A/N: Originally written 07/09/11. Post-Reset.
Myka drives for hours without stopping until she nearly runs out of gas.
By then, she's forged considerable distance between herself and the Warehouse. She ends up in a small out-of-the-way town where the only lodging is a small motel that looks more for seedy alcoholics and quick affairs than anything else. Still, she's grateful for the shower - as clean as it is - and the bed.
That night, she has nightmares about Sam for the first time in months.
HG makes an appearance.
She wakes up with her hand on her gun. Her hands don't stop shaking.
It isn't about HG. Not really.
Myka's always prided herself on being able to solve puzzles, on being able to see the finer details and connect it to a bigger picture. The thing that unsettles her about this entire situation is that she missed it. She couldn't see the big picture until she was there, standing in front of HG with a gun pressed against her forehead, faced with the prospect of her own death. She's different than they are - Pete and Claudia - and she always has been.
She's never been able to turn it off as they've been able to, to just shut off the things that she feels and just move forward with the mission. As much as they'd like her to confront the fact that she can't control everything, the fact of the matter is that they've always been better at that than she's ever been. And the artifacts that have always been able to take control of her - it's always been about unpacking the boxes that she's made for herself.
She tells herself that that's why she has to run away, that it is about HG and her placing the team in jeopardy, that they would get along without her just as well. It's even written on a napkin, wrinkled from the journey and a little wet, but there it is: the reasons why she can never go back. Myka's never been particularly good at running away, but this time is just a little easier.
That morning, she checks out and heads back on the highway. She tells herself that it has nothing to do with her similarities to HG. She tells herself that she couldn't have broken as HG did.
(And she knows that Pete and Claudia, and maybe even Artie, would tell her the same thing. Grief happens to people, and the Warehouse collects as many broken people as it does artifacts. Still, she can't ignore the idea that she was the one that HG chose, that, without the specifics, their stories are close, that she had once considered the woman a friend. Or, at the least, a trusted colleague.
She has always been a vulnerability, especially with Sam. She can't do it again.)
Pete calls her about a thousand times, Claudia only a dozen.
They don't leave messages.
She stops in North Dakota, near the Canadian border. They're going to look for her; she knows that. Pete and Claudia are hardly people who just let things go. But it'll be enough, she thinks, to live somewhere quietly for a while. To do something normal.
That night, as she gets ready for bed, her phone buzzes on the bed.
She switches it off.
This is supposed to be a new beginning.