This was written for gunbunnycentral as part of Tumblr's Bering and Wells Holiday Gift Exchange. Happy holidays.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this."
"Come on, Myka," Claudia rolled her eyes. "It'll be fun," she tried. The other women looked at her calmly and arched an eyebrow at her, unbelieving. "You're going to thank me when it's over."
"Somehow, I doubt that."
Myka pursed her lips and ran the palms of her hands down the front of her legs, smoothing down her regulation blue coverall flightsuit, a futile gesture — the bottom half of her flightsuit, as always, was perfectly pressed. The top of her coverall suit hung loose, unbuttoned, settled over her hips in definite defiance of regulation.
Claudia ignored her comment, swinging one end of a modified arc welder in her hand. She had a small power supply in her pocket, also modified to streamline the arc welding process and make it smaller, no doubt at the prompting of and with the help of HG Wells. The two of them had complained for ages about the large and unwieldy arc welders used in the hangars of Ganymede and finally Artie had snapped, telling them that if they didn't like it, they could either fix the problem or shut up about it. They'd opted for both the former, improving the design, and the latter, refusing to shut up about their improvements.
"HG's gonna be there," Claudia said, half-singing with a smirk on her face. The tip of her welder sparked and she shook it, whacking the power supply in her coveralls, the faded green uniform that identified her as an engineer and not a pilot like Myka.
Myka scowled half-heartedly, part of her wanting to smile reflexively at the mention of Helena while the other part wanted to kick Claudia for bringing Helena up in the first place.
Across the hangar, Myka's copilot Pete was talking to the woman in question, pointing at his and Myka's ship animatedly. They were too far away for her to see Helena clearly but she could picture the inevitably smirk on Helena's face as she anticipated Pete's comments and met them with her own, supplementing his lack of knowledge about the inner workings of their ship with her vast knowledge as one of the best engineers on all of Jupiter's inhabited moons and most of Saturn's.
Claudia elbowed her, pulling out an oil-covered rag and offering it to Myka. "Wipe the drool away, Mykes. It's not a good look for you."
Myka pushed her arm away. "I wasn't drooling," she said adamantly. "I wasn't even looking at Helena. And I don't care if she'll be there. I don't want to go."
"But it's Christmas!" Claudia cried. Her welder swung in the air, metal glowing blue. "They're going all out. It's a traditional Christmas party. There's gonna be hot chocolate and cookies shaped like dogs with red noses. They're going to hang lights from the ships and we're going to feed an old man carrots and make him climb down a fake chimney. Just like the old days. You have to come, okay?" her voice grew more quiet, contemplative, and a sense of quiet settled over them, cutting through the loudness of a dozen flight-ready spaceships coming and going, being worked on and tinkered with constantly. "The holidays are for family."
"I already said I would come, Claudia," Myka said gently, leaning into the shorter woman a little bit. "And if Pete doesn't eat them all first, I promise I'll eat some of your cookies. I'll complain about it because I don't want to be there, but I'll do it."
Claudia nodded. "Good," she said firmly. "Now let's talk gifts."
Pete found Myka in her room later, wrapping presents in thick brown paper, the only kind she could find on the base on short notice. When she let Claudia convince her to come to the holiday party, she knew she was agreeing to a wealth of misinterpreted old holiday traditions; she did not know she was agreeing to buy presents for everyone. Myka ended up having to use several gifts she'd managed to collect in preparation for various birthdays.
"I am a pilot. I'm a captain," she muttered to herself, signaling for the door to her quarters to open at Pete's arrival. "I am the best pilot on this base. I fly spaceships and I fire weapons and I kick tons of ass on at least a daily basis."
"And now you're struggling with paper," Pete finished for her, holding down a crinkled brown corner so that Myka could apply an adhesive to the box holding her gift for Artie. Pete pressed the paper against the adhesive until it stuck and Myka breathed a sigh of relief that it was done.
Pete grinned at her. "Also, you're not the best pilot on the base."
"You're not about to say you're a better pilot than I am, are you? Because I have the flight logs to prove that's not true."
Pete's grin fell and he held out a container of thick white liquid to her, his brows furrowing. "I was going to say something about how we are the best pilot duo on this station," he gesticulated in what Myka considered typical Pete fashion, drawing out his vowels and stretching out his words, sloshing the liquid he held in front of her. "Something inspiring and wonderful about our partnership making us both better. It would have been one for the ages. But now, you get nothing."
Myka rolled her eyes. "If you have nothing for me, what are you doing here?"
"Supposedly, this is eggnog," Pete replied, shaking the container again until she finally took it from him, if only to stop him from continually wagging it in her face. "That's what Claudia said, at least."
"What do you want me to do with it?" she eyed the liquid suspiciously. She tilted the container to the side and the "eggnog" slowly slid from one end of the closed plastic cup to the other. She put it on her desk.
He shrugged. "Claudia told me to bring it to you. Said it would get you in the Christmas spirit. Apparently, someone — and this someone shall remain nameless — was acting a little grinch-y."
Myka sighed and put the drink on her workstation, moving aside some ship schematics. "I'm not a grinch. It's just —" she paused, searching for the right words and finding none. She floundered under Pete's earnest gaze, shrugging her shoulders. The silence lingered between them, decidedly not Christmassy in spirit.
Pete looked at her knowingly and she wanted to hate him for it but she was grateful for the fact that he knew her well enough that she didn't have to spell out her problems for him. "Is this an HG thing?" he asked, and somehow his look got more knowing. "What am I saying? It's always an HG thing."
Myka flung her hand at him, catching him in the stomach lightly. "It's not always an HG thing, Pete."
Pete crossed his arms and leaned against Myka's workstation, his hip resting against the edge. "So is it not an HG thing this time?"
Myka eyed him warily. "I didn't say that."
Pete somehow managed to smirk and hum at the same time and she glared at him as he said, "That's what I thought."
"I just — " Myka sighed deeply and opened the bottom drawer at her workstation, rifling in it hesitantly. "I did have some Christmas gifts already. You, Claudia, Steve. I already had gifts for you all. I didn't wrap them, but I did have them." She finally found what she was looking for, tucked away in the back of the drawer underneath a stack of recent letters from her sister back home. Myka pulled out a small unwrapped blue box with a simple ribbon stuck to the top and passed it to Pete, nodding at his questioning glance to open it.
Inside was a glittering bracelet, some kind of synthesized silver-like metal. It couldn't have been the real thing — that was too rare and valuable a commodity to ever be found on the middle Milky Way colonies. Earth Prime? Maybe if you knew the right person and made more than a pilot's salary. Out on Ganymede? No way. It was a good facsimile though, he'd give her that.
Silver-looking but definitely non-silver chains wove together around unidentified minerals, all blues and greens and rich browns set into intricate metalwork. There was a small engraving on one of the links, something in a language Pete didn't know and so small that it was barely noticeable, so fine were the many links that made up the bracelet.
Myka watched Pete's features, the various emotions that passed over his face until he settled on something between impressed and pitying.
"It's too nice, isn't it?"
Pete gave the bracelet one more look of appraisal and shut the box, passing it back to her. "Not if you're trying to apologize to your wife for forgetting an anniversary," he shrugged. "For a woman you're definitely not married to — hell, not even dating — yeah, it's a little much."
Myka released a deep sigh and nodded. "I kind of figured. But I saw it and I thought of Helena," she explained. "At the time, it seemed like an appropriate idea."
Myka started to put the small box with the other gifts she'd gathered for her friends but at Pete's look, she set it aside, eying it almost wistfully. She ran her fingers over the delicate silver bow for a moment.
Pete placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention away from the gift, which was now occupying a lonely corner of her workstation. "It's just not the kind of gift you give a women before you've even taken her on a first date."
"At the rate we're going, that's never going to happen," she muttered.
She and Pete had had this conversation a few (or a hundred) times already and she knew how it would play out. Pete would settle in and ask a simple "why?" and Myka would tell him it was just never the right time. And when it was the right time, something would happen to make it not the right time — politically-motivated reshuffling of Earth's various military branches, hostile raider attacks on nearby colonies, one of them would betray everyone and almost destroy all of Jupiter's moons and go into quarantine for a while, exes. Pete would give her an understanding look, some words of encouragement, and provide her with the fourth-best imitation licorice he could find.
This time, though, Pete said nothing for so long a moment that Myka started to worry. Her quarters were quiet but for a strange gurgling sound coming from the plastic container of Claudia's "eggnog," a unique holiday carol sounding out a melody Myka didn't know in sounds that she didn't understand.
"There's no such thing as 'the right time,'" is what Pete finally said to her. "You can keep waiting for it if you want, but it's not gonna show. Just…ask her out already," he finished. "Or don't," he added, shrugging again. "But stop blaming time for your own indecision."
Myka blinked at him. "That was surprisingly deep," she replied. "You feeling okay? How much eggnog did you drink?"
She tried to put her palm on his forehead but he waved it away. "Oh, all right," he rolled his eyes. "I'll see you tonight at the party, Mykes. Don't forget to not bring the rest of that stuff," he joked, gesturing at the still-bubbling drink sitting on her workstation, mocking her from its place next to her gift to Helena.
Evening came too quickly for Myka. The clock that indicated that it was 1900 hours Earth Standard time even chimed, taunting her with a festive Hanukkah song. The base held to Earth's 24-hours time system because it was easier for communication between different operations if everyone was using the same method of keeping time. So while it was distinctly evening for the humans on Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter's satellite moons was undisturbed by the holiday cheer of its residents, continuing its slow seven-day orbit around the gas giant. It had been evening on Ganymede for days.
Myka dressed casually for the night, donning black pants and simple button-up where she pinned her insignia, as procedure required. She doubted that anyone would even notice, let alone care, but there was some comfort to be found in the familiar silver bars that signified her rank as Captain.
By 1930 hours, music was playing across the base, pumped out through the intercom system. Even Myka's personal communication unit was blasting holiday music, a song about a talking snowman in full swing and showing no signs of stopping. It was all Claudia's doing, no doubt. The sounds of celebration and merriment filtered out from the mess hall and lounge, filling the adjacent hangar, where decorative multi-colored lights hung from various ships, combat and transport alike. They were shaped in the style popular on the middle colonies — great ovals linked together like chains, rotating like the rings of Saturn. They weren't "traditional Earth style," which Myka had been promised by Claudia, but she appreciated the thought and effort gone into both obtaining them and hanging them up.
"Our very own Santa Claus," came a familiar teasing voice from the shadows, catching Myka off-guard. She almost dropped her bag, bursting with various gifts, but Helena stepped out from beneath a row of glowing lights and grabbed it before it could fall to the ground.
Myka grinned, as she so often did in the presence of the other woman, and thanked her, the two of them together lowering it gently to the cement floor of the hangar. She waved a striped red and green hat at Helena, showing off the overly-large pointed ears glued to its sides. "Actually," she corrected, "Claudia made me one of Santa's elves."
Helena smirked at her and produced an identical hat from inside her jacket, a slate-colored number worn over a matching vest and white top. She wore her worn black work boots over black pants that were entirely too distracting for Myka. The hat clashed with her outfit horribly, which Myka found somehow endearing. "It appears we are both to be Santa's elves," Helena said cheerfully, eyes bright in the lights surrounding them.
The music track playing out over the intercom switched to a more somber song, smooth tones echoing across the empty hangar, filling it with the promise of a blue Christmas. Helena fought the melancholy of the music by putting her elf hat on.
"Claudia almost built a sleigh," Helena said, grinning. "A working sled for our Santa Claus, who, in typical Artie fashion, did not appreciate it. I hear he's not the only grinch we have around here this year," she teased good-naturedly.
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Myka bristled. "I'm not a grinch. I happen to think it's…kind of sweet," she admitted, rolling her eyes and pulling on her own elf hat. She could feel her hair protesting, sticking out from beneath her cap a bit too much, trying to puff outward.
Helena laughed, not unkindly, and pulled the hat down further on Myka's head, fingers smoothing down errant rebellious curls. "It is," she agreed, eyes focused on her own hands in Myka's hair. "We're her only family, you know, we misfits of Ganymede."
Myka nodded, caught in the intensity of Helena's gaze as it swept from her own hands and Myka's hair to Myka's eyes, then down her cheeks to her lips. She met Myka's eyes again and oh god, this was it. Pete was wrong. The right time did exist and it was right now, with Helena standing so close to her — when had that happened? — and Helena's fingers playing around a strand of Myka's hair.
Myka cleared her throat and stepped away, letting the moment pass and regretting every step. She made a move for her bag of presents.
Helena reached out at the same time, her hand on Myka's arm, stopping it. "Actually, darling, I have something I want to show you before we go to the party."
Helena began pulling her along and Myka made a halfhearted grab for her gifts, swinging her arm in the air and missing. "But what about —"
"Someone will be along for those," was all Helena said, leading her through a maze of lights and various ships. They passed through patches of darkness, spaces unlit by the bright oval rings that had been put up, and all Myka would see was the pointed top of Helena's hat passing in and out of shadow. Helena's hand was gripping hers firmly as she led the way.
Myka gave up trying to figure out where they were headed, the familiarity of the hangar lost inside twinkling Christmas lights and the feel of Helena's hand in hers.
Two songs later, they came to a stop outside of a ship that Myka would recognize anywhere, even in the dark, and it was a welcome sight. Helena released her hold on Myka and she missed it instantly.
"I've made some modifications to your ship," Helena announced, pressing a few buttons on the control panel where Myka and Pete's ship was docked. Bay 13 hummed to life as blinking red and white guide lights lit up on the ground, illuminating a path for the ship to undock and depart. During busy times, dock lights would be flashing everywhere, on runways and in the hangar alike, and navigational beacons would ensure that accidents were kept to a minimum. Tonight, only a single lane was lit.
"Last time you made modifications to my ship without asking, it almost exploded," Myka said.
"That wasn't my fault. And really, the key word in that sentence is 'almost,'" Helena shot back, punching in the sequence to open up the ship in front of them. It only worked with Myka or Pete's code and Myka didn't even want to know how Helena got her hands on one of those. It would probably be better if she allowed herself some plausible deniability if anything happened.
"I think the key word is actually 'exploded,'" Myka replied.
A panel on the side of the spacecraft slid open when the correct code was entered and Helena, elf hat and all, walked in like she owned Myka and Pete's ship. When Myka didn't immediately follow, she popped her head back out and called, "Are you coming?"
"I don't seem to have much of a choice…"
The cockpit was already thrumming as Myka walked in. Helena had settled into Pete's seat comfortably and initiated the launch procedures herself, moving with a practiced ease that was born of her years as a pilot before she moved into the engineering branch of Earth Corps. Helena had been one of the best pilots Myka had ever seen and even though she was a damn good engineer, Myka knew that part of Helena would always miss this, the feel of controlling a spaceship, guiding it out of orbit and into the void.
"Helena, where are we going? What are you up to?" she asked.
Helena said nothing, strapping herself in and looking at Myka expectantly, waiting for her to do the same.
Myka rolled her eyes but took her place anyway, pulling her harness over her shoulders and connecting the buckles on either side, waiting for the energy crystals inside to connect with an audible tinkling sound that signaled that she was ready for takeoff. "We're going to miss Claudia's party," she uttered quietly, checking the fuel, oxygen, and gravity systems purely on habit.
"We'll be back in plenty of time, Myka," Helena finally said to her. As Myka opened her mouth with what would have been a doubting comment, Helena engaged the lower thrusters, forcing the ship up into a low hover. "Warehouse Command, this is Iron Shadow preparing for departure," she spoke with great authority.
To Myka's surprise (as she expected everyone to be gathered at the celebration), Steve Jinks came over the intercom. "Hey, HG. Myka," he added, a hint of sheepishness in his voice even through the electronic communications unit. "Iron Shadow is clear for takeoff and departure on beacon Alpha-7. That should get you where you want to go."
Helena nodded even though he couldn't see her and set a course. "There's a bag of gifts in the hangar," she went on. "See that they get to the right place, will you?"
"Sure thing," Steve said. "When you get back to the dome, page me for reentry. Warehouse Command, out."
"Are you going to tell me what you're up to now?" Myka asked. She left the handling of the Iron Shadow to Helena, who knew the ship's schematics as well as she did and had no trouble piloting it on her own. Pete and Myka were considered copilots on the ship, named for Pete's favorite childhood superhero, and though Myka was technically the senior officer aboard, the fighter was a labor of love for both of them. Because of this, much of the work piloting it had been split between them; during certain circumstances, however, the Iron Shadow could be piloted by only one person. And since it was Helena's show, Myka settled in and let the other woman run it.
"Absolutely not," Helena said, navigating the ship out of the hangar and towards the nearest exit portal. Traffic was light on Ganymede this evening, and they made it out of the large domes of the military base and civilian city in record time. "You'll just have to wait. I have plans for you, Captain Bering."
"You could give me a hint," Myka tried, watching her monitors for any sign of distress. She trusted Helena with the Iron Shadow but didn't necessarily trust the rest of the universe to comply with her faith in Helena.
"I could," Helena agreed. At Myka's look, she only smiled.
The artificial gravity of Earth's Ganymede domes gave way to a thin atmosphere and below them, Myka could see the grooved ridges that made up most of the surface, intricate and beautiful even years after her first assignment to the satellite moon. Large flat craters dotted the icy landscape, growing smaller as the Iron Shadow rose.
Helena led them up further from the surface of Ganymede but kept them close enough that Myka figured they wouldn't be going far. She didn't see any exploration gear so she assumed they wouldn't be leaving the ship. This left few options for what they might be doing, but Helena would give nothing away. Myka even tried to engage her by asking after Christina, who was visiting relatives on Mars. Helena said so little that she might as well have said nothing at all.
Myka's thoughts turned inward. There was a gift box in her pocket, burning a metaphorical hole in it. Maybe she could find a right moment out here, in the quiet peace of space, away from friends and coworkers and pressure. There were only the stars with them now — the stars above and the ice below.
"Do you remember when we were on Titan?" Helena asked after a few minutes, keeping the ship steady. "At the domes near Ligeia Mare?"
"How could I forget? Pete begged for weeks to visit the lakes of Titan," Myka said. "He said that it was one of the galaxy's greatest sites. Of course, he said that about dinner last night, too."
The Iron Shadow slowed as Helena started a sequence that left it hovering over a large crater, resting steady well above the surface of Ganymede. Helena loosened the straps of her harness and pulled them off, freeing her to move about the cockpit if she so chose.
"He was quite insufferable," Helena nodded. "Claudia and Steve kept him busy for most of the trip, however."
Myka recalled the trip fondly, her eidetic memory pulling up snapshots from their visit, images of Titan's still and dark lakes, images of Helena inside a shop looking at trinkets to take back to Christina. She remembered the sound of Helena's laughter in the great city at Ligeia Mare, free and without worry.
Helena rose from her seat, nodding for Myka to do the same. Myka followed suit, freeing herself from the confines of her seat and stretching her legs as she stood. Helena led her to the front of the ship, where windows were placed to allow a clear view of what was in front of them. There were cameras and sensors to handle what was behind; it was more important that they could look ahead to what was coming.
"We drank imported wine from Neptune," Helena reminded her. "And watched the light dance across the surface of the lake. It was beautiful."
They were standing together, probably closer than they should have been. Helena's fingers brushed up against hers. Myka looked determinedly in front of them. Ganymede rotated on an axis and orbited Jupiter, but one of its sides always faced Jupiter. The Iron Shadow was facing slightly away from the planet, straddling the two opposite sides of Ganymede. As Ganymede moved, the sun managed to reach them, eclipsed slightly by Jupiter but more present than it ever was on their base.
"I've calculated that this is the best place on Ganymede to be as it moves out from Jupiter's shadow," Helena said gently, her voice so soft that it barely disturbed the comfortable stillness that had settled on them. "I've brought Christina here many times. Today, I wanted to share it with you. It's beautiful," she went on. "Like Titan."
"Like you," Myka said immediately. She almost regretted it — oh god, was a right moment trying to happen? — but the look on Helena's face stopped her. She was looking at Myka so intently, so earnestly, with so much trust. It left Myka breathless. They were so close now, somehow always so close, occupying the same space.
"I was just about to say that," Helena said. After a moment, she went on, "I have a confession, Myka. I didn't make any modifications to your ship."
"I kind of figured," Myka admitted. "This is much better," she added. Helena smiled at her. On an impulse, Myka reached into her pocket, grasping at the simple blue box within. If ever there was to be a moment…
And then she faltered. It was so close, this moment that she desperately wanted to happen, and all she had to do was initiate it. Myka felt the weight of her every interaction with Helena, all of them leading to something that felt inevitable. Yet there was so much that could go wrong, so many doubts, so many promises already broken between them in a lifetime that felt long past, so long past that it was never spoken of.
In front of her, Helena shifted, digging into one of the many pockets of her jacket and pulling out an object. It was a plant of all things. It was simple and fake, made up of three green leaves and a few red berries. With a roll of her eyes, Helena held it up high above her, waving it over the red and green hat she still wore.
"Is that mistletoe?" Myka wondered incredulously.
Helena nodded. "Claudia provided it. It's traditional that when a person is standing beneath mistletoe, someone has to kiss them. And since you and I are the only people here," she trailed off suggestively.
"Did —" Myka stuttered. She blinked
"You looked so terribly indecisive standing there, darling," Helena explained. "I thought I would help you."
"Are you…seducing me with mistletoe?"
"Is it working?"
Myka laughed, feeling the tension and weight of a dozen considerations slipping away. "I think it is," she said. "But you know, we're very late for Claudia's party."
She made to move away, still laughing, and Helena grabbed her sleeve, one hand still waving mistletoe above them. "Myka Bering. Get back here and kiss me already."
So Myka did.