Note: This is the rewrite of a flashfic I wrote months ago, but it hasn't been beta-ed or edited or reviewed by anyone, so all mistakes are mine, and I apologize. Reviews and thoughts are greatly appreciated! If you like this one, I may write a sequel or two that are much less angsty and much happier. Thoughts?

Why...?

Myka crumples the report she was trying to write and tosses it in the trash with the countless other wads of paper. She just couldn't seem to write down 'Helena betrayed us', or the more truthful "Helena betrayed me". Shaking her head, Myka grabbes the legal pad she had been scribbling on with angry ramblings and accounts of recent events. Egypt. The Yellowstone caldera. The gun H.G. Placed to her head. Gritting her teeth, Myka grabs her farnsworth. She pops the lid and stares at the candid shot she had managed to get of HG before... Her insides roil and she feels sick, her throat tightening. A tear slides down her cheek, fingers tenderly brushing across the author's black and white face.
"Helena" Myka whispers. A sob escapes her throat. She couldn't take it anymore. She ripps the photograph out and is just about to tear it up when she remembers sitting on the stone bench with H.G.; the playful banter they swapped about Helena's choice of clothes for the dig in Egypt; Comforting Wells when the pyramid defenses forced Helena to relive her daughter's love and laughter, only to lose her again...

At the thought of H.G.'s unbearable anguish, Myka gently places the photograph back on the desk, her fingers brushing against an envelope. Wiping a single tear away, Myka smiles gently. Her eyes shine with more unshed tears, only a few among the many hundreds cried over the past day. Despite her pain, Myka can't help a small, reminiscent smile tug at the corner of her mouth. The envelope was of old, high quality paper. Helena had used some of her old stationary to write a couple of letters. One was to her daughter Christina, to place next to her headstone. And one was for Myka.
Popping the seal up again, Myka pulls the faded parchment out and marvels at the elegant handwriting. One glance and HG's words cut her to the quick:
"My Darling Myka,
If only I could express how much I lo-..."

Myka quickly tosses the letter onto the desk already cluttered with HG Wells this and HG Wells that.
"Why can't I let you go!" She sobs, collapsing in her chair. Her hands clench together, thumb tracing the path that Helena's fingers had made just before they had entered the tomb together. Helena had grabbed her hand, making sure the gesture was hidden for Myka's sake. She knew Myka didn't want Pete to suspect anything. She knew Myka wasn't ready to start a relationship, and definitely didn't want any rumors. Rumors alone would bring grief from Pete, fast paced questions from Claudia and disapproval and anger from Artie. Myka quivers as she remembers the feeling of HG's elegant fingers caressing her palm, and how they had burned like fire. It still filled Myka with a longing that she couldn't put into words. The looks they had shared from the first moment they met...the looks they had continued to share as they progressed through the challenging defenses...they made Myka's heart swell even more within her chest.

'I want to kiss her' Myka thought. She shook her head forcefully. 'No! I can't! She betrayed me! I DID want to kiss her...' here Myka bitterly halts, mouth in a hard line "I DID want to love her...but I can't". Myka whispers the last words, then buries her head in her hands. When she finally lifts her head up, she sees the photograph again out of the corner of her eye. Helena was so beautiful. Sighing, Myka stands, resigned. She knows that no matter how much she denies it, she was in love with H.G. Wells. That's why her heart felt leaden. What was there to love when all she thought she knew was a lie?

Myka looks around at the now unnervingly familiar Warehouse. Her home. The home she must leave. Her chest shudders as she takes a shaky, shallow breath and her throat goes dry. Then, squaring her shoulders, Agent Myka Bering pulls her chair up to the desk, places her palms on the wood, and takes a deep breath to steel herself. She can do this. Grabbing the legal pad again, she picks up her pen and starts writing. What Myka doesn't know is that this report would be notorious as "The Case of H.G. Wells and the Minoan Trident", or 'The Tricking Agent's Bering and Lattimer by H.G. Wells'. But for once, Agent Bering doesn't care about image or a job well done; her reputation or thoroughness. Her heart aches, and she knows she will only have the the strength to quickly write down her thoughts before she breaks down completely. Her eyes dart to the clock on the wall and her stomach clenches. She didn't have much time. She couldn't leave her job undone, but once this last report was written and on Artie's desk, Myka was leaving. She didn't want anyone at the Warehouse finding her goodbye letter until she was safetly away.
Taking another deep breath, Myka closes her eyes and swallows, her fingers kneading the pen in her hands. She didn't know why, but it felt as if the pain knawing at her insides right now was worse than it had been even with Sam's death. To Myka's emotionally muddled brain, it didn't make much sense. She had loved Sam and given him everything. She had't even kissed H.G. How...? Myka shakes her head. All she does know is that she has a report to finish. So Agent Bering tucks her hair behind her ear, shifts in her chair, places pen to paper, and begins to write.

All that was on the paper a few minutes later were four detailed, curt lines, ones that would become famous to future warehouse agents as being the most concise report ever written for the Warehouse about a major event:

"H.G. Wells gained the trust of the Warehouse, used and betrayed everyone around her, and stole the Minoan Trident for personal revenge. With it, she almost created an iceage that would have caused the deaths of billions, but was unexpectedly stopped when presented with the reality of seeing someone she...loved, die in front of her, instead of seeing mere numbers counting those dead at her hand. Her betrayal is so great, and the repercussions would have been so horrific, that any punishment the Regents deem fit will be far less than she deserves. H.G. Wells is a woman never to be trusted to do anything but manipulate, use, betray and hurt those around her. Do not underestimate her."

When Pete ran out of the Warehouse calling for Myka to stay, she was already driving down the dusty road to Univille. She was sick of losing the ones she cared about...the ones she trusted..., no matter the cause. She had just lost the woman who had captured her heart. The worst part for Myka's broken heart was that everything had been Helena's choice. The lying. The stealing. The overwhelming desire to destroy made into a very real possibility. And for that betrayal, Myka has no forgiveness to give. She feels a piece of herself die in that moment as her fingers grip the steering wheel, dust churning behind her car, and a cool ice slithering through her body. Running. That's what she was doing. Running away from the pain and the memories. Running away from the guilt at letting herself get fooled to the point of endangering every living thing. Running away from the knowledge that she was part of the reason she lost almost everyone she holds dear.

Months later, back at the quiet peace of her family's bookstore, Myka flips through the pages of her ill kept diary, pausing at the last entry:

"HG Wells presented herself as a reformed agent a reformed woman, remorseful for all but the deaths of the men who murdered her daughter. By the end of our last mission together, Helena was being led off in cuffs by the Regents' security forces. What happened in between? How could I make such a mistake and feel in my gut that I could trust her, when all she really wanted was to gain our trust so she could steal and artifact and try to kill billions? How does anyone make that mistake? Did I just not want to see it? Did I feel misgivings at accepting her as a fellow agent, a friend, and even a possible lover and yet ignore them because I just wanted her to be true? What did I do wrong? Could I have helped her deal with her anger before it all came crashing down on us? Could anyone have helped her before she was faced with the final, irreversible decision of life or death?" Here, a few tear stains littered the page, and Myka's fingertips gently traced their outline over the slightly smudged ink.

"For her to betray everything we had started to build is a mystery to me. A painful, unending mystery. All I do know is that HG Wells, despite appearances, words, and actions, is not a woman to be trusted. Not when she was debronzed. Not when she was reinstated as a warehouse agent. And not when she tried to destroy the world and everyone in it.

My one question though is WHY. Why did she look me in the eye, the gun to my head, and not pull the trigger? I saw the anger, bitterness, hate and despair all raging within her. The gun was to my head. She was ready to destroy the world, yet she dropped the gun AND the trident when faced with my death. Why couldn't she kill me? Everything else seems to have been an act. So why did it seem like my desperate attempt to show her reason worked? Why did my vulnerable and reckless attempt to save the world suceed just because I tested our bods of friendship...and love...? WHY, when everything else had obviously been festering for over a century? Could she truly have..." The entry ends there, and Myka sighs. Her slender fingers rub her temples, heart clenching in her chest. Another sigh and she pulls out a chair and sits down at her desk, hestitantly picking up a pen. She knew back then that she needed to finish that thought. Maybe now she finally could, with some time between her and that still painfully remembered day.

"Could she truly have loved me, like she said? Maybe everything wasn't as black and white as I thought. Maybe everything was NOT a lie." Another tear stains the page. "But how will I know what was and what wasn't a lie? She's gone now to who knows where, never to be heard from again if past accounts of Regent prisoner transfers are true. How do I question every look, every touch, every syllable that passed through her lips to touch my soul? No. It's easier to believe it was all a lie.

Maybe then I can forget her more easily.
Maybe I can stop loving her.
Maybe we can...no.
Maybe nothing.
We have nothing.
It's over"

Myka drops the pen and slams her diary shut. After a few minutes of deep breaths, Myka finally breaks down and sobs, truly letting go some of the pain that had plagued her for months because of the betrayal and loss of the woman she loved.

The woman she will always love.

She fiercely wipes the tears away, swallowing over and over. A slight hiccup escapes as she tries to pull herself together. Her Helena was gone. But in her heart of hearts, Myka knows that no matter what the past held, she just wants H.G. back. She wants to tell Helena what she was unable to utter in the caldera with that gun pointed to her head.

"I love you."

~Finite~