Archive of Our Own

Myka holds it together for five days after the drive back from Boone, Wisconsin.

Five days after the worst break-up, that isn’t really a break up but is still very much a break-up all the same, of her life.

Five days after saying a goodbye that isn’t really a goodbye, but is still very much a goodbye all the same, to Helena.

To the one person on Earth she never could figure out how to say goodbye to.

She holds it together.

She puts on a brave face for her friends – her family – and tells herself that she’s fine, that this will be fine – it has to be, after all, doesn’t it? –, and that life has to go on.

Sometimes, when she buries herself deep enough into work, she even manages to trick herself into believing it.

Not that the illusion ever lasts long.

She tries to put on a smile anyway.

She doubts she’s fooling anyone but herself, though. Scratch that – she knows she’s not fooling anyone else. It’s obvious in the way Pete makes even more jokes than usual, in an attempt to make her laugh or even just smile; it’s obvious in Artie’s concerned eyes on her when he thinks she’s not looking; it’s obvious in Claudia’s gentleness around her, and in the way she tones up the sarcasm to give Myka something else to focus on.

She’s grateful for all of them, all their efforts. She has no idea what she’d do without her found family’s support and love.

She has to push through this, she knows. For their sake. For her own.

Myka holds it together for five days after the drive back from Boone, Wisconsin.

And on the fifth, she breaks.

*

She’s doing inventory in the Warehouse that afternoon, after spending all morning running after a half-ethereal being that escaped from a lamp during an artifact disturbance and tried to get her to say a wish every time she got too close. It didn’t even surprise her to learn that this particular artifact was behind the folktale of Aladdin; she’s seen much weirder during the past three years, after all. It’s just that this particular being, somewhat the ghost of a person long dead whose life goal was to improve everyone’s well-being by trying to make their deepest wishes come true, took quite a toll on her nerves and heart.

Because her first thought, when she’d heard the words “what do you wish for?” as she was trying to goo the lamp only to discover that it wouldn’t work unless she could also spray the wish-granter, was of Helena.

Of the woman she’d chosen to let go of to allow her a chance at the happiness she so much deserves, even if it meant she had to break her own heart in the process.

Even if it meant letting Helena lie to herself for the rest of her life.

Myka’s spent five days desperately trying not to reflect on what she did exactly. And so far, this is the one thing she has mostly succeeded on.

But her morning has been long, and exhausting, and emotionally draining, and her brain has apparently decided to betray her that day because she finds that her feet have led her to the remnants of Helena’s Time Machine without much consent from her conscious mind.

And somehow, this is it. The moment the world comes to a screeching halt as she’s hit by flash after flash of memory.

She remembers the day she and Pete lay on these seats, their minds travelling back in time to discover the whereabouts of Cinderella’s Glass Knife.

She remembers H.G.’s relieved eyes locking on to hers as she woke up.

(She remembers everything about Helena’s time at the Warehouse with an acuity that is almost jarring – not that she should be too surprised about it, all things considered.)

From then on, it’s a downward spiral.

She remembers everything that happened between them, the good as much as the bad and all there was in between.

She remembers meeting Helena; remembers feeling pulled to her like a magnet whose intensity never wavered.

She remembers their banter, their arguments, the constant push and pull between them.

She remembers the flirting. Because, really, there’s no other way to describe it – and on some level she’s always been aware of that, even if she never let herself fully acknowledge it.

She remembers everything, everything about the extraordinary woman who turned her world upside down. The only person who could ever make sweet, reasonable and professional Myka Bering act impulsively and recklessly; the one person who, even through all the hurt and the betrayals and the pain, always made her feel so much alive.

And, despite all their promises of coffee or maybe saving the world and not losing each other, Myka knows that it won’t ever be the same again. It can’t.

That’s when it hits her, suddenly, that five days ago she chose to give up on pursuing the only thing, the only person who ever made her feel more alive than the Warehouse.

It’s been five days since Pete drove her away from Boone, Wisconsin, five days since she shattered her own heart, and Myka breaks.

*

She doesn’t move when she hears soft footsteps behind her. She’s been sobbing silently for god knows how long anyway so there’s no way she could ever pretend she’s fine when her eyes must be as red and puffy as humanly possible; and, besides, she doesn’t think she has enough strength left at the moment to pick herself off the floor.

She doesn’t need to look up to know that it’s Claudia. She’s way too attuned to every member of her family to need her eyes to recognize them.

She doesn’t move when arms wrap around her and squeeze, preventing her from falling further apart, or when Claudia’s head presses against her own, providing comfort however much she can. She just closes her eyes and takes a shaking breath, willing herself to find something to say – anything to explain her current state, but her mind draws a blank. She’s too exhausted to make up a believable excuse.

(She hasn’t cried like that since she quit the Warehouse, two years ago or so by now.)

(She hadn’t expected to have such a breakdown again this time; certainly not like that, not here, not now.)

“I know it doesn’t compare in any way”, Claudia whispers, softly despite her pained voice, “but I miss her too. So much.”

And Myka is aware of that.

She saw the light in Claudia’s eyes dim when they got back from Wisconsin and Pete shook his head almost apologetically; she’s seen the young woman’s mask of happiness flicker and crack during the last few days even as she tried to cheer Myka up to the best of her abilities.

Claudia is the only one in this Warehouse beside Myka herself who ever took an almost instant liking to H.G., and the only one to mind her absence now that she’s gone.

(‘For good’, a torturous voice whispers at the back of her mind. ‘Helena is gone for good this time.’)

(Myka wills it to shut up with all her might.)

“She broke your heart, didn’t she?” Claudia whispers again when no reply comes, a hint of anger worming its way into her voice this time.

“No”, Myka manages to croak. “No. I did that to myself all on my own.”

Claudia sighs, moving her head back and away so that she can look at Myka better. “What happened over there exactly? Because Pete’s told me a little about it, but I don’t think he knows either – and he literally witnessed it.”

“It’s… complicated”, Myka evades, rubbing her hands over her eyes in a futile attempt to make her vision’s blur go away.

“No shit”, Claudia snorts. “I don’t think anything’s ever been easy when it comes to you and H.G.”

The retort gets Myka to huff out a small laugh. “Understatement of the century.”

“Well, at least you’re self-aware. Now stop avoiding my question.”

“I told you, it’s complicated”, Myka repeats, mumbling.

“Then try the short version, and then the long one”, Claudia pushes. “I have time, you know. But just… Talk to me. Please. Let me help you. Or talk to our new resident shrink about it if you prefer, I don’t care, just talk. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

And the thing is – Myka does need to talk about it. She wants to talk about it. She’s been keeping it all to herself for five days and it’s been slowly killing her from the inside. She just truly doesn’t know where to start.

“I never thought it could hurt so much to break up with someone I’ve never actually been with”, she eventually decides to say.

“Oh please. Like hell you’ve never been with H.G., you—”

“I didn’t—” Myka tries to cut in, but Claudia doesn’t let her. She removes her arms from around her friend’s shoulders so that she can sit in front of her, holding up a finger.

“I don’t mean physically, and honestly I’d rather not know whether you ever slept with her or not because yikes, images and mental scarring – no thanks. But you two were always… intense. Both of you. You weren’t ever just friends; there was always something more to it. Don’t try to deny that.”

Myka doesn’t try.

“Your timing for finally realizing that you’re in love with her is shit, by the way”, Claudia adds with a wry smile.

“I’m not—” Myka tries to protest, but the words die on her lips.

Oh. Oh no.

“It’s okay. I think we all figured it out long before you did”, Claudia adds, patting her on the shoulder comfortingly, but Myka barely hears her.

Because the thing is, she is. She is. She doesn’t just love H.G. – she has, after all, never known how to do things by halves when it comes to her.

She is in love with Helena Wells.

She’s in love with the woman she gave her blessing to for another relationship; in love with the one woman she’ll obviously never have.

Myka cries again.

Claudia surges forward to hug her once more.

“Shit, shit, shit, sorry”, she apologizes hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to twist the knife. Sorry. I’m an idiot.”

That at least gets Myka to let out a small laugh through the sobs. “Claud’, you’re many things, but an idiot really isn’t one of them. It’s rather Pete’s area of expertise.”

“First time for everything, huh? Also, I’ll tell him you said that.”

Myka chuckles again.

She’s suddenly very glad that Claudia found her in the middle of her breakdown. It’s very hard to spiral down any further when your thoughts are interrupted by hearing things like that.

“Now, I have the million dollar question for you”, Claudia continues once Myka has calmed down. “Why did you break up with her?!”

This time, Myka doesn’t hold back. She tells everything about Emily Lake’s new life.

By the time she’s done, Claudia is looking at her with plain disbelief.

“H.G. Wells wants a normal life? Bullshit. I don’t buy that for one second.”

Myka scoffs. “Me neither. But she did a good job convincing herself of that, though.”

Claudia looks at her with unreadable eyes for a while before she seems to come to a conclusion – what it is, Myka really doesn’t know – and gets up, holding her hand out.

“Okay, up you go. I’m not letting you wallow in your misery any longer; I’m pretty damn sure Abigail would call that an unhealthy coping mechanism.” She pauses; thinks for a second. “If that can even be considered a coping mechanism at all. Anyway, you’re coming back at the B&B with me. We’re going to watch dumb movies so you can point out all the historical inaccuracies and get your mind off of H.G. for a while.”

Myka opens her mouth to say something, but Claudia cuts her off.

“And no arguing.”

Myka lets herself be dragged up.

*

It takes Claudia three minutes to find Emily Lake’s cell phone number while Myka freshens up a little in her room. She blames that embarrassing slowness on her distracted mind, busy trying to figure out how to help the woman she considers a big sister in a situation like this.

The call goes straight to voicemail.

In a way, Claudia prefers that outcome. She’s not sure she’d have known how to react if H.G. had picked up.

“For the record, I love you and all”, she bites out into the microphone, “but you can really be one hell of a fucking idiot when you put some effort into it. And thanks for disappearing without a word, by the way, it’s not like anyone here misses you or anything.”

For the first time in her life, Claudia suddenly comes to miss old desk phones that you could slam down without risking breaking them.

She thinks it’d make her feel at least marginally better.

*

They don’t talk about H.G. after that. At least, not until Claudia knows it’ll be worthwhile to broach the subject again.

*

Myka puts on the same fake smile she’s had plastered on her face since she came back from Wisconsin that evening and the next day. Steve looks at her with eyes that scream ‘really?!’ every time she says she’s fine, but otherwise not much changes. As far as she can tell, neither Pete nor Artie came to realize that she had a complete emotional breakdown over Helena.

*

Claudia doesn’t get a phone call back, but she does get mail two days later. One of H.G.’s 19th century habits that she has a hard time losing, the young woman supposes.

Inside the envelope is a card that simply says, “I’m sorry”.

Claudia calls again. It rings, this time, but she still ends up on voicemail.

“I don’t want an apology. I want you to do better from now on”, she says, voice a lot less harsh and a lot more desperate than she would have liked.

She hangs up without another word.

*

“Nate and Adelaide are going on holidays for three days, starting tomorrow. H.G. has work and isn’t going with them”, Claudia mentions two days later, almost casually, like she learnt the information in passing and didn’t get it by stalking Helena’s private life. And really, Myka should have known she wouldn’t get off the hook so easily.

“Claudia”, she warns, leveling a stern look at the younger woman who raises her hands in surrender way too quickly for the action to feel genuine.

“I’m just saying.”

“Sure you are.”

“I really am”, Claudia insists, keeping on the innocent persona that Myka sees straight through. “I never said what you were supposed to do with that information. I’m just putting it out there.”

“Well, please don’t”, Myka demands. “Because I can’t deal with it right now, or probably any time soon, so leave it alone. Please. I need to start trying to move on.”

“Oh, sure, like you’re ever going to move on from H.G.”, Claudia retorts immediately with an incredulous laugh. “But, you know, whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.”

“Claud’!” Myka exclaims, exasperated (and maybe unwilling to admit that there is a little, just a little, truth to the words).

“Okay, okay, shutting up now”, Claudia promises, mimicking zipping her lips closed.

Myka sighs with relief.

*

She tosses and turns in her bed the whole night.

Because Claudia may have just ‘put it out there’, as she said, but the result is exactly the same anyway: now, Myka’s thinking about it. And maybe, perhaps, possibly, her traitorous mind is making up scenario after scenario, and maybe, perhaps, possibly, she’s considering doing something reckless.

Reckless like the side of her that only H.G. ever seems to make rise from the depths of her brain.

It’s past 4am when her mind finally settles and makes her see reason again.

She can’t, and won’t, do something reckless and completely, utterly stupid.

Simply because she knows that she wouldn’t survive another rejection.

*

“You look like shit”, Claudia comments when Myka walks into the kitchen to pour herself some coffee the next morning.

“Thank you”, she replies with a falsely sweet smile. “I didn’t exactly sleep much.”

Claudia hums, her face turning careful and her eyes searching. “We both know you’d sleep soundly if she was here.”

“You’re seriously making me regret confiding in you”, Myka retorts. She means to snap, but her voice just comes out tired.

There is a pause; a long pause, during which Claudia seems to look for answers on her face, but to what question Myka doesn’t know.

“You’ve given up”, Claudia suddenly realizes. “You’re fucking giving up after all.”

“Yes, Claud’. I gave up the moment I told her to make a home with Nate”, Myka confirms sadly.

“No. No you hadn’t. You were crushed and for some reason convinced that you made the right choice even if it’s destroying you, but I could tell you were still battling yourself over your decision. You hadn’t given up. And now, you have.”

Myka almost throws her hands up in the air. “What do you want me to tell you, Claud’? Apart from ‘it’s none of your business’?! She chose, alright – she gave me up for her life in Wisconsin. There’s nothing I can do to fight this, and I won’t. She’s made her choice; if nothing else, I’m going to respect that. She has every right to decide what to do with her life, and that includes lying to herself about who she is for the rest of it.”

Claudia raises her voice as well. “Myka, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met”, she blurts out exasperatedly, “and H.G. is also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but when it comes to this” – she gestures wildly in the air – “you are both the two absolute dumbest people I’ve ever met. Have you, by any chance, ever considered that H.G., who is the most insecure person I know once you get past all her layers of charm and sass, settled for Nate because you never made obvious the possibility that she could ever have you?!”

And…

The short answer is no. No, Myka never did consider that.

The long answer is that she doesn’t know what to do with the minuscule spark of hope that Claudia just reignited inside her heart. Because it makes sense, much more sense than she wished it would, but she cannot, cannot take inconsiderate risks that would crush her even further.

She just can’t.

She feels like crying again, and she’s so tired of having fresh waves of tears prick her eyes every few hours for the last three days.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks Claudia, crossing her arms to appear more self-assured and less vulnerable than she feels, even though she’d rather wrap them around herself at this point.

“Because you may have given up, and she may have given up, but you’re so obviously made for each other that it’s almost painful to see, and I haven’t given up on the two of you just yet. So do you want to know what I truly think? I think that if you love her half as much as I suspect you do, you shouldn’t give her up either until you’ve at least tried the last option you have.”

There is truth in these words. Too much truth to be comfortable.

And Myka doesn’t find anything to answer to that.

*

“You know you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, right?” Steve asks once Myka walks back upstairs, having heard pretty much the whole exchange from the living room with how loudly they were talking. “It’s not your place to stage an intervention here.”

Claudia shrugs, not looking the littlest bit remorseful. “Okey dokey, Jinksy, consider me properly chastised. I’m still right about this.”

“What if you aren’t?”

“Steve. It’s me we’re talking about here. I’m always right.”

*

Recklessness sticks its claws in Myka at exactly 2:43pm that same day.

She knows the time because she’s been lying on her bed since lunch, eyes absently trained on the clock on her bedside table as she thought and thought and thought, turning everything she knows about Helena and her current options into puzzle pieces that she tried to slot together.

And, well, now that Claudia has dangled the possibility of one last chance in front of her, there’s no way she can just ignore it.

Not when she has finally admitted to herself that she is in love with H.G. Wells, and has been for a long time.

Not when she knows she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t lay all her cards on the table at least once.

Not when she still has a chance, one last chance to set both their hearts right.

They’ve lost so much time already as it is.

Recklessness sticks its claws in Myka at exactly 2:43pm that same day, and two minutes later, she’s walking downstairs with her car keys in hand.

“Don’t walk away from your truth”, H.G. had once told her.

And, well, Myka feels like she did just that a week ago.

*

She’ll still let Helena go if it comes down to that, but she won’t do so without a fight.

*

“Going somewhere?” Claudia asks knowingly when Myka passes by the living room door.

“Wish me luck.”

*

It’s night outside when Myka arrives in Boone, just a little bit terrified out of her mind at the thought of what she’s about to do, but also more resolute than she’s ever been in her entire life. It’s night outside and she sits in her car parked across the road from Emily Lake’s house, taking deep breath after deep breath to try to calm herself.

It’s 10:58pm when she admits she won’t ever calm down and opens the car door, walking to the house she left just a week ago with purposeful strides.

Her heart pounds in her chest as she knocks against the wood, fleetingly wondering what exactly has gotten into her to lead her to this very moment, when all she suddenly wants to do is turn on her heel and be the one to run away for once.

The door opens.

“Myka?!”

Helena’s voice is somewhere between bewildered and confused, but Myka doesn’t dwell on that. She makes her way inside the house without a word instead, stepping forward before she changes her mind – because if she doesn’t do this right now, then she’s well aware she’ll never have the strength to try again another time.

“Myka, what is going on?” H.G. insists, worried all of a sudden.

“I lied”, Myka says, whirling around to look at the woman she can never seem to tear her eyes from for too long.

Helena looks even more confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“I lied”, Myka repeats, feeling a sense of peace wash over her as she does so. It’s now or never; and whatever the outcome, this is where she was meant to be tonight, baring her heart to the woman she can’t imagine losing yet another time. “I lied because I thought it was the right thing to do, I lied because what I wish for more than anything else is for you to be happy, but I lied.”

Helena has become stock-still.

“I don’t want you to make a home out of this place”, Myka continues, looking H.G. straight in the eyes. “I don’t want to just have coffee with you from time to time. I don’t want to be an afterthought or a friend halfway across the United States; I want to be the person who comes first.”

“Myka, what are you saying?” Helena asks, so softly that the words have to be read on her lips more than heard.

She’s looking more vulnerable than Myka has ever seen her be, and suddenly Myka understands with overwhelming clarity what Claudia meant.

Beneath her tough and composed exterior, Helena Wells is terrified to truly love again.

(To risk unbearable loss again.)

“I’m saying that I’m a fool who just drove eight hours to tell you the truth this time. A fool who wants nothing more than for you to come back with her”, Myka whispers back.

(“A fool in love”, she thinks. Except she can’t seem to force the words past her lips.)

“You know I can’t—” H.G. starts, hastily building her walls up again, but Myka stops her with a simple “don’t”.

“Do you really feel like you belong here, Helena? Or do you simply feel safe and normal for once in your life and pretend that it’s the same thing?” she pushes, willing to hurt H.G. just this once if it gets them somewhere. “Do you belong here, or does only Emily Lake?”

“What difference is there?” Helena retorts, shaking herself out of her stupor and clinging on to the only safe option she has at this point – anger. “What does it matter who belongs here, seeing as I am Emily Lake now?”

“No you’re not”, Myka scoffs. “You’re H.G. Wells, for crying out loud, ‘father’ of science-fiction and agent of Warehouse 12; you’re a brilliant woman, and you were meant for so much greater things than this!”

“How would you know what I am meant for, exactly?” Helena challenges, eyes blazing.

“I know because, as you once mentioned, I know you, better than anyone else”, Myka shoots back, “and I can see what you refuse to.”

Helena raises an eyebrow. “Which would be?”

“That you belong in the Warehouse. You belong in a world filled with just as much endless wonder as the stories you used to write; a world where things are dangerous and insane, but make you live amazing adventures that almost always leave you craving for more.” Taking a leap of faith as her heart resumes its erratic behavior in her chest, Myka adds: “And selfishly, so selfishly, I want you to belong with me.”

Helena lets out an unwilling gasp.

Myka, despite the slight shaking of her hands and her wish to escape hearing the answer to what she just admitted, doesn’t move. Her eyes chain Helena to the weight of this moment, refusing to let her look away either.

“I can’t be simple friends with you”, she continues, hoping the trembling of her body won’t extend to her voice. “I never could be and could never be. But I can’t bear the thought of losing you either.”

“You could never lose me”, Helena promises, commenting on the only thing she can find an answer to at the moment.

“Yes I will!” Myka shouts. “I will because I can’t do this, watching you walk away from me time and time again; it’s destroying me, Helena, don’t you see that?! I can’t have you yet not have you, because every time I’ll see you it’ll tear my heart open once more, and I can’t go through this more than I already have!”

“I’m so sorry—”

“I don’t want an apology”, Myka chokes out. “I want an answer!”

Helena is terrified; she can see that.

She’s not much better.

(She’s never said anything like that to anyone before. She didn’t even know she had it in her.)

“I don’t know if I can give you the one you want”, Helena murmurs, so obviously lost in the middle of her feelings and desires and fears to figure anything out.

“Then tell me the opposite.”

“The opposite?”

At the risk of setting in motion the events that will make her heart go up in flames, Myka throws caution to the wind and continues. “Tell me that you’re not as in love with me as I am with you. Just tell the words and I’ll be gone.”

Helena’s eyes widen and widen some more. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.

Myka waits, patiently.

Not so patiently.

In any other context she’d be a little proud of herself for having rendered the quick-witted, infamous H.G. Wells speechless, but not now. Not with her heart hanging in the balance.

She feels like she’s going to die as she waits for H.G. to answer.

“I don’t think I can tell you that”, Helena eventually admits.

Myka lets out the breath she didn’t even realize she was holding.

“Then don’t do this to yourself”, she begs. “Don’t destroy every part of you that is so special just because you’re scared to let yourself have everything.”

“Not everything”, Helena tries to argue. “I would have neither Nate nor Adelaide.”

“Are you in love with him?”

H.G. swallows and looks away. “I often wish I were.”

“But you aren’t. And Adelaide isn’t Christina, Helena”, Myka reminds her softly. “You need a girl to take care of, I understand that. But, if anything and despite the age difference, I think Claudia needs you more than Adelaide does. She misses you terribly, you know.”

Helena smiles sadly. “She implied as much, yes.”

“She— What?”

“That young woman is quite skilled at leaving bitter voicemails”, Helena explains with a minute chuckle.

Of course Claudia wouldn’t just stay quiet in the background. Myka isn’t surprised in the least.

It’s also not the point right now.

“Please come back with me”, she insists, her voice growing more and more desperate with each passing minute. “It’s Bering and Wells, remember; not Bering alone – so just come back with me to solve more puzzles and save the day as many times as needed. You, H.G. Wells, belong with me and Claudia and everyone else at the Warehouse, and you have to know that.”

Myka is way past caring about how cheesy she sounds at this point.

She just wants to walk out that house with her heart still intact.

“Everyone around me always suffers or dies”, Helena points out. She hasn’t moved an inch since Myka started speaking, seemingly rooted to the spot, creating what feels like a nearly-insurmountable distance between them. “And I wish for so much better for you.”

“Well, too bad, Helena”, Myka snaps. “Because pushing me away, disappearing the way you did after Artie turned back time, breaking my heart, that will always be how you can hurt me the worst.”

“Oh, Myka”, Helena breathes out softly, achingly, as she realizes that beneath Myka’s seemingly quiet acceptance of her choice for this life the week before lay, in fact, a world of hurt. “I never meant to cause you so much pain.”

“And I believe you”, Myka sighs tiredly. “Because you think you’re this cursed woman that everyone is safer away from and who doesn’t deserve to let herself have good things – you went as far as to assume an identity completely different from who you really are to try to build a life again, for Christ’s sake, but you’re wrong; you are so, so much more than how you see yourself. I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but I really wish you’d get off your cross once and for all. For everyone’s sake, especially mine.”

“You idealize me far too much”, Helena replies sadly.

“No, you’re the one who keeps trying to punish yourself for a reason that is beyond me”, Myka counters, “including by making a monster out of yourself. And it’s so far from the truth.”

“So what if it is?” Helena shoots back, willing to concede this point to Myka rather than keep arguing about how terrible a human being she may or may not be. “It wouldn’t change anything. I chose to walk away from the Warehouse, for my sake and everyone else’s, and I do not believe it was the wrong decision to make.”

“Well, I do!”, Myka retorts, growing frustrated at how much they’re running in circles. “And do you want to know what I truly think? I think you didn’t come back once you were done with the astrolabe and became Emily Lake instead because you were scared. Because being Emily Lake was so much easier than dealing with the consequences of all your actions; because you’re very good at running away rather than dare hope for a brighter future. You had a place among us after Sykes died, Helena. You could have had it all at once, and you preferred to leave for god knows where instead because it was easier to walk away from a place and people that meant – that mean – something to you than letting yourself have it all at the risk of losing everything again one day.”

H.G. almost recoils as word after word stabs her mercilessly.

Myka doesn’t back down. Not this time. Not when she’s finally getting through to her, past the protective defensiveness of last week and the constant denial so far.

She has a few more things to say; a few more desperate attempts, and then this will have to come to an end – one way or another.

“Am I wrong?” she challenges. “Or am I just way better at reading you than you’d like?”

“You said you wanted me to be happy”, H.G. deflects, swallowing hard and averting her eyes.

For the first time since she entered the house, Myka dares step closer to Helena. She does so slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal that could bolt at any time.

“And I do”, she promises. “But… You may be incredibly good at lying to yourself, Helena”, she continues, insisting on the name, “but even you have to see that you’re being happy in the life of someone that isn’t you.”

“It’s still more than I’ve had for a century.”

“I know. But is it enough? Does it make you feel alive?”

Helena finally looks back at her, with resigned eyes suddenly shining with unshed tears.

“No”, she admits in a whisper. “No. Not like this does.”

Myka takes one more step forward, getting close enough to Helena to touch her though she doesn’t dare do that just yet.

“Do I make you feel alive?” she whispers, trying to ignore how her heart leaps in her throat as she asks the question.

“More than you’ll ever know.”

“Then take a leap of faith with me. Let me take you back home and let yourself dare love me.”

Myka is all too aware that her hands are shaking again, eluding her control as she lays her whole heart and soul bare. She’s finding in herself an amount of strength she didn’t know she had left – and certainly not for a conversation like this one –, but she’s still only seconds away from finally falling apart at the seams.

There’s no point in holding anything back anymore, though. She is well past the point of no return by now.

“I’ve hurt you so much already”, Helena breathes out, a hint of awe in her pained voice. “How can you still be here? How can you know it won’t happen again?”

Myka shrugs slowly, shaking her head as she tells her truth. “I can’t. I don’t. But what I do know is that you’d never hurt me on purpose, Helena, and that’s what matters the most to me. I trust you on that. I trust you with my life – to be perfectly honest, I trust you with everything but trusting yourself.”

Helena looks up at her with something akin to wonder in her eyes.

“All things considered, I must have done at least something right”, she murmurs. “For getting to meet you.”

They’re hugging – holding each other up would be a more accurate description at this point – before Myka has time to process what is happening. Helena’s hands come to rest against her shoulder blades, pressing with near-desperation, and Myka is suddenly taken one week back.

One week ago, their hug meant goodbye.

Myka can’t let this one be another goodbye. Another goodbye now would rip her heart out for good.

“Don’t push me away again”, she begs, gripping the fabric under her hands tightly. “Don’t do that to the both of us. I need you, Helena – so much more than you seem to realize.”

“I am terrible at this, Myka”, H.G. warns. “I will be, would be terrible at this.”

The words are less than encouraging, but they infuse strength back into Myka all the same. Because for the first time since she stepped foot inside this house, Helena mentioned the possibility of a future that isn’t Emily Lake’s.

“With what you’ve been through for over a hundred years, it’d be more surprising if you weren’t”, Myka says honestly against H.G.’s hair. “But that’s okay. We can figure it out along the way.”

Helena swallows hard, overwhelmed. “Is this… Is this truly what you want?”

“Yes”, Myka answers firmly. “I want this. I want you – all of you, unbridled. The smart inventor and the cocky agent and the insecure woman all at once. There’s not a single part that I’d rather be left out.”

“Are you sure?” Helena insists one last time.

Myka pulls back to look her in the eye and convey how much she means it. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Helena lips part as she breathes in sharply, causing Myka’s gaze to fall down to look at them on instinct. When her eyes flick back up a second later, she sees a quiet resolve staring back at her.

Helena has made her decision, and maybe Myka’s heart will remain intact after all.

(She gets the confirmation as she hears the next four words; four simple words that threaten to break her – but in a wonderful, soul-mending way this time.)

“May I kiss you?”

“By the way things are going, I think I’m going to collapse right then and there if you don’t”, Myka answers weakly.

Helena cups her cheek like it’s the most precious thing she’s ever touched and leans forward.

*

Myka doesn’t know what time it is when Helena G. Wells kisses her like it’s the first time and the last time she’ll ever get to do so all at once.

She has no idea how long they’ve been standing there, arguing back and forth until there was nothing left between them but absolute honesty.

She doesn’t care.

Helena is kissing her and it feels a lot like putting the world back on its axis.

It feels a lot like coming home.

*

They leave early the next morning.

Myka, despite being the kind of person who regularly hisses ‘eyes on the road’ at Pete when they’re on a mission together, spends most of the eight hour drive back stealing glances at Helena every chance she gets.

Of course, around the four hour mark, H.G. just has to call her out on it with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. So Myka stares straight ahead at the road as she feels heat rise up in her cheeks.

“And now you’re blushing, love”, Helena continues, amused.

“I am not blushing!” Myka protests, even though she is definitely, unequivocally blushing indeed.

H.G. laughs, enjoying getting a rise out of Myka to no end. “Yes, you are. But don’t worry. It’s endearing.”

*

They spend the eight hours talking. Conversation flows easily between them; it always has, after all, and the baggage of their past that shadows them now seems to thankfully have no effect on that.

Much to Myka’s relief, Helena is mostly back to being the usual flirtatious, self-assured woman that she remembers meeting at gunpoint over two years ago as if it were yesterday.

Emily Lake has stayed in Wisconsin.

H.G. Wells is going back to the Warehouse.

Myka is taking her home.

*

Claudia comes back from the Warehouse to find Helena waiting for her in the B&B’s living room.

“Oh my god”, she blurts out. “Oh my god, Myka did it. You’re here. You’re here!”

“I’m here”, Helena confirms with a small smile.

Three seconds later, Claudia’s body barrels into hers.

H.G. just has time to brace herself to avoid getting knocked backwards.

“And here I thought you were angry with me, darling”, she says lightly, embracing Claudia gently as the young woman clings on to her for dear life, hands fisted around the fabric of her jacket.

“Oh, I am”, Claudia retorts, “and you’re far from done hearing the end of it, believe me. But you’re also here, so I think I have the right to forget about that for five minutes and just hug you instead.”

Helena holds her tighter.

*

“So?” Claudia gloats.

Steve sighs.

“Say it.”

“Claudia.”

“Say it!”

“Okay! Okay, yes. You were right.”

*

Night has fallen on South Dakota when Helena hesitates for the first time since they arrived at the B&B.

“So, should I prepare a room for you?” Abigail has just asked, polite and maybe a little bit knowing, but H.G. isn’t quite sure what the answer to that question should be.

Thankfully, Myka answers in her stead.

“That won’t be necessary.”

*

They fall asleep in the same bed that night and the ones after, tucked against each other, hands joined, both unable to stay apart for too long.

Myka holds her breath for five days after coming back from Boone, Wisconsin.

She keeps expecting Helena to bolt again. She wakes up every morning with her heart racing, wondering if H.G. will be gone, until she can lay eyes on her and let her pulse settle.

Myka holds her breath for five days. Helena may be back, but she doesn’t dare exhale just yet.

*

“I’m not sure I can go back to the Warehouse just yet”, Helena says the next morning.

Myka frowns. “If this is about the Regents, we’ll deal with them later. But they’d be fools not to let you back in, and I won’t take no for an answer anyway.”

“No, Myka. It is rather about me”, H.G. admits.

“If you’re about to say some bullshit along the lines of ‘I don’t think I’m ready’, save it”, Claudia cuts in. “You’re doing inventory with me today, end of discussion. I need to have a little chat or two with you anyway.”

Helena, who can’t very well explain that she’s mostly afraid of being rejected by the Warehouse itself due to her betrayal after coming back the first time – who doesn’t even dare mention this as one of the reasons why she ran away after being freed of the Janus Coin –, has no choice but to surrender.

“You two are going to team up against me rather often, are you not?”

Myka and Claudia answer in unison.

“Not if you don’t give us a reason to!”

*

Helena needn’t have worried.

She is welcome back the moment she steps foot inside the Warehouse again.

She closes her eyes, soaking in the feeling of this moment.

*

When she opens them again, Claudia is scanning their surroundings with an odd expression on her face.

Helena can’t help but stare at her with affection and just a little bit of pride too.

“You smell them too, do you not?”

“Smell what?”

“The apples.”

Claudia turns her head to look at her with shock.

“I thought I was the only one! I even started to wonder if I didn’t make it up somehow.”

Helena smiles. “You most certainly didn’t.”

“But why doesn’t anyone else smell them?” Claudia asks, curious and rather confused.

Helena’s smile widens. “Only certain people ever do. The Warehouse likes you.”

This time, Claudia positively beams.

*

They spend most of the morning talking about Claudia’s latest inventions and bouncing ideas off each other for new ones. They never really did that before and yet it feels incredibly familiar to Helena, as if she was always meant to partner with Claudia to improve the Warehouse agents’ toolbox.

In a way, she thinks that maybe she was indeed. Because it’s the first time in a hundred years that she feels like grabbing a pen to let her fingers weave fiction around those ideas and those objects.

She had missed the itch to write.

*

They almost cross paths with Myka once though they don’t see her, too busy talking animatedly to notice her quickly hiding behind a box as they come her way. She doesn’t want to interrupt them; she much prefers taking in the scene from afar, watching them getting to know each other better with nothing but pure happiness for them both.

*

“Oh, by the way”, Claudia casually says as they’re rounding the umpteenth aisle since they started their inventory session, “if you break Myka’s heart and run away again, I’ll be the one going after you this time. And believe me when I tell you that you don’t want that to ever happen.”

“Is this what modern-time people call a ‘shovel talk’?” Helena replies lightly, trying to take some weight off the statement.

“I’m serious, H.G.”, Claudia replies, her demeanor suddenly turning ice cold. “You’re not the one who had to pick up the pieces of her after you two broke up with each other.”

“We did not—”

“Save it. She already tried the whole ‘we never dated so it wasn’t a break-up’ bullshit argument that we all know is a lie. You broke up and it broke her.”

“I know”, Helena answers with all pretence of light-heartedness gone. “And I know I can never make it up to her, but I certainly will try.”

“I’m still mad at you for breaking her heart, by the way. And for disappearing before that.”

“Good thing I plan to try to make it up to you too, then.”

*

They get their first ping four days after Helena’s return.

Pete, who refuses Steve’s offer to partner with him for once, drags Myka out on the field despite her protests and with the help of Artie’s this-is-non-negotiable look.

“Mykes, if she’s gone when we come back, then she would have left eventually in any case and there’s nothing you could have done about it. You know that.”

She does.

It doesn’t make her feel any better about getting on the plane to New York.

*

The artifact is a simple snag, bag and tag for once.

Pete drives them back from the airport to the B&B that night. For security and speed limit reasons.

*

H.G. is still awake when Myka walks into her room on her tiptoes at half past 2am.

“I couldn’t sleep without you”, she simply says.

Myka tries to ignore her heart doing somersaults and the butterflies doing backflips in her belly as she slides into bed with her.

“I’m here now”, she whispers.

Helena stares at her with shiny brown eyes for a long moment, her left hand finding Myka’s as her right comes to run almost absent-mindedly through curly wild locks.

Her first tear falls as she lets out the words she couldn’t say back when Myka came to get her in Wisconsin what feels like forever ago already.

“I love you”, she murmurs. “So much.”

She ends up wrapped in Myka’s soothing embrace as her walls break, and H.G. Wells dares give herself her first chance at happiness in a hundred years.

*

Myka wakes up to find Helena propped up on one elbow on the other side of the bed, gazing down at her with even more intensity than usual.

“What?” she mumbles sleepily, rubbing her hands over her eyes.

“Thank you”, Helena murmurs, almost reverently.

“What for?”

“For bringing me back here.”

*

“You really are staying for good, this time, aren’t you?”

Helena squeezes the hand that she never wants to let go of again. “Yes, Myka. Yes, I am.”

*

Myka holds her breath for five days after coming back from Boone, Wisconsin.

And on the fifth, she soars.