Disclaimer: I still don't own any part of Warehouse 13 and honestly, I really don't want to. It's much more fun to play with the toys and put them back to play with later.
A/N: Thanks to all comments and reviews. Always appreciated and considered. Keep crying, keep laughing. Without one, you can't have the other.
Days and nights went by blending into one mass of the same. The group sessions made great strides with the team. Despite the intense work with Abigail, Myka and Helena dragged themselves through each day struggling to find a balance between their mercurial moods. Pete was cleared for field work and found the time away from the warehouse a welcome relief. Myka remained at the warehouse, feeling guilty by staying behind, and bringing files for Helena to immerse herself into when she wasn't busily engrossed in her workbook. No mention was made about the chess set which was now a permanent fixture on the coffee table often in the middle of a different game.
Fall approached bringing with it longer nights for the two women to fight their demons in the dark. Myka twitched in her sleep as Helena watched, anticipating yet another nightmare. Myka slowly opened her eyes to look sleepily into dark, sleepless ones.
"Watching me sleep again, aren't you?" Myka yawned, stretching out the stiffness of her limbs and back. "Ugh. I miss our big bed."
"Just enjoying the scenery." Helena smiled. Slowly, she reached out her hand stroking her fingers across Myka's cheek. Myka lay on her side motionless in reaction to the unexpected gesture. She closed her eyes, sighing at the long forgotten contact.
"No nightmares?" Helena whispered.
Myka cleared her throat of sleep, carefully taking the hand from her face, kissing the cold fingers. "No nightmares," she whispered back. She wrapped the hand in her own, warming the cold digits. Suddenly, her eyes flew open and she perched herself up, staring down at Helena. "You're on your left side."
"So it appears. How else am I to gaze at you in the moonlight from my side of the bed?"
"It doesn't hurt?" Myka frowned concerned.
"It's tolerable." Helena smiled, reclaiming her hand and reaching out towards Myka, diligently unbuttoning the first two buttons of her top.
"Helena, what are you doing?" Myka asked, her stomach unexpectedly dropping.
"What does it look like I am doing? I miss sleeping naked next to you in our big bed. I want to touch you. May I?" Helena stopped her hand in the air, before reaching the next button.
"I thought we weren't doing that yet."
"Ah, no." Helena dropped her hand. "You misunderstand me. I would be lying if I said I do not want to make love with you. Although I am sure I would not be in any danger of causing myself physical harm at this point, I am not willing to risk that amount of pain again in the pursuit of discovering new pleasures. I simply miss touching you, Myka. I just want to touch you."
"And you think you can do that?" Myka looked at her doubtfully. "I'm not sure I can." She chuckled.
Helena carefully sat up and removed her own top before lying down again. "I'd certainly like to try. I need to feel your touch, Myka. I miss us just touching each other. Remember all those evenings on the sofa? Can we not just lay here and enjoy touching? We have managed it before, you know."
Myka would have laughed if not for the sadness in the dark eyes looking upon her. Swallowing hard, she reached a shaking hand out to trace a finger across Helena's forehead, down the side of her face and neck to her collarbone, hesitating at the incision site.
Helena covered the shaking hand with her own. "Myka, it's okay. Please. I don't want you to be afraid of simply touching me." Continuing to sense the hesitation, Helena took Myka's hand and brought it back up to her face. "If nothing else, will you please just hold me?" she pleaded.
Myka sat up, pulling her shirt off. "Can we start with holding for now?"
Helena smiled, briefly touching the face in such consternation, before rolling onto her side and wiggling back into Myka's warmth. Myka automatically wrapped her arm firmly around the welcoming presence.
Myka settled in behind her, breathing in her scent before placing a soft kiss on the back of the exposed neck before her.
"Myka, if you do not feel comfortable in our touching each other yet, I highly recommend you leave the back of my neck alone. You know what that does to me." She felt the smile against her bare shoulder.
"I know," Myka breathed out in frustration, nuzzling closer to the object of discussion. "It's just so damn…delicious."
Helena shivered at the warm breath on her neck. "My point exactly. I have no doubt of the trouble we would get ourselves into. Now, go to sleep."
"Not bloody likely," Myka mumbled into her neck.
Helena snickered, hugging the arm closer.
Myka knocked on the door before entering the office. Helena looked up from whatever she had diligently been working on the past few days. She cocked her head to one side and frowned, confused. "Why are you knocking on the door?" she asked.
Myka shrugged walking towards the desk. "I'm not sure. It just felt weird walking in on you while you were working."
"Why? It's never stopped you before." Helena looked down at the page and made a few more notes. "Sit with me?" she asked, not lifting her head and frowning at the page.
"I could, but I thought maybe we could go over to the cottage for awhile." She ran her finger across the desk, suddenly unsure of herself.
"Whatever for?" Helena stopped writing and looked up at her, squinting at her with curiosity.
"Don't you even want to spend your afternoons at the cottage? It's our space. You've holed yourself up in this office, Helena. What happens when you can actually manage the stairs? You're pretty much there. Are you moving back or hiding yourself away in here?"
"I'm not hiding. I just don't see the point in going over there until we are ready to stay. That is home. This is temporary. I want home to BE home, not a place to visit just to have to sleep somewhere else."
"How is that different from what we were already doing? It's just backwards now. We slept there and ate and socialized here."
Helena leaned forward supporting her stiffening body with a deep sigh. "Myka, home is where I sleep with you and everything else that entails."
"I can't believe you. Are you seriously implying this has to do with sex?" Myka leaned on the desk in front of her face.
Helena quickly backed away, straightening herself in the chair, clenching her teeth at the resulting pain. "Absolutely not! You misunderstand me. Sex has nothing to do with this. It is the routine, the quiet time, the 'us' time. Home is where we eat, where we sleep, where we argue, and yes, where we make love. It is everything that happens surrounded by four walls all convoluted into one unit. Am I really having that much difficulty in putting this into intelligible words?"
"Myka, to spend my days in our home would just be a reminder of one more thing that has been taken away from me, even if it is temporary. Before this predicament, we had the choice of where we would eat. We ate here because we wanted to. Well, we also couldn't very well feed ourselves in the beginning, to be honest." She leaned back in the chair with a defeated sigh.
"Don't you see? Before any of this happened we were already separating ourselves from here. We spent more time there with each other than we did here with the rest of the team. When was the last time we ate here when both of us were home? Why do you think I wanted to learn to cook? I wanted to be with you, not everyone else."
"Why did we start reading one book to each other every night? I can't even remember the last movie we watched all together here before I forced us into this room. We spent our evenings enjoying each other. Really, if you truly think about it, we spent very little time here at all. To be honest, I'd started to find our place a little cramped for just the two of us considering the amount of time we spent there."
"I don't want to be teased by home when I cannot yet call it home. Myka, this house stopped being home a long time ago." She leaned onto the desk, sad eyes staring up at Myka.
"I know." Myka closed her eyes, running her hand through her hair, grabbing a handful and pulling her head back before letting it go. "I know. That's been going through my head, too. Even Claudia isn't pestering us anymore. She actually calls first now." Myka smiled at the thought.
"Can we at least go out to the garden?" Myka pleaded. "You need to get out of this building, and I really need to be with you. Just you. We haven't been together alone since you last left, Helena. I almost didn't get you back, damn it!" She stopped to collect herself and continued softly, "I miss you."
Dropping the pencil in her hand, Helena raised her right hand from the desk, dropping her forehead into its embrace. She spoke into the desk so softly Myka could barely hear her. "No one knows better than I, Myka, that you almost didn't get me back; it was me that was beaten, it was me that spent days in the dark constantly thirsty and hungry, it was me that heard my collarbone break falling on the ground trying to protect my already broken ribs. It was me that struggled to breathe, begging to pass out into oblivion if only for an hour. It was me that watched a lead pipe crush my hand." She looked straight into the wide green eyes, voice rising as she continued, pounding on the desk with each emphatic statement. "It was me, Myka! I was the one that recited The Little Prince in the dark silence every night so that I could still feel you with me. I still felt you in my heart, damn it! Me, Myka. Me. I had my jaw broken by a fist the first night in that space! It was me that wondered every bloody minute, in excruciating pain, if I was holding on for you for nothing. Me, Myka. It was me! ME! NOT YOU. IT…WAS…ME!"
Abigail ran to the office when she heard the shouting start. She remained in the doorway, allowing the scene to play out, close at hand.
Helena slammed her head on the desk as Myka stood frozen in place, silent tears streaming down her face. Helena continued her rage through sobs, banging her head. "I was the one that was used by the Regents, the one threatened to lose the one thing I loved most, the author that no longer exists. I am the one that is afraid of the dark once again. I am the one that is afraid to walk out that door. I am the one that blanks out and jumps when you touch me." She looked at the ceiling momentarily, taking a gasping breath between sobs. "You are afraid of losing me. I am afraid of being lost. It was me, Myka. It was me. Me." Her voice had faded to a whisper.
Myka walked around the desk as Helena continued to sob. Carefully and slowly, she ran her hand through Helena's hair, pulling it back as she slipped her other hand under her forehead, pushing it back at the same time. She released a breath of air in relief that the puddle of human flesh in the chair didn't jump at her touch. She kneeled on the floor catching Helena as she crumpled into her, forehead landing on her shoulder. Her strong arms wrapped themselves around the tortured soul encasing it in a protective shield, her own body shaking now with tears and pain.
"I've done this once already, Myka. I don't think I can do it again. I am tired of being used…I'm tired. So very, very tired….I am lost."
Myka brought a hand up to caress the dark head, stroking it calmly. "Shhh. You're not lost. I found you the first time. I'm not letting go of you the second time." She swallowed hard. "You're never lost when I'm right here." Myka finally choked out between her own sobs.
Claudia ran up beside Abigail, hearing the commotion as she entered the house. Abigail grabbed her just in time before she barged into the room.
"What's going on? What happened?" Claudia demanded.
Abigail turned her around and led her away from the room, pulling the door closed behind her. "It's called a breakthrough."
Myka lay on her back staring at the ceiling. Her head was still throbbing and her sinuses were full, but she couldn't reach the tissues. Helena was sound asleep, exhausted from the emotional release she'd finally succumbed to. For the first time since she had left months earlier, Helena completely relinquished herself, body and soul into the security of Myka's protective enclosure. Sighing in her sleep, Helena stretched her limbs around the longer body pulling it closer and buried her head deeper into Myka's shoulder. The warm moist air on Myka's neck, long absent, was once again a constant comfort.
Myka closed her eyes willing the headache to go away and concentrated on matching her own breaths with the soft exhalations against her neck. Helena wasn't the only one tired, she thought. Again, she asked herself, what now? Helena's recuperation was the priority. Everything was cleared as healed for the most part aside from her hand and her mind. With any luck they'd be back in the cottage by the end of the week. Myka knew Helena was being surprisingly conservative with going up and down the stairs. But what then?
Artie was itching to send her out with Pete, but she was resisting. It wasn't fair to her team members and she was feeling guilty. She'd tell Artie tomorrow she was ready. Helena and Abigail had connected at last, so she wasn't concerned to leave her alone. Abigail had left them alone after Helena's breakdown, allowing them the space to reconnect. She had only checked in with them once. They would have a place to start tomorrow. The three of them had a place to start again.
She was anxious to get out of the main house and finally be independent in their space, alone. Helena had made a good point though, that the cottage had started feeling small. That was so long ago, though. Maybe they were remembering things differently. They'd have to figure it out when they got there. They just needed to be on their own again. Alone.
"I can feel you thinking." Myka felt more than heard the words mumbled into her neck.
Helena pushed herself up slightly, moving her head onto Myka's chest, listening to the steadiness of the heart beneath her. Myka shifted her off gently, sitting up.
"Thank God you're awake. I really need to blow my nose," Myka said stuffy, grabbing the tissues beside the bed.
Helena started laughing into the pillow as Myka cleared her sinuses of the offensive substance. "What is so funny?"
Still laughing, Helena turned onto her back. "I don't know. I have a breakdown, we end up here exhausted and now the only thing concerning you is your snot. I'm sorry. I find that outrageously amusing!"
Myka looked down at her laughing partner before finding the irony of the situation and laughing herself. Without thinking, she rolled over onto Helena pinning her down and leaning in to kiss her just before she saw the panic grow in her eyes. She immediately pushed herself back up.
"Helena, are you okay? I'm so sorry…I wasn't think…"
Myka felt her neck pulled down as her mouth was possessed by a greedy, long withheld Helena, anxious for every drop she could taste. Unable to breathe any longer, Myka pushed herself up grabbing more tissues. "Helena, I can't breathe. My nose is still stuffed up."
She leaned up against the headboard blowing her nose clear. "You scared me. I thought…"
"You thought I was going to have a panic attack. I know. So did I."
"What changed?" Myka looked down at the head moving into her lap. Her hand crept under the tee shirt tracing undiscovered patterns on the warm, moist back.
"I don't know. I started to talk myself out of it. Then, all I could think was I hadn't really tasted you since I left and that seemed so long ago I couldn't wait anymore."
"I think we really need to slow down," Myka almost cried.
"I agree, but I am enjoying this very much. Please don't stop." Helena lifted her head, eyes pleading.
Myka wiggled back down under the covers, pulling Helena back against her, hand continuing its travels.
"What were you thinking?" Helena's voice reverberated in Myka's chest.
"I want what's best for us and I don't know what that is. I feel cooped up and I need to go back out there, but I really don't know if I want to. It's my job. That's why we're here."
"Is it?" Helena asked weakly.
"Is it what?"
"Why we are here? Perhaps we were here for some other reason. What if that reason no longer exists?"
"What are you saying, Helena? You've always belonged here."
"I'm not sure. I have not worked it out quite yet. Something nags at me. I wonder if my reason for being here is done."
"Do you want to leave?" Myka's hand stopped, waiting for an answer.
"I don't know. Do you? I've never had anything besides the warehouse, other than Christina. But now I have you." Helena resumed her earlier position, sprawling over Myka, releasing herself completely. "We have Abigail and we have time, Myka. Of that I am certain. We have time." She sighed into the body below her, falling asleep as the fingers on her back slowed, stopping at the small of her back, their owner asleep as well.
