N: You guys I'm so sorry. So sorry for not updating. This chapter was finished (after being torturous to write) and of course that's when my laptop decides to have its first real fit. So I lost everything and I just can't get back to writing this again. So special thanks to Jada T for gentle nudges forward. Oh, john6lisa was spot on about an artefact being involved. So this is like a nonupdate, i feel like if i don't post something, i never will...so this is what I have. People, I'm not good with angst and writing Myka/Pete was a killer the first time, I don't think I can do it again. You guys deserve better. I'm sorry.
...
It is far too warm inside. Far too many bodies. Far too loud. Music mixed with the din of human chatter dulls Helena's senses until she is moving as if underwater and the pressure is building from all sides. Sounds become indistinct, shapes become blurred. She is rallied into action by Zane's pleading desperation, "Stop this from happening. Please you have to do something. I don't know what to do." Except she doesn't know what is happening exactly. None of them do but entirely unbeknownst to her, Myka is learning these things. Myka in her distance and silence is learning exactly what is happening. Helena knows only that she cannot bear to see Giselle's face growing ever more unfamiliar and distant as she is assaulted by the invisible hands of choice and consequence.
Her movements are unhurried, almost languid as she moves to her feet unsteadily towards what is certainly disaster. Tripping into it as her toes catch the leg of a chair and she stumbles into Giselle. Helena blinks and rakes her hair back from her eyes as she feels arms steadying her and almost feels brown eyes as a scalding as they watch her closely.
"Helena," Her nostrils flare almost imperceptibly as she says her name in a sharp intake of breath. She doesn't know how to make this better. Or what this is exactly. She only knows in that moment that relief dawns on Giselle's face at the sight of her. She cannot stop anything from happening. Certainly not things that were put in motion long before she arrived but she can do this, be with her. Helena reaches to brush the tears off her face before draping her arm across Giselle's shoulders and pulling her close to whisper, "You were fantastic darling. Truly exquisite on stage. I had no idea." As Giselle is wearing ballet flats, Helena in her heels is significantly taller, obscuring the actual lack of height difference between them. She is also taller than Rosie in these heels, much taller. Rosie, who is gazing far too intently at Helena, far too fixedly at the lack of space between Giselle and Helena, at the hand that has dropped from shoulder to circle ribs. Helena recognises that look. It is hostile and objecting. And jealous. She recognises that too as it rears its head for a fraction only to duck and run just as swiftly. She does not know whether to pity or scorn it.
Giselle smiles weakly and wipes at her cheek almost absently, "Thank you." She smiles more fully just seconds later, "Thank you for coming. I know Zane must've had to drag you out." That fuller smile recedes just as quickly when she interrupts herself. Helena thinks about tides. Swell and recession. The advance and then the bashfulness of retreat. Giselle is shaking her head and apologising, "I'm sorry I don't know where my head is." She rubs her forehead before gesturing one to the other, "Helena this is my, my um, Rosie. This is Rosie." She introduces them but cannot really look at either of them just then as they greet each other warily. Rosie's barely latent hostility crumbles to ashes as Helena disarms her with a small but genuine smile. Pity it would seem, or rather compassion wins out. Because Myka. Myka is with Pete. And what would her own face reveal when confronted by the sight of their too casual intimacy?
And so Helena smiles weakly and Giselle straightens herself out, growing as tall as she can as she squares her shoulders searching for hidden stores of resolve somewhere deep within her body. She makes as if to take leave of Rosie with a word or two and Rosie nods tightly as Giselle turns to move away from her. She lets her. Rosie just lets her. And that's what Helena did too. This time scorn wins out as she sees herself mirrored in the stillness of Rosie's unmoving frame letting Giselle walk away.
...
"So listen," Claudia doesn't fully turn to look away from the screen. Myka hears her take a deep breath,"I may or may not have noticed that things are a little, how do I put this, off with you and you know, Pete."
Myka doesn't look at her at all as she continues writing up the report, "Oh." It is low and barely inflected. A nonquestion. A nonanswer.
"That's it...just. Oh? Are you guys, because it seems like you guys aren't." Claudia turns then. Turns to really look at Myka who looks far too guilty.
"We're taking a step back. From being together like that. From us." Myka rubs at her collar bone, sanding it down again before meeting Claudia's now unflinching gaze, "It's my fault. I shouldn't have. I don't know."
...
For a moment. A moment in months. A moment in half a year. There was a we, a them an us that was grown from another moment of longing and misinterpretation. "Look at your face." Look at it indeed. What would Myka have seen: Love or conflict? She'd given herself over to a single task since the phone call. Helena had in turns sounded breathless with elation and crumbling under the enforced iron of Myka's rejection. Myka was hunched over a thick folder procured with the help of Mrs. Frederic, who had initially stared her into the ground at the request. "You must have a very good reason for wanting to use J. Edgar Hoover's filing cabinet." Myka had said, "I do."
"Tell me."