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Tweak says, "strike a pose!"

Myka Ophelia Bering (beringandwells) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2013-01-13 18:36:00

Entry tags:

helena g. wells, myka bering

Who: Helena G. Wells, Myka Bering and Aidan Bering
What: Reading to baby Aidan and then Helena and Myka finally talk.
When: [Backdated] Friday Night
Where: Library in House Warehouse
Warnings: TBD

Myka had never entertained the notion of being a mother. She was content, for the time being, with her career. But one wish made by her ridiculous partner had changed all that. In the blink of an eye she was 9 months pregnant and then transported via a Seal to a new reality. The very same Seal that had somehow altered the length of her pregnancy. Instead of appearing in Lawrence 9 months pregnant she had appeared 7 months pregnant and falling on her ass. From that day forward nothing had been easy. Sure, Helena had happened upon her and brought her to her house but things were quite different. This Helena had been in Lawrence for months and was more closed off than Myka had ever seen her. For the first couple of weeks she had stuck to calling her H.G., letting her own anger at the situation and how Helena had seemingly disappeared back home get the best of her.

When Claudia and Helena had been taken by the Seal she’d closed off. Myka became someone she hardly recognized. Svetlana seemed to have taken the brunt of her anger. And even with having apologised for how she reacted, Myka knew that they’d never be friends, part of her still wondered whether she even wanted to be friends with the woman. Sure, Svetlana was Helena’s friend but that didn’t mean that she had to be friends with her as well. Myka also avoided asking whether that other her had been friends with the woman. Because that would make the situation all the more worse; and she was still having trouble accepting that she’d been here before but remembered absolutely none of it. Before she knew it, 2 months had passed and her due date was fastly approaching. They’d figured out a rough estimate as this pregnancy was far from usual, a fact that also worried Myka immensely. The fact that they were sorely unprepared for the baby’s arrival was another matter altogether.

When the discomfort had grown worse a little after 11 am on January 1, Myka knew that what she had pushed off as braxton hicks were the beginning stages of labor. The initial plan had been to go to the medbay as it was in the complex and she wouldn’t have to worry about I.D. or anything. But Aidan’s sudden need to come earlier than predicted had left them in a bit of a bind. Nearly all the doctors would have been involved in some sort of New Years Eve festivity and Myka wasn’t chancing having a hungover doctor deliver her baby. So instead, Claudia had accompanied her to the hospital where they’d spent what seemed like hours arguing over having no identification and signing paperwork. The doctors and nurses eventually had taken pity on her when it became obvious that if she wasn’t admitted soon the baby would be delivered in the middle of the admit desk. Now that she was home, Myka figured that avoiding a potential lawsuit may have played into getting into a labor and delivery room in the end. But that wasn’t even the worst of the news, Aidan had decided to turn around and come feet first and when the umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck they’d prepped her and took her to surgery for a c-section. A half hour later Aidan Matthew Bering was welcomed into the world at 8 lbs and 15 ounces.

Myka grimaced at remembering the c-section. The incision was still in the healing stages and only hurt every so often. But she would never complain about being in pain ever again because a c-section was not something that she would wish on any expecting mothers. Aidan gave a slight whimper and she shifted him to lie against her heart patting his back until he calmed down. Much like she did every night since he had been placed in her arms she breathed in his scent and whispered how much she loved him. Sure, she was still a little upset with Pete for making the wish but holding her son was slowly making her realize that she wouldn’t change anything that had happened. Without that wish she wouldn't have the tiny little boy currently in her arms; and the thought of not having him brought pain to her heart. Turning her head back to the book sitting in her lap she carefully brought it up so as to not disturb Aidan who was for a change settling down at a decent hour. In the hospital she had read Shakespeare to him softly but now that they were in the confines of Helena’s house she had resumed reading The Time Machine. Curled up in his cage at her feet was Pete the ferret who she'd carried down out of her room as he'd been showing signs of jealousy earlier that day.

Softly Myka read out loud the words on the page in the hopes her son would drift off: “That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?”

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ismellapples
2013-01-14 05:07 am UTC (link)

It was a known fact, at least to those close to Helena in this world, that she hated change and had difficulty adjusting to it. It was a bit of a paradox with her given her life for the last one hundred and twenty years had been nothing but a long series of changes she had to adjust to. But that didn't mean Helena adjusted easily nor that she liked it. In fact, she hated adjusting, but it was something she had to do in order to keep herself moving forward. For a while, Lawrence had really seemed like a gift, even with the whole Irene and Moriarty thing she'd been subjected to, even with Pestilence seeing fit to aggravate the Janus Coin syndrome, even with Christina's ghost coming back. Helena had built a life for herself in this place. She had friends, people she loved and cared about, and she'd been settling into a life for herself, which was all she'd ever wanted. But then the Seal had taken Myka and Pete back home within a week of each other, then barely a week later the Seal sent Myka back from a future point in time without memory of Lawrence, without memory of everything both her and Helena had suffered through. So really, it was no wonder why Helena had shut down to those that knew what she'd been through. Claudia being taken back home had been the very last straw. Too many changes in quick succession had sent the Victorian woman off the deep end.

Then the Seal had sent her back home, back to death. Though that particular timeline was altered, and she lived through a time she wasn't so certain she wanted to. The Seal brought her back to this world with the Astrolabe in tow, which she didn't like, and after getting the rest of the story from Claudia, Helena had really been on edge. She'd shared her worries with Svetlana, which had helped calm her, but she was still worried that somehow this world would recognize what she'd brought here with her and force it to be used. But nothing more could really be done about it right now. Loki had put a spell on it so only Helena could touch it. She'd wanted the spell that way in the event she needed to move the Astrolabe to a different hiding place. Helena would prefer not to ever think of the artifact again, but it was in her care and it was her job to keep it out of certain hands, and she would see it done, even here.

Even when Helena had pointedly told Myka she couldn't tell her things until after Aidan was born, she was glad to not be cornered into talking about certain topics. It wasn't that she couldn't talk about them, it was exceedingly difficult to. She didn't want to have to explain everything she'd been through here. She didn't want to have to explain to Myka that Artie had altered the timeline and ultimately suffered a psychotic break because of it. But she would do it because Myka deserved to know, and Helena couldn't keep everything inside forever. So ever since Aidan was born, Helena had begun to prepare herself for Myka to ask her about something. She had to be prepared for any question, and some subjects were more difficult than others. But she wouldn't avoid any topic now when directly asked about it. Frankly, Helena didn't want to avoid anymore because she felt awkward enough as it was. There were times she felt she couldn't talk to Myka at all, and she didn't like that. But if Helena were truthful, she felt she couldn't talk to anyone right now because she felt so disconnected from everyone. Yes she'd talked to people since her return, most notably Svetlana and Claudia, but she was trying to find where she fit in all over again, and it was a very slow, painful process.

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ismellapples
2013-01-14 05:07 am UTC (link)

The other most pressing matter on her mind was Emily. Reforming the bond between them was also slow going. Helena was very different than she had been before. She was more focused, more centered emotionally, but she was different enough where Emily sensed it and was troubled by it. It hurt Helena, but she knew it would take time. That was one reason she'd moved Emily's things into her room so they could be close at all times. Helena needed to reassure Emily that she wasn't leaving again and that she was here for her. Emily seemed to be adjusting, she would calm down easier for Helena now, but there were still bumps and snags along the way. As was evidenced that evening when Helena went to put her down for a nap, and Emily refused. Finally, after about an hour, Emily did finally fall asleep and Helena placed her in the crib and covered her up. Turning on the baby monitors and taking one with her, she headed downstairs.

Helena went into the library with the intention of getting a couple books to sit with. Though as she walked in, she heard the excerpt Myka was reading, and it was one Helena knew all too well. She looked over at Myka and Aidan, a little smile curving her lips at the sight. Though she didn't say anything, not wanting to disturb Aidan. She knew all too well how fussy children could be.

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beringandwells
2013-01-31 04:07 am UTC (link)

Myka was just about to continue reading when she noticed Helena had walked into the library. She could have continue reading to Aidan but awkward reading the Victorian woman's novels out loud while she was in the room. Carefully closing the book she let it fall down into her lap and shifted Aidan so that she could use both arms to hold him. Although the moment that she moved him he began to whimper until it turned into a full blown cry. It took a couple of minutes to settle him down again but when she did, Myka turned to look at Helena.

Since the Victorian woman had been returned by the Seal they hadn't spoken all that much. There had been the holiday where they were all together but one on one talking had been absent. And if she really thought about it they hadn't done much of that since her own arrival in Lawrence. Sure she had avoided discussing anything at first, still angry with the way things were in the time she'd arrived from, but they'd barely broken through that. Since she'd been back Helena had been spending more time with Emily. Myka didn't blame her for doing so. When Helena had left Emily had grown quiet and then events had happened where Myka hadn't acted in Emily's best interests. Though she only knew the barest bones of how Emily came to be, the girl was still a toddler and the way she'd acted had only been harmful. Myka at least accepted that now; though at the time, she'd gotten quite angry with Svetlana over the whole situation.

When the last of Aidan's slight whimpers were silenced and he was completely asleep against her, Myka quietly spoke. "How's Emily?" There were so many things that Myka wished to know now that the baby had been born. Helena had made her a promise to tell her everything sometime after the birth. But first they needed to find a familiarity between them again. The two women had changed and there were times where it was awkward between them. Perhaps that was why their interactions were generally quick and fleeting in their occurrence. But Myka was a mother now and at the very least the two women who knew each other so well at one point in time could find familiarity there.

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ismellapples
2013-01-31 06:04 am UTC (link)

When Myka stopped reading, Helena was going to say she didn't need to stop on her account, but then Aidan started fussing as Myka shifted him. While Myka was tending to Aidan, Helena set her baby monitor down on the desk. Looking around at the bookcases, Helena had no idea what books she even wanted to take. She'd read all of them all ready, many multiple times. Though at least she didn't need to fear running across a certain book that would remind her of Irene. She'd all ready sold that book at auction months ago. But things were different now, Helena had been changed just enough by the Seal sending her back home that the things that had bothered her, had haunted her and caused her to close up on herself didn't bother her as much any longer.

Regaining her memories of this place, of the people she knew, had been painful in many cases, but most of those memories and the emotions tied to them had settled into their respective places within her. Helena still felt for her experiences here, but they were not as potent or controlling as they had been a couple months ago. Stepping up to one of the bookcases, Helena plucked a book off the shelf, paging through it momentarily before returning it to its spot and taking a different one. While Emily was asleep, Helena wanted to take advantage of taking some time for herself, which was something she hadn't been doing much of. She was focused on Emily, on others that she'd been putting herself last in the importance of things.

When she heard Myka's question, Helena looked over at her. "She's still fussy. I think she fears I'll leave again." Her voice was quiet, so as not to disturb Aidan, but even the quiet tone carried a slightly pained note in it. She closed the book in her hand and put it back on the shelf. "I cannot blame her, though." She was too painfully aware of the nature of this place, and she well knew she could be sent home again in the next moment. So saying that she wasn't going anywhere was an empty promise, and she would not make it knowing it would undoubtedly be broken sooner or later. "But she seems to be adjusting, it is just difficult." Turning around to face Myka, Helena leaned back against the bookcase. There was a divide between her and Myka, and she knew it was there because she didn't have her memories of having been here before. And also because Helena had experienced things in their world that she knew Myka would take badly. She had such a heavy weight on her shoulders, especially knowing the Astrolabe was here. There wasn't a moment that went by where Helena felt she could relax. She had to be on her guard at all times. But she hoped by finding some common ground with Myka would help ease that to some extent.

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beringandwells
2013-03-05 03:04 am UTC (link)

At Helena's response, Myka gave her a knowing look. Emily had been fussy when Helena had disappeared and it wasn't all that much of a surprise that she still was. A lot had happened after Helena had been taken by the Seal. Myka's own reactions to the situations that had occurred hadn't helped matters at all. Despite there being times when she wanted to be sent home it was still one of her greatest fears in this place. The Seal had shown that Emily was left behind when it took Helena away, what was to say that it wouldn't do the same with her. Leaving Aidan behind in a world that had proven to be more dangerous than her own at times. The idea of being parted from her infant son caused her to hold him to her just the slightest bit tighter. She may not have wanted to be a mother at this point in her life before but now that she was, having that taken away from her was too painful a thought to entertain.

Myka had read that motherhood would change you. That you were never quite the same once there was another life dependent on you. She had always been the protective one of their Warehouse family and motherhood had only increased that tenfold. "She'll be fine in time." Myka said and then tilted her head down to look at her slumbering son. When an awkward silence had seemed to fill the room, Myka raised her head and noticed that Helena had turned to face her. Now was as good a time as any to start the conversation that had been put off after her arrival. While Helena had been gone she'd gone back only a few months and read some of what had happened, but not nearly enough to understand. And Myka truly did want to understand the woman that was sat before her. At one time she had thought that she had known the older woman so well but since arriving in Lawrence, this Helena was so very different. Not having the memories of having been here before had slowly been eating away at her. Everyone was privy to knowledge and understood why people were the way they were that she wouldn't know unless someone told her. And Helena had promised to tell her once Aidan had been born.

"Do you remember when you said that one day after Aidan was born that you would tell me everything?" she said keeping her voice quiet so as to not wake her son. "He's been born and we can't put it off forever."

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ismellapples
2013-03-05 08:06 am UTC (link)

Perhaps more than anything else, the fact that Emily had been hurt so much by the Seal sending her home hurt Helena the most. She truly hated how much change the little girl had had to go through during the time she'd been back in her own world, a world where Emily Lake no longer existed, let alone as a child Helena was raising as her own. Helena had had a deep bond to Emily before the Seal had sent her home. She wasn't precisely certain if it was due to the mother-child bond that formed naturally, or if it had been because Emily was part of Helena, a different personality with different memories and experiences, but still part of her. Helena doubted she'd ever truly know the answer to that, but she knew given time, her and Emily would reform that bond.

Myka was correct, there had been a time when they both had known the other so well, but because of this place and the experiences within it, Helena was nearly a completely different woman than the one Myka would remember. That was even without her having been sent back home to experience a few months' time there. The Helena that had been here when this Myka had initially shown up had been drastically different. And due to what she'd lived through in their world, Helena was once again drastically different than she had been only a couple months prior. At least this time she'd moved in the right direction and was stable where her emotions and mindset were concerned. That was more than could be said for her by the time the Seal had decided to send her back home.

Those were fateful words that Myka had spoken. Helena had known sooner or later they would come, she just had not quite known precisely when. There was a slightly sharp intake of breath, if only because everything she had to tell started off as bad and only got worse from there. Tucking some hair behind her ear, Helena nodded. "I will tell you everything." She wasn't running away from the conversation. She wanted Myka to understand everything, to know what happened at home, to understand her and why she was the way she was. Quietly moving a chair closer to Myka, Helena sat down in it and made herself comfortable. She was silent for some moments, her expression thoughtful as she tried to decide where to start. She could start with going through everything that happened in their world. Or she could start with everything she'd experienced in this world, but for Myka to truly comprehend some things she'd been through in this world, she needed to know the original timeline of their world.

"I do warn you that of everything I have to tell you, Emily's existence is about the only good experience, both here and in our world that I have had." She put stress on the word good so Myka could try to prepare herself as best as she could. "I suppose I will start with things that happened in our world because some of that ties directly into things I have been through here." Helena took a breath, then began. "Which I start with when we were trapped in the Warehouse with Sykes' bomb. I know to you we managed to deactivate the bomb and save the Warehouse, but that is not how things went originally. In the original timeline, Sykes had been killed before we discovered the bomb. You, Pete and Artie were trying to find a way to disarm it without any success. While you did that, I poked around in the Warehouse's system and managed to reroute a portion of the outer barrier to a spot on the floor, insulating you, Pete and Artie from the imminent explosion. In that timeline, the Warehouse was destroyed, also killing Mrs. Frederic given her connection to the Warehouse, and I was also killed. When you initially arrived here, that was the point in time I was from." Helena pointed that out because it would lead to explaining some things later on. "But Artie tracked down and used Magellan's Astrolabe, which turned the clock back twenty-four hours. If you do not believe me, did you not think it was odd how Artie knew precisely where the bomb was located and how to disarm it? I knew that he'd traveled through time somehow, I just didn't know how, until later."

Helena paused there, allowing Myka to digest that much. While it was a lot for Myka to take in, it was barely scratching the surface of what she had to say.

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beringandwells
2013-03-20 10:32 pm UTC (link)

Myka took note of the sharp intake of breath that Helena took before tucking her hair behind her ear. The act of tucking her hair behind her ear was one that Myka had seen before. Not wanting to read too much into the act which was quite simply a natural movement that women with long hair made, Myka focused on what Helena said. A small smile graced her lips. The Victorian woman wasn’t running from the conversation that needed to be had. In her mind the thought had crossed that Helena would tell her that it wasn’t time yet. That while Aidan had been born she would have to wait just awhile longer to know everything. It both pleased and terrified her that they were actually going to have the conversation that had been put off since her arrival.

The feeling of being terrified only festered beneath the surface as Helena mentioned that Emily was the only “good experience.” Myka knew that something had to have happened to drastically change the woman. And on some levels knew that it was nothing good but to know that there was only 1 good experience worried her. As Helena went on to explain the original timeline, her brow was furrowed in confusion. An entire timeline wiped from ever existing. A timeline that her previous self had come from. It also sparked up questions of how different she was from the Myka that came from that timeline. And as Helena had gone on to mention; how Artie had known there was a bomb, where it was located and how to disarm it. They had been questions that she’d had at the time but her excitement that the danger had been avoided had clouded her mind. And then Helena had disappeared again so she had never thought to push on it.

“Original timeline in which the warehouse is destroyed taking Mrs. Frederick and you along with it; reversed by Artie using the Astrolabe.” Myka mumbled to herself but not softly enough that Helena couldn’t hear her. For a few moments she was silent still processing it all in her head. After those few moments of silence had passed Myka spoke more clearly. “I-you-okay, you can continue now.” Her emotions were swirling around in her head and finding the exact words to express what she was feeling was failing.

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ismellapples
2013-03-21 05:26 am UTC (link)

There were very good reasons Helena had been avoiding this conversation. First and foremost it had been because Myka was pregnant and Helena was fairly certain such revelations would have sent Myka into labor. But another reason was that Helena herself wasn't certain she could handle telling all of it. As much as she may have finally grieved Christina and made peace with her daughter's death, that didn't mean she could handle talking about everything else, talking about how Christina's ghost had been there with her for two weeks. But there was so much else she hadn't even started to come to terms with, so much else that seemed as though she'd lived it in another lifetime, which she had.

Helena waited until Myka told her she could continue, and she heard the mumble and watched Myka. She knew this would all be difficult for her to process. So while the other agent was trying to digest what she'd just been told, Helena was trying to decide what she should tell next. Should she continue along in a chronological order and tell Myka of the things that had transpired here in Lawrence before? Or should she stick to talking about things that had happened in their world first, then come back to Lawrence? She settled on chronological order because she knew if she told Myka what happened in their world with the Astrolabe now she wouldn't hear anything else Helena had to say. When she was given the okay to continue, she nodded a bit.

"I'm going to tell this chronologically as I experienced it, so I will come back to what happened in our world after Sykes was stopped." And the first thing on the list to talk about Lawrence-wise? Wasn't exactly rosy. "From my death in the Warehouse, I was brought here almost a year ago. It was the seventh of February when I arrived here. Claudia was here all ready, but no one else from our world was here. The day after my arrival, I met one Irene Adler for tea. Yes, the Irene Adler from the Sherlock Holmes stories, only she was a different version. For starters, she was English, not American, and was from a modern world. She and I..." Helena's voice caught, her dark gaze growing heavy with emotion. "She and I had a relationship, though it was casual, never anything exclusive or monogamous. We were careful though, for Moriarty from her world was there as well and he had it in for her after some Seal unpleasantness. But he eventually found out about our relationship and, well, I was Irene's weakness so Moriarty focused on me."

At this point, Helena couldn't really sit still any longer, so she stood up and started pacing, her fingers fiddling with the ring on her right ring finger idly. "He played games with me, wanting to tear me apart because what hurt me hurt Irene. I knew from the beginning that his end goal was to kill me, that outcome was never in question. As you know, we are fictional in this world, but none of us knew it until Moriarty sent me a video that centered on my having lost Christina." Helena took a slow, deep breath, trying to keep herself calm. Talking about Moriarty hadn't been something she'd done since, well, since he had nearly killed her. "The you that was here at the time, you didn't let me go anywhere alone after he started the game. There were days I questioned who would shoot him first, you or me. It was also in the middle of being mentally torn apart by Moriarty that the entire situation with Pestilence, the bought of the Janus Coin effect and Emily Lake being put into a baby's body occurred." Helena had all ready explained Emily's existence before shortly after Myka's arrival, for which she was thankful.

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ismellapples
2013-03-21 05:27 am UTC (link)

"He periodically sent me videos containing scenes from the television show about us to me over a period of three months. But the truth was, he didn't need to continually send me anything. The first one he sent me was more than enough to send me into a fit of paranoia. It was a paranoia that only grew exponentially, and he was breaking me down. I did everything I could to keep Emily's existence from his knowledge because like Hell was I going to suffer losing a second daughter." Suddenly, Helena's voice took on a sharp edge. It was evidence to how deeply affected she had been by the whole situation, and also evidence to how deeply she cared about Emily. "But he had his spies and he found out about Emily. He called her a replacement as if one could just simply replace another human being." Her tone was getting a bit more agitated and her pacing a bit more insistent. "At that point, he knew I was living in the complex, and so I took Emily and went into hiding. I stayed at a friend's house in the city, having been taken there by Clark so Moriarty didn't know where I was. In an attempt to find out, or perhaps to get ahold of Emily, he sent Gaia to the complex dressed as me. She encountered you and you outed her as being in league with Moriarty. But that failure only led him to worse paths."

Suddenly, she stopped pacing and looked at Myka. "He killed Irene and cut out her heart and sent it and her riding crop to the complex as a warning. But he was still coming after me because after I had insanely told him precisely how I killed Christina's murderers, he offered me a way out, he wouldn't hurt me or Emily if I killed someone for him the way I'd killed Christina's murderers. I declined. I would not sacrifice the last remnants of my soul to fall back into the darkness that is inside of me. Oh and to put it into perspective, this was happening two weeks before the anniversary of Christina's death." And that is where she paused, finally, trying to get herself back under some measure of control. Her emotions were broiling. She never had gone into detail about these events before, and talking about them, especially about Moriarty, well, that made her angry all over again. There was a very good reason why if Myka looked in her book collection she wouldn't find the Sherlock Holmes stories. Helena had hidden them away in one of the secret nooks in her room, not wishing to come across them on accident.

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