Chapter Text
“You cannot possibly be serious! You’re actually saying this to me? Honestly! Are you bloody insane?” Helena’s hands came slamming down on Artie’s desk scattering pens and pencils across the surface, many cascading onto the floor and rolling into corners to be immediately forgotten.
“Agent Wells…” Kosan spoke with an air of finality and just a touch of condescension.
“Regent, Adnan,” Helena’s tone was a whisper, a deadly threat gritted out between clenched teeth.
Kosan raised his hands in frustration, turning to Jane Lattimer with a scoff, “This is why none of this was ever a good idea.” He waved a dismissive hand between Helena and Myka, who was standing as far away from the situation as possible, arms folded, trying to pretend as though this wasn’t happening. Kosan clenched his teeth, annoyance radiating off of him, “This is precisely why we cannot have conflicts of interest like this.”
Helena’s voice rose, anger vibrating through her words, “You were the one who made my marriage an issue here. I have shown time and again that I am perfectly capable of remaining objective when it comes to where our agents go and how they operate. I have never once objected to Myka’s assignments. You brought this upon yourself by making it perfectly clear that whatever artifact is in that file is dangerous enough to warrant my being asked to remain in the dark when it comes to my wife going to retrieve it.”
“Hel…” Myka couldn’t stand in the shadows any longer, not when Helena’s tone was reaching a point of no return. She stepped forward and wrapped a placating hand around Helena’s wrist. She could feel the tension in her muscles, could see the way that Helena was putting up the greatest of efforts to keep her palms rigid and flat against the desk, could feel the way she was on the brink of shaking visibly in her anger.
Helena’s eyes flashed with a dangerous glint, her anger immediately flaring and ebbing at the look Myka was giving her, one that was pleading with her to just go along with whatever the rest of the Regents wanted, if even for a few minutes, in order to keep this from devolving into a greater spectacle than it already was. Helena swallowed down a cascade of bitter, vehement words, knowing that Myka was not the deserving recipient of such things. Instead she stood back up from where she had been hunched over Artie’s desk and tucked a hand around Myka’s elbow, pulling them into a corner of the room, shooting a glare at Kosan before whispering, “Myka, I do not like this. If they’re asking me to leave…”
“I know…” Myka closed her eyes, unable to witness the terror that was chasing behind Helena’s eyes. Unconsciously, she twirled her wedding ring around her finger, letting out a deep breath, “You know that artifacts like this, whatever it might be, they have to fall to Pete and I. We’re the senior agents…”
“You could very well be the only agents we have and I still would not be comfortable with this, Myka.”
“We don’t even know what it is yet.”
Helena’s jaw clenched tightly in an effort to keep from shouting, “Do not try to placate me. You can tell me that you think I should leave, but do not try to make me feel better about it, do not downplay how dangerous you know this situation is.”
Myka hung her head, fists balling against her hips, nails digging into the palms of her hands in an effort to keep her own emotion from getting the best of her. She knew Helena was right. If the rest of the Regents felt that this assignment was beyond Helena’s objectivity then that was a problem, a very dangerous, very uncertain problem. Yet, they had made a promise when they got married, when Helena decided to accept this position that they wouldn’t allow their personal life to infringe upon their professional boundaries. It hadn’t always been easy, but they had done it for fifteen years and never run up against anything like this. This was unprecedented, but she didn’t feel capable of telling Helena how worried that made her, there was no reason to add any more concern to what was already an untenable situation. She ran a hand through her curls, dragging them with more force than usual away from her forehead, “I have to hear them out.” Myka heard Helena give a sharp intake of breath as though ready to cut in, but Myka rushed on with her own words in an effort to stall whatever speech Helena was preparing, “You know I have to listen, Helena. You also know that there’s no way I’m going to be able to listen to what is going on here if I can feel you fuming beside me.”
“You want me to leave,” Helena huffed.
“It’s not a matter of want, and you know that. I just…I think this is what we have to do in this particular situation. Trust me that I can figure out whether or not this is a good idea.”
Helena’s entire posture sank, her muscles loosening into a kind of despair. She ran her hands down her face with a groan, “I will go, but Myka…please…just, just please don’t do anything hasty.”
Myka stepped into Helena’s space, not caring that everyone could see them, not caring what Kosan might think. She ran her hands down Helena’s arms, giving her a teasing smirk, “Since when do I do anything hasty?”
Helena rolled her eyes, “I could answer that, however, for the sake of our professional boundaries…”
Myka leaned down and left a soft peck against Helena’s frown, “I appreciate that.”
Helena closed her eyes, willing her panic to ebb, willing her mind to not run through worst-case scenarios, willing herself to heed Myka’s words to trust that she had this under control. She glanced down at her watch, “I suppose one of us should go home, Chris will be home soon.”
Myka shook her head, “Soccer until 5:30 remember?”
Remembrance raced across Helena’s face, “Right. Football.” That drew a soft puff of a chuckle from Myka, and that was enough to diffuse the situation that had been building between them. Helena gave her a teasing grin, “Regardless, I should go home, because if I stay here…”
“Kosan might not leave without a black eye, and I don’t think any of us need that, despite how sexy I might find the idea of you giving it to him,” Myka grinned, giving Helena a quick wink.
“From placating to flirting. You never quite learned how to play fair did you darling?”
“Not when it comes to you, no.”
Helena sighed, “Loving you as much as I do makes it very hard to remain frustrated with you, did you know that?”
Myka’s teeth chased over the corner of her lip, “I might have had an inkling.”
“Well, as long as we are on the same page. Ok,” Helena glanced over towards Kosan who was watching their conversation intently, seemingly uncaring that she noticed his staring. “I am going to go home, under protest, but still…I will do as they asked. Though if we want to talk about conflicts of interest, Pete’s mother is allowed to stay…”
Myka’s eyes widened, “Don’t pull that string, Hel. You do not want to piss of Jane Lattimer.”
Helena rolled her eyes, “Yes, I know. Alright,” she leaned forward and placed a lingering kiss to Myka’s mouth, “I love you.”
“I love you too. I’ll see you in a bit.”
**
Helena knew everything that she had feared about this assignment was true when Myka walked back into their house an hour later. Myka’s mouth was pulled into a tight, thin line, brow knit it consideration, shoulders tense, but the most telling of all was the utter paleness in her cheeks, the exceedingly rare trace of fear that Helena could see in her eyes. She knew Myka had seen more than most Warehouse agents, knew that she had survived more than her fair share of dangerous snags. Helena had witnessed her in action and knew she was more than capable, had seen her handle the most dangerous of situations with aplomb and a level head. In all of their years of working together, never had she seen Myka look quite like this, and that was all she needed to see to set her hands to trembling.
Helena leaned back against the kitchen counter, fingers gripping tightly against it’s edge. She found she couldn’t quite meet Myka’s eye, “It’s as bad as I imagined isn’t it?”
Myka leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, her fingers pinching against the bridge of her nose. When she spoke, her voice caught in her throat, “It’s…it’s not good, no.”
Helena steeled her courage to finally look at Myka, to witness Myka saying what she already knew, what she had known from the second Kosan had asked her to leave the meeting, “You’re going though aren’t you?”
Myka could feel every single one of her muscles lurch in an effort to simply suck in a breath, to find a way to make her mouth form words that she did not want to say, “I am.”
Helena’s teeth bit into her cheek in hopes of stalling the tears that she felt building, “I don’t know if I want you to say that they didn’t give you a choice or that they did.”
“There wasn’t much of one.”
Helena scoffed, “Which is why they didn’t want me to stay. They didn’t want me demanding that you be given a choice.”
“Hel…” Myka took a few, hesitant steps towards Helena who remained unmoving, “You know that with this job there is rarely a choice. This is what we have to do to keep people safe.”
“But what about you, Myka?! Who is going to keep you safe?” Helena’s voice cracked around the last word, her tears finally falling.
Myka closed the remaining space between them, wrapping her arms around Helena’s heaving shoulders, knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to stall her own tears in the face of Helena’s. She felt Helena’s fingers come up and cling to her shoulder blades with a desperation that pled for her to stay, to say she didn’t have to do this, to say that there was a choice. She pressed a fervent kiss to Helena’s temple, whispering against her skin, “You know that Pete and I do everything we can to make sure that we are safe, that the other is protected. I’m not going out there alone. We will be careful. I will come home, Helena.”
Helena’s breath caught in her throat as she pulled back from Myka’s hold enough to look her in the eye with a steely, cold seriousness, “You know you cannot make me that promise, Myka. None of us ever can.”
“I know…”
“Can you at least tell me where you’re going? What you’re going after?”
Myka’s eyes skated away from Helena’s, stealing towards the ground, eliciting an incredulous, despairing laugh from Helena, “Of course not. No, why would I expect that you could…”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Kosan however…”
Myka chuckled softly, “I think he’s officially terrified of you. I mean it’s taken awhile, but still…finally…terrified.”
“He bloody well should be. He would be wise to avoid me until after you have come home, and even then he should take a wide berth.”
Myka chanced a quick look at the clock on the stove before closing her eyes with a sigh, barely able to whisper out, “I need to pack.”
Helena’s voice retreated into resignation, there was nothing left to fight, everything was decided, the only thing left to do was survive and wait for this disaster to be over, “When do you have to leave?”
“I said I wasn’t leaving until after Chris got home. They were ready to load us on a plane immediately. However, there are some things that I’m not willing to go along with, and not saying goodbye to our son is one of them.”
“He’ll be home soon…”
“I know…”
Helena closed her eyes, biting out, “I hate this. I abhor this. I want that on the record.”
Myka let out a saddened, dampened chuckle, “Duly noted.”
Helena nodded, bringing a hand down to link with Myka’s, giving it a light squeeze as she gave a deflated sigh, “Then let’s get you packed.”
**
It took every ounce of strength Myka had in her to keep her composure when Chris walked in the door, sweat-streaked and exuberant from a day at soccer, only to take in her suitcase by the door and shoot her a quick look, a flash of wonder in his eyes, followed by a relaxed slope of his shoulders, as though all of this was just like normal, another trip, another snag, no problem. He gave her a faint kind of smile, “Where to next, Mom?”
Myka swallowed back the lump in her throat, despising the fact that their son had become so accustomed to this facet of their lives, that he no longer second-guessed the suitcases and the long stretches of only having one parent at home, sometimes with little to no information about where the other was or when they were coming home. She felt Helena press a hand into the small of her back, pushing her forward. She reached a hand out to grip around Chris’ arm, giving him a gentle smile, “Let’s go get you a Gatorade, and we can talk ok?”
A ghost of panic raced across Chris’ face, immediately recognizing the seriousness, the very much not normal of this should be normal situation. His eyes darted to Helena, “Mum?”
Helena forced her features to remain still, to remain calm, knowing that it would do absolutely no good for Chris to recognize her own fear, because then he would know that he needed to be worried. For as much as Chris looked like Myka, his hair a soft, messy tangle of dark brown curls, his eyes a blistering, glittering green, for as much as he had her sense of humor and unbridled optimism, Chris’ emotions, his reactions, they were all Helena’s and because of that he always looked to her to gauge how he was supposed to feel in an unknown situation, she was his touchstone amidst uncertainty. Usually, she allowed herself to be open to him, to let him see when she was angry or at peace, frustrated or calm, but tonight, tonight she could not, would not allow their son to see how absolutely terrified she was. She gave him a small smile, “It’s quite alright, Chris. Just go grab something to drink.”
Chris’ eyes were glazed with worry by the time Myka slid a Gatorade to him across the counter, “Mom, where are you going?”
Myka sucked in a deep breath, for these few minutes, for these few precious minutes, she needed to be strong, “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?” Chris’ words were sharp, instinctual, a kid not understanding why his parent would need to keep something from him. “You always tell me and Mum where you’re going.” Something like realization dawned on his face, “Wait…Mum at least knows right? You just can’t tell me…”
Myka shook her head, she loved their son, but damn if she did not hate that he had both of their instinctual natures, “Mum doesn’t know either. It’s confidential…”
“That’s absolutely bloody ridiculous.”
Myka couldn’t stop her laughter, though she knew she needed to, but sometimes he was just so very Helena. She gave him an incredulous look which ended up more bemused than authoritarian, “Language there mister man…”
Chris at least had the grace to look embarrassed, “Sorry…but Mom…this is kind of starting to freak me out…”
Myka watched as his fingers began to tremble around the bottle in his hands, the way all of his early teenage bravado melted away, revealing nothing more than her little boy who looked absolutely petrified. She walked around the counter to rest her hands against his shoulders. He met her eyes, willing her, begging her to tell him that this would be ok. She smoothed back some of his curls that were still plastered to his forehead, “You don’t need to freak out. Come on, you know your mom, I got this.”
He chuckled, “Please don’t try to do the whole act like you’re cool thing.”
Myka scoffed with mock offense, “Hey! I am cool.”
“Uh huh, Mom, whatever you say.”
Myka sighed, she could still see the nerves behind Chris’ thin veneer of teasing, “It will be ok. I will be ok.”
Chris’ teeth chased over the corner of his lip in perfect imitation of Myka, “Mum seems really worried.”
Myka shrugged with a smirk, “Your Mum always worries.”
“That’s true…” Chris paused before asking quietly, “Is Uncle Pete going with you?”
Myka’s muscles tightened, her tone hovering between reassuring and serious, knowing how deeply Chris needed her to be honest with him, “He is. We’ll be together the whole time.”
“And you’ll be careful?”
“We always are, Chris. I have to be,” she gave him a teasing smile, “otherwise who would feed you and Mum?”
Chris let out a small kind of snort, “Don’t let her hear you say that, she’ll be pissed.”
Myka rolled her eyes, “God, you have your mother’s mouth…”
“Hey…I got that one from you.”
Myka sighed and pulled Chris to her, squeezing him tightly around his shoulders, “I love you, like crazy, crazy love you.”
Chris didn’t shy away from Myka’s hold, seeming to recogne the immensity of the moment, seeming to know that he needed to hang on to these few precious moments. Eventually he responded, though his voice was quiet, it was certain, “I love you too, Mom.”
Myka had to force herself to let him go, but not before running a hand through his curls, her voice catching in her throat thickly, “My sweet boy…”
**
Helena was slouched against the front door when Chris and Myka returned from the kitchen. She stood up a bit when Chris approached her with a goofy smile, grabbing his bag from where he had dropped it by the door, “Can we order pizza tonight?”
Helena rolled her eyes, glancing at Myka over his shoulder, “Already avoiding my cooking…”
Chris smirked, looking back at Myka as he moved up the stairs, “Mom put me up to it.”
“Hey!” Myka shouted, “Traitor!”
Chris’ laughter echoed down the stairs, “Be careful, Mom!”
Myka palmed the back of her neck, rubbing absent-mindedly, looking at Helena through half-lidded eyes, “That boy…”
Helena’s laughter was ghostly, distant, might as well have been non-existent, “He is your son, through and through.”
“Yeah…right…you should have heard the words coming out of his mouth in there. He knows more British swear words than American.”
Helena slouched back against the door, eyes straying up the stairs where music was already thrumming through Chris’ walls, “He knows I’m worried.”
Myka nodded sadly, “He does. He’s worried too.”
Helena let out a strangled groan, her nails raking through her hair, “You don’t have to go.”
“Helena…” Myka stepped towards her, reaching a hand out to tangle with hers, “You know I have to.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“No, but,” Myka placed her entire body flush up against Helena’s, “it does mean you need to kiss me before I go.”
Helena raised an eyebrow, “And if I refuse? What if I refuse and simply don’t allow you to leave?”
“Then Kosan will come and drag my ass out of here and I highly doubt either of us would like that scenario.”
Helena sighed, opened her mouth to come up with some sort of response, but closed it quickly, instead opting to pull Myka closer to her by the hips, swallowing the gasp Myka let out at the sudden movement. Helena’s fingers flexed forcefully around Myka’s hips as Myka’s hands rose to tangle in her hair. What started as desperation, a messy tangle of lips and teeth and lost breath, soon settled into something almost mournful, slow in its intent, less of a kiss and more of a memorization of each subtle movement. Myka only pulled away when she felt salt hit her lips, drawing back to thumb away the tears that were tracking down Helena’s cheeks, “I’ll be home before you know it.”
“You better be, otherwise I will apparently end up starving our son.”
Myka chuckled, resting her forehead against Helena’s, “I love you.” Myka’s fingers skated around the ring on Helena’s right ring finger, tracing her finger around the infinity symbol engulfing their birthstones, “I love you to infinity.”
Something akin to a sob raked through Helena’s chest before she forced herself to take a deep breath, gripping onto Myka’s hand, “And I love you, darling…forever.”
Myka let out a shaky sigh, “I have to go.”
“I know…” Helena tilted her head and placed a lighter, much less fevered kiss to Myka’s lips. She forced herself to let go, to let Myka pick up her bag and open the door, but before she walked out, Helena reached out and gripped her wrist, giving her a pleading look, “Please be careful, Myka.”
Myka gave her a small nod, an assured, confident smile, “I promise you, I will.”
**
Helena couldn’t bring herself to watch Myka drive away, instead opting to extract her cell phone from the living room to make a call to their local pizza place, ordering dinner for herself and Chris. The emptiness, the quiet of the house fell around her like a weight, like some inescapable curse that had no end in sight. Without Myka there, without her light, her energy, her joy, the house felt irrevocably different instantly. Helena knew that her worry, her frustration would pull at the subtle echoes of darkness that still ran in her veins despite the years, the decades that had passed since Myka had came into her life and changed everything. She drew in a slow, steady breath, letting it out in an even, measured exhale. The pulse of Chris’ music snaked into her ears, her heart speeding up to match its beat. She couldn’t stop her smile, at least they had each other, for however long Myka was gone. They weren’t alone. She wasn’t alone.
She took the stairs two at a time, willing her body to focus on anything, everything other than Myka’s absence. She knocked on Chris’ door loud enough to drown out the music, “Chris!”
The door swung open quickly, “What’s up, Mum?”
Helena smiled to herself, Myka was right, he was an uncanny, perfect mix of the two of them. She leaned against the doorframe, “The pizza will be here in a half hour.”
Chris gave a slow nod, his sock-clad foot kicking against the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet Helena’s, “So, Mom left?”
Helena ground her teeth, feeling her muscles clench, though her voice betrayed nothing of her tension, only her sadness, “She did.”
Chris’ eyes rose to meet Helena’s, his gaze filled with uncertainty and fear, “You really don’t know where she’s going?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Mum…” Chris’ voice broke slightly, “I’m scared.”
Helena saw tears fall down his cheeks as she pulled him into her hold, fingers coming up to stroke through his curls, “I know my darling boy…I am too.”
Chris’ chest shook as he tried to breathe, “What do we do now?”
Helena lifted his head from her shoulder, thumbing away his tears just as Myka had done to her mere minutes ago. She gave him what she hoped was a confident, hopeful smile, “Now? Now we eat pizza and…we wait.”