The fish people have given Helena a little more freedom since she came back to them to be with her babies, and Helena smiles as she wiggles her toes in the grass. "The fresh air will be good for them," she had said, pointing at her stomach. "I wish to be going walking."
Bonnie had looked at her approvingly. "I'm glad that you're already thinking of your children" she had said. "That's what good mothers do."
Helena had smiled widely. Good mothers, not like her mother, not like dirty not-mother never-mother Amelia. Helena will be a good mother, she will love her children, and she will never ever ever give them away.
"Helena?" Bonnie had asked. "I said you can go. Just don't be gone long. We don't want to have to worry."
"Yes. No worries." And then Helena had gone.
The blonde had never noticed how beautiful the fish farm was. The sun shines through the leaves with rays of light like angels, and Helena rotates her shoulders, feeling her wings stretch. I am the light, whispers in the back of her head like an echo. Shhhh, shhhh, Helena shushes it. Sarah had shown her the light was a lie. Sarah. Sarah.
Sarah had looked at her so lost as the police dragged her away. Sarah had cried and called her sister, don't shoot Helena please don't shoot I love you you are my sister you were gone you are back, but Sarah had left her in the jail. Helena aches deep in her chest, in her bones, sadness guilt shame. I disobeyed her she left me sestra.
Henrik had said Helena might have twins. Helena hopes so so much it hurts. If her babies are twins, they can be sestras like Helena and Sarah never were (should have been). The clone puts a hand on her stomach. "Hello, babies," she says. "We will be a family."
Helena is at an orchard now, and lazily she reaches up and pulls an apple off the tree. She hums, biting into it. Out of season, the apple is tart, sweet stinging her mouth and filling her belly. Helena has food, lots of food, from the fish people, but there is never enough food. There will never be enough food, because Helena knows hungry is always always waiting. She eats the whole apple down to the core before tossing it away, burping contentedly.
Scrunching her nose, Helena stops. The smell of dirt is everywhere, but something is different. Helena smells decay. Images flash across her mind, Aryanna still looking shocked, neck broken, Danielle face up in the river, Katja's blood as red as her hair. Blood is life and blood is death, copies sacrificed like lambs.
But whose blood does Helena smell? No, not blood, death and rot. Helena remembers finding beggars dead in alleyways, rats tearing skin from bone. The former assassin casts her gaze about side to side, look see find hunt, until she spies a mound of fresh turned dirt in the ground. A grave.
Helena is alone in the field, and this is good, because she does not think the fish people want her to see who they have killed. But Helena has to know.
She is silent as she steals to the grave, because the dead are quiet, they do not breathe or talk or laugh, and Helena is with the dead. When she squats down and touches the dirt, it is cool beneath her fingers. Helena hopes they have not buried him deep. She has only her hands to dig.
It takes a few minutes of digging before Helena finds a ring that must have fallen off the corpse. Heavy metal with a flying fish, Helena knows this ring, she knows she knows she knows—
"No," she gasps. "It cannot be. He cannot—"
Tomas is gone. The fish people said he was gone away to Europe (away to home), but here is his ring in the dirt, shining blinding bright. Helena holds it tight in her fist, like she can squeeze out the truth from it, like the metal will talk.
The blonde is frantic as she digs again, because it cannot be true but she sees, and the dirt is on her hands and on her dress and on her knees and maybe the dirt is why she can't breathe. Finally, her nails scrape something that is not-dirt not-rock, and Helena pushes away the Earth to see the buttons on a man's shirt. It is not enough, the chest is nothing, only a body. Helena needs his face. She digs up towards the neck, uncovers more of the body, and pulls.
The head of the body comes tumbling out, some skin sloughing off, eyes eaten away. Helena's heart pound pound pound pounds, and her mouth drops open even as she forgets to bring in air.
"Tomas."
His body is half-decayed, but Helena would know him anywhere, father saint teacher abuser sinner. She drops him and he falls, thunk-squelch. Exhaling a shaky breath, Helena rocks back, falling onto the strong Earth, because the ground will hold her the ground won't change the ground is strong. Strong enough, she hopes, to catch her, because she's falling.
Helena doesn't know what all the emotions flooding through her are. She closes her eyes. One at a time, like fighting, one move one punch one thought. Helena feels…she feels…
Scared. Tomas is not gone, he cannot be gone, he will be back. Tomas will see she doubted, see she strayed, and he will punish. Fists words razors cage, Tomas rules her, and she has disobeyed. Tomas is power, and power is nothing in the ground. He could never be nothing. He was everything.
Helena's everything, and she feels like choking. Grief. Tomas gave her food, Tomas cleaned her wounds, Tomas taught her how to be pure. Helena had loved Tomas. He was her guide to the lighted path, her salvation in the darkness. Tomas gave her purpose.
No, Helena thinks savagely, Tomas gave me lies. Tomas twisted her thoughts and mind and hands to murder. Anger. Helena burns, and Tomas will burn in Hell, killer liar thief. Tomas stole Helena. She is glad the sukin sin is dead.
Tomas is dead. Tomas is gone and cannot come back. Helena feels relief. She is free. Tomas will never again come at her with hands belt words shouting. God did not protect Tomas. God put him in the ground.
Helena shoves the man back into his shallow grave. She spits on his face. "Good riddance," she says, repeating the words she had said but been afraid to mean when the fish people told her Tomas was gone. Helena glances up. The sun is starting to set. She has been out here too long. Quickly, she pushes all the dirt back into the grave, pats it firm so the rain will not wash it away.
Walking back to the farm, Helena whistles to herself, and old hymn the nuns had taught her. Blessed are you, O Christ, our god, for You have given us wise fishermen, after sending them Your Holy Spirit, You caught all the world through them, O Loving Master, glory to You.
"Glory to You!" Helena laughs. "The wise fishermen set me free." She is still smiling when Bonnie finds her, hurrying out of the house.
"Helena!" she scolds. "Where were you? Why are you so dirty?"
"I fell," Helena lies, not caring if Bonnie can see through it. "I was visiting the cows. Moo, moo."
"Well, come in," Bonnie answers, brows furrowed. "You're lucky they didn't trample you."
Helena nods, and goes back into the house, to her room, to her home. She is safe now. She and her children are safe, forever and ever, amen.
…
A/N: I was overall very happy with OB season 2, but one thing I didn't buy was Helena's reaction to Tomas's departure. So, I wrote this! "sukin sin" means "son of a bitch" in Ukrainian, and the hymn is actually a real Ukrainian hymn as well.