Helena awoke with the sunrise, comprehending quickly that she'd forgotten to shut the window and lower the drapes the evening before. A part of her wished to rectify that error immediately, but a larger part of her was tangled between Myka's limbs, their legs hooked together in a manner that hardly seemed feasible, and Helena found that she couldn't move, even if she'd wanted to.
Additionally, the bright morning sun cast a flattering light over the side of Myka's face, and Helena was thereafter rendered helpless against the situation. So she closed her eyes and tried to block out the glare, but a groan from beneath her had Helena raising her brow instead.
"I hate the sun," Myka mourned, nestling her face deeper into Helena's chest.
"But it does bring such great appeal to these exotic curls of yours," Helena comforted hoarsely as she reached to finger a tendril of Myka's sunlit hair, her throat, apparently, still sore from her exclamations of satisfaction the previous night.
"Don't care," Myka mumbled, grappling with closed eyes for a pillow and throwing it over her head once found, consequently smacking Helena's chest with it, and her brow inched further upward.
"You don't care for morning, do you, darling?" She inquired, more than a touch of affectionate sarcasm coating her words.
"Hate mornings," Myka's muffled voice answered. "Death to mornings."
Helena laughed softly, and asked, "Would you like me to close the curtains?"
"No," Myka replied, tightening her hold on Helena's waist the moment that Helena began to shift. "Don't move. Stay."
"Then how shall I appease you, darling?" Helena asked, amused.
Myka's hand reached for the edge of the blanket, and swiftly tugged it over both of their heads. "There," she declared, placated.
Beyond besotted, Helena laughed her delight. "Myka, my love, can you even breathe under here?"
"Don't need to breathe," Myka huffed irrationally. "I'm sleeping now. Stay," she demanded again, obviously anticipating some sort of movement from Helena.
But Helena couldn't have left; not while being made so aware of Myka's desire for her to stay, and certainly not when she was being so captivatingly endearing. So as Myka drifted back to sleep, Helena found herself lying motionless beneath the blanket, contemplating how she'd wandered so steeply in love with this woman that she was willing to spend two immobile hours staring blankly into darkness underneath a set of bedclothes that she, at least, thought to be rather stifling.
When Myka awoke again, it was to the distinctive ring of her cell phone, and Helena chuckled as her lover groaned, "Seriously?" and threw the blanket from her head with a vengeance.
Her phone was in the pocket of her jeans, which had been deserted in the bathroom the night before, and Helena watched Myka attentively as she crossed the room, in all of her spectacularly nude glory, to snatch the cell phone from her pants. She jammed her thumb against the 'end' button, before climbing back into bed and snuggling into the covers, both hands firmly holding the blanket just beneath her chin.
"Hate mornings," Myka sighed again.
"You did manage a few more hours of sleep, darling," Helena consoled, straining Myka's hair through her fingers and earning a mewl of contentment for the motion.
"I want the whole day here," Myka murmured softly.
"As do I, darling," Helena agreed. "But, much as I loathe to say it, we do have to get to the Warehouse at some point."
"I know," Myka lamented. "But it's so warm and cuddly here. And it's cold and lonely out there," she pouted.
"You, my love, have been warm and cuddly all morning, if a bit ill-tempered," Helena smiled down at her fondly.
Helena watched the blankets shift as, she presumed, Myka shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't recall you being quite so cross upon awakening on Sunday," Helena observed.
"On Sunday," Myka began with a puff, "I was worried that I'd hurt you. I guess my grumpiness was a little outmatched."
Helena hummed her understanding, and hugged Myka closer against her, lowering her head to place a soft kiss against her lover's hair. "And what could outmatch your grumpiness this morning, darling?" She murmured suggestively into Myka's ear.
"I just want to lay here a little longer with you," Myka replied earnestly, glancing up at Helena with slight hesitation. "Is that okay?"
"Darling Myka," Helena replied softly, "why wouldn't it be?"
"I just wasn't sure if that's something we do," Myka said slowly. But when Helena lifted her brow curiously, Myka expanded, "I mean, obviously it's something that we do, but I guess I wasn't sure if our cuddling was restricted to times of overwhelming emotion. Or post-sex cuddling – which is fine! I just wasn't sure…" Myka was beginning to ramble in her nervousness, and Helena found it enchanting.
"Myka," she chided gently, "I'm rather fond of your cuddling, and I place absolutely no restrictions upon it. You are welcome to do so any time you wish. I'm afraid I'm a rather sexual creature," Helena laughed lightly, "so my first inclinations tend to often lean in that direction; however, that does not mean that I do not derive pleasure from your company alone, and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a healthy snuggle now and again. Even without the sex and ah – overwhelming emotion," she finished teasingly, squeezing Myka in a tight embrace. "I delight in every way that you choose to express your affections, darling."
"So we cuddle?" Myka asked, grinning.
"I would say so," Helena confirmed, laughing delicately as Myka purred her content and tucked her head over Helena's heart.
"Good," Myka mumbled. "It makes me not so grumpy."
"So I can see," Helena returned playfully.
But Myka didn't respond for several moments, and Helena feared that her snuggling lover had succumbed to sleep again. Until the phone rang a second time, and a slightly more awakened Myka rolled her eyes.
"It seems that someone is rather eager to speak with you, my love," Helena chuckled.
"It's Savannah," Myka shared. "She has her Shakespearean Literature final tomorrow, so she keeps calling at really unfortunate times to probe my brain for answers," she said, picking up the phone and tapping her finger against the 'end' button again. "She's also been hopped up on caffeine for three days, so she's a little more excitable than usual. She doesn't need another review on Othello," Myka said, shaking her head and frowning with deep concern. "She really just needs some rest. But I'll call her back after I get some coffee."
"You mother her," Helena noted, tipping her head to the side curiously.
Myka shrugged uncomfortably. "No one else does."
Helena could sense that Myka wasn't finished, however, so she simply combed her fingers through Myka's curls and waited.
"I looked after her for a while," Myka admitted, several long moments later. "Savannah's parents – my aunt and uncle – never really wanted a kid, and were pretty tied up with some really serious drug problems, so they sent her to live with us when she was four. I was ten," Myka explained, her soft fingers drawing patterns against Helena's hip. "She followed me around a lot when we were kids," Myka laughed fondly. "Tracy was always very sweet, but she was busy most of the time. And I just read books for most of the day, when I wasn't at school, so Savannah would just trail a couple feet behind and sit next to my chair while I read. She'd color, or ask me to read to her."
"You comforted her," Helena said, adoringly eyeing her generous lover.
"I guess. My dad was always pretty scary when we were younger," Myka sighed. "And my mom started getting really sick a couple years after Savannah arrived. She's fine now, but it was very overwhelming at the time. They couldn't figure it out, and she just kept getting sicker; she didn't really have the time or the energy to take care of Savannah, but she didn't want to send Savannah back to her parents, so I mostly watched her."
"You were young, as well," Helena frowned. "Twelve is certainly no age to be rearing a child."
"No," Myka said slowly, "but the alternative was worse. And Savannah was such a quiet kid. She got herself into some trouble over the years for stealing things," Myka rolled her eyes. "But she was a quiet kid. So I made her breakfast in the morning and walked her to school," Myka shrugged again. "When I went to college, Savannah came to live with me. Her parents were more than happy to give up guardianship, so I signed some papers and put her in school, and got a job to cover whatever my parents couldn't help out with, after my mom's medical bills started piling up."
"You offered her a home," Helena murmured, stricken with a heavy dose of awe for this woman.
"She didn't have one," Myka said sadly. "And she deserved to."
"Darling woman," Helena breathed, lowering her lips to the crown of Myka's head and speaking softly into her hair, "your heart knows no limit."
"I have a thing for strays," Myka smiled playfully, squeezing Helena's hip affectionately.
But Helena could easily discern that the compliment, in combination with the topic of discussion, distressed Myka. So she allowed Myka's easy segue, and followed accordingly. "I am no stray, my love," Helena dashed swiftly.
"Please," Myka scoffed, with an accompanying roll of her eyes. "You're pretty much a lost time-traveller, honey. That sort of epitomizes the word 'stray.'"
"I see," Helena said, feigning a look of contemplation as she raised her brow. "And is my status as such the cause of your affinity toward me?"
"Of course not," Myka scowled, apparently having taken great offense before she drew herself up on her elbow to face Helena and could note the playful look in her eye. Myka sighed, and touched the fingers of her free hand to Helena's cheek. "You're so much more than a lost time-traveller," she whispered tenderly, her fingers brushing beneath Helena's ear and eliciting the smallest gasp of breath inward. "You're brilliant," she said, pressing a fleeting kiss to Helena's mouth. "Complicated," she added, smiling, "and maddeningly beautiful, but brilliant, and brave, and so full of good intentions. And I love every part of you, Helena."
"I fear I shall disappoint you one day, Myka," Helena breathed. "When you discover that I am not all that you believe me to be."
Myka shook her head and smiled lovingly, though a bit sadly, and said, "Maybe you'll surprise yourself, instead, when you discover that you are everything that I believe you to be."
Helena's eyes watered, because she could simply never adapt to Myka's endless faith in her, and she framed Myka's cheeks in her palms, pulling her in for a long, simmering kiss that spoke of all the gratitude that she couldn't give voice to.
Myka smiled gently in return, and promptly placed an adoring kiss to Helena's forehead. "We should start getting ready," she suggested softly, shortly after.
"I suppose you're right," Helena agreed, but her hands skated down to Myka's waist, and tugged hard until Myka, laughing freely, fell against her. "But I'd rather indulge in a few more moments with a charming lady in my arms," she offered a quick grin.
Myka sighed her relief. "I'm so okay with more cuddles," she resigned, lying over top of Helena, and somehow inching her hands beneath the slight arch in Helena's back to hold her.
And Helena spoiled her lover with slow, brushing touches, coating her with love and a tenderness that Helena hadn't known she could feel before this woman entered her life, her emotions for Myka swelling wide in her chest. Myka accepted Helena's affection with great appreciation and a number of small, content noises, and she responded to Helena in kind, scattering fond kisses over any expanse of flesh that found itself near her mouth.
They had to return to the Warehouse soon, but they were both startlingly aware that they'd scarcely had a moment to themselves since their date on Saturday evening, and neither intended to squander this moment of blissful seclusion.
Author's Note: So, in case some of you haven't deduced it yet, Savannah becomes pretty relevant in the near future. I kind of needed to give some background on her, and her relationship with Myka, so I laced it in with a lot of fluff and lovings. Let me know how I did! Please review!