Hello again! A few quick notes:

-I know I promised Hourglass in a timely fashion, but if you've been following my tumblr, you know that I've been taking a bit of a break from that universe - it is as emotionally draining for me to write it as it is for y'all to read it. That being said, I'm going to try to work on this and that simultaneously

-If you don't watch Warehouse 13, that's okay! A simple google search will tell you everything that I don't explain, and I'll try to explain almost everything. Not watching Pretty Little Liars is much less of a problem, as I'm just using the characters.

-Spencer is HG and MYka's child - actually theirs. Whether it's through some sort of artifact or that technology they're developing to allow two men or two women to have children of their own, she's theirs. End of story.

-I don't have a great track record for long fanfics, so bear with me. (Axis was the first I've ever taken from start to finish, and that literally took me over a year.) Also, I don't have much of a plan, which may delay this a little. The plot bunny was too insistent to ignore, however, so here we are!

-As always, if you have any questions, direct them at my tumblr, or send me a message or even leave a review!

"Do you know why you're here, Miss Marin?" The cool, flat voice cut through the daze caused by her head injury – she could still feel the blood in her hair. Sticky, matting it down. She winced as she raised her hand to touch it, not even wanting to see what she looked like. He dress was torn in several places, her skin raw and bruised in places from the tumble she'd taken down the stairs. If she had to guess, she'd say she looked like she'd gotten into a fight with Mecha-Jesus and lost – big time. (Jesus because God hadn't been kind to her…well, ever. And Mecha because she was pretty sure she could take regular Jesus in a fight, all things considered.)

"'Cuz I'm a spy." Even in her state, Hanna could tell that her words were slurred, the sounds fumbling on her lips. "And you're gonna put me away, right?" She locked eyes with the woman in front of her. She looked young, with red hair, an electric blue streak going down the side. Odd, for someone official that was probably going to lock her up. "I've been…really bad…"

"She didn't see a medic, did she?" The woman – well, girl, kind of – said, as she looked to her left. Hanna jumped as she noticed the suit standing there, her chair scraping against the floor and causing an embarrassingly loud noise. "…right. Well, go find…someone." She waved him away, turning to look directly at Hanna.

"You should really look into getting that second head removed." Hanna said, unable to hold her own head up. It wasn't so much that her head ached – actually, she felt quite pleasant. Strange, and floaty, almost, like this was a dream – and for all she knew, it was. She propped her chin up in her hand, finally, not liking how the room was spinning. "Do you make out with yourself?"

Her only response was a roll of her eyes as she sat down across from Hanna, putting her into slightly better focus. "Let's start with what you remember, if anything."

"I…" Hanna swallowed down a particularly strong wave of nausea as the worst parts of the head injury began to strike her. But so did the strongest parts of her memory. The tarnished gold sewing needle. The dead models. The dress she had stolen. The catastrophic runway showdown. The swift moving young woman with the dark eyes that pierced her soul as she plucked the needle from her hands and kept running…now that was a good memory. "So gorgeous."

And with that, her forehead thunked down against the cold metal table and everything went dark.

"Fuck." Was the first word Hanna managed to get out clearly through her parched lips, and this was way before she managed to open her eyes. Her head ached beyond anything she'd ever felt before. (Except for maybe the hangover after her prom, that was. That had been a doozy.) "Fuck!" She repeated, as she tried to peel her eyes open through the haze, her eyelids heavy, only to be exposed to a blinding white light. She audibly cried out, throwing her arms in front of her eyes to make the feeling that they were being assaulted by many tiny knives stop.

"If you'd like to make that a trifecta, darling, I won't mind." Hanna jumped at the sound of another voice. It was smooth, British and unfamiliar, although something about it was rather soothing. She finally managed to peel her eyes open without an inordinate amount of pain, shifting to the side as best she could. Perched – that was the only way to describe it – in the chair beside her bed was a raven haired woman she had never met before. She was writing in a leather bound notebook, with a ballpoint pen that looked like it cost more than a month's rent. The woman's dark eyes briefly darted up to meet hers, and Hanna was physically startled by how wise they looked. That alone confused her perception of the woman's age – she looked wise beyond her years, which couldn't number more than sixty in total, and perhaps even less than that, although, again, she couldn't be sure of it.

"Where the fuck am I?" Hanna mumbled, rubbing at her eyes, dry and sore. The gentle beeping of the nearby monitor grated at her aching head, and after a moment of shifting around, motions that took a tremendous amount of her energy, she reached over and pulled the cord out of the wall.

"You're in the hospital in Pierre, South Dakota." The woman said, looking rather amused at what Hanna had done. "Claudia, the woman that you spoke with earlier, had some business to attend to, and I volunteered to make sure you were alright."

"Alright…pretty relative term." Hanna groaned, reaching for a nearby hand mirror and wincing as she brought it up to examine her features. There was a thin cut along her left cheek bone, and stitches just under her hairline on the right side of her head. There were dark circles under her eyes, and the pallor of her skin looked like winter on a below freezing sort of day. "Oh my God, I look like shit." She sighed heavily, flopping back down against the pillow, wincing as the resultant swell in her headache. "…who the hell are you, anyway?"

"My name is Helena." She looked like a Helena. An old soul, with an old-fashioned name. It made sense, in a situation that made no sense to Hanna at all, and it made her feel oddly better. "Actually, between you and I, it's HG Wells."

Why did that sound familiar? "Like…Tom Cruise and War of the Worlds, HG Wells?" Hanna asked drowsily.

"Oh dear Lord." Helena sighed heavily, bringing her palm to her face for an instant. "You're a Pete."

"What's a Pete?"

Another heavy sigh from Helena, but also a bit of mild amusement. "You'll find out soon enough, darling. And for the record, just…call me Helena. Now, if I understand correctly, you're Hanna Marin. You're twenty one years old, you've been off the grid since you were sixteen, operating under various aliases – "

"Whoa, lady, stop right there, I don't know what you're talking about." Hanna cut her off, tensing beneath the sheet, prepared to tear the IV out of her arm and run. How did they know about that? She'd buried her past well, or so she had thought. She couldn't run again. She was sick of starting over.

"Relax, Miss Marin." Helena said, reaching over, laying a cold hand on her shoulder. "We're not here to prosecute you. Actually, you can look at all of this as a second chance, really."

"Who's we?" Hanna said, not relaxing at all, shrugging away from her touch.

"Claudia, the woman you met before, myself, a few others…and my daughter, Spencer…you met her first, although you might not remember due to the bump you took on the head." Helena explained.

"No, I…I remember." Hanna said softly. She could see the resemblance, even though the girl she had seen before – Spencer, another name that just made so much sense – was little more than a blur in her damaged memory. It was definitely there, though, as she looked at Helena, the dark eyes, the shape of her face, the dashing smile…she wasn't sure how she knew that, however. "Not well, but I do. She was a bit…short with me." Hanna said, as the fact occurred to her, recalling the strange combination of intense dislike and intrigue she'd felt when confronted by her…not to mention the strange rush after the catastrophe on the runway, although she supposed that could be attributed to her head wound.

Helena nodded. "Yes, she's…been a bit off since her mother died this spring. Very sudden, unexpected. It's thrown her for a loop. All of us, really." The woman's wise expression took on a veneer of deep sadness. Just looking at her made Hanna's chest hurt. The ensuing silence was heavy and hard to swallow, and Hanna was only relieved when she began to speak again. "The point is, Hanna, we're here to help you, and…I'm afraid if you reject our help, you'll be in hands of people that will care about all of those things I was beginning to read."

"…so you're saying that I don't have a choice." Hanna said, after a moment, hating the feeling of being trapped into something.

'Oh, you have every choice, darling." Helena replied. "You could run again, right now, I wouldn't stop you. Or you could go into custody with the men in suits that will surely come for you in a few days' time. Or you could wait out your recovery in peace, and come with us. It won't be the life that you're used to, but I think you'll find yourself…uniquely suited to it. At any rate, it is your choice what to do from here on in."

"I…" Hanna winced at a particularly painful spike in her headache. "Would one of those choices include sleeping?" She asked, after a moment.

Helena chuckled a bit. "You can sleep. I'll make sure none of those mysterious men in suits come and steal you away."

"…comforting." Hanna said, after a long pause, settling down against the bed, her eyelids already starting to feel heavy with exhaustion and the energy sapping power of her injuries. Maybe this was all some weird dream, induced by the blow she'd taken to her head, and she'd wake up…well, shit she'd wake up in a jail cell. But she'd gotten out of quite a few before, she would manage. She always had. She reached up to trace the necklace hanging around her neck, relieved to find that it was still there, like it had always been.

"Mother?" Hanna's eyes had just closed when a new voice, although not so unfamiliar, sounded through the room. She forced them open, her gaze instantly focusing on the young woman at the door. She was dressed mostly in black, or at least in dark colors without many nuances. Her boots went all the way up to her knees, her legs appearing miles long. Her tan coat was cut close to her body as if it had been tailored for her, wrapping each of her curves expertly. She tugged at gloves, pulling her hair away from her face, which was another story in and of itself. Her eyes were as dark and piercing as she remembered, although cast with more annoyance than she had seen. "Claudia needs you."

"Oh, right, yes." Helena said, gathering up her things. Hanna didn't look away from Spencer until her gaze cut to her, almost embarrassed to be caught looking, though she wasn't sure why. "Of course. I trust you'll stay here with Hanna?'

"If I must." The reply was courteous, but cutting, and Hanna wasn't sure what she had done to deserve the other woman's disdain when they'd only been aware of each other for a day or two.

"Excellent." Hanna watched as Helena hugged her daughter, a sudden pang of nostalgia ringing through her like church bells. "I'll just be off, then, I'll see you later darling." Helena briefly touched her face, and there was a long moment where nothing happened, a moment that Hanna could only assume was some sort of mother-daughter telepathy that she couldn't tap into.

The air of the room changed as Helena stepped out, and Spencer was there with her, alone. "Look, I don't want you thinking we're…friends or anything. You assisted me with one of my investigations, and I'm grateful, but…there are things that need to remain buried. Understand?"

"I…alright?" Well, that meant either Spencer had jumped to conclusions, or part of her memory was missing and she'd probably done something really stupid, which wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. "You're the boss."

"Technically, the term is senior agent, but thank you." There was a hint of a smile that Hanna didn't understand, but it was comforting to know that Spencer was probably not all business, like she seemed to be. But it faded, and Hanna was left feeling like she'd eaten the last cookie, or something.

"I'm…gonna go to sleep now." Hanna said as she rolled away from Spencer, before the scrutiny and her stone cold demeanor could affect her further. However, as her head hit the pillow, a fragment of memory came crashing back to her, seizing her entire consciousness as she was engulfed by it.

"God, baby…" Hanna had never heard her voice so high, but then again, she'd never taken on a lover this talented. She pulled tighter at her wavy brown locks, both desperate for something to hold onto, and urging her on. "Fuck…"

She glanced down just as the other girl looked up, locking eyes. "Ask for it…" She purred, her deep, dark brown eyes glistening with mischief…

Hanna's eyes snapped open. Well, shit.

Spencer winced as she sipped at the amber liquid in her glass. She had never been too much of a drinker, since Leena never kept liquor in the kitchen because of Pete, and even her brief stint in college hadn't afforded her many opportunities. Still, she felt it was appropriate, for someone in her situation, to sit at a bar and drink until she had forgotten her melancholy, or was acutely aware of it. She was beginning to lean towards the latter, and in fact didn't understand how such a dismal atmosphere and sour drinks could make her feel the least bit better.

Her mind drifted over the past two days, afraid to examine anything beyond that, as much as this most recent experience hadn't been good for her. Upstaged in what she did best by a common thief? She wouldn't pretend that hadn't hurt her ego – clearly, she was practically face down on the bar with half a glass of whiskey in her hand. There was no pretending anymore. She was losing her touch. Even if she had fulfilled the mission in the end, she hadn't been without help…and that scared her.

Anyone else who had been through what she had been through in the past few months would have called it a good retrieval, but not her. It wasn't anyone's fault but her own, really, she couldn't attribute her drive for perfection to anyone else but herself. Her parents had been wonderful, the rest of her family – her mismatched, insane family – just as much. So why couldn't she be as carefree as them? And more importantly, why were relationships such a mystery to her?

She'd arrived in L.A. far too late to begin her investigation into Charles Frederick Worth's sewing needle, so a little light hearted fun hadn't seemed like a bad idea to her at the time, forgetting how awful casual sex made her feel, of course. She went to the bar at the hotel where the fashion show she needed to be at was taking place, and lo and behold, she'd caught the eye of some blonde at the bar, with her dress too short and her heels too tall. Not normally her type, but there was something about the smolder buried in her deep blue eyes that she couldn't resist. She could remember the conversation perfectly, much to her regret now, as it played over and over in her head.

"I was beginning to wonder when you'd come over here." The blonde raised a martini glass to her lips, and Spencer almost missed the glint in her eyes as she so intensely focused on her mouth, and what she'd rather she be doing with it. "You couldn't keep your eyes off me. Still can't."

"I'm an art appraiser." She pulled the lie out of thin air. "And you're one of the finest works of art I've ever laid eyes on." This wasn't a lie, even if the line was a bit cheesy. She'd been admiring her for the better part of an hour now, her eyes wandering along the lines of her body, imagining what she'd do to every inch of it.

"Sure you're not some sort of pick up artist?" The blonde arched an eyebrow as she finished her martini, setting it down, fingertips playing with the stirrer as she turned to face her. "Or an angler? Because that was some line there."

"Can't blame a girl for trying." Spencer said, brushing off the comment easily, although her abruptness more than stung – she didn't take losing the upper hand very easily. "I'm more talented in other areas, though, it would be shame to write me off for such a small thing."

"Talents, hmm?" The blonde leaned closer, and while Spencer managed to keep a straight face, it was all she could do to keep from kissing her right there. Her lips looked like they would fit so perfectly against hers, against every part of her, and her impatience was getting the best of her.

"Well, like I said, I'm an…art appraiser." It was the best way to describe her unusual profession. "I majored in comparative literature for two years in college. And I have five years of combat training." She paused to sip at her drink. "Kenpo, you might not have heard of it."

To Spencer's surprise, recognition flickered in her blue eyes. She locked onto that for a moment, struggling not to get lost in the suddenly realized intricacies of her eyes. "You're not as unique as you think you are." She said softly, reaching out and with the lightest of touches, running her fingertip along the plunging neckline of her dress, causing her breath to catch in her chest. "I know enough about that to know that you must be very flexible…"

"Well, give me the chance to prove it to you." Spencer closed the distance just enough so that she brushed her lips against Hanna's ear as she discreetly slipped one of her room keys down the front of her dress, hand lingering against her breast for a moment before she pulled back, slipping off the tall bar stool. Her previous embarrassment over losing the upper hand earlier was all but forgotten as she strode away, smirking as she felt the blonde's gaze rest on her retreating back.

Even though she wholeheartedly regretted it, considering the events that had followed, and the ones about to take place, Spencer couldn't help but smirk as she recalled the rest of the night. Disregarding all reactions and complications it had caused since then…the sex had been hot. And she'd needed it, even if it had been grating at her ever since. A couple of hours of nothing but skin to skin contact, tangled limbs under the sheets, curse words uttered in hushed tones with mouths pressed to necks, and other places. It had been an escape, a blessing, which, even though it had faded to a curse in the end, had made her feel infinitely better in the moment.

But what had it bought her now? A night in a local dive somewhere in Pierre, where she stared at the worn away wooden bar and contemplated the mistakes she'd made, the people she'd lost, the things she'd been through. Great, Spencer, she thought to herself. Real smart move. This wasn't where she should have been. This wasn't where Spencer Wells, of all people, should have been at that moment.

So why was she there?

It hadn't been hard to sneak away from the hospital. Hanna was in and out of consciousness, and her mother and Claudia were nowhere to be found. One drink. That was all she needed, and then she'd be back before Hanna noticed she was gone. Just one moment of peace. That was one thing even the best parts of her life hadn't afforded her – solitude. There was always someone around, be it her parents, or Artie, or Leena, or Claudia or Pete, or Steve…never had she been able to have an extended period of time solely to herself, which she reasoned was probably the reason why loneliness struck a deep chord within her. She had never learned how to be functionally alone with herself, and her emotions and her memories, reliving the worst, shelving the best.

"Spencer!" The brunette knocked her glass over, spilling whiskey everywhere, startled by the sudden shout of her name from across the bar. She turned around to see Claudia pushing her way towards her, looking furious. Since furious wasn't an expression normally found on Claudia, Spencer could only imagine what had happened in her absence to cause it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I slipped out for a drink, I don't see what's so wrong about that." Spencer said, keeping her guard up as she dried her hands off on her jacket. "You didn't have to barge in here like this." Having someone who appeared to be her own age hold authority over her was challenging to process, and while she didn't ever mean to disrespect Claudia, sometimes, it just happened.

"You left Hanna alone." Claudia snapped, and Spencer instantly stood to attention. "You were supposed to be watching her to make sure she didn't go anywhere, but you skipped out on her to drink away your problems and now she's gone."

Well, shit. Spencer looked away from her, unable to stand Claudia staring at her with so much anger and disappointment. The thought of letting anyone down made her stomach twist, her chest feel achingly empty. She was better than this. Or, at least, she had used to be. "Claudia, I'm sorry, I didn't think – "

"That's right, you weren't thinking." It was all Spencer could do not to slap the redhead across the face for how much she sounded like her late mother. The memory literally burned her, it hurt so much to think about. "Your mom is already on her trail, so I think we'll be able to catch her, but…" Claudia sat down on Spencer's previously occupied seat. "I'm worried about you. This isn't like you."

You and me both, Claudia. Spencer thought briefly, as she crossed her arms over her chest, still not meeting her gaze. "I'm fine. Really. I just needed a drink, it was a hard case. I'm sure you understand."

"That's not what I…" Claudia sighed, waving the bartender down, waiting until a mug of beer was set down in front of her. "You aren't yourself. And I don't blame you, really, I don't. I get what it's like to lose a parent. And under the circumstances in your case? I'm honestly surprised that you're holding together as well as you are…I think you need to go on leave, just for a bit. To clear your head."

Now it was Spencer's turn to be furious. "You can't possibly – "

"You were kidnapped and held captive for a month." Claudia cut her off. "While you were being held, your mother died. When you finally got back, you dove straight into working, you didn't talk about it, you didn't give yourself any time to heal." She reached out, taking one of Spencer's hands with both of hers. "I care about you, kiddo. And I feel you, okay? I know what it's like to bury yourself in your work and try to ignore it. But it's messing you up. You're not as good as you used to be, and in this line of work, we can't afford that."

Spencer scuffed the tip of her boot against the wooden floor, trying to fight back tears, swallowing the heavy realization that Claudia was right. "Are we done here?" She asked quietly, raising her head when she was sure she wasn't going to cry in front of Claudia, which would have just made the entire situation even worse than it already was.

"Spencer – "

"Are we done here?" Spencer repeated tersely.

Claudia sighed. "Yeah, we are." Spencer began to walk away immediately as she turned towards the bar, her voice distant. "I'll pick up your tab. Just get back to the hospital and wait for your mother and Hanna."

Spencer made it outside before she broke down.

"Yeah, one ticket to…" Hanna paused, scanning the roster for which bus was leaving the soonest. "Chicago." She finally settled on. It had been two years since she'd been there, maybe things had changed. No one would remember her, at any rate. And it would be better than staying here with the group of obviously crazy people that she'd stumbled into. "Thanks." She shoved a fake credit card through the window, scurrying away and melting into the masses only after she'd taken it back.

She tucked herself away in a secluded corner of the bus station, propping open a book she'd bought at the book store while she waited for her bus. It was a bit ironic, but when she saw 'The Isle of Dr. Moreau' by HG Wells sitting there on the shelf, she couldn't refuse. An odd choice to find among the smattering of trashy romance and true crime novels, and perhaps it was a bit out of her league, reading wise, but Hanna was a very superstitious person, and she couldn't ignore signs, or at least things that could be perceived as signs.

She read aloud slightly, hearing the words making them seem more real to her. "On February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict, when…"

"…when about the latitude 1'S. and longitude 107 'W. On January the Fifth, 1888 – that is eleven months and four days after – my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman…" Hanna jumped as someone began to finish her recitation of the first few lines of the novel. "Need I go on? I can recite the entire introduction from memory, you know."

"…when you said you were HG Wells, I thought you were kidding." Hanna said, closing the book, setting it in her lap as she looked up at the woman. She didn't appear angry to see her there, in fact, she was once again wearing an expression of amusement.

"Well, since the HG Wells everyone knows and loves died in 1946, everyone thinks I'm kidding." Helena replied, easing down on the floor beside Hanna. "There we go. Is this the first time you've read that, then?"

"Yeah, I just…bought it here. For the sake of irony and all that…" Hanna inched away from her. "Look, you said it was my choice whether to stay or go, and I chose to leave, so…I don't really understand why you're still here. Well, why you followed me here."

"Well, you need someone to see you off, don't you?" Helena asked. "And I…I'm afraid I didn't get to talk with you as much as I would have liked."

"Oh, so you're going to convince me that I should stay and go off with you and the punk rock chick and your lovely daughter?" Hanna asked, pulling her knees to her chest. She'd bought clothes after escaping the hospital in a pair of scrubs, nothing much, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, leather jacket…the necklace though, the one she never took off, was still hanging around her neck. "No thanks."

"Oh, I'm not going to try to convince you of anything." Helena said. Hanna was torn between being infuriated at her vagueness or appreciating her quirks. "I'm just interested."

"Yeah, well, there's nothing interesting about me." Hanna brushed her off, resting her chin on her knees, closing her eyes. Just fifteen more minutes and this would all be a bad dream that she could forget about, and move on with her life, well, what she could salvage of it anyway.

"Oh, I beg to differ on that." Helena said. "I did do a bit of reading on you, which I know you'll find infuriatingly invasive, but that's because I think you and I are a lot alike."

Hanna scoffed. "Really?" She asked, looking up at her. "I doubt that. I'm not some two hundred year old – I'm still waiting for an explanation on that, by the way – British badass with a seriously pressed kid and privacy issues. We're nothing alike."

Helena only laughed a little, looking away. "You'd be surprised, darling." Then she fell quiet, and for a second, Hanna thought she was done speaking. But then, just as she'd closed her eyes again, ears tuned to the sound of the announcer, hoping to hear the call to the bus to Chicago, she began again. "Your mother died when you were a child. Your father was never part of the picture – you have very few memories of him. You were moved from home to home until you aged out, and you got chewed up and spit out by the world and had no one looking after you. That's where our similarities start, really." She paused, sighed and shifted, and then began again, giving Hanna very little time to recover from the emotional landmine she'd forced her to put her full weight down on. "You didn't have anyone to turn to. Only yourself. You grew to hate the world for the things it had done to you. You walked among the best and the worst, and then realized how much you hated the world for the things it had done to itself. So you did things to get back at it. Things that were wrong according to the hypocritical and paradoxical set of morals that had been set before you, but seemed to right to you. You were transient. You belonged to no one, only yourself. All of the right you did, and all of the wrong you did, it was all owned by you, and you alone. And as much as you don't regret it, you do. As much as you welcome the solitude, you don't. As much as you relish the fact that you don't have to answer to anyone, you crave the responsibility. You want someone to tell you to stop. You want someone to catch you. You want someone to hold you accountable before you go down in flames and take others with you. You want someone to erase the hate from your veins, and make you believe that even though things are terrible, even though we're all running ourselves into the ground, that there is someone to love, and somewhere you can call home."

Hanna swallowed her words hard, reaching up to wipe at her burning eyes, rubbing them to disguise the fact that they were filling slowly with tears at how cuttingly right Helena had been. "Those are a lot of pretty words." She said, shaking her head, refusing to look at her.

"I know." Helena said, laying her hand on her shoulder. Hanna didn't shrug away. "But those pretty words? They're all the reasons you're not going to get on that bus."

"I'm getting on the damn bus." Hanna said, shaking her head, standing up. "You said I had a choice. And this is my choice. Please leave me alone."

Helena shrugged. "Very well then. I'm driving the dark blue Beemer parked in the back alley, when you come looking for me." She stood and strode away smoothly, leaving Hanna standing there, dumbstruck at her audacity, at her insight.

The overhead announced her bus, and Hanna looked down at the ticket sticking out of the book, clutched in her hands. That was her ticket away from here, away from this nightmare, away from all the unexplained and the too wise for their own good British ladies and their disturbingly attractive yet illusive children. It was her ticket to another life, another fake ID, another one night stand (or ten,) another heist, another breakout, another shady job, a ticket to what would ultimately lead to another ticket. And then another, and then another.

And God, she was sick of looking at those fucking things.

"Dammit." Hanna hissed under her breath, shoving the book in her bag and running off in the direction Helena had disappeared in. She had no idea what she could possibly be getting herself into, only that it was nothing she'd ever experienced before.

And, she realized as she vaulted over an unattended suitcase on her way out the door, that was probably for the best.