Newly cured from cancer, angry and lost, Myka drives to Wisconsin. Why? She doesn't know.


I didn't know that's where I was headed when I drove away from the B&B. I just knew that I needed to go somewhere. I drove and I drove, listening to some shitty rock station that Pete liked at top volume, and I was almost in Minnesota when I realised where I was headed. I stopped off a few times to stretch my legs but I still made it in less than 9 hours. I don't think Nate knew who I was when I knocked on his door, but his daughter stuck her head past his elbow in the doorway and smiled.

"Hi, Myka. It's Helena's friend, Myka, Dad! Remember?"

His face darkened and I figured that meant he did remember.

"Come in, please," he said, his face saying something quite different.

"Adelaide, can you go finish your homework, please?" he said over his shoulder to the kid, who was lingering, obviously curious as to what I was doing there. I confess I was a little curious myself. I don't usually go looking for conflict, but it seemed like my brush with death had taken care of that little character quirk. I didn't give a shit, at that point.

"Why are you here?" he asked, brusquely.

"I don't know."

He peered at me from under his neanderthalic brow.

"I'll make some tea," he said.

I nodded, and examined the place carefully as he did so. There were no pictures of her, like there had been when I came here last. Which I guess was understandable. The last time I was in this room, it was when I realised that Helena was living here, living this 'normal' life that she apparently desperately craved. I had been waiting, in pain, in fear, thinking she had been imprisoned or worse by the Regents. And I had been too cowardly to open my damn mouth and demand to have her back, to have her safe. But then I got to Boone, and like she said, she broke my heart and gave me back the shards.

He came back and handed me a cup of raspberry and quince tea, or whatever it was Helena had said the kid liked. I took a cautious sip and reluctantly decided I liked it. He stood by the window, holding his cup gingerly, his giant man-hands dwarfing the delicate china.

"I knew, the last time you were here," he said, conversationally.

"Knew what?" I asked.

"That you loved her. That she loved you. I just didn't want to know. I would have been happy for her to carry on pretending to love me."

"Why would you be okay with that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Because she really did – does – love Adelaide, and Adelaide deserves that."

"She does love Adelaide," was all I said to that.

"But when you and your partner were here, I saw her face when she looked at you, and I realised she would never love me like that. It was the beginning of the end, even then. I was just waiting for her to tell me."

He was peering into his tea, his jaw tense.

"So why are you here, when she's there? She chose you over us."

"I know. But I'm not sure I want to be chosen, not like this."

"Because you're sick?"

I nodded. I wasn't going to explain my miraculous recovery – he already knew more about the Warehouse than he should.

"It was just the final nail in the coffin – if you'll excuse the expression." He had the grace to look embarrassed at that slip – after all, as far as he knew, I was going to be inhabiting a coffin pretty soon. "She was already halfway out the door after that night, Agent Bering. It just took her brain a while to catch up with her heart."

He took a breath.

"Why…why did you let her come here, start up this relationship with me, if you were in love with her?" he asked – no, demanded.

"I…I didn't have a choice. The people we work for – they call the shots. I didn't have any input into the decision. I didn't even know where she was."

He stared at me, his mouth open. Then he looked angry.

"That's complete bullshit, Agent Bering. If you really cared about her, you would have followed her here. If I thought I had any chance with her, I would have followed her anywhere. Did it ever occur to you that she was waiting for you to find her, to bring her home? Because it was pretty clear to me, after you left, that she was. She would sit in here some nights with all the lights off, just looking outside as if you were going to materialise on the driveway or something. And you never came back."

I stared at him for a moment longer, and then finished my tea. I had intruded on this man and his daughter for long enough.

"Thank you for speaking to me," I said, standing up awkwardly.

He stood up too, looking at his feet.

"Agent Bering. Don't mess this up. Women like her – they don't come along very often."

Yeah, buddy. You don't know the half of it.

I stuck out my hand and he shook it, catching my eye for a moment.

"Goodbye, Nate."

I drove off, pulling over almost immediately to answer a call from Pete on the Farnsworth, which I'd left in the car. He was panicking about where I was. I told him I was just taking a long drive and he eventually calmed down. But his panic somehow calmed me. I think I was feeling…rootless, because I had already said goodbye to them all, and somehow Artie chasing me out of the Warehouse a few days before had exacerbated it. I felt like I had no place in the world because I'd already let it go. But Pete hadn't let me go, and that made me feel a little more like myself.

It took forever to get back, now that I actually wanted to be there. It was after midnight when I pulled up at the B&B, and all the lights were out. I decided to sit outside for a while, and I made myself some tea (Assam, not the kid's favourite this time). I opened the French doors and sat, and then I realised there was someone sitting there in the darkness.

"Myka," she said, inclining her head slightly, her own hands wrapped around her cup of tea.

"Hey," I managed, taking a sip of my tea to regain my equilibrium. I hadn't expected to see her until the next day at least, and I hadn't formulated a plan of what to say.

"So you went to see Nathan?"

I turned to look at her.

"He called you?"

She smiled, her lips curving up in that beautiful way that I'd craved for such a long time.

"No. Adelaide, actually. She sent me a text message."

"You're getting good with these new technologies," I said, inanely.

"Well, between Claudia and Adelaide, I've had good teachers."

I just nodded. More tea, and more silence.

"Did you learn anything useful during your journey to Wisconsin?"

"I guess."

"Anything you'd like to share?"

I got a little fed up, I admit.

"Is there anything you'd like to share, Helena? Like why you went there in the first place? Without having the decency to tell me where you were?"

She looked at me with that annoyingly calm face she probably perfected in the Bronze sector. (Not that she really had a choice in the matter, I guess.)

"I recall trying to explain exactly that a few days ago before you ran off."

"Yes, well, excuse me for having feelings."

She just looked at me again for a long moment.

"Do you want to talk, Myka, or would prefer to just take potshots at me like a teenager fighting with a parent?"

I flushed. I was being a little teenage-y. But I was so damn pissed at her I could barely speak. She continued, her tone biting.

"Well, how's this for a potshot? The woman I am in love with comes to visit, after telling me to make my home with someone else, and tells me she's dying. Then she runs away, and when I find her, she fucks me and leaves me alone in bed in a hotel room without so much as a good-bye. And then I find out that she was planning to kill herself. Did I leave anything out of that summary?"

I stared at her.

"How did you…?"

She shook her head a little, perhaps in disgust, before answering.

"Vanessa. She knew you'd taken the morphine. She told Artie and Mrs Frederic and they agreed that it was your decision how you died. But only if we couldn't save you. They switched the vials to saline solution just in case you pre-empted our attempt to save you."

I swore under my breath.

"You see, Myka, I understand the mistake I made. I decided in my fear that you were in danger any time I was around, so I resolved to be elsewhere. I did not want to subject you to another chess lock. I almost killed you twice that day, if you remember."

I wanted to yell at her. She had saved me that day, me and everyone else, later, when she sacrificed her life to save us in the alternate timeline. When she glared at me, however, I decided it might be wise to keep my mouth shut.

"I love you, Myka. Whatever decisions I made in fear, I apologise for. I have been a coward and I have hidden myself away from you, and from what you represent. Because after everything I have lived through I can barely believe that I deserve to be happy. And I am so happy with you that it terrifies me. The last time I was that happy, it was taken from me."

She sighed and brushed her hair away from her face. She was so beautiful that it made my heart twist. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to move forward. I'd already said goodbye to the world, and it didn't feel, to me, like anyone except Pete and Claudia were really that interested in whether I was here or not.

I stood up.

"I'm going to bed, Helena. You can come with me, or not. It's up to you. I just…I can't talk, not anymore."

She followed me.

We slept together – just slept – that night, and in the morning we didn't speak until after breakfast. Abigail eyed us curiously when we came down together, but said nothing. She was finally resigned to making breakfast, despite her protests that she would never feed us because we were all adults. There were several choices – oatmeal, eggs, or pastries. I took a chocolate croissant, again getting curious looks from the psychologist, but I felt like living a little. I'd been controlling so much of my life, so rigidly. What did it matter if I ate something sugary or fatty occasionally? I still got cancer, even though I really looked after my health and my body. So screw it.

When we finished breakfast, Helena was eyeing me warily.

"Shall we go and talk?" I asked, and she nodded. I led her back upstairs, one hand in mine, and when we got through the door I kissed her.

"This is not talking, Myka," she said sternly when I pulled away several minutes later.

"I know," I said, shrugging. "So sue me."

She smiled at that, and suddenly things seemed a little easier. I sat on the bed and she sat next to me.

"So, what do you want from me, Myka? Do you want me to go? I have nowhere to go but the Warehouse, but if it's what you want I will stay there, and I'll stay out of your way as much as possible." She spoke gently, but with an undertone of frustration.

More self-sacrificing crap – great.

"Helena, what do you want?" I asked, exasperated. "Why did you come back here, apart from to save my life? What did you think would happen?"

She looked away from me, biting her lip.

"I hoped…that we might – that you might want me. I wasn't sure, after you left me in Wisconsin. Obviously you wanted me, but whether you wanted a relationship with me – that part I wasn't clear on."

"How could you not know? Have I not made myself embarrassingly, glaringly obvious, Helena?"

She stared at me, and for once, she looked uncertain.

"You left me, Myka. We slept together for the first time, I fell asleep crying in your arms because I was so frightened of losing you, and I woke the next morning alone. You left no note, no encouragement to contact you. And when I got here, Vanessa told me about your intentions. So no, you have not made yourself clear, Myka. The last time we met, before last week, you told me to make Nate's home my home. You have never told me how you felt, not until a few nights ago. You might just have wanted a last hurrah with the father of science fiction, for all I knew."

I bit back the flood of swear words that were threatening to make their way out of me. A last hurrah? If I'd just wanted to bang someone I could have gone to the nearest bar – I guess I might have had to find someone who would sleep with me out of pity, since cancer hadn't exactly enhanced my looks towards the end. I thought for a moment, though, about what she had said. It was disingenuous of her to say that she didn't know how I felt. It was unspoken, sure, but it was obvious. But the rest I could understand. It was pretty out of character for me to have sex with anyone – let alone her - and just leave. But I didn't have the words to explain what she meant to me, and it seemed pointless to try when I was going to be gone so soon anyway. I could understand her doubting herself in the face of my disappearing act. I took a deep breath before speaking.

"Okay. I can accept that maybe you weren't sure about my motives. And I am sorry, for what it's worth, for leaving after our night together. But I wasn't…I'm not okay, Helena. I was ready to die. I had let go of everything and everyone and now I just don't know what the hell to do with myself."

I paused to take another deep breath and get some control over myself.

"You knew how I felt. You can't say that you didn't. If you want me to, I can get Steve to come up and he will confirm it. You knew. And you still left me and went to play house with some random guy, just because his daughter was bright and clever and reminded you of Christina. I didn't know where you were, Helena. No-one told me anything. You were just gone."

I took a deep breath, my throat closing a little against the pain and anger I was still feeling about the way she'd left, and the way I'd found her again.

"He said something, you know, when I went there - Nate. He said that you were waiting for me, that I should have gone to you, no matter what the Regents said, or Mrs Frederic or whoever. I should have fought for you. But I didn't. And then I got sick, and it seemed like there was no point anymore. I only went when they told me there were no more treatments, because I couldn't bear to be without you anymore. So I'm sorry, for what I said, what I didn't say. I don't know what life I can offer you, if you want to be 'normal' and all that, but I still want you. I love you."

I felt broken. I didn't know what my purpose was, not anymore. Even after our artefact snag in Boone I hadn't felt this lost. I felt like I had lost every link I had to the world, and now I didn't know what the hell to do with myself.

"I have a little experience, Myka, of being alone in the world, with no tether."

Her voice was softer, and she had turned to me, her eyes meeting mine.

"You became my tether when I needed one. Let me be yours. The rest will come in its own time."

I nodded. She leaned over and kissed me softly. Her voice, her lips – they were so gentle that I felt my eyes fill with tears.

"I love you, Myka. And even if you blame me for it, I'm not sorry I saved your life. Because you mean everything to me. I promise never to leave you again if it is within my power."

It was another chance, I suppose.

"You better mean that, Helena. Because I don't think I can survive it again."

She met my eyes and nodded. I could tell that she meant it. Whether she would always mean it, I couldn't say. But I chose to take the promise for what it was, and I leaned over and kissed her, slowly, allowing myself to enjoy every sensation, the way her eyes closed and her eyelids fluttered slightly at my breath on her lips, the small noises she made, the way her tongue touched mine gently and then playfully.

I drew away from her after a moment. It was amazing, touching her, kissing her, but it was overwhelming and I wanted to just lose myself in her. It was too much right then with everything else that was going on in my mind.

"I…can we just…be friends, for a little while? Because I'm a little confused right now, Helena. I don't know what I want. I want…I need you to stay with me, though. Don't go. I need to know you're here."

She looked at me, those dark eyes holding mine, making my heart pound again, and simply nodded.