DISCLAIMER: None of these characters are mine. They are the brilliant creations of DC comics, Tollin/Robbins, the WB and probably many other people I don't know of or can't remember. I'm just borrowing them for short period of time and promise to have them back by curfew.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Funk'd
By Janine

 

Helena slouched down in her chair, glaring at the plate of food in front of her like it had squeezed her ass on the subway. She was in an incredibly bad mood. She was in a mood so bad she couldn't remember the last time she had been in a mood so bad. In fact, she had recently moved so far beyond being merely pissed off that pissed off was a distant, fond, memory to her at the moment. What she was feeling had graduated into an emotion that she didn't even have a name or phrase for. She was torn between wanting to scream, wanting to stand up and throw things, and wanting to rip out her hair, stand up and throw things and scream all at the same time. It had gotten to the point where she couldn't even look at his face anymore without being overcome by a wave of violent emotions. She wanted to go great ape all over his face and upper body, just wailing away until her bones broke or her arms fell off or something.

She picked up her fork and pushed at the mass on her plate idly before she started to contemplate crushing the steel utensil in her hand. She continued to stare at the utensil for a long moment and then slowly started to squeeze.

"Helena?"

It was Barbara's voice and it immediately got the brunette's attention. Looking up reluctantly, Helena turned her gaze towards the redhead. "Yeah?"

"You haven't touched your food," Barbara commented watching the younger woman closely. She'd been aware of Helena becoming increasing withdrawn as the evening wore on, though she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was that was bothering the brunette so intensely. She hadn't seen Helena that sullenly passive-aggressive in years. She didn't like it. Helena couldn't keep that type of behavior up for long. The pent up emotions would finally become too much for her to contain, which would inevitably lead to an earth-shattering kaboom that would be twice as big as if she had just bitched when she first felt like it.

"Not hungry," Helena muttered looking back down at her plate, scowling at it.

"You're always hungry," Barbara commented her tone caught between being scoffing and alarmed. "Your stomach is a vacuous hole. It's like a tear in space, sucking matter in but never filling up. You once ate a whole chicken as a snack," Barbara continued staring at the brunette who had looked back over at her during her speech. "Are you sick?" she asked genuinely concerned.

"I'm fine," Helena replied smiling despite herself. She both loved and hated the fact that Barbara was able to so easily disrupt the funk she had spent the majority of the night quite comfortably settling into. Or, if she were going to be really honest with herself, the funk she had gradually been slipping into for the past few weeks. "I'm just," she continued a second later with a sigh before her eyes glanced over to the figure seated beside Barbara, "not hungry," she finished darkly, the funk returning to cover her like a sour, spiteful blanket.

"Well," Dinah declared looking around the table as an awkward silence descended over them after Helena's response. "I'm hungry, so if you don't want it, I'll take it," she continued reaching for the brunette's plate, glad to see the others smile and relax slightly. The lightness only lasted for a moment however as the second her fingers made contact with the edge of Helena's plate the brunette looked over at her, fixing Dinah with a glare that could rust metal.

"Then again, you might feel a little … uh, peckish later, so I'll just …" Dinah added withdrawing her hands. "Stop breathing," the blonde muttered softly setting back into her chair before promptly avoiding Helena's glowering form.

"You know what," Helena said a moment later looking around again, feeling even more unsociable than she had only moments before after seeing the look on Dinah's face as the blonde backed away from her. She hadn't actually wanted to scare the kid that time. "I actually … I'm not, I mean I have a bit of a headache," she continued pushing her chair back. "I just need to crash for a bit. I'm gonna head …"

"There's some Advil in the medicine cabinet," Barbara interrupted looking over at Helena contemplatively. "You can sleep it off in my room. You've had a bit to drink, I don't want you driving if you're not feeling up to par."

"It's just a headache," Helena protested bracing her hands on the tabletop and standing up meeting Barbara's eyes with a hostile, frustrated glare. She was trying to be responsible and remove herself from a volatile situation before it became violent, and she didn't appreciate Barbara trying to stick a cork in her plans.

"You don't get headaches Helena," Barbara responded keeping her eyes on the brunette though Helena, who was clearly agitated, refused to meet her eyes. "So, if you have a headache, then it's not 'just' anything, is it?"

"Oh, I don't know about that," Helena responded leaning forward her hands still braced on the tabletop. "It could 'just'," she continued stressing the last word, "be irritation. A fucking tension headache, maybe. Do I look tense? Cause I'm feeling a bit tense."

"Is the pain more at the front of your skull or towards the back?"

Helena stilled and then looked over to the side sharply, her eyes immediately landing on the person who'd asked the question.

"What?" she ground out sounding as irritated as she felt.

"It's just," Wade started somewhat startled by the murderous look in Helena's eyes. Barbara had told him, after relentlessly being asked, how physically gifted Helena was and he was getting the distinct impression that if he wasn't very careful, he'd find out just what she was capable of personally. "Sometimes you can tell what kind of headache it is by where you feel the pain," he finished looking over at Barbara for some support.

"Right," Helena drawled. "Well, thanks for …that." She waved her hand dismissively. "It was very illuminating," she continued sarcastically before turning her head to the side and closing her eyes as she sucked in a deep breath. She wasn't sure how much longer she could pretend that she didn't resent the man's very existence, let alone the loathing she felt when she thought about how he had disrupted the unusual but familiar pattern of her life.

"Helena," Barbara said her tone mildly chastising and obviously displeased.

Helena was silent for a moment after that, building up steam. She'd been trying to do that calming breathing shit, taking deep breaths and so on, but upon hearing Barbara's tone that all went out the window. She didn't know why it pissed her off – which really fit in well with the rest of her feelings that evening – since she was acting like a bit of an asshole, and Wade had only been trying to be helpful with his stupid little question. But that didn't really matter because it did piss her off, which meant it was all on.

"What?" Helena asked in a loud, aggravated tone of voice. "Are you gonna send me to bed without supper because you don't like my tone?" she continued focusing her fiery gaze on Barbara. "You don't like my attitude? Fine! This fucking disaster of dinner wasn't my goddamn idea. I didn't even want to be here, so don't be condescendingly 'Helena-ing' me like I'm a fucking three year old," she continued pushing away from the table. "This," she said sweeping her hand out in front of her as if to indicate the whole dinner, even though her eyes were solely on Wade as she spoke, "is your thing. You like it? You do it! Cause personally, I prefer my torture straight up and evil. So if you can possibly stop patronizing me long enough to wrap your mind around the fact that my 'tension headache' and I are actually competent enough to walk and chew gum at the same time, I'll go medicate myself and end all of our suffering," she finished dramatically shoving her chair roughly towards the table before spinning on her heels and heading further into the penthouse towards the bathroom.

"At least she didn't break anything," Dinah volunteered once Helena was out of eyesight.

"Yet," Barbara responded her eyes trained in the direction Helena had stomped off in. The brunette's loud diatribe had been more revealing than she had intended, and Barbara was getting a sense of what had been bothering the younger woman for the past few weeks. She sighed and brought her hand to her face to rub tiredly at her eyes.

"Things seem a little … hassled around here. Maybe I should go," Wade suggested looking over at Barbara. He wasn't exactly an expert at reading people and situations, but even he could tell that whatever had led to Helena's outburst was not a new issue. Barbara's relationship with Helena was so complex that half the time he had no idea what it was. For months Helena had just been a nameless muffin-top co-owner to him since Barbara didn't volunteer much more information about her. Later, he'd wondered how Barbara could speak so little about a person she spent so much of her time with, and after finally learning what exactly it was they did together at night, it baffled him even more how previous to being escorted to the clock tower he'd barely heard anything about Helena. It was obvious to him that there was a lot of history between them, probably more than he could ever really hope to unravel – especially since Barbara was so reticent about talking about it. Helena was more than Barbara's partner in crime, and more than her friend. What that made her he wasn't entirely sure. However, he was fairly certain that whatever led to the scene he just witnessed was probably related to some issues in their mysterious, convoluted relationship, and that it would probably be best if he left.

Barbara sighed softly her eyes still on the space Helena had vacated moments before. She wondered how she could've missed it before this, or not have anticipated it. It was just that the whole situation had been sprung on her, just like it had been sprung on Helena and she was just trying to deal with it herself. She didn't have a contingency plan for it, because she had never planned on things escalating to this point, but the decision had been taken out of her hands and she was just trying to make the best of the situation. Still, she should've known, should've talked to her, knowing Helena like she did.

Wade looked over at Dinah as Barbara made her way towards the door and disappeared into the interior of the penthouse following the path Helena had taken a minute before. Barbara hadn't acknowledged his question. In fact he was fairly certain she hadn't even been aware of the fact that he had spoken. The entire time he'd been waiting for a response she'd just continued to stare thoughtfully after Helena, and then without a word had taken off after her.

Dinah shrugged. She had some idea what was going on, but there was no way she was going to talk to Wade about it. "Their fights usually last a while. You could wait but …" she said letting her sentence hang.

"Nah," Wade said catching the hint. "I think I'll head home, let them fight in peace. I'll, um, I'll see you tomorrow I guess," he continued standing up. It was still kind of weird for him socializing with a student. Sure she was a student that happened to fight crime in her spare time, and could beat people up with her mind, but he had still helped her fill out her timetable.


Barbara was somewhat amused, but not all that surprised, to find Helena lounging on her bed having taken her up on her earlier offer despite how she excused herself from dinner. The overhead light was off, but she'd left her bedside lamp on and Helena hadn't seen fit to turn it off so the room was dim, but lit enough that she could see clearly in it. She knew Helena was aware of her presence in the room, could see it in the slight tensing of the brunette's body, and the way she shifted on the bed.

"You look comfy," Barbara commented closing the door behind her.

"I should be considering how much this thing cost," Helena responded looking down at the mattress she was lying on. "I'm sorry about yelling at you back there," Helena muttered a moment later, jaw clenched and tone clipped as she still refused to look at Barbara. There was a part of her that wasn't sorry about it at all, and a part of her that was more sorry than she could say. It was all extremely vexing.

"You don't sound sorry, you sound angry," Barbara commented moving further into the room but stopping short of the end of the bed.

"I am angry, doesn't mean I'm not sorry," Helena responded smirking slightly, glancing over at Barbara briefly before sinking back into morose silence.

"I'm … adjusting to this too, you know," Barbara stated a moment later, allowing some of her own frustration with the situation to show in her voice. Sometimes she wished she had Helena's ease with emotions, the ability to just let out whatever she was feeling, just let go when it became too much, or too bothersome to hold in anymore.

Helena's head snapped over towards Barbara at that, her mouth open as if she were about to respond, but after staring at the redhead for a moment she clamped down on the words that she was about to let loose and turned away. It had been her first instinct to declare that Barbara was adjusting because she wanted to adjust, and it was true enough, she just didn't like what it suggested about her own feelings that she felt that way. She should've been happy for Barbara. Finally the obstacle that had been theoretically stopping her from having a lasting relationship had been removed. Wade knew, he was aware of their secret life together, and actually managed not only to deal with it but also to embrace it. He knew all the parts of Barbara's life, and thus the redhead could finally have a go at it like any other person. She should've been happy. But she wasn't. She was angry. She was, she sighed to herself, jealous. Wade was taking up time that used to be hers, was encroaching on space that used to be hers, and she didn't fucking like it. She didn't want to share, but she wasn't quite ready to admit that yet.

"This isn't going to change things. Between us," Barbara continued when Helena failed to respond.

"Yeah, okay," Helena replied derisively though she hadn't meant for the response to come out quite as scathingly as it had.

Barbara was silent for a long moment before finally saying, "I mean that."

"I know you do," Helena replied finally looking over at her. Her voice was sad and frustrated instead of angry and accusing like it had been before, but still also petulant. "That doesn't make it anymore true."

"You think I'm lying?" Barbara asked her voice a mix of surprise and offence.

"I wish you were," Helena answered her eyes falling to rest on her lap. "That would mean you actually had some control over it," she muttered picking at the material on the leg of her pants. She knew if she looked over at Barbara the woman would be wearing that confused, miffed expression she wore when she got the vague feeling she was being insulted but wasn't exactly sure. She loved that expression.

"Helena," Barbara said forcefully, moving over to the side of the bed. "Wade doesn't change anything."

"Yes, he does," Helena responded just as firmly. "He already has. Things are different, and I'm not talking about these stupid dinners," she continued looking away from Barbara again. "We're different. Everything's changing. He's always fucking here – one way or another. It's never just us any … I mean, fuck at least Dinah's useful … all," she stopped abruptly, forcing her mouth to close before she voiced her opinion that 'all Wade could do was offer stupid suggestions, bring take-out and piss her off'.

"Helena," Barbara started not having the faintest idea where she was going to go after that. Wade was an opportunity for something normal, something real that didn't have anything to do with a greater good, or mission. It wasn't an opportunity she ever thought would present itself, because it wasn't an opportunity she was willing to make for herself. But Alfred had taken that decision out of her hands. He had put Wade in front of her and basically said 'make of it what you will'. She didn't know how to make Helena understand that that was simply what she was doing. She didn't understand how Helena could not know, that Wade was a chance she never really believed she'd have. Sure he wasn't what she had dreamed about the few times she had let herself actually consider having a real life outside of Oracle, but he was there. With all of Helena's constant complaining about being a regular girl and doing normal things, she didn't understand how the brunette couldn't see that she was simply taking her advice.

"I just miss you," Helena interjected a bit helplessly before Barbara could continue. "I don't mean that you shouldn't … I mean I'm not … you're just supposed to be …" she trailed off dejectedly waving her hand indistinctly before turning her head away from Barbara.

"What? Out to pasture?" Barbara asked her voice tinged with pain misreading Helena's guilty, cowed expression. "I'm supposed to be what, Helena? Here? Waiting around, playing with Delphi and saving people until I finally kick the bucket? I'm supposed to not have a life, not try and be happy or have anything more than a codename and long nights? I'm supposed to what, Helena? What am I just supposed to be?" she finished hotly.

"None of that! I didn't mean any of those things," Helena answered instantly, throwing her legs over the edge of the bed and dropping down to her knees so that she was kneeling in front of the redhead. "You deserve all of those things. More. Everything." She was looking at Barbara earnestly as she spoke, her hands resting lightly on the redhead's knees. "And fuck you for entertaining the notion that I ever thought otherwise," she finished indignantly, looking up into Barbara's jade eyes.

"What am I supposed to be?" Barbara asked unwilling or unable to let go of it though she believed Helena's previous statements.

"Nothing. Just drop it okay?" Helena replied standing up and moving back over to the bed, sitting down on the side of it. "I'm just cranky. Ms. Manners worst nightmare and all that."

"What am I suppose to be?" Barbara asked again, Helena's desire to avoid answering the question only making her want to know the answer to it even more. Besides, she was certain that they'd managed to solve absolutely nothing, and that if she let it drop like Helena so obviously desperately wanted her to, they would end up solving nothing.

"What part of 'drop it' didn't you comprehend?" Helena asked her tone more sullen and frustrated than cruel.

"What am I supposed to be?" Barbara asked realizing that she was treading on extremely thin ice, but not caring. In fact she was more than not caring she was slightly exhilarated. It wasn't something that she liked to ponder too much, but she found something about fighting with Helena exciting. With words they were evenly matched and she felt more like her old self when they argued back and forth than at any other time. It was like being back on the razor's edge again.

"Barbara," Helena replied her tone warning and exasperated. Her mental reserves were running pretty low at the moment after the dinner from hell, and weeks of resenting and barely tolerating Wade's presence in her life. She didn't have the energy to keep this up with Barbara. She was dangerously close to just answering the question.

"What am I supposed to be?"

Well, that was it.

"Mine!" Helena exclaimed finally reaching her limit. "You're supposed to be mine, okay. Mine. Sally can't borrow my Barbie, and Billy can't use my basketball, cause I don't play well with others. You're supposed to be mine and I don't wanna share you," she continued knowing that she should have shut up along time ago, but unable to stop the words from pouring out of her mouth. "My Barbara. Fuck Wade! He can go to hell!" she went on. "Hell," she added in quieter, grouchy but more controlled tone as she calmed somewhat.

Barbara was silent for long moments after Helena spoke, staring at her, shocked and confused.

"You can go home now."

Helena looked over at her curiously and with more than a touch of trepidation. She knew she had gone to far, she just didn't want to have to deal with the consequences.

"Because I don't even know where to begin responding to something so utterly childish, self-absorbed, and offensive. So you can go home," Barbara replied to Helena's look. And she meant exactly that. She had absolutely no idea what to do with that outburst. She knew that Helena hadn't enjoyed having Wade turn up at the clock tower whenever he pleased but she couldn't have been prepared from the tantrum the brunette just threw.

"I didn't," Helena began seeing Barbara begin to close herself off. "Barbara, that's not … it didn't come out right," she continued desperation creeping into her voice. Her big fucking mouth always getting her in trouble. "I mean, I am childish, and self-absorbed and usually delight in my offensiveness, but I wasn't trying to be or do any of those things just now," she went on. "Barbara, look at me. Come on. Please."

Helena dropped down off the bed once more and in front of Barbara when the redhead refused to look her way.

"You just," Helena started again. "You don't need him," she continued tentatively resting her left hand on Barbara's cheek encouraging the redhead to face her. "You have me," she finished softly, rising up onto her knees so that her head was level with Barbara's chest and she could see her eyes better.

"You know it's not the same thing," Barbara replied, wanting but unable to be mad at Helena when she was being contrite and wearing that hangdog expression.

"Yeah," Helena admitted slowly her eyes drifting away from Barbara's for a moment as she leaned back onto her heels and considered the woman in front of her, taking in the whole of her before focusing on her lips for a long moment. "But … it could be," she continued seriously, once again looking Barbara in the eyes.

"Hel?" Barbara asked softly, her voice barely audible and questioning. She had felt the air shift around them between the time Helena began to speak and the time she finished. She felt something shift when Helena brought her eyes back to hers and began watching her so intensely and tenderly. Something had changed. The air around them had begun to crackle.

"I -- want you to have me too," Helena breathed out not answering Barbara's question directly. "For us, to give and … partake of each other," she continued smiling as Barbara's eyes widened appreciatively at her phrasing before she went back to looking shocked and alarmed.

It all seemed so clear to her now that she couldn't understand how she didn't see it before. How she could've been so blind to something so close to her, to something inside of her. She had always known she was attracted to Barbara, and that she loved Barbara, but she hadn't realized, until moments ago, that she was in love with her. She didn't know when it happened and at that moment she didn't particularly care. She wanted Barbara all to herself, in every way, and she wanted to give herself to Barbara in the same way, completely. It was no wonder she couldn't stand Wade, that she loathed him so very, very much. She hadn't been lying about not playing well with others. Since the time she was a kid she'd been uncommonly territorial. It really did drive her nuts when Dinah took her clothes, not because she was worried the kid would ruin them, or they'd get teenager smell on them, she just hated it when other people played with her things.

Barbara breathed in deeply as Helena leaned forward. She could feel the tip of the brunette's nose on her neck and shuddered lightly as she felt it draw across her skin as Helena inhaled deeply. She felt one of the brunette's hands travel up her neck to tangle in her hair, and was shocked at the shiver that traveled through her body when Helena buried her nose into her hair and purred softly.

"Helena," Barbara said placing her hands on the brunette's shoulders. She was trying for a firm tone, but was painfully aware of the crack in her voice.

Helena drew her nose away from Barbara's hair upon feeling the redhead's hands come to rest on her shoulders. Pulling back slightly, but only slightly she dropped her head onto Barbara's shoulder, resting it in the warm nook between Barbara's neck and shoulder so that her nose was resting against Barbara's neck. And then, slowly, she drew her arms around Barbara's waist, carefully maneuvering her hands between her back and the chair until Barbara was encircled in her arms.

"What are you doing?" Barbara asked both relieved and disappointed that Helena had stopped with the sniffing and purring. It certainly wasn't everyday that she felt Helena wrapped around her hugging her, but she had some kind of experience with contact like this with Helena and felt much more comfortable with it than with the sniffing. And she needed comfortable at the moment, she really did.

The conversation they'd been having had long ago spiraled out of any sort of control she may have had over it, and she was feeling more than a little befuddled, not only by the rapid changes in Helena but by her own reaction to those changes. She may have put a stop to the sniffing and purring, but she hadn't disliked it, and she didn't know where that was coming from.

Actually that wasn't true. She did know where that was coming from and that was what was alarming her. The signals her body was sending were hard to miss. But it was more than an incongruency between her body and her brain. Her heart was in the mix too, blending the beginnings of arousal with tender emotions, that were making the objections of her brain not only harder to follow, but also to understand.

"Hugging you," came Helena's somewhat muffled reply.

Barbara smiled at that, the simplicity of the answer, the tone of it. Instinctively she turned her head to the side and pressed a kiss to Helena's forehead. She'd kissed Helena's forehead hundreds of times over the years, but like everything else that night, it seemed to take on a deeper meaning when she did it just now. She may have been making the same motion she had hundreds of times before, but it wasn't the same thing.

She pulled her lips back and rested her head against Helena's, her hands falling from the brunette's shoulders to her waist, drawing her closer.

"Why?" Barbara asked finally, her voice still shaky. The situation had the potential to become disastrous.

"I like hugging you," Helena responded easily feeling Barbara relax into her embrace.

"You never hug me," Barbara replied looking over at the top of Helena's head. "Well, hardly ever. Why now?"

"Why did I the other times?" Helena asked with a knowing thoughtfulness. "I felt like it," she continued softly. "Besides I'm not the only one hugging am I?"

"Well … I suppose not," Barbara replied a moment later, conceding the point after glancing down. She was hugging Helena back and holding on rather firmly.

"I can hear your heart beating," Helena breathed out softly a few seconds after Barbara spoke, pulling back slightly so that she could look into the redhead's face. She heard Barbara take in a deep breath when their eyes finally met and knew that her eyes had changed, were flashing bright, passionate, and violently blue up at Barbara. "It's getting faster," she went on, not quite able to stop the cheshire smile that stretched across her lips. "I can speed it up a bit more," she continued softly before biting her bottom lip, dipping her head so that she was looking at Barbara coyly through her eye-lashes.

"I'm not sure that'd be safe," Barbara responded frowning slightly as she considered the way her heart was hammering in her chest. She wasn't sure she would survive Helena's attempts to speed it up anymore.

"You're a strong, fit woman … of breeding age. I think we'll be okay," Helena responded smiling before leaning up, and with her hands braced on the arms of Barbara's chair, attaching her lips softly to the redhead's, placing soft, tender butterfly kisses on her lips.

"We shouldn't," Barbara breathed out when Helena pulled back, even though her body leaned forward following the warmth of the brunette's body. Her body flushed with warmth, and her head began to swim. The entire room suddenly seemed to be composed solely of Helena. The clean, airy smell of the brunettes skin, the silky soft feel of her skin, the sound of her voice reverberating through her body as Helena purred and mewled into her lips.

"Why not?" Helena whispered breathlessly already leaning back in to attach her lips to Barbara's to begin kissing the redhead once again, more firmly and more passionately than the last time, deepening their kisses.

Barbara leaned into Helena, one of her hands coming to rest on the back of the brunette's neck, as Helena rested one of her hands on Barbara's waist caressing her tenderly while they kissed. Her body flushed with sensations stronger than she had ever felt before as Helena's lips moved against hers and her body pressed into hers. She felt as if she was being consumed, she could feel Helena everywhere, her brain so overwhelmed by the feelings cascading through her that it was tricking her senses into vicariously enjoying the ecstasy it was experiencing. As she heard herself gasp, and rake her hands up Helena's neck to tangle her fingers in the woman's thick, raven locks, Barbara couldn't think of a single reason why not. Still…

"Helena," she managed to breath out, her breathe hitching once again when the brunette raked her teeth along the sensitive skin of her neck, nipping at it lightly before brushing her tongue over the abused area and then sucking on it. "Helena," she tried again. No, she thought to herself as she felt Helena's hand slip under the fabric of her shirt so that the brunette could caress her abdomen, still more of a moan than anything else. "Hel … stop." That should be less ambiguous Barbara thought to herself, noticing with both relief and disappointment that Helena's movements stilled moments after she spoke.

"I'm not making a play," Helena whispered softly blinking rapidly as she pulled back from Barbara, trying to get her eyes to return to normal as well as her breathing under control. "I don't just want your body. I mean, I obviously want your body," she continued her voice lowering and her eyes wondering at the last part of her statement, "but this isn't …hmph," she sighed pulling back some more so that she settled onto her haunches in front of Barbara. "I know this whole kissing thing probably seems kind of … random. But it's not. I mean, you're like my favorite person in the whole world, and I love you … in everyway, and if it were biologically possibly I'd want to have your babies," she went on before biting her lip nervously. She was blathering, she was blathering and rambling and if she'd had any idea of what it was she was trying to express she had long ago forgotten what it was beyond 'Mmmm, Barbara. Really like'. "So I … I just thought I'd toss that out there." Helena captured her bottom lip again after that and started gnawing on it. Toss that out there, yeah she thought to herself, smooth Kyle, really suave.

Barbara smiled down at her when she finished speaking, a face splitting, thousand watt, million dollar, cookie jar smile. She hadn't expected that from Helena when she had asked her to stop. She hadn't expected any of the night's twists, turns and revelations. But, she had to admit, as she looked over at Helena, she wasn't disappointed with the turn things had taken. In fact if the smile she was still wearing, the thrilling tingle still running through her body, and euphoric haze that lingered in her mind were any indication she was more than not disappointed. Far more.

She reached out and cupped Helena's face in her hands, staring at angelic features that were so familiar to her and yet at that moment so foreign. She was so beautiful, her face so expressive, and haunting, and sensual. She didn't understand how she could've seen Helena everyday for seven years and now be looking at her like she was seeing her for the first time. She wasn't blind of course, she had always been aware of the fact that Helena was attractive, the reactions of other people would've been enough to clue her into that fact if she hadn't already figured it out for herself. And she knew that once you got past her neck, the brunette's aesthetic appeal only grew. She had spent hours watching Helena, watching her body, she had helped the woman sculpt it. She had looked at Helena with a professional eye, but as her thumb moved to trace the brunette's full, pouty lips, she had to admit that in the past few years she had also been watching her with a voyeuristic eyes. More than once while training she had had to force herself to remove her gaze from Helena, and she knew that at times after patching the brunette up she had allowed her fingers to continue to trail along the brunette's skin in reverence rather than assistance.

Helena sat still as Barbara watched her, she forced her body through sheer force of will to remain unmoving as the redhead grazed her thumb across her lips and roved hooded, sensual eyes over her face and body. The silence, the anticipation, it was killing her. Her heart was beating a million miles a moment, and she was fairly certain that her palms were sweating. She was a predator, and hunter, she wasn't used to ignoring her instincts, and at the moment they were telling her to move, to get up, to walk, to talk, to do something, to do anything to make the silence and uncertainty end. But she suppressed the feelings, ignored the impulses because she knew that this was how it had to be, that this was how Barbara needed it to be at the moment. She had winged, and botched, and stumbled her way to this moment and didn't want to test it. Blind luck and stupidity could only take her so far, and she was fairly certain that she had reached those limits. No, now she'd exercise patience and restraint.

"I …" Barbara started softly, blinking until she was finally able to focus on Helena. "Feel," she continued a second later her lips parting again as if she were going to add something else to the word, expand on the sentiment. But she didn't utter another syllable. Instead her lips pressed together thoughtfully and her eyes clouded over as she got lost in thought for a moment, before focusing on Helena once again.

She smiled. And as Helena's lips began to curve upwards to match her smile she leaned forward and brought their lips together once again.

The End

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