A slamming door followed by hefty footsteps in the hallway awoke Myka, more aggressively than she would have liked. She was still shrouded in darkness, having huddled her head under her quilt at some point during the night. Had her alarm gone off? Had she even remembered to set an alarm? Checking the time, still with only one eye open, she saw that it was well after 8 o'clock, far later than she expected, meaning the shop would be opening soon.

She peeked out of her room to look down the hall, following the sound of chairs shifting and Mrs. Bering asking Tracy to hand her a serving spoon. Helena was already sitting at the kitchen table, dressed and ready for the day. She was looking over a form with Myka's dad - assumedly he was already handing out tasks. Quickly, she grabbed some clothes from her suitcase, a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt seemed easiest, and threw them on. She had apparently been too tired to even finish the simple mission of getting everything put away. She hurried out into the hallway, carrying her toiletries to the bathroom next door to her own room, hoping no one would notice that she was rushing around. Why hadn't Helena woken her?

She managed to calm her hair into a braid and dab a little bit of makeup on to make herself presentable for customers. At least presentable by her dad's estimations. She didn't care much, one way or the other. By the time she walked into the kitchen, the rest of the family was already eating around the table.

"Sleeping Beauty has finally arrived." Her father, of course, pointing out that, once again, Myka was anything but perfect. She bit down and noticed her fingers instinctively start to curl up. But when she shot him a look, he had gone back to reviewing things with Helena. And he was almost smiling. His tone with her was not nearly as brusque as usual.

Had he been teasing her? Like teasing her in a friendly way rather than in a hostile way?

Her mother set a plate down in front of the chair next to Helena, who then pulled the chair out, flashing her a quick wink and focusing her concentration back on the form. From the moment she sat down, Myka tried to get Helena's attention, tapping her fingers rhythmically as if Helena's wrist was a telegraph and Myka's sole responsibility was to relay urgent messages through it. But the girl was paying complete attention to Mr. Bering's instructions - he wanted her to familiarize herself with the new acquisitions and reach out to some of their clients from around the country to see if any of them had any interest in the texts. Even when Myka sped up the tapping and began to nudge Helena's whole body with her own, the girl waved her off. Helena was obviously irritated but that only served to make Myka want to continue - when Helena was annoyed, she would tighten her lips and run her hands through her hair, two of Myka's favorite things on the planet. It really was counterproductive, Myka thought, but she wasn't about to tell Helena, because then she would stop doing it.

They finished breakfast and Tracy left for Saturday morning tennis practice, her parents accompanying her downstairs. When they were all finally out of earshot, Myka grabbed an unsuspecting Helena from the top stair and pulled her down the hallway. She made a sound of protestation, but mostly because her balance was lost in the quick turn and she was lucky to not have ended up hitting her head squarely on the wall. As Myka shut the door, Helena pulled her arm back and massaged her wrist. "Myka, what has gotten into you?"

"You didn't come in last night."

Helena stopped massaging her wrist, and tightened her lips once more. But this time, she tightened them into a smirk, and not a grimace. "No, I didn't."

Myka starting hopping around excitedly. Helena put her hand to her chest in mock offense. "You're that happy to have not spent the night with me?"

"Are you okay? Was it all right? Did you get any sleep?"

"I'm fine, Myka. I promise. You can stop spending the majority of your waking moments worrying about me. You have more important things to do in the world." Her words were deliberate. But, deliberate and true, Myka saw that. And if Helena said she was okay, then Myka had to believe it. She owed her that.

Helena continued, taking Myka's hand and opening the door to head downstairs, "Although, I must say, I might tire of sharing a wall with your sister. Her musical taste is a bit suspect."

"Her taste in most things is suspect." Helena returned to her mock offense, gasping in shock and replacing her hand over her breast. Myka rolled her eyes, leaning against the doorway and pulling Helena toward her once more. "Except for you, of course. She's right about you."

"Yes, I rather thought so."

Myka's lean put them on a level plane, so Helena barely had to move before their lips and their stomachs and their hands and the rest of their body parts for that matter were matched perfectly. The authenticity that enveloped them in that moment was enriched with the desperate need of each to fill the other with calm and love and the willingness to be.

"No, but seriously, what is the last two days? What is happening in this house?"

Tracy's voice pulled the girls mouths away from one another, though they were still leaned together looking like a Matisse sculpture, all smooth lines and melded forms. Her sister was once again gaping at them.

"Don't you have tennis?"

"I forgot my tennis shoes in my room, but apparently I need to announce my presence any time I'm walking through the house for the rest of the summer. I love you and all, but I don't need to see you making out. Like ever. Ever ever. Cause gross."

And no sister in her right mind needs any more of an excuse to do something than having her sister explicitly tell her not to. It is the cardinal rule of being a sister. Myka placed her hands squarely on Helena's cheeks and brought their lips together once more - this time it was less authentic, more silly. Helena played along, both girls trying not to laugh through the sibling antagonism.

"You are the worst." Tracy pushed past them into her room and after she had retrieved her bloomers, she slammed the door and rushed past them down the stairs, leaving "You could actually just GET A ROOM as you're STANDING IN YOUR OWN DOORWAY." in her wake.

"That is going to be fun, isn't it?" Helena said over Myka's squeals of delight.

"We'll have to try it with Charles the next time we see him."

"Oh, I can only imagine…" Helena scrunched up her face, almost recreating Charles' weasel-like grimace, keeping her voice level and unamused. "Helena, do take your conquests elsewhere, I have very important things to do and say."

Myka chuckle-sighed and pushed off from the wall. "Your brother already hates me, we don't need to make it worse."

Helena shook her head as she led them both back to the stairs. "He doesn't hate you. I talked to him a few days ago, he asked after you."

"You did? He did?" Myka was honestly alarmed. Anytime she had said hello to him on Skype calls since they left England he greeted her with a churlish grin and little else.

"Myka! Helena! If you're going to work, come down here and work!" His voice interrupted their conversation, a coarse reminder that just because they were done with school for the year, it didn't mean that they had any time to just spend together. One of these days, they were going to actually enjoy one another's company free from school and work and the stress that had eclipsed the last nine months.

"Nothing like the Bering Bellow."

Myka dragged her feet, scratching at the carpet running down the stairs.

"The Bering Bellow… I like that." Helena was following, their footsteps in tandem and her hands firmly on Myka's waist, pushing her along. "I'm going to use that whenever you're upset with me."

"I don't bellow!" Myka turned on Helena as they reached the back storage room and office where two desks sat facing one another. At least they would be able to see one another, unlike their previous setup at school.

"You're right, it's more of a… blare? Or a blast?" She cocked her head to the side, "I am going to have to approach this more thoughtfully."

Before Myka could respond, her father brought in a file folder overflowing with receipts and shoved it into her hands. "I need them organized by date and type and put into a spreadsheet. Come find me when you're done."

After only the slightest of eyerolls (Myka was actually getting rather good at controlling them), they settled into their work silently, Myka organizing and Helena reading and making notes, the only auditory contribution the crinkling of receipt paper and the tapping of computer keys. It wasn't until minutes later that something came to Myka, though she kept her attention on the newly-made spreadsheet in front of her.

"The Wells Wail."

Helena didn't even look up, "Oh, darling, I don't wail, you know that."

"Wallop?"

"That's a bit closer, I suppose, though I don't think it's a very clear choice of word. There must be a thesaurus around here somewhere that you could use." Helena simpered, still looking at the papers in front of her.

"Yeah, yeah…"

The summer wore on, keeping everyone busy. Bering and Sons was right on the way to the Garden of the Gods, which made it a good summer tourist location and if the business was doing well, Warren and Jean were happy. It seemed that with less stress, and less people availing themselves to his outbursts, Warren had tired of trying to start arguments. He and Myka had yet to have a real discussion since she had been home - she couldn't help the instinct to avoid him if she could - but she saw subtle differences in him. Not least of which was that he actually contributed to conversations for a change. Myka would see Helena and her father often parsing over a document or some new shipment of books, sharing laughs between the two of them. It was an odd sight, Myka never would have pictured it if she hadn't seen it herself, but whatever they were bonding over had an effect on everyone. Myka wished he would laugh with her, but Helena was an acceptable alternative.

And her parents were also both happy to have Myka and Helena to ease their workload. Her parents had no idea just how much more they could have gotten out of them, but the girls had both made an art of thoroughly finishing everything they needed to do in the shop while not letting on just how quickly they were able to do it.

Myka stayed in the back office, still trying to avoid the register if at all possible, just as she had in high school, and spent a great deal of time corresponding with Professor Nielsen. The rest of the time, she spent her energy doing her own research on Giovanni Boccaccio's On Famous Women, which she found wholly more interesting than The Decameron. She would, more often than not, make allusions to that in her e-mails to her teacher. As always, he was stern, but still showed his hand that he had an affection for his overzealous student:

Focus on the material at hand, Ms. Bering. We can research his other texts when we resume classes in the fall. Maybe.

Much like Myka, Helena finished her daily work in record time and moved on to her own studies, which included returning to active participation in Dr. Frederic's trials. She couldn't help it. She had gotten the latest update, another failure, and had noticed a grave oversight. The ion blockers that had been tested were hindering neuronal survival, which meant that they were never going to work. But, if they changed the composition, there might be a way to... She couldn't simply sit idly by while they kept running futile tests. In this case, she really did have the chance to help fix things. To ignore the opportunity would be a slap in the face to her father's memory, so she shared her ideas with the team. Dr. Frederic responded in kind:

Thank you for catching that Ms. Wells. I am glad to hear from you. I hope that you will continue to be an active participant in the future. Proud to have you as a part of my team.

"That sounds awesome! Wouldn't expect anything less from either of you."

Pete had called for their weekly chat and they had both caught him up on their research developments. The computer was set up on the kitchen table while Myka and Helena stumbled around the room. There hadn't been too much to do at the store, it was a Monday and Mondays were always slow, so they offered to make dinner for the family instead. It was, thus far… an ordeal. But Helena had been determined to make beef stew (making a roast beef would have taken way too much effort) and Yorkshire pudding, so Myka followed her instructions as best she could.

When the puddings came out of the oven, Pete interjected over the line, "How is that pudding? That's not pudding, those are like, muffins or something."

"Have you never had Yorkshire pudding?"

"Yeah, you know, Ohio eats - corn, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding. Obviously." They could feel Pete's sarcasm all the way across the country. "Nah, I'm more of a chocolate pudding guy myself." Pete patted his stomach like a drum.

Myka chuckled and finished setting the table, "So, how's the Secret Service this week? Save any heads of state?"

"Mykes, all I do is sit at a desk. I don't even get to capture any counterfeiters. I process forms, that's it."

"So the President hasn't given you a medal of honor yet?" Helena set the food on the table and just as Pete was about to respond, he was interrupted by the Bering Bellow, Next Generation.

"I'M ANNOUNCING MY PRESENCE SO I DON'T SEE ANYTHING THAT WILL GIVE ME NIGHTMARES." There was a count of three before Tracy walked in, presumably because the last time she announced herself and barged straight in, she later reported to have said nightmares about what she saw. She stomped into the kitchen, hair wet, shoulders slumped, and threw a gym bag in the corner before falling into her seat. "An eight year old had his birthday party at the pool today. I'm never having kids."

Myka heard her mother and father discussing something on the stairs, meaning that everyone was ready for dinner. "Hey, Pete, we're about to eat, talk later?"

"Sure thing. BYE, H.G." Before Myka could threaten Pete with bodily harm when they saw each other again, he hung up. Which was a smart move.

"What's H.G.?" Tracy questioned, "and who was that?" She seemed more than passingly interested.

"H.G. is a nickname that your sister uses for me sometimes and that was Pete." Helena retrieved a pitcher of water from the refrigerator and sat down.

"Pete's cute." Tracy pulled the computer closer.

"Pete's not cute, Pete's Pete." There was warning in Myka's voice to her little sister as she took the computer away and put it off to the side. She didn't need her developing any more crushes on Myka's people, one was enough. Her parents cut off their conversation as they too entered the room and took seats.

"Why does Myka call you H.G.?" Tracy started to serve herself now that everyone was around the table and they all began passing dishes as Helena told them the story.

"Well, my parents gave me the names of two of my grandparents, my mother's mother, Helena, and my father's father, George."

"Your parents named you George?" Tracy was aghast.

"No, they called me Helena. George is my middle name. Which makes my name…" Helena waited for Tracy to finish it for her.

"H.G. Wells. Huh. That's funny I guess. Hey mom, guess why I'm never having kids?" As quickly as Tracy had become interested, she was ready to move on, but Warren interrupted her.

"Myka, you know that you were named after your grandfather too."

Myka stopped eating, her spoon halfway to her mouth, "Wait, what?"

Warren nodded his head as he continued to eat, "Mhmm. Well, he spelled it M-I-C-A-H, but, same name."

"Why is that a thing I've never heard anyone say before?"

Warren clammed up again and her mother took over, "I'm sure we've mentioned that in the past, sweetie. Your father's father's name was Micah and…"

"No, no, Mom," Myka was trying not to raise her voice, "I asked why everyone at school said I had a boy's name when I was younger and when I did, I mostly just got yelled at."

"Yeah, well, kid, I'm telling you now." His tone was razor sharp, warning her to, "Let it go."

Myka nodded her head and went back to her food, the rest of the Berings joining her.

But Helena wasn't so easily deterred, "Mr. Bering, why don't you tell us about him? What was he like?" Everyone stopped again and when Helena looked over at Myka, there was panic in her eyes. She scanned the room and found discomfort in Jean's, surprise in Tracy's, agitation in Warren's. But Helena responded to all of them with coolness, a collected nonchalance. She could fill the silence on her own.

"My father wasn't one to do things like everyone else, so I never much questioned my name. Charles' middle name is Alvina, after our grandmother. I used to call him that to tease him, but the one time Papa heard me do it, he sat me down and told me that anyone could be called anything, there was no such thing as a girl name or a boy name. What do you think, Mr. Bering?" She looked at him and smiled, just making pleasant conversation.

"I, uh," he cleared his throat, "I suppose I'd agree with him." He nodded his head and went back to eating again.

"I thought you might. Now, have any of you ever had Yorkshire pudding?"

"How do you do that? How do you just… handle him?"

Myka's parents had agreed to clean up dinner since the girls had cooked, so they decided to retire to Myka's room to read before bed. At least that's what Myka told them all, including Helena, who picked up her paperback of short stories before Myka jumped wildly on to the bed, the quake effectively shutting the book.

"Oh good heavens, Myka, I don't handle your father, he's not a zoo animal." She was flipping through the book again, trying to find her page.

"What you just did out there was 'handling.'" Myka was frustrated and it was starting to show itself. She was frustrated that it had taken Helena being there to find out any of these things she should have known about her own family, more frustrated that her girlfriend was apparently the dad whisperer, and even further frustrated that she couldn't be like that as well.

"It was not. I asked him a question and when he didn't answer, I continued on my own. I didn't enable him."

"Enable him?" Myka's feelings were leaving frustrated far behind and ratcheting up to somewhere near incensed.

"I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying that you, all of you, allow him to treat you however he likes."

"Well, what do you expect us to do, Helena?! When I fight back, he freezes me out!"

"I know..." Helena didn't have a good answer. Because, when it came down to it, Helena wasn't his child, so their relationship would never be the same as that of him and Myka. And she saw no clear solution.

"And he talks with you. He talks with you and laughs with you..." Myka stood up and crossed to the window seat, feeling her resentment boil up, knowing that Helena was not the person to take her anger out on, but just wanting to be alone. As she pulled her knees up to her chin, she looked out to the mountains, thinking about how freeing it would be to just exist out there, away from needless conflict.

"Myka, the club that your father and I belong to is not one you want to join."

Helena was calm, but the words sat in the air, heavier than she had anticipated, creating a cloud of fog through which they had trouble seeing one another. Helena did her best to trek through it and settled on the edge of the window seat, resting her chin on Myka's shoulder and looking out at the view with her.

Myka leaned her head in, nuzzling against Helena. Her words had grown as quiet as her spirit. "I'm sorry."

"I'm on your side, Myka. Always. We'll figure this out, my love."

"Does life ever just get to be easy?"

"I don't think that's part of the deal, no." Helena tilted her head to kiss Myka's cheek and pulled her backwards so that she was resting between her legs, still looking out the window.

"Stay with me tonight? I think we've had enough time apart." Myka asked, placing Helena's knuckles in front of her lips, nipping at each lightly.

Helena squeezed and tucked her head into the girl's neck, "Yes. Tonight, tomorrow night, every night forever and ever, whichever of those is longer."

"Whichever of those is the longest." Myka squeezed back, relaxing into the one thing that was always right and always good.