Helena and Myka come to a detente.

The budding intimacy that was growing between them - the touching in private, the making out like teenagers – it all ceased after that argument. Helena did not want to open her heart to Myka anymore than she had done, not if it ended in her being hurt again. Myka did not press the issue, and Helena didn't ask why. Myka began to spend most afternoons away from the campaign offices, taking a leaf from Helena's book and using Helena's car service rather than attempting to drive in the city herself. Helena told herself that it didn't matter where Myka was going; she could do what she wanted, as long as she was discreet. Their contract didn't necessarily preclude them having other partners if they were discreet. Extremely discreet. That didn't stop the mental images, however. She tried to be sensible and concentrate on work as they upped their publicity and coverage of the campaign - the 'town hall' events were becoming much larger and soon they were receiving requests for television interviews. It was Claudia's opinion that they should ignore those until they became more desperate.

In between the press events and meeting the people of the State, they were working with attorneys and members of various communities to put together robust and coherent policies on equality legislation, gun control, equal marriage, which was once again under threat from people like Walter Sykes, who had threatened to gang up with other right-wing politicians and get the law stricken from the books. How they planned to do that, Helena didn't know, but she knew that they would do their utmost to make life hard for the LGBT community and any others they decided to dislike for whatever religious or other reason they came up with. It both hardened her resolve and chipped away at it, that those people wanted to take rights away from others for no good reason – or worse, that they wanted to change the laws to benefit their religion, when the country had been founded on the principle of separation of church and state. They were also discussing strategies for dealing with the growing problem of institutional racism in the various law enforcement agencies across the State.

It had been five weeks since Myka and Helena had moved to California, and for the last three weeks and 2 days, Myka had been disappearing for several hours in the afternoon before arriving back just as Helena was ready to leave for the day. Helena didn't ask, and Myka didn't tell. The irony made her laugh softly to herself. Their evenings were silent and while Myka still wrapped herself around Helena in bed, there was little touching or communication between them otherwise.

"Helena?" Myka's voice intruded into her slightly bitter thoughts. It was almost the end of the work day, and Helena hadn't seen her since they arrived at the office that morning.

"Yes?" Helena said politely, but distantly.

"Would you mind if I showed you something?"

Helena turned to look at Myka, curious but also – detached.

"Whatever you wish, Myka."

Myka directed the driver to an address not far from Helena's old place of work. As they pulled up, Helena was surprised to see both William Wolcott and his wife Kelly Hernandez waiting outside a large Warehouse that had been deserted for decades even before Helena had opened her own legal practice in the area.

She looked at Myka in bafflement, and saw that Myka was smiling widely at her.

"Go on, say hi," she said, tilting her head in that way that Helena adored so much.

Helena stepped out of the car carefully, hugging Wolly and Kelly in complete confusion.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" she asked.

"We are here to invite you to view the Christina Wells homeless shelter before it opens," Wolcott said, smiling at her, showing all of his teeth.

"The what?" Helena said, sounding very much like an idiot parrot.

"The Christina Wells shelter for the homeless," Myka said, gently. "I used the money you gave me to buy the building, once I'd traced the owners. They were really happy to get rid of it, actually. And then when I'd run out of money I used your credit card buying beds and shower fittings and kitchen equipment and – well, Wolly did most of the actual arranging of things, and volunteers have been working really hard to get it ready. Claudia managed to arrange the planning permission by making a whole lot of phone calls and calling in a lot of favours. Do you want to come inside?"

Helena nodded dumbly and Myka took her arm, pulling her slowly into the building with Kelly and Wolly in their wake. She stared as Myka showed her dorm rooms for men, women, children, families. A fully fitted out kitchen for a large operation. Small private bathrooms for families, large separate shower rooms for men and women.

"There will be plenty of volunteers to make sure that there are no assaults, that everyone is safe. There's also going to be a library upstairs, several common rooms and even a classroom upstairs for those who want to do basic courses in Math and English. A couple of local companies have donated money, time, food, and we have several teachers who want to donate their time. It's a real community effort, and Wolly and Kelly here were the ones who thought of it. I was looking for something to fill my time, like you said, and this is what they suggested, because you saved William, and he wanted to save other people," Myka said, finishing her little speech breathlessly. She looked anxious and as if she didn't know how Helena was going to respond.

Helena looked round at them all, stunned.

"You did all this – within the space of a month?" she asked, turning in a circle to take it all in. "And you named it after my daughter?"

"Well, not just us – there were plenty of volunteers. And a lot of generous delivery guys. We're going to open next week after we get the last few things in place. Finish the painting and fix the roof," Wolly said, in an uncharacteristically long speech. Kelly looked up at him fondly, hugging him close.

Helena turned to look at Myka.

"This is what you've been doing?" she asked, quietly.

Myka nodded.

"I didn't really do that much – I just came and checked on things once a day, tried to keep the guys motivated," Myka said, smiling shyly.

"That's bullshit, Myka," Kelly said, laughing. "She came here every day, Helena. She took off her pretty jacket and she cleaned and painted, she went out and bought food and sodas for everyone, she even bought radios for all the different rooms so everyone had something to sing along to, she even helped with some of the building work. She's amazing, Helena. I can see why you guys fell in love."

Helena just stared. She had been thinking the worst, that Myka had found someone else already and was disappearing off to meet with her – or him.

"Hey, Helena. Are you okay?" Myka's voice interrupted her gently.

Helena turned to her, awed and confused. She had thought that Myka was off doing her own thing, and here she was, not only doing something that looked incredibly good for Helena's campaign, but that would really make a difference to the people in this area. Something that would make a difference for Wolly, to his self-worth. She had taken the money Helena was giving her and she spent it on setting up a homeless shelter, and she had done so in less than a month.

"This must have cost more than that stipend I gave you, Myka. Even a building like this."

Myka blushed.

"Well, I… I hope you won't mind too much, but – I sold the car you gave me."

"You sold an $250000 Mercedes AMG to buy a building, to make it into a homeless shelter?" Helena said, mildly horrified and also incredibly impressed.

"I did. Sorry," Myka said, looking pathetic. She actually fluttered her eyelashes at Helena.

Helena just stared. She would have gladly given Myka the money for this. And that car was bloody gorgeous. But what Myka had done - it was amazingly generous. Thoughtful, clever, and wonderful.

"You are amazing, Myka Bering," Helena said, in a low voice. "Amazing. I don't have the words. You…I'm speechless."

"Well, that's a first," quipped Wolly, smiling broadly. "I've never seen Helena Wells speechless before."

Myka smiled shyly at her.

"You're happy about this? Are you sure?"

Helena kissed her. She didn't mean to. Her body just reacted, and threw itself at Myka, more or less. She flung her arms around Myka's neck and she kissed her with huge enthusiasm, grasping a handful of Myka's hair and pushing their bodies together. She could tell that Myka was a little startled, but then she was kissing back, and Helena was once again thinking about dying of thirst, and long, cool drinks of water in the desert… And then Myka pulled away, her face red, as Wolly wolf-whistled.

"I told you," Kelly stage-whispered to Wolly, "these two are made for each other."

Helena turned a wry smile on them both.

"Thank you for being so subtle in your observations, Kelly darling. But I believe you are correct. Myka is wonderful. I don't deserve her."

Myka was looking at her sternly.

"Don't be ridiculous, Helena. You're amazing. Look at what you're doing! You're dedicating your life to serving other people. I'm just trying to support you in whatever small way I can."

"I can't believe what you've managed to achieve in such a short time, Myka. You are a marvel," Helena said, almost whispering. They were still standing next to one another, so very close, and Helena couldn't stop staring at Myka, who was looking at her, then looking away for a moment shyly, and then looking back, as if her gaze was being pulled back to Helena. She put her arms around Helena after a long moment, pulling her close and kissing the side of her neck. Helena put her hands in Myka's coat pockets, savouring the warmth of Myka's body, and rested her head on Myka's shoulder for a long moment.

"I'm so proud of you, Myka," Helena whispered in her ear.

"Thank you," Myka said, shyly.

Helena stepped back, taking Myka's hand, and thanked Kelly and Wolly, complimenting the work they'd done and urging them to contact her or Myka if there were any problems with the rest of the setup or with anything else they might need. They also agreed to have dinner together the following week.

Myka and Helena returned to their car in silence, still hand in hand.

"Why did you do that, Myka?" Helena blurted.

"What do you mean?" Myka asked, confused – and a little hurt, by her expression.

"I mean, you could have done anything with that money, Myka. You could be having daily massages, you could be drinking the day away, riding, playing tennis or golf or any of the thousands of other things that the rich and idle do with their time. You spent all of your money on a homeless shelter. Not only that, you gave your own time to set it up, and you involved people that I care about very deeply in an endeavour that you knew would mean a huge amount to them and to me. So I ask you again, why did you do that? Was it because you wanted to help me politically? Was this Claudia's idea? Or was it yours? What was your motivation?" Helena asked, watching Myka carefully.

Myka flushed slightly as Helena was talking, and avoided her eyes when responding.

"I did it for a lot of reasons, Helena. The first is - of course - to help your campaign find its feet. Helping people from the local area where your law firm started off? That's a great story. And getting Wolly involved – well, I thought for a long time before deciding to do that. I didn't know him or his story, but I knew that you had helped him a lot, and I thought he might want to give something back, to you and to this community. So I had Claudia call and arrange a lunch for us and it snowballed from there. Without him, though, Helena, it wouldn't have happened anywhere near as quickly. There were dozens of people working almost around the clock the whole time working on repairing the electrics and patching up holes in walls and floors. And cleaning. The smell – it was unbelievable. And Wolly - he did most of this all by himself, Helena. You know he's been working with these people for a long time, so it was his influence that persuaded people to help. And I've been watching you, Helena. Your interviews, the meetings – I can see that they're wearing on you, that you're giving more than you're getting back. All this schmoozing for campaign funds – I can tell that you hate it. So I thought if I started something real, even if it only helped a small number of people – I thought it might help, to recharge you. Help your resolve."

She finished speaking in a rush, and dared a quick glance at Helena, who was still in a minor state of shock at what Myka had done. But it was turning, quickly, to a warm feeling that multiplied and turned liquid and expanded every time she saw Myka's face. It felt uncomfortably familiar, and the more she tried to push it down, the more it welled up in her.

"Thank you, Myka," she whispered. Myka stared at her for a long moment before simply nodding. They continued home in silence, and Helena quickly excused herself for a swim.

When she returned from her swim, Myka was in the kitchen, and there was something delicious-smelling on the stove.

"Myka?" Helena asked, confused.

"I thought I'd make you something nice. You seem a little… I don't know. Freaked out, or something. Is that okay?" Myka asked anxiously. She was wearing an apron over her office attire, and had somehow managed to get some sort of pasta sauce on the side of her face, a fact of which she was apparently unaware. Helena couldn't help but stare, not just with desire, with that intense burn she'd been feeling since they met, but with a fondness, a feeling that she hadn't allowed herself to feel for far too long. Or perhaps not long enough. She forgot herself for a moment, standing in her swimsuit with a towel forgotten in her hand as her hair dripped on the stone tiles.

"Helena?"

Helena shook herself out of her daze to find that Myka had stepped closer, her face concerned.

"Sorry, Myka. Did you say something?"

"I asked you if it was okay. That I made dinner," Myka said, narrowing her eyes and looking carefully at Helena.

"Of course, Myka. Thank you. That's so thoughtful," Helena managed, swallowing.

"Are you sure you're okay, Helena? You just looked at me so strangely…" Myka said, frowning in confusion.

"Sorry, Myka. Long day. I'll just go and have a quick shower and make myself presentable."

And Helena fled. Fled before her body, her heart, could act again and throw her against Myka, to kiss her, to tell her that she was magnificent, to tell her that Helena could look at her forever. Or to tell her something even worse, that Helena could never take back. She knew it was too late; whether she said it or not it was still going to be just as true and just as unwanted, this feeling that it was almost killing her to feel already.

She showered as slowly as she dared, trying to steady herself without ruining Myka's planned dinner. As she walked down the corridor from the bedroom into the open living area, however, she felt that it might as well be written all over her face. It was too late. She had fallen in love with her wife.