She bent her head slightlly and placed a soft kiss on Helena’s forehead and over both eyelids. Helena closed her eyes and soon drifted off to sleep. Bette gazed at her face and took in her beautiful features before she tightened her grip around Helena and fell asleep herself.

……………………………..

It has been a little more than 8 weeks since Helena came out of prison and lived since then in Bette’s house with Bette together. Peggy had been staying for a week until she was sure that Helena was more or less fine. She had made Bette promise to give her an update how Helena was doing once in a week.

The first two weeks Helena had isolated herself from everybody and everything around her except Bette. They had been talking more together, but Helena never brought up the subject of her stay in prison and what happened there. Bette didn’t want to rush her, so she never brought it up herself. Helena would come to her if she wanted to talk about it.

Their friends came to visit her one by one. If there were to many people in a room, Helena felt uncomfortable and became agitated. Alice had brought Helena the rest of her clothes, which had still been in Alice’s apartment. Helena had even began to goof around again a little with Alice. Bette would watch her in such moments as they were as rare as they were beautiful. Helena had been cooking a lot for Bette, making her something to eat when she came home from work.

But even if everything looked like it was alright, Bette knew that Helena overplayed things during the day. She knew that Helena still had nightmares and wasn’t sleeping well. She heard her sometimes walking around the house in the middle of the night. Many times Helena went outside in Bette’s backyard and sat near the pool. Helena was also always up before her, greeting her with a coffee in the morning before she left to go to work. Bette wasn’t surprised when Helena was asleep sometimes when she came home from working. The fatigue would caught up on her body and it would take what it needed so desperately.

When Bette came home today Helena had been cooking something simple for supper. They had eaten in comfortable atmosphere and when they were finished Helena had began to clean up and wash the dishes.