*clears throat* I know you all want Truce updates. I want Truce updates myself. I'm sorry, but I can't do anything about it.

Thanks to Aimofdestiny for the beta.


Myka followed Pete through the streets of New York, slowly walking down the block to their hotel. Her partner carried the purple bag in which they'd stored the artifact they had collected.

While they made their way through the groups of passers-by clogging the sidewalk, they were in a very intense conversation and Myka was already annoyed. The brunette hadn't asked for his 'advice' at any point but, as always, he hadn't actually cared.

"If you ask me." He began another sentence with those four words. "You should take one of those shelves out of your room."

She groaned loudly and craned her neck to glare at him. "No, Pete. I won't take a damn shelf out of my room. There are books in it and I need them."

The bed in Myka's room in the B&B had broken last week and they were about to replace it. Abigail had decided that she wanted to replace all the beds in the B&B along with it, because they were quite old. The problem was that the new king size bed didn't really want to fit into Myka's room, unless she managed to part with another piece of furniture. The agent didn't know why they suddenly needed king sized beds, but the keeper of the inn had been very strict about it.

Myka had been happy when they had gotten a ping so she could ponder over this while travelling. Pete and Myka had been in New York for four days until they had found the artifact and she hadn't made a decision yet. The curly haired woman would never admit that she was wasting a lot of time thinking about this smaller problem to not have to face a bigger one.

"Myka." Pete shook his head while they approached the revolving door that led to their hotel's lobby. "I know you're totally into books and they are your thing and you love all of them in your possession, but," He made a brief pause to glare at her, making sure she knew he was about to say something important. "We have a library in the B&B and basically the Library of Alexandria in the Warehouse. So I think you should totally." He took a deep breath, following Myka inside the revolving door. "Declare your love for HG." He ducked his head, like he was expecting her to hit him.

"What?!" Myka was so surprised that she forgot walking. The glass part in the middle of the revolving door bumped into her back and the whole door stopped immediately, trapping everyone inside it.

A man in a well-tailored suit standing on the other side of the glass glared indignantly at Myka's back. The Warehouse agent payed him no mind, but instead looked at Pete like he had just declared cookies were the source of all evil.

"I think you should keep walking, Mykes." He shrugged a little, looking helpless.

"What did you just say?!" His partner still blocked the door, completely thunderstruck. On the other side of the glass, the man was starting to yell at them. "Hey, you two idiots! This door only spins if you keep walking!"

Pete sighed. "You know, it's very obvious with you two."

"I- ...it's... I don't-" Myka stuttered, but was interrupted by the man behind the glass.

"Tell your retarded girlfriend she has to move!"

"Okay, pal." Myka's partner turned around and flashed his badge at him. "Federal agents. You should maybe think a little before randomly insulting people around here."

The man's face turned red. "I don't care if you're the president himself -"

Pete groaned and grabbed Myka by the wrist to make her walk. His friend weakly placed one foot in front of the other, but she made enough space so the door could spin. Pete and Myka entered the lobby and Myka's friend turned away from her to face the guy who had just insulted her. The brunette was still deeply in thought. Was it really that obvious? If Pete had realised then maybe Helena had, too. The agent looked up at her her partner, who was in a discussion with the person from the revolving door.

"All I'm saying is that you should be glad I'm leaving you-" Pete just declared with his hands held up in defense. Myka saw the punch coming. The other man was flushed red and there was a vein throbbing angrily on his forehead, so it wasn't surprising for her when his fist punched forward, hitting Pete straight in the face. The secret service agent's head was thrown back by the force of the blow and he fell on his back. "Mykes." He grunted, lifting himself onto his elbows.

Immediately, the brunette woke up from her semi-daydream and headed towards them. With two quick moves she grabbed the man by the wrist and twisted his arm up against his back.

"Keep it easy!" Myka just commented on his attempts to free himself, and pressed his arm a little higher behind his back. He groaned in pain but still struggled to fight her grip.

With his face splotchy brick red, the man spat insults and curses at her. Pete slowly stood up. "I knew New Yorkers were rude. But that rude is just... rude." He declared while pressing the heel of his palm against his left eye.

Eventually, they had to call the police because nobody was able to calm the man down. The officers put him - still throwing curses and insults at everyone and anyone, and kicking with his feet into empty space - into their car and took Myka's and Pete's names.

Half an hour later, the two agents sat in the hotel's restaurant. Pete held some ice against his black eye - a waitress had brought it to him. "It's swelling." He whined. "I can feel it."

"I'm sorry, Pete!" His partner offered him a soft look. She really meant it.

"Well." He grinned a little. "I did take you a bit by surprise, didn't I?"

Myka sighed and avoided his eyes.

"Mykes, I'm sorry I said that, but, well, I see how you're torturing yourself and I'm really worried about you. The two of you." Her friend explained ,his eyes softening.

The brunette tilted her head in reaction. "Hm?"

"Well, it's really funny to watch when not involved, I think. At first you've been completely avoiding each other since HG is back. Now that she is a part of the family again, I thought you would end up making out in her bedroom after two days or something." He chuckled. "Because she's more the agressive type, right? But well, she buries herself in work and jumps from one artifact case to the next and you're doing the same. For weeks now. I take that back. It's not funny to watch. It's sad to watch."

"Pete..." Myka took a deep breath, but didn't know what to say. He was right, she knew, but this was far more complicated. It was wonderful to have Helena around; Myka was so happy she had decided to come back. But still, their situation was so complicated after the whole time travel story. The brunette shook her head.

"And then if you're accidentally in the B&B at the same time, it gets really sad." Pete sighed. "Last Tuesday at breakfast I watched the two of you very intensely. It was like... she looks down, you stare at her like she's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your life. Then she looks up and immediately, you bury your gaze in your low-fat-no-sugar-super-healthy cereal. And then she sighs like her heart is heavier than an elephant. Oh, and if we're already talking about elephants in the room, when are you going to talk to her?"

"'Like her heart is heavier than an elephant' Pete? Have you been reading?" Myka grinned, but a thousand thoughts raced through her mind.

"Don't change the topic." He took the ice from his eye and gently touched his bruise. It made him scrunch his nose and hiss.

"What do you want me to do? Do you think it's best to walk towards her and say 'Oh, Helena I love you. And did you know? I've seen a future in which we are married and have a child and somehow I think we just messed this up completely." Myka threw her head back and buried her face in her hands.

"What?" Now Pete blinked, confused. Myka still hadn't told him the reason for her 'whammy' the day HG came back. She thought that now was the right moment to update him on her problem with the writer. So she explained it to him: Months ago, she had had an accident with a watch that allowed time travel and had made her see her own future with HG Wells. But, well, this whole time travel thing was linked to a dangerous situation: Their twenty-year-old future daughter Sarah had tried to undo an accident Myka would have had in the Warehouse 25 years into the future. Apparently, they had been able to find a way to solve this. But the price was high. The agent was sure that she had changed this future in attempt to not change it at all the day Helena came back to the Warehouse from Boone. And by now, the curly haired woman was more than afraid that Sarah might never exist because Myka had accidentally avoided the future that led to her birth.

Was it okay to mourn a future that would never happen? She didn't know, but she was mourning it regardless. And she was uncomfortable around HG, who - and Myka knew this - had consistently avoided talking to her since she had been reinstated as a Warehouse agent. Maybe she was afraid, too. But of what? That was a question Myka couldn't possibly answer.

At the end of Myka's explanation, Pete glared at her, thunderstruck.

"Wow." He just said and she nodded in agreement.

"Wow." He said again.


At a certain point of time in the future, Claudia Donovan entered the Warehouse, having been caretaker for thirty years now. She had decided to stop with the ageing in her early thirties, so she would command the respect befitting a grown up person, let alone a caretaker, but still wouldn't be the stuffy old lady ordering people around.

That day had been quite boring. She had talked to a Regent and prepared the B&B for the arrival of her friends and their daughter. Their house and also the inn were very empty today, which was a mystery to her, so she decided to check in with the Warehouse to make sure everything was alright.

It wasn't. As Claudia appeared in Artie's office ( three years after his death, they still called it that, eventhough it was now actually Jinksy's office), she gasped. Her gaze fell on the people standing in the office, frozen like stone. All of them looked terrified. Myka and HG were leaning on Jinks' desks, Jinks looked like he had tried to run, and Pete lay on the ground next to him,spread-eagled. The two new Warehouse agents, who had been a replacement for Myka and Helena, who just had retired to become Regents, were pointing at one of their desks, also completely frozen. Abigail had her hands on her hips and was staring at them with widened eyes.

What were they all even doing in the Warehouse?

Set on a desk, there was a big, grey stone.

The caretaker suddenly felt fear. Her left hand developed a sudden and pervasive itch out of the blue. Claudia looked down at it only to find that it had started to turn into stone as well.

Her first thought was Oh. Maybe I should really start carrying my stuff around with me in a big purse. I could really use those glasses right now. Her second thought was Well, now that one incident in the past makes sense.

Then, Claudia came back to her mind to understand that this situation was actually pretty dangerous. So she tried to teleport away, only to find that she couldn't. That stone was not only turning her into stone like the other ones, it was also trapping her here.

Claudia made a decision to get that stone out of sight from the Umbilicus' door. Because if somebody else would make it here, they couldn't turn into stone as well.

She ran towards the desk and flipped it over with her right hand. The stone fell to the ground and rolled out of sight. Her left arm was feeling very heavy already, like ...yeah, well, like stone.

Claudia made it to another table, although she couldn't walk straight anymore from the weight of her left arm. She ripped out a page from a notebook. Her right hand had started to turn into stone too, so Claudia had problems writing. She felt that cold and frightening feeling creeping up her back, too. And it itched like hell. Claudia thought that it wasn't the turning into stone at sight effect which made that artifact really annoying, but the fact that her skin itched horribly while it happened and also that one wasn't able to scratch because the arms were the first thing to turn.

"I swear to you, Donovan, if you tremble and fall, you're in serious trouble." The woman told herself, afraid of shattering upon impact. With a quick movement, she tried to shove the paper into the direction of the Warehouse's door. She cursed loudly as she realised that her fingers had closed very tightly around the paper and that she couldn't move them one iota. The note was stuck to her ossified hand. Rolling her eyes dramatically, the caretaker limped to the door, unable to walk as her feet were also already stone. She tapped her arm carefully against the pocket of her pants, trying to activate the remote in it without breaking her hip bone with the weight of her stone arm. Her nose started itching horribly.

The Umbilicus door opened and Claudia stopped right in front of the doorway, with that note in her hand, as she realised that she couldn't move her legs anymore.

"Dammit." She exclaimed before turning completely into stone.