Fic: Perhaps not to be (2)
See Part One for warnings
The next day comes, and three things happen.
The first is that Helena runs her hand through her hair, folds her arms, and decides to call a temporary truce with her mind’s insistence on translating her new formlessness into something that roughly correlates to her old body. She thinks loops around herself, and desperately wants to know how her mind can translate movement without any of the physical trappings to which it has become accustomed - the nerves and muscles and electric impulses -because it seems so counter-intuitive.
That said, nomenclature does look to be the least of her current problems.
The second thing that happens is that Myka returns. Helena tracks her, a little warily, as she makes her way from the SUV towards the scorch marks. Her path is steady, sure. This is the Myka Helena recognises, not that strange uncertain creature immediately after the explosion. She doesn’t even falter as she crosses the edge and moves towards the unmarked circle, and then Helena is rising to her feet so that she can step out of Myka’s path. Helena’s face turns towards Myka, instinctive, a flower seeking the sun.
“Myka?” Helena asks, and is instantly furious that her voice should sound so small and childlike.
Myka, however, does not answer. She kneels in the circle where she had been saved and brushes away some of the ashes without seeming to think about it. Her movements are slow and careful, and Helena wonders if Myka’s hands are running through Helena’s ashes - parts of her own body. The possibility is so intimate that it borders on the obscene, and Helena can only wonder if Myka’s fingers would have whispered through her hair so gently if she hadn’t been reduced to ash.
The answer is no, she probably wouldn’t, and Helena realises that this is the closest thing to being touched she has come in some time.
She settles on the ground opposite Myka, and hooks one of her skinny ankles over the other. They’re so close that Myka’s breath tickles the space Helena imagines her forehead to be, so close that she can feel Myka’s body heat. Less than an inch - she need only move her hand slightly to the side, and they could brush against Myka’s fingers, and then-
Helena does so, and Myka’s fingers pass straight through her own without pausing. Then, though, and it’s the best of moments, Myka flexes her fingers a little, and rubs her hands together - trying to warm them from a sudden chill. On some level, Myka can feel her, is aware that Helena still exists.
Helena’s smile feels too wide for her face - she should have known, of course she should have guessed, that astute, no-nonsense Myka would be the one to bring her back into the world. It has always been Myka, after all, who could drag her back towards reality; it was always Myka’s job to remember the piddling little details (like ethics, and legality, and now Helena herself), and it feels so very right, so obvious, that it was always going to be Myka who could bring her back. Helena feels like Christmas mornings, giddy, with the very idea - she wants to do it again, wants to push right up against her friend and cover her in gooseflesh, anything to be acknowledged again.
She doesn’t. There are too many things she doesn’t know, like what if it it’s dangerous, what if it hurts? Helena drops her hands and sits on them for good measure. She doesn’t know, and with no way to check, it seems that Helena will be waiting for some time. She thinks - she would like to think - that it would be different, were it anyone else in the world sitting opposite from her, but it’s Myka. Helena doesn’t want her hurt.
Rather than toy with the dust a little more, Myka begins to rummage through her black gym bag and draws out Helena’s diary, a reproduction of Christina’s photograph, and a small bouquet of flowers. Gerber daisies, unless Helena’s very much mistaken, in bright pinks and yellows and oranges that look absolutely frightful against the site of Sykes’ bomb. Helena adores them immediately.
“It’s not like we can give you a proper funeral,” Myka says just as her eyes drift over Helena’s face. Helena knows, of course, that Myka doesn’t know she’s there really, but the sudden lick of hope that she might pulls Helena taut.
A moment of silence passes. Myka looks at the few objects in her hands.
“Well,” Helena offers, when it seems that Myka has said all she intends to say. “I suppose that would be rather awkward, yes.”
“I mean, what would we even put on the gravestone? ‘H.G. Wells, Yes, that one’?”
“’H.G. Wells, Inventor, Author, Madwoman’?” Helena can almost believe that they are having a real conversation, especially when Myka laughs in that way she has of laughing when nothing amuses her at all.
“’H.G. Wells, Even when she was a hero, she had to screw that up.’”
Myka’s smile vanishes with no more warning than when it had first appeared. Helena frowns at that. “I think that’s a little uncalled for. I did just save your life, after all.”
Myka fidgets with the daisies, teasing at the bright pink petals a little, before continuing. When she does, her words stumble over her lips as though she doesn’t really want to share them either. “We- I mean, you. I know you saved my life, I know. And I guess I’m glad that you saved us all. But-“
“The manner in which I saved your life wasn’t quite to your satisfaction?” Helena’s tone of voice is beyond irritated, it’s downright caustic.
Myka must pick up on that somehow, because when she next starts to speak, her words are wrapped in barbed wire. “You went and killed yourself in front of me. You made me- I thought we had won and then you made me watch you die, I mean, Helena. That’s so selfish, and I can’t forgive you, for making... for pulling a stunt like this.”
Myka pauses to scrub at her eyes, but Helena knows that way she has of scrunching all her body to the side. Myka isn’t sad, she’s livid.
If this really were a conversation, now would perhaps be the ideal moment to explain her reasoning more fully, and potentially reconcile with her old friend. Oh, how they could laugh, as soon as Myka stops being such a self-righteous little sod and gives Helena the chance to justify her actions.
It isn’t, though, and Helena knows that Myka won’t hear anything she has to say. So instead of explaining or apologising, Helena pulls herself up to her full height so that she can tower over Myka’s kneeling form, and says in her most professional tone of voice, “Then I shall endeavour to never inconvenience you by saving your life again, Agent Bering. Good day.”
And with that, she walks precisely three yards to the east before plonking herself down in the dirt and trying to listen to anything other than Myka. In keeping with Helena’s luck as of late, she can hear nothing but the sound of Myka’s jagged breathing and, far away, a cow mooing.
Myka leaves a few minutes later, the diary and the photograph and the lurid daisies piled up neatly in one corner. The diary rests on top of the photograph, which serves to prevent the wind stealing it away but also obscures most of Christina’s face. Helena’s eyes trace the outline of her darling girl’s messy hair, the curve of her neck and shoulder, and she hopes only that Christina knew a better fate than this.
The third thing that happens is that the Warehouse returns.
That isn’t strictly accurate, Helena soon discovers - the ‘spirit’ of the Warehouse, if that is the terminology she is to adopt, returns, but it seems to experience the same half-being as Helena. Both the wooden floor and the scorched earth are visible; she can see straight through stacks and walls and artefacts to the horizon, but she knows that the Warehouse is there - that it exists at least as much as Helena does. That it doesn’t, just as much as she doesn’t, too.
It soon occurs to her that the Warehouse is not an ordinary building, either, and that perhaps it too is trapped in this sham of an afterlife. She holds her nose resolutely against the smell of apples and begins her search: the Warehouse is merely a building, one which doesn’t even exist anymore, and Helena is so very tired of being tired. Her Christina, her baby, must be out there somewhere, and they will never see one another again.
It doesn’t occur to her -even after she’s gone to pick up thirteen separate artefacts and all of them have turned into a replica of the Minoan trident- that Providence might just like screwing with her.
*
Myka does not return the next day, but Claudia does. She walks straight through the ghost of Herodotus’ bust, scuffs marks in the dust with her heels, and Helena tries not to wince. Minutes pass in silence before Claudia opens her mouth to speak.
“So, Steve’s dead,” she begins. Helena knows, actually - isn’t quite sure why she should care, she barely knew the man, but it upsets Claudia, and that’s reason enough right now. “So is... Well, so are a lot of people, actually.”
Helena just nods. Claudia chews on her bottom lip for a few moments, and then she pulls a face and gives an angry smile. “We’ve, uh, probably had better days.”
“Indeed. Though, in all fairness, you have probably had worse.”
Granted, Helena can’t quite think of any just now, but she rather suspects that dying has coloured her perspective. Claudia should be able to name a few. Besides, Agents die, or disappear, or find themselves transformed into egg whisks on a fairly regular basis - the loss of one of their own isn’t all that out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, as she watches Claudia wrap her arms around her middle, and then shrug herself free, unwilling to accept comfort even from herself, Helena’s chest feels unreasonably tight. Claudia’s hurting, and Helena - Helena, who once planned to kill Claudia and everyone like her, because that had felt like the best possible solution - wants to make it stop.
Claudia’s voice tries and fails to sound brave when she tells Helena that Artie has decided to do something, that she will become the new Mrs Frederic. Helena squirms to hear it, and hates herself for feeling so disappointed in them all - of course they need a Caretaker, of course Artie is scared, and of course Claudia will be the one to pay the price. This is how the world works. This is how the Warehouse works.
She half-expects the ghostly Warehouse to find some way to remind her of how she had promised Claudia a brilliant future, once, but it remains quite still. The sound of Claudia’s shaky voice is the only thing she can hear.
Helena reminds herself that she has no reason to care anymore - she’s dead, and the last thing she wants is to alert the Regents to her continued existence lest they find another means of imprisoning her. She feels sorry for Claudia, of course, but that doesn’t make her responsible. It isn’t Helena’s problem - and even if she were the kind of person who would want to help (which she knows she can’t be, because she’s a killer, because she’s no better than the man who used her to do this), there’s still nothing she can do. She quite literally has nothing left to offer, not even her life.
She says as much to Claudia, whispers it in a voice that almost shivers. “Oh, darling, I can’t help you. I can’t. This is none of my concern, and there’s nothing I can do, I...”
That should be an end to it, except Claudia looks so alone and so very small, and her hair is the colour of dying embers. Helena can’t help but reach for her and let her ghostly fingers pass through Claudia’s shoulder. Claudia squirms a little at the not-quite contact, almost as if she can feel Helena, and when she stands up, her eyes are dark and full.
*
Claudia leaves, and Helena lasts all of twenty minutes before she attempts to pass through the barrier again. It proves just as impossible as it had done before. She tries it five, six, seven times, but succeeds only in giving herself an almighty headache.
“It’s just as well that I’m learning this information now rather than later,” she growls, and then she sinks to the floor and holds her head in her hands. Her fingernails push deep into the skin above her eyebrows like she’s trying to reach the bone, and all she can do right now is hold herself and wait for the pain to subside.
Helena is a lot of things, but she knows that she isn’t this noble and self-sacrifice has no business becoming such a pastime of hers. She massages her temples a little, and gets to her feet; she thinks, Frankly, if this is what it means to have a conscience, I was a damn sight better off without it, and tries again anyway.
*
The pounding in her head does not ease in the least, no matter how many times Helena reminds herself that she does not possess pain receptors. If anything, it only grows worse. There must be an easier way than this, Helena thinks, and instantly finds herself on the floor of Myka’s bedroom.
The room is empty. There’s no sign of Myka, or any artefact that could be interfering now, and Helena can afford to be a little confused.
“Ah, Myka? Are you there?” No answer; not that Myka would be able to hear her, not even if they were standing on top of one another. “Can anybody else hear me?"
Still nothing. Helena lets out a great sigh, and looks around the room a little more. It looks much as Myka’s room has always appeared - her shoes are neatly regimented at the foot of her bed, with all her clothes folded inside the chest of drawers or the wardrobe. Each book on the bookshelf has been pulled out so that the front cover rests precisely one quarter of an inch from the edge of the shelf; Helena runs her fingers along their spines, and is a little surprised to feel Swallows and Amazons give, move ever so slightly further back. It almost doesn’t seem possible, actually, but there it is - a little dip in the bob bob bob in the second row, and the book is set half an inch further back than the others.
Aces! Helena claps her hands together, and then pushes her fingertips into the tiny indent. It’s there, proof - tangible, more real than chilly fingers. She doesn’t know what it means just yet, and she has no idea how it actually happened, but she is here, in Myka’s bedroom, able to change some things. It feels like an opportunity.
It is also a mystery, which may yet be solved: how had Helena vacated the ruins of the Warehouse, despite that thrice-damned border which kept her from poking a toe past its edges? Helena has been trying to leave for some time now; she knows that she cannot be the only factor at play. It’s rather difficult to imagine that any divine being would have need of her services now, and so it seems that any explanation must be rather more mundane.
“Well,” Helena concedes, “As mundane as is currently possible, I suppose.”
With a small smile, Helena turns towards the rest of Myka’s room. Nothing seems out of place, save perhaps the rather tatty stuffed bear perched on her pillow. Myka- Helena remembers Myka being neat, certainly, but not this neat. Helena looks at the bear, notices how his arms and legs have been spread carefully so the bed remains exactly symmetrical, and that tiny gap between Swallows and Amazons and its place in Myka’s line looks immense. Helena moves back towards the bookshelf and tries to pull it forward, but her fingers drift through the cover as easily as if they were made of smoke. Before she can fumble for the book a second time, Helena hears someone in the hall.
“Oh, blast,” she mutters, and tries to pull the book back into place. She succeeds only in bumping her knuckles against the shelf with a soft thump.
“Someone there?” That’s Pete’s voice, Helena knows, and his footsteps move towards Myka’s door.
“Yeah,” she hears Claudia respond - it isn’t quite a yell, but there’s absolutely nothing friendly in the sound, and Pete seems to recognise this, too. His footsteps stop abruptly, and he doesn’t say anything for a little while. Helena doesn’t know why - it’s ridiculous; this is none of her concern, and besides, Lattimer wouldn’t notice her presence if she stood nude before him singing the national anthem - but she falls silent too. Claudia doesn’t offer anything else, however, and Pete shuffles his feet away down the hall without another word.
Helena drops her hands back towards the book and tries to tug it back into place, but something doesn’t quite work - her fingers don’t hold right, the book pushes through them, and she can’t quite remember all the different movements involved in lifting one item and moving it a little closer. This is all perfectly reasonable, she informs Myka’s bedroom, as muscle memory does seem to imply the continued presence of actual muscles. She moves as if to sit on the edge of the bed, and the bear shifts ever so slightly. The movement is just enough to make it seem as though he is nodding in agreement, and Helena, half-starved for an audience, welcomes the sign with a touch more enthusiasm than even she had expected.
“I know,” she tells the bear - Woolly, she decides. The expression in its dark glass eyes reminds her a little of Wolcott - “The absence of my body does seem to reveal an awfully strong desire to communicate my experiences of the world in physical terms.”
Needless to say, Woolly the bear does not respond.
The prospect of waiting in Myka’s bedroom indefinitely doesn’t particularly appeal, so Helena gives a little salute towards Woolly, and goes to stand up. As she does so, she catches sight of a very familiar shine in the spot where she first appeared - the chain of her locket, and yes, Helena sees now, the locket itself, the one containing Christina’s image. It is lying in the very middle of Myka’s floor, not quite near enough a desk or piece of furniture to have fallen there by accident. The chain is unclasped but intact - Helena feels an odd little burst of pride there, for this locket has now weathered a potentially world-ending explosion and is still in good shape. She can’t truly say the same about herself, of course, but her locket - one made and kept and treasured, for her darling girl’s sake - now, that means something.
She laughs a little at that, just to realise what it may also mean now.
“Haunting a locket and a patch of charred earth.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Oh, well.”
Dear Lord, it wouldn’t even be the most melodramatic thing she’s ever done.
Part Three
The next day comes, and three things happen.
The first is that Helena runs her hand through her hair, folds her arms, and decides to call a temporary truce with her mind’s insistence on translating her new formlessness into something that roughly correlates to her old body. She thinks loops around herself, and desperately wants to know how her mind can translate movement without any of the physical trappings to which it has become accustomed - the nerves and muscles and electric impulses -because it seems so counter-intuitive.
That said, nomenclature does look to be the least of her current problems.
The second thing that happens is that Myka returns. Helena tracks her, a little warily, as she makes her way from the SUV towards the scorch marks. Her path is steady, sure. This is the Myka Helena recognises, not that strange uncertain creature immediately after the explosion. She doesn’t even falter as she crosses the edge and moves towards the unmarked circle, and then Helena is rising to her feet so that she can step out of Myka’s path. Helena’s face turns towards Myka, instinctive, a flower seeking the sun.
“Myka?” Helena asks, and is instantly furious that her voice should sound so small and childlike.
Myka, however, does not answer. She kneels in the circle where she had been saved and brushes away some of the ashes without seeming to think about it. Her movements are slow and careful, and Helena wonders if Myka’s hands are running through Helena’s ashes - parts of her own body. The possibility is so intimate that it borders on the obscene, and Helena can only wonder if Myka’s fingers would have whispered through her hair so gently if she hadn’t been reduced to ash.
The answer is no, she probably wouldn’t, and Helena realises that this is the closest thing to being touched she has come in some time.
She settles on the ground opposite Myka, and hooks one of her skinny ankles over the other. They’re so close that Myka’s breath tickles the space Helena imagines her forehead to be, so close that she can feel Myka’s body heat. Less than an inch - she need only move her hand slightly to the side, and they could brush against Myka’s fingers, and then-
Helena does so, and Myka’s fingers pass straight through her own without pausing. Then, though, and it’s the best of moments, Myka flexes her fingers a little, and rubs her hands together - trying to warm them from a sudden chill. On some level, Myka can feel her, is aware that Helena still exists.
Helena’s smile feels too wide for her face - she should have known, of course she should have guessed, that astute, no-nonsense Myka would be the one to bring her back into the world. It has always been Myka, after all, who could drag her back towards reality; it was always Myka’s job to remember the piddling little details (like ethics, and legality, and now Helena herself), and it feels so very right, so obvious, that it was always going to be Myka who could bring her back. Helena feels like Christmas mornings, giddy, with the very idea - she wants to do it again, wants to push right up against her friend and cover her in gooseflesh, anything to be acknowledged again.
She doesn’t. There are too many things she doesn’t know, like what if it it’s dangerous, what if it hurts? Helena drops her hands and sits on them for good measure. She doesn’t know, and with no way to check, it seems that Helena will be waiting for some time. She thinks - she would like to think - that it would be different, were it anyone else in the world sitting opposite from her, but it’s Myka. Helena doesn’t want her hurt.
Rather than toy with the dust a little more, Myka begins to rummage through her black gym bag and draws out Helena’s diary, a reproduction of Christina’s photograph, and a small bouquet of flowers. Gerber daisies, unless Helena’s very much mistaken, in bright pinks and yellows and oranges that look absolutely frightful against the site of Sykes’ bomb. Helena adores them immediately.
“It’s not like we can give you a proper funeral,” Myka says just as her eyes drift over Helena’s face. Helena knows, of course, that Myka doesn’t know she’s there really, but the sudden lick of hope that she might pulls Helena taut.
A moment of silence passes. Myka looks at the few objects in her hands.
“Well,” Helena offers, when it seems that Myka has said all she intends to say. “I suppose that would be rather awkward, yes.”
“I mean, what would we even put on the gravestone? ‘H.G. Wells, Yes, that one’?”
“’H.G. Wells, Inventor, Author, Madwoman’?” Helena can almost believe that they are having a real conversation, especially when Myka laughs in that way she has of laughing when nothing amuses her at all.
“’H.G. Wells, Even when she was a hero, she had to screw that up.’”
Myka’s smile vanishes with no more warning than when it had first appeared. Helena frowns at that. “I think that’s a little uncalled for. I did just save your life, after all.”
Myka fidgets with the daisies, teasing at the bright pink petals a little, before continuing. When she does, her words stumble over her lips as though she doesn’t really want to share them either. “We- I mean, you. I know you saved my life, I know. And I guess I’m glad that you saved us all. But-“
“The manner in which I saved your life wasn’t quite to your satisfaction?” Helena’s tone of voice is beyond irritated, it’s downright caustic.
Myka must pick up on that somehow, because when she next starts to speak, her words are wrapped in barbed wire. “You went and killed yourself in front of me. You made me- I thought we had won and then you made me watch you die, I mean, Helena. That’s so selfish, and I can’t forgive you, for making... for pulling a stunt like this.”
Myka pauses to scrub at her eyes, but Helena knows that way she has of scrunching all her body to the side. Myka isn’t sad, she’s livid.
If this really were a conversation, now would perhaps be the ideal moment to explain her reasoning more fully, and potentially reconcile with her old friend. Oh, how they could laugh, as soon as Myka stops being such a self-righteous little sod and gives Helena the chance to justify her actions.
It isn’t, though, and Helena knows that Myka won’t hear anything she has to say. So instead of explaining or apologising, Helena pulls herself up to her full height so that she can tower over Myka’s kneeling form, and says in her most professional tone of voice, “Then I shall endeavour to never inconvenience you by saving your life again, Agent Bering. Good day.”
And with that, she walks precisely three yards to the east before plonking herself down in the dirt and trying to listen to anything other than Myka. In keeping with Helena’s luck as of late, she can hear nothing but the sound of Myka’s jagged breathing and, far away, a cow mooing.
Myka leaves a few minutes later, the diary and the photograph and the lurid daisies piled up neatly in one corner. The diary rests on top of the photograph, which serves to prevent the wind stealing it away but also obscures most of Christina’s face. Helena’s eyes trace the outline of her darling girl’s messy hair, the curve of her neck and shoulder, and she hopes only that Christina knew a better fate than this.
The third thing that happens is that the Warehouse returns.
That isn’t strictly accurate, Helena soon discovers - the ‘spirit’ of the Warehouse, if that is the terminology she is to adopt, returns, but it seems to experience the same half-being as Helena. Both the wooden floor and the scorched earth are visible; she can see straight through stacks and walls and artefacts to the horizon, but she knows that the Warehouse is there - that it exists at least as much as Helena does. That it doesn’t, just as much as she doesn’t, too.
It soon occurs to her that the Warehouse is not an ordinary building, either, and that perhaps it too is trapped in this sham of an afterlife. She holds her nose resolutely against the smell of apples and begins her search: the Warehouse is merely a building, one which doesn’t even exist anymore, and Helena is so very tired of being tired. Her Christina, her baby, must be out there somewhere, and they will never see one another again.
It doesn’t occur to her -even after she’s gone to pick up thirteen separate artefacts and all of them have turned into a replica of the Minoan trident- that Providence might just like screwing with her.
*
Myka does not return the next day, but Claudia does. She walks straight through the ghost of Herodotus’ bust, scuffs marks in the dust with her heels, and Helena tries not to wince. Minutes pass in silence before Claudia opens her mouth to speak.
“So, Steve’s dead,” she begins. Helena knows, actually - isn’t quite sure why she should care, she barely knew the man, but it upsets Claudia, and that’s reason enough right now. “So is... Well, so are a lot of people, actually.”
Helena just nods. Claudia chews on her bottom lip for a few moments, and then she pulls a face and gives an angry smile. “We’ve, uh, probably had better days.”
“Indeed. Though, in all fairness, you have probably had worse.”
Granted, Helena can’t quite think of any just now, but she rather suspects that dying has coloured her perspective. Claudia should be able to name a few. Besides, Agents die, or disappear, or find themselves transformed into egg whisks on a fairly regular basis - the loss of one of their own isn’t all that out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, as she watches Claudia wrap her arms around her middle, and then shrug herself free, unwilling to accept comfort even from herself, Helena’s chest feels unreasonably tight. Claudia’s hurting, and Helena - Helena, who once planned to kill Claudia and everyone like her, because that had felt like the best possible solution - wants to make it stop.
Claudia’s voice tries and fails to sound brave when she tells Helena that Artie has decided to do something, that she will become the new Mrs Frederic. Helena squirms to hear it, and hates herself for feeling so disappointed in them all - of course they need a Caretaker, of course Artie is scared, and of course Claudia will be the one to pay the price. This is how the world works. This is how the Warehouse works.
She half-expects the ghostly Warehouse to find some way to remind her of how she had promised Claudia a brilliant future, once, but it remains quite still. The sound of Claudia’s shaky voice is the only thing she can hear.
Helena reminds herself that she has no reason to care anymore - she’s dead, and the last thing she wants is to alert the Regents to her continued existence lest they find another means of imprisoning her. She feels sorry for Claudia, of course, but that doesn’t make her responsible. It isn’t Helena’s problem - and even if she were the kind of person who would want to help (which she knows she can’t be, because she’s a killer, because she’s no better than the man who used her to do this), there’s still nothing she can do. She quite literally has nothing left to offer, not even her life.
She says as much to Claudia, whispers it in a voice that almost shivers. “Oh, darling, I can’t help you. I can’t. This is none of my concern, and there’s nothing I can do, I...”
That should be an end to it, except Claudia looks so alone and so very small, and her hair is the colour of dying embers. Helena can’t help but reach for her and let her ghostly fingers pass through Claudia’s shoulder. Claudia squirms a little at the not-quite contact, almost as if she can feel Helena, and when she stands up, her eyes are dark and full.
*
Claudia leaves, and Helena lasts all of twenty minutes before she attempts to pass through the barrier again. It proves just as impossible as it had done before. She tries it five, six, seven times, but succeeds only in giving herself an almighty headache.
“It’s just as well that I’m learning this information now rather than later,” she growls, and then she sinks to the floor and holds her head in her hands. Her fingernails push deep into the skin above her eyebrows like she’s trying to reach the bone, and all she can do right now is hold herself and wait for the pain to subside.
Helena is a lot of things, but she knows that she isn’t this noble and self-sacrifice has no business becoming such a pastime of hers. She massages her temples a little, and gets to her feet; she thinks, Frankly, if this is what it means to have a conscience, I was a damn sight better off without it, and tries again anyway.
*
The pounding in her head does not ease in the least, no matter how many times Helena reminds herself that she does not possess pain receptors. If anything, it only grows worse. There must be an easier way than this, Helena thinks, and instantly finds herself on the floor of Myka’s bedroom.
The room is empty. There’s no sign of Myka, or any artefact that could be interfering now, and Helena can afford to be a little confused.
“Ah, Myka? Are you there?” No answer; not that Myka would be able to hear her, not even if they were standing on top of one another. “Can anybody else hear me?"
Still nothing. Helena lets out a great sigh, and looks around the room a little more. It looks much as Myka’s room has always appeared - her shoes are neatly regimented at the foot of her bed, with all her clothes folded inside the chest of drawers or the wardrobe. Each book on the bookshelf has been pulled out so that the front cover rests precisely one quarter of an inch from the edge of the shelf; Helena runs her fingers along their spines, and is a little surprised to feel Swallows and Amazons give, move ever so slightly further back. It almost doesn’t seem possible, actually, but there it is - a little dip in the bob bob bob in the second row, and the book is set half an inch further back than the others.
Aces! Helena claps her hands together, and then pushes her fingertips into the tiny indent. It’s there, proof - tangible, more real than chilly fingers. She doesn’t know what it means just yet, and she has no idea how it actually happened, but she is here, in Myka’s bedroom, able to change some things. It feels like an opportunity.
It is also a mystery, which may yet be solved: how had Helena vacated the ruins of the Warehouse, despite that thrice-damned border which kept her from poking a toe past its edges? Helena has been trying to leave for some time now; she knows that she cannot be the only factor at play. It’s rather difficult to imagine that any divine being would have need of her services now, and so it seems that any explanation must be rather more mundane.
“Well,” Helena concedes, “As mundane as is currently possible, I suppose.”
With a small smile, Helena turns towards the rest of Myka’s room. Nothing seems out of place, save perhaps the rather tatty stuffed bear perched on her pillow. Myka- Helena remembers Myka being neat, certainly, but not this neat. Helena looks at the bear, notices how his arms and legs have been spread carefully so the bed remains exactly symmetrical, and that tiny gap between Swallows and Amazons and its place in Myka’s line looks immense. Helena moves back towards the bookshelf and tries to pull it forward, but her fingers drift through the cover as easily as if they were made of smoke. Before she can fumble for the book a second time, Helena hears someone in the hall.
“Oh, blast,” she mutters, and tries to pull the book back into place. She succeeds only in bumping her knuckles against the shelf with a soft thump.
“Someone there?” That’s Pete’s voice, Helena knows, and his footsteps move towards Myka’s door.
“Yeah,” she hears Claudia respond - it isn’t quite a yell, but there’s absolutely nothing friendly in the sound, and Pete seems to recognise this, too. His footsteps stop abruptly, and he doesn’t say anything for a little while. Helena doesn’t know why - it’s ridiculous; this is none of her concern, and besides, Lattimer wouldn’t notice her presence if she stood nude before him singing the national anthem - but she falls silent too. Claudia doesn’t offer anything else, however, and Pete shuffles his feet away down the hall without another word.
Helena drops her hands back towards the book and tries to tug it back into place, but something doesn’t quite work - her fingers don’t hold right, the book pushes through them, and she can’t quite remember all the different movements involved in lifting one item and moving it a little closer. This is all perfectly reasonable, she informs Myka’s bedroom, as muscle memory does seem to imply the continued presence of actual muscles. She moves as if to sit on the edge of the bed, and the bear shifts ever so slightly. The movement is just enough to make it seem as though he is nodding in agreement, and Helena, half-starved for an audience, welcomes the sign with a touch more enthusiasm than even she had expected.
“I know,” she tells the bear - Woolly, she decides. The expression in its dark glass eyes reminds her a little of Wolcott - “The absence of my body does seem to reveal an awfully strong desire to communicate my experiences of the world in physical terms.”
Needless to say, Woolly the bear does not respond.
The prospect of waiting in Myka’s bedroom indefinitely doesn’t particularly appeal, so Helena gives a little salute towards Woolly, and goes to stand up. As she does so, she catches sight of a very familiar shine in the spot where she first appeared - the chain of her locket, and yes, Helena sees now, the locket itself, the one containing Christina’s image. It is lying in the very middle of Myka’s floor, not quite near enough a desk or piece of furniture to have fallen there by accident. The chain is unclasped but intact - Helena feels an odd little burst of pride there, for this locket has now weathered a potentially world-ending explosion and is still in good shape. She can’t truly say the same about herself, of course, but her locket - one made and kept and treasured, for her darling girl’s sake - now, that means something.
She laughs a little at that, just to realise what it may also mean now.
“Haunting a locket and a patch of charred earth.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Oh, well.”
Dear Lord, it wouldn’t even be the most melodramatic thing she’s ever done.
Part Three