Chapter Text
The eighth time it happens, the artifact retrieval goes without incident. Good old fashioned detective work leads you to a pair of wedding rings in the outskirts of D.C., the artifacts behind a sketchy report of a wedding turning highly awkward for all involved.
Afterward you find yourself lying on the bed in your shared hotel room - the only bed in your shared hotel room, and you wonder if you have the bracelet to thank for that - ostensibly reading the Washington Post for old time's sake. In actuality, you're contemplating where on Earth you can take Helena on a date that might not be a date but you think probably is (even if it is a bit late for all that you've already done) that won't make you feel like the most ridiculous human being ever for taking a woman from the nineteenth century to see. An incredulous laugh from the desk where Helena has been sitting interrupts your thoughts and you look up.
"What is it?"
"I found our artifact," she explains, gesturing to her laptop. "David and Samantha Franklin's wedding rings, first retrieved in 1937."
You really need to have that talk with Claudia. There's no way in hell she should be able to access the Warehouse's database here, from a laptop, on a hotel Wifi connection. Ignoring your reservations about her bad habits you fold the newspaper and toss it onto the nightstand, giving her your full attention. "What do they do?"
"It seems that the bracelet does still work, at least in that it did result in my choosing a sex-related artifact to track down. I imagine that's all it will accomplish anymore, given that I didn't find a way to end up with a ring on my finger." Her lips quirk self-deprecatingly at this. "At any rate, aside from the usual aphrodisiac effects, the rings seem to result in two individuals who come into contact with them achieving simultaneous orgasm. It appears the Franklins were rather fixated on the idea."
"Oh."
"Indeed." The lid of her computer closes with a soft click and she kneels out of sight on the other side of the desk, rummaging around in her overnight bag. "The effect is only achieved if those involved both touch one ring at the same time, or if they each wear one. Of course, if they wear them, they are rather disinclined to stop having sex. Which explains the wedding."
"So wait, they were in the Warehouse at one point?" Helena stands and nods, then moves off to the sink alcove to wash her hands. "I wonder who took them out. And how they ended up here."
"I imagine it was an agent who shared the Franklins' penchant for mutual satisfaction," she says airily, and turns back to you. Her movements are slow and exaggeratedly deliberate as she steps toward you, picking the neutralizer bag with the rings up off the desk, and comes to a stop at the edge of the bed. Her eyes lock onto yours and you sit up slightly, catching the movement of her hands in your periphery as she opens the bag and lets one ring fall out onto her open palm.
You turn your gaze briefly to the gleaming metal in her hand; she follows suit, then looks back at you, an eyebrow raised. "Sometimes I am dreadfully clumsy."
God, nobody's voice should be able to get that sultry. "You're unbelievable," you murmur.
"I know."
She's wearing that cocky smile of hers, the one that turns your knees to jelly and makes your breath hitch. Her eyes, though, are almost... nervous, and something in your chest constricts at her evident vulnerability. The artifacts have been a crutch, you realize - a way to get what you want without having to fully acknowledge that you want it. You've begun to accept it, even pursue it, but you wonder if perhaps she hasn't gotten there yet.
You don't need the crutch any longer, but maybe she does.
The muscles of her forearm twitch as you reach out to trace your fingertips down the length of it. She gasps slightly, and her pupils enlarge when your fingers tangle with hers and you trap the ring between your hands. The sheets rustle as you kick them out of the way and pull her down onto the bed with you, and you don't know if the surge of arousal that courses through you is from the artifact or the softness of her lips when she kisses you as she settles over you. You blindly reach out to toss the ring onto the nightstand and you feel the tip of her tongue teasing gently against yours.
Hands work at clothing, then, carelessly tossing it aside as they seek out the familiar flesh underneath and roam over soft curves and taut muscle, desperate to meld into its warmth but unwilling to focus on any one patch of skin at the expense of the rest. Your knee raises into the air and she settles her hip between yours, your bodies creating a natural rhythm against each other and you feel your thigh become slick.
An arm slips between your neck and the bed, the hand coming around to grip your opposite shoulder and the bed dips slightly as she shifts her weight to her forearm. Her chest arches up over you briefly before she resettles and then her long fingers are slipping inside you and you claw at her back in delirious ecstasy before having the presence of mind to reach between you and return the favor.
The sensation is overwhelming, your brain becoming incapable of deciphering the impulses being fired along your nerves. You are touching and being touched, taking and being taken, the slickness you feel at your fingertips yours and hers and both, muscles clenching around fingers that only work more intently inside welcoming heat -
She breaks away from the kiss and your head pushes back into the pillow, exposing the ridges of your throat which she promptly begins to map with her tongue. "Oh god, Helena," you manage, the words a breathless benediction to the ceiling. Her thigh comes up behind her arm, giving additional force to her hand as she moves within you and your hips drive against it. "God, Helena, oh fuck - "
Speech becomes beyond your reach as she takes you to the brink and far beyond, the artifact or her skill keeping you there impossibly long and you're writhing against her, your nerves burning patchwork holes through your skin as the sensations she is causing within you look for an outlet and are denied. Your fingers curl all the more forcefully inside her, and finally she moves away from your throat.
The eyes you look into then are dark with unchecked arousal yet somehow still blazing with a fire that is doubtless reflected in yours. Your lungs scream and you realize you've stopped breathing; the gulp of air you take then is expelled in a shout from low in your throat as your spine arches into her and your orgasm tears through you. You catch sight of her own release taking her in her eyes and you've never done this, could never have done this - looked into someone's eyes as you're both at the height of pleasure by the other's hand - not even with Sam, but it feels right now, with this woman, and this woman is -
You feel her body tremble beneath the hand clutching her back and she lets out a choked sob as her head falls onto your shoulder, and your jaw clenches at the sudden influx of emotion warring with the continued spasms of your climax.
- everything.
As your muscles descend into pleasure- and exertion-induced uselessness your fingers fall away from her, hers shortly following suit and brushing lightly over yours on their way up to your stomach. She presses her lips to the skin before her, and her hair obscures her expression as she makes a trail of delicate kisses over your chest, down your sternum, and finally comes to rest on her side against you, her head facing away from you just beneath your breasts.
You watch her rise and fall with your breath, the movements gradually becoming rhythmic as your nerves calm. She sighs, a tendril of hair fluttering into her face and you let your hand fall to her shoulder when you brush it away. You feel tension riddling her body, can sense her need to purge herself of some demon that you suspect she had begun to cast away the day she returned the compact to the Warehouse.
You had wondered when this would emerge; there was simply no possible way she could have survived the murder of her daughter, the torture and death of the killers at her own hand, and a subsequent century with nothing but her own guilt and grief to keep her company and not come out damaged. But whether you should be thankful she has maintained her aura of utter confidence this long, until you are ready to be there for her with all that you have to offer, or whether you should plead for forgiveness for not having been able to help her heal in the past, you can't say.
Finally her voice breaks through the still in the room.
"You have no idea the depths to which you have affected my soul, Myka."
Her tone is bleak, so full of despair as to be nearly emotionless. Your instinct is to gather her into your arms and try to kiss away her pain, but you refrain, knowing this is a conversation she needs to have. You bite your lip against the stinging at the back of your eyes. "So tell me."
Helena's fingertips abruptly finish their wandering dance across your abdomen, and there is silence for a long moment. "You have changed so much more than you realize, simply by being who you are," she finally murmurs into your navel. Another sigh passes between her lips and she continues. "The last time I told someone I loved them was more than a century ago, and I wasn't even in my own body. And she was already dead."
Before you can attempt to respond, she has turned to face you, still resting against your stomach, and you are unsurprised to find her eyes glistening as she looks up at you. "It's not something I shall ever truly move past, nor do I believe I would want to. But you..." Her eyebrows raise helplessly, a tearful smile gracing her lips. "You make me want to try."
You can't stop yourself then; with an arm around her waist and a hand at her neck you haul her body over yours and crush your lips together, trying to convey with your kiss all the words of comfort you know you would only mangle if you tried to express them. She pulls away after several desperate moments and you close your eyes to catch your breath. "Helena, I... I won't say it, if you need me not to. But I want you to know that I can - I... I do, so much..." You cut yourself off, feeling somewhat like an idiot.
She laughs, not in amusement, but in apparent self-loathing. "You may wish to revise your opinion of me," she mutters, rolling off to the side.
You follow, wrapping your body around hers, your chest pressed against her back. "I doubt that." A hand captures hers and you plant a soft kiss to the knuckles. "What's this about, Helena?"
She shudders and speaks into the pillow, almost to herself. "The things I was planning to do, and the actions I was prepared to take to accomplish them..." Her hand pulls away, tucking itself between the bed and her ribcage. "I don't know that you can handle knowing what I am capable of."
"Whatever it was, you didn't do it. You're not capable of it."
Silence falls between you again as she gathers her thoughts. Your thumb grazes idly over her abdomen, and finally she takes a breath. "I told you once that I had become quite mad, before asking to be bronzed in one of my increasingly rare moments of lucidity. I asked never to be awoken, as I knew that I would only have descended further into the darkness of my own mind, as surely a madwoman must when left with nothing but the company of her own thoughts. My concerns were proven correct."
She pauses, and you're about to ask what she means when her voice forestalls the question.
"I was going to destroy the world."
Were it anyone else, in any other profession, you'd think they were exaggerating. But you know her, and you know the Warehouse, and you have no doubt that she is completely sincere. You reach down and tug her hand free, tightly entwining your fingers. "What changed your mind?"
"I met you," she says simply. "The thought of harming you became quite distasteful." She pauses, then adds, "And seeing dear Claudia, and her sweet innocence, and even Pete in his way... I would have destroyed you, your family... In time, I simply found that I could not."
"Then how is this a bad thing? You're healing, Helena." She shifts slowly in your arms, turning around to face you, and you press a soft kiss to her lips. "I'm going to be here to help you, any way you need."
A breath of air flows softly over your skin as Helena buries her head between the pillow and your shoulders. "You make the world seem not such a frightful place, Myka."
The exhaustion spreading throughout her body is a palpable thing; you roll onto your back, pulling her along with you, and reach out to rescue a sheet from the floor. You drape it over your bodies to block the slight chill of the autumn night and draw her closer as she succumbs to sleep, watching the play of light from the window across her features as the world outside carries on, oblivious to the retribution nearly wrought upon it by the woman in your arms.
You're not certain how to process the fact that you were all that prevented it. It's clear that her demons are more pervasive than simple mourning left to fester over more than a century, and the darkness that plagues her won't be conquered with one wrenching confession. She has only begun to heal; the impulses that compelled her to bring about the destruction of the world are still there, and you're the only thing standing in their way. It's an unbelievable responsibility.
But you love her, and it's a burden you will gladly bear.
The first time it happens, Helena's soft cries echo through your room at the bed and breakfast as you whisper into her ear, all thoughts of artifacts and the Warehouse and sins of the past lying forgotten in their wake.