Author's Note: My ego was very pleased with the reviews from last chapter. I hope this one doesn't disappoint you!
"Myka – "
"Don't," Myka said, as Helena took a seat at the edge of the bed.
"But, Myka, I truly – "
"You spoke already," Myka said softly. "And I waited as patiently as I could. So now I get a turn, right?"
Helena nodded unsteadily. "Sure. Alright. I suppose that's fair, yes?"
Myka, clad in only her newly obtained towel, knelt on the floor in front of Helena, and took her face between soft, damp hands. "I don't have a speech," she said, her voice shaking. "And despite my bookwormish tendencies, I'm not the wordsmith that you are."
Helena shook her head and parted her lips to speak, but a single, gentle finger covered her mouth, and Helena inhaled sharply, but nodded at Myka to continue.
"I don't blame you, Helena. For any of it," she said meaningfully, her eyes shifting all over Helena's face; her lips, her nose, her eyes, her cheeks, as though committing every inch of her to memory. "I don't blame you for trying to destroy the world – because we do live in such an awful world. And I don't blame you for leaving. Or for wanting to be normal. Because with what we do, we see the worst of the world, every day. We see grief, and pain, and happiness that literally kills people. And I understand it. I do. When joy devolves into murder, or sadness devolves into despair – which seems like such an easy little hop – " Myka sighed and shook her head. "It just makes it hard; it makes it so hard to remember what we fight for. To remember that there is a balance, and that we help to keep it."
Myka looked at Helena's eyes now, as if looking for confirmation that she agreed. So Helena nodded, with glassy eyes, because Myka understood.
"But I remember all of that," Myka smiled hesitantly. "I remember it when I think of you, and I know that just sounds so cheesy, but it's also true. Your actions, at times, have been extreme – but they've never been without care. They've never been without the love of humanity and all of the great things that we can accomplish. When I say that you owe me no apologies, Helena, I mean it. I know what you fight against every day. I fight with you. And I admire you, every day. Even when we're not together, I admire your courage and your strength and your convictions. I also love you, Helena. And that terrifies me."
Helena reached out to Myka's face now, as the other woman's hands fell against Helena's thighs and she ducked her head at the admission.
"Don't be afraid, darling," Helena pleaded, stroking her face with the gentlest touch of her fingers. "Oh, please."
Myka shook her head and looked up again, with tears coating her eyes. "I've never loved like this before, Helena. And although I don't blame you, every time you leave, I just – " Myka broke off and looked to the ceiling to stem the tears that begged for release, and to gather her thoughts. "My heart breaks, and I want so desperately to follow you. But I can't. Because you make it so impossible to find you, and when I do, it's like you wish I didn't."
"No, Myka," Helena tried to make her understand, her insides tearing as Myka's tears and anguish cultivated. And Helena knew that it was of her doing. "No. I just… It's only recently been made clear to me how you felt, and you've been such a lovely, lovely friend. I was terrified to ask for more. And to be around you – to taint you with all of the things that I've done… I bring only grief to your life."
"Idiot," Myka scowled, and Helena almost laughed at the juxtaposition of both Myka's tears and her irritation. "You only bring grief to my life when you leave it."
"I can see that now," Helena replied quietly. "But Myka, I never intended for you to suffer."
"I know," Myka replied softly, and though Helena wanted to believe that it was that simple, there was doubt in Myka's eyes.
"But you can't possibly," Helena argued carefully. "I'm a selfish creature by nature, it seems. It wasn't even until I faced the wrath of Claudia that I'd even considered the things that you must have thought."
"Claudia?"
Through her own watery eyes, Helena chuckled a bit, and nodded. "Small thing though she may be, she can be unpredictably frightening."
Myka smiled a bit, though she was clearly confused about why Claudia would have been so angry with Helena, and even further confused about what that had to do with the conversation that they were sharing.
Helena stood, uncertain of how to proceed without painting an even poorer picture of herself to the woman she was attempting to flatter. She walked toward the bathroom and, as she attempted to organize her thoughts, she spotted a red, silk robe, which she then carefully lifted and carried to her dear friend.
Myka hesitantly looked up at her, and despite herself and their situation, Helena couldn't help but laugh, just a bit, as Myka indicated with a bashful look that she would very much like for Helena to turn around as she changed into it.
Obeying the silent request, and grasping onto the opportunity of severed eye contact that had presented itself, Helena continued as best as she knew how. "I've left you during some of the most pivotal moments of our relationship, Myka. Although becoming a schoolteacher with half of my consciousness locked away for when I could make myself useful was never an anticipated part of my plans, I didn't think of you or your feelings when I went 'off the reservation,' I believe they say."
"I didn't expect you to," Myka inserted. Helena could still hear her rustling behind her, but she could all but picture the slight tilt of her head as she spoke it. "Helena, you were considering a much bigger picture, then."
"That doesn't make it right, love," Helena huffed, growing frustrated with herself for not iterating her thoughts coherently, despite that it was a talent that she quite prided herself on. She shifted to face her friend when she was satisfied that she'd given Myka more than enough time to situate herself. "You have been the most important person in my life since I awoke from the bronze. You have influenced me, and my life, in more ways than I could hope to account for. And I can insist that your friendship means the world to me until the world collapses upon itself, but I can't expect you to believe it when, at every given opportunity, I prove to you otherwise."
Myka laughed. Helena frowned, and waited for an explanation.
"Helena, you didn't prove otherwise."
"I betrayed your trust."
"Yes."
"And I tried to obliterate the world with a trident," Helena deadpanned.
"Yes," Myka agreed, standing to move toward her and hold her hands once more. Helena found that she very much liked it when Myka held her hands. "But you didn't."
"I would have," Helena insisted. "I would have, Myka, if it weren't for – "
"If it weren't for what?" Myka pushed gently, shifting her head to find Helena's emotional gaze and match it with her own.
"For you," Helena whispered brokenly.
"So, in all technicality, you did, in fact, give up the world for me."
"Myka, you know what I mean," Helena said, irritated that Myka seemed to be going out of her way to be obstinate.
"No, I don't," Myka shook her head softly, and Helena watched as her wet, dark curls fell over her shoulders with the motion. "Helena, I've had many confusing thoughts about you and me, and the relationship that we share. I've wondered at this irresistible connection that festers beneath the surface of every interaction that we've ever had, and I've had so many questions about what it means, or even if you've felt it at all."
"I feel it, Myka. And it confounds me. It's like nothing I've ever felt before."
Myka nodded, but didn't press that subject, and instead continued with her previous one. "But with everything that we've been through, I've never doubted that I was important to you. At least, not until – "
The agent shorted herself, and shook her head, but Helena was finally getting somewhere with this woman, and she couldn't let it go. She could see the hurt in Myka's eyes, and she hated that she'd put it there, but she couldn't begin to right the horrendous wrongs that she'd committed against her friend until she was clear on exactly how she'd made Myka feel.
"Until when, darling?" Helena requested gently, wrapping her fingers around Myka's wrists.
"It doesn't matter," the taller woman murmured, looking up to meet her chocolate-coated eyes again. "It doesn't matter," she repeated. "This, here – Helena, this is what matters."
"Until Wisconsin," Helena ignored her, and asserted what she was so sure to be true.
Myka said nothing, and turned to her side, removing her hands from Helena's reach and picking up the towel that she had tossed to the floor.
"I made you feel as though you were insignificant to me in Wisconsin," Helena realized fully, horrified.
Myka's voice was hardly a sigh that scraped from her throat. "I looked for you."
"What?" Helena's brow furrowed. She wasn't sure what Myka meant, but whatever she was attempting to say, it was clearly hurting her to say it. Helena needed for her to explain.
"After Sykes, and the bomb in the Warehouse. When you left. I looked for you," Myka elaborated, extending her arm and dropping the towel into the dirty clothes bin. But Helena suspected that she couldn't look at her just yet, so she busied herself with selecting a set of clothes from the chest of drawers near the bed.
"And I'd made myself untraceable," Helena finished for her.
Myka peeked over her shoulder and smiled sadly, before she offered a little shrug, and rested a pair of shorts and a camisole against the flat surface of the dresser.
"You searched for me," Helena whispered softly.
"Yes," Myka confirmed, pain evident in her voice. "I was worried for you. And, selfishly, I missed you."
"You aren't selfish in the least," Helena managed to choke.
"But I was," she saw the back of Myka's head shake in denial. "I was lonely, and frightened, and I missed my friend. Everything was suddenly so different, and you were gone."
"Again," Helena scoffed at herself.
"Again," Myka repeated sympathetically, hearing in Helena's voice the shame that she felt. "Only this time it was clear that you had left of your own volition. And I had a very hard time accepting that wherever you were, and whatever you were doing, you didn't want us to know about it. I took it personally, and I shouldn't have."
"Oh, Myka," Helena husked, swallowing tightly as the true concept of what Myka had perceived to be true washed over her.
"You wanted a fresh start," Myka tried to comfort her quietly, although it did not escape Helena's keen notice that the admirable woman she'd fallen in love with still could not face her.
"Yes, but – "
"I was selfish, Helena," Myka reiterated. "I wanted – " She stopped there to sigh, but then turned, finally, and rested her back against the dresser, defensively crossing her arms over her chest before she shrugged again. "I wanted you. I wanted to be Bering and Wells again," she laughed self-deprecatingly as she looked down. "I wanted the woman I loved to be near me, even if I could never speak my feelings aloud. And when you called, I swear my heart nearly beat from my chest."
Helena was furious with the tears that seemed to endlessly cloud her vision. She had so deeply hurt this beautiful creature. She had no right to cry about it here, when Myka was being given her only true opportunity to express the ache that she'd felt.
"I was so excited to see you that I'd forgotten to be angry with you," Myka smiled softly at the memory. "Until I got there, anyway. Until I met Nate. And, as guilty as I felt for it, until I met Adelaide. I was so furious with you, Helena."
She remembered. It had seemed so out of character for Myka to poke her nose into Helena's personal life, and that she had dared to presume what was best for Helena had made her so unfalteringly mad.
"I picked a fight," Myka admitted shamefully. "I didn't want you there, in Wisconsin," Myka laughed at herself again, and at the idea of Helena finding happiness in Wisconsin, of all places. Not that it could possibly be any worse than South Dakota. "I wanted you here, with me. I'd realized that I was wrong before we parted ways again, but I couldn't steal back the harsh words that I'd spoken to you."
"I'd left you," Helena defended her. "I'd hurt you. Again. I'd begun a new life, and I'd left you behind without even a proper goodbye."
Myka looked to the ceiling, and Helena watched her bent knee tremor, and the heel of her foot tap against the ground as she fought against her powerful emotions.
"I'd betrayed your trust, yet again. And this time, your friendship, as well," Helena pushed, knowing that as much as she hated to do it, Myka needed this release. And then she pushed further. "I'd found a lover."
Helena's heart cracked as she watched the normally stoic Myka Bering fall apart before her.
"And that shattered what you then thought to be the delusions of our feelings for one another," Helena rasped, trying dreadfully not to cry with her friend, and swiping at her face as she realized that she'd failed.
"As I said," Myka's voice raked from her throat, tears streaking down her flawless cheeks, "I was being selfish."
Desperate to hold her, and somehow sensing that Myka needed it, too, Helena rushed forward and wrapped her arms around the slim woman. "Oh, my darling Myka," she whispered into soft, damp hair.
She had no words to follow her sentiment. She just gripped the woman in a tight hold, agonizing as Myka's ensuing sob swept over her cheek.
What had she done?