Helena hadn't slept.
She and Myka hadn't actually settled in until very late, and though Myka had fallen to sleep very quickly, she hadn't fallen to a peaceful one. Helena had just begun to doze off when she'd heard the first of Myka's soft, pained whimpers.
She'd frowned, and contemplated waking her from what was clearly a very upsetting dream, but by the time she'd made the decision to rouse her, Myka had buried her face into Helena's neck, and the noises had stopped. Helena had thought – and hoped, desperately – that Myka's apparent nightmare had receded for the evening, but half an hour later, she felt Myka shuffling restlessly against her once more.
"Dear Myka," she murmured, stroking lovely dark curls once the dream had passed, "what plagues you so?"
Tenderly, she pressed a kiss upon Myka's head and tried to get comfortable without shifting her sleeping companion any more than was necessary. Helena found it a difficult task, though. Their impromptu sleeping arrangements had left Helena fully clothed in jeans and a buttoned up blouse. She was acclimated to sleeping in significantly less, or nothing at all.
She sighed when Myka began to rustle again, and with the newfound knowledge that it wouldn't last long, Helena wrapped her tightly in her arms and prayed for it to end. She loathed to think it, but she feared that the nightmares, in addition to the rest of Myka's recent sorrow, were of her own doing.
Helena lay still for most of the night, observing Myka as she slept, admiring her exceptional beauty, and, when it arose again, doing her best to comfort the sleeping agent. Admittedly, she'd battled against temptation as well, as red silk loosened around Myka's very fit form with each unsettled motion, but she'd managed to restrain her desire to take peeks where she oughtn't.
She frowned, though, when the sun began to rise. It couldn't have been past six, and over the weekend no less, when a soft knock tapped against Myka's door. Helena wasn't sure if she should answer the call; she couldn't be certain that Myka would be comfortable with any of her makeshift family knowing that she had been there. But when the knock persisted, and Myka failed to rise from her slumber, Helena determined that Myka needed the rest, and couldn't bear to have her wakened unless it was an emergency.
She carefully withdrew herself from Myka's entangled limbs, and stooped low to press a kiss against her forehead as she grumbled at the loss of contact. Helena was, quite simply, enchanted. She reached to brush an errant curl from Myka's face and gingerly touched her index finger down Myka's cheek in a caress that could be described as nothing but intimate. She couldn't be sure what sort of greeting she'd receive when Myka woke, and she wanted to remember Myka's peaceful, despite brief, sleeping countenance.
Helena moved slowly and silently to the door, and cringed internally when she found a glaring Claudia on the opposite end of the threshold. She quickly moved to the other side of it and closed the door quietly behind her, fully prepared for the verbal whipping she was about to receive.
"What the hell are you doing?" Claudia hissed, tossing angry hands inflexibly against her hips.
"Claudia – "
"What was rule number one?" Claudia ignored, and though Helena tried to edge in a reply, Claudia wouldn't allow it. "Absolutely no having sex with Myka! That was the rule! The most important rule, HG!"
"I didn't – "
"I can't freakin' believe you!"
Helena quickly determined that Claudia was on a rampage, but her irritation and lack of sleep refused to tolerate the furious lecture that had begun.
"Listen to me, you foul, taxing urchin," she all but snarled, effectively silencing a momentarily stunned Claudia. "I did not have sex with Myka last night. While I will admit to breaking a fair few of your intolerable rules – some of which, by the way, I did not break alone – that was one decree that I never intended to disturb. Alright?"
"Jeez, alright, so you didn't sleep with her," Claudia grumbled, hands thrown upward in resignation. Helena knew she wouldn't admit it aloud, particularly not to her, but she was confident that she saw Claudia express a brief flash of shame for her accusation.
Helena folded her arms across her chest, and raised a brow imperiously.
"You still broke rules," Claudia reminded defiantly, pointing at Helena's frame and jabbing the air defiantly.
Helena sighed, and reached two fingers up to rub exhaustedly against her forehead. "We had a very intimate conversation," she submitted, and when she saw Claudia's mouth open, she asserted, "a private conversation, Claudia. Tears were shed, though I had sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that."
"You weren't supposed to make her cry," Claudia frowned disappointedly.
"I'm well aware, thank you," Helena snapped. "It was a very long night, and Myka revealed more than I had anticipated. She was very upset."
"And?"
"And, what?" Helena snipped.
"And," Claudia said, indicating with a rolling motion of her hands that Helena should continue. When she didn't understand the gesture, Claudia rolled her eyes and elaborated, "How did it go?"
"I'm not sure yet," Helena admitted, defeated.
"What does that even mean?" Claudia demanded.
"I've just told you I don't know." Helena's frustration was getting the best of her, so she took a deep breath and attempted to calm herself.
"Well you stayed the night, right? So it couldn't have been all tears and misery," Claudia determined, looking up at HG expectantly.
"No," Helena smiled briefly, acknowledging reluctantly that Claudia's question had soothed her more than her attempts to exercise her breathing.
"So what happened?" Claudia asked, her voice detectably softer after noting the gentler tones in HG's voice.
"She kissed me."
"Myka did what, now?" Claudia asked disbelievingly, physically shifting herself closer to Helena, as though she really hadn't heard her correctly.
"I believe you understood me perfectly, Claudia," Helena said, scowling again at the idea that Claudia found the notion of Myka kissing her to be so unheard of.
"Sorry," Claudia said, trying to relax, but putting her hands up beside her head in a don't-shoot-I'm-unarmed sort of motion. "It's just that it seems so… not Myka."
"And why is that?" Helena asked, her voice low and dangerous.
She didn't miss the hint of fear in Claudia's eyes before she replied, "I dunno! It's just so… bold. Not that Myka can't be bold, but… you know, personally and junk, she usually isn't."
"Bold, indeed," Helena reflected on the passion behind Myka's kiss the night before. "Yes, I suppose that's a suitable word for Myka's somewhat uncharacteristic behavior," she grudgingly shared.
"Was it good?"
Helena glowered, but upon noting the sheepish look in Claudia's eyes, she decided that Claudia simply hadn't been able to help herself. Helena could relate.
"It was…" Dangerously tempting, Helena's mind filled in. Instead, she continued, "left unfinished."
"'Left unfinished?'" Claudia snickered. "Is that British for 'really fucking hot?'"
Though Helena could see that, once again, Claudia's mouth had spoken before her mind could moderate, she pinned her with a deadly glare, and she watched with satisfaction as Claudia shrank backward slightly.
"Any other broken rules I should know about?" Claudia switched subjects abruptly, clearly noting that the previous one was getting her into trouble.
Helena kept her mouth shut. She could have lied, but she was certain that, given her exhaustion, Claudia would have seen through her denial.
"HG?" Claudia narrowed her eyes threateningly.
"I might have mentioned Myka's visit to Wisconsin," Helena sighed.
"You what?" Claudia came as close to shouting as she could, without waking all of the inn's inhabitants.
"Myka touched upon the subject, but wouldn't delve further into it. I gave her a bit of a nudge," she said guiltily.
She could tell herself whatever she liked, but Claudia was the only one around them who had confirmed Helena's feelings for Myka, and she'd been feeling a bit shameful about how she'd pressured Myka into having that particular conversation – especially when Claudia had clearly iterated that if the topic of Wisconsin was to be discussed, it was to be at Myka's discretion. Irritating though the girl may be, she was Helena's confidante – at least where her relationship with Myka was currently concerned.
Claudia's lips parted to speak, but the cry that Helena heard next did not erupt from Claudia's mouth; the noise emitted from behind the door that led to Myka's room. A raking gasp of breath to her lungs later, and Helena charged into the room with Claudia following urgently behind her.
The sight of Myka huddled together in a swatch of red silk with her chest to her knees startled Helena into motion, Claudia stubbornly fixed to her side. She seated herself beside Myka and reached to rub her back, shushing her quietly, "Myka, darling, take a breath. Talk to me, love. Tell me what's wrong."
Myka stared up at her with glassy eyes that abruptly filled with fury as she grappled for the pillow behind her and, once it was secured, swung it promptly at Helena's head.
Alarmed, Helena attempted to seize the offending item from Myka's hands, but the distressed woman was having none of it.
"I – told – you – not – to – go," Myka sobbed, punctuating the end of each word with another solid whack to Helena's face.
Claudia stood at Myka's other side, eyes wide and clearly too shocked to even begin to understand what was happening.
Helena stilled immediately, realization dawning upon her as though a cold splash of water had assailed her face instead of a great ball of vicious white fluff.
"Myka!" She shouted over her friend's exclamations, pulling the woman into a tight grip against her chest. "Myka, darling, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She repeated herself, over and over again, speaking into Myka's hair. She continued to recite her apology until the pillow ceased its motions, and Myka simply clung to it, wrapping her arms around the white cushion before she weakly gave in to Helena's hold.
And, though Helena felt that only a moment had passed since Myka had calmed, she was sure that she'd been straining her fingers through Myka's hair for a solid sixty seconds, at least, before a dumbfounded Claudia finally asked, panicked, "What just happened?"
Myka was near catatonic, but her eyes moved to find Claudia's voice, though she didn't make to speak.
"Myka asked me to stay," Helena answered quietly, horrified with herself for reneging on her word, despite that it had been inadvertent. "She told me not to go, didn't you, darling?" She informed Claudia, bending her neck to rest her cheek against Myka's hair as her eyes watered, and her arms constricted tighter around Myka's quaking frame.
"Oh," Claudia said, still clearly baffled, but when she recognized that it had been Helena's lack of presence in her bed that had shot Myka into a frenzy, she instantly defended, "Oh, no, Myka, that was my fault! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! HG wasn't in her room, and I knew she was gonna talk to you last night, so I knocked, and we went out in the hallway so we didn't wake you up, but I'm sorry!"
"Darling, I'm here," Helena soothed quietly, shifting to hold Myka's face in the palms of her hands, trying desperately to bring her back from whatever terrible place she'd disappeared to. "I shouldn't have gone, but I'm here. I'm here now, alright?"
Myka nodded shakily, and Helena nodded in return, reaffirming her statement before she requested, without once breaking her gaze away from Myka's, "Claudia, be a dear and fetch a cup of tea, please?"
Eager to help fix what she'd broken, and more eager to help her friend, Claudia leaped out the door to perform her assigned task.
"Oh, Myka," she murmured gently, "I'm so terribly sorry to have caused you this pain again."
"Bad timing," Myka husked back, her voice breaking midway.
Helena lifted her hand to find Myka's hair again, as it was not lost upon her that the motion calmed the agent greatly. "What can I do, darling?" Helena pleaded.
A cynical, rasped chuckle emerged from Myka's throat before she instructed, "Don't go."
"No, my love. I won't go," Helena swore. "I won't go," she repeated as Myka's face fell against her shoulder.