In Chapter 12: misplaced anger, well placed love.
Helena opens her eyes and breathes in the warm air of her sparsely decorated bedroom. The dull ache in her muscles and the size of the smile that's plastered across her face conveys the extent of how content she feels, how satiated. Bumping into Myka at the bar last night was quite possibly the best outcome for the evening; least predictable and most gratifying.
She stretches and her leg wanders over to the other side of the bed. It feels empty. Empty and colder than she thought it would be if Myka had only recently got up.
She lifts herself onto her elbows and has a quick look around the bedroom. Myka isn't in bed, isn't in the bedroom and by the looks of it, isn't in the bathroom either. From her vantage point Helena can't see the floor, which is where most of their clothes wound up, so she can't tell if Myka's clothes are gone. She scans the bedroom again, slowly this time, and notices that her clothes are neatly arranged on the armchair in the far corner of the room.
Her eyes narrow slightly and the contented smile she sported turns amused. Some things don't change, she thinks, and supplements that thought with how sweet it is that Myka tidied. Over the six weeks they'd spent together, it was very clear that Myka cannot abide by messy scenes. She was great at creating them in heated moments, much like last night, but was also very efficient in putting everything in its right place afterwards.
She reaches under her pillow, where she keeps her pajamas, and whisks out an old, oversized t-shirt that falls on her small frame like a burlap sack.
"Myka?" she calls as she gets out of the bed, glancing at its state and giving it a somewhat self-satisfied grin. She is pleased with herself, as she is with Myka, for the previous night and this morning. It almost felt like the eleven years between the last time they shared a bed and now were not as long as they sound.
Helena was pleasantly surprised to be taken back to her physical preferences of a decade ago. Myka, with her bottomless pit of a memory, remembered exactly how Helena liked to be touched, what and where made her gasp or moan or whimper.
For Helena, the first few hours they spent in this room were like listening to Heather Nova's Oyster: while not a musical masterpiece, it is a songwriting triumph, a pivotal contribution to the soundtrack of 1994. It accompanied every single one of her experiences, emotions and epiphanies for the better part of the 12 months that followed its release, but she cannot recall a single time she'd played it in the past decade. She'll be hard pressed to recall more than a handful of times she'd played in it the past two.
But last night, when Myka had started out playing safe with her knowledge of Helena's body, it was like when she stumbled upon Oyster a few months ago and played it from beginning to end, for old times' sake, and it felt like she'd time travelled back to 1994: all those experiences and emotions and epiphanies rang as loudly and clearly in her mind as they did 20-odd years ago.
"Myka," she calls a second time and runs her fingers through her hair, thinking about how the evening progressed. How they grew bolder with each other, travelled outside the comfort of tried and tested knowledge. She gives the duvet a shake, which reveals a leather belt hanging off the far corner of the bed. Helena's smile turns into a smirk, passion ignites within her once more and hints of arousal make her skin tingle.
"Darling," her tone lowers as she saunters out of the bedroom, past the bathroom and on – to the cavernous living space that's a kitchen, dining room and living room rolled into one, "where are you?" her question finishes as a whisper as she realises she is alone.
"Some things really do not change," she huffs a disappointed sigh and puts the kettle on. Over their previous engagement, Myka's sense of duty always overrode any other commitment she may have had, and irrespective of how romantic and passionate a night they will have shared, Myka would vanish come morning if she had to be at work (and she had to be at work every morning, bar weekends), with very little left in her wake to suggest she was ever there.
As she pours herself a cup of tea she contemplates her options and their potential consequences: go after Myka, or not. The former feels more true to her than the latter, given the time they had shared recently. Helena feels she owes it to herself as much as she does Myka to have an open conversation about their long-term intentions for one another. Last night, as a brief culmination of the two dates they've had, was far too fulfilling to not have happen again. Not going after Myka is therefore, not an option at present.
That said, she closes her eyes and inhales the soothing mix of Earl Grey with milk, if this is the same Myka of eleven years ago, Helena's hunt for her is most certainly part of the game and Myka will appreciate a head start.
A mischievous grin stretches across Helena's lips. It widens and reaches her eyes as she starts considering the multitude of ways she could chase Myka.
For the time being though, while she allows her green eyed-object of affection her head start, she has new talent to take care of. Claudia, as far as she knows, has landed in the executive suite above the studio with her equipment last night, ready to begin working next week.
Most of the paperwork is in order, bar that from the parties that brought Claudia to where she is now. Part of Helena's job is to ensure that these parties are appropriately managed, which will make for a smooth transition and a happy working relationship well into the future, as she suspects Claudia will not let go of Success Records (such an odd name for a label, she thinks) so easily.
She decides it is high time she introduced herself to Success Records and see if they have any reservations or issues about Claudia's move. She looks around the kitchen for her phone, and failing that her jacket, which is where she tends to keep it.
She walks towards the front door, where her jacket should be piled on the floor (where Myka pushed it off of her unceremoniously) – but Myka tidied, so it is not where she had seen it last. She stands by the door, hands on hips, scanning the backs of the chairs – the most logical place to drape a jacket, and sure enough, it is placed neatly on top of one of the breakfast bar's stools. She lifts it and rummages through her pockets to find her phone.
She texts a quick message to her newly acquired talent.
'Good morning, Claudia. Would you mind if I paid your old studio a visit today?'
It takes Claudia no time to respond.
'Not at all. Myka, the manager, should be there by now.'
Helena's halfway through typing 'Would you mind sending me the address?' when her thumbs freeze mid-air and she reads Claudia's response again. And then a third and a fourth and a fifth time, as if rereading it will change its contents.
A distant, mathematical part of her brain calculates the likelihood of there being another musical Myka nearby and the results are not comforting.
Helena's heart thumps heavily in her chest because so much falls into place: Myka's vague answers about her current occupation, her remote responses while Helena was globetrotting, and – heaven help her, she leans against the breakfast bar for support – why Myka felt so differently last night, so differently to any other time they'd spent together since they met at that coffee shop a few months ago. Since they'd met again Myka was bubbling with playfulness and freedom and confidence. Last night Myka was riddled with angst and anger and guilt.
As she scales the mountains of information she and Myka skirted around since their reunion, she wonders how she could have let this happen. How she could have let this slip by her unnoticed, the fact that Myka Bering was Claudia Donovan's rep and manager.
Helena holds her phone to her chest because her heart is still thumping, threatening to bounce to the back of her throat, because in light of all this, chasing Myka is a far more complicated game than it had been mere minutes ago. Chasing Myka is no longer a game of seduction and temptation. Chasing Myka has become a matter of business and necessity.
Much to Helena's dismay, Business has stomped into the realms of Pleasure, and she's not sure how much of the delicate nature of fascination and lure will have been trampled by the heavy boots of legal decorum.
All this means that the consequences of resolving her involvement with Myka are farther reaching and the stakes are considerably higher.
Helena finishes her request for Success Records' address and Claudia pings over the location.
"Just when you need people to take their time locating addresses, they are ever so helpful," she mutters as she types:
'Thank you. I'll call you tomorrow to schedule our session next week.'
'Awesome! Can't wait! :)'
She places the phone on the counter and pours herself another cup of tea. While it brews she steels her resolve and goes to freshen up. She makes the deliberate choice to not shower because she hopes the look and scent and feel of last night on her will stand her in good stead in case Myka is still anxious or angry or guilt-ridden.
Helena needs every trick in her book on this occasion. It is about business as much as it is about pleasure, and Helena would like to make Myka more amenable because she imagines Myka could be in a rather foul mood about– well – about everything..
She quickly flicks through emails and other messages while downing her tea, making sure there is nowhere else she needs to be today, then grabs her jacket and heads out to the address Claudia sent her.
The in-car navigation takes her out of town and into the suburbs. That's not surprising, Helena thinks. Myka was never one for crowded living conditions or an over-abundance of human presence; that's partly why they got on so well.
When she drives out of town and into the hills she is slightly concerned that the address she received was incorrect, or that she has input it incorrectly into the satnav or that the satnav itself has gone haywire, because the surroundings are becoming less and less civilised.
When the firm, computerised female voice commands her to veer off the narrow, paved road onto a dirt track her concern turns to alarm.
A few yards in, she is slightly relieved when she notices a mailbox labelled "M. O. Bering", but she can't see where said M. O. Bering would actually be residing. As she rounds a hill, an old farmhouse comes into view. It's a small wooden structure, probably 150 years old, painted white; behind it is a large red barn that appears to be in much better shape.
She didn't know Myka lived on a farm. She never knew Myka would want to live on a farm.
Given what she's come to learn of Myka in the past two hours, Helena's mind begins to whirr with what she knows about Myka: Secret Service, vastly intelligent, quite brilliant actually, a little bit rigid in her manners, very well practiced professional control. She always thought Myka was far too bright to survive a life-long career in the confines of law enforcement. Turns out she was right.
She then flicks through what she knows about her life outside work: talented musician, classically trained, plays piano, strings and a whole manner of guitars, mandolins and ukuleles; bi, lives modestly with the exception of a fascination with single malt whiskeys as a rather expensive vice; two parents living in the mid-west somewhere, and a sister with a boyfriend not far from them.
Helena can't recall Myka ever mentioning having the aspiration of living on a secluded farm and running a recording studio and record label.
To Myka's credit though, Helena doesn't recall them ever having a "hopes and dreams" conversation during their six-week, whirlwind romance. If she can even call it that.
When she gets out of her car Helena hears a faint drum beat and the thrum of a bass riff from the barn – a smart place to put a studio. Helena cautiously walks to the door to find it ajar. She walks into a foyer in small, hesitant steps and slowly creeps forward, through another open door into a control room.
She looks through the sound proof glass, into the sun-lit studio and her jaw drops. The vastness of the room with its high, vaulted ceilings teases her senses – what playing music in that space would sound like, look like, feel like. The room is flooded in bright sunlight that pours in through what appears to be a see-through roof. It bounces inside the room, making the space radiate a warm glow, enhanced by the light wooden floor and layered rugs where equipment – quite evidently – used to stand.
Her mind drifts to Claudia's equipment, which she reckons used to fill that space.
She is overwhelmed by the sense of awe from the studio and its now-missing occupant that it takes her a second to acknowledge that there is music playing from the monitors in control room. The music is Kelly Clarkson's Heartbeat Song.
Helena scrunches her face at the choice, but raises both eyebrows in amazement when she clocks Myka in a far corner of the studio, behind a drum kit, giving it a pretty good bash by the looks of it. All that comes out of the monitors is the song, without a hint of the noise Myka's expert pummelling should be generating.
She watches Myka as she works the beat, perspiring lightly, breathing rhythmically, flushed chest, eyes shut, slightly slack-jawed, lips moving subtly. A small smile creeps up Helena's lips because Myka looks a lot like she did last night, in her bed.
Myka and drums was not a combination Helena had ever considered, but goodness gracious, what a delicious combination it is, like dry gin and elderflower presse. She takes a minute to savour the image.
Some things do change, she thinks and her smile broadens.
Myka looks so natural in this act, so fully immersed, so connected. Helena's lascivious smile turns admiring the longer she observes Myka; how she pours every ounce of herself into a beat of a pop song. She knows how deeply Myka feels music as she plays it, how music hits her with so much meaning. She isn't just playing along.
Helena knew this about Myka since the first night they spent together, re-recording Houses of the Holy: music is the best way for Myka to feel emotion, to express passion. What Helena learnt in the six weeks that followed was that sex is but a close second, and no other form of expression comes close to either.
Helena sighs deeply to brush off the lustful adoration that's swept of her, and turns to study the studio: the left half of it, where the drum kit is, from the studio doorway to where a small stack of 25W amps are standing, is sparkling clean. The other half looks like what Helena's studio looks like after a band finished a project and left: unwound cables, plectrums, broken strings and pieces of paper strewn everywhere – the residues of creative muses.
In the middle of the studio is a pile comprising of yet more cables, DI boxes, connectors and mic stands. Around it, Helena notices light grooves in the rugs where stands stood for too long and deep dents where bigger amps lazily bore their footprints into the soft surface. These were most definitely left by Claudia's equipment, she determines, because Helena prides herself on being able to tell which amps were racked where simply by looking at the dust outline and imprints left behind.
Kelly Clarkson finishes and Walk The Moon's Shut Up And Dance starts almost immediately after. This song always made Helena smile. She looks back to Myka, who doesn't miss a literal beat and plays along flawlessly – from what Helena can see. By the looks of it, Myka adds her own flourishes, which both impresses Helena and piques her curiosity as those flourishes show for a far better technique than Myka displayed so far.
Myka doesn't just drum. She drums well.
She sits down at the mixing desk to watch and cop a listen, too. She fiddles with the controls and brings up the level of the studio's ambient mics. She can now hear more of what Myka is doing. What she didn't realise until this very minute is that Myka hasn't been muttering lyrics, but harmonising. While playing the drums.
Now, that is really impressive.
Almost as though she is aware someone is admiring her from afar, Myka slips on bass triplet and groans loudly, swears in frustration, but doesn't actually falter and keeps going.
Helena's smile warms and she blushes, because she knows that all she had seen and learned of Myka in the past 12 hours tugged something in her that has not been tugged for a while. That is it, Helena Wells, she admits to herself, you've gone and got yourself in love, and her smile widens until she remembers what she's come for in the first place.
Myka loves this song. She really does. It completely trashes her reputation as a musical savant, but she doesn't care. There's a bridge two-thirds of the way through the song, where Walk The Moon sound too much like U2 for her liking, but it doesn't matter, because it's just so much fun for her, to sing along to the chorus with nothing but the kick drum and it makes her smile to a point she is almost laughing. It doesn't matter what she was thinking before or what she'll be thinking after or what she was feeling or what she'll be feeling after, because this song just fills her up with something that comes close to pure joy for three minutes and eighteen seconds.
As she sings the lyrics, they feel (much like Rihanna last night at the bar) very topical and true. Every time she sings "this woman is my destiny" images of Helena from last night flash behind her closed eyelids despite her anger and hurt. By the time she sings that line for the third time, she has to stop singing because a deep craving ripples through her and she has to bite on her lower lip to focus, so she doesn't miss the mock-dramatic ending.
There is a split second after the song ends that Myka feels like someone is watching her. She tears her eyes open, clicks the playback off and casts a quick glace across the studio first, then into the control room – the very dark control room.
"Shit," she whispers as she tries to recall whether or not she bolted the barn's door.
"That was some solid drumming, Bering," Helena's voice hums in her headphones. It hits her straight in her diaphragm and her breath catches.
"HG," she clutches her chest in relief that quickly turns to something else, something that's more urgent but less pleasant. "What're you doing here?"
"Well, at the risk of coming across somewhat familiar, I was in the neighbourhood," Helena takes a quick breath, "and the door was open."
"'In the neighbourhood'?" Myka chuckles as she gets up from behind the kit, "'The door was open?'" she reaches to remove the headphones but stops. She squints into the control room, tries to make out where Helena is. "I'm coming out," she takes the headphones off and places them on a hook above the control box they are plugged into.
She is careful not to say anything, whisper, sigh or even breathe as she walks out of the studio, because Helena can hear her, and she can't hear Helena. That's an unfair advantage and Myka's already feeling back-footed.
She pushes through the heavy doors to the control room and switches the lights on. Helena is sitting in her chair, and that's very fitting for the situation; Myka can't resist the sarcasm, or irony. It could be both. She drags the stool she keeps behind the rack of synths with her until she reaches the opposite end of the mixing desk to where Helena sits, and places herself there. "I'm not buying it," she says after she sits down.
"The door was open," Helena points towards the entrance.
Myka eyes her incredulously. "Sure," she berates herself for not adhering to her own security protocols, "but you don't even know where this neighbourhood is, so there's no way you just stumbled upon this place."
Helena laughs. "Quite right, I asked Claudia to point me in the direction of Success Records."
"Claudia," Myka sighs and looks away from Helena, into the studio.
Helena purses her lips. For the first time since she was a child she believes she spoke without thinking. Bringing up the red headed bone of contention so early in the conversation was quite possibly amongst the worst strategies to regain Myka's trust, to fall back into her good graces.
Oh, those graces of hers... Helena's mind wanders as she leers at Myka, Myka who is looking stern, almost regal in her detachment, only her quickened pulse and flushed chest giving her away – those should have subsided by now, if drumming were their cause.
In Helena's assessment, Myka's mind could be in one of two places: it is either flaring with anger about Claudia or wandering back to last night or this morning. Whichever it may be, Helena reminds herself to look away with a light cough. Locking her gaze on Myka's chest will not resolve either and she gets up.
She slaps her palm gently on the right pocket of her jacket and wrestles out a rolled up leather belt, the one she found on her bed this morning. She holds it up towards the other woman, whose attention is quite obviously elsewhere.
Helena sighs and places the belt on the mixing desk after a minute, as she realises she had unwittingly ruined something for Myka, something she held dearly.
"I'm sorry, Myka," she says, with true, honest solemnity. "I hadn't realised…" she begins but trails off, because she's not entirely sure she had fully realised what Claudia meant to Myka and her label.
Myka turns to look at her, those green eyes of hers piercing Helena's brown from above red cheeks. "I suppose you didn't," she answers through a forced smile.
"Let me help," Helena offers, because she does. She wants to help so badly. Had she known Myka set up a studio and a label she would have helped. She would have done everything she could to help this woman who came into this wretched business with such passion and idealism and integrity to have it all whisked away from her so close to the finish line.
Helena knows she won't be able to undo the mess she'd made here, but off the top of her head, she can think of at least 20 different things she could do to help Myka recover from this setback.
Myka tilts her head and narrows her eyes, scanning Helena's face for her true motives. She's not sure what she sees. "I kind of think you've helped enough," she gets up to face the dark haired woman.
Helena's lips curl upwards slightly and she takes Myka's hand in hers. "I can help tidy?" brown eyes seek forgiveness in green.
Myka scoffs a laugh. "You?" she raises her eyebrows. "Tidy?"
"What are you implying there, Bering?" Helena hopes that playful banter will lighten the mood.
"Oh, I'm not implying anything, Wells," Myka emphasises Helena's name and walks towards the studio door. "I'm saying it outright. You're one of the messiest people I've ever known," she pulls the heavy door towards her and disappears behind it – in the well-lit, church-like space behind the glass.
Helena gives chase. "One might argue that I could do with paying closer attention to the state of my own living quarters," she takes off her jacket and throws it on the floor, next to the pile of jumbled cables. She picks up the end of one and begins to pull at it, fastidiously releasing it from the tangled pile it's weaved into, while skillfully rolling it up. "But one might not be aware that in order to have gained credibility over the years, I had adopted surgical precision when it comes to the upkeep of the kit entrusted with me." She holds up a perfectly wound cable, self-tied to prevent it from unravelling into a spaghetti mess.
Myka, who was sorting and stacking DI boxes, turns around just in time to examine Helena's handiwork. She inspects it from where she stands a few feet away, shrugs and smiles. "Fine. Roll 'em up."
They work in relative silence. Helena folds cables and Myka folds stands and one of them starts humming Shut Up And Dance and without noticing they hum harmonies.
Myka starts putting things away in the cabinets and Helena smirks – first at how well kept everything is and how neatly every shelf and hook is labelled; but then because she catches Myka mumbling "this woman is my destiny" again, and Myka notices Helena's noticing, and she stops and blushes and looks down.
"Don't flatter yourself, HG," she grumbles, trying to find a way out of the emotionally and sexually charged sandpit she found herself carelessly tossed in.
"I daren't be so presumptuous," Helena whispers from under her wide smile, and she's blushing as well, because she might as well be singing that line herself. "I'd rather like it if you were, though," she muses quietly and starts picking at another cable.
Within a second, Myka walks right up to her in long, sure steps, with a fierce blush and a confrontational expression. She stops a foot short from Helena, and within a second Helena feels as though Myka is towering over her, menacing.
"Why did you do it?" Myka asks without preamble, hesitation or doubt, simply blurts it out; looking down into Helena's eyes.
"I was looking for talent," Helena holds on to the cable she's doing up with both hands, because she needs the strength to not weasel out of this conversation with her wit or charm or looks or her affection for Myka.
"That talent didn't need looking for. It was already found and well looked after," she flushes again, but this time it isn't embarrassment. It's anger.
"I thought I could help her," Helena says. "I thought I could offer her the path she wanted. I didn't know—"
"I was with her on that path," Myka cuts in, pokes her own chest harshly with her thumb. "I got her on that path to begin with."
Helena looks down and takes a deep breath, squeezing the cable into submission. Even though she knows Myka's anger is misdirected, she feels ashamed of her actions: ashamed she nicked talent from another label, a label that brought the talent up; she's ashamed that she hurt Myka so. Especially seeing as all she wants right now is to do the very opposite. "I'm sorry," is all she says.
Myka bites her lips shut and huffs through her nose in an attempt to calm herself. It doesn't do much. Her emotions rage within her as she looks down at Helena who looks down at the rug. All the good drumming did for her a few minutes ago vanished, and she's a mess again.
She's facing this brilliant, beautiful, sensual woman who's been occupying her fantasies for the past decade (on and off), and she knows she is wanted just as much as she wants, and good fucking god, Helena and her are such a good fit; but this person in front of her is also beguiling and competitive and vicious. This person stole from her, took away from her a friend and a confidant and an apprentice and an investment.
And it isn't just the money, Myka convinces herself (even though she knows her bank manager and accountant would beg to differ). There was so much energy and love and passion poured into Claudia's songs. So much. So. Much. …and for what?...
At a loss of what to say or do, Myka walks over to the pile of small amps, pulls one down and sits on it with a deep sigh.
Helena finishes rolling the cable she's been clutching and turns to place it in its cabinet. She stands in front of the rows of hooks, thoughts zoom through her mind and she struggles to make sense of them: everything she feels for Myka, from love to lust to loyalty to hurt; everything she feels for herself, from shame to loathing to anger to righteousness; everything she feels for them (Myka and her, as the couple they've never been and quite possibly never will be), from longing to desire to hope to inexplicable, instant trust. All the while, she appraises every eventuality and probability of untangling this mess they're in;
and in amongst all those, she tries to fathom Myka's labelling system so that she could select a hook upon which to rest the wretched cable she has in her hand.
She picks one, almost certainly at random, through the fog of her overloaded consciousness.
"One up and two to the right," Myka corrects her and Helena moves the cable with slumped shoulders.
Helena shakes her head lightly and walks towards Myka and the pile of amps. She is angry too (she doesn't deserve Myka's anger), and sorry (because – at the same time – she does), and in love, damn it, and she never would have imagined that the last of those three would make her feel like the first two didn't matter.
She picks an amp to sit on and joins Myka. She looks at the fuming, curly haired beauty. Even when she's angry, Helena thinks, she is so beautiful. "No one has ever flummoxed me the way that you do," she admits to Myka after a while.
Myka turns to look at her, biting on her lower lip. No one flummoxed her the way Helena does, either. She'd never felt like this about anyone, she never thought she could feel like this about anyone. She never thought she could be so madly attracted to someone, so much so that she is willing to bear all of herself to that person, give all of herself to that person, even though she knows that that person is so blinkered by ambition that they would sell their own grandmother to get ahead, let alone a lover.
But she doesn't say it. She doesn't say any of it. She's too angry.
"I would like to make it right, Myka," Helena rubs her palms against her knees, deliberately avoiding eye contact and Myka's wrath, still conflicted about whether or not she deserves it. She is all too aware of her own misgivings, but also of how much it will hurt to be at its focus. "Please tell me how to make it right," she says and adds, "please tell me I can."
Myka wells up and turns her head away, giving the back of her head a deflecting light scratch. She's doing quite well with choking the tears back, but she's not sure what to tell Helena. She wants Helena to make it right, she thinks that if they both agree to it, they can make it right. But she has no idea how to.
Asking for Claudia back is childish and most likely impossible and won't achieve anything. Being completely honest with herself, Warehouse Records can offer Claudia a ton of opportunities that she can't. And while being honest, she knows that Claudia could have been snapped up by any ol' record label at any ol' time, and really, she's so much better off with The Warehouse and Helena than she would have been with any of the other big wigs.
Myka realises – and not for the first time in her life – that honesty is a double edged sword that can never be masterfully wielded. No matter how hard she might try, being honest will wind up wounding her as much as it will others.
She knows Helena doesn't really deserve her anger. Helena didn't know, she did what her job asked her to do, and the hurt that it caused was collateral damage. She may have been an easy target for Myka's fury, seeing as she was the one who started it all, but Myka is a better person than picking on easy targets. She takes a deep breath in and pushes a slow breath out in an attempt to loosen the tension in her upper body, the tension that's tied to the seething.
"I don't know how, Helena," she says once she's sure her tears won't betray her. Then she takes another deep breath and turns towards Helena. "But I'd like to think that we… that you…" she corrects herself, "that we can," she corrects herself again.
Helena smiles with the smallest relief, looking back at Myka for a long minute. "Would you like me to leave you to it?" she asks, wondering if Myka needs to be left to her own devices, to figure out what she wants.
"I thought you wanted to help clean up."
Helena's smile returns because the fact Myka isn't kicking her out must mean her anger is waning. "Shall we?" she gets up and gestures towards the remaining cables.
"All yours," Myka cedes, "I'm going to get the vacuum cleaner."
Helena continues to wind cables up and watches Myka as she strides across her studio, lovingly rearranging it as she glides, smoothing over the scars left by Claudia's departure.
She thinks of how Myka has so very much to lose and so little with which to bargain. In any other negotiation that would give Helena a great deal of power, but she refuses to take this power in this instance.
Instead, she starts putting together a host of practical ways that may make it right, or at least make it better.