Hi guys. I decided, after I agonised over it for a while, that I'm happy with this chapter so thought I'd put it out there whilst I edit chapter 6, which is a big one! Fingers crossed, I should have that one up some time this weekend too! Aren't I nice to you all!? ;-D
Chapter Five
Myka slowly became aware that morning had once again arrived as her dream faded and the smell of expensive sheets and shampoo filled her nostrils. She breathed in slowly and deeply, keeping her eyes closed to savour the moment. Part of her dream continued to play in the back of her mind, tantalisingly out of reach and for a few minutes, she tried to chase it.
An aisle in the Warehouse. Ancient Mesopotamia. A jewel; its light guiding her. A flash and then...
Nothing. Whatever she'd dreamt after that had drifted too far for her to recall. She shrugged mentally and finally opened her eyes. She blinked several times, taking in the burnt out candles and the odd piece of clothing lying where it'd been haphazardly discarded. She grinned to herself and wriggled a little in contentment, closing her eyes momentarily to recall the events of the previous evening.
Flashes of skin on skin; candlelight painting flickering shadows of their passionate embrace on the wall; Helena's scent and the sound of her voice as she lovingly eased Myka over the cresting waves of her release; feeling safe and content in strong arms that held her till her body stopped trembling and recovered enough to begin again.
Helena, she thought and turned to find her lover. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was ready to shout 'I told you so' the moment her eyes landed on cold sheets and an empty space, but the residual fear was stamped out as tousled ebony hair and pale skin met Myka's eyes.
For several minutes, she simply lay gazing in awe at the woman lying next to her. Their lovemaking had been so achingly familiar and yet blissfully different. Helena's need was no longer born out of despair and pain. It sang with love and devotion and wrapped Myka in a blanket of warmth and a passion so intense that it stole her very breath. She felt lighter and freer than any other time in her life and breathed a contented sigh, knowing that her existence was full with Helena next to her.
Eventually, unable to resist, she began to stroke strands of hair behind an ear, slowly revealing features that made her breath catch with longing. Sliding forward, Myka brought her mouth down on her lover's, waking sleeping beauty with a morning after kiss.
Helena sighed into Myka's mouth and even in a state of semi-consciousness, wrapped a hand around the back of the agent's neck and hummed her approval as she deepened the kiss. Her body reacted automatically, rolling slightly and bringing their bodies together. Helena felt her girlfriend whimper beneath her and finally opened her eyes.
"Good morning, darling," HG greeted with a contented smile, her voice husky from sleep and the events of the night before. "Did you sleep well?" She rolled back to the still warm space where she'd been sleeping and ran a hand through her hair as she began to really wake up.
Myka leant on her arm, facing the inventor. She opened her mouth to respond but stopped as a look of panic suddenly appeared on Helena's face and she watched gob-smacked as her bed partner suddenly shot up, grabbed her robe and ran out of the door. It took the American all of two seconds after HG's departure to realise where she was going. Last night marked the first night that the Victorian had slept away from her child and Myka knew that she would be in panic mode until she had visual confirmation that the eight year old was ok.
Helena just managed to pull her robe on and began tying the belt as she nudged her daughter's bedroom door opened and peeked inside. The bed was empty and had been roughly made. There was no sight or sound of anyone in the room but HG found herself calling her daughter's name and looking between furniture in a quick sweep.
She backed out of the room. It wasn't exactly early, her and Myka having slept a little late and she made for the stairs, straining to hear anything from below. She was trying not to panic; trying to tell herself that there were any number of logical and innocent explanations for what the girl could be doing, but by the time she reached the first step, she was practically running.
"Christina?" She called out as she reached the bottom and entered the living room, thinking that perhaps she'd come down to re-enact her evening with Pete and Lila and build another fort.
By now, she could hear movement from above and knew that Myka would be following her down to check that everything was ok. Under any other circumstance she might have felt guilty for ending their tranquil wake up so abruptly, but there was no room in her mind right at that moment for anything other than finding her little girl.
"Christina!?" She heard her voice becoming shrill and moved swiftly through the kitchen to the last room, bar the basement. "CHRISTINA!?"
Helena entered the dining room to ostensibly find nothing but the usual table and chairs that had barely been used since she'd first come to live in the house. Her keen gaze swept over furniture and floor, seeing nothing to stop the rapid pounding of her heart. Then, the voice of an angel, and her world finally stopped spinning.
"Over here, Mummy." Christina knelt up behind the table, poking her head over the back of a chair to frown at her mother. "Are you feeling alright? You look a little under the weather."
HG gripped the back of a chair as a different kind of dizziness passed over her. She wanted to run over and grab her daughter and never let her go. She wanted to cry floods of relieved tears and scream at the girl for scaring her so much. She wanted to curl up in bed with her small but oh so precious family and stay safe from the world, but she knew she couldn't; she took several slow breaths to keep her urges under control and eventually felt two pairs of arms guiding her back through the kitchen, passed the stairs and onto a large stuffed chair. She gradually became aware of their voices.
"Why won't she say anything?" Christina asked with worry clear in her tone.
Myka's was much calmer. Concern was still there, but it was controlled; she had inside knowledge of what was happening and knew that time would help. "She can't right now Sweetheart. Her body is reacting to a rush of adrenaline and most other things take precedence over speech until the hormone is flushed from the body."
"What is adrelanine?" The girl asked as she climbed onto Myka's lap. The agent had her arms wrapped around HG, a hand stroking her head while she waited to see a reaction.
"A-dren-a-line," she broke it down for the girl, ever patient when Christina wanted her to explain something new. "It's a chemical that your body makes when it thinks you need to fight or run away. Usually when you're scared."
"Why was Mummy afraid?" She asked the million-dollar question.
Myka hesitated. "Perhaps she had a bad dream and thought you were hurt," she offered, hating that she was lying by omission but thinking it was necessary.
"It was a nightmare," HG murmured into Myka's shoulder. She had been listening to the soothing sound of their voices and feeling her heartbeat thankfully slow to a steady pace. Now she felt like an idiot and was torn between wanting to stay close to the two people she loved and needing to be alone to lick her wounds. She lifted her head from Myka's shoulder, her reactions sluggish now that the blind panic had receded. She started to get up but her girlfriend pushed her back down.
"Chrissie, would you fetch your mother a glass of water please?" Myka asked the girl gently.
Christina jumped down willingly but paused in front of HG. "Mummy, will you be alright?"
Helena lifted her head and smiled for the first time since leaving her bedroom. She reached out and pulled her daughter into a firm hug. "I will now, love. There is nothing in this world that your hugs can't cure for me." She felt the girl's giggle vibrate through them and her smile widened.
"I'll get you some water," Christina declared and ran out of the room.
Helena pushed both hands through her hair and sighed deeply. She felt Myka's arms pull her closer and relaxed into the touch. "I'm sorry I spoiled our morning, love."
"You didn't. You were there," She said simply, though they both knew the importance of that short statement. "I enjoyed watching you sleep for a while too."
"You did hmm? I shall endeavour to wake up earlier in future so that I may make a fool of myself before you wake and return in time for more of this." She turned to brush her lips against Myka's and stayed in that position until they heard more giggling. Helena smiled into her girlfriend's final kiss and turned to the curious brown eyes that were staring at her. She placed the water on the coffee table and pulled Christina into her lap. "Thank you, my flower. So what were you beavering away at behind the dining room table this morning?"
"Theodore and I were drawing a plan," she declared, referring to the uniformed bear Myka had bought her from the steam-train gift shop the previous day. After hearing of how Theodore Roosevelt had been the inspiration for the toy's name, Christina was set on calling her bear Theodore. ("Not Teddy, because he doesn't like that.")
HG fascinated them all with a short tale of her run in with Police Commissioner Roosevelt while on an artefact chase in New York, in 1894. Stating that, after being let off with a warning following a scuffle with several officers, they'd talked for several hours over celebratory drinks for her 'taming of another curiosity', and she'd offered several ideas for how he could reform the city's law enforcement. In true HG fashion, she took full responsibility for his promotion the following year.
"A plan for what, Sweetie?" Myka enquired, equally curious.
The young girl was quiet for a moment and then sighed dramatically, drawing matching expressions of surprised amusement from her parents. "It was intended to be a secret. They're not quite finished yet. Though, if you would like to help, I suppose that would be alright."
"Well, now that you have us both so intrigued, I think you will have to," Helena teased her. "Go and put them on the dining table and finish any secret additions you have and we will be through to inspect when we've conjured some breakfast."
Myka waited until she and HG were alone again and then wrapped arms around a slim waist and pulled HG towards her so that her front pressed into her girlfriend's back. She placed a kiss on a bare shoulder and felt Helena shudder. "Thank you for last night," she whispered into raven hair. "You're amazing. I love you."
Helena turned in the embrace and knelt over Myka, tunnelling her fingers into wild hair and kissing the agent thoroughly. "You were delicious," she murmured into the hinge of a jaw. "I would gladly have you for breakfast, though," she pulled back to see her lover's intense gaze. "I believe we should make sure that our daughter isn't planning to build a time-travelling steam engine, or some other such nonsense. She really was quite taken with our little outing yesterday."
Myka chuckled and made a mental note to have a 'Back to the Future' movie marathon with her girlfriend. Despite their mutual propensity for reading, she thought that Helena would get a kick out of the classic trilogy. "You need to get dressed then, because there is no way I will be able to keep my hands to myself with you in nothing but this robe." She indicated to the fabric that, by now, was handing off one shoulder and riding further and further up silky thighs.
HG shot her a sultry look, making sure to take her time and touch as much skin as possible while she pretended to rearrange her robe. "If you insist, darling." She slid off Myka's lap and danced away, closely avoiding the hands that reached for her blindly. She chuckled to herself as she heard her girlfriend groan and flop back on the couch. Turnabout was fair play after all.
Myka soon forced her body up and began to investigate the kitchen, checking cupboards and freezer for food, since most of what Helena had left in the fridge had expired. She did discover eggs in the fridge, but six weeks was three weeks past her comfort zone to try those and she threw them away without a second thought. She found bread and bacon in the freezer and began defrosting them in the microwave. Helena was still very sceptical about the nutritional value of modern convenience foods and though she didn't claim to be a fantastic cook, she still preferred her meals to include the raw ingredients that were 'supposed' to go into them, therefore there was no chance of whipping up a few pancakes from dry mix.
Their eventual breakfast of bacon sandwiches felt a little foreign to Myka, but she enjoyed them nevertheless, particularly when Helena moaned over every other bite.
After the dishes were washed, Christina laid out her hastily drawn diagrams and proceeded to explain the blueprints for what she wanted their house to be like. The kitchen, with all the modern appliances, plus a pantry; the dining room, with a secret door to the kitchen, where the servants could come and go without intruding on the guests; the parlour, where Mummy and Mama received guests and wrote letters and reports. Then from there the house extended into a library, a small bathroom, a playroom, a living room with a huge TV (supposedly for Pete) and another secret door down to the basement where Helena could work on her inventions.
Upstairs there were six more rooms. A family bathroom with a pool sized tub and jets of water jumping from it, Mummies' room, Christina's room, the schoolroom, guest bedroom and the nursery ("for the baby").
In the back garden, there were fountains, hidden paths, a tree-house, two ponds with bridge rising between the them, rose bushes, weeping willows and a cycle path surrounding the whole thing.
The two agents stared on in amazement as they were 'walked' through the entire plan and given instructions on where they could put their possessions. The moment Christina stopped talking, a long silence filled the room.
"Do you like it?" She asked when neither adult commented.
They exchanged a dumbfounded look and then broke into matching smiles. "It looks like you've put a lot of thought into this, Sweetie. And you've made a really good job of these blue-prints. We've got our own little architect," Myka ruffled up the girl's hair and placed a hand on her shoulder. "How long did it take you to draw all this?"
"I woke up hours ago," she announced as she gazed up at the two of them. "I came in to check on you, but you were both fast asleep... and cuddling. Are you going to sleep in Mama's room now Mummy? Will I have my own room?"
HG stroked the hair from her daughter's face and tried to keep the hint of rejection she felt out of her smile. It was natural for an eight year old to want their own space but she couldn't help feeling a bit like she was being kicked out. "Yes, my love. Myka and I will be sharing a room from now on." She watched brown eyes light up and forgot all about her own insecurities. "Now, about this house..." Her raised eyebrow told the young girl all she needed to know about her mother's response.
"It's too much?" She asked knowingly.
HG chuckled and crouched down to wrap her arms around Christina. "Just a smidge," she teased. "But I love seeing your wonderful imagination come to life. Mama's right, they really are quite lovely, and well thought out."
"I think we should frame them. That way, when we do have our house, we can pin them to your bedroom wall," Myka suggested. It didn't escape her attention that Helena shot her a gooey look when she said the words 'our house'. "It might also be a good idea for the three of us to sit down and write out a list of things we all really want." She glanced back at the drawings and smiled at one of the rooms in particular. "Though I think space for a library is a given."
Helena disappeared into the basement for the remainder of the morning to pack up anything that she wanted to take back to the bed and breakfast, while Myka played with Christina. They built another fort, this time in the dining room and Myka showed her how to make a tunnel using the chairs. They had tea under the table with Theodore and a doll named Angelina, and chatted about trains, houses and school.
Helena was on the fence about sending her daughter to the local junior-high. Christina was adapting well to modern life, but she still had a lot of catching up to do and the last thing either she or Myka wanted was for their daughter to be an outcast for her - still very old-fashioned - outlook.
They had explained enough about time-travel to help the girl understand where she was 'now' in relation to where she had been 'then', but occasionally something would come up in conversation and her response was very 'Victorian'. Though HG had been a very forward thinking woman, children were always influenced by environmental factors outside of their parents' immediate sphere and not all of the Wells family, or the greater London populace, had seen the world with such an accepting eye.
As a result, both women were happy home-schooling Christina for at least the next year, but perhaps even into the first year of high-school. The only downside with that plan was the lack of friendship she had access to within her own age group. Since HG still couldn't let Christina out of her sight, Myka had been looking into local clubs that the two could attend together a couple of times a week.
The rest of the gang arrived a little after midday with lunch and they gathered round the table. They chatted animatedly as plates were passed around, and fond smiles were exchanged as Christina insisted on cutlery and napkins, even tutting and shaking her head at Pete in a very Mykaish way when he began shoving fries in his mouth and licking his fingers.
Myka spent most of the meal trying not to choke on her food as Helena insisted on seeing how far her foot could reach up the brunette's leg, all the while managing to carry on a fairly detailed conversation with Claudia about her advances in Tesla weaponry. When Lila offered to clear the table, Myka jumped up and insisted that she and Pete could take care of it. With a backward glare of promised retribution towards the inventor, she gathered their debris and disappeared with her partner into the kitchen.
"So, Mykes," Pete started the moment she began running the water to get it hot enough to fill the bowl. "You and HG are extra touchy-feely today. You have a good night?"
"Pete," she growled in warning, even though it had never stopped him before.
"What? You know about my sexy times, why can't I ask about yours?"
"Number one; I am not interested in hearing about your sex-life. Number two; I am even less interesting in sharing details of mine with you. And number three; you were supposed to be watching my daughter, not making out like a teenager on the couch." She scrubbed vigorously at a stubborn stain as she considered where their conversation was going. "At least I hope that's all you were doing."
"Hey, she was asleep and really? Do you think I'd do it on HG's couch?" He shuddered, only half pretending to be afraid of the idea of agent Wells discovering his indiscretion. His brain eventually caught up with Myka's words and he frowned. "Wait a minute. Your daughter? Seriously?" He grinned as she blushed and tried not to smile. "I mean Claudia mentioned the whole 'two mummies' thing on the train, but I didn't know you and HG were there yet. Not that we didn't all know it was headed that way," he continued to ramble and wave his hands around randomly. "Did my little pep-talk last night trigger this? 'Cause you know, uncle Pete's got your back sistah." He clicked his fingers in the air and then fumbled when the plate in his hand tried to make a break for it. "I've got more than enough mojo to go around."
Myka shot him a withering look and glanced at the plate in sympathy. "I'll pass, thanks. Save it for Lila."
His expression softened as he gazed off into a memory on the ceiling. "Yeah, she's pretty great... It just feels right, y'know?"
Myka stacked the last plate, a pile having formed where Pete was supposed to be helping by drying and putting them away. Distracted Pete was not a diligent worker. "I know. You're pretty great too. You can be kind of a slut sometimes, but when it matters, you're 100% there and I'm sure Lila's beginning to get that too. I think it could really work."
It was approaching two o'clock by the time they piled back into Myka and Pete's cars and headed out for their final outing of the weekend; the funfair. As much as the train ride had been interesting for all of them in different ways, the majority of the group had been eagerly awaiting the world of candy-floss, games of chance, junk-food and various rides.
Claudia regaled Christina with her idea of all the 'best-bits' of a good funfair, trying to play down some of the normal risks that most people thought nothing of when they entered such a place. She was aware of HG listening intently from the front passenger seat and didn't want to have to see the battle that might ensue if the over-protective mother decided that it was too much for her child.
They parked up, bought their tickets and pushed through the barriers into the park. Helena hovered over Christina, on edge due to the chaotic nature of theme parks in general and the propensity for children to become distracted and wander. Myka followed her girlfriend with a hand resting gently and supportively on her lower back.
The group moved off in no particular direction as they began to take in the atmosphere around them. For three hours, the seven of them enjoyed the rare chance to goof off a bit and just generally spend some time as 'normal' members of the public.
Exhausted and happy, the gang eventually made their way to the exit with sugary treats in hand. Steve had agreed to hit the clubs with Claudia; Pete and Lila were off to see a movie, and Myka, HG and Christina had plans to draw up more blue-prints and confer about the overall layout of their house. Regardless of what they were doing, each was looking forward to their last night of freedom from the Warehouse.
Claudia's gait slowed as they walked towards the exit and she sniffed the air. There was a crowd building near the ticket booths, but as she looked around, no one seemed inclined to actually leave. Something felt off, but it took several seconds of glancing around and honing her instincts before it hit her. "Er, guys?" She called out to her friends and colleagues. "Does anyone else smell fudge?"
Uh-oh...