Not moving immediately upon waking was the hardest thing Helena had to learn about having a bed partner, especially when the bed partner in question was Myka Bering. It was not unusual for Helena to wake entangled in her longer limbs, the hands so fascinated by her hair during the day having embedded themselves so firmly in sleep. It had only taken a few painful mornings for Helena to learn not to move until she had safely extracted herself.
As such, when Helena woke the next morning she performed her usual limb check before rising. Moving her legs slightly she was surprised to find them completely free. This surprise increased tenfold when her arms, too, were unencumbered; there was no arm draped heavily over her chest. All the warmth that signified a foreign body, in fact, was centered around her neck. Opening her eyes slowly, Helena started slightly at the sea of brown fur obscuring her field of vision.
Helena had settled MykaCat last night in a basket in the parlour (previously home to Leena's knitting, don't tell), but had relented a short time later when the cat made her way upstairs to their door. There was a conflict in Helena's mind over the part of MykaCat that was indeed her Myka, and the part that was simply a cat. But there was no way that Helena could have ignored the piteous mewling of either. MykaCat had practically skipped into the room (as much as it was possible for a cat to skip), seemingly just as happy to have drawn Helena from her bed as to having gained entry to the room. MykaCat had curled up in the centre of Myka's side of the bed, just as Myka made a point of doing every night. Helena supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that MykaCat would adjust herself in the same manner.
At some point in the night, MykaCat had decided that sharing a pillow would be nice and she had curled up against Helena, her front paws coming to drape over the white length of Helena's neck like a scarf. Wary of the cat's claws, Helena rearranged her gently, shifting the sleepy paws back onto the pillow. For once she was grateful for Myka's inherent morning sleepiness as she did not particularly wish to have to explain claw marks to Pete.
As usual, Helena could rearrange her all she liked, but it was the simple act of herself rising from the bed that had Myka awake and protesting. Sighing gently, Helena pulled MykaCat to her, ignoring the brown fur that now spotted the pillow, and held her in the comforting manner that Claudia had shown her yesterday.
And with MykaCat curled up so happily in her lap, purring away in contentment, it was hard to remember why she had protested so strongly in the first place.
Claudia returned the strawberry jam to the table ever so slightly out of Pete's reach. It was just a standard reaction these days, the low level antagonism that existed between them. It certainly wasn't new, Pete having quickly and easily filling the void that Joshua's move to CERN had created (or rather, reopened after way too short a term of closure), but with Jinksy gone and Myka and Helena's relationship blossoming, the pair had drawn together and their sibling behaviour (which ran the whole gamut from affection to rivalry) had intensified.
This morning, however, Pete's mind was on other things, and he thought nothing of stretching for the jam. Grabbing it, he took his customary two spoonfuls (one for his toast, one for his mouth) and fixed Claudia and Leena with a thoughtful look.
"Do you think," he asked. "That if HG doesn't learn whatever it is she has to learn that Myka will stay a cat forever?"
"Well that hardly seems fair to Myka," Claudia said sadly.
"And when, of the many cases you have seen at the Warehouse to date, have you ever seen an artifact play fair?" Leena asked, gently.
"Um. Good point."
Hearing Helena on the stairs, Leena rose to begin steeping the tea leaves Helena preferred.
"Dude, what are we going to do?" Claudia asked, some of the adorable charm of the situation wearing off with this realisation.
"I don't think there's anything we can do here, Claud," he lamented. "I think it's all up to HG."
"What's all 'up to me'?" Helena asked, entering the room with MykaCat curled gently in the crook of her arm, tail hanging as if she didn't have a care in the world.
Pete and Claudia looked at each other cautiously. They had all been remarkably impressed and proud and Helena for the progress she had made with her rehabilitation, for the steps she had made to regain her life. But, while there was no longer any issues of distrust, there was concern among the non Bering-and-Wells contingent of the team about what it might take to break that hard earned control and drop her back into the heartache that lurked beneath the surface. Personally, Pete believed that Myka was the key to making or breaking HG Wells, just as she had always been - and hearing that she was Myka's sole hope for saving may just be more than she could handle.
"Cat food," Pete said, steadfastly avoiding Claudia's eyes. "It's up to you to go get the cat food."
As it turned out, food wasn't the only thing Helena had needed to procure. She remembered their maid, Frances, putting out a saucer of milk for the stray cat she shared with the other maids in their street, but that, and an occasional scratch behind the ears, was the the end of that cat's pampering. Nothing in that memory had prepared Helena for the Univille pet supply store, overflowing as it was with all manner of cleaning supplies, bedding and pet toys in every conceivable shape and colour.
Helena had returned to the B&B with packages falling from her arms. If Pete had a comment, he wisely kept it to himself, making himself useful by gathering her quickly descending packages. Her eyes casting about, she was saved asking after Myka by Claudia's entry into the room, cat in hand.
"We had a lovely time with Aunty Claudia, didn't we MykaKitty?" Claudia crooned, her cheeks brushing against the cat's whiskers. Helena smiled, considering the response Myka would surely have for Claudia's baby talk when she retook human form.
Having started to squirm upon noticing Helena's presence, Claudia handed MykaCat off, pleased at how much happier the cat was in Helena's arms.
Allowing the cat to crawl around in her arms, finding the most comfortable position, Helena's hands found the cold metal hanging from the cat's neck. It was a round, bronze coloured disc attached to a strip of leather that had been fashioned into a collar. Helena recognised the neat, tidy stitches of Leena's hand on the collar, but the bronze medallion was all Claudia. She had, with her surprisingly steady hand, etched the likeness of a cog on one side (no doubt a reference to this 'steampunk' the girl insisted on associating with every aspect of Helena's being). Floating over the fine lines of the gear was Myka's name, firm of line and straight of serif. With the metal warming in her hand, she flipped it over, expecting to see the address of the B&B. Instead, in that same undeniable hand, Claudia had engraved a single word: 'Helena's'.
Helena had never considered herself a possessive person. She had spent the majority of her life as a Victorian lady (however rebellious) where nothing, not even the words constructed by her own hand, had belonged to her. And yet her heart leapt at the sight of the singular word, the presence of that beautiful apostrophe.
It was true, she finally, and wholly, realised. Myka was hers.