De L'Europe

[Felicia Soler]

Here, somewhere in the heart of me
There is still a part of me
That cares

And I'll, I'll still take the best you've got
Even though I'm sure it's not
The best for me

When you're born a lover
You're born to suffer
Like all soul sisters
And soul brothers

De L’Europe Amsterdam
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 2-14, 1012 CP Amsterdam, Netherlands

She'd left the chatroom in a rage, slamming her laptop shut, and shoving it down into the bag beside the cot on which she was lying in the doctor's lounge. How many times had she and Helena been through this? And Helena had set her up with a body double? What the ever loving fuck? That was about as blatant a lie as she could ever muster, and it more than infuriated her. There was no word in the English language which adequately described the maelstrom of emotions flooding her psyché.

If was one thing to cheat on someone, and the extramarital relationships she had never registered in cheating in her mind. She'd been honest with Helena about that from day one, and Helena had accepted it—for the most part. She'd followed their rule about not bringing other people into their home and into their marital bed, and she'd kept up her end of the deal.

Then she found out the woman with whom she'd been sleeping for the past several months wasn't here wife, but a fucking body double. God, if she ever made it home tonight without killing anyone, that body double was going to be manually eviscerated and fed piece by piece to Ragnarok. Whatever he didn't eat, she'd feed to the carnivorous fish in the lake at the bottom of the hill in their backyard. After she'd killed and dismembered the body double to her satisfaction, she was going to fly out to Amsterdam and do the very same thing to her wife—which was fine. It wasn't like Helena would die. She'd just be in a lot of pain for a while.

No, she couldn't do that. As much as it pained her to do so, she needed to keep her head, no matter how hard it was pounding with fury and pain. Helena definitely had her beat and the calm and collected department, considering how she'd been bold faced lying straight to her face for the better part of a year. That was what really hurt—to have her emotions manipulated so intimately because Helena didn't like her sleeping around.

God, this shit was getting so fucking tiring. No matter how many times she said it or showed her love for the woman, she always got the short end of the stick. Hell, for the last year she'd been dousing Helena² with love and affection, and it wasn't even her real wife! And yet Helena had the absolute fucking gall to tell her that she felt unloved and unwanted?

“Yeah, well, fuck that shit.” She picked up her bag and jumped off the cot, through the lounge door, and to the nurse's station where she signed herself out with the excuse that she had immediate family business which needed to be taken care of out of the country. It was taking all of her willpower not to completely break down in tears in front of all the other clinicians she worked with; they knew both her and Helena and assumed that everything was going well with the couple. She didn't want to waste time explaining their rather unique relationship and it's unusual progression.

As she was headed out the door to her car, she was approached by a young woman in a crisp, freshly-pressed, pinstripe business suit who gestured for her to stop. The look on Felicia's face told her that she'd do well to follow Maurelle's advice which was, “Get her out of there as quickly as possible before she kills someone.” Well, that was reassuring.

“Doctor Rahal?”

Great. Had Helena pre-emptively sent someone to head her off at the proverbial pass? “I have nothing to say to you. You can go back to fucking Amsterdam and warn my wife that I'm going to be out there before she even wakes up.” She attempted to dodge around the woman, who caught her by the shoulder. “I'm seriously about to fuck your shit up right now if you don't let me leave.” This woman had showed up in her path at exactly the wrong time. Once she was on the warpath, much like her mother, it was impossible to steer her off it or otherwise run her off the rails.

“No, Doctor, it's not like that. I don't work for your wife.” She had to tread lightly with several of Maurelle's business partners, and Felicia Rahal—any of the Rahals, really, no matter how far removed—were known to have the personalities of puff adders: naturally aggressive, quick to attack, and deadly on the best of days. “I'm an associate of Maurelle Lacroix. My name is Constantina Everett. Miss Lacroix informed me that you needed a lift to Amsterdam?”

Oh. Really. Well, that changed things. Barely. She'd been planning on going home and packing a bag or two before getting on her family's private jet, but she could always buy new clothes in Amsterdam when she arrived. “Does she know where Helena is staying?” Of course she did. Maurelle wouldn't have sent someone to just drop her in the middle of the city so she could wander from hotel to hotel for hours.

Constantina pulled her phone from an inside pocket of her jacket. After tracing her finger across the screen to unlock it, she pulled up the page which had all of the pertinent information Felicia had in mind other than the whereabouts of her significant other. “She's staying in the Provacateur Suite at De L'Europe. The time in Amsterdam is 3:02 AM. She has a press conference at 10 AM.”

Felicia scrolled through the screen briefly and passed the phone back to the teleporter. “How am I supposed to get into the room? I can't just walk up to the front desk and get a keycard because I'm her wife.” Given her line of work, Helena had an extensive security patrol; she would have given directives to her personal security attaché as well as the hotel's security personnel not to allow certain people to interfere with her while she was there.

“Miss Lacroix has already taken care of that.” She withdrew a non-descript looking keycard from the same pocket in which she'd just placed her phone. “This key will grant you access to the suite. The hotel has also been notified of your imminent arrival, and you weren't on her blacklist.” Constantina extended her hand to Felicia and looked from her hand to the doctor, silently encouraging her to take it.

“I wouldn't be on her black list. I'd be on her Shit List.” She grasped the teleporter's hand . . .

. . .




. . .




. . .




. . .




. . . And was immediately transported to the door of the Provocateur Suite. When she turned to thank Constantina, the woman had already vanished, her job completed. Felicia sighed and, looking at the key card, inserted it into the slot above the doorknob. She swiped it quickly and waited for the light on the panel to turn green and heard the door unlock. Steeling herself, she slowly turned the handle, determined to make as little noise as possible.

The suite itself was immense, with cathedral ceilings, subdued ambient lighting, and large floor to ceiling windows which provided a beautiful view of the river below. Closing the door quietly behind her, she searched through each room to see where Helena was. The door to the shower room was closed, and she could hear the water running. Felicia sniffed the air, familiar with both Alice and Helena's scents. Alice's scent was much less potent; she must have left the room not too long ago . . . which meant that Helena was the one presently using the shower facilities.

Without even thinking, Felicia hastily disrobed, carelessly tossing her clothing on the floor. She opened the door to the shower room and stared at Helena's blurred form through the shower's mottled privacy glass. Grabbing the small handle on the outside of the glass door, she slid it open with enough force to shatter it—but it didn't even crack.

“A fucking body double?” Felicia brought her forearm up to Helena's collar bone and slammed her into the marble tile wall at the back of the shower. “Do you even understand how fucked up that is?” She may as well have been screaming. She wanted to. She also wanted to slap the living shit out of her wife. “So the person whom I've been pouring my heart out to and who's been helping me raise our fucking children for the last nine months wasn't even you.”

Helena had stepped over a line—hell, she'd driven a fucking Sherman tank over the line and had backed up over it a few hundred times before driving a few hundred miles east of the line—that should never have been crossed. “Honestly, I really want to rip off your head and shit down your neck right now. Like I can't even put into words how I feel right now.” She'd never had a problem expressing herself, but this . . . this was a whole level of emotion she'd never even known existed. If every single negative emotion in the world could have been concentrated into the singularity at the centre of a super massive black hole, it wouldn't have even began to touch the stratosphere of the surface of emotion that was contained within her at that moment.

“I can't change who I am, Helena. I know that you need my love and my loyalty, and you have both even if I do have several partners. They will never compare to you. You're the mother of our children, and I can't lose you. And I know in spite of your anger, you can't lose me. I will always find you no matter where you are in time because I love you. I know you don't believe that, but I have never known something so intensely on such a soul-deep level in all of my lives.” She really wanted to break down in tears and get on her knees and beg for forgiveness—but that wasn't who she was. She stared at Helena from under the stream of water emanating from the shower and continued to hold her in place. “You know I'm not good at this 'talking about my emotions' bullshit, and I'm not a good enough liar to pull off an 'I'm going to tell you that I love you to your face but then I'm gonna go do whatever the fuck I want behind your back' act. I've always been honest with you—to a fucking fault. I have never lied to you. I could never find it in my heart to do that.”

Her arm dropped back to her side and she pulled Helena into a tight embrace and pressed her cheek against Helena's shoulder. “I'm sorry for everything that I've ever done to hurt you.”

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ф ф Word count: 1965
ф ф Mood: Sleepeh badger is sleepeh.
ф ф Outfit: Nekkid.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Good Night, Lovers, Depeche ModeNone.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: None

[/font][/center]

[Helena Rahal]

Time will take our place
We will return it back to one

The chat room would spark a reaction from Felicia, of that Helena was sure. That had been the intent, to make Felicia act rather than continue on as things had been. Helena believed that she had at least an hour before the teleporter under Maurelle's employ would facilitate Felicia's transportation to Amsterdam. In the interim, she called the biokinetic who had been her body double and let her know that her services were no longer required. Without herself or Ma there to calm Felicia's tits, there was a very good chance that the woman would have met with a terrible fate had Felicia decided to forego the option of the teleporter.

Alice had accompanied Helena at the Director's request, a tangent to keep her grounded. With the way she had dedicated herself to her work the last few months, a part of her was afraid she was losing her humanity. Could one plunge ones self so far into the cause that they would become a machine, would become a slave to it? It was an answer that Helena did not want to know and Alice was kind enough to accept the offer. While she could not take the woman with her during her trips to Seattle, this trip was a whole other matter.

It was weird, leading not a double life but a triple life, hiding secrets from most of the Company agents not just the public. The secrets within Seattle however were of the highest priority in keeping, they were the one thing that could never get to the public. Whatever the Company was now, it could not afford for those secrets to come to light, it would destroy what ground they had gained in the public eye. Even angels sometimes had their hands bloodied.

After Alice had showered and gotten to bed, as the woman would need her sleep if she was to attend the meeting with Helena in a few short hours, Helena followed suit. By her calculation she would shower, dress for a nap, and be in the living room waiting for Felicia and the teleporter. It would spare Alice the madness that was bound to ensue, as Helena knew that she had punched Felicia in the gut with the chat. Maybe the lie could have continued to be held up, though eventually Felicia was bound to discern it.

All good plans however are subject to Malcom's law and before she knew what hit her, she felt the arm bar as she was thrown against the wall. She knew that it had to be Felicia, even before she opened her eyes again to confirm and heard her wife's word. “So the person whom I've been pouring my heart out to and who's been helping me raise our fucking children for the last nine months wasn't even you.”

"It was only three months." Helena said as calmly and with a straight face, no sign of emotion coming from her at all. Was she surprised that Felicia was reacting this way after that suckerpunch in the chat room? Far from it, she had awakened the dragon within Felicia and had done so with purpose. There had been a multitude of ways that Felicia could have reacted and this was definitely a way Helena had been prepared for. Instead of fighting back against being held, she stayed as still and as stoic as a monk, enduring the beratement of words from Felicia. There was nothing that Felicia could have said to her or called her that she had already not said to herself.

However Helena was surprised that when Felicia eventually let go of her hold, that she then took Helena into an embrace and apologized. That had been completely unexpected unlike everything else, something that Helena had not prepared for. What was she supposed to do now, how was she supposed to launch back a veracious counter attack when Felicia apologized for all the hurt that she had caused? This was nothing like she had rehearsed a thousand times over in her head, of how this entire exchange would go down and how she would explain everything.

"There is so much you don't know and so much of that which I can't tell you. I did... I did what I did because I had to, because it was required of me in order for me to do what I needed to do." Words were failing her, caught somewhere between trying to apologize and trying to explain why she had did what she had done. "I'm sorry that you're hurt but there was a reason for everything that I have done."

[Felicia Soler]

If enough is never enough
And you're down at heart
If the world is getting you down
Then come with us

Hotel De L'Europe
Amsterdam

"It was only three months."

This only incensed her further. “'Only three months'? That isn't the fucking point, Helena!” Being open with her emotions was something that she'd never been a pro at, even though she'd been alive for the better part of a millennium. It was just so much easier to sweep things under the rug and be lackadaisical and act like nothing really mattered. To have her own wife tell her that the woman to whom she'd been laying bare her soul for at least one quarter of the year wasn't even her wife at all was a devastating emotional setback.

As much as she tried to rein in her emotions, there was no holding back the tears. At least she was standing under the shower's powerful stream of water which made it difficult to tell where her tears ended and where the rest of the water began.

"There is so much you don't know and so much of that which I can't tell you,” Helena finally admitted. Felicia held Helena's head between her palms and looked at her, emotionless save for the redness in her eyes.

“Why did you do this to us?” She didn't just mean herself and Helena; she meant their entire family. Their children, her mother, a vast but close network of extended family and friends . . .

“I did... I did what I did because I had to, because it was required of me in order for me to do what I needed to do."

[/color] On a normal day, Helena could string together phrases of words so beautiful that they could have made angels cry. Now, however, she seemed at a total loss for anything to say. Felicia imagined that Helena had expected her to fight, and that she'd packed her quiver full of arrows sparked with quips that would have incited further impassioned arguments from her dark haired counterpart. But that wasn't what she was getting. Even with her apology, Felicia assumed she'd be getting at least a little loud verbal chastising from her better half, but it never came.

“ . . . what does that even mean?” How was she supposed to even argue with Helena if the woman didn't even know where she was coming from? Felicia continued to embrace her and let go when Helena spoke again.

"I'm sorry that you're hurt but there was a reason for everything that I have done."

“There aren't any reasons that will be good enough to satisfy me.” Felicia paused and grabbed the bar of rose-scented soap lying in the soap dish recessed into the wall. She lathered up a small wash towel hung over the metal bar on the glass door and started to gently wash the front of Helena's body. Showering together with her was something that she missed. Every time she saw Helena naked, she always found some new aspect of her that made her love the woman even more—like the tiny dark freckle just under the crease of her breast. “But you can go ahead and list them anyway.”

She had no idea what time Helena had to be up in the morning, and she assumed it was going to be a very long, emotional night, at least until she passed out from exhaustion from jetlag. Between the warmth of the shower and the warmth of Helena's body, she was already halfway to sleep, but that was nothing that couldn't be cured by a strong cup of coffee.

They hadn't really spent much time together, and that was partially her fault. Her hours at the hospital didn't exactly coincide with Helena's work schedule, and when they were both at home, Felicia was generally the one to be up with the kids, ferrying them off to school, or escorting them back home where they were usually watched over by her (if she was home), Lilka, or Devon and Amalia. Between the pair, she was the more maternal of the two; maybe it was because she'd raised so many children in the past. In spite of her self-imposed promiscuity, her children always came first, and on the days she had free from performing surgeries and follow-up appointments, Ildiko and Tivodar were always her priorities. That wasn't to say that Helena wasn't a part of their lives; she was, maybe not to the extent that Felicia liked, but there was little she could do about that. The only person she could truly control was herself.[/font][/div]

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ф ф Word count: 855
ф ф Mood: wanting to punch cats.
ф ф Outfit: None.
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Enough is Enough, Garbage
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: I'm chilly. Is cold here. ):

[Helena Rahal]

I wish I could know the directions that I take
And all the choices that I make won't end up for nothing

Helena knew the gravity of the choices that she had made over the past few months, knew the heavy toll that would have to be paid. Had it been a sort of emotional blackmail, had it been something worse than all the times Felicia tore her up inside because of her hedonistic nature? The former was a most definite no, the latter was a more complicated matter, knowing what she knew about immortals and their perceptions of the world. Her brain could understand what it was that Felicia was doing but her heart did not hold sway to logic and reason, it was a slave to the emotions that Helena went through.

"Now who is the one who is throwing around the accusations that the other person is missing the point? It sucks to be on the other side of being manipulated and told that you need to get over it, doesn't it?" It was cold and striking out but months, years of frustrations came bubbling up in Helena as Felicia tried to berate her for not taking the point to heart. Oh she did but the fact of that matter was the even saying sorry for hurt did not make it simply disappear, even if it had made it dissipate slightly.

Felicia couldn't see past her own choices, past her own desires, and figure out what was going around her. It was better that though than her simply not caring, of the two Helena hoped and believed it to be the former. Her own impending immortality was flashing before her eyes every time she looked at the Rahals and how they approached life. Would she become like them, could she become detached to the everyday life, to feel almost indifferent to the current affairs and people who were effected by them? She had to hope that Felicia simply didn't see it and wasn't choosing not to care, for if a young immortal like Felicia didn't care, how long until she lost her own humanity?

"It means that there are things happening that no one can explain! That I can't explain, that the Company can't explain, that even the genius that is Christian Moynahan can't explain. Rather than be ignore these events, I am trying to get to the bottom of them, to be prepared for what yet may come." Helena was refusing to be blindsided by the next catastrophe, for too long had she been reactionary to the world around her. Now was looking to be preemptive in her moves, to not be reactionary but to have the world react to her.


"That earthquake in New York, the one where I nearly collapsed in on myself trying to stop, you remember that? You think that was a natural disaster, that a earthquake of that magnitude would hit New York when the fault lines there are not major? Something or someone is behind it and other events, you have to see that." Proof was scarce, all Helena had was her gut instincts and what little information The Company had to go on. However she knew that something else was going on, she just did not know what.

"If there are people like Lillith out there, people who make even your mother seem like an ordinary Special, we need to be prepared. I will not be on the brink of destruction again, I will not be made the victim again. Never again!"

[Felicia Soler]

Make no mistake, You shan't escape
Tethered and tied
There's nowhere to hide from me
All mine, you have to be
So don't resist
We shall exist
Until the day
Until the day, I die
All mine
You have to be

Hotel De L'Europe
Amsterdam

"Now who is the one who is throwing around the accusations that the other person is missing the point? It sucks to be on the other side of being manipulated and told that you need to get over it, doesn't it?"

What the actual fuck? She'd never even come close to telling Helena to just get over it whenever she slept around. Her sleeping around and being open about it was worlds different from creating a body double and having it raise their children for three months. She bristled at Helena's harsh words not because she was hurt but because--seriously? When the hell had she ever been manipulative? If she'd been any more transparent, she would have been fucking air.

She knew exactly what Helena was doing; she was trying to push her into a fight. It wasn't going to work. She wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of breaking down or going full tilt into a screaming match that would have resulted in the entire city of Amsterdam and all its inhabitants being turned into little more than a blood smeared speck on the map. Instead, she poured her anger into lavishing her wife with physical attention, slowly moving down her body with the bar of soap. Life was far too short to be spent on such a violent emotion which really served no other purpose than being inherently toxic.

Felicia listened to Helena's plights as she explained precisely what she'd been experiencing in the months that she'd been absent. There were things occurring in the world that no one seemed able to explain—that much she knew, but shit like that was always going on. It was human nature to keep a running line of secrets to keep certain individuals or societies in line. She started to massage one of Helena's thighs and got down on her knees, resting her cheek against the wet, silky tufts of hair between her legs. Between the warmth of the water from the shower streaming down one side of her face and the warmth of Helena's body on the other, she couldn't have imagined anywhere else she wanted to be.

"That earthquake in New York, the one where I nearly collapsed in on myself trying to stop, you remember that?” Helena implored. Felicia looked up at her and nodded. Of course she hadn't forgotten that. “You think that was a natural disaster, that a earthquake of that magnitude would hit New York when the fault lines there are not major? Something or someone is behind it and other events, you have to see that."

She continued to massage Helena's thighs with her fingers and resigned herself to tracing the faint lines of veins that branched out in all directions from her groin. Even if it didn't seem like she was paying attention to what Helena was saying, she was hanging on every word.

"If there are people like Lillith out there, people who make even your mother seem like an ordinary Special, we need to be prepared. I will not be on the brink of destruction again, I will not be made the victim again. Never again!"

Her mother? An 'ordinary Special'? Felicia smirked and laughed quietly to herself. Only ordinary if that's what she wants everyone else to think, she thought. In her relatively short life as an immortal, she'd learned rather quickly that one of the ways to stay ahead of the game, as it were, was to never reveal too much. If her mother wanted to appear 'ordinary,' there was good reason for it—most likely because she was planning something.

“You don't need to be alone in this, Helena. I'm here for you, and I always will be. You just need to be open with me and not lie to me—whether directly or by omission—because otherwise I'm powerless to help you.” Felicia pinched the inside of one of Helena's thighs between her teeth to draw her attention downward. “This has nothing to do with my lack of fidelity. That isn't something that's going to change. And no matter how angry you get at me for the shit that I do or how hard you push me away, it will never change how deeply I love you.” Felicia raised both of her arms and embraced Helena around the small of her back, pulling her close. “But I can't protect you or help you if you aren't honest with me about what's going on, and if gods forbid something happened to you that I could have prevented if I'd known about it, I don't know what I'd do.” Raising herself back to her feet, she took Helena's cheeks between her palms and kissed her. “I've loved and lost far too many times in the past to know that if I ever lost you, my existence would be meaningless.”

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ф ф Word count: 949
ф ф Mood: GDI FELICIA WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME TEARS ALL OVER THIS THREAD. IHU.
ф ф Outfit: Naked and water and maybe Helena. lol
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: All Mine, Portishead
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: None.

[Helena Rahal]

When you have certain experiences
You respond with various emotions

Why when she was so full of bitterness, of being hurt, of the feeling of rage did she feel so small? Felicia was deflecting all of her barbs with looks and actions that instead of being retaliatory was instead trying to soothe her. Helena wanted to fight, to lay out everything that had hurt or irked her over the past few years, she wanted to yell and scream until she was blue in the face. Felicia was not giving her that satisfaction though, no outlet to let the emotions she had internalized and had become pent up that she had become numb and angry all the time.

Her hair cascading around her shoulders as she looked down at Felicia, just scrubbing and toiling away at her skin. Why would the woman not give in and let her fight and scream until she exhausted herself, why would she not allow the vent to become open? It infuriated her that even when she had attempted to create a confrontation, there was Felicia making it impossible. It was as Felicia had a special talent of knowing just what to do in order to further infuriate her at every step.

"Are you even listening to me or are you too caught up in trying to get me to have angry sex with you?" She huffed at the woman, trying to once more provoke Felicia to retaliate, to show something besides contrition. It was not a fight if one party was not fighting back, then it was just one person acting petulant. Was that the truth of the matter, that all of her concerns and feelings of irritation was just that of a petulant young woman who had yet come to understand her own emotions? Why the blasted hell had Constant and Kilvayne made her the Director?

Helena yelped at Felicia's teeth nibbling the flesh on her inner thigh as her attention was made acutely aware of the woman between her legs. Of the words she spoke, they were like the firing of an artillery against what was left of Helena's shattered mental defenses. Her layers were being peeled back as Felicia did everything that Helena had not expected her to, spoke words that she had never thought the woman would. Perhaps in another instance, when they were at home and had been more in love than how Helena felt now.

Was it so one sided, had she been blind to the amount of affection that Felicia actually held because of the infidelities. She did not know and she did not if Felicia could even help her even if Helena wanted her to. There had been at least twice that Helena knew of that Felicia had been working for forces that Helena had been trying to stop. How could she tell Felicia what she was doing... how could she trust the woman not to try to undermine her? She spoke of love and loyalty, but Helena could not feel the same.

Was it tears that she was crying and why would she be crying when she was so angry at everything? She was supposed to be this strong and important woman who made the decisions that changed lives, saved lives. Yet right now she felt small and shattered, torn and broken, a feeling that was all too common for her. Her insecurities gnawed at her constantly despite what achievements she had, regardless of how revered she might have been to others. Her own self doubt, her inability to trust people that she should have implicitly trusted weakened her, made her question every decision.

"I don't want to be the victim anymore Felicia, I am so sick and tired of being the victim. Yet I can't stop victimizing myself, I can't stop being my own worst enemy."

[Felicia Soler]

Burning on, just like a match you strike to incinerate
The lives of everyone you know
And what's the worst you take (worst you take)
From every heart you break (heart you break)
And like a blade you stain (blade you stain)
Well, I've been holding on tonight

Helena was looking for a fight that Felicia was not going to give her. She wasn't going to cave and start screaming and crying, because that was exactly what Helena would have expected—that and she didn't really have a reason to get angry and scream and cry, she was exhausted, it was color colorlate, and all she wanted to do was shower and fall asleep with Helena in her arms.

"Are you even listening to me or are you too caught up in trying to get me to have angry sex with you?" Helena prodded her again, deliberately goading her into an argument. Felicia just raised her eyebrows as if to say Are you done yet? and continued working her way down Helena's lithe form until she was on her knees in the tub and felt the water from the showerhead pounding on her back. It was like being in the middle of a thunderstorm where Helena was the cloud about to burst with lightning.

On any normal day, she would have reacted, but since she really did feel sorry for all of her shit Helena had to deal with, arguing would have been counterproductive. And then Helena started crying. Felicia placed the soap back into its holder and wrapped her arms around Helena's back, holding her close, and rested her cheek upon the small triangle of soft curls between Helena's legs. Her wife was so fragile sometimes and she had to wonder why Helena never really used her for support. She'd been through more than her fair share of trials and tribulations during her nearly nine century long life and she knew how to pick her way through the murky darkness to the twilight on the other side. It was a journey that could be made alone, but having another person by your side to help weather the storm always helped.

“You don't have to fight the good fight alone, Helena.” She stroked the small of Helena's back with her fingertips and looked up at her. “You like to hide in your work to avoid whatever is going on in your mind, and you really need to stop doing that.” Felicia held her close and kissed her navel. “No one expects you to be perfect, least of all me. No one expects you to be a complete statue, either. You're only human, and if you plan on living for as long as I have, you need to learn to let go of yourself. It might take a year or a century, but the only person holding you back is you.”

"I don't want to be the victim anymore Felicia, I am so sick and tired of being the victim. Yet I can't stop victimizing myself, I can't stop being my own worst enemy."

That was precisely the response she was looking for. “That's a step in the right direction. You can't change what you don't acknowledge, and now that you've acknowledged it, you can work towards conquering it—but not alone. You need to learn to let me in and let me shoulder some of your burdens. I can't help you if you keep everything hidden.”

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ф ф Word count: 666
ф ф Mood: I don't want to adult today. Please don't make me adult.
ф ф Outfit: Nothing!
ф ф Lyrics / Quote: Helena, My Chemical Romance
ф ф Illustrations: None.
ф ф Comment / Informational links: I thought the song was appropriate. lol

[Helena Rahal]

I'm not strong enough to stay away
I can't run away from you, I just run back to you

Helena was lost in her own upset feelings now, not sure whether she wanted to be embraced by Felicia or lash out at her. She hated how Felicia was right, loath to admit how she isolated herself and hid away from those that could help her. Was it pride or stubbornness that had her not look for help, to try and solve everything herself? Most of all she felt foolish for not opening up to Felicia, for not giving the woman a chance to try and help her resolve her issues.

"How do you unlearn the habits of a lifetime, even if you have lifetimes ahead of you? Can people really change that much or are we stuck to the same basic behaviors that we are so comfortable and familiar with?" Felicia wanted her to change and she wanted to change, perhaps not to the extent that Felicia would desire. However which was true, that people never really changed or that they were constantly changing? Right now, it seemed to Helena that the former was true, the way she fell back into the same routines over and over again.

Ugh, why did Felicia have to be right so often, even when Helena was right as well? Maybe that was one of the reasons that they had been attracted to one another in the first place, contrasting personalities that both could be right and wrong at the same time. However her wife was right in that she could not tackle all her burdens alone, she could not be a statue. They were a partnership and Helena was not being a partner in it, not by keeping the woman who was her wife on the outside.

"I guess that's why the say through sickness and in health, even with my all my demons." She tried to smile down at her wife but all she really managed to do was sniffle a little bit. She did not know how to be this person who shared everything with their partner, she would try though. Would it be enough, would Felicia stand beside her through all the bullshit that she could create, all her frailties? That she was her now and not giving into all of Helena's baits for a fight perhaps said more than words ever could.

"I'm tired Felicia." Tired physically, tired emotionally, tired mentally. More than that, she was tired of all her own mistakes, of not being the wife that that Felicia deserved, of not being a better mother to their tired. "Take me to be my darling wife." She doubted she would be awake in time for the meeting in the morning, yet it did not matter. She would be read in to their conclusions and plans later, right now she needed to be reborn with her wife.