Myka woke early with Helena wrapped around her, their bodies pressed together like they had been on so many other mornings. Except this time, there were fewer clothes involved. None, in fact. Myka blushed, one hand covering her mouth as she remembered the night before. What they had done. How it had felt. She was overwhelmed, smiling and a little tearful. She looked at Helena's face as she slept, examining her skin, her eyelashes, her lips. She was so beautiful, so incredible. And she was here, with Myka. For a girl from Colorado who had been abused and ignored for most of her life, this was big. Terrifying, really, given that Helena had rejected her only recently. Myka didn't remember ever being so happy and so frightened before in her life. She couldn't resist kissing Helena softly on her slightly pouting lips, and moved her lips to her ears, her jaw, her neck. Helena moaned, grumbling at being woken up, but Myka grinned to herself and kept going, waking up her raven-haired lover with small touches and kisses in places that she had particularly enjoyed discovering the night before. Suddenly she found herself pinned to the bed by an irritated Helena, who had captured Myka's wrists in one hand and was straddling her with a gorgeous pout that Myka wanted to kiss.
"You vile, evil woman - you woke me. Why would you do that?" She was half joking, half serious. Myka grinned at her.
"Not a morning person, honey?" She raised an eyebrow at Helena, biting her lip to keep from laughing at the look on her face.
"No, I'm not a morning person when somebody has kept me up all night..." She tightened her grip on Myka's wrists, beginning to smile a little. Myka squirmed a little underneath her hips, and when she saw how the movement made Helena's expression change, did it again. She had learned a lot the night before, and she had an eidetic memory. She wasn't above teasing if it got her what she wanted. It was a few (rather sweaty) hours later when they woke up for the second time.
Helena was watching her sleep. Myka could feel eyes on her as soon as she woke. She gingerly opened her right eye, and there she was, this woman who had changed Myka's life. Her hair was mussed, her face still smudged here and there with green paint. She was breathtaking.
Myka smiled. "What are you looking at, Wells?"
"Just a vision of loveliness. Just a woman who looks far more beautiful than she should after a night of wanton, uninhibited sex." She smirked.
"You are the vision, Helena. I am just a curly haired, gangly nerd from Colorado." She sighed, running a finger across Helena's brow and then her cheek. "I have no idea why you're here with me. None."
Helena looked at her, quizzically for a moment, and then a little sad. "You are a fascinating creature, Myka Bering. I have said it before, and I am quite sure I'll say it again. You have no idea how beautiful, how alluring, how special you really are. I imagine it's because of your upbringing, such as it was." A shadow crosses her face. "But you are wonderful. Talented, kind, caring. And exceptionally, enticingly beautiful. Your eyes, that ridiculously sexy hair – I have no idea how I resisted you for as long as I did." Myka was gasping a little by this stage, because Helena had been punctuating each compliment with a kiss on Myka's neck, or her ear, or her jaw. She didn't believe Helena, of course – wasn't, in fact, capable of believing anyone who complimented her, not really. But she was getting closer to believing her with each kiss, every time she saw that look in Helena's eyes. She had never been happier.
"I've never felt like this before, Helena. Which is not surprising, I suppose, since I've never been with anyone before. But somehow this feels...like more than other people have. Like it's deeper. I'm not trying to scare you, I just want you to know." She looked at Helena carefully, scared of another rejection, if she was being honest about it. She was surprised to see that Helena's eyes were filled with tears, a soft blush colouring her face.
She kissed Helena softly, wiping away her tears, all the while muttering to herself, "Great job, Bering, make the woman of your dreams so uncomfortable that she cries...awesome effort as always."
"Oh, shut up Myka, for God's sake." Helena tilted Myka's head back with one hand, kissing her thoroughly and leaving them both breathless for long moments. She smiled again, gently, but with a little twist of her lips that said she was irritated.
"You are infuriating, you know. I was touched by what you said, not uncomfortable. Maybe you are just a nerdy idiot from Colorado after all." She sighed. "I have never felt like this either, Myka. I had a few boyfriends at school, before Marcus, and then with him I thought there was something special – at least until he found out I was pregnant. But this – this is something else entirely. It's unfathomable to me that I could even feel this way after what happened to Christina. I know that I deliberately closed myself off. Perhaps it was the only way I could cope, I don't know." She brushed her hair back with long fingers, looking into the distance.
"Whatever this is, between you and I – you are not the only one to be confounded by it, believe me. I don't know whether to call it love or not, and I certainly don't want to scare you off by saying it, but it is different to anything I've felt before. And I want to find out, with you, what it is. So stop being so bloody frightened. I am here, with you, because I choose to be. I was frightened of this, before, but somehow it has always been inevitable. Since I saw you at the carol service, the way you looked at me while I sang. And even before that, since I first heard you sing. Did you know about that?" Myka shook her head, struck mute by Helena's words.
"I was passing by the rehearsal rooms one morning on my way to my room. It wasn't long after the beginning of the first semester. And I heard Mrs Calder singing a passage from Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Pie Jesu". I stopped for a moment, because her voice is – well, you know, she teaches you too. And I love that piece of music. And then I heard you. I didn't know it was you, not at first, but although your singing voice is so different from your speaking voice, I suddenly somehow knew it was you. Your voice, your heart was in the words. And since then, Myka, I have been lost. You make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I get goosebumps, and I swear my heart has stopped countless times when you sing. You are so beautiful. So you're not in this alone. Believe me." And Helena looked at her, her heart in her eyes, and somehow Myka did believe her. And she was terrified.
They made love again, and again, until they were finally driven out of bed by hunger. They went out to the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, both sitting on one side of the table, holding hands the whole time. Helena paid, of course – she would never let Myka pay for anything, not when she had 'such a ridiculous sum of money sitting around, not being used'. It made Myka uncomfortable, normally, as it had when Helena had presented her with a new phone, but this time it just made her feel warm, cared for. That night there was no question of Myka going back to her own room. She couldn't have left Helena's side if she tried. That night when Helena kissed her jawline and stroked her hair, she didn't freeze, she just enjoyed the sensation, and she enjoyed the freedom of enjoying the feeling.