Thanks to the-social-recluse for the beta.
I hope everyone survived Christmas and is well. :)
See I was dead when I woke up this morning
And I will be dead before the day is done.
Florence + The Machine - Seven Devils
Myka's behaviour changed over the next days. Helena was worried. She found Myka deeply in thought, almost as if she was sleepwalking. The professor read a book or worked over one of her student's essays but when Helena looked more thoroughly at her, she realised the younger woman's eyes weren't moving. Myka Bering was so closed-in within herself that HG couldn't find a way to reach her.
It was this one evening when the professor asked for the first time to sleep alone since their shared night that Helena looked at the shadow again. The guest room was occupied by Claudia, but the other side of the bed in Myka's room had to stay empty. On Myka's word. The American said she needed time for her own.
Helena thought she had no place for herself but then she found the garden. And in the garden, she found the stone again. The heavy object remained in the empty flower bed like it was marking something. HG reached her hand out for it, but as much as she couldn't lift it she couldn't dig it up either. She couldn't do anything but stand in front of it, her hands on her hips, staring. The stone was a mystery. She had no memory of it and also no idea why it caused such an unusual feeling inside her stomach. She felt intrigued by that stone, but she was unable to get it.
When she turned around, the shadow stood right in front of her, right out of the blue. Helena yelped slightly as she almost made contact with it. She jumped back, her eyes wide in shock.
The shadow wasn't stuck to the wall anymore. It wasn't waiting,- now it beset her. Helena's nostrils flared as she caught that smell she had already witnessed in Myka Bering's bathing supplies. And she remembered it perfectly.
Apples.
A compelling scent, trying to draw her in and get her.
"Helena!" She heard her brother's voice calling for her, but muffled, quiet. Almost unrecognisable. "Breathe!"
"No." The inventor said and lifted up her hands to get some space between the shadow and herself. She looked up to the darkened window to Myka's bedroom.
"I'm not ready." HG told the shadow as if it could hear her. As if Charles could hear her. "And I highly doubt I will ever be."
Myka sat in her office room in university and pondered over her research. She tried to prepare a lecture, but somehow she couldn't concentrate on work. Instead, she stared at the glass of water on her table and played with her pencil. Her head rested on her hand on the table.
A head peeked into the doorway. "Professor Bering?" It was one of the doctoral students, Myka had forgotten her name, but she had seen her before several times. She had blonde hair and sympathetic, attentive blue eyes.
The American quickly looked up and sat up straight. She was interested in looking professional in front of the students. But her attempts were now utterly ruined by the fact that she had hit her knee at the table and the water glass fell over, pouring its content all over the table and her research.
Myka cursed loudly.
"Oh, Professor Bering! I'm sorry." The student quickly crossed the room and came to her table, trying to get those books out of the water.
They quickly cleaned up the mess together and the other woman brought Myka paper towels from their faculty's kitchen.
"Thanks, Miss...?" The professor was reminded that she didn't know this doctoral student's name.
"Thompson." The student said with a bright smile while smoothing her red coat. "Ruth Thompson."
"Ah right!" Myka replied while tossing the wet paper into the bin. "The one with the strange Shakespeare thesis."
"Speaking of that..." Miss Thompson sat down in the chair in front of Myka's desk. She opened her bag and pulled out a few books to place them on the table. "I wanted to ask you about your opinion on my thesis."
Myka tilted her head while reading over the backcovers of Ruth's research books. "Ah..." She grinned a little mischievously. "I suppose that's not part of your research, is it?" She pointed at a copy of a book called 'Losing my bearings' lying under a sonnet collection.
"Oh! No!" Miss Thompson blushed deeply and quickly put that book back into her bag. "That's for my own entertainment."
The professor leaned back in her chair. "Is it any good? I've read about it in the newspaper."
"Oh, Professor Bering. It's bloody depressing." The student replied and rolled her eyes. "A woman living in an old house, hearing a heartbeat which is not her own." She leaned her head from the one side to the other and looked directly into Myka's eyes. "It's also very creepy."
"Sounds a little like Poe." Myka smiled fondly at the other woman. "So, your research?"
Ruth Thompson stayed for about an hour in professor Bering's office, intensely discussing the thesis. Myka actually brought some coffee as they got deeper into the topic. Miss Thompson had many questions for the professor and Myka was proud and happy to be able to answer them all thoroughly. As Ruth had emptied her coffee and cleared her books from the table to make her way out of the office, she bit her lip.
"Miss Bering?" She asked, sounding a little shyer than in the beginning.
"Yes, Miss Thompson?"
And with that, the doctoral student asked Myka a question she didn't know how to answer.
Helena could feel that something had happened. Sleep-walking Myka had turned into complete avoidance Myka. The American sat at the dinner table and stared into empty space, and the device she had to use to communicate with Helena lay on the other side of the table, unnoticed. The professor didn't even make an attempt to put it inside her ear.
HG had to talk to the other woman. She had to find out what had happened, what was going on. She concentrated hard to shove the strange looking earplug over to Myka, whose eyes closed firmly as it stopped right in front of her.
The Victorian watched the younger woman eagerly. She had to put it in. She had to talk with Helena. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when Myka actually picked up the object and placed it where Helena needed it to be.
"What is it, darling?" HG asked quickly. "I can feel that something is wrong."
Myka hummed, while her eyes were pinned to the table in front of her. Her head was bowed, she didn't look up. There was something utterly wrong.
"Myka, tell me. Please. I cannot see you suffer like this." The Victorian declared and Myka's head snapped up, her eyes darted to the spot where Helena was standing.
"That's the problem, right?" Myka asked with a undertone in her voice HG would almost describe as angry. The writer took a slight step back, confused.
"I suffer, Helena. I suffer." The professor mumbled and looked back down at the table. She swallowed and then took a deep breath. "I've met someone..." She started and then went silent.
"You mean...?" HG didn't dare to finish that sentence. She didn't dare to think about the meaning of what Myka had just said to her. The reality she had built for herself shattered apart right in front of her and she knew she was helpless. Unable to fix it, unable to undo what they had done.
"There was a doctoral student inside my office today. Ruth Thompson. She was nice and interesting and we talked a lot. And in the end, she invited me for coffee." The professor sighed deeply. "She asked me for a date with her."
A noise escaped from the Victorian's throat Helena herself couldn't identify. It was anger, it was jealousy, it was understanding. Because she knew she could never claim Myka for her own. She knew they could never be.
"It's not that I want to go out with her. It's just... It's just that I didn't know what to say to her. I couldn't tell her that in a strange way I am taken. That in a strange way, I'm in a commitment with a ghost." The smile Myka was showing was filled with pain. "And even though having a date with a doctoral student would be complicated, it would never be as complicated as it is to be with you."
"Myka I-" Helena shook her head in desperation.
"It's not because I cannot touch you. It's not because I cannot see you, Helena." Myka bit her lip and closed her eyes, a single tear was running down her cheek.
Now she stared into space, with empty eyes. "It's because you cannot find peace with me, Helena. And neither can I."
HG stepped closer to her, trying to reach out, only to grasp the emptiness. "But Myka!" Her voice was nothing but a plead. "I love you."
Myka's reaction was a sharp intake of breath, she leaned her elbows on her table and started twisting her hair. "I cannot." She said and pursed her lips before continuing. "I cannot fall in love with a ghost, Helena."
Helena's fist hit the table with a loud thud. "Damn it, Myka. I'm a person!"
The professor was silent for a while. Then she looked up, vaguely into Helena's direction. "Yes, you are. I know you are. You don't seem to understand how well I know that you're a person, Helena. You're a wonderful person." She looked down to her hands. "But you're also a ghost. You're dead, Helena."
"But I don't want to be dead."
Myka shook her head. "And you're denying this. You're denying this so hard. I do understand that it hurts, of course I do. But I keep asking myself what circumstance it is which you are denying along with your death. Something keeps you from accepting peace." Now the American once again took a deep breath. "And I don't want to be the person who supports your denial. I cannot be the person who keeps you from moving on."
"Moving on?" Helena huffed angrily. "Myka, I don't want to move on if it means leaving you. There's nothing to move on from. My life is over and-"
"That's true." Myka's voice was scaringly calm. "Your life is over, Helena. But mine isn't. And I'm afraid that I would want to follow you somewhere I'm not supposed to go."
Helena didn't know how to react. She just stood there, her lips parted, tears in her eyes, while shaking her head in disbelief about what she just had heard.
Myka took another deep breath. "I wish it was you. I wish it was you so badly, Helena." She closed her eyes and HG could see the tears running over her cheeks.
"Myka, I- " The Victorian had begun that sentence before realising how to end it. She was out of words, knowing that the other woman's were true.
"I'll go to bed." The professor stood up. "I'm exhausted." Slowly, Myka took the device out of her ear and placed it again on the table. Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.
She had closed the door. Helena stared at the wooden object and at the shadow right next to it. She then buried her face in her hands. Myka had closed the door.
Claudia Donovan sat on the bed in the guest room, reading a book. Quietly, Helena took place next to her. Apparently, the girl had heard the Victorian's footsteps on the wooden floor, so she immediately took her hearing device from the nightstand and put it into her ear.
But both women stayed silent for a long time, in which Claudia slowly browsed through her book while Helena struggled for words. The redhead waited eagerly. When HG started speaking, she looked up, closed her book and placed it in her lap.
"Will you take care of her?" Helena asked calmly.
Claudia's face was sad, even though she smiled. She looked like she made big attempts to hide her pain. HG could tell that the girl didn't want to face the meaning of Helena's words, that she didn't want the Victorian to go. But Claudia Donovan was strong and she knew what was necessary.
"Of course I will." She replied equally calm.
The writer nodded. "Good." They went silent.
"That's all I'm asking for." Helena spoke on after a while. "That you make sure she's alright. That you make sure she won't mourn me too long. Because... I think that what you asked me not to happen already happened."
The redhead clenched her jaw. "I know, HG. ...Myka has fallen in love with you the moment she heard your voice. And... I can understand her."
Helena looked up, directly into Claudia's face and saw she struggled with holding tears back. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you're a good person, Helena Wells. And that I'm glad to.. well, to literally have found you... And honoured." Now Claudia reopened her book and looked firmly at the text, her eyes not moving.
Helena surveyed her for a brief time. Then she smiled. "Thank you, Claudia. Even though our time together was short... I would honestly love to consider you a friend. If that's alright for you."
Claudia looked up from her book again and smiled. "That would really make me happy, HG."
When Myka woke up the next morning, she felt empty. She sat up straight in her bed, only to jump out of it immediately afterwards. Taking big steps, she ran down the stairs and made it into the living room. "Helena?" She asked quietly, hoping, wishing the other woman was still there. She regretted everything she had said the evening before. She would take everything back if that meant that HG was still there.
There was her laptop on the coffee table, opened and running... and it was displaying a document with a small text in it. Myka stepped closer to read it.
I still love you, Myka Bering. And I hope Miss Thompson is quite a catch.
"Helena?!" The professor yelled. She was afraid of what this message could mean, she was so afraid, her heart felt empty. Helena could not be gone. Desperately, Myka made it into the dining room, putting her device from the dinner table into her ear. "Helena?" She breathed. "Oh, please. Don't be gone."
"I'm here." She heard Helena's voice and smiled. Her breath quickened. Quickly, she spun around on her heels.
"I take that back!" Myka spoke so quickly that she had problems forming her sentences. "I take everything back. You cannot leave me. I can't have you leaving."
"I'm here, Myka." HG replied and Myka could hear the smile in her voice. "I'm not leaving, Myka."
"Promised?" The professor asked quickly, her heart beating heavily in her chest.
"I'm here, Myka." Helena replied.
For the first time since Helena had met Myka Bering, she was glad that the professor couldn't see her face.