Helena’s heart leapt when she heard the message.

"Yippee! She trusts me now!"

Jiggling around the room, she did a happy dance, exclaiming loudly, "Oh my God! I can’t believe I’m so happy!"

Distracted by the whole chain of events, she reached out her mobile to dial for the first person she could think of – Alice, when an incoming call came in.

Reacting immediately, she activated her silkily smug voice as she answered, "Yup, Helena Peabody speaking."

"Hi. It’s me."

There was an unconscious silence. Helena felt her heart pound wildly against her ribcage as she heard a familiar voice. Trying to sound as calm as possible, she said in a trembling voice, "Hi, what’s up?"

"Did you get my message?"

"Ermz", there was more silence as Helena tried to think of something intelligent to say, but as you know, logic defies a person who is just struck by the grand notion of love. This call came by so unexpectedly that she was unable to react. She would rather she went though everything in her head (and rehearsed with Alice) before calling Bette again. Or did she really?

Suddenly, Helena was torn apart by a cascade of emotions… Concern over her new lady love, the eagerness to protect and take away Bette’s pain, insecurity over the myriad of feelings she was going through now and fear of getting herself hurt yet again.

She blurted the first coherent thing that went though her head, "Hey Pumpkin? You have sky-high expectations, don’t you? You called only five minutes ago!"

Bette laughed. A tinkling laugh so clear that it sent chills down Helena’s spine, yet took her breath away.

"Did you just call me pumpkin? Is that a British thing?" (Author’s note: No)

Helena felt as though she was dipped in honey as a warm feeling engulfed her soul.

"Wow" She thought, "If there were faeries, this would certainly be what they sounded like." She didn’t realize that she just spoke her thoughts out aloud until she heard Bette’s reply.

"What faeries? You aren’t tripping on Acid now, right? Pumpkins and faeries… Who would you mention next? Cinderella? I know, I know I told you that I acted in that bad stage play, but you didn’t have to rub it in constantly…" Bette rambled.