NSFW.
It takes Myka a little while to get over the heartbreak.
"Man," Pete says, several years later, "You were kind of a mess for weeks after she left. When I see that Starling again I'm going to—well, okay, no, I'm not going to punch her, but I might see if I can get Amanda to do it."
Amanda was the transfer brought in to replace Pete in Military when Pete did, eventually, get his transfer over to Sports and Rec. He had to train her before he could leave, and at the end of their two weeks of overlap, he was head-over-heels in love.
"I vote for no punching," says Sam, Myka's boyfriend. "I might actually hug her for being stupid enough to let this one go."
"Oh, hush, you," Myka says, but she leans over and kisses him on the cheek just the same.
Sam is the Junior Archivist for Medicine, a few years ahead of her class, and he's good. Very, very good. There's buzz that he'll probably be Head Archivist one day. Myka admires him, enjoys his company and his conversation and, well, he's great in bed. They're a great fit—everyone says so. They've been dating about a year and a half when he starts asking what she thinks about different neighborhoods and different types of housing. Myka tries to be elusive, she really does, but she isn't surprised when he takes her out for dinner and asks, while they're waiting for their entrees, what she thinks of the idea of moving in with him. Not into his place, even though he's got independent housing, because that's just a weird thing where they'll both feel like it's his space, and of course he can't move into her cube with her. But they could pick somewhere together, somewhere that suits both of them.
It's the sweetest, most genuine and heartfelt way Myka could ever imagine being asked to take that step, and she feels terrible, absolutely gut-wrenched, that her first reaction is no, no, no.
So, "Sure," she says. "Let's look into it."
But ironically she starts spending fewer nights at his place, and invites him more rarely to hers. When they visit different houses and apartments, he's got such excitement in his eyes when they walk up and she watches that sparkle fade as she finds frivolous details to nit-pick.
When she ends things a couple of months later, they both cry, but he says he knew it was coming.
Myka stays single, for awhile, after that, tumbling into the occasional fling and one or two one-nighters, but by the time she is twenty-seven, she's had nothing serious since she broke up with Sam when she was twenty-five.
When she watches Helena's ship land this time, she notices how much thinner the crowds are than they were even seven years ago, let alone sever years before that. Attitudes are changing, on Terra. Starlings are respected, beloved even, but no longer revered; the landing of their ship is no longer treated as an event worthy of closing all businesses and cancelling all other events.
Later, she'll call herself an idiot for it, but she is genuinely unprepared for the rush of emotion she feels when Helena steps off the ship. She's had so many other entanglements—more serious ones—and she's been in love once, all since that awkward kiss in the tree seven years ago.
But she sees Helena and her heart begins to pound so fiercely that she can feel it in her fingertips, like they may be swelling and receding under the pressure.
Helena still doesn't look well. It's still been less than two years since Christina died, for her, Myka reminds herself. Myka's had time enough to feel that Christina's death is in the past, but Helena has had much less time, and Helena, as Christina's mother, will need a thousand times more of it than Myka did.
Still, this time, Helena's eyes alight on Myka and she waves a greeting, and Myka lets out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Pete, standing beside her, nudges her with his elbow. "Don't do anything stupid," he says. "Don't let her do that to you again."
Myka says hello to Will when he comes to shake her hand, but Helena has been sequestered by Claudia, who's talking excitedly at her, with animated gestures. Relieved, Myka slips away.
That night, she's lying in her cube with a novel when the buzzer on her wall comm-unit sounds. She sits up and presses the button. "Yes?"
"Myka?"
She would recognize that voice anywhere.
"Helena."
"Hello, Myka. I just—I wanted to say hello to you."
"Hang on, I'll be right out."
Myka climbs down from her cube and runs to her locker for her shoes and jacket, and then ducks into the lav to fiddle fruitlessly with her bed-headed hair before giving up and pulling it back into a quick ponytail, berating herself the whole time.
Helena is waiting by the gate. When she sees Myka she breaks into a wide grin. As Helena's gaze tracks from Myka's boots up to her eyes Myka feels it like a touch, erotic as a lover's caress. She clenches her hands into fists until her nails begin to cut into her own palms.
"Myka," Helena says, as Myka is enveloped into her arms, as Myka is enveloping Helena into her own arms. "It's so wonderful to see you."
"It's good to see you, too, Helena," Myka says into Helena's hair.
Myka feels the shift of Helena's head as she smiles and says. "Never stop calling me that, all right?"
And there it is, already: the 'never' that invokes time, as it passes, as it will continue to pass differently for the two them. Myka has a flash of herself as an old woman, leaning on a cane to watch the Starling ship land, and watching a young Helena, perhaps forty, step down from the hatch.
"Okay," Myka says.
They go for a walk. Not a long expedition, like they used to, but a stroll around town.
"Wolly wants to see you, too, but I told him I wanted to claim you for this first evening," Helena says.
They happen to be walking past the bakery. Myka points and says, "Maybe I'll bring him breakfast tomorrow."
"Better bring enough for an extra person, if you do. He's got someone staying with him these days. Not me," Helena adds hastily. "I'm all right on my own again now. He's got a companion, as it were."
Myka grins. "I'm looking forward to meeting her."
"Him," Helena corrects.
"All right, I'm looking forward to meeting him, then," Myka says, with a nod. "How about you? Do you have a 'companion, as it were'?"
Myka resists the urge to turn to look at Helena even though, in her peripheral vision, she can see Helena tip her head forward and cock it toward Myka.
"No," Helena says. "You?"
"No. I mean, I did, for a while. A couple of years, with this really great guy, but things just—it wasn't what it needed to be, I guess, which is why I ended things, and that was a couple of years ago now, and—"
"Myka," Helena interrupts, "You don't have to prove anything to me."
Myka lets out a shaky breath and shrugs. "After last time, I just don't want you to think I've been sitting around pining for you like some lovesick character in a bad novel."
Helena leans over and bumps Myka's shoulder with hers. "I'm glad you haven't."
They turn a corner and walk toward the gate of the Starling housing. Their pace slows as it approaches, until they drift to a stop at the turn.
"So," Myka says, "I'll see you tom—"
"Come in for tea?" Helena blurts. "It's so good to see you again."
Myka's eyebrows leap up her forehead. "I, um, sure."
Myka sits at the kitchen counter in Helena's housing unit while Helena heats water on the stove and then pulls a zippered bag out of the fridge. "I haven't unpacked yet," Helena says. "I just put the whole bag in here before I walked to see you."
Myka tries to ignore the twist in her stomach at the admission. She fails.
Helena rummages through the bag and pulls out a small, metallic box. She fits her thumbnail in to a tiny seam and pushes, and with a hiss, like the sound of hydraulics releasing, the box opens.
"Marvelous bit of engineering, this is," Helena says. "It was developed on Earth. If you store food in here and keep it at cold temperatures, it prevents the food inside from ripening or bruising, indefinitely."
She pulls out a fruit. Green and orange, somewhat oblong, about as long as Myka's hand from the heel to the tip of her middle finger.
"It's called a mango," Helena says. "It only grows on Earth, but it's a very fragile fruit. Before this, we had no way to transport it this far along the planetary sequence. Do you want to try some with your tea?"
Myka swallows against a lump in her throat. "That sounds great," she says, as nonchalant as she can manage.
"Aces," Helena grins.
Myka watches as Helena peels the skin with a knife, revealing rich orange flesh beneath, and then begins to cut the fruit away from its center stone. It looks even more juicy than honeyfruit, and Myka tries and fails not to stare as the liquid trails down Helena's fingers, dripping from her wrist into the sink.
Slices stack in different sizes and shapes on a plate on the counter. Helena washes her hands in the sink, and Myka snaps herself to attention. The water has boiled and Helena pours the tea, too, and sets a mug before Myka before sipping from her own.
"Go ahead," she says, gesturing with her chin toward the plate. "Try it."
Myka reaches for a wedge of fruit and it's wet and a little sticky between her fingers. In her mouth it coats her tongue with rich sweetness, thick and fragrant but not cloying, and she can't help the way her eyes roll back in her head a little. "Oh, wow." She says, still chewing. She swallows. "Wow. That's the most incredible thing I've ever tasted."
"Isn't it marvelous?" Helena asks, reaching for a slice for herself as Myka reaches for a second one.
Myka has a moment of remembering herself as a child with Christina, giggling over honeyfruit.
"I can't believe you shared that with me," Myka says. The plate is empty now, and Myka swipes her fingertips one after the other over her lips and tongue, tasting the juice. "If I were you I wouldn't have shared it with anybody."
She looks up from her own hand just in time to see Helena's eyes jump up from Myka's fingers as well.
"I wouldn't have shared it with just anybody," she says.
There are things Myka has carefully, very carefully, not let herself want in the past six and a half years. She has gotten used to not letting herself want these things.
This thing.
She stands up and reaches for the empty mango plate, saying, "Why don't I—"
Helena reaches for the plate at the same time, saying, "I'll just—"
Their sticky hands collide, fingers tangle, at the rim of the plate, pinching the fired clay surface. They stay there, and Myka can't tear her eyes from where their hands are touching, can't tear her eyes away even to look over at Helena's eyes. Helena, who isn't pulling away. Helena, who didn't pull away at first that last time, in the tree, until, eventually, she did. So Myka watches, and waits, until she can barely breathe, she can only take enough breath to say, "I was a kid the last we saw each other."
Helena's voice, equally breathless and quiet, says, "You were."
Myka swallows and takes a risk. She moves her fingers forward, over Helena's fingers and hand, until Helena is holding the plate herself but she hasn't got a firm enough grip, hasn't got enough of it in her hand and it drops out, clatters against the countertop, and then Helena's hand is in Myka's hand, back to palm; it's curled loosely, thumb pressed to the tips of middle and forefingers, where the plate had slipped out, and Myka cradles it as she would an easily-bruised fruit, or the blossom of a fragile flower.
Now Myka looks up, sees Helena staring down at their joined hands, breath escaping through slightly-parted lips.
"I'm not a kid anymore," Myka says.
"I know you're not." Helena's eyes snap up to Myka's, black pupils lost in near-black irises. "I know you're not," she says again.
Myka pulls. She pulls slowly, and gently, and not hard enough to compel Helena to follow if Helena prefers to resist. But Helena is not resisting, Helena is moving quite willingly, and now Myka is leaning forward, too, standing up from her stool and leaning across the counter that separates them, and if anyone had asked her that morning if she was over H.G. Wells she would have laughed, she would have called it a late-teenage crush and dismissed the whole thing, but now, oh, now their lips are touching, Helena's bottom lip has slipped into the dip between Myka's and Myka's top lip has slipped into the dip between Helena's, and there is none of the dry press of that time in the tree. Their lips are moving parting and coming together over and over, and Helena's lips are sweet with mango juice and then it's her mouth, her whole mouth that's sweet and open and reaching for Myka's again and again and again.
The kiss isn't tenable, with the edge of the counter digging fiercely into Myka's hips, and if she's raised this far up on her toes to reach she can only imagine how far Helena is stretching. So the kiss goes and goes and goes until it doesn't, until their lips naturally slow in their movements, until they are less kissing than sharing breath.
Myka drops back onto her feet and Helena, with a gentle twist, frees her hand as she stands up. As they step away from one another Myka watches Helena's eyes drift down and to the left, and they stay there.
Myka licks her lips. "I'm going to go wash my hands," she says.
Helena nods, and turns to the kitchen sink. Myka turns down the small corridor and into the bathroom. When she comes back to the kitchen she sees Helena leaning against the sink, twisting and pulling on a towel in her hands. Myka hovers at the junction between the three places she could go: to her seat on one side of the counter, to Helena on the other, or to the front door, through the living room behind her.
Is this where it ends? Myka thinks. Is this how it could possibly end?
A decision: she walks into the kitchenette and leans on the edge of the counter opposite Helena. They don't touch. Helena twists and twists the towel in her hands until Myka reaches across and gently closes her fist around its tightly-spiraled middle.
"Helena," she says.
Helena looks up, looks straight into Myka's eyes, and says, "I can't be what you want."
"You don't know that," Myka says. "You don't know what I want. I don't even know what I want."
"Oh, but I do, my darling," Helena says, her words touched with sadness, dropping down at the ends, "I do."
It's supposed to push them apart, Myka knows, but it has the opposite effect. Helena sets the towel on the edge of the sink behind her and stands up straighter, steps forward, tips her mouth down to Myka's where Myka is slouching, a little, at the edge of the counter. Myka's hands, that have wondered since they were six years old what it would be like to touch Helena Wells's hair, thread into its thick strands, tighten, pull Helena closer, closer, closer still, and Helena's hands are fisted in the front of Myka's shirt. And then Myka's lips are slipping down Helena's chin, across her jawline, and the sound Helena makes when Myka kisses her neck would almost be enough, just that, enough for a very very long time.
"Come on," Helena breathes, tugging on Myka's lapels. "This way."
The darkening purple of the night sky peeks around the edges of the window-coverings, casting Helena's skin in a kind of opal radiance as Myka peels away the unfamiliar Starling clothing, finding buttons and catches in different places than where she would find them on Terran clothing. It lends a thrill of discovery as Myka uncovers these pieces of Helena in unfamiliar sequence: first a shoulder, then an arm, then a breast and a scapula—and Myka pauses there, can't help but pause there to touch, to sigh shakily as Helena presses herself into Myka's hand—and then it's a side that Myka uncovers, the dip of waist into swell of hip, and then another breast, another shoulder-blade, another arm, and it's all she can do not to stop there, because Helena is fumbling with Myka's jacket now, Helena is lifting away the cotton under-layer, Helena is stepping into Myka's body, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the bend of Myka's neck and Helena's skin is warm and soft against Myka's and the idea of being further away from Helena than this, ever, is unbearable; even far enough away to crouch and tug at the fastenings of Helena's trousers. But after long moments of touching and kissing Helena pulls away just enough to brace herself on Myka's shoulder with one hand while she lifts her foot and reaches down to tug at the zip at her ankle, and Myka won't have that, no, she wants to uncover Helena herself. With a smile she bats Helena's hand away and then drops down to one knee, finds the small hidden zip just above Helena's foot and begins to slide it up, pausing just above the calf to pull away Helena's boot, and then she continues to trail the zip upward, over knee, thigh, hip, until the line of skin along Helena's side is uninterrupted from her hair to the floor. Myka kisses the curve of that hip and then, more quickly, unfastens the other leg, removes the other boot, and when Helena is naked Myka must remind herself not to gape, as she tries to decide where, on these beautiful pale expanses, she should first be bringing her mouth and her fingers. But Helena decides first, because Helena brings her hands to Myka's waistband and finds the closures in the front and, with fingers far more nimble than Myka's own, quickly undresses Myka the rest of the way, her eyes on Myka's the whole time. And then Myka's hands are in Helena's hands and Helena backs toward the bed, and then she pulls Myka over her onto the mattress, and then Myka stops trying to choose: she puts her hands everywhere, brings her lips everywhere, pauses in the places that make Helena arch her back and grip at Myka's hair and shoulders. Myka is not usually this assertive, not usually this dominant, but in the back of her mind runs a litany of: I am not the child I was and I can be enough, I can be good enough for you.
When Helena is quivering, when Myka's lips on her skin elicit soft gasps, that's when Myka begins to slip down her body. The intimate touch, for which Helena's impatient hips are longing, comes from Myka's tongue, first. "Oh my stars, Myka," Helena murmurs, fisting her hand in Myka's curls and Myka smiles against her body. But when Helena's movements and sounds become more insistent, Myka stops. Helena releases a disappointed gasp at the separation, even as Myka's mouth moves upward, her tongue looping around Helena's navel, lips pressing a kiss to the hollow between her breasts, until their mouths are open to one another again. Myka's fingers crawl to where her tongue had been, their pads slipping and playing over wetness in indication of what will come next, and then she pushes inside. Helena's moan sounds almost like a hiccup and Myka bites down on Helena's shoulder as she feels a squeeze around her fingers. And then they're moving together, Myka's fingers and thumb and arm and shoulder moving with Helena's hips, and Myka murmurs, "I wanted to see this; I'll give you my mouth again later but I wanted to see you, this first time." Helena nods, her eyes screwed shut and fingernails clawing at the skin between Myka's shoulderblades. When Helena's hips begin to stutter, when they press up into Myka's fingers and try to hold themselves there, Myka bends down and tugs on Helena's earlobe with her teeth and says, "Open your eyes. Open your eyes," and when she lifts up again Helena's eyes are open and then Myka changes her angle, curls her fingers and watches as Helena's body arcs and twists and falls to pieces beneath her.
Helena rolls her body into Myka's and Myka wrestles the blanket out from under them to cover them both.
"Myka, I—that was—" she trails off and shifts to press a kiss to Myka's chest.
Myka chuckles. "I think I've wanted this since before I was old enough to know what I wanted."
She feels Helena smile against her skin.
"It gave me some time to figure out exactly how I wanted it to go, I guess," Myka finishes. Inwardly she's cringing because it's true: some part of her has always wanted this, even when she swore to herself she didn't want it anymore. How else could her body have responded so immediately to the sight of Helena, stepping down from her ship? What else would have made her leave her cube, where she had happily settled in for the night, just because Helena came to her door?
Helena shifts, lifts herself up on her arms and presses a kiss to Myka's lips. Myka feels the roundness of a knee insinuating itself between her thighs and then—oh—Helena's hand at her breast, and then Helena's voice, humming in her ear, "Surely what you wanted didn't end there, did it?"
"No," Myka murmurs, tipping her head back to offer Helena her throat. "It didn't end there."
They're the last words Myka can speak for quite some time.
The sound of tinkling bells wakes them in the morning: Myka blinks, puzzled, until Helena reaches over her and slaps at a device on the nightstand until it turns silent.
"That alarm's a much nicer way to wake up than the buzzer in my cube," Myka croaks, but then she feels Helena's lips travelling over her shoulder, along her clavicle, and Helena says, "I hope that's not the only thing that makes this nicer than waking in your cube."
"Mmm, no," Myka says, as Helena shifts to straddle her, "I mean, there's the light coming in the window. No windows in my cube."
Helena jerks up and back from Myka's neck and back-hands her playfully in the shoulder. "Brute," she says.
Myka grins. "Only for you."
They kiss and kiss and kiss in the bathroom with the shower running behind them until Helena finally says "I think we had better bathe apart this morning or we'll never get to work."
Myka sighs ruefully, then squeezes Helena's bare hips and steps back. "You first," she says.
They make a quick stop at Myka's on the way to the Archives so that she can change into her uniform. Helena leans on the wall while Myka pulls things out of her locker and that's where they are when Pete walks up, wrapped in a towel from the shower. He looks at Helena, then at Myka, wearing yesterday's clothes while pulling fresh ones from her locker, and then grabs Myka by the upper arm and tugs her into a hug.
"Wha—" Myka grunts.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he sing-songs, very quietly, into her ear.
Myka smiles: he is protective of her, and she loves him for it. "I don't," she says, "but you have free rein to say 'I told you so' when it all comes crashing down on my head."
But it doesn't come crashing down. It feels, in fact, unbelievably healthy. They do spend every night together, usually in Helena's unit but sometimes, when the weather is lousy, they only go as far as Myka's, where she cooks them a passable dinner in the communal kitchen and then they crawl, together, into Myka's cube, drawing the curtain across the window that overlooks the corridor and burrowing together into the small, cave-like box to play cards or watch net-streams on the wall-unit or read novels before, almost nightly, they make love.
But they don't spend every moment together, even when they're not at work. Myka still eats most of her lunches with Pete and Amanda and Claudia and Sam (it's been long enough, now, that she and Sam can be friends) and Sam's new girlfriend Deb. Then, one day, Claudia shows up dragging a bemused-looking Starling by the wrist, saying, "This is Steve. He's a new Starling in Spirituality, and he's awesome, so he's going to be our friend and you guys are going to be nice to him."
Myka knows Steve already, because Steve is Will's boyfriend. Will invited both Myka and Helena over for dinner two nights after their ship landed. When Myka had arrived at the door, hand raised to knock, she was frozen for a minute by the sound of angry voices on the other side:
"I can't believe you're doing this, H.G. I can't believe you'd do this to her." Will.
"'Do this to her'? Come off it, Wolly, she's an adult and a very willing participant." Helena.
"You're going to hurt her."
"I might. Or she might hurt me—has that occurred to you?"
"You guys," a third voice, unfamiliar. Its accent different from Helena's and Will's. Steve, Myka assumes. "She's going to be here any minute. Can this wait?"
Myka takes this as her cue to knock. Will opens the door with a smile, and then holds his arms open to her. "Myka," he says.
It's strange looking at him: it is, she imagines, as it would be to look at a fraternal twin brother.
"Hi, Will." She hugs him back.
Helena is leaning against the counter, sipping a bottle of chicha, the firm set of her jaw the only sign of the dispute Myka has just disrupted. But when Helena's eyes meet Myka's, Helena smiles.
Steve is wonderful: quiet and kind, but with a sarcastic sense of humor that has Myka clutching at her gut. He is from Domus, Myka learns. He had been alone there: his parents passed away when he was young, his sister died of a devastating illness just five years ago, and Steve's long-time partner left him shortly after that. He had been all right, he says; he'd been training to be a mystic, but when he fell in love with Will, there was little to compel him to stay. So he left, and took to the stars.
(Claudia, Myka knows, also has very little family: her parents, too, had passed away, and her relationship with her brother is… not so much strained as simply thin; they aren't close. It makes sense, it makes so much sense, that Claudia's energy meshes so well with Steve's balance, that her youth counterbalances his maturity.)
Helena is there, on the planet, when Hugo invites Myka to lunch at the diner one day. He invites Caturanga, too. Myka is fond of Hugo, of his goofiness and friendliness that doesn't conceal his sharp intellect. She is fond of Caturanga, too: they are alike, in many respects.
"Myka," Hugo says, as they await the delivery of their noodles, "I've decided it's finally time for me to retire."
Myka freezes with her water glass halfway to her mouth. "Retire?"
"I'm ready," he says, "and so are you. I asked Caturanga's opinion of it, which is why he's here with us right now. He agrees."
Myka sets her glass down and turns to look at Caturanga, who sits beside her. He nods, smiling. "You're far more adept than many of the Archivists I work with on other planets," he says. "You're ready."
The next day she tells everyone at lunch: Hugo will retire in three months, and Myka will be promoted to Archivist for Languages. Pete whoops and high-fives her; Amanda smiles and says, "I'm so excited for you, Myka, but a little jealous, I can't lie."
Claudia is quiet.
"Everything all right, Claud?" Myka asks.
Claudia nods. "Yeah, you're going to be awesome as the Archivist."
"But?"
Claudia shakes her head.
"It's okay, Claud. I want to know what's on your mind."
Claudia shrugs awkwardly. "Abigail is awesome. She's so nice, and smart, and good at her job, you know? But she's young, and this is so morbid and kind of mean, but if I ever get to be Archivist for Engineering at all, it won't be for very long."
Myka reaches out and squeezes Claudia's shoulder. It's a completely fair concern, she thinks, and she doesn't know how to make it better. Steve, who's sitting beside Claudia, wraps an arm around her in a hug.
Three weeks pass, with Myka and Helena doing… whatever they're doing, with Claudia and Steve being the best of friends and Will smiling at Myka with barely-restrained concern. After three weeks of this, Helena meets Myka at the gate and says, "Let's go to the trees."
They do. They climb the same tree they climbed last time, and kiss, again, amongst the high branches, though this time, when their lips touch it is not static or stiff, and Myka smiles into it, cradling Helena's jaw in her palm.
They go to Helena's unit and Helena is quiet when she makes dinner for both of them in her kitchen. When they make their way to the bedroom that night, Myka discovers that Helena is still more a multifaceted lover than she had thought: she has always been unapologetic in her sensuality but tonight she is more assertive, more dominant than Myka has ever known her to be: she jerks Myka's jacket and shirt off but bats away Myka's hands when they reach out to touch her; she bends Myka against the footboard and slides Myka's trousers down below her hips and taps Myka's still-booted feet apart as far as they'll go with the waistband still snug around her thighs, and when Helena goes inside her Myka gasps, and she can't help but release thin, keening sounds as Helena doesn't so much give her pleasure as demand it, teeth and mouth sucking and tugging at Myka's spine, and Myka is so, so willing to give it up.
When Myka comes her knees buckle but Helena catches her with both arms around her waist. Helena guides her languid body to the bed, easing off her boots and pants and then crawling up between Myka's legs and before Myka has the werewithal to understand what's happening she's got Helena's tongue, slower coaxing this time. The zip along Helena's sleeve is cold against the inside of Myka's thigh and this time, when she comes, Myka doesn't allow herself languor; she sits up, and kisses Helena while she works her out of her clothes, and then lays her back on the soft mattress and sets about touching her everywhere, slow and surely, hard and soft, and when Helena is close, in every sense of the word, their foreheads pressed together, Helena's eyelids fluttering in rising desire, Myka's words come out before she can stop them: she says, "I think I've been falling in love with you since I was six years old."
Helena crests, and shakes. When she is curled against Myka's body, she says, "I think I've known since you were six years old that I would fall in love with the woman you would become."
There is something else Myka wants to say, she wants to propose, but it frightens her; she feels her heartrate pounding, harder and harder through her body, until Helena says, "My goodness, darling, your pulse."
"Stay with me," Myka says. "Here, on Terra. Stay with me."
Helena is quiet for a long time.
"I can't," she says, eventually. "You know I can't."
"I don't know that," Myka says. "Why can't you stay here? I was thinking, you know, I was thinking that we don't have an Archivist for Starlings, and how we should, because we should be saving the things we know about you because of the relativity and the time—"
"Myka," Helena interrupts.
Myka falls silent.
"My daughter's ashes are entombed on Illyria," she says. "I would never settle there, but I could never live with the knowledge that she was alone there."
Myka is surprised by the immediacy and the force of the emotion that rises in her chest, pushes tears up from behind her eyes. "But Christina is—"
"Be very careful how you finish that sentence," Helena interrupts, the daggers unmistakable in her tone. Myka's lips snap shut.
They lie in silence for a time, chests moving in tandem, Helena's inhales matching Myka's exhales.
"You could come with me," Helena whispers against the skin of Myka's chest.
Myka remembers her childhood dream of being a Starling: a dream she held the way children dream of impossible things, like becoming the President, or becoming the Head Archivist. But she thinks, now, of her mother, and how hard she worked to ensure Myka's happiness; she is nearing seventy, and if Myka left, she would likely only live through two visits, three if she's lucky. She thinks of her sister, who lost her father when she was eight years old because of the way he treated Myka, but who has never resented her for it. Of Pete, of his warm embraces and unflinchingly loyal friendship, and the way he has lived with an overwhelming fear of being left, ever since his father died when they were children. She thinks of him growing old without her, ahead of her. She thinks of her impending new position as Archivist, too. She thinks of pink Terran skies.
"When I was a child, I would have leapt at the chance," Myka says. "But now… I have too much to lose here."
She feels Helena nod, and knows that she was expecting that answer.
"Then we must enjoy the time we have," Helena says, "and then, when I go, you must move on from me."
Myka doesn't know how she will do that. Doesn't know how she can. But she knows that Helena is right.
They make love again, slowly. Their tears mingle on their faces as they kiss.
The following day, Will takes her to the diner for lunch.
"You're not older than me anymore," Myka says, forcing a smile. "It feels weird for you to pay for my meal."
"Oh, come on," Will's eyes sparkle, "Can't a man take his little girl out for a meal?"
It's become a thing they can joke about, which Myka is surprised to find she genuinely enjoys. She wishes she could smile more freely with him today. She watches the growing concern in his eyes and silently begs him not to ask her about it. She knows that if he asks her, she'll tell him, because part of her is desperate to talk and she's not ready to take it to Pete because he knew, he told her, and he was right, and she knew he would be right, and she's just not prepared to face his gloating, not yet.
"I know I'm not supposed to try to be a father or anything," Will says, as they wait for their check. "But there are things I can see in you because they're similar to me."
Myka cocks an eyebrow.
"Like that," he says. "I do that. But more to the point: you're upset. And I think I know why, so why don't you tell me anyway?"
Myka tips her head forward into her hands and she tells him the whole thing, just as she knew she would.
When she finally looks up, his eyes are hard, his jaw set. "I told her not to do this to you. I told her."
"She didn't do anything to me. She didn't promise anything she couldn't deliver. I knew what I was doing. Don't be angry at her," Myka begs, "Please don't. It's me, too: I could come with you. I could choose to be with her. But I'm not choosing that either."
"Okay," Will says. "Okay."
Myka and Helena spend every moment they can together, now: lunches, nights, evenings. On their last night together, Myka quietly says, "I can't watch you launch tomorrow. I'll lose it. I can't. Please tell Will and Caturanga and Steve that I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Helena says. "I understand, and so will they."
In the morning Myka walks Helena to the edge of the launch site. She has composed herself. There will be no more tears. They pause, there, hand in hand, and Myka tips her lips down to Helena's, almost chaste, like seven years ago in the tree.
Helena squeezes her hand. "Goodbye, Darling."
Myka squeezes back. "Goodbye."
Myka doesn't look back as she turns and walks to her cube and bundles herself under the blankets.
Eventually, she feels the dull rattle of the ground as the ship launches.
Eventually, she hears the muffled sounds of the other Junior Archivists moving around in the common area, outside her cube.
Somebody knocks on her cube. She ignores it. Knocks again. And then a hiss and a click, and her cube door opens.
"Hey, Mykes."
"That was locked."
"You really think I don't know your access code after living beside you for eight years?"
Myka doesn't answer, but she feels the mattress shift as Pete climbs in and stretches out beside her.
"Here," he says, extending his arms toward her, curling his hands over her shoulder and under her neck. She lets him pull her closer. And he doesn't say anything, not an "I told you so," not a "You knew this would happen," not a single word as he holds her and lets her cry into his shirt.