this story came out of my mind after the end of last season. With Season 4 set to begin in a matter of weeks, I'd thought I'd begin posting the first couple of chapters.

Summary: When Claudia is involved in a horrific car accident, Steve, Pete, Myka, Leena, and Joshua rally around her as she fights to survive. But where is Artie?

Timeline: After Season 3.

Enjoy.

Chapter 1

They were in Atlanta trying to track down an elusive collector who was collecting artifacts and disappearing with them. The search was driving Artie crazier than hell and Claudia wanted nothing more than for this to be over with but it wasn't. She wished she was back at the Warehouse with Steve, Pete and Myka than with Artie. He was obsessed and yet every time any of them would get close enough he was gone. Even Pete and Steve were starting to hate this guy. The latest search had been to retrieve a Civil War era gun that was now an artifact but the so called "Collector" had beaten them to it and had disappeared again.

They were now at the airport heading for the ticket counter to see if they could get on the next available flight. "Claudia go on ahead and head back. I have something I need to do and will be back in a couple of days," he explained.

"You sure about this Artie," she asked wondering what the he was up to. "You sure you don't need me to come along."

"I'm sure now go on before I kick you onto the plane."

"Okay, I'll hold you to that then. See you in a couple of days."

She passed through security and caught the flight. Upon arriving Claudia called Pete and Myka. "Hey just landed I'm heading back now."

"Wait where's Artie?" asked Pete his face literally covering the screen of the Farnsworth.

"He stayed behind, said he had something to do and would be back in a couple of days."

"Yes," came Pete's enthusiastic reply. "I can enjoy a couple of days without Artie around."

"As long as you don't blow up anything" came Myka and Steve's reply in the background.

"Who Moi," Pete said innocently.

This is going to be an interesting couple of days. Claudia was thinking to herself with a slight smile forming in her face. "I'll be there soon in time for dinner."

"I'll let Leena know," came Myka's reply through the Farnsworth.

"Thanks, see you in a bit." Closing the Farnsworth, she grabbed her bag and headed for the long-term parking lot where her car was parked and headed out of the airport toward the highway that would lead her home.

The highway was pretty quiet and Claudia had hooked her iPod into the car and was listening to some music as she drove. It had been snowing when she left the airport so she had the volume turned down to lessen the distraction of the music in order to concentrate on her driving. As she drove along the highway, the snow began to pick up and so she switched the radio on to get the latest weather and traffic update. She was debating whether to stop in the next town or continue on but it depended on what the next weather report would say. She felt comforted by the fact that there was a state trooper behind her if things got bad, she could follow him to the next town and wait it out there. Claudia was well aware that she was not good in driving in bad weather. It was more Myka's thing since she grew up in Denver and was used to snow. She was also happy that Artie wasn't around, he would have driven her nuts and they both would have most likely end up in an accident.

As she was climbing a hill, a car crested at the top coming the opposite direction at a high rate of speed it crossed the medium into her lane and she didn't even have time to react as the speeding car hit her head on.