A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT I AM TERRIBLE PERSON I KNOW PLEASE FORGIVE ME

ALSO keep reading to the end, even if it is upsetting, because I promise, there is a surprise~


Helena had never even considered the possibility that she could go through more pain than she had when she'd lost Christina. As far as she could imagine – and she had a great deal of imagination – she had had already gone through the worst. She had paid her dues, lived with her pain, and later her guilt. Not that the world made much sense, or was at all fair…it was more of the idea that she couldn't ever possibly feel any worse than she did when Christina died. So it didn't matter what sort of chaos the universe created in her life. She could laugh at it all, because it was merely a pittance compared to the truly horrifying things she had experienced.

She had never been so wrong in all her life.

It had taken quite a bit of convincing on Myka's part to convince her to consent to another child in the first place. It wasn't that she didn't want another child, another chance at motherhood. It was that she didn't want to lose another child, couldn't lose another child. And, after all, the only way to truly ensure that one won't outlive one's children is to not have any children at all.

But she could only say 'no' to Myka for so long in the first place, and after a particularly harrowing retrieval, she knew she wanted more with her, even if it came at the price of risking another devastating heartache and the last remaining amount of her sanity. Even if it meant another picture of a little girl, frozen in time, that she carried around in a locket.

It wasn't long before Myka found a way. To this day, she isn't sure if Spencer's conception is either some strange science or due to an artifact, but either way she's grateful. She had never been able to imagine, back in what she liked to call her first life, that she would ever be able to have a child with a woman she loved, a child of their own. It didn't take long for it to happen either, and she watched with a dizzying combination of wonder and ambivalence as Myka grew with their child. (She was surprisingly calm for a pregnant woman, although some of her more grating personality quirks were, to put it politely, magnified. She bore it with silence. It was the least she could do.)

Spencer Jillian Wells was born on April 11th, eight weeks earlier than expected, giving HG a heart attack. It started at two in the morning, when Helena was suddenly roused from her sleep by a panic-stricken Myka, who informed her with very large eyes that something was wrong. It was all a blur to Helena, really, a panic colored blur – how could she have already lost before it had even begun? The ambulance ride was 45 minutes long, each minute simultaneously dragging on and rushing past her. She gripped Myka's hand, knowing she had to be strong for her, but at the same time, knowing that she couldn't.

She wasn't able to focus on anything other than the paralyzing fear that had seized her. It was only afterwards that she could truly hear the words of the doctors, the paramedics, her friends. Even now, she could hear them, filtered through the panic and the pain.

"Her blood pressure's rising."

"There's a chance her lungs might not be developed."

"We'll need to do an emergency C-section."

"Prepare yourself."

"HG, it's gonna be okay."

The only thing she heard at the time wasn't shouted at her, or told to her in a deep official tone by a man a white coat was Myka. "Stay with me." It resonated with her everywhere, even though it was a much more quietly desperate plea, whispered instead of shouted in panic or said assuredly or worriedly with a hand on her shoulder. It was the one thing that could slice through the blanket of her panic and her fear – her love for Myka. It had always been the thing that had saved her and – once – everyone else. She couldn't ignore that now, not even when the fears that had been ingrained in the barest, most basic elements of her humanity for over a hundred years now.

So she prayed to a God she knew didn't exist, and she dressed in a paper gown and gloves and held Myka's hand until they were in surgery, a prayer all on its own. They had to put her under, but she still whispered words of encouragement to her, pressing her lips to her forehead, head bowed, eyes closed. Penitent. Reverent. She'd be on her knees if it had been allowed. Anything to appease the universe, as illogical as that was…she could not lose Myka or her child, not now and not ever. The notion of God had never seemed more powerful to her until that moment.

She didn't leave Myka's side once, not even as the child was delivered. The hushed silence that fell over the room was enough to tell her that she'd arrived, but not nearly all she wanted to hear. She spared a glance over the divide, only to see the doctor's retreating backs as they took her away. She clasped Myka's hand to her chest like a candle and kissed her fingertips like she would a saint's feet. Her education, her worldliness, the simple fact that she knew better, it all meant nothing now.

They had to rush Myka into surgery almost immediately – she still couldn't quite remember the reason, something about membranes separating and something rupturing, it was all a blur. Helena was ushered out before she could protest that she needed to be there, that she had promised Myka.

She sat in the comfort of her friends for a while, feeling none of it. She wasn't with Myka and wasn't yet ready to confront the harsh realities of her daughter's situation. It was only after Pete – Pete, of all people – convinced her otherwise that she made her way up to the NICU, praying in various ways the whole way there. If the situation hadn't been so dire, she might have found it laughable that the one thing she'd been rejecting ever since she was a little girl was now the only thing she could rely on to keep her from breaking down.

Helena waited at the window, resting her hands on the cool metal bar that ran along the wall. She could see a cluster of doctors, but nothing else. And then, as though the clouds had parted (clouds made of scrubs) there she was. Her little girl. Much smaller than she'd hoped, and hidden beneath too much plastic and too many tubes, but there she was. Moving. Breathing. Alive.

She didn't stop praying, though, not until the doctors spotted her and let her inside, once she'd donned scrubs and a facemask. This wasn't at all how she'd pictured meeting her daughter for the first time, cut off from her in the worst ways. She couldn't kiss her forehead, or smooth her hair back or comfort her weak cries by holding her or patting her back. But after the scare she'd given her, Helena didn't mind that the fantasy had been shattered.

So she pressed her lips to the top of the incubator when no one was looking, reaching through and touching her small hand with her latex covered one. She longed to hold her, but that right belonged to Myka first and foremost, and furthermore, she was too tangled up in tubes to even consider it. Looking at her made her fearful, even after a doctor assured there that there were ways they could help her and she would almost likely make a full recovery. No, it was no longer losing her that she feared the most. It was seeing her surrounded with so much coldness, so much unfeeling technology in her first few hours of life. She needed the arms of her parents. She needed warmth and love. And with each minute that ticked by, she grew increasingly more worried that, as much as being born early was detrimental to her physical health, it was also detrimental to her emotional health. What if the absence of the human contact she should have experienced within the first few minutes of her birth would set precedence for the rest of her life?

And so, Helena prayed.


"Damn nicer than any place I've ever lived in." Hanna muttered to herself, looking around the room as she stepped inside. Helena had assured her that there would be someone waiting for her as she rushed off somewhere else, but as she walked further into the main room, it appeared to be vacant. Still, it was quaint. A place had never felt as homey to her before, not since her mother's home, and even that, towards the end, that had begun to seem more like a prison or a waiting room rather than a place to live.

She dropped her duffel bag on the floor by her feet. It didn't contain much. Her various identities and the tools needed to craft and maintain them. Her favorite pair of shoes. A DVD copy of her favorite movie, and what clothes she could spare from her apartment – they hadn't had much time, the Feds had caught onto her latest identity, and were pulling up by the building before she'd had five minutes in her closet. The escape had been quite daring, and if she hadn't been a part of the whole thing – involving a neighbor and a fire escape and a cat tossed at an unsuspecting field agent – she might have thought it was cool. (Helena was quite spry for an older woman.) Nevertheless, the loss of much of her belongings once again dampened her mood significantly.

Hanna raised her hand to the warm metal of her necklace, clutching it with ambivalence as she stepped further into the room. "Hello?" She called cautiously, tracing the metal circle, reveling in the familiarity. It would be the only thing to feel familiar to her for a while, she suspected. "Yo…anyone here?" She moved further into the room, pulling her duffel bag along the floor. "If this is some sort of hazing ritual, I'm walking my ass back out that door."

Still nothing. Hanna sighed, setting her bag down on the couch, pulling out the pair of shoes. They were high heels, suede, black with gold embroidery. First pair of heels she'd ever bought instead of stolen, with her first big payday from her first big job. They didn't go with anything, and she hardly ever wore them, but they went everywhere with her, no matter how many times she had changed locations, names or lives. She glanced towards the front door, the foyer, where several pairs of shoes were neatly lined up on a rubber mat, and contemplated putting them there for the barest of instances. But a noise from somewhere back behind her startled her, and she instead dropped them back on the couch, making her way towards she believed to be the kitchen.

"Hello?" She called out quietly, peering around the corner to find the kitchen, as she had suspected. And also as she had suspected, it wasn't vacant. There was an unfamiliar woman leaning over as she combed through the fridge, only her profile visible to Hanna. She was striking, Hanna had to admit that much, although not exactly her type. (Even in the rumpled white button down.) She brushed her hair behind her ear before she disappeared further into the fridge, blocking Hanna's view of her.

"Leave something for the rest of them, Paige, you're not the only person that eats from that fridge." Hanna jumped at the sound of another voice, glancing in its direction. It belonged to a young woman who appeared to be her age, perhaps a year or two older, if anything, with the worst case of doe eyes she'd ever seen. "God, where do you put all of that food after you eat it?" The girl turned away from the sink where she was standing as Paige sat down at the table with a myriad of dishes and an apple that rolled away across the table. "You're too small to be that hungry."

"Maybe it's a Warehouse thing." Paige said, as she dug into something Hanna couldn't identify. "Being around all that juju has infinitely expanded my capacity to eat."

There was a definite blush on the other girl's cheeks, Hanna noticed, but it only lingered for a few seconds. "Yeah, well…" The brunette tossed down a dish cloth on the edge of the sink, reaching forward and grabbing the apple that had rolled across the table. "I'm going to give you a shower in purple goo before you eat me out of house and home." She glanced up as she took a bite, her dark eyes going wider – something Hanna didn't think was possible. "Oh, you're here!" She set the apple down on the table, but appeared to think better of it, setting it out of Paige's reach on top of the fridge. "You must be Hanna. I'm Emily. This is Paige, she's another agent."

"Emily." Hanna repeated as she accepted Emily's vigorous handshaking. The name suited her, and she suited the inn. She had known her for mere seconds and she could already tell she was warm and accepting and loving, no matter what riff raff came waltzing in. The thought of her, the idea of her, made her in equal parts calmer, and more uneasy. "Nice to meet you." She returned Paige's slight head nod, but since it appeared that she wanted to be left alone to eat, she did just that.

"Come on, I have your room all set up." Emily took her hands, both of them, and pulled her out of the kitchen. She let go long enough for Hanna to grab her duffel bag before taking her up the stairs. The top floor was just as warm and homey as the first floor had been, with the added benefit of photographs hanging in the hallway. "I didn't have a lot of time, so I hope it's suitable."

"Yeah, I'm…sure it will be." Hanna said, slowing down behind Emily, eventually stopping in front of a wall of pictures. Some of them were old, black and white, and if it were not with the more recent ones they were hanging with, she would have thought them to be merely art. But every picture was hung with such care that she knew they were all important. "Who are they?" She found herself asking, though she was in no mood to sit through a history lecture.

"Who?" Emily said, as she turned, slowing slightly as she gazed up at the wall. "Oh…this is sort of like our memory wall. People who have left, or…or died." She added the last part shakily. "This is Jack and Rebecca. I never met them, but I heard great stories about them." She indicated a black and white picture. A handsome man had his arm slung around the shoulders of an equally attractive woman. He looked arrogant, she looked adoring but put upon. Hanna could tell she would have liked them.

"That's Steve." She pointed to a picture of a man with a buzzed round head. Hanna could feel his calm demeanor through the picture. He was dressed in leather, leaning against a red Prius and squinting into the sun. "I…I don't know what happened to him actually. I think he might have died, though. Couldn't say from what."

"…comforting." Hanna said, with a sideways look at Emily, before glancing back at the wall. "What about this one?" She asked, reaching up and tapping a framed picture of a darker skinned woman with dark, curly hair, perched on the couch and smiling.

"Oh." Emily's tone pulled Hanna to look back at her, and when she did, she saw it. The resemblance. It wasn't pronounced, it was subtle, it wasn't in the lines of her face, but in her expression, in her eyes. "That's my Aunt Leena. I never met her." An apology was on the tip of Hanna's tongue, but Emily found it in her to keep talking. "She died awhile back, so my mom came here to take over. She didn't change anything, didn't touch anything, so I guess I…I've always felt close to her, even though she died before I was born."

Emily was apparently eager to get off the subject, though, (something Hanna didn't blame her for.) She very quickly indicated the next picture, one of a man with dark hair and a square set jaw, looking off into the middle distance. It looked like an old cinematic poster, but the goofy, crinkly grin on his face once again made him a person Hanna thought she would have liked. "That's Pete…he's a Regent now, just like his mom, so he pops in here from time to time. Not lately, though, not since…"

"Not since she died, right?" Hanna pointed to the last picture. It was obvious who it was. The woman Helena had spoken of with such reverence and sorrow. The mother who the loss of which was clearly effecting Spencer much more than the young woman wanted to admit. The cause of the sense of sadness, of absence that thickly permeated the air whenever she was around anyone who had known her. She was beautiful, Hanna noted, and she seemed happy, at least in the picture. She wasn't looking at the camera, but rather down towards the ground, caught by the camera in mid laugh, brushing her curly hair back. All at once, Hanna understood why the loss had effected them all so dramatically, but was infinitely confused as to why she suddenly missed her intensely, though she'd never known her.

"…right." Emily answered, after a deep melancholic sigh. "Myka. It's been a few months, but it still feels like just yesterday that we heard."

"What happened?" Hanna asked, turning away from the wall. She couldn't look at it anymore. But as she looked at Emily, by the way her face fell and flinched, she realized she'd hit a nerve. "Oh…never mind." She said, shifting her bag onto the other arm. "So…which room is mine?" She asked, moving past her. "This one?" She reached out and touched the doorknob, only to have her arm suddenly yanked back by Emily.

"Don't…that's Spencer's room." Emily warned her, and although it was supposed to dissuade her, she was suddenly struck with an insatiable curiosity to explore the place where the enigmatic Spencer called home. She hardly knew anything about her, only that she was frustratingly attractive and seriously uptight – a dam with a whole flood of issues behind it, straining to break through and flood forth. She could only imagine what her room would look like, and it was hard not to pull out of Emily's grasp and enter anyway. "She barely lets me in there to clean, and she leaves all of her laundry out here in the hall. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Hell hath no fury like a Warehouse agent scorned." Hanna said under her breath, glancing at the door as Emily led her away. Someday, she'd work her way in there, and maybe get a clue as to what exactly made Spencer tick.

"Here we are." Emily led her two doors down the hallway, pushing it open for her. "This is your room. I hope it's suitable, I didn't have a lot of time."

"Are you kidding?" Hanna asked, glancing back over her shoulder at Emily, before looking back at the room. It was warm in more ways than one, the temperature pleasant against her constantly cold skin, the walls all warm earth tones. It was miles better than the crumbling brick, stained drywall and exposed pipes she'd been exposed to during the past five years. She didn't know what to do with all of it. "It's…it's perfect, thank you." She sank down onto the perfectly made bed, letting her bag rest on the floor.

Emily nodded, looking pleased with herself. "When the rest of your things arrive – if they arrive, the mail service here is rather…spotty – I'll set them up for you."

"Ah…" The pang of losing all of her possessions hit her again. "I don't have anything on the way, but thank you." Hanna sighed again, flopping back down against the bed, staring up at the bare ceiling. It wasn't as though she had put much stock into the things she'd owned before, after all, this wasn't the first time this had happened. It was just that, no matter where she went or who she was pretending to be, having those things there made her feel just that much more at home, though she was living a borrowed life, and had no place being comfortable in it.

"I'll make sure to stop in town and pick up some things for you." Emily said, continuing on before Hanna could raise any protest. "You must be starving, I'll have dinner ready in a few minutes."

"…I'll be alright." Hanna said. "I have to go meet Artie or…something anyway. God knows how I'm going to get there." She sighed, flinching as the jingle of keys was sudden and loud in the room, followed by something hitting the bed by her head.

"You can take my car." Emily said. "It's the silver one out back."

"…is there anything you won't do for…the people that live here?" Hanna asked, reluctant to use the word 'us.'

Emily merely shook her head, before disappearing down the hallway, leading Hanna to wonder if she'd ever get a straight answer from any of them about anything. (It wasn't looking good.)


Helena was frightened by Spencer's appearance sometimes. That was a terrible thing for a mother to feel when looking at her child – it was just that she looked so much like she'd imagined Christina would look like. (Had she been given the chance to grow up, of course.) And it wasn't so much fear of what she looked like, but fear of how it would make her feel, the pain it would dredge up from the dark, murky waters of her memory. (One morning, after a particularly bad night, when Spencer was sixteen and headed off for school, she'd called her Christina. They'd just sort of looked at each other, and went their separate ways, as if nothing had happened. They'd never talked about it since.)

Nothing frightened Helena more than seeing Spencer like this though – lifeless, bloodless, pale and cold in a room that was equally pale and cold. She wasn't dead – there was a jarring reminder every second or so in the form of the earsplitting hear monitor. She'd never been so thankful to have a migraine before. But even with that reassurance, watching her was like torture. It was like seeing the aftermath of the attack in France all over again, but this was terrible in its own right.

Helena felt numb, for a multitude of reasons, even as she held Spencer's hand, wondering if the contact could reach beyond the cold divide that separated them. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what was effecting her so – simply because there were so many things it could be. Her life before being bronzed, the experience of being bronzed, her first true dosage of the real world and how poisonous it really was…even these were valid options.

Perhaps it was the perceived loss of her only living child. Spencer had been missing for a month, and she would never forget the chill that suddenly settled in her as day after day went by where Spencer didn't return to the bed and breakfast, or answer the many repeated calls to her Farnsworth. No one could tell her what had happened or where she had gone, even after threats and bribery and a number of underhanded maneuvers. Still, she had managed to keep herself sane – barely, and through no fault of her own. It had all been Myka, every bit of it. (Of course, it had been herself that suggested they ask around one last time.)

It had been sudden, just like every other change in her life. Sudden and over before she knew what was going on. She had been down the street, closing up an interview while Myka followed another lead. Pebbles danced along the sidewalk before she could feel the vibrations through the thick soles of her boots. The rumbling didn't occur to her until later, when she was sprinting towards the red flash of flame against the grey, pale sky. Ash stained her pale hands as she dug through the rubble, but even as she was dragged away by a fireman and told that there were no survivors, and he was very sorry for her loss, she didn't feel it. It wasn't until she was halfway home, driving on the highway – or not. No, it was not until she was sobbing into her steering wheel with her car half hanging out of the ditch with wet snow beginning to blanket the desolate emptiness around her that she felt the loss of the love of her life and her daughters all at once and it was nothing short of a nuclear bomb exploding in her heart.

But that had been her one and only breakdown, save for a small exception at the semi-safe return of Spencer the night before. It had only been two weeks since the explosion that had killed Myka, and the subsequent explosion of grief within her – everything should have felt like bundles of raw, exposed nerves. Instead she felt like she was existing in little more than an egg, a barrier keeping everything from her, though when the light shined bright enough, she could still see it looming beyond the thin shell.

The only thing holding her shell together, was the steady sounds of the heart monitor that assured her that Spencer was much more alive than she'd looked. There were signs of trauma, the doctors had said, but she was a fighter, and she'd come through just fine. No one could tell her specifically what she'd been through while she was gone, though, and to be quite honest, Helena wasn't so keen to know the details of the tortures her daughter had gone through – she knew too much about everything else anyway. And, as she sat there, holding her hand and praying, holding the same useless vigil she had twenty two years ago, she briefly wondered what the point of all of this was. Surely not the universe punishing her for James Macpherson's death – he was slime. Surely Spencer had not done enough to warrant this – kidnapping, imprisonment, coma, the news of the tragic death of her mother upon waking. Spencer wasn't her. Spencer was good and she tried her hardest. And Myka had practically bathed in virtue. No, it could only be her, in her evil, time traveling, society defying ways. Caught in the eye of the storm of her grief and her guilt, all she could do was sit there and wait, praying to a God that had never listened to her, and hold her daughter's hand, the invasive noise of the monitor the soundtrack to her despair.

After a time – she could not say how long it had been – Spencer's hand twitched in hers, and then gripped it – it wasn't a reflex. Helena lifted her eyes, sucking in air before holding her breath to see if this was it. Everything stood still for a moment that dragged on, though it was only a fraction of a second, a heartbeat, before her dark, long lashed eyes flickered open, only to close against the brightness of the light. "Mama?" She gasped, in a quiet, raspy, broken voice, and it was all Helena could do to not sob along with her.

"You're alright, darling…I'm here." She whispered, raising Spencer's hand to her mouth, kissing it. "I'm right here, you're safe now."

"I don't…what?" Spencer turned her head as wildly as she could, the frequency of the noises from the monitor increasing slightly – she'd always been able to tell when her daughter was panicking, but she had never before been able to hear it. "Mama, what's going on? She gripped her hand tightly, turning her eyes to her as she was finally able to open them. She never wanted to see that look in her daughter's eyes again – the look of uncertainty, pain, and sheer terror. She had seen it once before – when she was barely an hour old – and ensconced in a plastic hell of an incubator. Never again.

"Darling, Spencer, you've been through an ordeal, please…" Helena urged her, gently guiding her back down against the bed, swallowing hard. "Just rest. You'll be alright."

Spencer slackened a little, turning her face against the pillow as the monitor slowed to a slow but erratic rhythm. What was left of Helena's heart broke a little more as she reached for her again, closing her hand around her wrist, as her breathing came in short little pants. "Where's mother?" She finally got out.

Where's mother? Where was Myka indeed. Helena had never come up with a way to explain death that didn't hurt. Not when Christina was a child, and not when she died. Not when Spencer was young, and had asked her, and certainly not now. Death - where did it bottom out to? She couldn't bear the thought of Myka's soul being lost to the world forever, for it was so lovely, yet there was no logical argument to suggest that anything else had happened. She could maybe reason herself into believing, even just a little, in reincarnation – if that was the case, then Myka was somewhere in the start of her next great life, in a station better than even the life she had led here. But even that was too unbelievable. Same with the idea that she was dining with God somewhere – she was too sweet for hell, any version of it. But what did that leave? Another unexplained part of the universe, except this time, it wasn't one she could ever hope to beat, or solve, no matter how many times she tried.

The train of thought had assaulted her so strongly, that she had been pulled from her body long enough to lose control. She all at once realized she was crying and that Spencer had pushed herself up just enough so that she awkwardly wrap one arm around her, the other arm a slave to the IV. As she began to tearfully recount the story, she could only recall one thought; she had been entirely, entirely wrong to assume that there was no more pain left in the universe for her.

And try as she might, she would never be able to pray it away.


"Stop, Dickens!" Spencer snapped at the ferret that was rattling around in its cage as she sank down onto the bed. She felt a twinge of guilt at the subsequent silence, but there were bigger things to worry about. Namely, not collapsing into a puddle of tears. She had tried to spend as little time as possible in this house to avoid being swept up in the tidal wave of grief that had taken over everyone else, but it seemed this time, she wouldn't be so lucky. Someone – probably Emily, with all the best intentions, though they had backfired miserably – had left her mother's throw pillow propped gently up against her own. Seeing it was like being shot by a sniper – she didn't know what had hit her until it was already too late.

Spencer at first made the conscious decision to ignore it, but that lasted all of two minutes, after staring at the ceiling got old. She got up and paced, fidgeted with an invention that she had tried to start six months ago, but had never gotten off the ground with. (The inventing was best left to Claudia, or her mother, unfortunately. Not her.) Finally, she threw it down, hearing it shatter somewhere unseen. She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to settle down, trying to breathe through it, but it was quickly becoming apparent to her, in the rise of her pulse, the difficulty in drawing breath, the tightness in her muscles, that that wasn't going to work. She was just going to have to give in, and let it take her over, and though that logically was the best course of action, she hated it.

She sank down onto the bed after a minute, dragging the pillow over into her lap, tracing the embroidery, the threads. She had started using it in the few years leading up to her death, something about an old injury bothering her back, or too much artifact juju or something. Spencer had often come across it in the oddest of places – in the car, on the kitchen counter, on a shelf in the warehouse. Once they had even left it in her dorm room in New York, and she'd had to FedEx it back. Regardless of these instances, it hardly left her side, and she'd come to see it as an extension of her. It didn't occur to her that it was still around, since her mother was no longer around. Seeing it just lying there, innocuously, an inanimate object with no idea of its destructive power, was disarming in more ways than one.

She reached out, brushing her fingertips against it, before just grabbing it, pulling it to her chest, doubling over around it, just holding on, clinging to it like she never had to her mother, taking in the feel of the fabric, the scent of her. It wasn't that bad, until it hit her suddenly that this was the closest she'd ever be to her again, that and the picture hanging in the hallway. Before she knew it, sobs were piling up in the back of her throat, hot and thick, and it was all she could do not to let them out. She had fought for years to keep from letting them out, and though she knew that in this case, and every case, it wasn't good for her, it was still a hard habit to break.

"Spencer?" Shit. Shit. The sudden appearance of her mother wasn't conducive to her continued stasis. Spencer struggled to draw a deep breath, and even knowing that crumbling was inevitable, with a stiff upper lip she raised her gaze to meet her mother's.

The reaction was instantaneous. Helena's face fell, and she rushed to Spencer's side, draping an arm around her shoulders, reaching up to brush her hair with her fingertips. "Darling, what's the matter?" She asked, though both of them knew she didn't have to.

"…do you know what the last thing I said to mom was?" The tears spilled into her voice before they fell from her eyes, making her words thick and sharp and barely intelligible. Somehow, though, Helena seemed to understand – she always did. She nodded briefly, keeping up her rhythm, stroking her hair. It was the one thing that almost always calmed her down, but this was one of those times where nothing, not even the most surefire way, would have worked. Nothing could fix this, nothing short of a miracle, because the only thing that would make it better would be bringing her mother back to life. "I told her that I didn't want to be anything like her. That she was…cold…too lost in the details to see that she was losing me…that she had lost me." Spencer clapped her hand over her mouth as the first sob escaped. "I can't take that back now…I can't fix it."

"Shh…" Helena murmured into her hair, pulling her closer. "Your mum loved you so much…so very much. She went to the ends of the earth to try and find you, she did. She gave everything to try and find you, and she knew you loved her in return. She was a smart lady…even if you two bumped heads, she always knew the truth, darling….you have nothing to be afraid of."

I have everything to be afraid of, Spencer thought to herself mournfully. But no words came out, instead, she turned against her mother's shoulder, and cried. But even that wasn't letting it out for her. In fact, every tear that fell, every sob that fell from her mouth was just another weight added to the burden.


Toby Cavanaugh had gotten himself in a shitload of trouble.

The black bag over his head was suffocating, but not as much as the realization that his misguided attempt to do something with his life had gone horribly wrong. This wasn't even his fault. He was a pawn in the game, a hatchet man, a lackey – he could lift shit and drive fast and he looked good in a suit, but that was about it. He knew nothing.

Of course, this broad didn't know that.

He gasped for breath as the bag was suddenly ripped off his face, trembling as a gun was instantly leveled at him, straight between the eyes. Tearing his gaze away from it finally, he glanced up at the woman holding it, taking her in. In any other circumstance, she might not have seemed so threatening, with her wildly curly hair and the laugh lines around her eyes. Those eyes were cast in steel, however, as she leaned in close to him.

"So." She said, lowering her voice, dragging up a chair and sitting facing him, never once taking the gun off of him. "How about you tell me why you're after my daughter?"


A/N: SEE. SEE. I TOLD YOU. I TOLD YOU. HAHA HAHA HAHA.