Timeline: takes place after 4.05 "No pain, no gain"

Disclaimer: The characters of Warehouse 13 are not mine. I merely borrowed them for entertainment purposes. No copyright infringement intended.


"Hello, Myka."

The voice, tinged by a British accent of a different era, interrupted the heated interaction of lips and the silence that followed was understandably awkward. But then Myka Bering, former Secret Service and now Warehouse agent, smiled and the room around the other woman started spinning just a little. Myka did have that effect on H.G. Wells. Of course, finding her in liplock with someone on the couch of the B&B where they both lived also had an effect. It was like being kicked in the stomach.

Myka scrambled off the couch and came skipping around it before she enveloped Helena in a fierce hug.

"I missed you," she vowed and her voice sounded choked. The writer held her tightly for several seconds before her arms went back to her sides and she looked at the man on the couch. He looked back, smiling. Helena could say by the way he smiled that he thought himself very charming.

Myka losened her grip on Helena and looked at her, her eyes brightened with tears, her smile still on her beautiful face.

"So, may I ask who... who is that dude?" Helena asked and then looked at Myka sheepishly. "Dude is right, isn't it?"

"Well, if you're Pete." Myka answered. Her face seemed to say that she preferred Helena talking in her own distinguished 19th century drawl.

"Oh, well. Why don't you introduce me to... random guy number one, then." Myka smiled indulgently.

"You are really trying to get this 21st century thing down, aren't you?"

"Well, if it is the time I will be spending the rest of my life in, I might as well, don't you think?" The two women looked at each other and if the guy on the couch didn't have a clue as to what might be the relationship between these two, he now got a good idea as their look was longingly, lovingly celebrated for several seconds. He coughed to bring the women's attention back to him.

"Right." Myka said. "Helena, this is Mike. Mike, Helena." Mike stood up from the couch and reached over it to shake Helena's hand but the woman's hands remained at her sides. She just looked at Mike for a moment then back at Myka.

"And what is random guy number one doing here, if I may ask?" She didn't seem exactly angry but there was certainly an edge to her question.

"I am Mike Madden, the hockey player." Mike interjected because the woman didn't seem to have grasped the name.

"So, you're famous, are you?" Helena said with a mock smile. "Well, I am H.G. Wells."

"Hey, like that British author. He wrote "The Time Machine," right?"

"The same," said Helena very distinctly and pierced Mike with her look. Mike straightened to his full height but looked a little unsure at Myka.

"But that guy's been..."

"Helena, please. Mike... I am sorry. Helena's been out of touch for a while and, well, she's obviously back now and... this is really not a good time just now." To Helena she said. "I can explain."

"I am very eager to hear that explanation." Helena assured her.

Mike came around the couch, he seemed to unfold himself to stand before Helena in his mascular entirety. It was meant to intimidate but Helena looked up at him and raised an eye brow. Myka stepped between the two and put a hand on Mike's massive chest.

"H.G. knows kempo, it's a very old Chinese martial art."

"Very deadly, too," added Helena with a self-assured smile.

Myka took Mike's arm and draged him to the door. She opened it and Mike stepped outside. It had begun to rain but he stood under the canopy of the front door.

"I am sorry, Mike. This is..."

"You know...," he interrupted her. "... you could have told me that there was already someone in your life." He was understandably miffed by these turns of events.

"I know I should have. And I'm sorry. It's... well, sometimes I'm not even sure H.G. is in my life. It's..."

"Complicated?" he asked and she nodded her head. "And that whole thing with her believing she is that author. What's up with that?"

"She... it's her British humour. She just gets the name-thing a lot, y'know." It was for him to nod at that.

"So, I guess I won't call you." He sounded disappointed and she gave him a little smile.

"That would probably be best," she told him and laid a hand on his arm. She gave it a light squeeze.

"Well, if things don't... work out with... her maybe you can give me a call," he stammered through the awkwardness and the dull ache that settled over his chest. Myka bit her lower lip but her eyes were relentless.

"I don't think so, Mike. You are a great guy but... well, there's the distance-thing, and the famous-hockey-player-thing..."

"And your work-thing which I haven't quite figured out yet."

"You better stop trying, it's..." Myka made a gesture with her hands that was all over the place and slightly crazy.

"Complicated?" Myka laughed.

"That too," she admitted. "Well, drive carefully, Mike."

"Take care, Myka," he said and leaned forward to give her a last kiss but she turned her head and he only got her cheek.

"Goodnight," she said and he stepped back farther under the canopy and into the darkness.

"Goodnight." It was a low wish he threw back over his shoulder as he went to his car.

Myka closed the door and turned toward the living room.

She made her way back there with a frown but it turned into another dazzling smile as she viewed Helena still standing where they had left her. She hadn't moved, she was still wearing her jacket, her traveling bag stood beside her on the floor. She was back! She was still there! Not a hallucination, not a hologram, Helena G. Wells in the flesh.

Myka walked over haltingly, watching the writer. H.G. seemed to contemplate something not aware that she was being watched. Myka wondered if those contemplations were about where she'd been or what she'd done. Or maybe even whether it had been a good idea to come back.

Myka didn't want her to think about that. She wanted Helena to be as happy as she herself was that the writer was back.

"Hey," she said as she approached.

"Hey, yourself." The dark-eyed beauty turned toward Myka and held her hands out to her. Myka took them and stepped closer, very close in fact. She only stopped when she was so close she could smell Helena's shampoo, see the very few and very pale freckles on her nose. Myka looked longingly into the other woman's eyes.

"I missed you so much." Her voice cracked. "I was so lonely without you," she added and Helena lowered her eyes.

"Is that why you...," but Helena stopped herself and shook her head. "I know I have no claim on you and I certainly have no right to an explanation. I left without a word. You must think the worst of me."

"When have I ever thought the worst of you?"

"Well..."

"That..." Myka interrupted. "... was a rhetorical question." They smiled at one another. "And you are wrong. You do have a claim on me." With these words she tilted her head just a little and captured the sweet-tasting lips of her lover. It was a kiss without urgency, without the need that was however lurking just underneath the emotion Myka tried to convey - a welcome home. When their lips parted their bodies did not but stayed close together as if in an embrace. Helena let her cheeck trace the line of Myka's jaw and buried her face just a moment in Myka's dark locks.

"As for the explanation...," Myka continued her line of thought and Helena looked up into those compelling green eyes again. "... you might have no right to one but I want to give it to you. And I do think that the writer in you will appreciate it." Helena looked doubtful, lifting one of her dark eyebrows.

"I can hardly imagine something that the writer in me will appreciate while the woman is still a little shell shocked by the event that made it necessary." The sentence flowed from her lips in her British drawl and gave Myka a thrill. To say she appreciated Helena's intricate sentence structure was an understatement.

"Hear me out?" she asked of the writer and Helena nodded. "Would you agree with the idea that if we were characters in a book this book would be a romance?"

Helena cocked her head to the side to contemplate this idea for a minute. A crooked smile appeared on her lips after a while and she nodded.

"Yes, I think I would." Myka mirrored the smile and she took a moment to rub her nose against the writer's.

"I missed you, Helena. These past months I tried to find out where you were but... you were just gone. Since I couldn't find you I tried to figure out a way to get you back here." Helena's face became expectant. "So, I thought about what would have to happen in a romance to bring one lover back home to the other."

"Ahhh, so you thought if you kissed someone else..." There was a very small smile around Helena's lips.

"I don't want you to think that I simply went around kissing random... guys. I... The first time I kissed Mike, I really did feel... some attraction."

"The first time," Helena said quietly.

"Yes, we were on assignment in Toronto, Pete and I... it's a weird story - kinda..."

"There are few stories to do with artefacts that are not in some way weird," Helena reminded.

"Wait till you hear this one. But..." Myka took a deep breath. "Well, Mike kissed me and it felt... good at first. And then it didn't anymore because... he was not you." Myka put her forehead against Helena's, her voice was very low now. "But when he called me a couple of days ago I already had this idea in my head. It was crazy but I had to test it."

They stood like that for a short while both thinking about what had been said. Their breaths mingled as they kept standing close.

"I am curious." Helena broke the silence but only just, her voice as low as Myka's had been. "What would have happened if I hadn't showed up." Myka took her head from Helena's and looked at her. The writer's eyes were hard to read, she always tried to reign her emotions in, but Myka could read the barely contained jealousy within.

"I would have broken it off around midnight and send Mike on his way. Then I would have gone up and done what I have done almost every night these last few months - cried myself to sleep." She answered truthfully and a little defensive.

Helena nodded to this, lowering her head again. She knew she had no right to condemn Myka.

"Will you tell me where you've been?" The agent asked tentatively.

"I might be able to tell you a little." Helena answered and Myka nodded. She had assumed that H.G. had been on a mission though she was rather curious as to who for.

"As for your idea of how to get me back here...," Helena continued after a short pause and Myka looked at her expectantly. "I think as far as plots go this was not a bad notion." The writer smiled. "And you were right, the writer in me does appreciate the idea. However, you did not, by any chance, use... an artifact to help your plot along, did you?" The agent looked puzzled and shook her head.

"You know we are not allowed..."

"And Myka Bering always plays by the rules, of course." There was no censure in her words but a very indulgent smile on her lips. Myka's firm believe in what was right and what was wrong was one of the things the writer loved most about her.

"Why did you assume I used an artifact?" Myka asked curiously.

"Just... I was in the middle of something when I felt this... urge - this is not quite the right word because it was a lot stronger than just an urge; I had to come here. I had to come home. I couldn't think of anything else but coming back to you." She emphasized the last two words. Again their eyes locked and delved deeply into each other.

"That sounds a little like an artefact." Myka agreed. She shook her head slightly, knowing that she hadn't used any item from the warehouse that had the power Helena discribed, although she could think of at least three that possessed those same powers. Did she maybe wander through the warehouse at some point, wishing... but she never wished when in the warehouse. Dangerous things could happen when one wished among the artefacts. "I only thought of you here. In my room. I didn't want the others to see... how much I missed you. I just sat down in my rocking chair with my copy of "The Time Machine" and thought of you."

"The first edition that I signed for you?" Helena inquired and Myka nodded her head slowly. They looked at each other contemplating this piece of information and Myka slowly opened her mouth as a thought hit.

"You don't think..," she began.

"... that maybe you created an artefact?" Helena finished the sentence. "Well, it would not be the first time a warehouse agent did that. Think about it: nobody is as much in contact with them as us, nobody carries so much of their power everywhere we go. It is not uncommon that these things happen, in fact, I created my share of artefacts..." She didn't finish the sentence and it hung between them for a moment. Myka could very easily guess the kind of artefacts Helena might have created in the aftermath of her daughter's death. She shuddered slightly at the thought but didn't step back. Instead her hands wandered from Helena's hands up her arms until they fell around her shoulders and held the writer tight. Helena's arms, meanwhile, circled Myka's waiste and stayed there for a long moment. When they finally returned to holding each other's hands - they wouldn't break the contact completely - Helena said:

"We should probably bag and tag the book." Myka made a face.

"On the other hand, it might be useful... just..."

"In case I go missing again?" Helena asked and they both knew that this was a definite possibility. Myka nodded.

"If all it does is bringing you back to me it wouldn't really be like breaking the rules or anything," she reasoned.

"Artefacts rarely only do a beneficial thing, there is almost always a downside. You would not want Pete to go missing to have me back here, surely?" Myka sighed.

"Of course not. Just..." The tall agent sighed again. "Just promise me that the next time you have to leave - or want to leave - at least write me a note saying you will come back." It came out in a rush and Myka's eyes were desperate. Helena cupped Myka's cheeck with her hand, bringing their lips so close together they touched lightly as she said:

"I promise I will leave a note next time I have to - never want to - go. And I promise that I will always try to come back to you."

They kissed, passionately this time. Bodies clashed, hands groped, tongues danced. Myka let out a deep moan as she felt the whole length of Helena's body finally press into her - again. When they parted their breathing was heavy as were the wanting looks in their eyes.

"Go upstairs?" Myka asked and Helena nodded. She picked up her bag and took Myka's hand.

"I assume you want to go to bed immediately?" Myka's voice held a note of impatience, she wasn't as sure in their relationship as to assume that she was automatically welcome in Helena's room, although the kiss they had just shared seemed to indicate this.

"I think a shower is in order first. It was a long trip." Myka worked her bottom lip as they climbed the first few steps to the upper floor.

"Will you need help with that?" she finally uttered accompanied by a light blush that covered her cheeks. Helena turned her head to her and smiled.

"Help with my shower?", she asked amused and Myka nodded. "Well, I think I would appreciate that very much." They smiled at each other and Myka tugged at Helena's fingers that were entwined with hers. They both stopped.

"Helena." Myka leaned again into the smaller woman and captured her lips in a searing kiss. When they parted she breathed: "Welcome home."

The End.