A/N – hello fellas, thanks for the kindest reviews, y'all are too nice for words. Sorry about the delay. I'm sort of slowly filling in a Claudia/Helena backstory, but it'll be gradual and alongside the main plot.

"This is a shit idea."

"Don't be so crude."

"This is a pants idea."

"Claudia!"

"Fine," Claudia huffed over the earpiece. "This idea is of a risky and rather questionable nature."

"Better." Helena replied, her voice echoing even as she whispered. She was on her stomach crawling through the ventilation system in Myka's building. She was sweating lightly, and there was a crick in her neck where she'd been craning it upwards at an uncomfortable angle. This was definitely a pants idea, but Claudia didn't need to know that.

After scoping out the house mid-morning, she had discovered that Myka and her team had already been in and ransacked the place, taking everything. Everything, including, to Helena's dismay, the contents of her personal arsenal in the bunker under the garage. The loss of her stash hadn't gone down well, and so she'd (perhaps rather recklessly) decided to get payback – by breaching Myka's headquarters.

She reached a junction in the ventilation shaft and stretched her arms out, trying to ease the ache in her muscles. "Which way, Miss Donovan?"

In the safety of her apartment across town, Claudia examined the blueprints on screen. "You're right on top of them, H.G. Fancy dropping in?"

Myka felt uncomfortable, to say the least, with parts of her life strewn across the floor in headquarters, but she pushed aside the feeling in favour of her usual determination to get the job done. Pete meanwhile had volunteered himself to go and talk to Artie and fill him in on the situation and she couldn't have been more grateful. She didn't need Artie's dark eyes reading into her every move, not when she didn't understand her own emotions. In the familiar surroundings of HQ she worked instead on profiling, re-evaluating their target.

"Jane, where are we with the database?" Myka asked, frustrated with the lack of progress.

"We're searching though hits now, cross referencing any information we've gleaned from the house, but we're getting nothing. Whoever your wife is working for – they're good at covering their tracks. Any leads we get just turn up dead ends."

Myka grimaced. Claudia. She'd met the young red head some years ago, she'd been one of the only people Helena had invited to their wedding.

"Myka darling, this is Claudia, our technical genius. You'd do your best to keep an eye on her – her future is sure to be glorious." Helena had introduced them before the ceremony, a strong arm slung around the girl's shoulders.

Myka smiled at the girl, who couldn't have been much more than a teenager - scruffy clothes, challenging eyeliner, hostile body language. She looked at the girl, and frowned, because she'd never seen Helena so protective over anyone before.

"It's nice to meet you," Myka said.

"You too," Claudia replied, only a hint of attitude in her voice.

Myka remembered the exchange because Claudia had been smart, quick and defensive. She remembered because she had liked Claudia. She had never learned the reason why Helena had taken the kid under her wing.. And now she's an accessory to the problem.

"Keep looking, something may turn up." Knowing Helena's patience, she wouldn't stay quiet for long.

"Uh, Myka?" Abigail called from across the room, getting her boss' attention.

"What is it?"

"I think I've found her." Abigail didn't look happy about this fact and Myka frowned. "Where?" She asked.

"Here." Abigail pointed at the screen she was perched in front of, one of the monitors was flashing a red light, an insistent beep accompanying it. "Our security has been breached."

Myka sucked in a breath. Only Helena would be reckless enough to infiltrate at the headquarters directly. "Sweep the floors, I want an exact loca-"

The telephone ringing cut Myka off mid-sentence.

Myka tilted her head to the side, a smirk on her face. Of course she'd be polite enough to call ahead. She pressed the receive button and rolled her eyes as a familiar voice echoed out of the speaker.

"Darling,"

"Helena," Myka answered sweetly, holding up one hand to stop Pete who had just run into the room.

"Did I trigger an alarm? My mistake."

"How careless of you,"

"On the contrary, everything is going exactly to plan,"

"Oh, really?" Myka asked, watching as Jane mouthed clear as their security programme swept each floor individually. Where are you?

"Yes, really. I just wanted to call and see how you were feeling," Helena's voice echoed about the room.

"So now you're concerned about my feelings?" Myka scoffed, watching as Abigail mouthed clear again. She signalled to Pete, and all the other agents in the room began to demolish all the data in HQ and prepare to evacuate.

"I'm always concerned about you," Helena's voice was teasing.

"You shot at me," Myka said through her teeth.

"That was an accident."

"An accident?"

"Exactly,"

"Well, either way, you're a poor shot," Myka said, just as Abigail caught her eye, signalling with some urgency at her screen. Breach located. Helena was above them, somewhere in the ventilation systems.

"I wasn't aiming at you," Helena tried to defend herself. "Besides, you tried to hit me with your car, and that definitely wasn't an accident."

"You're right, it wasn't." Was Myka's cutting reply.

Helena's sigh sounded through the speakers. "Myka, can't we just talk about this?"

"No," Myka swallowed hard. "This is your last chance, Helena. Disappear. Get out of town, or I'll have to deal with you permanently."

"Is that a threat?"

"Yes," Myka replied.

There was silence on both sides, before Helena spoke. "Myka," Her voice was all of a sudden soft and imploring.

Myka squeezed her eyes, willing herself to ignore the tugging in her chest. She looked up to see that Pete was the last agent in the room. He gave her a questioning look, but she glared at him and he took the hint, taking the escape. "I'm serious, Helena. Final warning." Myka eventually said, holding her breath for the reply.

Helena listened to her wife breathing on the end of the line, and decided it was time to go. She flipped her body in the space of the junction in the shaft, and pulled down hard on her release cord of her bungee. She felt her heart lurch for a split second as her body adjusted to the fall. She braced herself as she smashed through the ceiling panels, alarm bells announcing her arrival.

Her boots hit the floor and she unhoulstered her gun, levelling it on the only person left in the room.

"Helena," Myka's expression was unreadable as she turned away from the desk to face her wife, hands in the air as she backed towards the open windows. "Did you have to be so dramatic?"

"Because your exit plan is not, in any sense of the word, dramatic?" Helena replied sarcastically, eyeing the familiar looking double-tension grappling hook escape line that Myka was inching towards. Very familiar indeed. She smirked.

In her ear piece Claudia's urgent voice cut in to her thoughts. "H.G, do you have the shot?"

Helena ignored her partner, focusing instead on Myka's tired eyes.

"The grappling hooks?" Myka asked, looking momentarily confused by the smugness on Helena's face. She didn't have to wait long for an answer.

"I designed them myself." Helena narrowed her eyes at Myka's amused expression. "What?"

"Nothing," Myka said with a wry smile. "They're just a little old fashioned."

"Old fashioned?" Helena scoffed. "Not when I invented them. Besides, they seem to be saving your lives."

Myka reached up with her right arm, flicking the safety catch on the device. "Saving our lives?" She smiled daringly. "First there would have to be something threatening us."

Then in one swift movement Myka launched herself out of the window, the line carrying her to safety 50 metres across on an adjacent building.

Helena swore under her breath and unclipped herself from her cords. She ran to the window just in time to see Myka make a neat landing on the opposite rooftop. Helena stood in silence for a few seconds letting the cool air whip her hair about.

"You let her go?" Claudia's voice crackled in her ear just as Myka turned glanced at Helena before disappearing out of sight.

"I didn't let her go, she got away." Helena turned around, trying to justify whatever had just happened.

"Sorry, I meant, you were so busy flirting with your assassin-wife that you thought it would be just fine to let her zip-line, yes, literally zip-line away from you using a device that you designed yourself. I mean do you see the irony there? That your target escaped with using a device you designed? Escaped to god knows where and now she's on the loose and she knows you're after her, hell you went at her head fir-"

"Claudia!" Helena cut off her rambling partner.

There was an exasperated sigh as the other end of the line. "Sorry."

Helena heaved a breath and looked around her at the mess, wondering where to start.

"I might need your assistance again, Claudia."

The line was quiet and Helena waited for the reply.

"Fine," Claudia eventually huffed.

"Thank you, my dear. I owe you."

The reply was quiet. "You owe me nothing, H.G. You gave me my life, remember?"

Helena stopped what she was doing for a moment, wishing instantly that she could pull the young woman into a hug. "And you gave me back mine." She murmured.