C'mon, c'mon collide
See what a fire feels like
I bet it's just like heaven
You expected to feel cold when she knocked on the door. Cold and empty was all you'd felt since the diagnosis, since telling Pete. Cold was how keeping secrets made you feel, especially from the people you considered your family. Empty...well, you'd felt empty ever since you'd lost sight of H.G. in the rear view mirror back in Wisconsin.
But now she's standing there, looking...well, looking like death actually. She's pale, her hair hanging around her face, dark circles under her eyes. And yet you still feel like you're on fire, the attraction to her still burns deep inside of you. You can't help it. She's even more beautiful now she's broken your heart again, more beautiful now you know she'll never be yours.
"Why are you here?"
You hear Pete attempting to creep up the stairs and get the answer to your question. Of course. He was the only one who knew about your situation. And now he'd told her, the last person you'd ever wanted to know how you were. You couldn't stand for her to see you even more vulnerable than you usually were around her.
And yet you feel like you're on fire and it's the first sensation you've had since the word cancer tumbled out of your doctor's mouth and changed your life. She's just standing there, looking terrified. You wonder if her feelings are burning her up.
You wonder what it would feel like to burn together.
"I came as soon as I could. I drove all night."
"You don't need to be here."
"I want to be here."
"Has anyone taken into account what I might like?" you shout, loud enough for Pete to hear. Thank God everyone else is at the Warehouse or retrieving artifacts. You don't want Abigail psychoanalysing your reaction to Helena's return or anyone asking why she's back.
"I'll leave. I'm sorry Myka, I truly am." She turns to leave and you almost let her. But now the burning is anger, it's your temper getting the better of you, it's the fact that it took a cancer diagnosis to bring her back to where she belongs.
"Don't you dare walk away from us again Helena." She stops.
"I will do whatever you like, Myka. Do you want me here?"
You don't know what to say. Everything about her being her is destroying you slowly because you know she's not here forever. But you want her to stay, you need the warmth you're feeling inside to stay because you've been cold and empty for too long and it's not healthy. It must be better to have the warmth for a time than to not have it at all, right?
"I told Nate why I was coming. He has suspected for a long time, quite correctly, that my feelings towards you are not strictly platonic. He told me that if I need to be here, I need not go back to Wisconsin."
And it's like you're on fire and you're feeling everything at once. Was this how Helena felt when the Warehouse was destroyed and the flames engulfed her? Because it's horrible and you just want someone to experience it with you, to calm you and quell the heat.
"So you're here to stay?"
"I am here to stay if you would like me to."
"No one's moved into your old room."
When she puts her arms around you, you know she feels the same way you do.
And it feels like heaven.
