In Chapter 14: some pennies drop and temptation waits.

It turns out that Pete takes his guardian angel duties very very seriously. Not only has he been part of Claudia's tour machine, he keeps tabs, and demands audiences from time to time.

This is one of those times. Only this time, he's got a serious look on his face when Claudia approaches what seems to be his usual table at Best in the West.

Claudia, who's always so worried about Steve, can't help it that his safety is the first place her mind goes to, so she hastens her step and only half-sits on what has now become her usual chair at Pete's usual table.

"Is everything okay?" she asks in a hushed tone.

Pete arches a brow, "Steve's fine, if that's what you're wondering," he puts her mind at ease in an instant, and she knows already to not wonder about or question Pete's vibes and intuition. "I'm here about something else entirely."

His voice sounds very concerned to Claudia, bordering on menacing, and her instinct of putting her guard up is overwhelming, so she tenses where she sits and dons a defiant expression.

"Easy, Tiger," Pete reaches across the table, "I was over at Myka's today and I wanted to know what the hell is going on."

Pete is not menacing at all, he's protective. He is really protective of Myka, he knows how much she went through and how much she sacrificed and it will be over his dead body (and Pete is actually likely to mean that literally) that she fails.

And Claudia picks up on that. She picks up on the fierce loyalty that Pete is feeling towards Myka. During the tour she thought Pete was crushing on her (a suspicion Steve agreed with but Myka dismissed), but now she recognises this combination and intensity of feelings, because that's how she feels about Steve.

"What do you mean 'what the hell is going on'?" Claudia asks, because she's not sure what he knows already.

Pete presses his lips shut in a valiant (and successful) effort to not let anything stupid or hurtful slip. He then takes a deep breath in, releases it out slowly through his nose, and says calmly, "You aren't signed to Myka anymore."

Claudia nods slowly. "Is that all she told you?"

"She told me you got signed by a bigger label," he speaks with the same practiced control of an experienced interrogator.

Claudia fights to not cock a half smile at that, because it's not just a bigger label, it's the biggest freakin' label, because it's Warehouse freakin' Records. "I got signed by Warehouse Records, Pete," she says with similar control and calm to those of Pete's. "Their chief engineer heard me play and signed me up."

Pete doesn't know too much about the music business, but that sounds off to him. Why would Claudia do that? Why would she leave Myka like that? After everything Myka's done for her? After everything they've achieved together?

And for Pete, this is a double blow, because all the vibes he got from Myka and Claud when they were working together and when he got to see them separately (which was rare over the months they were recording and touring) their vibes were so smooth and harmonious. They really felt like great friends.

Pete knows what a great friend Myka is. He feels it every single day. He's been feeling how great a friend she is for the twelve odd years they've known each other, and he's witnessed first-hand how strongly Myka loves those who are close to her.

He hadn't experienced it with Claudia. With Claudia, half the story came from Steve, and the other half came from Claudia – but by proxy – how she was with and around Myka, the chemistry between them and how admiring she was of Myka when Myka wasn't looking. How admiring Myka was of Claudia, when Claudia wasn't looking. And if Myka admires someone… Pete knows to admire them too.

So Claudia leaving just because some other label snapped its fingers is just not adding up.

"Why?" is all he can muster.

"Warehouse Records, Pete," Claudia leans towards him, enunciating the name.

"That means nothing to me," he leans as well, mirroring her gesture.

"The Warehouse is…" she stops and thinks, "was…" thinks again, "is one of the most influential records labels of all time. They are the most innovative label out there."

"But what about Myka?"

"Myka is still a part of it if she wants to be," Claudia explains, but she can tell Pete is not convinced. So she decides to spell it out for him, "First of all, she got paid—"

"It was never about the money for her," Pete defends his friend.

Claudia shushes him with a hand gesture, "—and second of all, she is still my producer. And HG said she could still be my producer," Claudia feels righteousness rising within her. "All that happened, really, was getting the financial backing and distribution network and connections of a label that has been around since the invention of Rock'n'Roll," she emphasises with tapping her stretched index finger on the soft tablecloth, "and Myka can still be part of all that and still keep her rights and still keep her label," Claudia is nearly finished, because the most important point she was trying to make is this next thing, "Because all that actually happened was the financial risk is now with someone who can take it."

"So Warehouse Records will just let you use Myka as your producer?" Pete summarises his understanding, wishing, somewhere at the back of his mind, that he had listened to all those times Myka told him about contracting strategies, but now, like it did then, his mind wanders to desserts.

"Yes," Claudia nods firmly.

"Why?"

"Because that's the deal I negotiated," Claudia half smiles, because she is just so damn proud of herself for having negotiated that deal. "HG was keen, and I would never leave Myka in a lurch."

Pete is processing what Claudia's telling him, at a speed that's a little bit slower than the speed at which she dispenses her side of the story.

"I get that she's upset, that you're upset that I'm not technically with Success Records," she seeks Pete's eyes. He looks lost in information. "But it's all technicalities. Myka keeps all the winnings, keeps her seat at the table, and gets to play on someone else's dime."

Things are slowly falling into place for Pete, and while he sees how Myka's stake at Claudia Donovan, Musical Prodigy Inc. was protected and her future was been safeguarded (according to what Claudia says), something is still not sitting right with him. Myka was upset, on edge, tense. She was almost angry, but not. And now it's Myka who doesn't make sense in Pete's equation, because she is sensible and logical and business-minded, so she should have seen that this is all good.

So there must be something else that's bothering her, something beyond the logic. Beyond the business.

He's only ever seen her like this, upset beyond logic, one other time. That was when Sam said that— … and that's when the penny drops. That's when one itty bitty bit of detail that got lost in Claudia's version of events remains standing amongst the filtered and filed facts, like one sparkling, silver needle in the black ashes of what used to be a haystack.

It's not business that's getting Myka's panties in a bunch. It's the person doing the business.

And that person has a name, a name Pete heard before.

"Back that up a second," his left hand is circling counter clockwise in the air for a few seconds. He runs everything through his memory again, to make sure that this really is the only bit of information that could explain the state Myka's been in. When he stops, he looks Claudia dead in the eyes. "HG?"

Now, if this is the same HG, HG that's a Helena, Helena Wells, the one Pete knows from ages ago, from when he first met Myka, that HG that only had eyes for Myka, at least for the time she was in DC, then this will be plain surreal.

Surreal because this will have been the second time that Claudia Donovan name-dropped someone that he knows. (Pete would like to think HG Wells was close to him, but he could never get as close as he wanted to her at the time, and it wasn't until after HG had gone back to where she came from that he found out the extent of why).

Claudia nods silently.

"HG Wells?" Pete asks.

And Claudia nods.

"Helena G. Wells?" He asks again.

She nods and adds, "I don't know what the G. stands for," before he has a chance to ask.

"Un-be-freakin'-leavable," Pete leans back in his chair. "If I had a napkin, I'll have thrown it across my plate in anger," he gestures towards his just-about empty plate.

"What?" Claudia leans forward, because things – apparently – just got a lot more interesting.

"I mean," Pete chortles and looks up, "what are the odds?"

"The odds of what?" Claudia is trying to get something from him

"The odds that they would both land at the same place at the same time all these years after," Pete says.

"Who?" Claudia says before her brain processes that Pete is taking about Myka and HG, and Claudia remembers that there was a someone, a someone Myka had a thing with a while back, a someone Myka bumped into again and they were sort of dating, and it was sort of going well.

And her face falls slack because now her penny drops as well.

And she cannot help the past tense of her train of thought a moment ago, and wonders if it is indicative of the current status of the new thing. If the new thing has now become a thing of the past, yet again.

"Oh my god," she sighs and slumps, "HG is the person Myka was seeing…"

Pete nods, because this confirms a theory he's been developing since they were touring: he had guessed by the way Myka was behaving, by the things she wasn't saying more than the things she was, that she had someone special in her life again. He just hadn't imagined – not even in his wildest dreams (which occasionally are occupied by HG and Myka, not that he would ever tell Myka, because he would like to retain his reproductive abilities) – that that person would be HG Wells.

And even more, he wouldn't have imagined that HG Wells would have been the person to come between Myka and her talent, Myka and her friend.

And that explains why Myka is so twitchy.

Myka fidgets with her phone while sitting on the front steps of her farmhouse just after sunset. She wants to make this call, but it may be an awkward call to make. It seems as though the simple life that she had hoped to start by owning a small recording studio and record label in a small town next to nowhere hasn't really panned out.

Life, she thinks with a sigh, has a habit of just getting complicated.

All of a sudden, reputations are at stake because of her and that's an uncomfortable place for her to be, even though it's not her own reputation she's concerned about. At the same time, feelings are at stake as well, and that's equally uncomfortable for her, because this forces to admit that she has those feelings, and she's concerned with those feelings; her own, and other people's. Helena's.

Admitting these feelings means admitting that this thing with Helena is no longer just for fun. This is no longer an animalistic attraction thing. This isn't even the mad, artistic pull they have. Admitting these feelings means admitting that what she has for Helena is more.

She knows, as much as she doesn't like to really admit it, she knows that this is something bigger, and she can't even bring herself to think of that word.

Two days ago Helena came by to her studio and Helena was anxious. She'd never seen Helena anxious. Helena is always so suave and confident (damn her), but two days ago she was… agitated. Upset. Sort of hurt. It's like she took the fact that Myka refused to work with Vincent Crowley's band personally.

But that's not the reason why she didn't take them on. She didn't do it to get even with Helena or to piss her off. She did it for purely professional reasons, and she wants Helena to know. She wants Helena to know that this has nothing to do with payback for Claudia, because when Helena came around Myka couldn't talk. Helena appears to render Myka unable to articulate herself in any way, unless they are talking about music.

In fact, she wants to tell Helena that the whole Claudia business is water under the bridge, and, if anything, she's just so immensely pleased that of all the big labels, Claudia wound up with The Warehouse, with Helena.

Myka sighs and unlocks her phone and wishes for her words to not betray her this time.

She idly scans through her notifications, rehearses the words she wants to say and tests herself that she really is this mature about it all. That she really is okay with Claudia being signed to The Warehouse. So by the time her notification line has been cleared, she agrees that she is really okay with it, that she really did make peace with Claudia's move, and that it really was the right thing, and that she harbours absolutely no hard feelings towards either of them.

The feelings she does harbour towards Helena come up again, and they aren't hard at all, quite the opposite, actually, and she takes in a deep breath. "Like ripping a band aid," she mumbles and finds Helena's number on her phone, and while pushing the remains of her breath forcefully through pursed lips, she dials.

"Wells," Helena answers so professionally and calmly, even though she knows it's Myka calling.

"Hey," Myka greets her shyly with small smile, "Can you talk? I wanted to explain."

"Explain what?" Helena asks in return.

"Explain what happened with Vincent Crowley and his band," she nods slowly, hoping that her explanation comes out right.

"Go on, then," Helena replies. She is sitting in her front room with a large glass of red wine cradled in her hand and a book in her lap. She has taken Leena's advice more seriously and has begun taking some time for herself. She is willing to forgo some of that time if favour of work matters, seeing as she is rather keen to understand what had happened with Vince, because two days ago she didn't get any answers.

She got kissed, meaningfully, passionately. But she got no answers.

She hears Myka breathing in, readying herself.

"I don't know those guys, Vincent's band," Myka starts, "I'd only heard their last EP, and even that was for the two and a half seconds that Vincent actually let me listen to them," she starts.

Helena smiles a knowing smile, because this sounds exactly like Vincent. He'll have stormed into Myka's booth, shoved a CD or a USB-dongle-thing in Myka's hand, pushed her to put it on, but not give her any time to take any of it in. He'll have just gone on and on about why she'd be such a great fit for his amazing band and how they are the best thing to hit the charts since the musical equivalent of sliced bread.

"He was here on his own, they didn't come, so I didn't actually get to see how they work, and he wanted an answer there and then, and he was pushy and over-selling everything…" Myka continues.

And it's clear to Helena now, when she pictures Myka in her control room with Vincent, his presence filling the whole of that space, until there was no room for Myka – or anyone – to be around him. That's when Vincent needs to be handled by an entourage: producers and engineers and a rep and a manager and a PA (or six).

But that control room was all he would get if Myka had said yes. That room, and Myka. That's it. No entourage, no PAs. Just that studio and Myka running it.

Helena, on the other hand, has the backing of a colossus recording outfit, the kind that builds entourages, the kind that has a massive network of people in the sound engineering and recording industry. So had she been the one to take Vincent's band and wound up not standing the sound (or sight, or smell) of them, she'd have found another engineer or producer for them to work with.

Myka only has Myka. And her network consists mostly of Pete Lattimer, her ex-partner in the secret service, and her sister. And – well – Claudia Donovan.

"This could have been a disaster. If I said yes and they turned out to be a bunch of thunderfraks, and we couldn't work together - I'd have been screwed," Myka concludes. "It's a risk I couldn't take, Helena," she says softly. "Do you get it?"

Helena closes her eyes with a faint sigh, because she gets it. Of course she gets it. And of course Myka will have had a perfectly good, honest and diligent reason to do what she had done. Of course she did. This is Myka, after all, and these are only some of the reasons why Helena likes her so much. "I do," she whispers.

A silence settles between them, more comfortable than any other they've shared.

"So…" Myka drawls, "I was thinking–" she starts and pauses to think about what she wants to say: the only way Myka knows how to move the axis of their relationship back to where it ought to be is by doing the one thing they do beyond well together, and that's making music. "I was wondering if you wanted to add another album to our reproduction set?"

Helena opens her eyes and her smile widens. She would like nothing more. "What album do you have in mind?"

For the past 24 hours Claudia's mind is buzzing like a beehive. She keeps working through the everything that had happened with Myka since they met until now, because she's convinced she should have known something.

Happy chirps from her phone just barely pierce the thick drone of her thoughts.

Within seconds of each other, Claudia gets a text from Myka and an email from Helena, both requesting she joined them at Myka's studio, after she familiarised herself with Suzanne Vega's 99.9F.

She isn't sure why they are asking this of her, but the fact it comes from the both of them makes it feel like a necessity.

Plus, Myka is her friend and she will do whatever she asks.

And, Helena is kind of her boss now, so she needs to do what she says.

And – Claudia is damn curious to find out what the hell is going on between those two.

So with one hand she texts and emails back to say she'll be there, and with the other she searches for 99.9F on her iPod.

Claudia knows the album. Hell, everyone knows the album, it's a classic. She doesn't know it as well as Helena and Myka do, that was evident from the first few hours they spend in Myka's studio, when they wasted absolutely no time and recorded the first song of the album, Rock in this Pocket.

She decides she so needs to up her game to be able to match Myka and Helena's musical prowess, and that's a hard thing to do because they are like mad scientists when you put them in a studio on their own; but together, they are The Manhattan Project of music making so production happens at an insane pace.

It's magical, it's beautiful, and Claudia feels like she's falling in love with recording all over again.

Their arrangement fits the song perfectly: Claudia on electric guitar, Helena on acoustic, Myka on drums. It sounds entirely different to the original, even though it is virtually the same, note for note. Beat for beat.

They record it live a couple of times, with the view of embellishing afterwards, if they want. Claudia and Myka swap the lead and background vocal. It's spellbinding how it happens, that Myka and she agree who sings what without talking about it in advance, it just happens, organically, as they play.

The whole thing sounds rawer and probably a little bit more honest than the original recording, because when they sing 'and I'm really well acquainted with the span of your brow, so if you didn't know me then – you'll know me now' together, Claudia sings to every person who ever doubted her; and Myka looks at Helena (who doesn't notice because she's completely in the moment with her guitar) and something electric or chemical or biological or whatever charges the air and Claudia feels it and it almost makes her miss her cue for the final bridge that closes the song.

In just under two hours they have Rock in this Pocket down. When they sit in the control room to listen to it with a proper balance, Claudia realises that she never really heard Myka sing before. Her voice reminds her of Suzanne Vega's, with undertones of a whispered gravel.

It makes her wonder – again – why Myka never plays on stage.

They go in to set up for Blood Makes Noise, and Helena says she thinks all three of them should sing. Then Myka and Helena talk about instrumentation for the whole of three seconds, and before Claudia gets a word in, it's a done deal, with Helena and Claudia on basses (yes, two of them) and Myka's in charge of guitar noises.

After a couple of goes with this set up, Myka and Claudia swap, and that makes for a smoother and considerably more fun run of it.

Helena doesn't so much sing as she speaks the lyrics, but it works really well with Claud and Myka pinning the melody underneath.

In the control room, after they balance, Claudia checks the track list and to make sure she remembers what's next. When Helena goes to get them drinks, she elbows the tall engineer. "You ready for this one?"

"What do you mean?" Myka is all smiles and bouncy energy, and Claudia thinks she may be a bit oblivious to what the next song, In Liverpool, might mean to Helena or her.

She gives Myka a look, a distinct Claudia-type look that tells her she needs to get her brain in gear and come to some other kind of conclusion.

"It's fine," Myka mouths to her as Helena walks back in.

"In Liverpool next," Helena declares jovially and places three mugs of hot tea on the small crate they use as a coffee table.

Claudia is still not convinced either musical genius in front of her have actually clocked the emotional undertow that the lyrics of In Liverpool may stir, so she decides to try and force the manic pace down a bit. "So, uh…" she starts, and takes her time. Picks up a mug, blows across the top of it to cool the drink down. "What do you think about this one?"

"Oh, Myka should do keys," Helena, who is also buzzing, is the first to answer.

"Yeah," curls bounce excitedly with an exuberant nod and Myka points at Helena, "and Helena on the 5-string bass, if…" she then turns and points towards Claudia, "if – Claud – you're okay to guitar it?"

"I was thinking of acoustic guitar but with an effect rig. I have a couple of distortions that will warm and dirty it up a bit," she plays along with the conversation…

Myka's face lights up, "That sounds so cool," she smiles crookedly and sips from her mug.

…but she reminds herself she is there to slow them down. "So…" Claudia starts again, with her own noticeable brand of subtlety, "who's gonna sing?"

Silence.

Claudia's mind screams 'Banzai!' because she totally nailed just how un-fine it will be for either one of them to sing this. She also finds it secretly hilarious – the awkward looks that Helena and Myka exchange from above rims of their mugs.

Helena bails first, "I'm going to switch on the Marshall, let the valves warm up," she disappears into the studio to fiddle with the bass and its very analogue amplifier.

Claudia screws Myka a blatant 'I told you so' look, to which Myka responds with a scrunched face. "I need to get the keyboard and piano set up." She heads towards the studio door, realises Helena's in thereand backtracks, "But I should really print the lyrics out first," and that's the lamest excuse in the history of lame excuses (which she won't even dignify with an eyeroll), because nobody needed lyrics until now and Claudia seriously doubts the fact Myka doesn't know the lyrics to this song.

Myka sits behind the mixing desk and searches for the lyrics online, Helena is in the studio, with her back to the glass. Claudia, who believes she is partially responsible for this cold front, decides to break the ice. She leans on the mixing desk, just behind Myka, and presses the intercom button, so Helena can her what she's about to say too. She clears her throat purposefully, Helena turns around and Myka shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. "I think," Claudia enunciates, "that Myka should sing lead on this one and HG and I should do vocals," and removes her fingers from the button ceremoniously, cocking Myka a victorious look.

"Fine," Myka sighs, gets up with a humph and walks to the printer to pick up the lyric sheet. She then walks into the studio, not without glaring at Claudia.

It takes a while to do the setup for In Liverpool because they each chose to use analogue amps (that need micing) instead of DIs (that hook directly to the desk). They each test the different sounds of their instruments – Claudia with an analogue overdrive pedal, a digital overdrive pedal and her amp stack's built-in distortion. She's pleased with the warmth of one, crispness of the other and grit of the third. She also tests a couple of combinations. Yeah, she nods happily. This will definitely work.

She looks over to Helena who practices the bass licks from memory: her head is tilted backwards with eyes closed, and she sways to an imaginary beat while her fingers work the thick neck of the five-string like it were butter.

She looks towards Myka, on the other side of the room, whose eyes are fixed on Helena while she sets the keyboard up on top of the baby grand.

Claudia smiles to herself and thinks she has the best seats in the house to watch this: in the blue corner, in the buttoned up top, with a staggering record of audio innovation is Helena "Daahling" Wells. In the red corner, in a t-shirt that only gets tucked in the front, with talent yet to be matched in this ring (and beyond) is Myka "It's Fine" Bering.

As she hears the bell ding in her imagination she takes her guitar off and goes to set up everyone's vocal mics.

Myka smiles at her when she props up the stand.

"How do you want it?" Claudia asks.

Myka finishes arranging the third mic around the piano and takes her place behind the keys to think how she wants to do this. "I'll stand," she says, and that's all Claudia needs to know to set the mic up.

By the time she makes her way to Helena's corner, Myka is invested in testing the balance of the piano mics and the DI of the keyboard. Helena, on the other hand, is invested in Myka.

Claudia smiles broadly at Helena who's completely unaware of the redhead's presence, because she, with her tongue suggestively touching her top lip, is openly and unashamedly ogles Myka as she works.

"Here okay?" Claudia asks, knowing it will startle Helena.

And Helena is startled, turns to Claudia like she's been woken from a dream and nods affirmatively.

Claudia beams at her and goes back into the control room where she can queue up the equipment. When she's done, she goes back into the studio, takes her guitar and her place in the middle of the room, with Helena to her left and Myka to her right. "Ready?" she asks with a smirk.

Myka takes a deep breath, "Yeah," she says with a breath that's on the trembling side of shaky.

Helena puts her headphones on and nods with a confident smile.

"Okay, then," Claudia calls them to their marks. "Myka will count us in – as and when she's ready."

The first take of it is a bit ropey. The guitar sound needs a bit of tweaking, the balance in the mix-down channel is off, there's a rattle coming from the piano.

Oh, and Myka doesn't sing a note.

The second take is better, there are a few more technical glitches, and Myka still doesn't sing.

At the end of the fifth take they sound pretty frakking amazing: Myka starts the song with low, slow and soft chords on the piano. Helena enters on the third bar, playing the same riff, but an octave higher, past the 12th fret of the bass. Claudia chimes in with a hint of distortion that sounds like someone is dragging the acoustic on a dirt track. In the chorus, Claudia crisps the sound up for an artful mix of rhythm and lead, Helena points and syncopates just where she needs to and her bass sounds like molasses, and Myka leaves her left hand on the piano and moves her right to the keyboard that hums with the rich, smooth sound of a Hammond.

But Myka hasn't sung a single word.

"Okay, that was awesome," Claudia commentates from her post and looks over to Helena. "What do you think?"

Helena nods.

"And you?" Claudia turns to Myka.

"Yeah," Myka nods. "It's fine," she adds distractedly.

"You want to try it with the singing next?" Claudia asks in a way that may sound pushy to anyone who didn't know her.

She clocks Myka looking at Helena for a long moment who returns her gaze. Then the bio-chemical electricity thing happens again, and Myka closes her eyes and counts them in. Helena closes her eyes as well, nodding gently with Myka's count.

And this time, Myka sings.

Myka sounds hesitant and shy and real – so real – when she sings those lyrics, like she was the one in Liverpool, on Sunday, witnessing light so pale and thin it reminded her of someone.

Of Helena.

And at the end of the chorus, when she sings 'he sounds like he's missing something or someone that he knows he can't have now; and if he isn't – I certainly am' it's so obvious that she really feels it, that Claudia's sure Myka's missing could be seen from space.

At the last verse, Myka opens her eyes and looks straight at Helena, who looks back at her, and she tells Helena that she shouldn't really remember Helena, except for the fact she'd missed her so damn much, it hurts.

Only in other words than that, because that's how Suzanne Vega wrote it.

When they go in to the crescendo at the end of the last chorus, Helena is asking questions with her bass that Myka answers with her piano, and Claudia is covering all that with a feathery chorus of backing vocals. And then Helena joins. And then Myka.

And it sounds to Claudia like all the questions are asked and answered right there, with these lyrics, with this music.

To mark the beginning of the last bar, Myka nods sharply and they close the song with a long, ringing F Major.

Claudia stops the recording after the piano's sustain is no longer audible, and cannot help how wide her smile is growing, because that is what music is to Claudia. That was capturing a real moment, with a real truth and real emotion that are all too raw to be expressed in any other way.

She looks at Myka who stands behind her piano, and then at Helena who stands behind her bass, and they have seventeen paces between them, and they're looking like they have so much more to say to each other now that they told each other the things this song has to say.

"I'll leave you two crazy kids to it," Claudia says quietly, knowing neither Myka nor Helena are listening to her, takes off her guitar, switches off the amps, and walks out of the studio into the control room, making sure the door behind her is shut firmly.

She presses the button that turns the glass wall between the control room and the studio opaque and kills the volume of the ambient mics in the studio, so she can't see or hear what goes on inside. Instead, she sits down to balance the take they've just recorded.

In the studio, Myka and Helena start off looking at each other from across those seventeen paces, neither of them sure of what they need to say or do to start clearing whatever it was that messed them up.

The do, eventually, talk through everything they need to talk through (and haven't talked through until now) to come to grips with everything that happened since they met on that Saturday afternoon in that coffee place on Main Street, everything that happened since Helena left Myka's apartment in DC almost twelve years ago.