"Claudia and Steve must really dislike me, to make me watch this," murmured Helena. She tried for a playful tone, but it was clear that she was a little worried that her words might be true.
Myka shook her head. "No, HG. They said that this was the Warehouse's doing. So I guess there's something here that you or I, or both, need to see."
The scene before them was a familiar one. Helena, dressed in a power suit with her hair tied up, brandishing the Minoan Trident. The Trident she had deceived and betrayed Myka to obtain, so that she could go through with her plan to destroy the world. Myka understood her reasons, understood the madness that had overcome her – how could she not, after witnessing Christina's death? But seeing it all again made her grit her teeth in anger and remembered shame for her failure to see what Helena was up to. She took a moment, though, to admit to herself that she found Helena insanely attractive even when she was like this. Standing there with the Trident, it was clear that she was out of her mind, but she still looked like a vengeful goddess to Myka. The effect it had on her was powerful. She breathed slowly to steady herself and watched as Artie shot HG, with anger and a touch of hatred in his eyes. And then saw the shock in his eyes as the Corsican vest turned his actions against him. What she noticed most of all in that moment, though, was the true regret on Helena's face as she saw the injury that Artie had unknowingly inflicted upon himself. Myka's analytical mind was working overtime and she saw the depth of the pain that it had caused Helena to hurt Artie, even though Artie had never kept his dislike and mistrust of her a secret. It underlined what she knew of Helena already, and of her actions on this day and before. She was not an evil maniacal killer, as she had been painted by Artie, the Regents, and even Pete. It was pain driving her, not malice. It still didn't make her actions okay, but Myka was glad that at least some of her judgement about Helena had been correct.
They watched together in silence as Helena continued her mad ranting about the world and how it would be better to start over again, to wipe out the sins of the past and begin anew. In some ways Myka agreed. It was hard to look at the world's history and see anything worth saving. The human mind is naturally skewed to notice the negative – some sort of a survival instinct, she guessed. Looking at the past hundred years of human history, a person could be forgiven for thinking that humans were a plague on the planet they occupied. Myka bit her lip, lost in thought until the moment that haunted so many of her nightmares played out in front of her. She had called HG's bluff here at Yellowstone, had told her that if she wanted to kill the whole world in her pain, then she would have to start with Myka. Somewhere deep down she supposed that she knew even then that Helena cared for her, and although she didn't want to examine the thought too closely as she faced down the grief-maddened writer, her mind had made the connections and used the only leverage she had.
She paused in her musing and and gently took HG's hand as they stood together, watching the scene before them. Myka's younger self forced a gun into Helena's hand, screamed at her to kill Myka first, since the end result would be the same. She, Myka Bering, would still be dead as a result of Helena's actions. And as she always had, and always would, Helena Wells chose to save the Secret Service agent. The moment began to fade for Myka as the bells rang, but she saw quite clearly the look in Helena's eyes as she handed the Trident to Myka's younger self. There was regret, grief, madness of course; but mostly her eyes were filled with a shining and clear love that Myka could barely stand to see. Her heart swelled, regret filling her. She wished that things had been different, that Helena had abandoned her mad plan and had been honest with her back then. ("Or you could have been honest with her," said a traitorous voice in her head.) But now it was too late.
Helena felt the tolling of the bells surround her as she saw the scenery of Yellowstone Park appear from blackness. She had awoken to this new world out of the bronze, and had never seen this place before she arrived on the day she planned to destroy the world. Even in her madness she had had to admit to herself that it was probably one of the most beautiful places on earth. Now, returning here, she was able to see the beauty around her with new eyes untainted by madness. It was truly devastating. She didn't believe in a Creator, but she could understand sometimes, looking at the beauty of a place like this, or at the infinite possibility of the universe, why so many people did. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She did not want to have to witness the scene that was about to play on this stage before her. She remembered every moment of this day clearly, cruelly so, but she at least had not ever seen herself while in the grip of her madness. She cringed at the thought of what she had done, and quipped softly to Myka that Steve and Claudia must really dislike her, to cover her shame about what they were about to see. Myka reassured her, told her that there must be something she needed to see here. She watched as Artie was injured. She could argue that it was self-inflicted, she knew, since he had shot her. We reap what we sow, and all that. But she knew that by donning the Corsican vest that day, it was likely that someone would be hurt if they tried to stop her. And she admitted to herself that the person she hurt could easily have been Myka. She fidgeted a little, ashamed of her insanity, ashamed that she had hurt Artie, the gruff and grumpy man for whom, despite his faults, she had come to care deeply. Then she watched as Myka forced the gun into her hands, heard Myka pleading with her to at least have the courage to look her in the eye as she killed her. "Not like a coward..." Those words had rung in her ears so many times since that day. She had been a coward, had not wanted to face her guilt over leaving her daughter behind to go searching for 'curiosities,' the action that had ultimately resulted in Christina's death. Instead her reaction was to blame, to destroy, to rend flesh from bone in a useless attempt to alleviate her guilt and grief. She was grateful that the Warehouse hadn't (yet) chosen to show the bestial things she had done to the men who killed Christina. She was not sure that her friendship with Myka, or indeed anyone else with a modicum of decency within them, would survive seeing that. Nor was she sure that witnessing it would leave her entirely sane. She could not bring herself to truly regret killing those men, but she did regret the horrific, monstrous things she had done to them beforehand. She realised that tears were once again streaming down her face, and was grateful to discover that Myka had taken her hand at some point in an attempt to comfort her. She felt nothing but relief when the bells summoned her back into the darkness.
Myka was summoned back to the doorless room by the bells, and found herself wrapped around the figure of a weeping Helena. She held her tightly, whispering nonsense words against her forehead in an attempt to comfort the shame-stricken author. She was so...so mad at Helena for Yellowstone, for what it did to Myka's self-confidence and to her belief in people. But in the face of the very real shame and pain that she could see in Helena, and most of all because of the love that she knew Helena felt for her, she could not hold on to her anger any more. She spoke softly, almost inaudibly to the woman next to her.
"I thought I hated you for the longest time. I understood your grief, or as much as I could at that point, but I felt so...so stupid for trusting you. I guess I've never really felt like I was anyone special, but I was always able to rely on my instincts." She felt Helena move to try and meet her eyes, but she ducked her head a little, avoiding her gaze.
"Please don't look at me. Let me finish." She knew she wouldn't be able to speak if she had to look into Helena's eyes right now.
"I know that I have talents, I can speak different languages and can shoot a gun and handle a suspect and save the President. But somehow I still feel like...like the gangly kid with the big glasses and the goofy smile that the other kids made fun of at school. I read your books when I was a kid, and they gave me a place to escape to, but the other side of that is that I had a place I needed to escape from. I wasn't ever popular, and my dad had this way of making every achievement into...well, nothing. So I never got to feel special, like a lot of people seem to. Maybe I'm too introspective or something, I don't know. So when you did what you did, when you played me the way you did, I just figured it was my own fault for being so gullible. I hope you don't think I'm saying any of this to hurt you. I understand now, after watching what happened to Christina, why that would have broken you so completely that you did all this. But at the time it just felt like my fault. I want you to know, though, that I don't blame you anymore, and that I'm not mad or hurt about it. It was an awful thing that happened to you, and you made a mistake. I forgive you, Helena."
Helena spoke softly, face hidden under her soft, black hair.
"May I look at you now?"
"Yes," said Myka, steeling herself. To her surprise, Helena, although her face was still tear-streaked, was smiling.
"Do you remember what you said to me when we were in the chess lock in Hong Kong?" Myka smiled broadly in response. "I see that you do! Well, I believe I have already made my apologies and regrets about my actions abundantly, and apparently annoyingly clear, so I shall, if I may quote you, 'get off my cross' and move on." She was rewarded by a silly snort from Myka that she found entirely adorable.
"I will say one more thing, though, if you will permit me?" She paused, with a raised eyebrow, searching Myka's eyes. Myka nodded, biting her lip as she so often did when she was nervous or concentrating.
"Thank you. For believing me and for forgiving me, and for giving me the strength to believe in myself a little more. It heartens me to hear you say that you understand my motivations, and I hope it will aid in our understanding of one another from now on. But to know that, even before we were given this most wondrous and annoying opportunity to relive our finest moments," she indicated the room around them with a wry twist of her mouth, "you believed in me and my inherent goodness, for want of a better word – well, that is what has given me the strength to become the person I am now. Flawed though I may still be, I am still a better, more whole person and that is entirely because of your faith in me. No-one else, bar Christina who was my own child, has ever had such faith in me, Myka. I have never given anyone cause to. You might not realise it, but if you take the time to think of Artie's reaction to me, to Pete's – even Claudia's, you will see that yours was most unusual. That you are most unusual. And by unusual in this context I mean special, because you have seen in me something good that I now know must have been there all the time. That is a rare gift, Myka Bering. I regret ever making you doubt how special you are, regardless of my motivations..."
"Edging closer to the cross there, HG..." Myka said, chuckling.
Helena held her hands up, smiling. "Suffice it to say then, that you are most unique, Myka, and you should never doubt that, not for a second."
Myka smiled and blushed. What Helena had said...she couldn't mistake her sincerity. However, she was a little distracted, because hearing her say "Myka," in that incredible accent (which was not 'British', but in fact an English accent, as HG had so often reminded her. Britain was made up of different countries, and had many regional accents. HG's own originated from the South East of England, and was what would be described as a bit posh in modern-day England)... it did things to her insides. She was not an innocent. She had been with men before (but not women) and had sexual encounters, some serious and some not. She wasn't a virgin. But something about the way Helena said her name made her stomach flip over and her muscles clench and her breath catch. And those things were a hell of a lot harder to hide when you were tied to a damn bed, face to face with the one making you feel that way. She had loved Sam, who was her most serious relationship to date, but he had never been able to make her feel, even in the throes of passion, as she did now at just the sound of Helena's voice.
Helena watched Myka blush at her compliment, and was thoroughly charmed once again by the agent's reaction. She was feeling a little flushed herself, truth be told, and thinking that she should maybe extricate herself from Myka's arms a little to avoid embarrassing her any further. But she couldn't look away from the other woman's face, her eyes. Chemistry was such a strange thing, she thought to herself idly, as she unconsciously touched Myka's curly hair. She had indulged herself thoroughly in her century, sexually speaking, and had thought herself long past this kind of self-consciousness. None of the women or men that she had been with, however, had drawn with all their wiles and attractions such a response from her body and heart as this woman was able to with simply a blush. She had never been in love in her time, she knew that. Lust had been enough, along with the fulfilment she got from her work at the Warehouse and her writing and inventing. But this feeling, this incredible chemical reaction- it made her understand why people had created songs and poems and beautiful works of art in its honour. Love was a bloody mystery to her, she was not afraid to admit, but if it came in the form of Myka Bering, it was one that she was happy to continue investigating for the rest of her life. The bells sang and drew both women onward.