The urgency in the air is something Helena does not understand. She can sense it is there, the way one can tell when they've walked into an uncomfortable silence that belies an argument that hasn't been completed, merely paused. Tension so thick it could be cut with a knife. Binary's tension swirls about her with the same quality as a hurricane. It was not dry enough to be a tornado, sweeping across the earth and drawing up manmade structures in its wake. It had that watery quality of a thunderstorm, a cyclone over the deep and unyielding ocean. Water vapor giving weight to the wind and creating a sort of violence that could submerge islands.
Helena had not seen the storm coming. The hostess doesn't know who she is facing, or why her visage had stirred such distress, or what help she could provide. Her instincts tell her to turn tail and get the bartender, or perhaps a bouncer. Logic tells her that this is abnormal at best, and mentally unwell at worst.
There is that nagging sensation, though.
Teeth against a dry scab, peeling up at the edges, still clinging to not-quite-healed skin but catching one's clothes enough to become a nuisance. This was going to hurt. Like the smell of petrichor lingering over wilting grass, the younger woman could feel it with a certainty that frightened her. And yet, she remains as prey-like as she has always been within this building. Quiet. Agreeable. Trying to survive by being palatable.
The brunette is drawn by an overly familiar touch on her back, the lower expanse barely covered in enough fabric to shield her from Binary's palm. Mr. Dent and Mr. Face's VIP room is unlocked and found to be empty. This masked figure's frantic checking of locks and windows, the expanse of the private bar, and the open seating feels like a scavenger searching their potential shelter for traces of enemy paraphernalia. Maybe that is why Helena isn't entirely distressed or on guard when Binary begins to speak- it is painfully apparent that the woman is too upset to be a sadistic threat at this exact moment. Her words tumbling one over the other don't really help the hostess become more comfortable, alas.
How was someone supposed to react to a masked stranger connected with a notorious Gothamite criminal knowing their name, their previous work history, their likes, their secrets?
Helena's expression twists with half-restrained anxiety as she shrinks back towards the locked door of the VIP room. But it gives way quickly with confusion when the woman across from her indicates that she as a patient at Gotham General, at some point during Helena's time there.
“…That was a student rotation- I don't work in the SICU anymore,” The brunette corrects shakily, eyes flickering across the dark-haired woman's fumbling fingers as she moves to unlatch the mask across her face. She is met with piercings and heavy makeup, but that scarring? The prosthetic eye, which she remembers the ocularist visiting to show Bianca different options. Her patient. The one who had vanished. The one that had sent Helena into a blind, raging fit against her so-called “co-workers”. The shame and guilt of failing yet another person in this big, cruel world.
Helena's expression crumples with sudden pain as it all comes rushing back. A forgotten wound left to fester, bursting with pus and infection.
“What- you're alive? I was so-”
The hostess starts bawling, ruining her carefully applied eyeliner. “I was so worried about you! What the fuck happened to you?!” She is neither a perfectly composed alcohol server nor a careful and gentle nursing student. She is human, in a raw and ugly way, wrinkled nose and drawn-back lips releasing guttural sobs as she reaches forward with shaking hands. For a hug.
