As all my one shots this one wasn't reviewed by a beta reader. My mother tongue still isn't English.
Neither of them was aware of it but they both already breathed the same air when Helena was debronzed. Myka had left the bronzing sector short time before Leena had pushed the button that brought the Victorian writer back to life. Inhaling air for the first time after a century of being immobile and not breathing was painful. She didn't know that part of the oxygen she now sucked in with big needy breaths had already been in the lungs of the one woman who was going to get to know her better than anyone else.
When they first met, Helena again wasn't aware of the woman she shared her breath with. She just passed her, apologising for making her walk out of the way.
In the room where that silly actor tried to show them an image of a H.G. Wells that never existed, the air both of them inhaled was stale. For a short moment the Victorian watched the female American agent who fought with her partner and the way she breathed her words over her full lips, then the writer went on trying to fullfill her plans.
She later was stunned by the woman who walked into the hall where Helena had just kissed that annoying male agent, who she was now holding in her arms and threatening with his tesla. The Victorian couldn't take her gaze from the tall and beautiful woman whose way to breathe seemed to mirror her strength. Helena watched the younger woman's chest rise and fall as she slowly walked closer, babbling about she had to realise that she, H.G. Wells was in fact a woman. The Brit felt her own breath fastening up, while they were surveyed eachother and when they tricked her with that funny noise, she pressed the air out frustrated out of her lungs.
She was nervous, when the Agent chained her on the chair and she tried hard to hide her unrhythmic way of breathing when her fingers moved for a short second over the agent's. Their whole conversation was frustrating. The male agent was annoying but Helena seemed to have an effect on the female one, who was walking up and down, sucking in oxygen nervously while listening to the Victorian's story. Of course Helena had to trick them, but she wasn't that satisfied as she wanted to be, when she looked up at them with a amused chuckle, while the Warehouse agents were sucked to the ceiling. H.G. listened to the female Agent's sharp breathtaking when she collided with the ceiling and realised for a quick second that this mirrored her own painful breathing when she was awaken from her century long state of being half asleep.
Helena was now fleeing, but of course they had to meet again, and breathe the same air again.
The next time they shared oxygen was short and frustrating. It was in the Warehouse when the writer was betrayed by McPherson, the man who hat initialised her awaking. Of course he wanted to tell them what their plan was and of course Helena had to stop him and then flee again.
Myka literally and figuratively stole Helena's breath when they met the next time. She was actually able to finish her sentence about them being destined to meet at gunpoint. But when she tried to explain herself she suddenly felt the Agent's grip around the throat, embracing her flesh and pinning the writer against a wall. Now Helena was choking, while Myka sucked in air angrily and frustrated. The Agent was angry and Helena could hear it in the younger woman's statements about sending her back to the bronze sector, so Helena politely requested for oxygen to speak to her, while the writer could feel her lungs fastly run out of it. She coughed hard because sucking air into her lungs after the younger woman released her was now painful again.
The next time breathing the same air as Myka Bering became thrilling was when Helena was able to show her grappler to the agent. When they were dangling in the air, just hold by the rope of Helena's own invention, she could feel the agents chest rise and fall under the arm the Victorian had wrapped around the American to hold her embraced while rescuing her from the car.
When Helena told Myka about the loss of her daughter, she could barely breathe those tears away that now slowly filled her eyes. She let out air in relieve when Myka allowed her to help her and the strange redhead with the case.
In the factory, sharing the same air was intoxicating. The writer had a hard time concentrating on their interview and not watching Myka instead. Of course, the Agent was an attractive woman, but it was her behaviour that really fascinated Helena. Myka was very similar to herself, the Victorian realised.
After Helena had successfully found a way to rescue the Warehouse agent's little red-haired friend, the air between them became sliceable for the first time. It was filled with tension and unasked questions when their eyes met and Helena hold her breath for a second. The moment only lasted for a few seconds, then the Agent was overwhelmed by the girl's recovery and H.G. realised she had to walk away again, just to show up a few weeks later to meet the woman she started liking to share air with.
It was equally thrilling as the last time they met as Helena G. Wells was able to breathe again the same air as Myka Bering . But this time she tried harder to convince the Agent to find a way to reinstate her as a Warehouse agent. She was successfull, even if that meant bringing herself into danger and almost being killed by the coldness of an artifact that made it so hard to catch her breath.
The second time they breathed the same air of the Warehouse, they didn't miss out on eachother or just shared the air frustratringly short. This time, Helena and Myka breathed the Warehouse's air together, for a longer time. Sometimes, the writer watched the younger agent breathe, almost forgetting her plan, that would probably stop both of their breaths, if successfull.
And the Victorian completely forgot her plan for a few moments when Myka's breath became a very important task in her life, when the Agent was bound to the articifier's invention, her time machine, that needed electricity to keep Myka alive. Helena had barely ever been so relieved in her life when she could finally see the younger woman wake up and take healthy deep breaths again.
And then there was Helena's betrayal. No one knew the pain Helena felt when she took a deep breath to turn around in Warehouse 2 and shoot the woman she enjoyed sharing air with, the woman whose existence she more than appreciated, with her tesla.
In Paris, their meeting was again short and the air in the crypt was as cold as the tension between them.
Finally in Yellowstone sharing air with Myka Bering was painful, not for her lungs but for her mind. The way the younger woman looked at her when she pressed the gun in Helena's hand against her own forehead, the way she talked to her, pleading her to shoot her instead of killing her like a coward by ending the world, it took the Victorian's breath away. She was unable to fullfill her plan, she was unable to do what she had planed before and in all those years of immobility and without air filling her lungs. The time she kneeled on the ground, mourning her Christina, mourning the world's injustice was the last time Helena G. Wells and Myka Bering shared air for a long time.
During the next times they met, Helena didn't actually breathe. She was a Hologram, a memory on a coin projected on the air by a black round object. Even the air she pressed over her lips while looking at the younger woman, frustrated and sad, filled with pain and love, was simulated. The Victorian wished she could feel the air that surrounded Myka, she wished she could suck it into her lungs, having something inside her that was inside Myka priorly. But it wasn't possible.
Helena was sure the air in the forest was cold and fresh and maybe there was the smell of foliage and wood, when she looked into the sky, trying to make its blue her last memory.
But she didn't know how that air smelled or felt like.
Back in her body, the Brit met the American again in the Ancient Regent's sanctum. In this place, the air was musty, because it was old and no one had taken a breath in this place for a long time. Helena was staring at Myka, who was trapped in this chair, her eyes filled with fear, waiting for the writer to make the next move in the game of chess. The agent's breath again became the most important task in the Victorian's life and this time there was no second thought because of her planed betrayal. H.G. was frightened, sucking air in and out, she watched the tears on Myka's cheeks running down while she searched desperately in her head for a way to rescue the woman she loved. The thought that the rescue of Myka also meant to help Walter Sykes stole Helena's breath, but when she thought back about her home and the time she smelt apples in Warehouse 12 for the first time, she remembered what she had to do and she pressed air over the edge of her lips in relieve.
When the writer and the agent later were alone in the Sanctum they shared this one happy moment with eachother, after Myka declared that she didn't think that Helena was the evil one. The younger woman was mocking H.G. about order of their names and the Victorian could feel how their shared air filled with hope.
Later in the Warehouse both women were trapped by the rope from the Mary Celeste. It wrapped around their necks, choking them, taking the air away from them, but there she was, Helena, pressed against Myka's body, afraid of dying but with a strange feeling of happiness, because the agent came back to rescue her; because the agent was in fact now pressed against her body. To be honest, she was a slightly bit frustrated when Arthur rescued them.
There was this event that never happened it Helena's life, it was when the Warehouse's air smelled again like apples for her, when she sacrificed herself for the woman she loved and just breathed the words "Thank you." over her lips instead of actually saying them. It is more than possible that Helena would have been happy if she knew what she did in the timeline that Artie erased by using the astrolabe.
After the Warehouse was defeated from Walter Sykes, the Victorian went away again. Again she was unable to inhale the same air as Myka Bering. At first she took time for herself, then she had to hide the astrolab. And then… then Helena met Adelaide and her father Nate. This was the time when the author lied to herself, when she told herself that breathing the same air as Myka Bering wasn't anything she wished for in her life. But in fact, it was the one thing she wished most for. Meeting Myka again in Boone was painful. Looking at her hurt Helena. Sharing little touches with her hurt Helena. Breathing the same air… it was unbearable. And so the writer said words she didn't mean to the agent to frighten her away, because Helena knew that all the times she and the younger woman had shared air ended in chaos in pain. The Victorian was now here with Adelaide and Nate, who was a good man, and she loved the girl. The Brit lied to herself, pretending that there wasn't this beautiful breath-taking woman named Myka Bering, who looked with tear-filled eyes at her when they said their good byes next to the car and who told her to fight for the man she shared a bed with but had no feelings for.
Hugging Myka for farewell, Helena realised that she needed to breathe the same air as Myka, that she needed to be with her. Myka was an important part of the Victorian's life, she needed her like she needed air to breathe.
So she left Nate and Adelaide after a long time of struggeling with her feelings.
The next time Myka and Helena met, the Victorian again was out of oxygen because she had run up the stairs in the B&B way too fast. She took fast and short breaths while her voice trembled as she declared her love to Myka. For the first time in her life, H.G. Wells, famous father of science fiction, author, always with wit on her lips, was out of breath and out of words at the same time. Now she was standing there, trying to catch her breath, nervous like a child. She could feel her heart flutter in her chest when she watched Myka's lips turn into a smile. It started pounding when the agent wrapped her arms around her. And when their lips and tongues met for the first time, they soon went out of oxygen again. But this time, they cause of their breath being taken away was something they intended.