Chapter Text
There's something strange about the other woman.
Myka isn't sure where the impression comes from—what it is, exactly, that seems so striking about her, or even why the woman first caught her attention. She's beautiful, certainly, but it's more than that. There's some sort of otherness about her that Myka can't articulate, but it has her staring for much longer than is appropriate.
Then the woman catches Myka's eye and winks, and Myka tears her gaze away as her cheeks redden at being caught. She turns her back on the other woman, and hurries off down a different aisle.
Once the woman is out of sight, it's like a fog has been lifted. Myka shakes her head, and can only smile wryly to herself. The woman wasn't strange, per se, surely. A stranger, yes, but nothing more. It was just Myka's mind running away with itself, as it tends to do on occasion. Clearly, her best friend Pete is right, and she needs to get out more often so that she doesn't continue making a fool of herself in front of random beautiful women.
“Peter Pan?”
Myka nearly jumps out of her skin at the voice that suddenly appears from over her shoulder.
She glances back, a blush once again covering her cheeks; it's that woman. Her voice is smooth and lilting, the British accent soft but noticeable in only the two short words.
It only takes Myka a moment to gather herself, looking back down at the book she's holding in her hands, having just plucked it from the shelf in front of her.
“Um, yes,” she replies, explaining, “I'm thinking of getting it for my niece.”
The woman smiles, playful and bright. “A good choice,” she offers. “He's really quite a character, that Peter.” She leans in conspiratorially to add, “I've heard a few rather vile rumors about the author, however.”
“Oh,” Myka responds, unable to shake the awkwardness she feels. That first impression has returned, that feeling that there's something almost otherworldly about the other woman, and it makes Myka feel ungainly in comparison. Unsure what else to do, she looks back down at the book in her hands.
She looks up again, meaning to ask something hopefully intelligent-sounding, but… There's no one there. Myka glances around the small bookstore, but it's like the woman’s just disappeared.
Myka can only shrug and shake her head at herself. She goes to replace the book back onto the shelf—she had been thinking of getting it, it's true, but she's not quite sure that it's the right choice—but at the last moment, some stray impulse strikes her, and without another thought, she's gone and purchased the book.
“Do you know anything about J.M. Barrie?” Myka asks Artie, her boss, once she's returned to the museum after her lunch break. He's proven in the past to have an overabundance of random information floating around in his head, so she figures that he's a good bet to know something of what that woman was talking about.
Artie's bushy eyebrows bunch together, and Myka can almost see the gears turning in his head. Random questions that come from out of nowhere are something that he always seems to take in stride.
“J.M. Barrie… Author of Peter Pan?” Artie verifies. At Myka's nod, he continues, “Not all that much, really. He invented the character to entertain some neighbor children he befriended. Had an older brother who died very young, I believe, which greatly affected his family. Some people say that he was a little too friendly with those children, if you know what I mean, but as far as I know, I don't think there was ever any definitive proof of that.”
Myka is about to ask more when some tourists wander into the museum, and Myka is kept busy for the rest of her shift.
In fact, Myka mostly forgets about the strange woman entirely until a week later, when it's the night before her niece's birthday party.
She's having difficulty falling asleep, her mind troubled in some vague way that Myka can't really figure out. It was already fairly late when Myka had gone to bed, but after spending over an hour simply staring up at the ceiling, she gets up and goes to make herself a cup of tea.
Tomorrow—well, later the same day, by that point—Tracy's daughter would be turning nine years old. The book that Myka had bought now sits on an end table in her living room, wrapped up in bright, colorful wrapping paper. With nothing else to do, and still feeling like any attempt to fall asleep would be futile, Myka finds her thoughts turning again to that woman she’d seen in the bookstore. She still doesn't know what it is about the woman that was so special, but she's remained, lingering, in the very back of Myka's mind over the course of the week.
Regardless, given her current bout of insomnia, Myka decides to look into this J.M. Barrie; if there actually is any evidence that he molested children, like Artie implied, then maybe she will want to get a different gift at the last minute.
Myka isn't sure how long it's been since she's fallen down the internet rabbit hole, when she stumbles across a reproduction of an old photograph.
She stares at it, blinking several times. She then closes her eyes and rubs at the bridge of her nose, before readjusting her glasses and opening her eyes again.
The photograph still looks the same.
It's an image of J.M. Barrie, captioned, “Mr. Barrie, the Llewelyn Davies family, and several friends.”
Myka's eyes skim right over the figures she can now recognize from other photographs—Mr. Barrie, himself, along with the boys and their mother—and settle firmly on the woman standing to the left of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.
It must be some relative, but the resemblance is uncanny…
Or maybe Myka is simply misremembering, and they actually look nothing alike. But Myka is pretty sure that isn’t the case…
As far as Myka can tell, the figure looks exactly like that woman Myka had met in the bookstore.
Amelia’s birthday comes and goes—Peter Pan elicits a heartfelt “Thank you, Aunt Myka!” and a hug, but is fairly quickly overshadowed by shiny new toys—and Myka's life continues on along the straight and narrow path Myka has somehow managed to entrench herself in.
She goes to work, giving tours and working on her research; every once in a while she agrees to hang out after work with Pete or her coworkers; she goes home, takes Scout, her dog, out for a walk, and returns to make dinner-for-one or order some take-out; she watches the news or reads a book; sometimes she visits her sister's family, but she's not on speaking-terms with their father, which can make for some uncomfortable conversations with Tracy. Myka has her routine, and she likes it well enough, boring though it often feels.
And then… Everything shifts.
“It's you!”
The woman looks up at the sound of Myka’s voice, glancing around to either side of her before grinning uncertainly and responding, “Oh, is it?”
Myka flushes and shakes her head minutely at herself. “Um, sorry, I didn’t quite mean to say that out loud, I just…” She reaches up to rub the back of her neck, unsure how to finish her sentence. She has a feeling that, ‘I've been thinking about you off and on for a while, now, and I don't think it's just because you're really beautiful, although you are gorgeous, and I found a picture of someone that looks like you, but it can't possibly be you, because you're not in the range of 150 years old, right?’ would be an inappropriate statement to make.
Luckily, she's saved by the flash of recognition that passes through the woman's eyes. “We met in the bookstore, didn't we?” she asks.
Pleased to be remembered, Myka can't help the smile that crosses her face. “Yes, that's right,” she says.
The woman eyes the empty chair across from her, asking, “Would you like to sit, Ms…?”
Just then the barista calls out an order for: “Meeka!”
“Oh, that's me,” Myka says, looking briefly over her shoulder towards the counter where her coffee has just now been placed. “Except it's ‘Myka.’ Not ‘Meeka,’” she explains to the woman, who has the barest hint of an amused smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “And I'm just going to go get my drink, now,” Myka finishes.
She turns her back on the woman with an embarrassed grimace. With coffee in hand, she turns to look back in the woman's direction. She smiles, kindly, and gestures again to the seat across from her. Still somewhat flustered, Myka smiles back, but she does go and sit down across the table from the woman.
The woman extends a hand towards her. “Well, Myka-not-Meeka,” she says, “I'm Helena.”
“Helena,” Myka repeats. She reaches out to shake the offered hand, the pale skin cool to the touch, after the hot cup of coffee Myka’s just been holding. “It's really nice to meet you.”
Accosting someone whom she'd only met for about 30 seconds once before isn't exactly Myka's normal modus operandi, but somehow, Myka actually manages to make a new friend out of it.
Helena is entirely unlike anyone she's ever met before, but Myka feels an almost immediate affinity for her. Helena is intelligent, well-read, and has a sharp wit that keeps Myka on her toes. And unlike Pete, whose eyes glaze over the second Myka starts talking about anything to do with either history or linguistics, Helena seems to be genuinely interested in Myka's work at the museum.
With an ease that Myka welcomes but finds unfamiliar, they simply start hanging out on a regular basis. First they go out for coffee or tea, and sometimes Helena comes to the museum for Myka's lunch break. Then they start going to book readings, or to see a movie, the kind that Myka could never get Pete to go to with her. And before long it's not uncommon for one of them to simply stop by the other's apartment, and they’ll have a glass of wine and talk, or just keep each other company while they each read a book, or watch some television, or anything else they feel like.
Helena even manages to charm Scout, something that neither her ex-boyfriend, Sam, nor her ex-girlfriend, Abigail, had been able to do.
That initial feeling she had, that sense of otherness in Helena, does go away as she gets to know the woman better. For the most part, that is. Sometimes Helena will say something, or look a certain way, or just give off some kind of vibe, and… Myka doesn’t know what it is, really, but she writes it off as some weird side effect of the burgeoning crush that she wishes would just go away.
Myka doesn't bring up the photograph she saw. She's gone back and looked at it again, and the resemblance really is remarkable, but there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to mention it. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason not to mention it either, Myka has to admit—it could even make for a funny story, how for about half a second Myka had actually entertained the thought of whether or not Helena had been alive in the late 1800s—but some strange intuition stops her from saying anything.
Sometimes, during those semi-lucid moments just before she falls asleep, Myka thinks that it’s because part of her still wonders, impossible though it obviously is, whether that half-second thought had managed to catch onto something true.
“Do you believe in fairies, Myka?”
Coming back into the living room after taking a phone call from Artie, Myka stops short, looking over at Helena with a raised eyebrow. Helena meets her gaze with a small smirk but no other words of clarification. Before Artie called, they'd been talking about how Myka had started reading Peter Pan with Amelia, the last time she'd visited, but Myka still isn't sure how to take Helena's question.
She chuckles, returning to sit on the couch beside Helena. “If I say no, will that kill Tinkerbell?” she asks.
Helena says nothing at first. She looks at Myka with an expression that Myka can't fully interpret, something contemplative, full of thought, but she then turns away and fingers the locket that's always around her neck.
She smiles, then, and her tone sounds like it's meant to be joking, but Helena's eyes remain serious when she says, “I'm not sure. It might actually kill me.”
“Hey, Artie,” Myka begins, with feigned nonchalance. “Do you know of any historical instances of, like, seemingly supernatural phenomena in the world?”
Of course, the museum’s intern, Claudia, happens to overhear, and she looks up with a smirk. “Myka, have you been reading Twilight?” she teases. “Because if you’re asking Artie if vampires are real, the answer is that yes, obviously, of course they are.”
Myka rolls her eyes. “No, that’s not what I meant. Not really,” she says.
Although, now that she thinks about it… Shit, what if Helena hasn't aged for a hundred years because she’s a vampire?
Myka shoves the thought away.
“What I mean is,” she continues, “have there been accounts of things happening that science just can’t explain? Like, I don’t know, something that seems to be almost magical.”
“Well, yes, of course,” Artie replies. “There are countless examples of times when people were faced with something they couldn't understand or explain. They usually responded with one of two extremes, either demonizing or deifying that thing. The Salem Witch Trials, of course, are one well-known example of the former. In terms of the latter, there’s an account of Christopher Columbus using Regiomontanus’ almanac to predict a lunar eclipse, which—”
Myka interrupts, saying, “Okay, sure. But, well, we know that those women and men weren't actually witches, and Columbus used scientific research to make his prediction. What I’m talking about… I mean, do you know of anything real?”
Artie pauses a moment, but Myka can tell that he’s taking the question seriously, at least. Even Claudia seems intrigued, foregoing the opportunity to make some snarky comment.
His face lights up, then, and Myka knows that he’s come up with something. “I suppose that Michel de Nostradame—known more popularly as Nostradamus—might fit what you’re talking about,” he says. “Many of his predictions were totally bogus, of course, but depending in part on whose translation or interpretation you follow, he arguably made quite a few genuinely accurate ‘prophecies,’ where it would be highly improbable for him to simply stumble onto them out of sheer luck.”
Clearly warming up to the topic, Artie adds, “Oh! And there have been a number of tales concerning artifacts that seem to have been imbued with various sorts of magical properties. For example: Jean-Martin Charcot, who had Sigmund Freud among his students, was said to own a violin that, when played at a very precise frequency, it would put the listener into a deep trance, where they would be highly open to hypnotic suggestion. And there’s Harry Houdini, of course. Several scholars have made some very intriguing arguments about the props that he would use.”
Artie continues talking, but Myka has stopped fully paying attention, and his voice fades into a background murmur.
Myka isn't sure what she’d wanted to get out of Artie. On one hand, if he’d just flatly denied any possible existence of mystical elements in the world, there would have been some comfort in that; Myka could've then more easily written off her Helena-related delusions as temporary insanity, and that would be that.
But Artie didn't deny it at all.
And the idea that, even beyond anything to do with Helena, there might actually be some things out there in the world that science just can’t explain—some kind of magic… Well, Myka has to admit that the idea is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
Helena and Pete… do not get along.
They each do seem to try, at first, for Myka's sake. But it isn't too long before they're privately admitting what they each really think about Myka's other best friend.
“What a childish buffoon.”
“I really don’t know how you can stand spending so much time with that know-it-all.”
“I know you've said you met at university, but are you sure he didn't flunk out?”
“Have you managed to take the stick out of your little girlfriend's ass yet?”
Myka can actually understand where they’re both coming from, to a certain extent, but she sees it all so differently. Yes, Pete is a bit—okay, quite a bit—on the immature side of things, but that’s just part of his charm; and Helena does know an awful lot, but that’s just part of her charm. Pete doesn’t really show it much, but he’s actually really smart; and Helena’s only stiff like that around Pete, and more importantly, she is definitely not Myka’s girlfriend.
She wishes that they would like each other; wishes they would each see what Myka sees. Because she loves Pete like a brother, and Helena, well… Myka likes her a whole lot.
They try one more time to all hang out together, with stern warnings from Myka to each of them to be on their best behavior. Things seem to go well, at first, but then Pete makes fun of Helena’s accent, and Helena makes a joke at Pete's expense, and it all devolves from there. Myka feels like she's getting a glimpse at what it would be like to be a parent with two bickering children.
She sighs deeply. She's not even quite sure what they’re arguing over anymore, but they appear to be quite engrossed in whatever it is. Clearly an unnecessary part of the discussion, she exchanges a wry look with Scout, who sits still but glances between all three adults with a puzzled look on her face. Suddenly, Myka's vague annoyance shifts into amusement—leave it to her to pick two such different people as her best friends.
She can't help it, then, and she starts laughing, which does serve to finally get her friends' attention, and they turn away from each other to look at her like she's crazy.
“Uh, you okay, Mykes?” Pete asks.
Myka smiles affectionately at them. So okay, they don’t like each other, but that’s all right, because she likes them both, and that's enough.
“Yeah, yeah, I'm good,” she says, still chuckling. She stands up, and Scout follows suit, wagging her tail and looking eagerly at the door. “I’m going to go take Scout for a walk, so maybe you two can take the opportunity to wrap up your little chat, and then maybe you can manage to stay quiet for an hour or so while we watch a movie. Then I promise, I'll never make you hang out with each other again. Okay?”
They both display twin looks of sheepishness, which only makes Myka laugh again.
By the time she returns from the walk with Scout, they’ve at least managed to soften the volume of their conversation. They seem not to have heard her come back in, so although she feels a little guilty about it, she keeps Scout on her leash for an extra minute so that she can eavesdrop on them.
“So yeah,” Pete is saying, “Myka's my girl, you know? We’re like this.” Myka hears a sound that she imagines is Pete pounding his chest over his heart. “So, I don't have to like you, but I’d do anything for Mykes, even put up with you.”
Helena snorts.
“How magnanimous of you,” she says. There’s a pause, and then she sighs. “Yes, well, likewise,” she continues.
“So. Truce?” Pete asks.
Helena offers a sound of vague assent. “Shall we shake on it?” she suggests.
“Nah. Fist bump,” is Pete's response.
“You really are an overgrown child,” Helena chuckles, but at least she sounds more amused than annoyed.
“Yeah, but Myka loves me in spite of my overgrown child-ness, so tough luck for you!” Then they presumably go ahead and bump fists as Pete finishes, “Now, boom!”
Myka grins, going back to the front door to open and close it more loudly and announce her return.
Yes, she supposes, it doesn’t really matter, in the end, if Pete and Helena don’t like each other. Not only does she like them both individually, but it seems like they both like her well enough too.
When the thought strikes her, Myka doesn't know why it hadn't occurred to her earlier. Research is, after all, a large part of what she does for a living.
Myka realizes that, in order to put those vague, impossible, likely-to-have-her-committed thoughts about Helena to rest for good, all she has to do is figure out who it actually is in that photograph. Granted, knowing simply that the woman was a “friend” of either J.M. Barrie or Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (or both) isn't much to go on, but she’s dealt with even more deficient starting points before.
The downside, of course, to pursuing this idea is that it brings all Myka's crazy notions—they’re crazy; absolutely crazy; Myka knows that they are—to the forefront.
Before, other than that conversation with Artie, she’d been mostly successful in relegating her thoughts about the photograph and how strange Helena sometimes seems to the very back of her mind, as they only really emerge just before she falls asleep or right after she wakes up, when Myka is too tired to keep them away.
Now, however, the mere premise of this little research “project,” for lack of a better word, has Myka thinking things through more actively. It doesn't feel any less crazy the more she thinks about it, but… She somehow doesn't manage to convince herself that it’s wrong, either.
Myka appreciates facts, and logic, and things that make sense. She always has. So to even remotely entertain such an impossible thing…
Sure, Artie has some stories about strange historical phenomena and weird artifacts, and even Pete’s vibes and her co-worker Steve’s lie detection ability are both almost preternaturally accurate, but none of that is anything compared to the prospect of a woman who has stopped aging for over 100 years.
Myka really doesn't know what’s gotten into her.
She doesn't realize how bad it’s gotten until about a week after she starts trying to research the woman in the photograph.
They’re at Myka's apartment, watching a movie, with Helena and Myka sitting at opposite ends of the couch, and Scout dozing lightly at Myka's feet.
Except, instead of actually watching the movie, Myka's attention has drifted over to Helena. Earlier that day, she’d managed to track down a much higher quality version of the photograph that started this whole crazy thing, and now is trying her best to compare it to the woman who now sits just a few feet away from her.
Because that’s part of why she hasn't been able to just dismiss everything. She knows how genetics work, that people resemble their relatives, and that there’s a very high probability that the woman in the picture is just someone farther up Helena’s family tree; she also knows that there are instances of so-called doppelgangers, people who happen to look noticeably similar to one another. But this still somehow feels like more than that.
It’s like they could be twins—separated not at birth, but by time.
Myka fails to realize how blatantly she’s been staring until Helena pauses the movie and turns to meet Myka's gaze.
Myka blinks, confused for a moment. “Are… Is everything okay?” she asks.
Helena doesn't answer at first, as her eyes shift intently around Myka's face.
She moves closer, then, her hand grazing over Myka's thigh. “Myka,” Helena whispers, and Myka's heartrate skyrockets because oh, now Helena is just staring down at Myka’s mouth.
Myka inhales sharply, almost a gasp, and it’s like the breath draws Helena to her. Helena leans in, brushing her lips softly against Myka's own. Once, twice. The third time, there’s more pressure, and though Myka realizes that her eyes seem to have fluttered shut at some point, she feels Helena’s hand come up to gently cup her cheek.
For some unknown and incredibly stupid reason, Myka does absolutely nothing in return. She can only sit there, stunned, her mind gone blissfully blank.
But then, Helena pulls back.
Myka's eyes fly open as she senses Helena moving away from her on the couch, turning back to face towards the television, with her own eyes focused on her feet.
“Well, apparently that wasn't why you were looking at me like that, and now I've made a bloody mess of things,” Helena murmurs with a self-reproaching wince. “Truly, Myka, I am ever so sorry, and please, let’s just forg—”
“Wait, no,” Myka interrupts, now taking her turn to shift over to Helena’s side of the couch. “I mean, that wasn't what I was thinking about right at this particular moment, so it took me a bit—way too long, really—to catch up with you, but it’s not… You didn't…”
Myka swallows and takes a moment to just breathe in and out. “What I’m trying to say is that you weren't wrong. I do think about that. About you, I mean. Like that.”
Helena looks up at her again, a tentative smile beginning to cross her face. “You do?” she asks, more cautious than Myka is used to seeing her.
Myka bites lightly down on her lower lip, with the action clearly catching Helena’s attention, and nods.
She only hesitates a moment longer, and then Myka surges forward and kisses her, hard and firm and urgent. It’s just a bit clumsy at first, but Helena steadies herself as her hand finds Myka's waist, and Myka's hand reaches up into Helena’s hair, and then Myka's opening her mouth to let in Helena’s tongue, and oh, this is so much better than wasting her time thinking about, well, anything else, really.
This time, when they pull apart, they’re both smiling.
Things are going well, Myka thinks.
Nothing much changes, really, except they start saying that they’re “going on a date” instead of just “hanging out.”
Plus, now there’s kissing on a regular basis.
Yes, things are going quite well.
That’s the cue, of course, for everything to go crazy.