Helena snorted, rolling her eyes. “You look like you escape from very bad seminary, I look like homeless-refugee–” she parroted the words she’d heard the teenagers whispering when they thought she couldn’t hear–”and you think we will blend in? This is joke, yes?” Turning, she rested her hand on the window glass. Facing away from the people meant she couldn’t feel them staring at her–and she couldn’t growl at them till they looked away, either. That was probably good.
Soon, they would be up in the air. But first was takeoff. Her favorite part, when the ground dropped away and the entire plane seemed to be falling, before it was caught, as if by a great Hand, and borne aloft on its great metal wings.
It was as close as she would come to flying.
Maybe, it was as close as she would come to God.
“Mmmmm,” Helena muttered. She pulled the packet of peanuts–swiped from the cart at the back when they boarded–from her pocket and tore them open with her teeth. Around a mouthful of the salty nuts, she said, “Sestra Alison would not fly with you in eleven million years, брат.” But, if that’s what it took to keep people from staring at them–
She swallowed the peanuts–hopefully not too loudly–and rested her head on Mark’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around his arm. In her cheeriest voice, she said, “We’ll be there soon, yes, hus–dear…honey…lambchop?” She sounded ridiculous, even to herself–but they were going flying–and suddenly she’d pressed her face against Mark’s shoulder to muffle her giggles.
This was going to be a disaster.
“How many of those did you steal?” He hissed, narrowing his eyes at her. Mark couldn’t get mad for long, it was hard to be mad at Helena’s childlike attitude. Sometimes she didn’t know any better and he had to constantly remind himself of that.
“Okay, you know what? If anyone tries talking to you, just say something in Ukrainian and they’ll stop trying to talk to you. It’ll make things easier for us. We look suspicious enough already.” Clothing wise, he didn’t have much to work with. Most of the time Mark was fairly good at flying under the radar and going undercover as a Prolethean felt natural to him, this was different. He didn’t have much time to plan and there were very few resources available to them. The religious Ukranian wife and conservative husband act would have to do. His thoughts were broken by the ‘lambchop’ comment and the warmth from her face made a small smile spread across.
As a flight attendent walked by, he couldn’t help but press a kiss against Helena’s hair. “I haven’t smiled like this in a long time.”
