Confessions in a Snow Storm
AN:After "The Greatest Gift;" Pete finds himself thinking about what exactly was so different between the Myka he met in the alternate universe and his own Myka. He realizes that he is not the only one that has shaped Myka into who she is today.
AKA I process the episode with some shipper goggles, some bestie goggles, and some Christmas Spirit. I'm guessing that contextually, "The Greatest Gift" takes place sometime after "3..2..1.." but before "The 40th Floor" because Pete's mom obviously is unknown as a Regent, Steve's still on the team (ALTHOUGH NOT ON THE EPISODE, WHICH IS BULLSHIT) and that H.G. is still in her pokeball. So uh… that's when this takes place.
It is the strangest thing, to back in a place where everyone loves each other and he doesn't have to worry about annoying things like not existing.
He's so shaken. He can't get the image of that Myka out of his head. He can't stop thinking about her as he lies in his bed that night, staring out the window at the swirling snow. He can't believe himself. He can't believe that just the absence of him made Myka like that. He remembered what she had been like when they first met. She hadn't been that bad.
It's three in the morning when it hits him and he sits bolt upright in bed. Trailer grunts and rolls over, roaching with all four feet in the air. Pete rolls his eyes at the dog. He's in a state of disbelief that he never thought of it while he was there. He couldn't help talking about her to that Myka as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
It never occurred to him that that Myka had not had her either.
That morning, after they've exchanged gifts and Pete had braved the snow to take Myka up to Pierre Regional to catch her Christmas Eve flight home, he wanders the stacks of the warehouse. He knows where he wants to go, but he's avoiding it, pretending to be doing other things. Since Artie's plans were abruptly canceled, he doesn't have to do quite as much - he's got time. He knows what he wants to do with it.
He can't help himself.
The orb is right where Myka left it, sitting atop a novel on a ratty-looking couch in the corner of the Warehouse's library. There's a bookmark in a copy of 1984 and Pete wonders how many times Myka's read this particular version. The corners are battered and dog-eared; there are notes in the margins that look like Myka's handwriting - only more childish and innocent.
He sets the book aside carefully, and holds the orb in his hands, contemplating it for a long moment. She's the only one that will understand this, he thinks. He hates to turn to her, but he can't tell them what had happened, it wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair, certainly wouldn't be a good idea.
He lifts the latch and turns the orb, heart hardening. He wouldn't let her get to him, not this time, not again.
(Pete never had a bad vibe about her until they walked into Warehouse Two.)
She appears already speaking, a smile playing across her face, "Darling, you're back, did yo-" she stops abruptly and her face falls, eyes narrowing. "Hello, Peter."
He hates being called by his full name. "Helena," he replies evenly.
H.G. glances around the library and upon not seeing Myka opens her mouth once again. Pete braces himself for lies, for evil, but not for this. "Did she go home?" There's such genuine concern there that Pete can't help himself. He knows that H.G. does care about Myka, perhaps more deeply than even he does.
He and Myka, he reasons, never fell in love.
He nods, "Yeah." He looks away. "I don't know why though. Her father isn't the nicest person on earth."
She sits down, or rather, hovers just above the couch as only a hologram can. Her face is drawn and weary looking, her hair is dirty. Pete wonders why he'd never noticed all of this before. It strange - like he's seeing H.G. Wells for the first time again. She's as strangely beautiful now as she was then, only slightly less menacing with the non-touching thing and all. "They are trying to heal, Pete. Sometimes that takes more fighting."
She would know, Pete reasons.
"Why are you bothering me," H.G. adds with a crooked smile. "It can't be that boring in a Warehouse full of wonder all by yourself."
He puts his hands up, "I've had quite enough of that to last me a life time."
She raises an eyebrow. "Do tell."
And here's the thing: Pete doesn't think he can tell Myka or Artie or Claudia what it was like to see people that he knew and loved no longer know him. To see the hurting and alone and wounded. But he can tell H.G., because she understands what it's like to hurt. She's safe, trapped in an orb. And he knows that H.G. keeps secrets better than anyone. She won't tell.
"Have you ever heard of a brush that can literally whisk you away?" He purses his lips and does the math in his head. Nope, after her bronzing, so he amends his statement. "In 1943, a man named Philip Van DOren Stern wrote a story about a man who was about to commit suicide. A guy comes along and gives him this backpack, and suddenly it's like he's never been born. The whole thing was retconed like no one's business, but the point is that he spent years writing that story and no one wanted to publish it." Pete looks down at his hands, wondering how the fuck he knows all this stuff. "He created an artifact in the process somehow, that whisks you away to a universe where you've never been born."
H.G. rests her chin on her palm and stares at him. "I take it you've had a bit of a misadventure then?"
"It was horrible," Pete said, nodding yes to her statement. He leans back on the couch and staring up at the warehouse ceiling. "Everything was wrong. MacPherson was running the warehouse."
"Oh, that does sound terrible," H.G. comments, and Pete can see a flash of anger cross her face. He'd never considered that maybe H.G. had never wanted to be debronzed in the first place. "I do hope you righted that wrong before you left."
"I jumped into a pit of molten lava and grabbed an upholstery brush before he was dead, so I don't honestly know how that turned out," Pete says with a half-hearted laugh. "It really was hard to be there though."
"Why?"
"Everyone was so different, so wounded. Myka especially. She was so cold. Underneath you could still see her, but it was like she was when we first got here. She was so driven and so married to the job - I mean, we all are married to this job, but that was taking it to another level."
Pete swallows his pride and says his next bit quickly, without looking at H.G. He can't let her see this weakness, he's sure she'll somehow use it against him. "I couldn't stop talking about you to her, even though she didn't know who you were, Helena."
She doesn't say anything, just stares at him, her expression schooled neutral and her eyes betraying nothing. He hates her poker face, it's too fucking good.
"Myka ... she was really changed by you, by me, by coming here. But I think that you changed her the most." Pete sighs, "I guess I came down here because I wanted to tell you that I think you changed her for the better, even if you ripped her heart out in the process."
"I don't think she'll ever forgive me for it, either," H.G. says quietly.
Good, Pete thinks but does not say. He knows that Myka is still desperately in love with H.G. and that H.G. is probably still in love with Myka.
He doesn't mention that he found H.G. in the bronze sector in that alternate reality. That he stood there staring at her for a good minute before Artie pulled them away to go to the furnace.
"Who was that?" That Myka had asked.
Pete had replied, "A friend."
He hadn't been lying.
Pete changes gears before he admits something that he's not quite ready for yet. He can't tell H.G. that he's glad she's stuck in an orb, her body in a prison somewhere. He can't tell her how much he hates her for ruining everything about his family. He's yelled before and it didn't make him feel any better. No, the only think that will make that better is time. He knows that now, he's seen what happens when you don't make amends before it's too late. "It's Christmas Eve, H.G., do you want to come back to Leena's with me? We can watch some movies or something."
"You are pulling my leg, aren't you?" H.G. wants to know, Pete doesn't actually blame her that much.
"I'm sorry I shouted at you," Pete tries. "I... I think that that's what I learned while I was not... here ... That you have to make amends before your time runs out. So yes, Helena, I'm sorry."
She looks away. "I'm sorry too. I hadn't thought that there would be anyone who'd actually come to stop me."
Pete wants to wrap his arm around her then and tell her that Myka's a boss like that, and that it was what people who loved each other did. Instead he just shrugs. "Myka wouldn't let you do something like that."
"No, no she would not." H.G. agrees. "I am sorry about Kelly too."
That was a wound that Pete did not need opened, thank you very much. "Why did you have to do that?"
"It seemed the only option at the time," H.G. stood and began to pace the length of the room. "I wanted you separated so as to best divide and conquer. I figured that Myka might go with you to help, and that I could take care of Arthur on my own."
"You did shoot him," Pete points out.
"Technically, he shot himself," H.G. replies acidly. "And I got a bullet in the shoulder for the trouble. No idea how it's healing up though."
"What do you mean?" It's strange, this is probably the longest conversation that he's ever had with Helena Wells, and she's fun to talk to. Pete doesn't trust her further than he can throw her, but he does like to think that she's ... maybe an okay person. "Don't you like... go back to your body when we turn you off?"
"I go nowhere," H.G.'s voice is full of a pain that Pete can't begin to describe. "It is like being bronzed only silent; I can't see or hear anything. 'Suspended animation,' I believe is the modern term for such an experience."
Interesting.
Pete files that bit of information away and stands up as well. "There's a mad crazy blizzard outside. Myka managed to catch a flight but Claudia and Artie are stuck here, so it'll probably be just us back at Leena's until later."
"I'd rather be turned off if Arthur is around, if I am to be a part of these festivities," H.G. says with a wry smile. "I am not sure that he forgives as easily as you do, Agent Lattimer."
He laughs. "You're not forgiven, but its Christmas, I'm feeling charitable."
x
Claudia is overjoyed when Pete rolls up with H.G., which Pete thinks is kinda odd - but then he figures out that Myka's been having secret reading parties with H.G. in the library for weeks now (since Mrs. Frederic gave her the orb) and it only makes sense that Claudia would a) know about them and b) be okay with them.
"Did you tell any of them about your misadventure?" H.G. hisses at him as he takes off his coat and boots. She looks rather unperturbed by the snow that's falling through her.
Pete sets down the orb and shakes his head violently. "I don't want them to know," he mutters. "It was so awful, they can't know."
H.G. gives him a look that says that her lips are sealed and they go into the living room.
Claudia has set up the DVD player with some strange sort of cable that maybe makes things look better than Blue Ray, Pete's not sure, to be totally honest. He squints at it for a moment before he turns to Claudia, who has a screwdriver between her teeth and is doing something to the back of the TV. "What are you doing?" He asks.
"Fixing it," Claudia says. "Oh hey, H.G., do you think that if I rerouted this to go through the spectroscope over there that I could jerry rig the plasma in the screen to show truer color?"
H.G. blinks and thinks about it. Pete feels like an idiot. They're all way too smart. He's smart too, he knows this, he went to an Ivy League school, and yet he can't keep up with any of the women in his life. It's amazing; he's in awe of them all. "Probably not unless you're using an artifact- is that Robert Bunsen's spectrometer?"
"Noooooo," Claudia says quickly and shoves it into her laptop case. She looks guilty as sin and Pete's glad that H.G. is acting the disciplinarian this time around. He hates having to be the assholeish elder brother.
Best leave the mothering up to the mothering types.
"Good, because if it was, I would tell you to put it back in the Warehouse before it does what it did the last time I encountered it." H.G. folds her arms across her chest and Claudia looks appropriately chastised. Until she asks what it did and H.G. sits down (hovers) on the couch and explains that some things are better left unsaid. Also that colors should never be seen like that, which Pete chooses not to ask about because my god, he's had enough insanity in the past two days to last him a lifetime.
They settle into a comfortable silence. Claudia channel flips until she finds a Christmas movie that isn't a cartoon. Granted, this is the most depressing Christmas movie ever made, but still. The Little Matchstick Girl is a classic that H.G. needs to see, so he and Claudia sit and suffer through it. For the betterment of H.G.
Also because they're masochistic.
"I found that box of matches," H.G. says quietly after the short film is over. They're all looking a little weepy and Pete hates movies with kids who die. "Left them on my dresser and Christina nearly lit one."
"Shit man," Claudia says quietly. They all know what that is like. Nearly getting someone killed because of carelessness with an artifact. "Glad you caught her in time."
H.G. shrugs, "Dying being show your dreams is far better than dying how she did, but yes, I am grateful that I saved her."
Pete decides that H.G. needs some serious brain doctors like yesterday and is about to say so when they hear the sound of Artie's car rolling up in the driveway. He drives the beater in the winter, it's loud and they've got very little time to say goodbye.
"I gotta put you back now," Pete says quietly. He almost doesn't want to. He resolves to get up early tomorrow morning and take the orb and his Farnsworth to a quiet place and let H.G. call Myka. It's the least he can do; he thinks that she'll appreciate the gesture.
"I understand. Happy Christmas, both of you," H.G. says and there's a sadness that Pete cannot describe that crosses her face then. He wants to go and run to the nearest regent and demand that they put H.G. back in her body. That they make her heal the normal way. To separate her from herself like this is just cruel.
"Merry Christmas, Helena," Pete closes the orb and H.G. vanishes.
He knows his secret is safe with her.