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heleneplays · 2 years

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You'll remain here (You'll remain dear inside)

LITERALLY FUCK ME I GUESS. SPENT THIS WHOLE DAY DOING NOTHING BUT WRITE FOR THE BLORBOS AND YOU KNOW WHAT. IDC. IT'S WORTH IT. THEY'RE WORTH IT.

anyways this are parts of the besties' pov, because I have unresolved feelings and half baked personifications of them screaming at me to write!!! them!!! down!!! so i am blaming my own issues but also James bc SIR. augh. my love for your goddamn blorbos is terminal and i succumb gladly :(

ok but honestly i was originally just going to write a meta fic of Helene actually becoming a self-aware character, that her choices were all predetermined, that it was a game etc etc on the second part but HEY things happen and next thing i know i wrote like 10k words instead of her choosing to fuck the narrative that good things have a price, and love is always enough in this three (?) part series of the endgame that never is, was, and hopefully never will be!!!!!!

ANYWAYS

forgot to say but stream GODSENT by BEN&BEN LIKE AUGH PLEASE.

again, María x Helene, but arching POVs from Sam, Cleo, Esme, Rémy, Zhu, and Dominique in the start of it all <3

---

Helene died, cradled in María's arms. They saw her breathe her last, focused on nothing but the woman who held her.

Sam almost wants to be bitter at that moment, because she'd gone and left, and her eyes never strayed. She didn't notice anyone else, had no other words to say except for María, and then they remember.

("It's always been her, Sam." She whispers, smiling brokenly as she stares straight ahead.)

So instead, they turn that bitterness into one part grief, nine parts wonder because throughout their adventures, the woman they consider their idol-turned-mentor-turned-friend was still as true to their heart, even in the face of broken dreams of the future, in the face of death.

---

"It feels like i'm playing God, when I hold these things in my hand." She whispers.

Sam remembers the island. Of how the Carxite podium held her, gripped her. The way inhuman rage looked at her, and how she ordered the island's defenses to activate.

Sam remembers the ozone smell, like fresh struck thunder; of vision of half-melted bodies of her enemies, of all the Nazis who set their boots into the shore.

Sam remembers calling out for her, and her cruel reply; remembers the light in her eyes gone, replaced with a dead-eyed imposter in her place sneering with cold contempt.

Of her breaking out of it, as they approached her, and as María, even then, stared at the woman with no ounce of fear.

Then Sam thinks about the silver-eyed goddess who stood in that place just moments ago, radiant with power, untouchable, but alive in the way the first one forgot; of how they snapped their fingers, and used the stone's powers like a familiar extension of their limb—not to kill everyone like she did then—but to delibitate and injure her enemies enough to stop them from interfering.

(Of how María, themselves, Belby, and in extension, the rest of their team shot Heidi Hahn in cold blood as Helene turned her wiles against the slippery snake beforehand.)

And of how they decisively struck down, with no measure of mercy, the other woman who made this endgame happen.

(Because if Sabine Schneider never found about the Archive, never subscribed to the Aryan ideals, never descended into a madness so familiar, then this clash of titans would have perhaps never borne fruit.)

(Atleast, Sam would like to think so.)

---

"Of all the people you included for this deathride of a mission, I didn't think you'd be the one to die, Helene."

---

Cleo looks at the woman she just helped lay down the couch, then towards Esme who was looking at Helene with a curious gaze. She looks as heartbreak settles in the woman's eyes, but not grief. She's seen enough people in the entirety of this war mourn and break into grief, but Esme seems to just breeze past that and go straight to acceptance.

Cleo feels discombobulated.

"It doesn't feel right, no?" The blonde's crisp tone shakes her out of stupor. The woman would be embarassed at being caught staring, but she's kind of past that.

"I don't—I mean, She is—" Cleo starts, trying to give words to her thoughts. Esme understands though.

"The first time I met her, I knew she was a star. She burned so fierce and brightly that day that she and my..." Esme shakes her head, voice pained but a broken smile painting her lips. "the day she and I met. Did you know we met during her dig in Jerusalem in '34? We crossed paths outside the Colony, and I felt something was about to happen after a brief moment our gazes met. Not even 10 minutes later, she was running out the Grand Salon, Nazis on her heels after she pissed them off— Next thing I knew, I was out there with the shattered remains of a pot, saving her from certain death by gunshot after she got herself cornered by one."

"I knew Spillane was a bit of a disaster, but to hear that she's just like that since then—"

"Oh no, don't get me wrong, Helene's a great big daredevil, but I was kind of a foolhardy self-proclaimed adventurer then, dragging Abdul all over the place, then it just clicked, you know? I do so hate bullies, and that day... made things clearer. Somehow."

"I kind of get it. She's a trailblazer, with almost 0 regards to conventional boundaries of society, then she drags you along for the ride."

"I went there willingly, i'll have you know!"

"Oh yeah? Well I was the one dragging her through it first!"

Both women look at each other, and laugh. It's painful, and others would say a touch hysterical, but it's something true, a release.

---

"I did her wrong, kinda a lot. Is it selfish of me to wish she was back, so I can apologize for some of the things I did?"

Esme keeps quiet for a few moments, before she replies.

"Helene got my man killed, you know. In '38, during that quest for that man looking for his ancestor's grave."

Cleo turns to look at her, shocked.

"I'm sorry, that's unkind." Esme sighs, but continues.

"It's just partly her fault. This... cult, they attacked our home because Helene was there, because I missed an adventure and it was a perfect excuse to get to see her. We were down to one floor, trying to survive, and it was a bloodbath, because their members so many, then Sam was clobbered down, and then Helene had to make a choice between me and Abdul."

Cleo wanted to ask so many things, but kept quiet.

"It was a split second, and I saw her looking at Abdul, thinking that my honeybear was going to be the one she saves, because to be quite honest, those two are more alike than I really would like to admit. And I was okay, I was ready for death because I love him, I loved him, I loved Abdul Al-Maliki, and I was alright as long as he lived—"

"But she chose you, instead."

"She did. And I wanted to hate her, because she saved me, instead of him, my light and the reason I loved so freely—And for a while, I did."

A slow smile curls into her face.

"I hated her. For all 10 seconds of it."

Cleo wants to be shocked. But she can't. Helene was, fundamentally, never unlikeable. She may be a clown at times, infuriating and stubborn; but never unlikeable.

(It's like a power of hers, they think. Helene has a great capacity to befriend people, soothe tempers, and charm others.)

(But she also was unflinching, unabashed, and unremorseful, especially against her enemies.)

"Helene has a great capacity for love. I was privelleged to part a small part of her heart, along with Abdul, and it was that part that I think, that gave her the instinct to save me. Love is not quantifiable by any means, but I think, Abdul told her just how far the depths go, and that moment made her choose differently."

Esme clenches her fist.

"I didn't understand then, but looking at how María held her, God, how she broke—She asked for my forgiveness before we left for this, y'know? I said I forgave her then, even if I didn't know why. Because even if his death hurts, he tried, she tried, and that's all I can really ask for."

(Abdul is a kind, good, gentle man. Slow to anger, with an infinite well of love. Helene is a kind, somewhat good, gentle woman. Slow to anger, with an infinite well of love.)

(Demons run when good men go to war.)

(So what would good women make run when they go to war?)

(Everything. Everyone.)

---

"You're right. Helene being dead feels surreal, because she survived far worse things. Most of which were my fault, because I kept omitting parts of the truth."

Cleo says after a while. She closes her eyes, thinking about every adventure she shared with the woman.

New Orleans. Congo. Romita. Kuzco.

All adventures fraught with deep, heavy things. Goddamned Racists, secret Nazis and murderous Natives, a Cannibalist group, and again, even more Nazis, except this time not-so-secret.

"I should be dead, to be honest. All the way back from Congo."

Cleo takes a deep breath.

"Our story starts in New Orleans, like I told you. She invited me to do a guest lecture in her fine, prissy, whites-only college, because she was like that; and we attracted the attention of the local Ku Klux Klan because of it. Things happened, and I dragged her to solve a mystery, we solved it only to get captured; she got lightly tortured for our troubles, almost maimed by a dog and then a croc. Then I invited her to Congo, she accepted, omitted that the jungle locals were growing more agressive, stumbled to a Nazi conspiracy, got captured, AGAIN, almost got branded as slaves, DID work one shift as one, staged a coup, overthrew the local soldier garrison... THEN HAD TO STAGE ANOTHER BATTLE YET AGAIN, but we survived; hell, we lived!"

Her hands shake, imperceptibly.

"We lived because she sent Sam and our guide, Jeff, with me, and she braved the north side alone with her part of the troops until we had to regroup as one, and then she saved me, while I was lying prone on my back, about to get skewered by their bayonets; but there she was, like an avenging little angel, smoking gun being reloaded faster than I could comprehend. And all I did get to say was thanks, because our adventure wasn't done, and after it all she was just—"

Cleo smiles, thinking about the Helene who literally flopped down on a bed and slept 48 hours straight.

"She went straight to sleep, heedless of everything else, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

They both take a second to collect themselves. Then Cleo continues.

"The next time we met was months after that, but she waved me off, getting me a drink 'til we went home drunk, and then I didn't talk to her about it again, and see her in person until Romita. I can't tell you want happened in Kuzco, but God, Romita? That place was a hundred ways more personal and fucked up than the whole back-to-back siege in Congo, because that... the monsters we encountered there? Truly Inhuman."

Cleo twists her fingers, trying not to remember the way her student flinched away from her, scared and emaciated; of the broken body of the girl, Mina–no, Stefania, flying down to the earth, and the crunch that followed after her self-made descent off the ravine.

(She tries to keep the chilling image of Ariadne Stokes smiling at them beforehand out of her mind, and shivers as she tried to think of what monster Helene faced. Because the ravenette was so silent and withdrawn afterwards, and she wouldn't speak of anything that transpired, even prodded.)

"Alone." Cleo says, and Esme searches her face, trying to understand. Then it clicks.

"You left her alone."

A statement, not a question.

"Yes. I'm not proud of it, but I've left her more times than I should have, all these years."

"...I won't ask why, or tell you what you should feel, because that's yours alone." Esme finally says, after a while. "But I'd like to think she's forgiven you anyways. She did that, kind of a lot."

"...Yeah, I know. I want to think that too."

---

"You saved... kinda a lot of asses, Spillane. But nobody's ever been able to save you, when it mattered."

"No, someone did."

And their gaze slides towards María, who's still looking out the window and into the empty night sky, looking for something only she could see.

---

Rémy can count on one hand the times he'd been out of words. As a learned man, he never had a lack of them, loving the way his voice sounds, especially at the throes of passion.

But hearing that his dear friend, the woman who dared him, once upon a time, to fuck one of his paramours in the top of the Eiffel, has been lost. Well, people can forgive him for not gracing them with his presence, right?

("You, you, you fiendish Frenchman!" Helene shakes with indignance, trying to pummel your back with her tiny fists as you carry her on your shoulder.)

(You laugh, real and deep. "Oh yes, I am a fiend, and I am indeed French! Congratulations on your astute observation, chérie." This is one of the many times you've met after a seminar, but the first you've seen the professional woman crack. Who knew all it took was getting her drunk and embarrassed?)

("Augh, damn you. The only person who should be handling me like this is Spanish and she's farrrrrr more cuter than you, Fournier!" She declares, and you almost colide with a post.)

("Well, well, well! Sounds like a juicy tale, Chérie! You should tell me all about it!")

("No." She pouts, and you feel her tense. "Talking about her makes me sad. And I don't like that.")

(You want to press, but it slips your mind, because the next moment, she's out like a light.)

Miles grimaces beside him, bone deep weariness hitting in the moment the news hits.

"—o can you guys come pick everyone here up?"

"Oui, hang on tight. We'll get the island secured."

---

"How does it go again? Ah, yes. Too rich for use, for Earth too dear."

---

Zhu feels numb, as he sits quietly on his perch, just back from staring from the corpse of his friend.

("You are better than this, Jian Zhu, and you better listen to someone who knows and believes that there IS a goodness that exists within you, with all that want to be a better man! It starts that this moment, by acknowledging that this is bigger than you, than Kao, than everything else you've planned for revenge; So please—" Her voice is five parts pleading, five parts command, and oh. There it is. "Please stay, and help me finish this once and for all.")

(It's at this precise moment you knew you'd come to the ends of the earth with her, for her.)

("Okay." You whisper. "Okay." You say again, more full, more forceful. Because you know your need is selfish, is stupid, but Helene understands, and she knows better than anyone else a part of your story now, and all she asks for is this time, to help her save the world.)

(And you couldn't disobey, even if you tried. Because she is part of your absolution, and you will be a supplicant for her earnest devotion, the same way you feel her protégé(?) does as they cling to her.)

(Helene Spillane may physically be the smallest woman in the room, but the magnitude of her presence fills her with unnatural grace and strength that she dons on and off as she pleases, like a cloak.)

---

"...I'm not surprised, because I know how far devotion can run. I... I understand."

---

Dominique has had some of the shittiest days lately. It nearly tops the moment they uncovered the camps, but—

Helene is still, and if they close their eyes, they could swear the woman was just sleeping, the way she was no less than 48 hours ago, deep in the jungle wilds while in Japan.

It looked deep, you thought, with the way she was so still; but the brief rest didn't last, and she handily opened her eyes to stare towards you, unseeing yet, but her hands flying to the throwing knife hidden in her side at a blink of an eye.

Then awareness fills them, and you shake you head, opting to get her to prepare instead.

(So no, denial is a bad look on you.)

It doesn't feel real, the assault on the fortress taking almost instantaneously after their mission, after a brief hour or two to get ready with tools and wait for the team to be assembled. Then the bloodbath, of fighting the ground troops, teaming up in several pairs because manpower, time, and the path to the end is limited, and you all needed to make sure the assault is fast and efficient for the world, the fate of the world hangs in this one mission, and you loathe to think the end of it fails.

You don't want to fail. Death is inevitable, and you are nonetheless proud for being included in this ragtag bunch of people fighting for a better tomorrow. Included in the imposible last defense of this mystical mumbo-jumbo, because of course alien and magical powers are goddamn real.

(Fires blaze in your heart as Helene makes the final rounds for one last time before the endgame starts. Final goodbyes were already said awhile ago, and everyone tenses in anticipation.)

(In a better world, you think, Helene would have made a great motivational speaker.)

(And then you snort. Because Helene actually hates speaking in front of a crowd, and most, if not all her extroverted tendencies were a front. You'd know, because for all the showmanship you've done for the sake of your career, part of it was just for you to show off your skills in a relatively anonymous manner.)

(Show a clown to the circus, and get your bread and gold, and all that jazz.)

You're going to miss her, you think. You look around and spot Sam cringing on the side, trying their best to patch themselves up with one hand.

And you can't help but sigh, because the woman you observed who'd have patted their head and give them a noogie before doing the patch-up themselves is gone.

(And never coming back...)

---

"Our time was brief, but hey, we always had fun, didn't we Helene my dear?"

---

They say death is the end.

---

Helene is dead.

And then she wakes up.

There are many questions to be answered. But looking into her eyes, even though something inside has fundamentally shifted, something added, something lost; it's still her.

So they hold off, and take the gift as it is.

---

The word of her death does not spread far. Everyone else agreed to keep it under wraps, the cost of victory still too raw, too dear to talk about.

They settle on half of a lie, that yes, she was briefly gone; but life-saving maneuvers got her back.

But everyone in that island remembers. Her friends; her chosen family— something will forever be changed, because they knew the finality, had lived it, and mourned it, however briefly; before she went and changed all the rules.

(Helene loves to defy expectations. This happening is no other. Everyone is safe, and it's free real estate.)

And because of it, they will all have the chance to talk, really talk, and a chance for a future. Altogether.

---

Helene sits in a bench under the shade. Silver strands caress her face as the wind shifts, blowing a gentle breeze against her face.

Beside her, María sits, saying nothing aside from quietly slipping her hand into hers, and squeezing it. A stray beam dapples from the trees, making the golden bands on their fingers glint in the fading light.

"Do you have any regrets, Helene?"

"Before? During? or After?"

"In any of them."

Helene is quiet, as she is most days. But María has grown to be patient, because love is kind, and makes better fools of them both.

"No."

Short and succinct, with a finality in her tone.

(María, as most of the years that have passed, had grown to understand her new language.)

"Okay. Me either."

And silence reigns.

It’s a loaded but comfortable silence, their two hearts beating as one, and for that moment, everything is enough.

---

"Hey, María?"

"Yes, Helene?"

"Do you know I love you?"

"Yes. Do you?"

"Know that you love me?"

"Yeah, that."

"I don't need to know. I always felt it."

"Even after all I put you through?"

"Even then. Even now. Forever will, and even then."

"How?"

"You're a masterful liar, María, but you can't fool someone like me."

The book snaps shut. And she looks down on her lap, where Helene lies as she wants.

"And what is 'like you', huh?"

Helene looks up at her, eyes bright, and ever so full of love.

"Someone who knows. Someone who sees. Someone who percieves."

She says, quietly, but confidently. Then the brunette shifts, bringing herself up, so different in the time she lied there unmoving, craded in the redhead's arms. And she cups her face in her small, warm hands, and brings herself close, close eneough that they can see the flecks in their irises; of the yellow and gold intersped in María's hazel, and the subtle silver that settled in Helene's dark, grey-brown.

"Most importantly, Someone who loves..." she whispers. "you."

(María kisses her, and it's heady, sweet, and everything Helene ever needs.)

---

"Why did you come back?"

"...Because I wanted to."

"And it's enough?"

You understand that she speaks from a fear, a fear that you'll abandon her for your chase of power. The fear of being left alone, because you already left this mortal coil once, and something hums in you, calling for the void.

You can't explain in words, so you capture her in a kiss. And then try.

"I fought the universe itself to come back here because I believed, María. I believed in humanity, in myself, and the people here I do so love."

"That doesn't answer if it's enough." She answers, her grip tighter at the second.

Am I enough, she what she really asks.

It should hurt, after all these years, this doubt; but instead, it teethers you. And you blink, and everything finally slots into place. So you match her, and hold her close.

You smile.

"I love you, María."

You are enough, is your reply.

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