsed out a long silence.
a ghost
Helena's hand leaped to her locket. She knew what that felt like, she thought, just as the words
You know what that feels like.
appeared on the screen.
Helena did know. She remembered life—"life"—on the Janus coin. She remembered the desperation with which she wanted to touch, to hold, to be held; she remembered the nausea and terror that filled her whenever her holographic eyes came to rest on the black orb that was her prison, within her reach and yet so far beyond it. She remembered latching on to those brief moments of warm conversation, of gentle smiles, offered her by Myka; how in those brief moments she could almost feel whole, almost feel human.
Myka, now, was the diametric opposite of what Helena had been. Touch, the sense that Helena had craved, was the only one Myka had at her disposal.
Slowly, carefully, Helena reached a hand forward into the apparently empty air until it brushed the leather of Myka's sleeve. Two fingers walked up the length of Myka's arm so that her palm could curve over the top of her shoulder.
"What can I do?" Helena whispered.
Keep talking to me. It helps.
And
And touch me
Please.
Hold me.
"Oh, Myka," Helena murmured. She dropped her hand to the bedspread, kicked off her boots, and scooted herself back on the bed. She propped the pillows up against the headboard and reclined against them, arms open and extended. "Come here."
The bed didn't dip, its comforter didn't shift, but within seconds Helena felt the almost-familiar shape of Myka's body come to rest alongside her own. It felt strange: there was touch and form but no weight or warmth.
Helena's open hand settled lightly across the worn leather of Myka's back. Myka settled on her side along the length of Helena's body, her cheek in the crook of Helena's shoulder. Myka's arm, with its strange weightless touch, rested below Helena's ribcage. With her free hand, Helena began to gently comb through Myka's short curls.
"Is this good?" she asked quietly. She felt Myka nod "yes" against her chest.
"Good," Helena said. "We'll just stay right here like this until the artifact wears off."
The length, the shape of Myka's body was familiar, even without scent or warmth or weight. Helena knew what Myka looked like, even if she couldn't see it now.
Helena couldn't feel the puffs of Myka's breath but she could feel her ribcage expanding, deflating, expanding again. She could hear the soft sounds of air slipping in and out of her own nostrils. If she closed her eyes she could almost – not quite, but almost – pretend this feeling wasn't overwhelmingly bizarre.
Eventually Myka shifted. Her arm slid up along Helena's torso and then something – Myka's finger – tapped Helena's lips. Helena's eyes popped open, but still could see no body but her own on the bed.
Right, she thought. Myka had asked her to keep talking to her, so she should… talk. About what, she had no idea. She and Myka could easily share hours of conversation but to fill the empty air of this room with monologue… she might as well try to fill it with grains of sand, one at a time.
It had been over a century since she'd last had an idea for a story.
Myka's arm rested across Helena's chest, and Helena trailed a hand up her side, hip to ribs. She inhaled deeply and decided not to rehearse, not to plan, just to think about Myka and say the first words that escaped. Those words were
"I'm happy I came back."
As soon as they escaped, she licked her lips and wished she could swallow those atoms of breath back from the air.
She exhaled. Well, she had started. She might as well continue.
"Your glow, your energy these past months, since your remission… I really, I have no words for how much it pleases me to see you so happy."
Myka shifted a little against her, resettling her head higher on Helena's chest.
"You're terribly important to me, Myka. And once everything is settled… once it's all back to normal, I do hope that we can perhaps keep in better contact than we did before."
Suddenly, Myka was moving. Myka was twitching and shaking against Helena and it took Helena a moment to realize that she had accidentally trapped Myka in the circle of her arms just as she had trapped her hand earlier.
"Myka," she said, "Myka, calm down. What's wrong? Calm down."
And Helena felt the flat of Myka's hand appearing and vanishing against her chest, that same weightless touch, so it took her a moment to realize that Myka was probably trying to pound on her chest, to force Helena to release her.
"All right, Darling" she said and laid her arms to rest on the bedspread. Immediately she felt the full withdrawal of Myka's touch, from her chest to her feet.
"Myka, what did—what did I—" Helena's words trailed into soundlessness. She leaned forward to the foot of the bed where the tablet still rested, and she pressed the button to wake it up. Almost immediately, blue flashes lit up the keyboard and words began to appear on the screen.
If you're going to leave again, do me a favor and just do it now.
Helena blinked, and blinked again. "I'm—I'm not certain what you mean."
You said you wanted us to keep in touch. That implies pretty heavily that you're not going to stay in Univille, where I would be seeing you every day.
"I have no home at the Warehouse, Myka. I no longer wish for my home to be there. What reason have I to stay in Univille, when you're well and no longer have need for my help?"
Helena's eyes lingered on the tablet, but no words appeared. Twice, the computer fell into standby mode, and both times Helena reached forward and tapped the power button to wake it up.
When words finally appeared, they came slowly.
We had this conversation in Wisconsin. I'm not putting either of us through it again. If you can't think of a good reason to stay in Univille, then you're right, you should probably leave again. Go back to Boone, or whatever. But do me a favor and don't drag it out. Just go. Go right now. I'll be fine until Pete gets back.
"You're being irrational." Helena reached out toward where she knew Myka was crouched by the computer, near the foot of the bed. Her fingers brushed soft leather, again, but she felt Myka pull away almost instantly, and then saw her begin to type again.
I have many flaws, but irrationality is not one of them.
You have flaws, too, but I never thought I'd find myself wanting to call you clueless.
Helena stood up and crossed her arms over her chest, defensively. "If you have something to say to me, Myka, I'll thank you to come forward and say it."
The cursor pulsed on the screen.
Don't leave, Myka typed.
Helena softened. "I would never leave you alone under the influence of an artifact like this, no matter how hard you tried to convince me."
No.
I mean me.
Don't leave me.
Something hurt in Helena's palm. She glanced down and discovered she was clutching her locket so tightly that its corner threatened to pierce her skin.
I get it. Chemo is about as unsexy as it gets, and you had to scrape me off the floor more than once. You saw me in disgusting ways and places you probably can't un-see. I get that.
But I just
I don't know, I guess I hoped
The cursor beat and then receded, deleting the previous two incomplete phrases. It filled in:
Never mind. I'm sorry.
I'm grateful for everything you sacrificed for me.
You do what you need to do. We can keep in touch.
Helena's eyes stared fixed on the letters until the screen went black again. Her hand fisted tight, so tight, around her locket.
"Myka," she breathed softly. She reached out tentatively toward where she thought Myka was sitting, and smiled a little when her fingertips brushed the edges of short curls. She swallowed. "Even at your worst, I thought you the most remarkable person and the most beautiful woman I could ever imagine knowing."
The curls at her fingertips shifted, and then she felt skin—Myka's cheek under her touch, and she could no longer contain the pull at the corners of her lips.
She heard a light tapping sound, and after a moment she realized that Myka was tapping on the edge of the dormant computer screen. Helena leaned over and woke it up again, her other hand sliding to curve around the back of Myka's neck.
I'm tired of this thing we do, Helena, appeared on the screen.
Helena bit her lip.
I want you. I don't care if you never chase another artifact—that's completely fine with me—but I want you to stay in Univille, with me.
I want us.
"Myka," Helena breathed. Her thumb traced the hairline along Myka's nape. "I want that, too, but I… to be honest, I thought you might be pursuing something with Pete. I couldn't blame you for it."
I'm going to do us both a favor and forget you said that.
I love Pete, he's my family, but… no.
It's always been you, Helena.
Helena blinked, and blinked again. She told herself once, twice, three times that there were no tears building up beneath her eyelids. There weren't.
And we can talk about this at some point if you want but right now I'm shaking and I feel like I'm going to dissolve into thin air
Can you hold me again
I need something to ground me
Helena smiled widely now, and turned her damp gaze to where she thought Myka's eyes should be, and ran her thumb over the tender spot behind Myka's ear. "Of course. Anything."
She dropped her hand back to the bedspread and shifted herself back over the mattress, reclining against the pillows into a position similar to the one she'd held before. Her arms opened and reached to where she had left Myka by the foot of the bed.
The touch of something against her hip caught her off guard as Myka's state again failed to cause any shift in the bed. When something touched her other hip, she jumped. The lingering smile on Helena's lips dropped as she carefully pulled her arms back to her own chest and then slid them down her body—desperate to avoid accidentally striking or pushing Myka—until she reached the points of contact, her fingernails grazing the rough weave of denim. Myka's knees, on either side of her hips.
Helena's tongue suddenly felt swollen, her throat dry and cracked. Slowly, so slowly, she sat up, palms grazing up the tops of Myka's thighs until she was sitting up fully, her fingertips grazing the wrinkles at the bend of Myka's hips.
"Myka," she breathed quietly, looking up and frantically seeking her eyes in the empty air, some indication of what, exactly was happening.
Confirmation came as a lingering touch to her lips, and the shape and texture of Myka's kiss felt like an echo of a dormant memory tapped awake. Tentatively, Helena parted her lips and felt Myka's part and turn in response. Helena couldn't contain the small sound of relief that slipped from her throat as her mouth was flooded with the taste of Myka's. She slipped her hands up and into Myka's hair, cradling her head close to help Myka's weightless form press into her. The ghosts of Myka's fingers trailed up her arms to curve over her shoulders. One rested there, the other found the edge of her collar and followed it down her sternum, past the first unfastened button to the second, just above her breasts. Myka tapped the edge of Helena's exposed skin there, and Helena felt the smile against her lips.
Breathlessly, Helena pulled back. Her thumb slid forward, beneath the angle of Myka's cheek, to trace the shallow arc of her lower lip, and then everything—her breath, her pulse, her being—stopped when she felt Myka wrap her lips around Helena's finger.
Helena's eyes slammed shut and the words that escaped next with her breath were as vital as the air that carried them.
"Let me make love to you, Myka."
Her thumb slipped free from Myka's teeth and tongue and Helena felt Myka nod yes against her palm.
The thrill of undressing Myka was tempered by the strangeness of it. As soon as she pushed the jacket from Myka's shoulders it became visible in her hands. Garment after garment seemed to materialize between Helena's fingers, only to be cast away onto the floor. They stood, together beside the bed, so that Helena could guide Myka's jeans down her legs. And at the end of all the work, Myka looked the same as she had before: like nothing at all. Until Helena reached forward and her thumb brushed the hollow of a navel, fingers curving around the soft skin of a hip.
Myka tapped the skin above the topmost still-fastened button of Helena's shirt. Helena smiled and kept her gaze near her estimate of Myka's eyes for as long as it took her to disrobe, until they both stood naked in the afternoon light.
Helena swallowed and gently rested the backs of her fingers against Myka's cheek. "If you want me to stop, tap me twice. Anywhere, with any part of yourself you can move, and I'll stop right away. Nod if that sounds good to you."
Myka nodded against Helena's fingers.
VI.
Sitting up beneath Myka on the bed, Helena proved the presence and perfection of Myka's body. She narrated every freckle and mole from memory, kissed every scar, tickled the sensitive curves and hollows that made Myka twitch and shudder against her, planted open-mouthed kisses to the familiar curve of a graceful neck. Some things were new to Helena's touch (her fingers skimmed over the bump above her pectoral where her chemo port still hid beneath the skin) and some beautifully familiar (her tongue brushed the slightly raised birthmark on the outside of her left breast).
Helena didn't need to see Myka to palm the still-too-prominent ridges of her ribcage. Didn't need to hear Myka to feel her lungs jump for breath when Helena's tongue caressed her nipple.
Helena didn't need to see a thing to feel Myka grow wet against her thigh.
"Hold the headboard, love," Helena whispered, and then began to slide lower down the bed, Myka lifting her knees to settle right where Helena wanted her. Firm arms around Myka's thighs pulled her down to Helena's lips and Helena didn't need to see anything to know that the hand on her head would be fisted in her hair if it could be. Myka, weightless, couldn't push down but Helena could anchor her, could revel in the taste as it revived long-suppressed memories, could write secrets with her tongue that only Myka would share. She could screw her eyes shut and pretend this was normal, there was no artifact, there was only herself and Myka and this long-awaited moment.
When something pulled on her hair, Helena's eyes flew open. And there she was, stretched above her like a tree: Myka, flushed and naked and desperate with a bead of sweat trickling down between her breasts. Helena couldn't help the soft cry that escaped her, couldn't keep her hand from reaching up and connecting with Myka's upper chest with a louder-than-intended slap and then tinting skin in red trails as her fingernails raked down along Myka's sternum.
Myka's eyes snapped open and when she looked down to meet Helena's gaze, her eyes were wide and damp and wanting above lips that parted into a smile wide and crooked and euphoric, and Helena was certain she had never in over a century seen anything more erotic.
"Helena," Myka gasped, fisting both hands into black hair, and Helena answered by pressing harder and faster with her tongue until Myka bucked violently, shamelessly, and came.
"Are you all right, darling?" Helena asked as Myka lowered herself to the bed beside her. "No impending psychotic breaks?"
Myka laughed. "Never better." She settled into the crook of Helena's shoulder. "I mean that literally. I don't think I have ever, in my life, been better than I am right this very second."
Helena's chest wanted to laugh and her eyes wanted to cry so she settled for half-camouflaging a sob beneath a kiss.
VII.
Myka's best estimate was that she was invisible for about ninety minutes.
"The length of one of Copperfield's shows?" she suggested, and shrugged.
"I'm really not that concerned about that," Artie said. "I'm more concerned about the psychotic episodes that everyone else affected seems to have had but that you didn't."
Myka nodded and pulled the collar of her shirt closed around her neck. "I think… I think those episodes weren't caused by the artifact directly. I think the experience of the invisibility—the powerlessness, the persistent feeling that you're an illusion about to drift away, the inability to communicate what's happening to anybody—I can completely see how that in itself would be traumatic. The reported psychotic episodes are probably some kind of very real PTSD."
"Huh," Artie grunted, and shrugged, tossing the file with Myka's report onto his desk. "And you're okay because you could understand what was happening and rationalize it. Makes sense."
Myka nodded. "And, well, H.G.—"
"I don't want to hear it!" Artie clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. "You're both adults and I'm happy you're happy but please, just… spare me the details."
"Sure, Artie," Myka said, biting her lip as she stood up and reached for her scarf. "Sure."
Outside, Helena waited for Myka in the car. They had dropped Pete off at the B&B before driving to the warehouse to drop off the mirrors (while all twenty rooms had similar mirrors, only six turned out to be artifacts; the rest, Myka surmised, were probably counterfeits, but that was somebody else's job to worry about).
Helena had asked if Myka would mind if she waited in the car. Of course, Myka didn't mind at all.
"How did it go?" Helena asked, as Myka settled back into the driver's seat.
"Oh, fine. He seems to think my ideas about how the mirrors work make sense."
"They do make sense. The only plausible explanations, really."
"I agree." Myka started the car and began to follow the gravel path out to the road.
"Oh, and Helena?" she said, almost as an afterthought, as she palmed the side of her neck.
"Hmm?"
"No more hickeys where Artie could see them. I don't do turtlenecks and I kept thinking this collar was going to slip and show him everything."
Helena burst out laughing. "In all fairness, I couldn't see what I was doing when I gave it to you."
Myka rolled her eyes. "You knew exactly what you were doing."
"Not this time, darling," Helena smiled. She reached across the center console to twirl her fingers through the short curls behind Myka's ear. "This time, I had absolutely no idea."