A Crisis Of Faith
Disclaimer: Warehouse 13 and its characters don't belong to me. Yeah, I know, that's a shock. I promise to play nicely with them and return them in the condition I found them in. Or something.
It took longer than Myka had anticipated for Pete to catch up with her. She'd half-expected him to overtake her on the small one-lane road back into town, swerving dramatically on the asphalt in whichever car he'd 'borrowed' from the Warehouse, and forcing her to a stop so they could have it out on the street. She was surprised when she actually made it back to the B&B in peace, but she knew he'd be along any moment. Roaring up the driveway, bursting through the front door, pounding up the steps to confront her for abandoning them.
Classic Pete.
But twenty minutes passed by in silence. Minutes in which she managed to erase all trace of herself from the bathroom she shared with Pete and Claudia, pack half of her suitcase, decide which items in her closet she would need the most, debate whether to have Leena hold the rest until she had a forwarding address or just ship it to her parents now.
She did not acknowledge the ache in her chest that grew with every second of that unbearable silence.
Another five minutes later, she was neatly folding her way through the stack of clothes on her bed when she finally heard a car pull up in the driveway. No roaring, just a car quietly pulling up and going silent.
Had Leena actually beaten Pete back?
A moment later, the front door opened and shut and the heavy footsteps on the stairs, though less frantic than she'd imagined, definitely belonged to Pete. Myka steeled herself for the imminent confrontation.
But Pete didn't come to her door. Instead, she heard him go across the hall, into his own room. Without a word. Was he so angry with her that he wouldn't even talk to her? That he'd rather hide in his room until she was gone than look at her? That didn't sound like Pete. He'd never been one to give the cold-shoulder. It just wasn't in his nature. He couldn't stand silence and he wore his big heart on his sleeve. If he was angry, he'd make sure she knew it.
She was still puzzling over that, the shirt she'd been folding forgotten in her hands, when a knock on her open door snapped her attention back to the present. She turned to find a subdued Pete standing in the doorway.
"Hey," she greeted him tentatively, not sure what to expect at this point.
"Hey. When are you heading out?"
Myka's brow furrowed in confusion. "Uh, I don't know. When I'm done packing, I guess."
Pete nodded. "What time's your flight?"
She blinked, taken aback at his apparently calm acceptance of the fact that she was leaving. She had definitely not expected that.
"Six," she managed to answer.
Pete nodded again in acknowledgement and pulled out his cell phone, already turning to walk back out. "Okay."
"Why?" She wasn't sure she even wanted to know the answer, but felt compelled to ask.
"I'm booking my flight," he tossed over his shoulder. "I'll be ready when you are. I've got less stuff to pack."
He walked back across the hall and disappeared into his room, leaving Myka gaping after him and completely bewildered.
It finally occurred to her a moment later that she'd never get answers to the million questions shouting over each other in her brain standing where she was. Tossing the shirt on the bed, she went after him.
Her momentum stopped at his doorway. She hovered there, watching him toss an oversized duffel on his bed, stretch the mouth open as far as it would go, and start throwing things in.
"Pete, what are you doing?"
"Packing. What's it look like?"
She wasn't sure exactly, but she wouldn't have called it packing. But that wasn't what she'd meant, anyway.
"I thought we talked about this. I thought you weren't going after Kelly?"
"I'm not." He was still moving, grabbing things seemingly at random and chucking them in the general vicinity of the bed. "You were right, I can't change who I am to make her happy."
"So then…. Why are you packing?"
"Well, I'm not sure if we can keep living here if we're not actually working at the Warehouse. Besides, I'm not sure what our employment opportunities are in Uni-ville. I guess they need a vet now, but I don't think either one of us has the right skill set for that. Did they ever find someone to replace Todd at the hardware store? I wonder what they pay?"
Pete kept rambling and Myka realized she would be forced to take drastic action. She was going to have to break her long-standing rule against setting foot in Pete's room- lest she be swallowed whole by the clutter- because Pete was lost so far in his own world that she couldn't reach him.
Uprooting herself from her place in the doorway, she took a hesitant step forward, warily eying a pile of clothes nearby.
Seriously, he thought he had less stuff than her?
She shook that thought loose and turned her attention back to Pete, who was wondering whether they'd be able to get back on their old team now that Dickenson was gone. Crossing over to him quickly, she grabbed his shoulders and turned him around to face her, cutting him off mid-sentence.
"Pete! What are you talking about?"
He actually had the nerve to look at her as if she'd lost her mind. Then again, maybe he was onto something. That would certainly explain how her life had slipped so far out of her control in such a short period of time. She remembered when Pete had been affected by that telegraph a few weeks ago and wondered if something similar might have happened to her. Had she touched something in Egypt? Was it possible that this whole thing with H.G. had been a hallucination?
She was starting to feel a little hysterical.
"I'm talking about us blowing this pop stand," Pete shot back, sounding just as exasperated as she did. "You just quit, remember?"
"Yes," Myka said, with forced calm. "I remember that I quit. You were supposed to stay here."
Pete's expression hardened. "Is that how you thought it was going to go? You talk me into staying and then run away? That plan sucks, Myka. We're in this together. If you leave, I leave."
Suddenly, it all made sense and Myka thought she might cry. Pete was just being… Pete. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to smack him senseless. She clenched her fists at her sides to keep from doing either.
"Pete, don't be an idiot!" she yelled.
"I can't help it!" he yelled back.
She stared at him, surprised, grasping desperately at the swiftly-unraveling threads of her anger. But then she caught the flicker of a smirk on his face and she couldn't help it. She burst out laughing and Pete grinned.
"I hate you," she finally gasped when she could breathe again, catching a tear at the corner of her eye and flicking it away quickly.
"Right back at ya, Mykes."
He said it with such warmth and affection, like nothing had changed, and she couldn't believe he wasn't at least a little mad at her. She couldn't bring herself to yell at him again, even if he was being completely infuriating. As usual.
Sighing, she turned and collapsed onto the foot of his bed. The only part of it that wasn't covered with the junk he'd been 'packing'. Pete unceremoniously swept half of it onto the floor and took a seat beside her. And waited silently.
"Pete, you can't leave the Warehouse," she began reasonably. "We just talked about this. You were meant to be a Warehouse agent. You love it and you're good at it and the Warehouse needs you. Artie and Claudia need you."
"Artie and Claudia will manage just fine without me," he answered. "They'll find themselves some other agents who actually read The Manual and follow the rules and things will actually run smoothly for a change. They'll be like "Man, thank God we got rid of those screw ups!'"
Myka shot him a skeptical look. "The rules are meant to be broken sometimes, Pete."
Pete's eyebrows jumped and he glanced around frantically. "Where is a recorder when you need one? Myka Bering just told me it was okay to break the rules."
She smiled, but sobered when he met her gaze again. "You're not a screw up, Pete."
"Neither are you, Myka."
She glanced away quickly, blinking back another wave of tears. "I screwed up with H.G."
"Big deal," he scoffed. "I screwed up with a telegraph and almost killed a regent."
"She almost destroyed life as we know it, Pete. Because I trusted her when I shouldn't have. When I should have known better."
"Hey, you're not the only one she fooled, Myka. She was good. She was really good. Hell, she even convinced the regents, or they wouldn't have let her back in here. They should have known better. Seriously, don't they have a vetting process or something? Can't they check for bat-shit crazy before they let people in the building?"
"I'm the one who asked them to reinstate her. It was my recommendation."
"And it was their decision. Myka, if there's one thing we've learned about the regents in the past couple of years, it's that they know way more than we do. And they don't take our word for anything. Okay, that's two things, but the point is: they were going on a lot more than your recommendation when they decided to reinstate her. She fooled them too."
"She didn't fool Artie. Or Claudia. Or you," she said pointedly.
"Yes, she did."
She glared at him. They'd already established that he'd been having vibes about H.G. and keeping them to himself for Myka's sake. She couldn't believe he'd bother lying about it now.
"No, seriously," Pete insisted. "Even with the vibes, she kind of had me convinced. I mean, she saved you, and Claudia, and Artie. She saved both of us when she got us back from 1961. She really made herself look like one of the good guys, Myka."
Myka knew he was right, but she still couldn't shake the feeling that she was responsible. That she'd failed the team, failed the Warehouse, failed at her job. She'd exercised poor judgment. It was inexcusable. Worse, she'd be second-guessing herself from here on out, and that would only make her a liability. It would make her dangerous in the field.
"I can't go back there again, Pete," she whispered. "I just can't."
Pete sighed. "Myka, look. If you really think this is for the best, then I'm with you. We're partners. We came here together and we're leaving together. That's it. But don't just walk away because you're too embarrassed to face Artie."
Myka looked up sharply, surprised at how accurately he'd pinpointed the thing she'd been unable to admit even to herself.
"So you messed up. I know that's hard for you to deal with because you're Myka and you're perfect and everything, but people mess up sometimes. You gotta shake it off. You told me earlier that I was born for this and that this was the right life for me. Well, that goes for you too. You can't tell me you've ever been happier than you've been here."
Myka smiled sadly. "No. I can't."
"So are you really just gonna walk away from that now?"
She thought about it. She really wanted to say yes, wanted to argue that just because the Warehouse made her happy didn't mean it was right for her to stay. But he was right. She didn't want to walk away from the only place she'd truly felt at home.
"I'm scared, Pete. I don't know if I can trust myself. I don't know if you can trust me, and if you can't trust me in the field—"
"Myka. Do you remember our first case together? Our first Warehouse case, not back in DC."
She shrugged and nodded, not sure where he was going with this. "Lucrezia Borgia's hairpin. What about it?"
"You thought you were hallucinating. I guess you were hearing Sam or something, and you thought I was going to put you up for a psych eval. You remember that? You said I needed to be able to depend on my partner."
"I remember," she said quietly.
"Do you remember what I said to you? I told you that you needed to depend on me to know that you were okay. I trust you, Myka. I always have and I always will. This doesn't change that."
She stared at him, wondering what she'd done to deserve such loyalty. Wondering if she could ever be worthy of it.
"Are you sure?"
He smiled. "You're stuck with me, Bering. I'm like gum on your shoe. I'm going with you wherever you go. So what's it gonna be? Are we staying or going?"
She laughed. "I guess we're staying."
"Woohoo!" He raised his arms, posing triumphantly for an invisible crowd before launching into an impromptu, seated version of the Cabbage Patch. "Thank God, 'cause I don't think I packed anything useful. I can't even find my freaking toothbrush."
"It would probably help if you looked in the bathroom."
"Good point. Next time we almost quit, I will totally fake-pack the bathroom first."
Myka arched an eyebrow at him. "'Fake-pack', huh?"
Pete faltered. "Uh…."
"Pretty cocky, Lattimer. What if I hadn't changed my mind?"
He shrugged. "I would've bought a toothbrush at the airport."
She smiled, still touched that he was so willing to walk away from the job he loved without a second thought. For her.
"Thanks, Pete."
"No problem."
Sighing, she stood and headed for the door. "Well, I guess I better go then."
"Go where?" Pete asked, jumping to his feet.
"Back to the Warehouse to take back my resignation." She stopped at the door to look back at him. "And grovel."
"Want some moral support?" he offered sympathetically.
Myka smiled. "I think I can handle it. Besides," she added, sweeping a glance around the room. "You've got to clean up this mess you made."
Pete turned to look at his bed, littered with junk he'd been 'packing'.
"What mess?"
Myka just shook her head and went to get her life back.