AN: All belongs to Neil Gaiman. I've had this sitting on my hard drive for a year; I had no idea there was even a Mirrormask section on ff.n. Enjoy!
XV
Valentine fits in well with circus life. He gets along with the other performers and he learns quickly so he doesn't muck up routine. During his first week, he mentions some random ideas around Helena's father. They're too extreme but it gets Dad thinking about some new ideas that are added to the show.
Helena's fairly certain that he is this world's Valentine, and there must be a one, because her Valentine is still in the other world. This Valentine is different; a little nicer, a little shyer, a little less likely to sell her out to a dark queen. Yes, she's sure it's this world's Valentine.
(But he still seems more comfortable in a mask)
XVI
Valentine is 20 and she is 16 which means that there is 4 years between them and that seems like a lot. There's 5 years between Mum and Dad but no one can tell, so why is it so obvious that Valentine is older?
One night she and her parents go out to dinner with a possible investor. Mum insists that Helena wear a dress, so Helena gets a black one like the Dark Queen made her wear (it was impractical, but pretty). Before they leave, Helena presents her self to the troupe since it's the first time they'll have seen her in a dress. Helena tries not to notice that Valentine keeps looking at her without looking at her. Before they leave, Valentine kisses her cheek goodbye, because that's all right among people who are (supposed to be) like siblings.
Everything should be okay because Valentine is too old and like a brother, but she keeps touching her cheek during dinner.
XVII
It is ten minutes before a performance and backstage is a madhouse. Valentine is carrying a pyramid of balls very carefully across the room.
"Let me help you," Helena says.
"Nope, I've got it," Valentine answers, speeding up a bit.
"I don't believe you do."
"Oh, but I do."
As he says it, all the balls fall from his hands.
"Butterfingers," Helena giggles.
The expressions on his face change like someone flipping through slides: warmth, relief, and confusion before settling on amusement.
"Help me pick them up, will you?" Valentine laughs. "We've can't be late!"
XVIII
Valentine meets a girl at a performance and invites her to come to the pub with them. She's polite, interesting, funny, and Helena likes her well enough, but when the girl goes to the bathroom, Helena mutters to Valentine "I don't like her."
"Shame," Valentine smiles, "I like her a lot."
Helena cries in her trailer that night, glad she's leaving for university soon, so she can't be confused anymore. But it's not just Valentine, she reasons, because the circus is her family and it's a natural reaction to be jealous when someone tries to take away your family.
Regardless, she doesn't speak to him for a week.
XIX
One summer night, Helena and Valentine are drunk, laughing about nothing at all when she brings up the Mirrormask (she'd written the story in a week when she got back and had started rewriting it as a proper novel).
"You were very opportunistic," she giggles, "Always trying to make money off me. And a bit rude too."
"At least I wasn't dressed in my pajamas half the time and looking like a Goth showgirl the other half."
Helena feels herself sober up. Is this that Valentine and he'd never mentioned it? Or had he read the book (some parts of it still had 'Helena' and 'Valentine' as the names instead of their replacements) and he was making fun of her? If it's the latter, he isn't being very nice.
"I love grapes best," Valentine non-sequitors, "Grapes and oranges."
Helena's thoughts grow fuzzy and muffled as she starts to ask him which Valentine he is and when she opens her eyes again she doesn't remember it at all.
XX
"I don't like your boyfriend," Valentine mutters to her one June evening.
"I'm not entirely sure I do either." Helena responds.
"I didn't mean-" Valentine starts to apologize, not like he would, because Valentines don't do that.
"Oh no, he's charming, but we've been in a pre-breakup holding pattern for weeks," Helena sighs.
They're both silent until Valentine gets up and whispers once more, "I still don't like him."
XXI
The book is finished. All the right names have been changed and the unnecessary details gone (of which there were none, actually. Just some spelling mistakes) and all 100 true, not that anyone, not even herself on some days, would believe it. An up-and-coming company is publishing it, and all the book needs is pictures.
Her summer had been devoted to the book, first editing, now drawing. Helena puts the finishing touches on the map years ago, so all she's got left are some other illustrations to be scattered throughout.
When Valentine comes into her trailer, she's on her fourth drawing of the day. He sits down next to her on the bed, both their backs against the wall.
"All this for the book?" he points to the pictures covering her walls.
"Yeah,"
"What's that?" Now he points at the drawing in her hands.
"It's where the mask was originally kept." She darkens the dome with charcoal.
"Helena?"
She looks up and Valentine kisses her, making six years of anticipation she (didn't want to acknowledge that she) held inside come crashing out.
She pulls away with a breathy sigh that should be girly and wrong but feels very right in the moment. She picks back up her pencil and lets her head fall on his shoulder (to get a better angle) and sketches to figures running across the bridge.