a/n: I've gotten some reviews/PMs from people worried that I wouldn't finish this story because it has a relatively low number of follows/favs/reviews. I'm flattered by the concern, but don't worry: this thing is a labor of love. It's occupying way too much space in my brain. I *have* to finish it, or it will never leave me alone.

(which is not to say I don't appreciate the favs/follows/reviews, because I totally do. I got several after the last chapter-thanks! :))


Pete and Myka stop sparring when they notice you approaching them, trident in hand.

"Usually we use those with a net," Pete says. "Grab one and I'll show you how it works."

You force your lips to curve up toward your ears, and direct your attention toward Myka.

"You know," you say, "my father used to say that a sword wasn't the best weapon for women or small men."

Myka smiles at you, eyes sparkling, and cocks her head to the side. "How's that?"

You open your right hand toward Pete, the trident dangling in your left. Pete glances nervously at Myka, who nods at him, without breaking eye contact with you. He lays his gladius in your palm. It's warm, the leather-wrapped handle slightly sticky with his sweat, and it's a little heavy for you to handle.

Still, you raise it toward Myka, dropping into an offensive stance. She crosses blades with you, smiling.

You step into a series of slow, practiced, offensive steps that you remember from your youth. Myka plays along, blocking each one easily.

"When you're evenly matched with your opponent in terms of strength and size, it's a fine weapon for people of any size," you say, just loud enough to be heard over the soft clinks of metal against metal. Pete steps back, away from the moving blades.

"But when you find yourselves braced hilt-to-hilt—" you pause your sword's movement in midair, and Myka pauses hers against it. Following your narrative, she slides her blade down yours until the hilts are locked against one another. "—yes, when they're braced like this," you continue, "the larger, stronger person has the distinct advantage. So if we both press as hard as we can—" and you push against her. She pushes back. She is both larger, and stronger, and you have no choice but to step back, under the pressure, so the point of her sword finds itself at your chest. "See?" you say.

"But you could duck under," she says. She raises her sword again and you brace your hilts against one another. "Step away from the pressure, and my strength and size will topple me over."

Your eyebrows raise. "Perhaps," you say, "but if you grab me by the arm or the neck before I move, then I won't have that option."

Myka steps back, then, lips quirked in a small smile. She's regarding you distantly, like you're something foreign. Perhaps you are.

"So I guess you think the trident is a better option, then?" She gestures vaguely to the weapon dangling in your left hand.

Pete is standing a few paces removed, observing your interaction with thinly-veiled wariness. You offer him his gladius and he takes it, but you notice he keeps it in his hand, rather than sheathing it at his belt.

"Well," you say, "I learned with a spear, but this is closer to the right size than those Roman spears over there." You lift the trident into an offensive position, and she lifts her sword in response.

Pete takes two steps forward. "Myka, I really don't think—"

"It's fine, Pete," Myka says, smiling. The sparkle in her eyes dances between playfulness and tension. She can tell that you're not the same person you were yesterday, but she's willing (or compelled) to see where you're going, what your next move will be. Where on the board you'll place your Eagle.

You continue your narration. "The advantage of a long-staff weapon, like this, is the leverage." With a flick of your wrist, you bring the end of the trident down on the end of her sword and her quick reflexes keep her from dropping it; she pivots away, around the striking point of your weapon, and stands prepared to face another offense.

"The length amplifies the force of my strike, which makes your greater physical strength less of an advantage. It also keeps me out of range of your sword." You launch into a series of quick, spinning, offensive blows that drive to step back, back, back, until finally you catch her blade between the prongs of your trident and, with a quick turn of the wrists, wrench it free from her grip and send it flying into the sand several feet off to the side.

You pick the trident up and plant its base next to your foot, prongs pointing into the air. "See?" you ask, with a smile, cocking your head at her.

"I do," she says. She runs her teeth over her lower lip, thoughtfully, and then goes to retrieve her gladius.

"Again?" she asks, stepping into position.

You smile, letting the tension of battle ripple through your muscles as you find the balance of your weapon. "Again," you say.

This time, she manages to disarm you. She grins, hands you your weapon, and drops into position again.

You spar for a few minutes longer, this time—long enough to feel the gaps in her defense and the limits of her strikes—before you let her disarm you . You let her knock you into the sand, for good measure, your trident on the ground beside you. She extends a hand and pulls you back onto your feet.

"Once more?" she asks, as you dust yourself off.

"Once more," you say. You find the balance of your trident and breathe deeply, once, twice, three times. Then you're attacking. Your first combination of movements drives her backward and drives Pete in the opposite direction, away from the flying extremity of your staff. Your second combination disarms her of her gladius; it flies into the wall of the yard with a loud clang.

You flow seamlessly into a final combination that sweeps her feet out from under her and sends her falling backward into the sand.

And then you're standing over her, breathing hard, one foot on her shield alongside her forearm, and the other firmly on her sternum. The centre point of your trident grazes the pale underside of her graceful, aquiline throat.

Her gasping breaths heave against the underside of your foot. "Okay," she says, smiling tentatively up at you. "Point taken."

She begins to shift as though she plans to stand up, but you shift your weight and press her chest back down under your foot. You hear Pete jogging toward you and you raise a hand in his direction—"Stop where you are, Pete"—without lifting your gaze from Myka's eyes.

The smile falls from Myka's face. "Helena?" she asks, softly.

"Don't bloody call me that, Domina," you snarl at her.

"I—I don't—"

"Call me slave. Call me whore. Call me a savage, ruthless Celt from the far edge of Gaul."

"Helena," Myka says, pleading this time.

"They're what I am, aren't they?" you snarl. "I'm not Helena to anyone in Rome."

You hear movement to your right, and Myka glances in that direction. You press the point of the trident a little harder against her throat and watch her eyes flash back to you, wider. "Stay where you are, Pete," you growl. "I'd hate to have to do something you regret."

"What in the name of the gods are you doing?" Pete yells, on the edge of your awareness. Your attention drives into to the green eyes shining below you.

"What are you doing, Hel—" she swallows when you press harder on her chest. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing, Roman?"

"I know what it looks like." She shifts a little, looking for a way to evade the proximity of your weapon, but finding none. "But it feels like you don't really want to do this."

"Does it, now? Enlighten me, Domina, as to what makes you feel that."

"This isn't you."

A bark of harsh laughter escapes your chest. "Isn't it? Try again."

'It isn't. I know you better than you think I do, Helena." She says your name forcefully. You cock an eyebrow at her, and she swallows hard. "I know you've suffered more than I will ever be able to understand. But I know you've got an unbelievable capacity for tenderness."

"You shouldn't mistake the attention of a prostitute for affection, Domina. With my years of practice, I could convince a three-legged dog to fall passionately in love with me."

That strikes something in her. Her eyes flash fire for a fraction of an instant, and then they darken.

You can feel Pete's gaze move back and forth between the two of you. "Wait, what?" he exclaims.

"Not now, Pete," Myka says. She swallows hard against your weapon, and runs her tongue over her teeth. "Okay," she says to you, "if that's how you want to do this, then fine. Because guess what: if you think all your illusions have gone unnoticed, then you've underestimated me."

"Really."

"Yes." The traces of fear and gentleness have vanished from her face and voice. "I know you're far, far smarter than you try to show. You might be the most intelligent person I've ever met, but you've had to suppress it because your words would have no currency in Rome. I don't know how you lost your child, but I know that you remain deeply wounded by it. I see the way your fingers touch those marks on your stomach."

"Oh, gods," Pete groans. "I wish you'd told me you were getting it on with her, Myka, so I could have told you it was a really bad idea."

Myka continues undaunted: "I know that you've let me win almost every game of Latrunculi we've ever played. I've always suspected it was because you were afraid of what might happen if you let your intelligence show by beating me."

You tilt your head to the side. "Ah, you see, Myka, that's not it at all. I may have lost those games on purpose, but I never let you win a thing. I lost those games to make you feel safe with me, comfortable, triumphant, all on the way to this very moment, where the victory is so clearly mine."

"What victory is this?!"

"That I'm giving you what this godforsaken life has given me: the feeling of giving your heart so fully to a person only to have it ripped violently from you. I'm giving you the ultimate betrayal. And I'll be imprisoned and then executed, and that's what I'm giving myself: a departure from this life, and the freedom to join my loved ones in the one that comes after."

She blinks at you. Her free hand comes to rest against the bare skin of your ankle, on your chest. "I loved you, Helena," she breathes. "Gods. I love you. And you love me."

Her eyes remind you of the way they looked when she glanced back at you over her shoulder before she led you back into the city, that day you went to Sam's camp. "Wouldn't you like to believe that?" you smirk. You try to tell yourself that none of the venom is gone.

"No, Helena. I am not so naïve as you think. You forget that I know what it feels like to share love with a person, and I most certainly know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a person's attempts at faking love because they want something from me." Her hand is moving against your skin, caressing from your heel, over your anklebone, to the bottom swell of your calf. "You fell in love with me, Helena. You may not have meant for it to happen, but it did."

"Myka," you say.

Her hand abruptly leaves your leg and grips the center prong of your trident. "If I'm wrong, then stop talking and just kill me." She aligns the point with the softest part of her throat and steadies it there. "If I'm wrong, then stop tormenting me. Look me in the eye and kill me, if that's your goal. Kill me knowing that your plan worked, that you convinced me to love you, and that you convinced me that you felt the same." She pulls the trident more firmly against her throat; you see the skin bow under its pressure. "Do it," she growls. "Do it. Just kill me."

Her eyes are wide and hard, staring up at you. You're struck, not for the first time, by the beauty of their particular shade of green, like the fir trees from where you grew up. The tenderness that usually fills them when she looks at you is gone. In their place is anger, and only the slightest trace of fear.

That's when you realize you've killed her already. Without shedding a drop of her blood, you've destroyed the beautiful, hopeful, gentle creature that is Myka Bering.

You accept what you already knew: that she's right.

Your heart broke when you lost your daughter and the pieces of it break, here, again, over top of the angry shell of this woman you love. A sob wrenches itself from your chest as you stumble back, dropping the trident into the sand beside her. You manage to trip a few steps away and fall to your knees before Pete's on top of you, pressing your chest into the ground and pinning your arms behind your back.

"Myka," he shouts, frantically. "Are you okay?"

Your face is oriented toward her, your cheek pressed into the sand. She's sitting up, now, elbows resting on bent knees, one hand rubbing at her throat and the other gripping into the disheveled knot of her hair.

She turns and looks at him, and then at you. Her eyes are red and she's making no effort to staunch the tears tracking through the dirt on her cheeks.

Her gaze locks with yours, and she sniffs. "I'll be fine, Pete," she says. "I'll be fine."


a/n: Too close to the canon storyline? I have always felt like that moment in the show-where Myka challenged Helena to acknowledge that she loved her too much to destroy her-was basically the moment where Bering/Wells became canon (screw you Jack Kenny). So I felt like I needed an equivalent scene in my universe, but where I get to make all that subtext my maintext. ;)