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Who else could I have called when I saw that poor boy change in front of my eyes? Who else wouldn't have thought me utterly insane? Artie, I suppose. But I still couldn't quite get used to the idea that he didn't still hate me, and, deep down, I suspect I wanted to hear her voice again. It's probably why she was still on my speed dial.
Hiding away with the astrolabe had been lonely and mentally draining, if not physically strenuous. For months, I moved around from place to place; never daring to settle or even unpack. At some point, foolish daydreams had become fantasy. Eventually, frustration transmuted that into something I wanted to make concrete. After all, when you've spent long enough in the hotel gym that they know your name, or at least your cover ID, what else is there to do in a hotel that doesn't even stretch to a decent cup of tea, but watch mind numbing television shows and let your mind wander.
By the time Mrs Frederic came to relieve me of the astrolabe, a normal life well away from the Warehouse and artifacts and all the pain they brought to me and those I loved... well, it seemed just the ticket. She expressed surprise at my request, but she took it to the Regents and they permitted it. I swore Mrs Frederic to secrecy when she came to deliver their decision.
My one regret was Myka. I was too much of a coward to tell her, too weak to face her and say that I wanted to leave. I wasn't sure that I could have survived that. And, really, that should have been a hint. But, I had convinced myself that I needed the chance to come to terms with who I was, where I was, when I was. A century out of time from my birth. I'd been a quick study on the wonders of this modern world I found myself in, but at first only in so far as it would help me achieve my singular purpose. Since then, well, I'd been locked away again, separated from my memories, dropped into another life, nearly killed the one person who truly trusted me... Is it any wonder that there's a distressing tendency for Warehouse agents to go mad? I mean, I already had.
I suppose I should have expected it. She answered her telephone quickly. Dutiful agent that she is, it's always to hand. Her voice speaking my name down the line made something in me sing, even while I registered the confusion and the hurt in her tone. Those things that I had put there, by disappearing from her life without a word.
Of course she came. She was never going to refuse the possibility of a ping. Yet, in person, I only made things worse. For all my fated eloquence, every word I said hurt her more. I spoke brightly of my quest for a normal life, necessarily eliding certain parts, and keeping her at arm's length. I asked to be kept out of their investigation. My only hope of not showing her just how far I'd gone along that path.
They do say that there's no fool like an old fool. Who else is there as old as I?
I don't know how Adelaide decided that we'd had amazing adventures together. Her deductive reasoning was as good as I could have hoped and I really was terribly proud of her, even as I watched Myka's world implode. Her hastily covered look of betrayal made me feel all the more like Peter. Nate's appearance was simply my third denial.
Despite my denial to Adelaide, how could I possibly have refused her when she offered me one more amazing adventure? And how good and easy it felt to slip into that role again. Though I fear not all of her disgust was for the smarmy officers I fooled our way past.
I watched her manipulate the computer with an easy grace of familiarity. I hunted so hard for a normal life and family in which to feel accepted, but I couldn't entirely forget the other family that I'd almost found.
And then, we cracked it. Wells and Bering triumphed again. No... she has the right of it. Bering and Wells.
After that, it all went to hell. Even taking myself away from the Warehouse couldn't stop me bringing pain into people's lives, and these were civilians. My curse, it seemed, was never ending.
I didn't expect her to use Christina's memory against me, though. Then again, who else but she, the one I had seduced, betrayed and almost killed in the name of revenge for my daughter, would risk pushing that particular button of mine.
Yet, even after all that, she flung herself headlong towards danger, to keep me from doing it. To preserve my fiction of a normal life. To rescue the child of the man with whom I had betrayed her, yet again.
She went alone and ill-informed. She could have died.
Yet, she saved us all.
Especially me.
How could she believe that I would simply say 'goodbye' after that? My fault, I suppose.
How could she be so brave to endorse my cowardice, and tell me to fight for Nate?
I offer her coffee and a chat. She suggests we save the world again.
Who else would ever offer me so much, but take so little for themselves?
How on earth did I let Pete drive her away after that?
Why is it that she is gone, and I am still standing here?