Notes: I admit it. This - an HG-centric retelling of the Nikita episode '3.0' - is purely the result of my brain skewing two particular Michael/Nikita moments into Helena/Myka moments. You're welcome.

{*****}

Helena Wells had to admit that life was pretty good these days - actually, blasting down the road in a borrowed Claudia-Donovan-special Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, she had to admit that life was *very* good.

It was hard to believe that, mere weeks ago, she and those dearest to her had been hunted fugitives, with no real future ahead of them except running until they were captured or killed. Now, though, with Division under Arthur Nielsen's leadership - thanks to a desperate gambit that appeared to have paid off in spades - there was a chance for *every* Division agent to get their life back.

That, of course, was entirely contingent upon the successful completion of Division's assigned task: mopping up the various messes the black ops agency had left in its wake under the previous management, and bringing in every agent so that all assets could be accounted for and the place shut down properly.

To that end, Helena was currently tearing down the road in the borrowed Mercedes, in search of her fellow agent - and, more importantly, girlfriend - Myka Bering. Myka had been the one spearheading the quest to tear Division down - with near-fanatical single-mindedness - but had seen the benefits of leaving the place running long enough to provide for the agents they'd be displacing.

Myka, as predicted, was standing outside a local bookstore, being chatted up by a couple of cute men, and actually enjoying it for once. Helena certainly couldn't fault Myka's admirers - the woman was a vision, with her long legs, green eyes, and curly dark hair, especially when relaxed and smiling as she currently was.

The two men, from what Helena could hear as she pulled up, were discussing whatever had gone on at the book club they'd just gotten out of while also trying to get Myka to give up both her name and her agreement to meet them for coffee. It was the sort of terribly mundane moment they'd all thought lost to them, and it was marvelous.

Before Myka could reveal her name, though, Helena did it for her, peering over her sunglasses as she leaned out the car window. "Myka, darling! You're needed back at the office - Arthur said it was something of a minor emergency."

If the way Myka Bering's face lit up when she saw Helena Wells there wasn't enough of a clue, the men flirting with her certainly had it all clarified for them when Myka raced over to kiss her girlfriend. Fortunately, they took it with good grace and a laugh, grinning back at Myka as she waved goodbye. "Sorry, boys! Duty calls!"

Myka's happy mood faded to something more pensive, however, as they drove back to Division and then down into the agency's parking structures. Slouching in her seat even after her door slid open, Myka stared balefully at the empty bay around them. "I'm still not used to being back here..."

Helena just smiled - she could understand Myka's apprehension completely. "Don't fret, darling - it's taking time, but things *are* changing."

The elevator doors opened just then, and a slim, somewhat hyper redhead - otherwise known as Claudia Donovan - burst out of them. "HG! You can't just steal my Mercedes whenever you feel like joyriding - I'm not finished working on this one!"

Myka chuckled, then muttered under her breath. "*Some* things are changing, anyway..."

Of course, it was easy enough for Helena - as a fellow techie and engineer - to distract Claudia from her annoyance about her precious vehicle. Myka followed the conversation for about 90 seconds before it went over her head - give her literature, linguistics, or the biological sciences any day - and then she just cleared her throat. "Artie called a meeting?"

Claudia just grinned. "We finally got a ping off one of our Dirty Thirty crew. You two ready to go kick some super-spy ass?"

The Dirty Thirty, as they'd been dubbed, were the thirty heavy hitters who had refused to return to Division when the call had gone out after the change in management. They were exactly the sort of potential trouble that had gotten the President's tentative agreement to let Division keep going - there was literally no other agency with the right tools to deal with these people quietly and discreetly.

Arthur Nielsen - Artie to his friends - was his usual gruff, grumbling self as he chided them all for taking so long, but they could all tell he was enjoying his new post. The meeting itself didn't take long - their target, an agent named Martin, was in Hong Kong, and had popped up on the grid due to his potential involvement in the deaths of several CIA agents there.

Many, many long hours on a plane later - long hours during which the two women probably scandalized a good portion of their fellow fliers in their attempt to stave off boredom - Helena and Myka were checking into a hotel in Hong Kong under the respective aliases of Emily and Sara Lake.

Myka, of course, was quite taken with the beautiful, romantic suite they got ushered into. "I could totally get used to this."

Helena just grinned at her as she rifled through her luggage, taking advantage of Myka's distraction to deftly transfer a ring box from a suitcase to her coat pocket. Sneaking a quick peek at the ring in the process, Helena had to fight back a grin - she had every intention of adding a couple extra days for relaxation and romance to the trip once the mission was complete.

Of course, Helena's own distraction let Myka catch her completely by surprise - the curly-haired agent was apparently feeling a little frisky, grinning as she pulled Helena close and started tugging at her clothes. Helena almost panicked as she scrambled to keep Myka from finding the ring box, but she managed to get her coat off with Myka none the wiser.

Myka, of course, had noticed something off about that, but took it for the usual mission jitters they all experienced. Still grinning, she just made a joke about Helena needing to relax, right before knocking Helena's feet out from under her and sending her sprawling onto the bed.

Helena certainly wasn't going to argue with the distraction - not unless they were talking a matter of life and death, at least - but it apparently wasn't meant to happen. Myka, in the middle of unbuttoning Helena's shirt, had groaned and pulled away, clearly experiencing an unwanted 'eureka' moment.

They both knew by now never to disregard those, so Helena just lay there patiently as Myka gathered her thoughts. "What is it, darling?"

Myka was already searching for her comm piece. "Martin's no monk. His cover is a fashion photographer right? Maybe he had a favorite model..."

"Nice call, Myka," Claudia confirmed a couple minutes later. "Looks like a model named Lynn Capshaw is his fave - she even lives in Hong Kong."

There was a pause and some background chatter as Claudia confirmed the address, and Helena watched Myka roll her eyes. "Are you *still* fighting with Todd? Whatever you did this time, just apologize - you two are driving the rest of us crazy."

Claudia's response, though good-natured, did not bear repeating in mixed company. Still, she got them the address they needed and confirmed that Capshaw was home - a little while later, they were changed, prepped, and approaching Capshaw's apartment door.

The silence as they knocked did not bode well at all, triggering instincts Helena had honed over years of work in the field. Those instincts proved correct, as the mission went to hell in a matter of minutes. Martin, somehow detecting Division's presence, had done the only thing he could think of to save himself - he'd snapped Lynn Capshaw's neck, leaving the body behind, then called in the police anonymously to ensure that the agents after him took the blame for her murder.

With the police literally at the door, Helena could see only one way out. Myka balked at first, but didn't have any real choice - she ran while Helena stayed behind to be arrested, mollifying the police and allowing at least one of the agents to work without the interference of a manhunt. It was just like a similar mission in Bolivia, really - once things were in order, Myka would be able to free Helena from police custody with little to no trouble.

The arrest and subsequent booking were depressingly routine, and Helena was tempted to cause a little trouble just to alleviate her boredom. She didn't, though, biding her time instead - the Inspector assigned to her case was entertaining at least, unduly (or perhaps rightly) suspicious of an English woman traveling on an American passport.

The worst part was having to sit there patiently, able to do nothing but wait while Myka completed their mission. Helena did her best to fill the time, amusing herself by indulging in a little verbal fencing with the oh-so-paranoid Inspector - he looked almost angry somehow when she began addressing him in perfect Cantonese, requesting her lawyer and contact with her Embassy.

The situation stopped being so amusing, however, when that same Inspector mistakenly concluded that the ring the officers found in Helena's coat pocket - a gorgeous and expensive confection capped off with a diamond solitaire, quite clearly an engagement ring - was somehow proof of motive in Capshaw's murder. Helena had to fight not to roll her eyes and call the man an imbecile. Instead, she just smiled at him sweetly. "I never got the chance to propose, actually. On that note, I *will* be needing the ring returned to me as soon as possible..."

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the plan for her release got set into motion - the cavalry, it seemed, had been successfully called in. Pete Lattimer - a fellow Division agent, and a card-carrying member of what he jokingly called 'Team Myka' - sauntered into the interrogation room pretending to be Helena's Embassy-appointed lawyer, using the guise and a cleverly constructed code to catch Helena up on the situation even as he secretly returned her comm unit.

Helena and Pete even got to share a cleverly concealed laugh over the image of fellow 'Team Myka' agent Steve Jinks throwing a diva-esque tantrum out in the lobby so he could plant a remote access bug of some kind for Claudia. Pete managed to conceal his happy grin when Helena communicated her need to retrieve the engagement ring before leaving, but it was clear he was pleased and not altogether surprised.

All in all, things seemed to be smoothly back on track - of course, it didn't stay that way for long.

Not even a moment or two after Pete had taken care of his current part in Helena's rescue, several officers from the Ministry of State Security - Chinese intelligence, the last people they wanted in the middle of this - approached the Inspector outside the interrogation room and demanded that Helena be turned over to them.

Pete, of course, was swiftly ousted from the room, but he managed to convey first that everything would still be alright if Helena just kept calm and waited. Helena's earpiece only connected her back to Claudia, and by extension, the rest of Division, but that was plenty - between the two of them, Helena and Claudia managed to lock Helena into the interrogation room so that she couldn't be moved until she chose to be.

Once she and Claudia finally decided to let the MSS officers in - a new rescue plan had been formulated, though the specifics were unknown to her - Helena tried to insist that she had personal items that simply must be transferred with her. Even as she watched, though, the Inspector who'd so misliked her picked up the ring box and pocketed it.

Helena spent the trip from the interrogation room to the police station doors imagining the many painful ways she could recover that ring, even while still in handcuffs - it was a pointless exercise really, but it kept her from lashing out. Once outside, though, she had all the distraction she could possibly want.

She didn't really have time to put the specifics together, but the general picture was clear enough. Myka had somehow managed to take the commander of the MSS officers hostage inside his own vehicle, effectively removing him from play. Pete, for his part, had taken out Martin and was currently using Martin's sniper rifle to fire at the various MSS and police officers - clever, that, as the now deceased Martin would be blamed for everything.

Helena spotted Myka as she ousted the MSS chief from his vehicle, and beelined for her through all the commotion. She turned to give one last forlorn glance back at the lost engagement ring - just in time to see the Inspector come rushing out of the building with a few fellow police officers at his side.

Myka moved to help the still-handcuffed Helena into the black SUV - it was *always* a black SUV, after all - but Helena reached for Myka's gun instead. "Give me the gun, darling!"

Myka just blinked in confusion, searching for the new threat. "What? Why?"

Helena, pushed to the end of her endurance, couldn't prevent herself from snapping at her girlfriend a little. "Just give me the bloody Glock!"

There really wasn't anything else for Myka to do but comply. "Where are you going? Helena-!"

"To get your engagement ring!" Helena, already in motion now that she had gun in hand, was at least able to get a glimpse of Myka's stunned but smiling face as the words registered on her.

Myka stayed somewhat stunned for the next several minutes, or she surely would have rushed over to help Helena deal with the handful of police officers she was fighting. Not that Helena really needed the help - her rather one-sided brawl was actually the most fun she'd had all day, and was, in her opinion, over all too swiftly. She did, of course, kick the Inspector a time or two once he was down on sheer principle alone.

Helena grabbed the ring as quickly as she could, then dashed back to Myka. It was too bad, really, that Helena didn't have time to properly enjoy having derailed Myka's brain so thoroughly - instead, she hurried them both into the SUV so they could go rendezvous with Pete and the others.

Needless to say, the romantic extension to their trip that Helena had planned to use was now out of the question. Myka tried to bring up the ring during the flight home, but Helena deflected her every time, saying only that she needed to reformulate her original plans for the proposal now that they were headed back to the States.

It took a few days, especially with all the reports and debriefing once they returned to Division, but Helena finally devised a proposal scenario she deemed acceptable - there was no way for it to be a surprise any longer, of course, but Myka was more than willing to play along anyway.

She bought them tickets to the opera - a shared love they hadn't had time to indulge, despite now being free to do so - and reserved a table at the new restaurant Myka had been pining to try. Date nights, for any reason whatsoever, were a rare and precious commodity for the two of them, and they put aside any thoughts of the impending proposal in order to simply enjoy the evening out.

Finally, though, everything fell into place as they strolled through a nearby plaza after a wonderful show and amazing dinner - they looked quite dashing together, Helena was certain, with Myka in her clinging dress and Helena in her perfectly-tailored tuxedo. There was a beautifully lit old fountain in the center of that plaza, and Helena led them over to it, deciding that it was absolutely perfect.

Myka, taking a seat on the fountain's edge, seemed to understand that the moment had finally arrived. "Helena, you don't have to do this just because I saw the ring..."

"Nonsense, darling," Helena replied. "It's tradition, and I am, despite all outward appearances, quite a traditional woman. Also, you have no idea how damned difficult it was to find you the perfect ring."

With that, Helena went to one knee and held out the open ring box - Myka, still chuckling at Helena's complaint about her difficulties ring shopping, gasped quietly as she got a good look at it for the first time. It was beautiful, all glimmering diamonds and gleaming platinum...

Helena gave her prospective fiancee a moment to recover her wits before she finally spoke. "Myka-"

"Oh god," Myka choked out, too moved to stay silent, "you had me at 'Give me the bloody Glock'..."

One could argue that Helena's smug grin as she slipped the ring onto Myka's finger was totally justified. One could also argue that she wouldn't own the tears shining in her eyes nearly so quickly - though at least Myka was every bit as teary-eyed, which helped Helena to save at least a little face.

It took a moment for them both to feel entirely steady again, and even then Myka was a little shaky in her heels as she got back to her feet. There was actually applause and cheering as the newly-engaged couple hugged and then kissed, but they were so wrapped up in each other that they never even heard it...