She wasn't supposed to get attached to this life. She wasn't supposed to get attached to any of her lives. She was only supposed to watch.
But watching got old after sometime so she bent the rules a little. She started helping with the small stuff like inventory and research.
Irene warned her about it. She said, "The rules are there for a reason."
The thing is, she made the rules. She can bend them, or even break them. No one would come after her if she did.
And after twelve lifetimes, it was getting harder and harder to abide by them. The small freedoms she allowed herself were necessary. They stopped her from getting too involved.
At least they used to.
She can't point out exactly when they stopped working. Maybe it was when Pete and Myka joined the Warehouse. She saw how broken they were and she remembers feeling sorry for them. She knew too well that the life they were walking into will only serve to shatter their souls even more.
Or maybe it happened way before that, when she welcomed Artie at the inn. He looked tired as he should after shouldering the lives of his relatives — some of whom had never even met him — for so long. She had thought there was no way he could look even more exhausted than he was then. Thirty five years later, she found out that she was wrong.
Or maybe it was much later when Claudia appeared in the Warehouse, angry and lost. She had felt the connection instantly and informed Irene about it. Every day since then, she had regretted the decision. They kept Claudia, even after they saved her brother, because she held the future of the Warehouse. Nothing, it turns out, is more important than the Warehouse, not even a bright young woman's future.
What she knew was that those four gave her something she never had before; a family.
Steve too, even though it took a while for her to get used to his presence and vice versa. He seemed to get along well with the others, except Artie (but no one gets along with Artie for the first six months) and her. She had avoided being alone with him in a room, but he was an early riser, earlier than Myka. So, every morning, they shared ten awkward minutes together before he went off to the dining room with his coffee and breakfast.
"You know I'm gay, right?" Steve said to her one morning.
"Good for you," she said and patted his back for some reason. She wasn't sure why he told her that. It didn't matter to her but she knew it could be a hard thing to say from her experiences with various agents for the past century.
He just chuckled and shook his head.
The awkwardness dissipated when Claudia used the Metronome to bring him back to life. It connected him to Claudia, and Claudia was connected to her. So she began to understand more about him, and she also finally understood the reason behind his sudden coming out to her.
He thought she was jealous of the quick bond he forged with Claudia because she had feelings for the young redhead. That was a possibility, the jealousy, but not because she had feelings for Claudia.
Claudia was to be the next Caretaker and Leena was the Warehouse. They had a natural bond between them. And to see Claudia so willingly tie her life to someone else's might make her slightly envious of the person.
"I don't recall you getting this way with me," Irene said.
"Maybe I'm tired," she reasoned, "of feeling them, their anguish and their pain, to just sit back and watch them disappear one by one."
"They sometimes come back," Irene reminded her. She meant H.G., and James to a certain extent.
"But not as the same person."
"People change. Sometimes, for the better."
"Yes, but not before I see them get so much worse."
She remembers all of her agents. She was so excited when H.G. was recruited as an apprentice. She was the first woman who the regents hired with the intention of training her to become an agent. It was unfortunate that she came when it was near to the end of Warehouse 12. They never met face to face since Leena was busy trying to find the next location that would be her new home. But she gave H.G. the smell of apples as a welcome gift.
Then, she took it away after the agent was bronzed.
She should not have done that, she realized. Maybe if she did, H.G. would have known that the Warehouse was still her home and she wouldn't have been so eager to destroy the world.
Thankfully, there was Myka. She pulled her out of that fury and saved the world in the process. But H.G. will always have that guilt eating at her. That's why she stayed away, still is, because she thinks she isn't worthy of being in the same room with Myka, even though Myka wants nothing more than to be with her.
When she came back for the Astrolabe, Leena noticed how she can smell apples again. Leena didn't remember how that happened. According to Artie, she saved him, Pete and Myka in that alternate timeline. It must have been that. But even the restoring of their friendship and the trust between them could not make her stick around.
She blamed Irene for part of it, sending H.G. away like that.
But mostly, she blames herself. She sensed that the end was getting closer, and she became unsettled. She started to get herself more involved with the lives of her agents, even those who weren't anymore. When James contacted her for a meeting, she had agreed to see if she could talk him out of whatever evil plan he had. It ended with him tricking her into releasing another ex-agent who was as unpredictable as him, if not more.
She thought it might delay the end — her end — a little longer. She wasn't ready to leave her family just yet. She started breaking her own rules. She even went on missions.
Perhaps, it wasn't only her who can feel her agents. Perhaps, they can feel her too. And they started breaking the rules too, even Artie.
Which lead to her demise.
It was inevitable. It was time to find the next Warehouse.
But the thing that she regrets the most is that she never got to say goodbye.
She couldn't comfort Myka as her friend fell to her knees, next to her lifeless body. She could only watch as Pete carried her to Artie's bedroom, with his fingers pressed against her pulse the whole way up. And Claudia…Claudia couldn't even look at her. She didn't go into Artie's room during the entirety of Leena's stay there.
Later, when the sweating sickness incident was settled, they tried to bring her back. Of course, it didn't work. Once her human form had died, no artifact can work on it as her soul was being inserted to a baby somewhere else.
It wasn't really the end.
Warehouse 13 will still be around for many years to come. Her new body will need to mature physically and mentally before the Caretaker can train her to find the location of the next Warehouse.
It was an end, a prequisite to a new beginning.
But it didn't make it any less painful.
…
Twenty four years later.
Leena Edwards is about to board a train when a redheaded woman in her early 30s tackles her into a hug. Her first thought is, "Wow, she's beautiful." Maybe that's why Leena doesn't push her away immediately.
"Mrs F said you tend to stick to a name for about three warehouses," the woman says, pulling back but still holding her. "Are you still Leena?"
And she knows her name. So, Leena carefully pushes her away and slowly backs away. She doesn't care how pretty the woman is. She is showing clear signs of being a stalker.
The redhead chuckles. "I scared you. Sorry. I just got a little too excited to see you again. We've met. These days, people call me Ms Donovan but old friends should call me Claudia."
"I'm pretty sure I've never seen you in my life," Leena tells her.
That seems to amuse her even more. "Well, not in this lifetime."
"Umm, I'm sure you're no one dangerous," Leena says as she inches away from the woman, "but I don't make it a habit of befriending strangers who randomly hug me in subway stations."
She has turned around and is walking away when the woman asks, "What color am I?"
She stops. "I don't know what you mean," she lies.
"Is it still green?"
That makes her turn around. Her parents brought her to a doctor when she was eight after she told them how people glowed with colors. Then they sent her to a therapist when it was found that there was nothing wrong with her. She has never told anyone about it since then.
Sure, maybe this lady is a crazy enough stalker to find her medical records but there is no way she could know the color of her own aura. Or maybe it's a wild guess that accurately hit the mark.
But if there is a chance that Claudia can explain why Leena has always felt like she was different than anyone else, then she is willing to risk it.
"We're going to a very busy coffee shop and then you can tell me whatever it is that you want to tell me."
Claudia smiles. The smile seems familiar to Leena, and she feels her own lips curling up, like she's so glad to see it after missing it for a long time.
"It's a date," Claudia says, prompting her to straighten her lips again.
"No, not a date."
Claudia's smile stretches and Leena has to purse her lips in order to stop herself from smiling again. "Sure."