Ooh, pushing my weekly update boundary with this update, but hopefully the end of this chapter will grant me some forgiveness ;-)
A little angst in the middle, but hopefully more upbeat and full of promise. Some theories banded about by the Wells regents that may touch on answers into the Warehouse's motivations.
Really appreciate the support while I start wrapping this part of the story up!
Chapter Twenty
Myka knew that she needed time to speak with the other adults in charge of the Warehouse and she knew she couldn't do that with Christina around, but she was hard put to let the girl out of her sight.
Who knew what other surprises could befall them before they had a chance to journey home? Helena seemed to think there was a great destiny awaiting their daughter but what if she was wrong? What if Christina was a sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter for a second time? What if the Warehouse itself was the source of all the evil they, as agents, were forever trying to vanquish? What if their faith was misplaced and they were simply allowing themselves to be driven to madness over and over again?
"Why would it need to expend the energy involved to bring us together through time if not to sustain the position it holds in the world? The Warehouse is a monument to duty over personal gain, is it not?" Helena reasoned as they sat side by side on the small sofa in the school room.
They had followed their daughter there after breakfast and conversed in hushed tones while letting Polly distract the eight-year-old. Myka fidgeted whenever she wanted to reach over and touch the young inventor and had to control the urge. Helena had resorted to borrowing one of Myka's new outfits, one that had ruffles around the middle and went some way towards disguising the abrupt change in her body shape. The American worried that the attempt wouldn't be enough to hide her love's condition and feared the repercussions. She didn't want to compound the issue by highlighting their desire for one another, even if HG did brush off her concerns as inconsequential.
It was odd talking to her partner while the Brit was still so un-jaded by events of the past. Future Helena had learned to be more balanced in her opinions over the years but she was more likely to be pessimistic about the Warehouse than her younger self, and for good reason. Her fiancée had made incredible progress towards patience and consideration for the consequences that her younger self had yet to think about. In comparison, the HG she sat beside had confessed to making plans to misuse an artefact to save Myka while she was ill.
Perhaps it did make sense that the Warehouse needed Christina. Helena was the one to bear the brunt of the horrors after all, while their daughter barely remembered the transition between life, death and life again. Her time in Lingo had been gentle on her psyche, almost as if she were deliberately cushioned from the kind of distress her mother had suffered.
"Duty for its agents maybe. But, isn't all of this for the personal gain of the Warehouse?" Myka countered and then sighed as she looked over to where their little girl was playing. "I hope you're right, Helena. If we have to be at the mercy of its whims, I'd rather it be for a good reason." She felt soft skin brush briefly against her hand and glanced up to meet a warm gaze.
"It is not as if we have gained nothing," HG added softly. "I realise that there is perhaps much I should be concerned about for the future but I cannot regret too fiercely the force that has brought us together."
Myka caught herself before she could pull the inventor into a heated kiss. As the day progressed, she found the temptation to touch Helena almost irresistible. In a little over three weeks, she had seen the flirtatious inventor undergo a drastic transformation; from the carefree, over-confident young rogue she'd met one November evening, to this insightful, passion filled woman who looked at her as if she were the first and last person to walk on the Earth. Eleanor had just two words to say on the subject – true love. Myka bit her lip again to keep her body from making its own decisions.
Charles and Caturanga joined them for lunch, where Rupert also made an appearance for a rare occasion that he was not overseeing one of his factories. The future agent was not entirely aware of the reason for young man's presence until Helena asked Christina to show him around while she and Myka spent a couple of hours discussing tedious things with the elder couple and their other guest.
As she shook off her surprise at the unexpected thoughtfulness of the young inventor, the moment they were all congregated in Eleanor's study, Myka wasted no time in slipping her hand into Helena's. She sat as close as she could to her partner while not actually sitting on her lap and earned herself an amused eyebrow raise.
"I know of half a dozen secluded spots around this house if you wanted some alone time later," HG whispered into the shell of an ear, chuckling at the blush her words elicited.
"Behave," Myka hissed, even as she considered the time they would need to do what she wanted to do with the Victorian.
"Well, my dears," Eleanor began once they were all seated. There was a cautiously happy smile in her eyes and tugging at the corner of her mouth. "It appears that the Warehouse pays as much attention to the sensitivities of social acceptance as Helena does." She nodded in her granddaughter's direction and none of them were ignorant of her meaning. "You understand what this means, my love?"
Though Mrs Wells had seen the young inventor for long enough that morning to be assured of her wellbeing, she had not seen the newest development so had been quite surprised by Helena's subtly changed appearance when she joined them at breakfast. Genevieve would have been quite satisfied to see her daughter pregnant were she married to a man of good breeding, but she would not abide this.
"I do," Helena assured the Wells matriarch firmly. "It will not be wise for me to return home like this. I shall have to spend some time elsewhere, until after the birth."
"Your cousins', in France," Myka suggested from memory.
Two regents and a caretaker looked back and forth between the young couple, each of them harbouring a theory but none with the full details of what they were witnessing. What exactly had passed during the night?
"I believe we would all enjoy a short tale of how love conquered all, what do you say, Agent Wells?" Caturanga sat back in his comfy chair, fingers steepled together, looking as unassuming as ever.
Helena's eyebrow rose in amusement. "Very well," she began and launched into a dramatic retelling of events that had been trying for each of them at the time. She finished by placing her free hand over her small bump and announcing that, during the night, while holding Myka's hand through a redoubled bought of fever, she had asked to sacrifice her own life to save her love's. The pregnancy, she believed, was a result of that wish.
"Can you describe the experience? I imagine the artefact must have behaved somewhat like a conduit," Rupert responded once his granddaughter was silent again.
"Suffice it to say, it was what one might expect to feel while in the act of conceiving a child," Helena answered boldly, appearing somewhat smug at the blushes, smiles and eye-rolls that circulated the room.
"You believe that Helena should live out her confinement in France?" Mrs Wells asked, facing Myka and distracting their attention from her Little One's mischief. "You must mean our grandson, Harold, yes?"
Myka nodded, sobering. "From what I was told, Christina was born in Paris while Helena was staying with her cousins." She turned to meet the inventor's gaze and felt her heartbeat catch sharply; she will live and die there.
She tried to clear her mind of the thought, of images of mausoleums, her little girl's coffin and HG's grief-stricken madness. A stray wondering thought asked her where her daughter's murderers could be right now, and was there really no way to prevent all that was to happen?
Without Christina's death, there would be no birth. She thought of the young woman who had sent them the time-travelling artefact in the first place. She and her fiancée had been so certain that the young fugitive was their daughter. Had they been wrong or had Christina been tasked with ensuring her own existence, and by extension, her brother's? What would become of them if Myka tried to interfere with the direction of their lives?
Her eyes closed to force back tears that stung and pooled against their lids. She felt a warm hand against her cheek and leant into it.
"Myka?" Helena's concerned tone cut through the gathering tension in the room.
Loosely held curls waved as the future agent shook her head. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I wish..." Her voice trailed off as her throat closed around the words.
"That you could spare me the pain of watching her die," HG finished the thought, drawing surprised and not so surprised stares from around the room. As everyone remained speechless, it was Myka's gaze she focussed on. "What, but the death of our child, could induce me to abandon my entire family?" She pondered aloud. "Perhaps there are other possibilities but the battle your conscience wages is clear in your eyes, love. You want to save her, to save me, though you know that to do so, you must lose us both."
The brunette nodded but took several slow breaths before she could speak. "You would find a way to save her," she confessed, thinking of the many ways Helena had tried to reverse Christina's fate.
"Without any knowledge of this eventuality, I imagine I will make quite a nuisance of myself, will I?" Helena tried to joke but it was strained. She could see the shadow of old injuries in her partner's expression and it didn't take a genius to figure out that she had caused those wounds somehow. "Christina appears to be like any other child her age, though somewhat brighter than average," she added with a hint of pride, which finally elicited a wan smile from the American. "Other than the emotional upheaval we have all experienced this week, she appears unaffected by past tragedies. I asked for this," she reminded the room. "I am prepared to stand by my choices. If I must walk through fire to have you and our children, then I will."
Myka wrapped fingers around Helena's bicep and dropped her forehead onto a shoulder, breathing slowly to bring her wayward emotions under control.
"We can reconvene in an hour or two if you would prefer to have some time alone?" Rupert suggested as they all witnessed the struggle happening before them.
The brunette's hand tightened around HG's arm and she straightened. "I... No, I'm fine." She glanced at the inventor and back at their companions. "I'd prefer to know what we're going to do from here on out so the rest of the day can be ours." Focussing on the caretaker, she asked, "Has there been any change with the artefact?"
"Of course," Caturanga answered with a curious smile.
"What!?" Myka blurted automatically and felt the body beside her turn rigid.
"It was humming along quite nicely when I looked in on it this morning, though I imagine it became active the moment this," he gestured between the agents. "Exchange took place. There's no need to worry yourself, Agent Bering; you have time to put your affairs in order and say your goodbyes."
"You're sure?" Myka asked anxiously, unable to stop her mind panicking as she imagined their portal home closing up and stranding them in this time.
"Quite sure," the caretaker confirmed jovially. "It would not do for you to linger too long in this place but there is no harm in waiting until, shall we say, tomorrow?"
It seemed like a lifetime to wait after the length they'd already been there but as Myka became more aware of the sudden stoic vibes coming from the inventor, she knew that they needed that time just for them.
"Why is this happening?" she asked after a short silence drifted over them. "Why does the Warehouse need Christina? Do we have any answers yet, or is this another thing you have to be tight-lipped about?"
Rupert's expression held a hint of guilt while the other elders maintained their masks.
"We believe that it intends to protect itself from vengeful forces both outside and within its walls," Eleanor announced gravely.
"It will purpose our child to that need?" Helena asked, voicing the horror that Myka felt.
"After a fashion," the caretaker responded. "To a certain extent though, they will be allowed to lead a normal life."
"They?" Helena interrupted before her grandmother could step in.
Myka placed a hand over her bump and finished the thought. "Christina isn't the only one it needs. She's here to ensure that Helena makes it to the future, but her brother will be involved too?" At three simultaneous nods, she rose to her feet, walked a few paces in no particular direction as she chewed on her lip and then returned to stand behind her partner. "How do you know all this?"
"Part of being the caretaker involves knowing the 'mind' of the Warehouse." Caturanga began to explain. "Most of the time, it lingers in the background but very occasionally, I experience forces of thought that can only originate with it. It is almost like having a vivid dream though without pictures. For instance, I knew before Agent Wells joined the Warehouse that she was going to be an extraordinary addition to our ranks."
"If we are to believe that it merely wishes to create a protector, for what reason did it choose us?" HG enquired and glanced up to see a curly-haired head nod along to her thinking. "I withdraw my objections to arranged marriage if this is the result," she teased her partner. "But surely there are easier ways for the Warehouse to bring two people together to procreate."
"With regards to this, our answer is somewhat of a theory." The caretaker turned to the regents and allowed them to pick up the thread of the conversation.
"We believe that it needed two people who would be drawn to one another regardless of time or space; soul mates, for what of a better phrase," Rupert told the agents, his expression making it clear that he approved of the notion. "It also required individuals who were already aware of its existence, to maximise the likelihood that their children would grow up with an understanding of the magic that exists in the world."
"Choosing from its agents would also improve the odds of finding a couple who were both mentally and physically skilled; traits which they could pass to their children." Eleanor watched the anger and indignation fade slowly from the couple's faces. "With criteria like that, it's no wonder that it worked so hard to bring the two of you together... We also think that you might not be the first attempt," she added to the agents' surprise.
"What? How...? Who?" Myka spluttered.
"You?" Helena added, gesturing between her grandparents, following a hunch.
"Circumstance seemed set on keeping us apart," Eleanor continued. "That we came together at all following my continued refusals and subsequent pressure from Rupert's parents to call of any hint of interest on his behalf."
"Following an instinct, and after some digging through the archives, I discovered the mould used to forge your grandmother's rings," Mr Wells addressed HG. "Unbeknownst to me it was in use at the independent jewellers I chose to craft them. The description mentions it having been imbued with the properties of Hephaestus."
"If I were to turn this into a novel," Helena grimaced. "It would be ridiculed as the worst piece of convoluted nonsense ever written."
"Reality truly can be stranger than fiction," Caturanga smiled serenely from his seat.
Myka thought about how he never gave anything away in his manner and realised that it was no wonder Helena never won a game against him. She was reminded of Mrs Fredrick and the words they'd exchanged at New Year's. "So it chose you but for whatever reason, you were unsuitable, so it searched further and found us?"
"It is mostly conjecture. I believe that perhaps the timing of this miracle birth was the reason it couldn't use us," Eleanor admitted. "But that is out thinking."
A soft, thoughtful silence permeated the room as everything they'd discussed got ping-ponged around Myka and Helena's thoughts, the future agent once more joining the Victorian on the couch as they considered the destiny the Warehouse had thrust upon them.
"It doesn't look like we have much choice," the American said at long last. She turned to Helena who looked as if she wasn't sure how to interpret that comment. "I don't ever want to give you or our children up. I love the life we're building." She felt a hand slide back into her own and she squeezed in reassurance. Turning back to the elders, she decided to move the conversation onto the things they did know and could control. "So what's the plan for tomorrow? What's going to happen to everyone else once Christina and I are gone?"
"We have already made some preparations for your departure." Eleanor jumped right in as she appreciated Myka's need to be alone with Helena. "We propose using a Mnemosyne ritual bowl to store Helena's memories and a rather curious notebook we acquired recently from a professor Hermann Ebbinghaus to encourage everyone else you've met to slowly forget that you were ever here."
"How will the ritual bowl work?" Myka asked, her concern for her fiancée's memories paramount in her mind.
"She will simply focus on every memory and thought she has of you and Christina and they will be siphoned into the water in the bowl. Her memories will reside there until she drinks from it." Mrs Wells answered succinctly. She eyed the agents closely, watching their expressions tighten with further questions and concerns. "The bowl will be held at the Regent's vault under timed control. They will be accessible once Myka returns home." She looked to her husband with a raised eyebrow, asking silently whether he wanted to add anything.
Rupert nodded and rose from his chair. "I suggest the two of you take some time to discuss your future while you have the opportunity. There are, no doubt, many issues that are troubling you after all that has occurred, particularly this past week." He moved to stand by his wife and placed a hand against her lower back before looking back at the agents and almost winking. "Communication is a vital component to a successful marriage," he offered before leading Eleanor and Caturanga from the room.
The moment they were alone, Helena brought a hand up to stroke Myka's cheek, drawing the brunette's attention so she could lean in to kiss her.
It started with a soft, slow peck; reassurance that they still had one another, here and now, but as the American melted into her touch, she felt that inferno ignite again and tunnelled tingling fingers into a mass of curls as she pushed forward.
Myka gasped at the sudden pleasurable assault, recalling the night before her illness, when they had spent over an hour kissing in Charles' library. She sank her own hands into raven locks and tugged the inventor impossibly close for several long minutes. Eventually, as her brain chose to remind her of where they were, she pulled back and held her partner at bay, hands pressed against shoulders, precariously close to what she could only think of as Helena's heaving bosom.
"I have never had anyone kiss me the way that you do," HG confessed in a half-dazed manner.
Myka chuckled and stole another quick kiss before pushing herself further along the couch; further from temptation. "I could say the same about you. Perhaps that's just one of the perks of being someone's soul-mate?" she added with a teasing smile before the weight of the morning's revelations hit her and her expression faltered. Glancing down at the Victorian's small bump, she reached out a hand and then hesitated. "May I?" she asked tentatively.
Without saying a word, Helena closed the distance between them again and captured Myka's hovering hand before placing it over her belly. She watched green eyes widen, soften and then tear up. "You never have to ask to touch me," the inventor declared, meaning every word in that moment. She kept her one hand over the time traveller's and slowly reached out with the other to join with the brunette's to place over an identical bump. "We will do everything within our power to provide them with the lives they deserve. One way or another, love."
Feeling emotional exhaustion settle into her body, Myka leant forward again, this time to rest her head in the curve between Helena's neck and shoulder. She stayed there, just breathing and savouring the sensation of both of their twins together. Her mind flitted between contentment in the knowledge that they would all be a family again when she returned home in less than twenty-four hours, and the fact that she was leaving Helena to live through the worst moments in her life without her. "Should I tell you?" she murmured plaintively. "I feel like you should at least have the chance to make an informed decision." She sat up, thinking aloud and gazed at the Victorian with a helpless expression.
"Can you reverse our positions in your mind, darling? Imagine that you will be the one to face this tragedy?" Helena asked calmly and then continued as Myka nodded. "Knowing what you know, what would you choose? Keep the child and the chance to eventually spend your future with your soul mate, though paying a heavy price in the process, or abort the child and live with an unknown mediocrity?"
Curly hair bobbed as a head inclined in understanding. "I would choose this," she gestured towards their joined hands and their unborn children. "And you, regardless of what I might suffer in between."
"Then you have your answer." The inventor held Myka's hands against her knees as she gazed intently into anxious eyes and smiled sadly. "I would like to say that I will miss you until I see you again, though I will not know you to make that possible. I believe a part of me will still ache from the absence of you, love. My skin will know this touch," she stroked along the future agent's palms and enclosed her wrists. "My heart will know this pounding rhythm," she pulled their hands to her chest and buried them between her breasts. "My lips will know this caress," she whispered as she shifted and pressed her mouth lightly over Myka's, capturing the whimpering sigh that escaped.
Being ultimately forced to part to join the rest of the household, Myka nevertheless continued to contemplate her partner's words. As they found Christina and Charles engaged in an animated debate on the pros and cons of horses verses trains, they reluctantly drifted a few metres apart and settled for exchanging the odd heated glance.
Myka recalled the first time she laid eyes on the inventor while she and Pete were 'ransacking her home'. Those early moments as she tried to process the idea of HG Wells being a woman; the undeniable pull she felt even as she worried for Agent Lattimer's safety; the electric tingle that passed through her as Helena's hands brushed hers around a pair of handcuffs; weeks later, the confusion she felt as she pressed a fugitive against a wall by her neck and had to resist the urge to lean in to kiss her; the knowing smirk that hinted at depths of wanton desire as she released her captive... In hindsight, there were numerous moments when Agent Bering had been a thrall to Agent Wells' magnetic presence. The knowing would transfer both ways.
Charles stayed until long after dinner. He threw several questioning looks his sister's way but it wasn't until saying his final goodbyes at the door that he broke down and insisted that she tell him how she had come by her current state. 'In the usual way, Charles,' Helena had answered him, begging him not to waste his breath by trying to lecture her. 'What is done, is done. There is little more to be said.' Then she briefed him on what her whereabouts would be until the summer and how she intended to excuse the addition of a child in their lives.
He left with her words ringing in his ears and promised to have a bag ready for her when she passed by the house the following evening.
After Myka managed to convince her daughter that it was time for bed, Christina begged Helena to read her to sleep. They finished Oliver Twist with the girl's head deadening the inventor's arm and her fingers locked tightly around the fabric of her dress so that she jerked from her semi-slumber every time the adult tried to escape.
When, at long last, the two agents emerged, they stood awkwardly for a moment between the guest room and Helena's. The proper thing to do would be to retreat to the library or the parlour to spend an hour or two in companionable conversation before reluctantly retiring for the evening. Between the two agents though, a siren's song tempted them in an altogether different direction.
Green gazed into brown, the air crackling for an indeterminable amount of time until a door snapped shut close by and the women jumped, eyes smiling as they met again from beneath lowered lashes.
Myka took a hesitant step forward and then another. She reached out, the tips of her fingers coming to rest across the delicate skin of pale wrists, eliciting a shiver that rippled down the inventor's spine, making her breath catch.
"Myka," Helena's voice trembled.
Thoughts whirred erratically amidst the fluttering excitement of need and want. Myka unconsciously licked her lips, her fingers playing along forearms, closing softly to claim, pausing on the cusp of taking what was hers. Should she throw caution to the wind for one night? Her first time with Helena had been a rushed, if passionate affair on the couch in Leena's library. While wonderful in its own way, the memory, for Myka, was forever tainted by the retrospective knowledge that the newly reinstated agent had been plotting to betray her at the time. Helena's memory of their first time didn't have to be the same though.
Hands now gripping the American's elbows, HG took in the fire behind green eyes and swallowed.
Something had to break. If they stood as they were for much longer, someone would catch a glimpse of their charge-filled almost-embrace and all of their careful behaviour, and lucky moments alone, would be spoilt. It was all very well to be suspected of an indiscretion but quite another to be caught in the act. Helena found herself, for the first time, thinking of the consequences to finally killing her reputation. She moved ever so slightly closer to her bedroom door, tugging the future agent with her.
"Just this night," HG whispered, her voice tight with anticipation.
Myka followed the lead, entering the young inventor's room, her mouth finding Helena's before the door had closed behind her back. Forced against the heavy wood, she felt her lover fumble with the lock and then heard it slide into place. She hummed her approval as the Victorian's hands slid around to her lower back and the lengths of their bodies pressed together. Raven hair felt silky and cool against her hands but she burned inside, each caress of Helena's lips stoking the fire.
Using the door as leverage, she stepped forward, guiding them further into the room. She tugged at strong roots, encouraging her lover's head to tilt backward, leaving a long expanse of neck vulnerable to hungry lips.
Myka fell upon Helena's skin like a parched woman discovering an oasis. Feeling the inventor's heartbeat race along her throat spurring her onward, she brought her teeth and tongue to an exposed earlobe. HG's legs buckled and she grabbed the American's hips as a strangled moan escaped, echoing around the room.
Finding her voice in pieces, Helena held on tightly to Myka's dress and uttered, "Darling... we would do well... to keep the volume... to a minimum."
"Then I suggest you learn how to be quiet, Helena," Myka whispered unapologetically into the shell of an ear. She ran her fingers along the top of HG's dress and, one by one, teased open the fastenings. Her mouth captured the gasp that fell from her partner's lips before she added, "I'm going to make love to you and I intend to take my time."
Eyes closing, the inventor swallowed her sudden nerves and focussed on the feeling of Myka's hands as they continued to work on her clothing. Where had this adolescent anxiety come from? She was HG Wells for crying out loud; women were putty in her hands, not the other way around. When her eyelids fluttered open and she found her lover's intense gaze pinning her again, she quickly realised that the difference was in how she felt about this particular woman. Previous trysts were flesh on flesh with little consideration for feelings. Loving Myka amplified every sensation to the point of being overwhelming. She was buggered if she was going to let a little thing like nerves damped their evening though.
Myka listened to her instincts as she watched the play of emotions pass across her favourite shade of brown. She didn't stop in her motions, but took her time until a fierce determination stared back at her and she leant in to meet Helena's lips halfway.
It took a great deal more time than the future agent was used to for them to rid each other of their many layers. Never before had Myka felt so much appreciation for a simple shirt and pants combination. After much internal cursing and impatient fumbling, she drew Helena under the covers and pulled her close, hands and lips immediately exploring curves and plains. She drank in every gasp, groan and sigh that she could until she could resist temptation no longer and moved south to wrap her lips around a straining nipple.
Thinking of her fiancée, Myka pushed Helena's body to its limit as she relearned her shape, her taste, the pillow-muffled sound of her voice and combined scent of their love. Her own pleasure peaked with the Victorian's often enough that she was sated and exhausted by the time they lay together, on the brink of sleep and HG began to complain in hoarse tones that she had barely been given chance to embark on any exploring of her own. After one or two fatigued attempts to rekindle the flame, Myka chuckled lightly at the expression of frustration on Helena's face and pulled her close to kiss away her pout.
"You'll get your chance, Helena. We'll have the rest of our lives together to spend the occasional night making love until the early hours." She smiled into the crook of her lover's neck. "We have our honeymoon to look forward to."
"You will make sure they return my memories to me in a timely fashion?" the inventor queried, her one comforting thought being the little amount of time that she would be consciously aware of Myka's absence.
"I promise." Myka wrapped her arms further around the figure beside her and automatically placed both hands over her belly when HG turned over into the spooned position. "I know I've told you this several times tonight, but I don't think I can say it enough; I love you, Helena. Always and forever."
The Brit turned her head just enough to gaze into intense green and felt her world swim in their depths. She met Myka in a slow, reassuring kiss before relaxing back into her arms. "I love you too, darling."