It was raining. That was new. univille didnt get much rain. not since the eye had been returned to the Space Needle in Seattle, that is. Today Claudia could just sense that something was going on. The Warehouse had been restored, HG and Steve both lived, and everything should have been happily ever after from there, right? Then why has it been pouring rain since the day the Warehouse returned? Sitting at her side, Trailer's eyes looked upwards from the one person who gave him the most food over to the one person who gave him the most pats on the head. His tail waggled slightly to acknowledge Leena's appearance, but he seemed fine at Claudias feet. The darker woman handed a cup of something steaming over to the younger woman. "The Warehouse is grieving," Leena said softly.
"But everyone is back," Claudia protested.
"Everyone, but not everything. The pocketwatch couldn't restore everything, and like us all, it couldn't forget what had almost happened to it."
Claudia let out a slight grunt. She had the rest of her family agreed without words that the incident needn't be talked about, as Myka practically clung to helena for a week or so, Pete went on long hikes with Trailer and Artie burrowed even further into the Warehouse. But being in the Bed and Breakfast, Claudia heard the footsteps at night, the murmurs in the dark or the grunts of dying zombies on Pete's TV. Claudia herself learned long ago to keep her fears inside. After all, she was crazy. But Leena had walked in a daze that had the redhead concerned for her. Leena, claudia had always known, was mysterious, and for the innkeeper to be anything but kind and hospitable was worrying.
Leena carefully stepped over Trailer who knew to stay still, and the dog sniffed the air as the woman passed him, Leena bringing her hand down absently to pat the dog on the head as she always did when she did her chores or made her rounds in the bed and breakfast. "Did all of the artifacts come back?"
"I think so, but only time and a couple more inventory checks will surely tell," Leena said.
"Only Artie 'n' me seem to want to ever go near it now," Claudia areed, taking a sip of what she realized to be hot chocolate, and not coffee like she had assumed up until then. There was a pause. "When there is a new Warehouse made for relocation, ya think the Warehouse grieves then too? I remember pining for not just Josh, but the friends I had and the ones I lost when I went in," Claudia said. There was nothing but fact in her tone, no sadness or regret. She new her past was behind her, and in time she knew that even this would be as well.
"The Warehouse isn't quite as alive as you or me, Claudia, but I feel sometimes..."
"You have to feel that there is something about it not quite natural or supernatural or ordinary about it, otherwise you wouldn't have given it the emotion of grief. But I would have to agree."
"There was an adjusting period when it arrived in Univille."
"You were here for that?"
Leena nodded. She wouldn't forget when the woman she had come to know as somewhat of a mother had told her just who was moving into her in and for what purpose. She saw the men who had come to her bed and breakfast and after only one remained, still dedicated to a cause that seemed almost hopeless, Leena knew she just couldn't leave him. "it was the first year I had this," she waved around them. "They wanted me to move, but I had been fighting just to be equal as it was. Little did I know that it had nothing at all to do with my race, but my location. I guess Mrs. Fredrick liked my fight."
"I would have liked to see your fight," Claudia said without thinking. She brought her mug to her lips and pretended she hadn't spoken. "So you always see the auras then, or was that just something else that came with the location?"
"It developed as soon as Mrs. Fredrick informed me that I may keep the inn where it was granted I watched after her agents. I didn't know what else this place would do to me, or..."
"You regret it now?" Claudia asked softly, her body turned towards Leeena now, her attention fully on the darker woman.
Leena's mouth twisted as she thought of this. "No, I guess I can't. I've a home here that I have made, that you all have made with me. I am happy now."
"You weren't before?"
Leena's smile was pained. "Enough about me."
"Okay. I am sorry for pushing."
"No no, it is nothing like that..." Leena went silent. "How did it feel?"
"What?"
"How did it feel... When the Warehouse was gone and you felt every bit of its suffering?"
Claudia's back stiffened. "I-I- I was in pain because-a Jinxsy, Leena."
Leena knew better. "Claudia," she said softly, "the ribbon wrapped around your hands, and the link between you and Mrs. Fredric had already begun last year before it had been severed. That never relieved you of what would have come for you as the Warehouse's new caretaker. That link between you and Mrs. Fredrick had been there all this time and more importantly, you both were still linked to the Warehouse. When it went up like that, I know you had to have felt it." The younger woman was silent and it was hard to tell just what the hacker was thinking, even for the one who read auras.
"I just thought I burned... because-a him, because I was so angry," Claudia admitted slowly.
"But at night, when you ty to sleep..." Leena prompted.
"I can hear them. The artifacts. Something about them would scream at me from that day, and it remains imprinted in my mind much as I suspect the death of Mrs. Fredric had for you, or Helena for Myka."
Leena leaned forward in the chair she had long ago occupied and placed a hand on Claudia's. "Perhaps, if the Warehouse is as alive as we believe it to be, it just need reassurance somehow."
"What are you getting at?" Claudia asked.
"What if you went there like usual, but..."
Claudia also leaned forward. They were close together now, as if Claudia was trying to grasp a secret from the darker woman. "But?"
"I dont know, talk to them."
"Talk to the artifacts?"
"Yeah."
"And say what? Sorry you almost got charred to hell?"
Leena leaned back again with a sigh, looking and feeling a little embaressed. "Well, I never claimed it was the best of ideas," she conceded. Claudia placed the hand that wasn't balancing her mug on Leena's.
"Will you come with me then? The Warehouse knows you more than it knows me-"
"But your bond with it is stronger than mine."
"And your voice would be far more calming to hear," Claudia countered.
Leena thought about this. There wasn't anything else to be done right then, and as she looked out at the pouring rain, she thought that maybe it was more for Claudia's sake that the redhead needed her there and not in fact the Warehouse. Who or whatever was really the case, Leena was needed, and she liked the feeling of being needed, and so she nodded.
Two hours later had Leena and Claudia walking slowly through the Warehouse. As soon as Claudia made it there, the familiar charge she usually felt was intensified, and the hacker found the words to say. "It is good to be here, isn't it?" she asked to no one in particular. And that seemed to be it. She walked down aisle 33A, running a finger along the wooden shelving but never touching the artifacts that lay upon it. It was silent after that, Claudia and Leena walking through the shelves, looking at the artifact in what seemed to be a new light. "We're all still here," Claudia said softly as she rounded into another aisle. "And the threat is gone. We all know that there will be others, but we will all hold steadfast. We won't forget, but we will continue to do what is meant to be done because that is all that has to matter," Claudia said. "We will all learn, and with each new artifact, we will all grow." Claudia's finger went along the shelving of aisle 35C now as she continued on, "And we will grow togehter, won't we."
Leena smiled at the words of the hacker. The two of them remained quiet for a lot longer after those last words. The thunder within the Warehouse calmed, and little di the two women know that the thunder outside it had as well. Artifacts that had been glowing an almost angry shade of purple lay calm now, its surface warm to the touch. Leena felt Claudia's hand bump into her own, and the younger woman's fingers laced into hers. The darker woman was surprised, but pleased with this action. Together, the hacker the innkeeper and the Warehouse felt the inside of them calm knowing there were brighter days yet to come.
The End
Outside,