For reasons that will become clear - this is a short chapter.

Four Letters M-Y-K-A

When Helena returned from the Keys in Florida, she did two things. She asked Bridget to broker her real estate deal and purchased the island in Myka's name. Then, having acquired another piece of something terrestrial, she looked up and aimed for the stars.

Helena didn't take refusal well, and Bridget was certain she had never worked with a more determined CEO in her life. She knew Helena's net worth was now in the billions, so wanting to purchase a piece of the heavens didn't seem so unreasonable. What struck the investment banker was how clever Helena was at getting around the obstacles to get close. If she couldn't buy the star outright, she would invent something that would travel to it. Even if it took thousands of years.

NASA Space Agency jumped at the opportunity to have a privately funded project. Helena had one stipulation – and she wasn't flexible about it at all. The MYKA'S craft had to take a detour and deliver something back to earth. Period. The spacecraft was ready in no time because – Helena had one. Something she had worked on at the Warehouse. So it was delivered to Florida for inspection and release into space. Before it left, a package was delivered by courier to the Kennedy Space Center and was enclosed in its own return rocket.

And the package was about to descend at its pre-designated time and place.

Helena had seen to every detail and nothing was going to get in her way. Not the weather, not NASA, not the rocket that she had to monitor from her laptop in case there were glitches, not the first concert of the year in the meadow where she now stood, not any New York agency that might have thwarted her attempts to close off Central Park, nor the FAA which had major concerns about disrupting air traffic for a short period of time over the green section of Manhattan.

No one and nothing. There was only one thing Helena hadn't counted on.

Myka disrupting everything.

"Helena, please, I want to do this – now," Myka said and looked into Helena's eyes.

Helena was staring back, but her brain was counting seconds. Wheels were turning fast in her head as she calculated wind, speed, and distance. A voice inside her head yelled - 'NOW?' - as it questioned Myka's timing. Then her logic kicked in and she calculated the possible reasons Myka was insisting on doing this at this very moment.

"Helena, I love you. I have from the minute I felt your presence in your stories and when I dreamed about you. A part of me has always longed to be with you – even before I knew who you really were. The minute I met you, my heart pounded in my chest. I thought I was nervous, but it was telling me – 'That's her, the one you have been waiting for all your life'," Myka said and Helena smiled at how lovely these words were to her ears.

"Are we sure they're coming?" Pete said into his wristwatch communicator.

"That's what we were told," Jane said, next to him.

"Any update?" he asked Claudia, who checked the message system.

"No changes," the techie reported back. Helena had been out of contact for some time now.

"Helena, I have always known deep down what I've wanted. Someone who makes every part of me feel alive and beautiful. Someone, who when they look at me across a crowded room, my heart starts to beat faster. Someone, who when they speak with a freaking adorable accent, my core melts. And when they touch me, sparks erupt in parts of me I never even knew. I want someone, who when they whisper my name in my ear, I would follow them body and soul to the ends of the earth," Myka said.

And then Myka slowly….. bent…. down… on…. one… knee.

Helena looked lovingly down at Myka, grabbing her chest to contain the emotion that swelled inside her.

"You, Helena, are that someone," Myka said, taking Helena's left hand in hers. " I am asking you for a chance. A chance to go through life together from now until the sunset of our days. A chance to take care of you always and do everything I can to make you happy. I want to share your happiness and sorrow. I promise to be there for you every step of the way," Myka said, taking out the small box and opening it to produce her grandmother's diamond ring.

Helena was grasping what was happening as she heard the official countdown in her head. She shouldn't have been surprised that Myka was on the same wavelength as she was. She was just surprised it was right now. And when she looked into green pools of love and adoration, Helena knew this was Myka's shining moment – and Helena would never do anything to take away from that. Even if it meant allowing her gift - that was on its way back from circling the moon - to drop on the ground – unceremoniously and unnoticed.

"Helena George Wells, will you marry me?" Myka asked, taking Helena's hand and placing the round sparkling diamond ring on Helena's finger.

Then Myka looked up into the face she longed to wake up to every day of her life. Lights reflected off the water spilling from Helena's eyes.

"Yes, Myka, yes!" Helena said and Myka jumped up and kissed her.

Myka couldn't remember being as happy as she was in that moment. Helena couldn't remember a time she so willingly gave herself to another.

"Thank you, Helena," Myka whispered and she hugged her. "I love you with all my heart and soul."

"Myka, I …promise I will always be the person worthy of you," Helena said, as Myka wiped a tear from the Brit's cheek.

And then - because Helena's mind had taken wind speed, gravity, migration of birds that nest in Central Park, velocity and distance into account – she slowly turned Myka away from the exact spot where the message from the MYKA'S craft was going to land.

Nothing should take away from this moment.

In Manhattan, if you wanted to keep people out of an area that they wouldn't go in anyway at the hour, you put up a barricade. It has a reverse psychological effect on people, especially those on the island who take umbrage with being told they can't use a part of it.

"Hey, what's going on in the park?" one passerby said and that was all it took. Most assumed it was a movie being filmed in the middle of the night, but there was so much police presence that some suspected something more sinister. People whispered and stopped and finally, a crowd started to build.

"Seriously?" Jane said more than once, thinking they were still awaiting Helena's arrival from the townhouse.

The police didn't expect to have to do crowd control given the hour of the day. The City may not sleep, but its inhabitants were known to. The barricades were Helena's idea – just in case.

"It's unlike her to be late. In fact, something else must be going on," Bridget said to Sarah as they sat on a park bench, under a blanket, sipping hot coffee. Bridget Cummings could turn funerals into an adventure. It was just how she looked at things – never miss a chance to extract fun out of life.

"I see something! I see something!" Pete said because the night vision glasses afforded him a great view.

"Yeah, what is that thing?" Jane said, looking up.

The crowd hushed... as the oblong cylinder attached to its own parachute... floated slowly down to earth.

The other thing Helena didn't account for was the rock the container was going to hit on touchdown.

THUD!

"What was that?" Myka said, turning around quickly.

There were several ways this could have played out. And I know it looked as if Helena was orchestrating everything down to a minutest detail. I hope you will agree – in the end - that she still did.

Thoughts?

Next up – Helena.