![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
st_aurafinaTitle: Give Us Those Nice Bright Colours
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG
Pairing: Myka Bering/H.G. Wells
Summary: Of all the Artifacts to smuggle out of the Warehouse, a View-Master is not the most practical, but Myka intends to save the world.
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2010. Thank you to my betas,lilacsigil and minkhollow. Title from Paul Simon's Kodachrome.
Of all the Artifacts to smuggle out of the Warehouse, a View-Master is not the most practical. Not the worst, not by a long shot, but when you don't have a lot of curves, the hard corners and protruding lenses don't tuck inside your jacket with ease. Myka feels bad about the letters she wrote as a distraction, though every single word is sincere. She is not a manipulative person by nature, but she needs to get away.
In the car, she rests her hands on the wheel to catch her breath. She needs to harden up and get used to deception if she's going to save the world. Saving the world, in this case, requires lie upon lie upon lie.
Breaking the law itches like cheap hotel sheets. In Sioux Falls, Myka gives herself a twenty-four hour period to commit to the decision.
"There have to be rules," she says to herself. She speaks out loud; Pete's voice is a stinging absence in the otherwise silent room. She has stolen an Artifact from the Warehouse; now she must keep herself apart from the likes of MacPherson and – yes, let's say her name, now – Helena. If she is very clear about her purpose, she will be able to do this right.
She picks up the hotel pen and writes a list of directives on the stationery: I will remain a good person, she writes; I will trust myself to make the right decisions. It doesn't convince her. Surely they've all written these lists; the people who stole from the Warehouse, the people in Warehouse prisons, the people who have been bronzed. Helena.
Of all the Artifacts to silently judge you from across the room, a View-Master is certainly one of the more ridiculous.
Before she turns down her bed, Myka adds to her list the one rule she's certain the others did not: I will not take a life. No quest is so important that it is worth more than a life, not even saving the world. Killing people to save the world is worse than deception, it's cowardly. In the morning, she underlines the last item on her list then tears the page off and folds it into a tiny pellet which she tucks into the back of her shoe. It presses against her Achilles tendon while she checks out of the hotel. With every step, she remembers the things on the list. This is evidence that she is completely sane.
Of all the things Myka has ever done in her life, this is the most terrifying.
The prototype View-Master is a long way from the bright plastic Mickey Mouse shaped device Myka had as a child; it is a sombre black and opens like a clam. The viewing discs are different, too: the lettering is archaic, the board thicker and more substantial in her hand. It is less of a toy, and more of an instrument. For Myka this somehow makes everything easier.
She turns the golden disc in her hand, reading the tiny, hand-lettered legend beneath each square of film. At 'Sunny Cuba! Holiday Isle of the Tropics!' she slots the disc into the View-Master and snaps it closed. The device hums with unnatural vigour, a pulse she has come to associate with Artifacts. It is the same thing that draws Pete to meddle with exactly the wrong thing on the shelf. She raises the View-Master to her eyes. It's time to save the world. She's done it before. It's not impossible.
Cuba! Holiday Isle of the Tropics!
Of all the Artifacts in the Warehouse, a View-Master offers a better-than-real perspective.
She's chosen a decommissioned airfield as her starting place. As far as she can surmise from Artie's limited and impractical notes on the device, one needs a lot of open space to use it. Her eyes take a moment to focus through the lenses and then suddenly she tastes pineapple and rum at the back of her throat. The sparse, frozen grass of the South Dakota airfield falls away, and under her feet she feels sand, warm even through the soles of her shoes. The airfield is gone. Instead she sees Cuba in 1930s technicolour; bright colours washed pastel by intense light. Glamorous but faceless men and women watch the ocean with impassive expressions, drinks in hand.
She has memorised the layout of the prison: she had one glimpse of the floor plan before Artie whisked it away from his screen. One glimpse told her exactly which Artifact to take, and how she can use it to set Helena free.
Now, in the vista of 1930s Cuba, she counts her steps. The pellet presses into her heel as she walks down narrow streets and beside low-rise stucco walls plastered with fliers. When her counting stops, she is standing in front of a boy and his barrow. His donkey is wearing a straw hat, and it watches her suspiciously with ears pressed back.
When she lowers the View-Master, she remains in Cuba, but it is the Cuba of today and she is standing inside the prison. Pastel colour bleeds out from her vision, leaving only a wash of fluorescent white on concrete. Myka is standing in a cell, and Helena watches her curiously. The only hint of tropical paradise is the thick and humid air.
Day-glo orange is an extremely unflattering colour for Helena.
Helena cracks a hand across Myka's face before she has a chance to explain. "You have a career! What are you thinking?"
The slap is a shock and it breaks Myka's elevated mood like an egg. She steps back, stumbles because there's something in her shoe, then whacks her forehead on the bars of the cell.
Helena sighs, and tears a strip off her regulation-issue tank-top. Sitting on the narrow bunk, she helps Myka pack her nose.
"I wab cubbing to sabe you." Myka snuffles and winces while Helena mercilessly shoves the cotton further into her nostrils. There's blood on Helena's jumpsuit, and the purple-blue light of the fluorescent tube suspended far above them turns the stain black.
"I don't want you to save me." It's easy to believe Helena was a mother from the way she pushes Myka's head down and rubs the back of her neck with detached efficiency. "Why do you do these stupid, stupid things? Do you want to share a cell with me? I can assure you, the showering facilities are absolutely splendid."
Myka sits up, gingerly pinching the bridge of her nose. "Bronzing you didn't give you the answers you wanted. Trying to destroy the world didn't make things better, either. I don't think locking you in a cell is good for you or the world." She leans against Helena's arm, trapping it in place against the cinderblock. "That conversation by the caldera? I don't ever want anyone to have that conversation again. Ever."
Helena shifts uncomfortably on the thin mattress. "That wasn't your fault. I didn't ask for an intervention." Her mouth twists around the unfamiliar word. "Isn't that what they say on the talk shows?"
Myka remembers the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead and the way Helena's hand trembled. There is a reason she is here. "You are my responsibility. And this isn't an intervention; it's a rescue. "
Helena leans against the wall, slumped against Myka's body. "Well, let's get on with it, then."
Myka opens the View-Master, passes Helena the photo reel. There are six pairs of images remaining. "Where would you like to go next?"
Myka is surprised that the day-glo orange is not so bad, up close. With Helena's arms wrapped around her, she raises the View-Master to her eyes.
Sunny Brighton, Historic Health Resort
Of all the journeys she has anticipated most, this one is suddenly too short.
Brighton Pier is a jumble of sensations, both in the virtual light of 1930s technicolour and in modern afternoon light. When she lowers the View-Master, Myka finds the place overwhelming, discordant music and delighted shrieks underscored by the rumble of waves. Helena, though, seems completely at home. She stands on the pier, waist deep in bobbing heads as a thundering crocodile of shouting children parts around her. It's strange to see her smile; the softness in her face and in the set of her shoulders, with her hands lifted up above her head so that the children can run past freely.
When she catches Myka staring, Helena's face closes, shutters slamming down like the stalls on the pier at the end of the day. Embarrassed, Myka turns to the row of signs hawking various ways to lose money. "So, why are the coconuts shy, exactly?"
Helena makes that face: part scorn and part amusement. "Americans." She turns and walks to the end of the pier, where straggling tourists are leaning over the barrier, looking down into the ocean.
Myka steps carefully over chip packets and other rubbish whipped up by the wind. "Look, maybe this wasn't the best place to come after all." She should have thought, she should have realised there would be children here, that this place was too close to home. Her shoe sticks to the ground, glued down by something caramelised in the weak English sun. The paper pellet slips under her heel where it gives her a painful jab. She is terrible at this stuff.
"What did you think would happen?" Helena is angry now, and Myka doesn't have any ideas left. "That I'd be so charmed by your clever rescue, that I'd show you all my childhood haunts and we'd have a jolly laugh? And then what happens, Myka? Why are you doing this?"
"You shouldn't be in prison, you didn't do anything wrong. Nothing that can't be explained by grief." Myka clings to the truth of this, despite the fury that storms across Helena's face.
"You look at the world through rose-coloured glasses. You... you child! How dare you impose your ideas on me! How dare you try to understand what I have seen and done!" Helena is so tense, her body almost hums with anger. Myka is afraid to touch her; sparks could fly from Helena's skin, discharging in the humid air and burning Myka's fingertips.
"I don't understand, I don't pretend to understand – I could never! The things you have done, you've done them because you want to heal. You want things to change. Letting people lock you in a cell is not an answer. It will only hurt you more."
"You don't know the first thing about me," says Helena, a sneer curling her lip. "You have no idea the lengths to which I will go." She snatches the View-Master from Myka's hands and backs away until she is against the rail. Then she flips the lever to shift the image, and raises the device to her eyes.
Myka launches herself at Helena's body and they both tumble off the pier, arms and legs wrapped around each other. The water, dirty grey-green with sudsy scum, turns a brilliant technicolour blue that is warm and buoyant.
Exotic Japan, Treasure of the Far East
Of all the mistakes Helena has made, underestimating Myka is one of the more foolish.
Myka knows when the View-Master is no longer at Helena's eyes, because the cerulean waters become indigo and bone-chillingly cold. The chill makes her memory work faster; the next image down was a coastal view of Okinawa, shot from close to the shore. They've appeared in Southern Japan. It's night, and Helena is drowning. Unprotesting, arms limp, she falls away into murky darkness.
In smooth and practiced movements, Myka has them both at the surface. By moonlight, she locates the shore, then supports Helena's head while she kicks through the water till she feels land under her feet. She doesn't even lose her shoes.
On the shore, on hands and knees, Helena retches inelegantly onto the pebbly sand. The two of them loll on the beach, heaving for breath, with tiny rocks poking them through their drenched clothes. The air is heavy and humid, and somewhere in the jungle behind them something is noisily killing a bird. The night sky is incredibly clear and close, even for someone accustomed to the wilds of South Dakota.
In the moonlight, Helena's face is lean and dangerous. "Why do you keep pulling me back? Are my intentions so unclear to you?"
There is salt still in Myka's mouth; she can feel it drying on her lips. "You think you know what you're doing, but you're wrong."
Quick as a snake, Helena has Myka pinned to the sand. The heels of her hands jab into Myka's arms and Helena's knees grip her tight at her hips. She shakes Myka, thumping her shoulders against the sand. "Stop it! Stop looking at me like that! Like you know me. You don't know anything about me!"
Myka could throw her off, she has the reflexes and the training, but her heart is still racing after the exertion of swimming and she would rather keep still while Helena rages above her. With a backdrop of low-hanging stars, Helena is beautiful and terrible and Myka cannot catch her breath. She is afraid that if she moves, Helena will shatter.
This must show in her face because Helena stops, traces her fingers over Myka's lips. "Oh, god. I don't want this. I don't have anything to give you, Myka." Her voice cracks as she speaks. Myka wonders if her lips taste of the sea, too.
Her hand is stroking Helena's knee where it presses against her hip, tiny, gentle movements that Helena probably can't even feel through the thick prison jumpsuit. Let me help you, Myka is saying. You're not alone.
"I have to go." Helena hauls herself upright, stumbles through the wet sand to where the View-Master lies abandoned, oozing salt-water and glowing faintly in the darkness.
Myka scrambles to stand beside her. "Careful, it will tear."
Together, the two of them work in the darkness with sure hands. Helena opens the device, holds it steady while Myka gently shifts the disc. The paper is swollen and pulpy under her fingers; she carefully rotates it by one image. Helena closes the casing then holds the View-Master out for Myka. When Myka raises it to her eyes, Helena steps in close, presses her body in a straight line against Myka's. The sound of the ocean thins but Myka barely notices. Her arm is wrapped around Helena to ensure they make the journey safely together.
Tunisia, Rose of the Sahara
The outer walls of Nefta radiate heat, even after the sun has set. Myka finds a wide, flat stone and places the View-Master disc on it to dry. On the edge of the desert, the darkness is close and the heat intense. Every breath leaves Myka's mouth dry.
"Here," Helena shoves a flask into her hands. Where she managed to snag it from, Myka can't tell, but she sips the cool water thankfully.
It seems right to use words sparingly here. They sit together on the hood of an abandoned sedan with red paintwork scoured by sand. Neither of them looks at the other; they both stare across the gully to the lights at the oasis. Over there, thousands of date palms cluster around a blue green pool. Far away, people are singing.
Myka's back is pressed against the crazed glass of the windshield; the warmth soaks through her damp clothes and into her skin. "You were a good agent. Those few cases we worked? That wasn't for show. You love that work."
"It doesn't matter. In the greater scheme of things, a few moments of happiness don't mean anything." Helena's back is hunched forward, her legs dangle down over the grill.
"They matter. They add up. Grief isn't infinite." Myka sits up. "And even if it is infinite, you're H G Wells! You thought up mind-blowing ideas for novels. You built a time machine. You nearly destroyed civilisation. Next to you, infinity doesn't stand a chance."
Helena turns to look over her shoulder; Myka can see the arch of her eyebrow. "You do not want to get into a mathematical debate with me."
Myka scoots over cracked enamel to sit cross-legged beside her. "You are strong. You love children. You love Artifacts and the way they work. You can't stop seeking out new ideas, even when you're trying to trigger an Ice Age. I want the chance to know that person better. You needed a rest, a chance to heal. Take this chance, Helena."
"Don't misquote me. I was talking about the world." Helena's knees are touching hers now as they sit face to face on the edge of a desert. She edges forward, takes Myka's face in her hands. "Ah. I see."
They are tiny, tentative kisses at first – Myka is still afraid that Helena will break – but once committed, Helena is fearless. Her hand snags in Myka's hair, her mouth roams from Myka's lips to the point of her jaw to the place behind her ear and back again.
Myka, for her part, keeps her arms tight around Helena's body as if she might vanish. Perhaps the adrenaline is wearing off, or she has a hangover from the View-Master's virtual space, but Myka feels oddly brittle. Since she stepped out of the Warehouse, she has been braced for a battle. Now, as much as she'd like to, it is difficult to lay down her armour.
Helena strokes the hair from Myka's face. "You poor thing, you've fought all this way, and you haven't any idea what happens next." She kisses Myka once more, on the cheek, then slides from the hood of the car. She holds out her hand for Myka's. "Come on. There must be a location on that disc where it's morning. Things will be easier when you can see where you're going."
Myka takes her hand. It's odd to realise that when you assume responsibility for another person, they can do the same.
Far-off Australia, Land of Sun and Surf!
Sydney is an oddly European looking city, with grey and elegant architecture, and a melange of people moving in a grimly focused way. In the street-side café, it feels odd to sit back and relax. Helena is much more accomplished at this kind of life, obviously; she wears a neat suit and a pair of dark glasses while she sips tea and watches the people. Myka doesn't ask how she knew which house to break into, the one where the clothes would fit her perfectly – her own stolen shirt is half an inch too short in the arms. Theft is not in her professional purview. Not that Myka has a professional purview anymore. She settles in her chair and waits for her tofu scramble. She is clean, she has coffee. Helena's lips have that tilt of amusement that makes her heart dip. Everything else can wait.
"You should go back to your job." Helena picks up her knife and fork and advances with strategic determination on her full English breakfast.
"I can't go back." Myka cuts her toast in half decisively. "I'm a fugitive now."
Helena laughs, her fork poised halfway between plate and mouth. "I'm sorry, no, you make a terrible fugitive."
"I do not! I have done a fine job of breaking the law on numerous occasions. I'm actually getting quite good at it."
Helena looks at her over the top of her dark glasses. "You wanted to write an apology note to the owners of that house."
"Still," says Myka, defiantly. "When it matters, I did it right." As proof of this, Myka points at the View-Master. It sits, somewhat bedraggled, between them on the table. There is sand dribbling in a slow trickle from a crack in the casing.
"That is true," says Helena. Under the table, her leg is pressed against Myka's. "But those were exceptional circumstances."
Myka can't go back. She's made that decision already, all those miles away in Sioux Falls. She pushes her scramble around on the plate. "What the hell is black pudding, anyway?"
"It's real food, unlike that fraudulent material you are pretending to eat." Helena takes Myka's hand, presses it to her cheek. "Go back. They'll believe you when you say you'll never do it again. I need time to sort things out – I'm not such a fool that I think all my problems are suddenly solved. Let me come to you. I promise I will. And in the meantime, I'll find a place for myself in this world."
The thought of going back to her team, to Pete and Artie, Leena and Claudia, tugs at Myka like a magnet. Anything seems possible, sitting here in the sun with Helena's hand wrapped around hers. "All right. But you have to stay off the radar. Be a good person."
Helena snorts. "I'm afraid I haven't the faintest idea how to be good."
Myka remembers the pellet of paper pressing into her heel, and reaches down to feel inside her shoe. It's still there, despite salt and sand and total immersion. She unfolds the disreputable looking object with the same care she would take with a fifty dollar bill that went through the wash. It's tattered and muddy, worn thin in a few places, but the hand-printed words are still clear.
She pushes it across the table to Helena. "Here. They helped me find my way to you. Maybe they'll help you find your way back to me."
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG
Pairing: Myka Bering/H.G. Wells
Summary: Of all the Artifacts to smuggle out of the Warehouse, a View-Master is not the most practical, but Myka intends to save the world.
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2010. Thank you to my betas,
lilacsigil and minkhollow. Title from Paul Simon's Kodachrome. Of all the Artifacts to smuggle out of the Warehouse, a View-Master is not the most practical. Not the worst, not by a long shot, but when you don't have a lot of curves, the hard corners and protruding lenses don't tuck inside your jacket with ease. Myka feels bad about the letters she wrote as a distraction, though every single word is sincere. She is not a manipulative person by nature, but she needs to get away.
In the car, she rests her hands on the wheel to catch her breath. She needs to harden up and get used to deception if she's going to save the world. Saving the world, in this case, requires lie upon lie upon lie.
Breaking the law itches like cheap hotel sheets. In Sioux Falls, Myka gives herself a twenty-four hour period to commit to the decision.
"There have to be rules," she says to herself. She speaks out loud; Pete's voice is a stinging absence in the otherwise silent room. She has stolen an Artifact from the Warehouse; now she must keep herself apart from the likes of MacPherson and – yes, let's say her name, now – Helena. If she is very clear about her purpose, she will be able to do this right.
She picks up the hotel pen and writes a list of directives on the stationery: I will remain a good person, she writes; I will trust myself to make the right decisions. It doesn't convince her. Surely they've all written these lists; the people who stole from the Warehouse, the people in Warehouse prisons, the people who have been bronzed. Helena.
Of all the Artifacts to silently judge you from across the room, a View-Master is certainly one of the more ridiculous.
Before she turns down her bed, Myka adds to her list the one rule she's certain the others did not: I will not take a life. No quest is so important that it is worth more than a life, not even saving the world. Killing people to save the world is worse than deception, it's cowardly. In the morning, she underlines the last item on her list then tears the page off and folds it into a tiny pellet which she tucks into the back of her shoe. It presses against her Achilles tendon while she checks out of the hotel. With every step, she remembers the things on the list. This is evidence that she is completely sane.
Of all the things Myka has ever done in her life, this is the most terrifying.
The prototype View-Master is a long way from the bright plastic Mickey Mouse shaped device Myka had as a child; it is a sombre black and opens like a clam. The viewing discs are different, too: the lettering is archaic, the board thicker and more substantial in her hand. It is less of a toy, and more of an instrument. For Myka this somehow makes everything easier.
She turns the golden disc in her hand, reading the tiny, hand-lettered legend beneath each square of film. At 'Sunny Cuba! Holiday Isle of the Tropics!' she slots the disc into the View-Master and snaps it closed. The device hums with unnatural vigour, a pulse she has come to associate with Artifacts. It is the same thing that draws Pete to meddle with exactly the wrong thing on the shelf. She raises the View-Master to her eyes. It's time to save the world. She's done it before. It's not impossible.
Cuba! Holiday Isle of the Tropics!
Of all the Artifacts in the Warehouse, a View-Master offers a better-than-real perspective.
She's chosen a decommissioned airfield as her starting place. As far as she can surmise from Artie's limited and impractical notes on the device, one needs a lot of open space to use it. Her eyes take a moment to focus through the lenses and then suddenly she tastes pineapple and rum at the back of her throat. The sparse, frozen grass of the South Dakota airfield falls away, and under her feet she feels sand, warm even through the soles of her shoes. The airfield is gone. Instead she sees Cuba in 1930s technicolour; bright colours washed pastel by intense light. Glamorous but faceless men and women watch the ocean with impassive expressions, drinks in hand.
She has memorised the layout of the prison: she had one glimpse of the floor plan before Artie whisked it away from his screen. One glimpse told her exactly which Artifact to take, and how she can use it to set Helena free.
Now, in the vista of 1930s Cuba, she counts her steps. The pellet presses into her heel as she walks down narrow streets and beside low-rise stucco walls plastered with fliers. When her counting stops, she is standing in front of a boy and his barrow. His donkey is wearing a straw hat, and it watches her suspiciously with ears pressed back.
When she lowers the View-Master, she remains in Cuba, but it is the Cuba of today and she is standing inside the prison. Pastel colour bleeds out from her vision, leaving only a wash of fluorescent white on concrete. Myka is standing in a cell, and Helena watches her curiously. The only hint of tropical paradise is the thick and humid air.
Day-glo orange is an extremely unflattering colour for Helena.
Helena cracks a hand across Myka's face before she has a chance to explain. "You have a career! What are you thinking?"
The slap is a shock and it breaks Myka's elevated mood like an egg. She steps back, stumbles because there's something in her shoe, then whacks her forehead on the bars of the cell.
Helena sighs, and tears a strip off her regulation-issue tank-top. Sitting on the narrow bunk, she helps Myka pack her nose.
"I wab cubbing to sabe you." Myka snuffles and winces while Helena mercilessly shoves the cotton further into her nostrils. There's blood on Helena's jumpsuit, and the purple-blue light of the fluorescent tube suspended far above them turns the stain black.
"I don't want you to save me." It's easy to believe Helena was a mother from the way she pushes Myka's head down and rubs the back of her neck with detached efficiency. "Why do you do these stupid, stupid things? Do you want to share a cell with me? I can assure you, the showering facilities are absolutely splendid."
Myka sits up, gingerly pinching the bridge of her nose. "Bronzing you didn't give you the answers you wanted. Trying to destroy the world didn't make things better, either. I don't think locking you in a cell is good for you or the world." She leans against Helena's arm, trapping it in place against the cinderblock. "That conversation by the caldera? I don't ever want anyone to have that conversation again. Ever."
Helena shifts uncomfortably on the thin mattress. "That wasn't your fault. I didn't ask for an intervention." Her mouth twists around the unfamiliar word. "Isn't that what they say on the talk shows?"
Myka remembers the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against her forehead and the way Helena's hand trembled. There is a reason she is here. "You are my responsibility. And this isn't an intervention; it's a rescue. "
Helena leans against the wall, slumped against Myka's body. "Well, let's get on with it, then."
Myka opens the View-Master, passes Helena the photo reel. There are six pairs of images remaining. "Where would you like to go next?"
Myka is surprised that the day-glo orange is not so bad, up close. With Helena's arms wrapped around her, she raises the View-Master to her eyes.
Sunny Brighton, Historic Health Resort
Of all the journeys she has anticipated most, this one is suddenly too short.
Brighton Pier is a jumble of sensations, both in the virtual light of 1930s technicolour and in modern afternoon light. When she lowers the View-Master, Myka finds the place overwhelming, discordant music and delighted shrieks underscored by the rumble of waves. Helena, though, seems completely at home. She stands on the pier, waist deep in bobbing heads as a thundering crocodile of shouting children parts around her. It's strange to see her smile; the softness in her face and in the set of her shoulders, with her hands lifted up above her head so that the children can run past freely.
When she catches Myka staring, Helena's face closes, shutters slamming down like the stalls on the pier at the end of the day. Embarrassed, Myka turns to the row of signs hawking various ways to lose money. "So, why are the coconuts shy, exactly?"
Helena makes that face: part scorn and part amusement. "Americans." She turns and walks to the end of the pier, where straggling tourists are leaning over the barrier, looking down into the ocean.
Myka steps carefully over chip packets and other rubbish whipped up by the wind. "Look, maybe this wasn't the best place to come after all." She should have thought, she should have realised there would be children here, that this place was too close to home. Her shoe sticks to the ground, glued down by something caramelised in the weak English sun. The paper pellet slips under her heel where it gives her a painful jab. She is terrible at this stuff.
"What did you think would happen?" Helena is angry now, and Myka doesn't have any ideas left. "That I'd be so charmed by your clever rescue, that I'd show you all my childhood haunts and we'd have a jolly laugh? And then what happens, Myka? Why are you doing this?"
"You shouldn't be in prison, you didn't do anything wrong. Nothing that can't be explained by grief." Myka clings to the truth of this, despite the fury that storms across Helena's face.
"You look at the world through rose-coloured glasses. You... you child! How dare you impose your ideas on me! How dare you try to understand what I have seen and done!" Helena is so tense, her body almost hums with anger. Myka is afraid to touch her; sparks could fly from Helena's skin, discharging in the humid air and burning Myka's fingertips.
"I don't understand, I don't pretend to understand – I could never! The things you have done, you've done them because you want to heal. You want things to change. Letting people lock you in a cell is not an answer. It will only hurt you more."
"You don't know the first thing about me," says Helena, a sneer curling her lip. "You have no idea the lengths to which I will go." She snatches the View-Master from Myka's hands and backs away until she is against the rail. Then she flips the lever to shift the image, and raises the device to her eyes.
Myka launches herself at Helena's body and they both tumble off the pier, arms and legs wrapped around each other. The water, dirty grey-green with sudsy scum, turns a brilliant technicolour blue that is warm and buoyant.
Exotic Japan, Treasure of the Far East
Of all the mistakes Helena has made, underestimating Myka is one of the more foolish.
Myka knows when the View-Master is no longer at Helena's eyes, because the cerulean waters become indigo and bone-chillingly cold. The chill makes her memory work faster; the next image down was a coastal view of Okinawa, shot from close to the shore. They've appeared in Southern Japan. It's night, and Helena is drowning. Unprotesting, arms limp, she falls away into murky darkness.
In smooth and practiced movements, Myka has them both at the surface. By moonlight, she locates the shore, then supports Helena's head while she kicks through the water till she feels land under her feet. She doesn't even lose her shoes.
On the shore, on hands and knees, Helena retches inelegantly onto the pebbly sand. The two of them loll on the beach, heaving for breath, with tiny rocks poking them through their drenched clothes. The air is heavy and humid, and somewhere in the jungle behind them something is noisily killing a bird. The night sky is incredibly clear and close, even for someone accustomed to the wilds of South Dakota.
In the moonlight, Helena's face is lean and dangerous. "Why do you keep pulling me back? Are my intentions so unclear to you?"
There is salt still in Myka's mouth; she can feel it drying on her lips. "You think you know what you're doing, but you're wrong."
Quick as a snake, Helena has Myka pinned to the sand. The heels of her hands jab into Myka's arms and Helena's knees grip her tight at her hips. She shakes Myka, thumping her shoulders against the sand. "Stop it! Stop looking at me like that! Like you know me. You don't know anything about me!"
Myka could throw her off, she has the reflexes and the training, but her heart is still racing after the exertion of swimming and she would rather keep still while Helena rages above her. With a backdrop of low-hanging stars, Helena is beautiful and terrible and Myka cannot catch her breath. She is afraid that if she moves, Helena will shatter.
This must show in her face because Helena stops, traces her fingers over Myka's lips. "Oh, god. I don't want this. I don't have anything to give you, Myka." Her voice cracks as she speaks. Myka wonders if her lips taste of the sea, too.
Her hand is stroking Helena's knee where it presses against her hip, tiny, gentle movements that Helena probably can't even feel through the thick prison jumpsuit. Let me help you, Myka is saying. You're not alone.
"I have to go." Helena hauls herself upright, stumbles through the wet sand to where the View-Master lies abandoned, oozing salt-water and glowing faintly in the darkness.
Myka scrambles to stand beside her. "Careful, it will tear."
Together, the two of them work in the darkness with sure hands. Helena opens the device, holds it steady while Myka gently shifts the disc. The paper is swollen and pulpy under her fingers; she carefully rotates it by one image. Helena closes the casing then holds the View-Master out for Myka. When Myka raises it to her eyes, Helena steps in close, presses her body in a straight line against Myka's. The sound of the ocean thins but Myka barely notices. Her arm is wrapped around Helena to ensure they make the journey safely together.
Tunisia, Rose of the Sahara
The outer walls of Nefta radiate heat, even after the sun has set. Myka finds a wide, flat stone and places the View-Master disc on it to dry. On the edge of the desert, the darkness is close and the heat intense. Every breath leaves Myka's mouth dry.
"Here," Helena shoves a flask into her hands. Where she managed to snag it from, Myka can't tell, but she sips the cool water thankfully.
It seems right to use words sparingly here. They sit together on the hood of an abandoned sedan with red paintwork scoured by sand. Neither of them looks at the other; they both stare across the gully to the lights at the oasis. Over there, thousands of date palms cluster around a blue green pool. Far away, people are singing.
Myka's back is pressed against the crazed glass of the windshield; the warmth soaks through her damp clothes and into her skin. "You were a good agent. Those few cases we worked? That wasn't for show. You love that work."
"It doesn't matter. In the greater scheme of things, a few moments of happiness don't mean anything." Helena's back is hunched forward, her legs dangle down over the grill.
"They matter. They add up. Grief isn't infinite." Myka sits up. "And even if it is infinite, you're H G Wells! You thought up mind-blowing ideas for novels. You built a time machine. You nearly destroyed civilisation. Next to you, infinity doesn't stand a chance."
Helena turns to look over her shoulder; Myka can see the arch of her eyebrow. "You do not want to get into a mathematical debate with me."
Myka scoots over cracked enamel to sit cross-legged beside her. "You are strong. You love children. You love Artifacts and the way they work. You can't stop seeking out new ideas, even when you're trying to trigger an Ice Age. I want the chance to know that person better. You needed a rest, a chance to heal. Take this chance, Helena."
"Don't misquote me. I was talking about the world." Helena's knees are touching hers now as they sit face to face on the edge of a desert. She edges forward, takes Myka's face in her hands. "Ah. I see."
They are tiny, tentative kisses at first – Myka is still afraid that Helena will break – but once committed, Helena is fearless. Her hand snags in Myka's hair, her mouth roams from Myka's lips to the point of her jaw to the place behind her ear and back again.
Myka, for her part, keeps her arms tight around Helena's body as if she might vanish. Perhaps the adrenaline is wearing off, or she has a hangover from the View-Master's virtual space, but Myka feels oddly brittle. Since she stepped out of the Warehouse, she has been braced for a battle. Now, as much as she'd like to, it is difficult to lay down her armour.
Helena strokes the hair from Myka's face. "You poor thing, you've fought all this way, and you haven't any idea what happens next." She kisses Myka once more, on the cheek, then slides from the hood of the car. She holds out her hand for Myka's. "Come on. There must be a location on that disc where it's morning. Things will be easier when you can see where you're going."
Myka takes her hand. It's odd to realise that when you assume responsibility for another person, they can do the same.
Far-off Australia, Land of Sun and Surf!
Sydney is an oddly European looking city, with grey and elegant architecture, and a melange of people moving in a grimly focused way. In the street-side café, it feels odd to sit back and relax. Helena is much more accomplished at this kind of life, obviously; she wears a neat suit and a pair of dark glasses while she sips tea and watches the people. Myka doesn't ask how she knew which house to break into, the one where the clothes would fit her perfectly – her own stolen shirt is half an inch too short in the arms. Theft is not in her professional purview. Not that Myka has a professional purview anymore. She settles in her chair and waits for her tofu scramble. She is clean, she has coffee. Helena's lips have that tilt of amusement that makes her heart dip. Everything else can wait.
"You should go back to your job." Helena picks up her knife and fork and advances with strategic determination on her full English breakfast.
"I can't go back." Myka cuts her toast in half decisively. "I'm a fugitive now."
Helena laughs, her fork poised halfway between plate and mouth. "I'm sorry, no, you make a terrible fugitive."
"I do not! I have done a fine job of breaking the law on numerous occasions. I'm actually getting quite good at it."
Helena looks at her over the top of her dark glasses. "You wanted to write an apology note to the owners of that house."
"Still," says Myka, defiantly. "When it matters, I did it right." As proof of this, Myka points at the View-Master. It sits, somewhat bedraggled, between them on the table. There is sand dribbling in a slow trickle from a crack in the casing.
"That is true," says Helena. Under the table, her leg is pressed against Myka's. "But those were exceptional circumstances."
Myka can't go back. She's made that decision already, all those miles away in Sioux Falls. She pushes her scramble around on the plate. "What the hell is black pudding, anyway?"
"It's real food, unlike that fraudulent material you are pretending to eat." Helena takes Myka's hand, presses it to her cheek. "Go back. They'll believe you when you say you'll never do it again. I need time to sort things out – I'm not such a fool that I think all my problems are suddenly solved. Let me come to you. I promise I will. And in the meantime, I'll find a place for myself in this world."
The thought of going back to her team, to Pete and Artie, Leena and Claudia, tugs at Myka like a magnet. Anything seems possible, sitting here in the sun with Helena's hand wrapped around hers. "All right. But you have to stay off the radar. Be a good person."
Helena snorts. "I'm afraid I haven't the faintest idea how to be good."
Myka remembers the pellet of paper pressing into her heel, and reaches down to feel inside her shoe. It's still there, despite salt and sand and total immersion. She unfolds the disreputable looking object with the same care she would take with a fifty dollar bill that went through the wash. It's tattered and muddy, worn thin in a few places, but the hand-printed words are still clear.
She pushes it across the table to Helena. "Here. They helped me find my way to you. Maybe they'll help you find your way back to me."
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 07:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-12 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 12:55 am (UTC)