For those of you who are excited about seeing HG and Myka back on a mission together, I hope this doesn't disappoint...
Chapter Nine
Catherine swallowed the lump in her throat as she watched her parents slide into a taxi cab, and forced a smile onto her face as she waved vigorously at their tense expressions. It's just Montana, she told herself again, hoping that the repetition would calm her rampant emotions. While it was nice to see her mothers sitting together and talking amicably as they set off, Cat couldn't help wondering what might happen to them this time. What if they both forgot her this time? What if they were seriously injured or died? What if Freddy was in danger again, or Chrissy? She felt an arm across her shoulder and turned into her sister's hug.
"What's on your mind, Cat?" Christina asked the pre-teen gently. She marvelled at how quickly her baby sibling was growing, but knew that there was still a long way to go before the girl was mature enough to understand everything that their parents were forced to live with.
"I don't want them to forget us," she answered honestly.
"They won't," Christina answered a little too quickly. "They probably won't," she corrected soon after. "Whatever made Mama forget before is likely far from where they're headed."
"You think?" Cat wondered aloud. "Why do they have to go at all?"
"There are some jobs that adults do because they want to help people," Christina repeated verbatim from the answer her Mama had given her when she'd been worried about Myka's position with the Warehouse.
"Is that what you want to do?" Cat asked her sister curiously, thinking about the young woman's future and her own in the same thought. "Help people escape from artefacts?"
"I am not entirely sure, Sis." Christina smiled and sighed at the same time. "Other than wanting very much to smooch with Tommy indefinitely, my future is as yet, undecided."
"Gross!" the pre-teen exclaimed as she pushed her sister away and ran half-way up the stairs before turning back. "You really think they're gonna be ok?"
The young woman grinned up at her sister and winked. "I think they're going to be better than ok."
Cat giggled through a grimace before beginning back up the stairs, calling back as she ran, "Gross, gross, gross, gross…"
A chuckle rose up inside Myka as the inventor scanned the departures board and finally noted the first stop of their journey. "Something up?" she asked, feigning innocence.
Helena turned a frown on her partner, eyes narrowing at the obvious amusement behind vibrant green. She was stunned for a moment by the teasing expression, feeling a pleasant tingle filling her brain as any irritation melted. "Pete's last comment to me before leaving makes much more sense now," she answered with a small smile of her own.
"You didn't already know that Helena was the capital of Montana?" the younger regent wondered as she repositioned her bag on her back and absently flapped her boarding pass against her leg.
"It slipped my mind," HG replied. "Had I remembered, I would have fashioned my own list of innuendos."
Shared humour of the moment came with half smiles, but it was awkward. They were both painfully aware that any joke that could come from playing with the shared name would be crude and overly intimate for their current situation. They agreed by mutual, silent consent to leave any inappropriate comments to Pete.
They walked through the airport with all the appearance of casual commuters but beneath the surface, thoughts and emotions flowed like rip-tides, hiding in plain sight and then pulling them under without warning. Between small-talk and going over their plans for the mission, there were lengthy moments where the world outside of their own thoughts ceased to exist and time became a meaningless concept. It wasn't until they were flying over Wyoming, almost directly above Yellow Stone National Park, that the regents climbed out of their thoughts and acknowledged each other.
With the aisle seat and a limited view of the scenery, Helena had been sporadically watching the progress of their flight via the on screen the map. Recent years had made her a more willing believer in fate, so when the scene of her ultimate downfall appeared in the top left-hand of the map, she automatically checked her companion to see if Myka had noticed. Since the brunette didn't actually remember being at Yellow Stone when HG had tried to start another ice-age, she wondered if her wife would even realise how significant the place was to the two of them.
The closer the plane flew, the more fidgety the inventor became, eventually drawing her partner's attention. It didn't take Myka long to note the fear in Helena's eyes and make the link, and while she knew that she should probably be angrier and more fearful herself, she couldn't help but feel compassion and concern for what the Brit must be experiencing.
"Hey, you ok?" Myka asked, her hand twitching as if it wanted to reach over and offer comfort. She looked closer at the Brit's whole demeanour and saw a listlessness that she hadn't noticed before. Helena was thinner than she had been in Australia, there was a slight purpling under her eyes, probably from too many nights without enough sleep, and hair that usually shone and bounced vibrantly was duller, flatter. I did that, she realised with a touch of regret.
HG nodded shakily; hearing the worry in her wife's voice went a long way to calming her nerves. "We have not yet been back there," she said as a way of explaining her frayed state.
There was a long, uneasy pause before the younger regent found the words for what she wanted to say. "Maybe you should. Maybe we should."
"You would do that?" Helena asked in surprise. Her wife had been open to conversations about many topics, but returning to Yellow Stone had been vetoed more times than she could count.
Detecting gratitude hidden beneath the disbelief, Myka nodded firmly. "If you think it'll help. Pete told me the basics of what happened there but I still don't remember it."
HG pushed her fingers through her hair, her eyes travelling over the cabin and falling on everything except her companion. Eventually, she half turned her gaze and stared past Myka, out of the window. "You forced a gun into my hand and told me to kill you," she whispered.
"Oh," Myka answered vaguely. She could imagine pulling a stunt like that – something self-sacrificing that put the world and the mission before her own needs. Pete had hinted at something along those lines, declaring her the saviour of billions, but he hadn't been big on the details. On hearing the truth from Helena, she had a clearer idea of what her own state of mind must have been at the time. That action had put more faith in Helena's feelings about them than anything else. When push came to shove, she had still believed that HG loved her. "Why would you want to go back after that?" she wondered aloud.
"Every so often, I have woken in the night having pulled the trigger. I've forced myself to stay awake just to watch you sleep so that I know you're not dead. That I didn't kill you." Helena never wanted to know how her wife was feeling more than in this moment. If she ever had that ability again, she would not take it for granted. She paused to compose her voice and took a steadying breath. "I would like to banish the last of my demons."
Myka couldn't help but feel for the inventor in that moment. The Brit should probably be made to live with some sort of punishment for her crimes, but though HG had unintentionally brought about the deaths of four innocent people, had murdered two others and had intended to kill many, many more, the younger regent actually felt something akin to empathy for her partner. "Well, if we get chance in the near future, I'm not averse to making that trip with you," she offered. She didn't add that she hoped to find answers for herself too, but left Helena to think that it was simply an olive branch.
For the rest of the day, that remained the most personal conversation they ventured into. On landing in Helena, they breezed through customs and picked up their hire car to begin the journey to York. Myka insisted on driving and HG let her, understanding the brunette's need to be in control. She gazed out of the window and watched as the scenery passed by. If she drew strength from the beauty and deceptive tranquillity of Montana, it was not without need.
When they arrived at the bar, a professional and symbiotic air settled over the regents and they exited the car with little more than a glance before they approached the door. For both of them, it was like slipping into a pair of comfortable shoes that had been left forgotten at the back of a wardrobe.
"Caucasian, mid-forties, balding with a compensatory beard," Helena chatted mostly to herself as she followed her partner through the bar and scanned the customers that were in her line of sight.
"He doesn't necessarily have to be compensating," Myka argued with a slight frown. "He might like being bald." Claudia had pulled video footage from a store camera of a man who gave off a hinky vibe and the first step in their investigation was to question him. As she looked around though, Myka saw no one matching the description and felt sure that they were going to have a chase on their hands.
"Most men of the nineteenth century compensated with moustaches," HG replied knowingly, her gaze challenging.
"For what?"
"Brains mostly."
The brunette chuckled and watched, momentarily distracted as HG's mouth pulled up into an enchanting smile. "Focus," she reprimanded and whacked the inventor lightly on the arm. "I'm going to question the woman behind the bar. Take a walk around and see what you can find."
"Aye, aye," HG saluted and took off in the direction of the women's bathroom. In her eagerness to please, she missed the slight expression of disquiet on her partner's face.
Myka shook off the memory of their first mission together and the naïve fascination that had enveloped her at the time. Just because she used the same phrases, did not mean that Helena was the same person with the same manipulative agenda. It was difficult to push the feeling aside though when the Brit's charm still felt so disarming. Approaching the bar, she signalled the server and waited.
A stocky, middle-aged blonde set a bottle none too carefully on a shelf and lumbered the few paces closer. "What can I get'ya?"
Myka's initial impression was of a much older woman than herself, who wore her years on her face and probably smoked. When she estimated the bar-tender's age at around fifty, she abruptly remembered that she was in her late forties. Sometimes that part of her situation completely eluded her. "One coffee and one tea," she replied and watched as the woman saw to her order with a bored expression. "So, I hear you're having trouble with wolves up here at the moment."
"Y'eah, what of it?"
The regent shrugged. "My friend and I were wondering if you get to see them much. Is there a good spot to do a bit of sightseeing? Somewhere we might catch a glimpse?"
Pushing a coffee along the bar, the blonde took in her customer's apparel and chewed her lip for a moment. "City folk?"
"Yes," Myka agreed and stored the question away as something that might be important. "We heard from one of your locals that now was a good time to catch a bit of the wild before the winter hits hard."
"One of our locals?" came the sceptical reply.
Myka saw HG returning from her walkaround and felt a subtle relief to have back-up. They had been right not to try the government-sanctioned approach but even with her tourist persona, she didn't feel like she was getting very far. "Yeah," she answered and bit back her frustration. "We talked at a checkout in town and he pointed us out in this direction. Maybe we should just ask him again, what was his name, Helena?"
HG caught a spark of something other than boredom in the bar-tender's expression for a brief moment and wondered at it before brushing it off as simple amusement for her name. "Oh, lord, now you're testing me." She pretended to think and sipped at her tea. "Nope, it's gone. Sorry, darling. He was about this tall," she began as she held her hand about a foot above her head. "Balding, but with a delightfully scruffy beard – the kind that begs to be tugged," she added with a wink. "Very rugged."
Torn between wanting to laugh at the inventor's performance and wanting to roll her eyes at the ease with which HG deceived others, Myka took a deep breath and remind herself of why they were there. "That's right. I'm sure he said he was a regular here," she suggested, taking a chance on the link between the ping at this bar and Claudia's insistence that their suspect was involved somehow.
"Sounds like Bradley," the blonde told them, revealing the first real piece of information that could help them. "Hey, Grant!" she called across the room to a group of men who were sat nursing beers and grumbling at an old TV set. When he didn't immediately respond, she shoved two fingers into her mouth and released a piercing whistle that brought hands over the ears of both regents. "Grant!" she repeated now that she had everyone's attention. "You seen Bradley about these parts lately?"
Grant eyed up the strangers with a confused frown. "He headed up to the Vigilante Campground coupla days back. Said he had business with the mountains," he added with a gravelly chuckle that led into a hacking cough as he turned back to his beer.
"Guess you missed 'im," the bar-tender shrugged and moved away from them, effectively ending her part in the conversation.
"Up for a hike?" Myka asked, lowering her voice as she turned to her companion.
If Helena had known that agreeing to that suggestion would land her in the middle of nowhere in a struggle for her life against an alpha wolf and its artefact possessed human, she would most certainly have declined.
The Schwarzwald, Germany
Mathild watched with a fixed expression as her ward's father spoke to the boy about destiny and duty. At six years old, he could hardly be expected to understand such cosmic imperatives but he stood attentively beside the man and nodded in all of the right places, bringing pride to his carer.
It pained her to be so withdrawn with him whenever others were around. She'd been the closest thing to a mother to him since he was a week old and despite her orders, she had become attached to him – like he was her own child. The more she saw of his father and the dogmatic woman who often accompanied him, the more she wished that she could take the boy far away from them.
These were dangerous thoughts to be having, she knew. Fashioning a mask of indifference had appeared to work in keeping suspicion at bay, but it wouldn't take much to slip up and reveal too much. Her instincts told her that the boy was in danger and if she was to have any chance of saving him from his father's clutches, she needed to keep a cool head.
Montana
After driving a couple of miles from the bar to the campground, the regents pulled on a warmer layer of clothes, strapped up their boots and packed a few essentials into their backpacks before leaving the car and venturing into the snow-capped trees. There was only one other vehicle parked near theirs and, after checking in with Claudia and confirming that the artefact was indeed near their location, they decided to take a chance that it belonged to Bradley. His tracks made for a clear trail and it was easy going for the first hour – snow made their progress slower but quieter and they took it as a positive sign.
Luckily for the pair, wildlife conservationists had made a point of tagging the odd members of wolf packs so that they could analyse movements and habits in the wild. With their friend's hacking efforts, they managed to log into the restricted app and were confident that they were walking in the right direction.
"Have you considered what we will do if this person resists our efforts to retrieve the artefact and sets the entire pack of wolves on us?" HG grumbled as she trudged through the snow. She considered herself to be a fairly fit person, but the last couple of months of not taking care of herself so well had obviously taken its toll on her stamina. Her legs were already aching and she was beginning to realise that she really fancied a nap.
Myka glanced at her companion and raised an eyebrow. "We have teslas. If it comes to a whole pack, I have a tesla grenade. I think perhaps Grandma Wells is finally beginning to feel her years," she teased, hoping to provoke a spirited reaction that would keep her fellow regent motivated.
Helena's eyebrow shot up and her body straightened instantly. When she spotted a tiny smirk pulling at Myka's mouth though, she quickly realised that she was being played. "That's Grandma Wells-Bering, if you don't mind," she replied haughtily and pushed her legs to get ahead.
They managed this one-upmanship behaviour for almost a kilometre, forgetting themselves and their mission for a while as smirks became breathy chuckles and they eventually had to stop just to catch a lungful of air. Hands resting on her hips, Myka checked the location of the pack again and found that they were a hell of a lot closer than she'd anticipated. Her eyes darted to and fro while her head swivelled to peer into dense thicket.
"What is it, Lassie?" HG joked, still feeling the uplifting effects of their competitive walk.
An eyeroll was the brunette's answer, but an uncontrollable chuckle followed quickly after. "We're close," she whispered, though she figured that any wolf worth its salt would have heard and/or smelt them by now. She gestured to a narrow gap through the trees and at her partner's nod, she left the footpath and began to push gently through blanketed branches, showering occasional flurries of snow around both of them.
The tracker led them to a clearing where it became obvious that their suspect was expecting them. Stood ankle-deep in snow, arms crossed over his chest, Bradley stared blankly across at the regents. Knowing that there was no point in hiding, Myka and Helena stepped out from beneath the trees and glanced at each other in an effort to communicate their next move.
Before either regent could make any kind of decision though, their eyes were drawn to the treeline behind their target. Like something out of a horror movie, one by one, wolves began to move into the clearing, gathering protectively around the human male.
"Myka," HG's voice whispered through the icy air. "I hope you have that grenade handy."
The brunette nodded and slowly reached back to a side pocket. Before her searching fingers could find what she was looking for though, all hell broke loose.
Half carrying Helena's weight, Myka pushed on through the forest, knowing that their only hope was to reach the emergency cabin that Claudia had told her about over the Farnsworth.
Bradley was gone, his legs carrying him in the opposite direction while Myka was distracted trying to find her partner, and she had to assume that he knew his way around and had a base, or else he was struggling to survive like they were. She couldn't afford to waste much effort worrying about him and simply kept a fragment of concern for the possibility of him crossing their path again.
HG's feet caught on a root and as she stumbled, Myka lost her grip. The brunette watched helplessly as the Brit sank into yet another snow drift and lay unmoving for several seconds too long. As she bent down to help, her mind flashed back to the fight with the wolves and their master…
She managed to find the tesla grenade at the last second and launched it towards the pack, feeling a perverse sense of accomplishment as all but the alpha wolf, one female and the man remained standing. Helena's tesla took down the female but the alpha had already picked its target and wasn't phased by the temporary loss of its family as it charged at Myka, fangs bared.
Frozen momentarily, Myka braced herself for the impact while she wracked her brain for something that would help her to fend off her attacker. Before the wolf could make contact though, another body launched itself between them, impacted with the animal and sent them both rolling down a steady decline, gathering snow as they went. She blinked several times, her heart racing in her chest before she turned to find the inventor gone.
… As she pulled Helena back to her feet, she replayed the sound of scrambling and snarling and couldn't recall ever being so scared…
Bradley took very little effort to subdue without his backup and once the artefact was in the static bag and he snapped back into reality, she quickly realised that the air around them was deadly quiet. With her fear for her partner far outweighing her need to detain the man, she spared him a furious glare before stuffing the artefact into her backpack and taking off in search of the inventor.
… With HG upright again they were soon back to stumbling through the woods, doggedly following the manmade path in the hopes that it would lead them to the promised refuge. Claudia had told them that it wasn't far, only half a mile from where they'd tussled with the wolves and less than half the distance of where they'd parked the car. With signs of a storm closing in, they were stuck for options.
"We're nearly there, Helena," she encouraged in an effort to keep them both moving. "Just a little further," she added, hoping that she was right as a gust of wind hit them and a sudden flurry of snow danced around their heads…
She found the inventor kneeling next to the prone body of the alpha wolf. A primal sound rose into her throat when she saw that the Brit was alive and Myka sank into the snow as her hands reached out to search for injuries.
"I'm fine, Myka," Helena comforted her partner softly and tried a grin that appeared more like a grimace. "I managed to hold onto my tesla and hit him before he could sink his teeth into me." Despite her reassurance, neither regent moved and she held onto her wife's arms for longer than necessary.
"Are you sure? You seem a bit wobbly."
"A few bumps and bruises," HG insisted, but there was very little force behind her words. "I could really use a lie-down," she added and almost as if the words put her thought into action, her body began to lean into the snow.
"No!" the younger regent cried sharply. She pushed herself to her feet and began to forcefully drag the inventor with her. "We haven't finished the mission yet, HG. On your feet!"
She managed to put enough of her own weight and energy into her efforts to get them both moving and once the inventor managed to find her balance, she seemed to gather the motivation to begin moving under her own steam. Myka used the opportunity to locate her Farnsworth and had a brief conversation with the caretaker before finding a heading on her GPS and setting them off towards the cabin.
… With snow falling thicker and faster, the younger regent almost cried when she dragged Helena around a curve in the path and spotted a compact building up ahead. "There it is, HG. We made it; we're safe."
Feeling renewed energy in a spike of adrenaline, she forced her feet harder into the ground and her shoulder firmer into the Brit's side. Now they had found the cabin, Myka's thoughts started to drift away from the dangers of the wilderness and towards the interior of the building.
She suddenly felt like she was trapped in a trashy, cliched romance, where the protagonists were – by way of a series of convoluted events – forced to share a confined, isolated space, thus ensuring an emotionally charged confrontation. She couldn't deny that she'd enjoyed reading such tropes in her youth; the formula was cliched for a reason. But it was quite a different matter being thrown into the middle of it.
Her heart continued to pound from the adrenaline-filled confrontation, her body shook with icy tremors and her stomach clenched with the realisation that she and Helena were stuck together for the foreseeable future. This last thought was almost enough to ignite a bit of warmth in her core, but one look at Helena's miserable expression and lust quickly fizzled away. Her mind took her back a couple of days to Thankahmas and the Victorian's reluctance to leave their children for yet another adventure. Myka had been the one to jump on the opportunity and the other regent had pandered to her need. You couldn't just have taken a few minutes to think and talk about it? she chastised herself. At the very least, you could have suggested taking Pete. What if she becomes seriously ill and you're stuck out here in a snow-storm!?
The refuge was little more than a tiny studio-apartment: a pull-out sofa/bed sat against one wall, an open archway led into a kitchenette – complete with folding stools and a protruding surface for eating from – and one door led into a wet room that was just a toilet, sink and shower head. Other than the sofa-bed, a tall cupboard and a chest of drawers were the only other pieces of furniture in the main room. Once the door was closed on the icy world outside, both women simply stared at their sparse sanctuary for several seconds, unmoving.
As the sound of chattering teeth brought Myka to her senses, she removed her top layer of cold, damp clothes and hung them up. She padded shakily over to the thermostat and switched the heating on, before cranking the dial around to encourage the boiler to put in its best effort. When a series of clunks and hisses gave way to a reassuring gurgling of water through pipes, she sighed and proceeded to the tall cupboard where she found several piles of towels, sheets and blankets. In the bottom drawer of the chest, she found some generic clothes: unopened packets of underwear, t-shirts, sweaters and sweat pants. Grabbing a set of each for her and the inventor, she set them side-by-side on the sofa before turning back to her companion.
Helena had barely moved, it seemed. She was obviously trying to follow Myka's example, but her numb, now gloveless fingers pulled uselessly at the buttons of her coat and tears of exhaustion and frustration welled in her eyes. The brunette swallowed as she considered her next move. No matter how clinical she might try to make it, helping the Brit out of her clothes was always going to feel overly intimate. She's already risking hypothermia. Isn't a little awkwardness worth avoiding that?
While trying not to overthink her actions, Myka crossed the room and replaced the inventor's hands with her own. As expected, her insides flip-flopped and her mind took her to places that she'd deliberately not thought about for months. Ragged breaths brushed against her skin and she held her own so that her olfactory senses wouldn't add another layer of confusion to her already frayed thoughts. But then Helena was free of the heavy fabric and with a whispered 'Thank you', a renewed veneer of determination fell over her expression.
Insisting that the Brit was in greater need, Myka thrust a towel and a change of clothes into HG's arms and pushed her in the direction of the wet room. As the door closed between them, she stood for a moment in the middle of the living/bedroom and took several steadying breaths. The most important thing to remember was that they had managed to snag the artefact. Chasing a wolf pack up a mountain had not been the easiest of tasks, but with their talents once again united, she and Helena had triumphed. Now, they just needed to survive long enough for the rest of the team to rescue them.
With that in mind, Myka took a few short steps into the kitchen and began to examine their food supplies. Tins of meat, fish, fruits and vegetables filled one cupboard. Packs of coffee and tea, dried milk and eggs, oats, packets of biscuits, sugar, cocoa and honey filled another. Olive oil, lard, cheese and butter made up the bulk of the fridge's contents. Four gallons of distilled, drinking water sat beneath the sink next to a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a first aid kit. The cabin was obviously meant to be a temporary relief for the weary traveller and not a long-term solution and, other than the cosy sleeping arrangements, the regent knew that they were damned lucky to have it at their disposal.
She rinsed the kettle, filled it with water and set it to boil. Deciding that she didn't have the energy to reconstitute the milk for tea or coffee, she spooned cocoa and sugar into two mugs and then stepped back into the living area to make up the bed.
Much as she didn't like to look too closely at any of her feelings these days, she was concerned with the Victorian's health. Helena had looked run down and lifeless before their mission even began. After being attacked by a wolf, trudging a steep path up the side of a mountain and falling several times into snow drifts, HG had to be on the brink of collapse. Though Myka busied herself with making a cosy nest and a meal of substance, much of her attention remained focussed on the sounds of movement in the bathroom, and several times she paused during a task to strain her hearing, only moving again when she was sure that her companion was still mobile.
Since the preparations kept her moving, she began to feel less shivering in her limbs and was actually able to carry both mugs the short distance to the 'eating area' without spilling any of the hot liquid on herself. When Helena emerged looking, if possible, even more tired, Myka left the corned beef and potatoes that she'd been eating and met the older woman halfway.
"Helena?" she began as she placed a hand on each of the inventor's upper arms. Instinctively, she moved her hands up and down, rubbing to create heat through friction and help the circulation to do its job of warming the frail looking figure before her. "I know you're tired, ok? But I need you to eat and drink something." A hesitant nod was her only answer and she felt conflicted. "At the very least, drink the cocoa," she insisted, her hands squeezing to emphasise the seriousness of her plea. "I'll be as quick as I can in the shower."
HG managed a wan smile. It was nice to have her wife so close again. To hear concern and caring in her tone again and to feel the brunette's hands touching her. "I will drink and eat my fill. Don't need to feel… be vexed, I am simply tired."
Myka hesitated. She heard the slur in the Brit's voice and frowned; Helena nearly always made a point to use her best diction. "Are you sure? You can barely stand."
"Then I shall sit," HG answered and moved to perch on the stool that Myka had recently vacated. "Aller," she said as firmly as she could manage. "I will still be here when you return."
Like the Victorian, Myka avoided getting her hair wet, knowing that she had no way of drying it quickly and that it would only make her colder. The water was blissfully warm though and she indulged in an extra minute under the spray to make the most of the heat. Vigorous rubbing with the towel sapped most of the remaining energy from her arms but dispersed the last of her shivering so that she emerged from the bathroom a short time later with a healthy glow seeping back into her skin. She wished that she could say the same for her fellow regent.
HG lay huddled under the blankets when Myka returned to the main room. Most of the cocoa was gone, confirming that the other woman had attempted to follow her instruction, but the food was missing no more than a bite. Sighing silently, the brunette forced herself to finish everything on her own plate and covered the remaining one before placing it in the fridge. After a moment of hesitation, she drained both mugs, rinsed them out and refilled them with water before setting one on either side of the bed. She had a feeling that she was going to need all of her strength through the next couple of days.
Wanting to conserve their fuel, she adjusted the thermostat to only slightly above room temperature and then moved towards the bed.
As she crawled under the covers, another inevitability hit her: Helena needed to get warm sooner rather than later, and the best way to do that was to share her own renewed heat. From the moment Claudia had told them of this place and explained the journey they would have to make to get there, she knew that this moment was coming. So trite, she thought stubbornly, and yet it didn't change the circumstances. She was going to have to face her fears eventually.
Immediately after Australia, she'd assumed that her life had to be a dream because it all seemed so wonderful; exactly like the fantasy of someone who was nursing a broken heart. As the weeks and months passed though, it became clearer that her life, though fantastical at times, was no less real than when she'd first joined the Warehouse.
Knowing what she could have and letting herself have it were two very different things though. Helena was her wife. At some point, she and HG had stood before their friends and family and vowed to be together for the rest of their lives. She didn't want to sully that with something trivial, but neither could she deny that she needed to start from the beginning again. Her desire for the Brit might not be the deep connection they'd known, but openly acknowledging that desire was a necessary step along the way.
Keeping each other from death's door was not crossing an invisible line – it wasn't sex – but it was intimate in a way that Myka had avoided, and it terrified her.
Fortunately, common sense and compassion won her over and, as she sank into the make shift bed, she found the inventor's arms and tugged them around her own waist. She was met with very little resistance save her own shock as she felt slivers of icy skin against her own.
"God, Helena," she hissed into the night. "You're freezing." The only intelligible answer was the nodding of a head into the hollow of her neck. For ten minutes, Myka rubbed brisk circles over her companion's back and though it seemed to offer the Brit some relief, it was not nearly enough. Rolling her eyes and biting her lip simultaneously, she came to a decision. "We need to get these clothes off," she said softly. She was sure that she hadn't intended her suggestion to sound so… suggestive, but it sounded that way to her own ears and a blush rapidly rose along her neck and cheeks. It was testament to how bad her companion felt that she offered neither protest nor encouragement, but merely moved her body as much as she could to aid the process.
Her lips tingled, as if they anticipated the kisses that usually accompanied the act of de-robing with the older woman, but she steadfastly ignored them. This isn't sex, Myka, she reminded herself, you just need a little extra heat. That was all the encouragement she needed to let her imagination have its head. HG was in no state for anything to really happen between them, but that didn't stop the brunette from appreciating the feel of the Brit's skin sliding against her own, or the scent that was uniquely Helena as it invaded her senses.
An hour later, the guilt she felt for taking advantage of the other woman evaporated as the inventor's tremors finally tapered off and soft snoring reached Myka's ears. She would probably find their position embarrassing by the time morning arrived, but for the most part, she was relieved to have accomplished so much that day. Not least because she'd reached the conclusion that she was finally ready to given Helena another chance.
I know it's cliched, but I love a good 'trapped in a cabin/forced intimacy' plot ploy to jump start those reined in feelings! Who's with me?
I do hope that this wasn't so cliched that it was boring though!