Helena well knew she was being analyzed by Svetlana, but she didn't mind. The blonde needed to know she was being truthful. And really, Helena wasn't exactly hiding things either. While she wasn't one who wore her heart on her sleeve, in this current moment she might as well be. Everything had happened so quickly and suddenly, and she was reeling, so it was understandable. While she was still guarded, as things came back to her, the emotion and realization would play through her dark eyes and across her face.
It would take time to adjust, to once again find her place here, but Helena would do it. Though she couldn't help but feel so out of place. She had a home here, a family, friends, but despite remembering and feeling the connections, she still felt so far removed from them. Though it was no doubt due to the fact she was different than she had been when she was last here. Helena was more herself, more centered and balanced where her heart and emotions were concerned. If she wished to judge herself down to minute details, she had been a creature of emotion when she'd been here before, and right now she was more a creature of rationality. Her mind was ruling her, not her emotions. That in and of itself was no doubt what was going to keep her together until she was alone in her room and could properly deal with the rapid changes.
"Claudia is back as well?" Helena was relieved to hear that, though more relieved at the fact Irene wasn't here. The Victorian woman's feelings on that matter were quite tangled. Her emotions did tend to get jumbled up and make things so much more complicated than they needed to be. Which is why at that precise moment, she was endeavoring to approach this as a rational person. She was going to allow herself to feel what she needed to and to rationalize what she needed to. And somehow she would make this place feel like home again, but she wasn't exactly certain how to do that. Had she changed too much that she wouldn't be able to reconnect with her friends? Well, the fact she was currently here with Svetlana was a test of that.
Though Helena was completely aware reconnecting with Svetlana would take far more than just this one conversation which wasn't so much about reestablishing their friendship as it was Helena telling Svetlana she was back before having told anyone else. She was certain Svetlana had picked up on the meaning that action carried. But the real test to this would come in the days to follow, in how she adjusted.