"You killed me," Deborah said, her mutated gray skin glistening underneath the light illuminating the bar she sat at. Jane was serving drinks behind the counter, jumping on one leg from a faceless customer to another, a steady stream of blood dripping from the mess of charred flesh and bone that had been her leg.
"The fucking potatoes!" Jane suddenly yelled and rushed over to what appeared to be the backroom.
"I didn't kill anyone," Helena argued with Deborah. She turned to look behind her when a loud clattering sound caught her attention. There were no players around the pool table, nor were there billiard balls on it. Instead, the elegant red cloth served as a resting place for Maxima Ibsen's upper half which had been framed with cue balls, some of the spheres cracked and their shiny surfaces stained with light blue chalk.
"You let me get kidnapped and infected. You let me fall. You grieve her, but not me!" Deborah yelled furiously, one of the long appendages stemming from her back lunging up and forward, then lurching down, impaling Maxima and crushing the pool table, a steady stream of cue balls pouring from the smashed table, as if it were bleeding them.
"Have you spared me a thought? No. Just her," Deborah sneered, punctuating her words by shaking the half a body hanging impaled on her claw, thick bloody mess dripping from it. "And yourself," Deborah then spat, shaking Maxima off, her body reduced to an unrecognizable mess as it slammed onto the floor like a dropped meatloaf, gray thick fluid oozing from it.
"I'm sorry," Helena cried.
"'I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' Is that all you can say? Huh!?" Frances Harper asked as she appeared next to Helena, slapping her granddaughter so hard Helena's ear began to ring. "You disgusting, revolting, devil-child!" she yelled and hit Helena again, this time hard enough to make her lose her balance and fall to the stained and scratched wooden floor, the mess that had been Maxima covering her hands, making them sickeningly sticky.
"You abandoned me, you never did anything to save me. You let me die," Deborah accused and Helena finally found her fury.
"You dare! You dare to claim I didn't save you, after all the beatings I took for you! I could've let you die, time and again, long before Simmons happened, but I didn't!" Helena yelled.
"She wasn't even your real sister, why should you have even cared?" Frances spat.
"Why do you hate me so much?" Helena sobbed.
"Because you are a monster."
"She's right, you know," Sergeant Good snickered from behind Helena, sitting amidst the splinters of the pool table, thick clots of blood caked to her head that looked too flat. She smiled, some of her teeth grotesquely sticking outward from her mouth, like something had tried to break free from behind them.
"Shut up, you're dead."
"Honey, we're all dead here," Good laughed. "And you are a monster. You could've saved a lot of people, but you chose not to. I don't judge you for that, I would've done the same, they didn't deserve to be saved. You're a Good girl."
Helena got to her hands and knees, and crawled through the splinters and blood and flesh, flung herself forward and knocked Good down, straddling her and letting her hands enclose around her throat.
"How about you be a Good girl and die?" she grunted and squeezed harder, but Good only laughed, blood and teeth spluttering from her mouth as she did.
At first, Hunnigan thought she'd managed to inhale her saliva while asleep and that it was the cause of the sudden need to cough; either that or then she'd slept with her mouth open and her throat had dried up. Then the feeling of pressure on her neck and the throbbing dull ache creeping up to her head registered and she opened her eyes.
Helena was straddling her abdomen, her hands tightening around Hunnigan's throat as she leaned down, breathing heavily through her teeth as she choked Hunnigan. She didn't waste time trying to reason with Helena, it was apparent from the glassy stare Helena had that the Xanax had worn off and she was gone again, and Hunnigan didn't have the luxury of time at her disposal; the blood and oxygen flow to her brain was being efficiently cut off, she wouldn't last much beyond ten seconds unless she managed to escape the grip.
"How about you be a good girl and die," Helena grunted, and Hunnigan didn't know what she was referring to, nor did she care right now, she just needed to break free from the choke.
Sorry about this, she thought as she pushed her thumb into Helena's injured knuckle hard, hooking her fingers around the underside of Helena's wrist and yanked on it forcefully. Helena yelped in pain and let go, her fingernails leaving behind a scratch on Hunnigan's skin. When Helena focused her attention on her injured hand, Hunnigan got to her feet and began taking steps backward to put more distance between herself and Helena, coughing dryly as she retreated, the itch that felt like a ragged edge in her throat persisting despite her efforts to dispel it.
"Helena..." she managed, breathing heavily, "don't do this. I know that... whatever it is you're going through right now feels very real for you but it isn't, I promise, you're safe with me."
Helena stood still and silent for a long moment before slowly raising her hands over her face when she began to put the pieces together and realize what had happened. Her breathing became rapid and shuddered, tears falling in a generous stream, and Hunnigan could hear the sound of them hitting the floor. Helena tried to speak but couldn't get the words out, her breaths which had turned into short and uncontrollable gasps making it impossible. Hunnigan went to her and slowly wrapped her arms around Helena, and she eased into the embrace.
"It's okay, just breathe... breathe, get your feet back on the ground, easy... easy, just breathe..." Hunnigan kept repeating as she gently stroked Helena's back, realizing the younger woman had to be cold; she was still naked from having been in the shower earlier.
"Come on, let's get you back to bed and warm, okay?" Hunnigan said and Helena nodded, her face still buried in the spot between Hunnigan's neck and shoulder, her tears soaking the fabric of her T-shirt.
Hunnigan tucked her in and went to sit half-upright on her side of the bed, leaning her back against the headboard. She stayed there, gently running her fingers through Helena's hair until she calmed down. Once she'd fallen back to sleep, Hunnigan quietly got out of bed. She went to the bathroom and shut the door, leaning into the sink as she waited for the shivering and the urge to cry subside.
It's just adrenaline, come on, out with it, she mentally told herself, adamantly trying to ignore the fact that she could've gotten killed just now. Helena wouldn't have meant to do it, but all that did was make it worse because it just meant she was not in control of herself.
"Parfois on regarde les choses telles qu'elles sont en se demandant pourquoi. Parfois, on les regarde telles qu'elles pourraient être en se disant pourquoi pas," Hunnigan's voice sang softly, coming from a direction Helena couldn't quite figure out; it was distant but somehow underneath her.
Where am I? Helena wondered groggily as she slowly opened her eyes and realized she was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling once again. A dull ache in her hand registered and she pulled it out from under the covers (only then realizing she was naked) to look at it. It was swollen and bruised as was to be expected, and making a fist wasn't something she was capable of doing, not without hurting herself...but she didn't think anything was actually broken, she didn't see any deformation.
She looked around and saw some clothes arranged into a neat pile on a chair near the bed. Her own clothes had been taken into evidence by the police and she'd been stuck wearing an awkward paper suit for a while before Isabela had brought over a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. Helena had no idea where those were now, the clothes on the chair were different.
There wasn't any underwear but Helena didn't care, it made sense; judging from the length of the jeans, she deduced these had to be Hunnigan's clothes, she surely didn't expect her to loan her underwear too. Helena pulled the jeans on, the overlong pant leg bunching up at her ankle and slipping under her heel.
She then pulled on the black T-shirt provided and followed it up with the red and black plaid flannel shirt. She buttoned it up, noticing it was a bit tight over her chest, and that the sleeves unsurprisingly were a bit too long. She rolled them up and then headed over to the railing preventing one from falling to the level below the mezzanine. She leaned into it and looked over to the kitchen where Hunnigan was busy making breakfast, singing along to a song playing in her earbuds. Helena smiled a little and made her way downstairs.
"Il y a lalala, si l'on prenait—" Hunnigan interrupted herself when she noticed Helena. "Oh, you're up!" she said, pulled the earbuds out and thumbed her phone to stop the song.
"Yeah, I'm, uh..." Helena began, her eyes catching the bruising around Hunnigan's neck despite her attempts at hiding it underneath layers of concealer and foundation.
Well, don't that look bad despite her efforts, imagine how bad it must be without the make-up. Gotta say, though, it's nice of her to try and hide it to spare your feelings, wouldn't want to let you see your handiwork, there's no telling how your fragile, pathetic little mind would take it, Frances's voice snickered in Helena's head..
"...I did that," Helena muttered, tears beginning to sting in her eyes as they threatened to erupt from her again. She felt like all she'd done recently was cry.
"Not on purpose," Hunnigan hurried to say, her hand reaching to gently cup Helena's face to assure her it was all right, but Helena pulled away from her.
"Would you stop being so...understanding! I don't deserve it. How can you even stand to be around me?" she scoffed in disbelief. "...or dare to for that matter," she added in a soft mumble. Hunnigan sighed deeply and pursed her lips as she took a moment to think.
"When I was fourteen, me and Nolan and our band played a gig at a community center, you know, for fun, for kids to have some place to go and have a good time. And we did have a good time until a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings forced their way in and started making all kinds of trouble. They dragged me down from the stage, and I was about to get wolf-packed, but thankfully, my dad managed to intervene."
"I'm... sorry you went through that but I don't see what that has to do with this."
"My options then were the same as they are now. Either let what happened rattle me to the point of never being able to get on the stage again, or get back to it. I got back on stage, and I've had many awesome experiences since then. Likewise, I'm not going to let this ruin our friendship, especially not because I know it wasn't something you did on purpose, you weren't trying to hurt me. I'm not afraid of you."
"Yeah, well, maybe you should be!" Helena argued. "God, you should've let me take the fall for treason and let me get executed. Or you should've let me kill myself, anything would be better than this!"
"Stop it!" Hunnigan yelled suddenly, startling Helena into silence. "First of all, how dare you! How dare you stand there so willing to give up after everything I've done to help you!"
"I never asked you to do a God damn thing for me!" Helena yelled over Hunnigan's words.
"When we get back to D.C., I want you to make an appointment with Eliza Wilkes," Hunnigan raised her voice once more to be audible over Helena's angry rant.
"I've been to all my mandatory psych evals and I've passed them, I don't need to see a shrink," Helena shook her head.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Hunnigan scoffed in disbelief, and Helena's eyebrow quirked at the expletive; she wasn't used to hearing Hunnigan swear.
"Look, you know she'd just prescribe me pills, and I don't want to have to take a drug for the rest of my life just to feel normal!"
"And I don't want to have to wear glasses to see, but that doesn't mean I don't need them!" Hunnigan tried to reason.
"I'm fine!"
"You put your fist through the door yesterday, and it's not a freaking cardboard door! You nearly killed yourself before Christmas, and you almost killed someone at the diner, you don't remember if you killed your old drill sergeant, fuck, Helena, you almost strangled me last night! These are not the kinds of things a person with a healthy brain does! You need help!"
"I wanted to die! I was supposed to be executed, but you had to fuck it up for me! None of this would've happened if you hadn't interfered! I deserved to die!" Helena screamed, her voice breaking as she couldn't stop herself from crying, her tears the result of frustration now more than sadness.
Hunnigan didn't speak, just breathed heavily through her nose; Helena could tell she was struggling to keep herself from saying something she'd undoubtedly regret, her fists clenched, the muscles on her jaw tight. Helena flinched when Hunnigan suddenly moved, but instead of bitch slapping her like she felt she would've deserved, Hunnigan put her arms around Helena and hugged her.
"I don't want to hear you say things like that about yourself. You don't deserve to die. I know you're in a lot of pain right now, and I know it's difficult, but it'll get better, I promise," Hunnigan muttered against the top of Helena's head.
"How are you so patient? Why are you so good to me?" Helena sobbed against Hunnigan's shoulder.
"Because I love you."
"What?" Helena pulled back and stared up at Hunnigan. I'm sure I didn't hear that right.
"I said because I care about you," Hunnigan repeated, a small frown of concern forming on her forehead as she regarded Helena.
"Right," Helena sighed and slowly let go of Hunnigan. "I'm just—"
"Hold that thought," Hunnigan interrupted when her phone rang and she answered the call. Helena exhaled, relieved. She hadn't really planned on keeping the conversation going, there was nothing she could think of to say, nothing new anyway, and she had no interest in going around in circles and arguing over being sent to seeing the agency psychiatrist. She had no valid arguments, Hunnigan was right, she did need help. She just genuinely did not want anyone to know just how bad it was.
"Yes, sir, I understand," Hunnigan said, listened to a while longer to the person on the phone and then finally ended the call. She plated the pancakes and turned the stove off.
"Eat," she encouraged Helena who wanted to ask about the call but knew it wasn't her place, she had no right to know who called.
"...thank you," she mumbled instead and took a seat at the bar, reached for the syrup and poured it over the stack.
"Listen, I have to go back to D.C. for a while to sort some things out. I really don't want to leave you alone right now, but I'm afraid I don't have a choice," Hunnigan said apologetically, poured herself a cup of coffee and drank from it. Apparently she wouldn't be sitting down to share breakfast with Helena.
"Don't worry about me," she mumbled with her mouth full of food, growing more hungry with each bite, only now stopping to realize she didn't remember when was the last time she'd eaten anything.
"Easier said than done," Hunnigan smirked and Helena rolled her eyes.
"Uh, while you're there, could you bring me some of my stuff? The cops took everything I had on me, and while I appreciate you lending me your clothes, I'd rather wear my own," she then said.
"Of course," Hunnigan nodded.
"My keys are in the bag, I think," Helena said, gesturing toward the plastic bag on the table, what little belongings she'd been allowed to take back inside it: her wallet, keys, a lighter, and a slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes.
"Gotcha," Hunnigan said, quickly finished her coffee and put the mug in the sink, moving to dig the keys from the bag with one hand and looking something up on her phone with the other.
"If I hurry, I should be able to catch the 8 a.m. train to D.C.," she muttered to herself as she typed on her phone, buying a ticket, Helena assumed. She finished her breakfast as Hunnigan got ready to leave.
"Are you sure you'll be okay?" Hunnigan then asked as she was heading out.
"I'll be fine, at most I'll probably get bored because I don't know what to do around here, seeing as I don't know where 'here' is exactly."
"West village. I'm sure you'll find something to keep you busy. Go see some sights, the Friends apartment is nearby, or go see Carrie Bradshaw's place," Hunnigan suggested with a smile as she put her coat on.
"I don't know who that is," Helena admitted sheepishly.
"Well, there's something for you to do; go find out," Hunnigan chuckled, said goodbye and exited the apartment.
