"Georgie." It's the way he says her nickname for the fifth time that has her uncharacteristically silenced. All of a sudden she does feel like the younger sister, and he does sound very much like a concerned older brother. After cursing himself hoarse in the hopes of jolting some sense into his headstrong and apparently heartsick sibling, he sighs and tries a gentler tac.
"Do you have any evidence to back up this wild assumption other than the fact that you've seen the two of them conversing in a public setting?" He hears her let out a humph in frustration. "I know what I saw Charles." She snaps. "And it wasn't just a conversation."
"Fine then, what exactly did you see Georgie." He pulls at his beard and scratches his cheek lazily.
"Coffee was had." She added almost petulantly.
"Wait. Coffee, did you say?"
"And pastries. I think she was nibbling on a chocolate croissant."
"Oh the scandal. A croissant!" He intoned in mock-horror.
"You know she doesn't eat sugar Charles." She added exasperated. They all knew that Myka didn't eat sugar. Except Twizzlers. Before they moved to Oxford, Helena had positively cleaned out the entire stock of Twizzlers from the sweet shop in Brixton for Myka's birthday.
"Well, then case closed. By God George why didn't you mention this before? New Scotland Yard could certainly use your keen powers of deduction, you positively put our poor cousin to shame." He smirked into the phone.
"You didn't see the look on his face." She grimaced recalling the man's eyes all over the young woman. "And she was smiling at him." It was said small but incredulous. Charles sighed on the other end of the line.
He would normally have teased her, said something to the effect that beautiful women will always have their admirers or something thereof. Or something along the lines of, "Really my dear it's not like you hired a nun." Perhaps he would have remarked on how tightly wound she seemed. He may have then suggested she needed to get some. Badly. He doesn't though. He says nothing of the sort. The impossibly handsome man pulled at his beard again. And very gently asked, "What is this really about Helena?"
There was a long pause. A deep sigh. Charles had the grace to change the subject by keeping her abreast of family gossip and his own romantic complications. "I'm totally fucked Georgie."
She rolled her eyes to high heaven, but a smile teased at the corner of her lips.
"A dominatrix Charles? I'm familiar with Miss Adler's reputation. I think she might prove a bit much, even for you darling."
Helena had not been feeling at all like herself the past several weeks. She had caught herself staring dumbly at her daughter's curly-haired nanny. It was hard enough to tear her eyes away from the American as it was, but somehow even more so since their move to Oxford. Here, she seemed to positively glow. There was a new lightness in her step, an extra sparkle in her eyes. She smiled more brightly and laughed more readily. And it was making Helena absolutely miserable.
The engineer was convinced that the insipid blond fellow, this Sam Martino, Myka had befriended was the reason. And Helena was absolutely and utterly, sick-to-her-stomach miserable over it. The thing of it was, the essence of her misery, was that Helena couldn't move past the fear of what would happen if she allowed herself to act on her 'infatuation.' It was inappropriate was it not, having the hots for the nanny? Cliché, surely. Scandalous, even. She was the young woman's employer for goodness' sake. And the blessed thing of it was, the thing of the thing, was that Myka had never just been the nanny. Myka had always been, more. And that was something Helena was not allowing herself to think about. There is a balance to things, a harmony that is too easily upset by the force of such passions. What Helena felt in her gut was a violence and a storm that if unleashed could easily destroy the planet countless times over. Well, mostly the threat of violence was directed towards Sam Martino and any unfortunates unlucky enough to be caught in open admiration of the undisputed beauty. Dr. Helena George Wells did not do romantic jealousy. H.G. Wells had never ached for anyone in her entirely life, had never felt pangs or sighing longings. Had never. Past tense.
These days all Myka had to do was smile that crooked shy smile of hers, curl her lips ever so slightly at anyone besides Christina or herself and Helena was done for.
And that was what led to a string of spectacularly terrible, laughably horrible, no-good-very-bad dates.
Oh, absurdity. Oh what farce.
Little did she know, Helena was the reason Myka's eyes shimmered a more brilliant green, that her laughter rose freer and her smiled burned brighter. And as Charles would readily point out even years later, Helena had very nearly bollocksed it all.
And there they found themselves in the kitchen. And the kettle was boiling and their feet were bare and they stood very near each other late one night.
NOTE: Thanks for the feedback you guys! All of you. General consensus seems to be that Bering and Wells are pretty much recognizable. And I agree totally that Helena isn't her normally flirty self, but that's deliberate. She's flirty when she first meets her in the cafe way in the beginning but slowly becomes less so as her feelings become more confused, and shit gets more real i guess. You know? But maybe I should written that clearer. I don't know you guys I'm a pretty sloppy writer.
Ok, so really wasn't feeling up to posting anything so soon but since it was Jada T's birthday here's a little something...Happy Birthday ;)
We're almost there you guys. Probably just a chapter or two left.
FYI: And so, for those of you who aren't Sherlock fans...the references to Mycroft, the obtuse reference to Sherlock himself in this chapter...as the cousin...Charles' new love interest Miss Adler...yeah they're all from there.