Sorry for the tense shift. For some reason, this chapter insisted on being in present tense. Think of it as an experiment.
Later, with Helena
Helena slides out of the taxi behind Mr. Kosan. She doesn't understand why they've flown her into Paris. The Regents didn't provide a word of explanation when they requested she leave her imprisonment and follow them. For a moment, she thought Myka had succeeded in destroying the artifact, and the Regents would question if she'd been involved. She was quite prepared to take full responsibility and blame for Myka's actions, but the Regents never even hinted at the artifact being missing. Instead, their foreboding silence reminded her of her previous arrest, and she considered they might be moving her to another security facility. It was why she'd agreed to the journey and hadn't argued for restraints.
The hospital sprawling before them doesn't exactly suggest 'prison', however. Perhaps this is some sort of psychological examination.
She follows Kosan through the double set of automatic doors, and almost wishes Mrs. Frederic was with them. The woman is intimidating and gives the distinct impression she can read one's thoughts which was annoying when Helena wanted to deceive the Regents, but would be greatly welcomed now if it eliminates the need to speak with a psychologist.
The bustle and sounds of the hospital flow around them as they walk. French is murmured and called out through the halls, and the language grates on her as it always seems to when she visits France. It never irritates her outside the country, only here. But perhaps it isn't her distaste for the language as it is her distaste for the city itself. She really isn't a 'fan' of Paris.
They step into an elevator now. She feels the unpleasant jolt in her stomach as the elevator moves and her internal organs struggle to match the momentum.
They arrive on the fifth floor, and Mr. Kosan leads the way to a far corridor. Helena wishes she'd asked questions now, insisted on answers of where they were headed, because her nerve falters when faced with so much unknown.
Well, better late than never.
"Why are we here?" She stops in the hall, a silent refusal to move any further until some things are explained. Mr. Kosan turns around.
"There's been an incident. Agent Bering has been affected by an artifact, and we need your input on the case."
"You fly me out to Paris for a case? Why not leave me where I was and simply ask for my input?" Her stomach knots with dread. Even as she argues so nonchalant, she knows this isn't an ordinary case. Something awful is involved. Something awful that has sent Myka to the hospital.
"It'll be easier to explain once we've found Agent Bering's room."
"How bad is it?" She hopes her voice doesn't sound weak or afraid. She isn't being weak; she simply needs some warning of what lies ahead. Because she is so very afraid.
"Agent Bering is still alive."
Helena believes she hears an unspoken 'for now' at the end of that answer. She takes a breath to steel herself and resumes following Mr. Kosan.
She isn't prepared for the myriad of machines arranged by the head of Myka's bed. They don't appear to be simple monitoring devices. Helena is struck with the sickening notion that one or more of the machines fall under the category of life support. That Myka should already be dead if not for this artificial help.
She stays far away from the door, as far as she can be without passing through walls. She sees Pete sitting by the bed, looking grim and drawn. She thinks that's Artie pacing just beyond the edge of the doorframe. This hall is mostly silent save for the faint murmuring and whimpering of a child somewhere. The crying seems a fitting supplement to the beeps coming from Myka's room, the beeps that sound magnified by the time they reach Helena's ears.
No, she isn't prepared for this at all.
"You know the artifact."
It doesn't sound like a question. Helena's thoughts are pulled to the locket, and she wonders if this is a lingering side effect of her resurrection. If it's her fault, Myka has fallen ill during a case.
Pete spies her before she can respond. He springs up from his chair and bolts over, not like he wants to lash out with anger and blame, but like she holds all the answers he's been seeking. It scares her more than the blame would.
Pete bounds into the hall. "H.G., thank god! We need your help figuring this out. Neutralizing the locket didn't change anything. We need to know how works."
The locket. This is her fault. "I don't know how it works," she shakes her head. "I don't know anything about it as an artifact."
"But it's your artifact. You created it."
"I didn't! Not on purpose, at least. I have no idea how it works or how to counter its consequences." There likely isn't a way to counter it. It's an artifact that toys with life and death. Those are always the most ruthless artifacts.
They are left with only one choice. One possible solution to save Myka. "Destroy it." She'd wanted it from the beginning. She can only assume they've brought the locket here as well, or have someone standing by it, awaiting orders. "Destroy the locket." The answer is so obvious that she wonders why no one's done it already.
Artie has joined them in the hall, and she looks at him now. He should know better than any of them that it was the only way Myka might survive this. "Why haven't you destroyed it yet, break the connection?" She knows the answer before she finishes the question. Can read it in the expression of Artie's face, can feel it materialize out of her awareness of the give-and-take methods of such artifacts. "Because it would kill me?"
It's a foolish reason. She is the one who should be dead - who had died! Why are they hesitating as Myka lay hospitalized?
Artie shakes his head, looking grave. Mr. Kosan is the one who answers, though.
"Because it might kill your daughter."
Helena blinks. Breathes in, out. She misheard him. She must have.
"My daughter is already dead." Has been for decades upon decades, for over a century's worth of years. She cannot die when she's already buried.
But Pete's shaking his head. "No, she isn't, H.G. She's very much alive again."
Helena's never heard him speak so gently. It must be the utter strangeness of it that makes her register that observation. Her eyes slide over to the wall, like she can see past it to Myka in the bed. The sounds, the childish cries and voice she's been ignoring, have become clearer, louder. She's achingly aware of them, but can't determine if she recognizes them, if they match a memory, because the sounds in her head faded long ago with bronze.
"She used the locket." It's a whisper, a statement that needed to be breathed out loud in order to sound anything like real. Her hand comes up to her neck like the locket is still around it, but of course there's no chain hanging there anymore. "She wasn't supposed to use it."
"You asked Miss Bering to take the locket?"
She isn't listening closely enough to identify who's spoken - has barely understood the words. She dismisses the accusation out of hand. It is a question that doesn't matter, and she has one that does.
"Why?"
"What?" She thinks that was Pete. She's listening now.
"Why would you tell me about this?" Do they not see how cruel that was? How torturous? That was not something she should have known. It should never have happened, even been possibility. She ignores Kosan to glare at Artie. At Pete. Somehow she feels the most betrayed by them when there's never been any sort of bond there to betray. "You shouldn't have told me."
"We had to," Pete says, weakly.
Artie starts, "It wasn't in our rights to -" but Helena interrupts him.
"Your rights?" she shouts. "No, it wasn't in your rights! You had no grounds to take the locket and use it on my daughter! And now -" she cuts herself off with a breath and gazes back at the wall. Dimly, she realizes she hasn't cried yet. Not a single tear has formed, but she's shaking rather badly. Her hand twists with her shirt collar in lieu of the locket. The artifact.
"How long has she been unconscious?"
"About five hours," Artie answers. "Breaking the locket might not hurt your daughter. But it also might not wake Myka up. It could hurt any of you, none of you, all of you - we don't know how the connection works." But Helena's already losing the words, letting them drift away from her without touching.
Five hours. The Regents had her in flight before Myka had even used the artifact. They'd known what would happen. Or what could happen. They'd realized she would be needed here to make a decision.
Five hours and already Myka was wired to machines. Trying to cheat death yet again.
They are already too late.
"Where's the locket?"
Artie has it. Still in the silvered neutralizer bag, though he removes it with his gloved hand. The precautions seem too much when they aren't doing anything to protect Myka.
"Give it to me." She holds out her hand. No one moves.
"That's not the only option. There's got to be another way."
"Give it to me!" Pete startles, and she thinks she sees Kosan frown in the corner of her eye, but she pays them no mind. Her attention is on Artie as he reaches out the hand with the locket. He's taking too long; she can still hear the faint sobbing leaking through the walls. How terrible of them to keep her so close, to tempt Helena like this.
There was no temptation. Her daughter wasn't there. She was never brought back because such a feat is impossible. It's impossible, and now Myka's paying the price for trying.
She can't stand it another second. She lunges forward and rips the locket from Artie's hand. There's shouts and some movement out of shock or to stop her. They're clearly not expecting her to open the locket and snap it back on its hinges.
A ripple of energy, just faintly visible to the human eye, pulses out when the locket breaks. There's a gasp for air and speeding beeps of a machine. Pete dashes into Myka's room as his partner wakes up; Artie follows a second behind.
Helena stays in the hallway, artifact pieces in her hands, feeling Kosan's eyes upon her. She can hear Pete trying to explain, calls for a doctor as Myka fights with the machinery. Through it she hears Myka's voice, asking something, but it's not the words she catches, just the sound. She closes her eyes to focus on it better. Myka is alive and well. That's all she wants to think about. She doesn't want to acknowledge the sobs that have ceased in another room.
A shout from a little voice and footsteps echo through the hall. Helena chokes on the air and squeezes her eyes shut harder. Hasn't she paid enough for her sins? Must she still hear these echoes?
The shout comes again, stronger, not fading. She opens her eyes to see an impossible sight: a little girl with black waves fanning out behind her as she runs as fast as tiny legs can carry her. Her little girl who she hasn't seen in several lifetimes.
"Mummy!" Tears glisten on her cheeks, and that's all Helena can register before her daughter has crashed into her, arms wrapping tight around her waist like she'll never let go.
"Christina," she gasps, and it's really more a breath, an exhale of disbelief, than anything voiced. She couldn't truly speak right now, might never speak again.
She slides her arms around her daughter, in utter awe of her presence. Her physical and solid presence. She can feel her daughter's warmth, her tangled hair, the tears already soaking through into her shirt. She can smell her, all soft and innocent and tinged with salt. It is everything that horrid Medusa vision had tried to be, and failed. Helena marvels over the depths of her desperation that she would've ever accepted anything so less than the reality of having her daughter truly there.
"Christina," she says, discovering her voice once more. "Christina. Oh, my baby." She pulls loose only long enough to fall to her knees so she can really look at her. Really see her baby girl again.
Her brown eyes, so much warmer than Helena's own, blink to let slip another tear. "I couldn't see you, Mummy. They wouldn't let me out."
"I know. I know, that was my fault. It was all my fault. I -" her breath halts. I should've came to you at once. I should've fought for you. I should've killed those men in my path. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Christina." She pulls her daughter into a tight hug and rocks with her, hands smoothing down her back, touching her hair. "I'm so sorry, but I'm here now. Mummy's here now, and it's all going to be alright. Everything will be alright."
She sees but doesn't register the legs walking to the hospital room doorway. Doesn't give thought to anyone that's standing witness. Her daughter is alive - so wondrously alive! - and that's all that matters now. It's the only important thing in the world.
She closes her eyes, breathing in the scent of her daughter and pulling her closer, as her own tears finally fall.
-Epilogue-
"This is a very fancy hospital." Christina flips a page in the activities book Jane Lattimer had brought her. "Did you know Paris had such fancy hospitals?"
Helena smiles and runs her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Many things are different now. The world has changed since you'd traveled here."
"Like the ambulances?" Christina creases a page to make her book stay open. "The ambulance I was in moved much faster than the ones in London. Mr. Pete said it used a motor. Mummy, what's a motor?"
"It's a type of machine that generates power."
"Like the electric generator?"
"Electric generators do use motors, so yes."
Christina pulls over the box of crayons and seems to lose interest in motors. "Did you hear Ms. Jane say these crayons were made of wax?" She continues without waiting for a response. "Have you ever seen so many colors of wax before?"
"I have seen many more colors of crayons before," Helena says, remembering one of those large general stores that she'd spent hours exploring during her first weeks unbronzed. "So many varieties of crayons to choose from in the stores. We'll have to buy you them. One of every color for you to draw with."
Christina breaks into the most heartbreakingly beautiful smile. "Will you really buy me all the colors of crayons?"
"Yes, I will," Helena assures with an answering smile. Christina looks back to her coloring page and then to her box.
"What color shall I make this flower?"
"I'm not sure." Helena scoots in to select from her box. "How about a nice purple?"
"But what purple is that?" The box is big enough to contain several varieties of purple, and Helena remembers how particular her daughter can be.
"Here let's do this." Helena flips to the front of the book and takes hold of the first page that's only filled with titles and publishing information (and what use is that in a children's activities book?). She tears it loose from the binding, and before Christina can voice her dismay, she makes a mark on the paper with the purple crayon she's holding. She points to the mark. "There, that's what purple it is."
"We can test them." Christina plucks the crayon from her hand.
"Yes, we can test them all and see what colors they make before we use them on the picture."
"Like with my paints!"
"Exactly like your paints." Christina seems happy enough with this solution and begins pulling all the purple crayons she can find out of the box.
Helena watches her, but from the corner of her eye, she sees a figure come to the door and she tenses. She knows who it is, doesn't have to look over to see, in fact, refuses to look over and acknowledge that she even knows the woman is there.
Leave, leave. You must walk away.
A seemingly long moment passes, a very long moment that doesn't want to end.
But it does. And Myka leaves.
Helena lets out the breath she'd been holding. She can't see Myka yet, can't bear reconciling this safe, warm world surrounding her and her daughter with the much colder and tumultuous world outside that door. She can't examine the consequences, the ones that exist, the ones still to come. There's too much to happen, too much still to address.
So Helena pushes it away. Refocuses on her daughter discovering the joys of crayons and pretends this is the only world. Just for a little longer.
-
