Disclaimer: I own nothing but an over active imagination and a laptop.

AN: Oh my god, thank you so much for the reviews. I blush so hard, you guys don't even know. So, as my way of saying thank you for continuing to read this madness, here is a chapter a bit longer than the last ones, featuring some of our favorite warehouse agents, and yes HG and Myka.

Chapter 4: Pictures Show a Happier Past

It is said that you can judge a person by the friends they keep. Now, I know the person who said it had a bit more flare and fanes than that, but that was about sixteen hundred years ago and had a bunch of words we don't use anymore. The point is, he was right.

You can look at it in the way that a person is shaped by their surroundings. That they are most like the five people they choose to spend the majority of their time with. And friends are generally chosen by their commonalities with yourself.

Or you can look at it as I like to. If your friends groan and loath to hang out with you. If they have a mini, internal celebration at the news that you can't make it somewhere. If they fear you or disregard you or think you a bad person, it's likely to show. If even the people whom you consider friends don't like you, you mustn't be a very good person.

A sign of a good person and a good friend, is being willing to sacrifice for them. Time, space, their lives. If a man is willing to die for his best friend, that says a lot about both parties. They don't care about social norms, whether or not you are in a good spot in your life or not, or if they think you are in the wrong. They will fight for you. It is a rare and beautiful thing to have a friendship in which both are willing to die to save the other.

It's another thing entirely when someone is willing to kill for you. That's a sacrifice of innocents, of immortality if you believe in it, of freedom, of peace of mind. That is sacrificing yourself on a level that surpasses willing to die.

It is incredibly interesting to watch what friends are willing to do for one another, without even being asked or questioning why. A friend who has no idea where you went after the party telling your parents that you stayed over at their place after video games. One who will have your back in a fight, even when you two have no hope of winning. The person who defends you, even when you are not around to appreciate it. Friends should care about your wellbeing as much as their own.

Myka Bering had the best friends that anyone could hope for. She didn't do much to earn their love and respect.

She and Pete were thrown together after being chosen by a mysterious woman. They were complete opposites. Both alphas, but where Myka followed the facts, relied on knowledge, Pete followed his gut, relied almost wholly on instinct and insight. But because they had to trust each other explicitly in the field, had to believe that their partner would be there for them when they needed them, they began working their way into each other's hearts. Myka had never had a best friend before, so the relationship she had with Pete was new and weird. He was like the big brother she had never had, or believed she wanted, but unlike her very real sibling, she enjoyed spending time with Pete. She truly cared for the giant man child who somehow managed to make her laugh more than she thought would be possible after losing her last partner and boyfriend, Sam.

What had begun as a female solidarity between Claudia and Myka, being trapped with Artie and Pete all day every day, had shifted, slowly but surely. Claudia had lost her whole family. Sure, her brother had come back to her after twelve years, but he also left her once again for top secret work. Her mother, father and sister died. So her family became Artie, Pete, Jinks and Myka. With the wisdom of a big sister and the fierce protectiveness of a mother, Myka became a key piece in Claudia's new world. She was confidant and safe harbor, she was the one who reprimanded her and encouraged her. Before Jinks came along, Myka was the closest person to Claudia.

Arthur and Steve had seen the hard work and dedication, the single mindedness she held when closing in on an artifact. She was stronger than most everyone they knew, physically and emotionally. And when they saw cracks in the armor she put around her heart, all they saw was the beauty behind it. Her dedication to the warehouse and her friends. If Myka's worst qualities consisted of being loyal to a fault and striving to be the best at her job, as far as they were concerned, she was damn near perfect.

And then there was Helena… What HG Wells saw when she looked into those piercing green eyes of the young agent was her own soul reflected. Her love of literature and adventure, that beautiful mind of hers that served to only make the beauty of her physical form all that much more glorious… Helena was never one to believe in love at first sight, but even she had to admit that there was something between the two women that began with the electric spark that was emitted at the first meeting of their eyes. Despite everyone telling her she was wrong, Myka always fought for HG. She held a tesla to Pete at their first meeting, left them pinned helpless to the ceiling, abandoned them in Egypt in a pyramid that was slowly filling with sand, tried to destroy the whole world at Yellowstone and held a loaded gun to Myka's forehead. And Myka never turned on the agent like the others did, for one simple reason, she saw something in HG's eyes that she thought worth saving.

It was for that utter belief in the inventor's humanity that changed something in Helena. It's because of Myka that HG had wanted to change at all. As she held that gun to her head, she realized she didn't want to kill the woman standing before her, she couldn't do anything that resulted in her death. Her heart broke, when she thought there was nothing left to break after losing Christina, in seeing Myka after being trapped in the Janis coin and being unable to hold her, to comfort her. Myka's utter refusal to destroy Helena even if it would stop MacPherson is what lead to HG sacrificing herself to save the agent and her friends when the Warehouse exploded. Not that anyone remembered that save Artie.

After everything she had done over the last four years, Myka had so solidly stitched herself into the hearts of the people who surrounded her, that they couldn't imagine giving up on her, they couldn't think of anything they wouldn't do to bring her back. One of them was even willing to end the lives of others to do so.

Claudia sat in the glowing light of her computer screen. She really should have had the lights in the office on, but she didn't want to risk any loss of power from the computers, not with the amount of energy she was demanding from it.

So she sat in the dark room, eyes bloodshot and straining to keep themselves open. She was surrounded by mountains of empty redbull cans. Her hands shook though she had ceased to notice. Her legs were numb, not that she had bothered to try and use them. Her stomach churned emptily, having not been given anything in two days but energy drinks and methylphenidate, she didn't feel the pain or hear the protesting gurgles. All she felt was the nagging feeling in her chest that something was missing.

It had been two weeks since they brought Myka back to Univille, and Claudia had spent every waking moment, working the PHISH and computers over time to find some trace of artifacts or the two men, or maybe the people they were working for… she wasn't quite sure anymore. All she knew was she had to keep going, keep pushing herself to find something, anything to help the comatose agent.

The picture taped to the main console before her was of a bemused looking Myka and Claudia hugging her tightly from the side with the goofiest smile she could manage. It served to motivate the young hacker, to remind her why she was denying her body of rest and sustenance.

But her eyes were growing heavier and the images of security tapes and lines of code were blurring together. Claudia Donavan had hit her wall, and as her eyes slipped shut and her head rested on the keyboard in front of her, she mumbled softly to the picture, "I'm just going to rest my eyes for a moment." And quickly fell asleep, dreaming of her family being whole once more.

Arthur Neilson sat on the floor of his office, buried in paper work as he had been for days now. The only times he stopped his relentless reading was to fetch himself more coffee from the pot he had moved in there. He doesn't know what day it is, or how long he has been sitting in his stuffy office, he was too focused on the task at hand to miss the sun all that much.

He had pulled out dozens of journals, files, books, pouring over every word over and over again, his eyes crossing and straining, causing him sometimes to see double. He only reread the sentences when that happened, never thinking to take a break or rest his weary eyes.

He threw the folder in his hands across the room in a fit of rage, biting back on his shouted cursing. He put his head in his hands, fingers pulling some of his hair out at the roots. He took a breath, then another, knowing anger would not serve him any good in finding anything to help his agent. He didn't know what would happen to him if he allowed himself to lose another person on the job, most likely it would kill him.

When he removed his hands and opened his eyes, he looked down at the file that had somehow ended up on his lap. He didn't remember pulling it out, but he didn't remember much of anything at the moment.

It was Myka's file. In the span of fourteen pages, the writer of the dossier had managed to reduce the life and achievements of one Myka Ophelia Bering into simple sentences mixed with conjecture. Her childhood, school records, her time with the secret service, psychologist reviews of her, an incomplete list of the cases she had worked since starting at the Warehouse, all boiled down to an assessment of her value to the Warehouse.

As if something like that could have been measured. It didn't mention how hard things were for the agent, it didn't explain why she refused to listen to orders or how hard she worked to get the job done. The story of Myka Bering should have been able to fill a book, possibly several books. But here the writer had managed to cut her down to a name rank and serial number. Just a list of reasons why the Warehouse still used her, and why it possibly shouldn't.

Grief crashed through the senior agent, realizing that he had written a good portion of what lay between inside manila folder. The picture they had paper clipped to the front was about four years old. Her smile was bright and her gaze challenging, possibly smirking at something the photographer said to her just before the picture was shot. It was after the grief of Sam but before the warehouse stepped in and made everything worse. The woman in the photo still had hope in her eyes, something Artie had watch Myka slowly lose.

He lifted the picture from the file, rose on protesting legs, and took it with him to the couch, where he fell heavily.

"I'm so sorry," he told the photograph, voice tight with emotion, "I'm sorry I dragged you into this when you could have had your whole life ahead of you. I'm…" he trailed off as he gripped the picture to his chest, head falling back to rest on the chair as tears streamed silently down his wizened face. His body gave him the relief of sleep then, knowing the alternative was too much.

Pete and Jinks arrived at their hotel. The trip to Louisiana was another bust, and the two men were bone tired. The snagged bagged and tagged the artifact Mrs. Fredricks had sent them to collect, tempting them with the idea that it could have something to do with Agent Bering's case. One day, Pete knew, they were going to stop falling for that.

Mrs. Fredricks had managed to keep them out of the Warehouse and B&B as much as she could. Keeping them on track with finding dangerous artifacts. Because, while she felt deeply for Agent Bering and wanted her up on her feet as soon as possible, other people were in the same danger from other artifacts with all of her agents off the line. She let Claudia and Artie worry about leads for the agent, she wanted to keep Latimer and Jinks in the field protecting people.

So with some pocket watch that could make everyone a slave to the will of the holder safely locked in a case, Pete and Steve dejectedly checked themselves into another hotel.

Steven was exhausted, worried, and sick to his stomach with the thought of what his best friend was doing without him there to stop her. Jinks loved Myka, but it paled in comparison to what he felt for the redheaded agent. Claudia was to Steve what Myka was to Pete, and then some. Because he and Claudia had been friends almost instantly. He knew how much the other agent meant to the team, and he worried to what extent Claudia would push herself to bring her friend back.

Pete was on a whole other level of emotion. He was tired of being given the runaround by Mrs. Fredricks. He was mad at HG for thinking she could just waltz back into Myka's life. He hated whoever and whatever had taken Myka out of his life. He didn't care about saving other people, he just wanted to save her. He knew that was a narrow-minded and selfish thought, but he didn't care.

When Jinks went up to his room for the night, Pete found himself in the hotel bar. He wasn't thinking, sleep deprivation and a slew of emotions keeping his thoughts murky and his judgment clouded.

"What'll it be, my friend?" the bartender asked, wiping the counter before the agent and staring expectedly at him. The man thought himself an expert in people reading, usually limited to guessing what drink they were going to order, but he sensed something darker in the man sitting at his counter now.

Pete was quiet. He thought about ordering whiskey or scotch or vodka, anything really to numb the pain. He wasn't even sure if he had money to pay for enough alcohol to cause him to black out. He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. He opened it and stopped.

There, staring back at him, was a small picture from a couple of Christmases ago. Claudia with a mug of eggnog snuggling with Trailer at the forefront. Artie with a tray of cookies beside a very much alive Leena. Between her and Mrs. Fredricks sat Myka, smiling and eating a cookie despite having told everyone how she doesn't eat sugar. Pete stood behind her, but he was more focused on the smiling agent. She seemed so happy there. Pete wished he could go back to that moment and relive it over and over.

"Is that your family?" the man behind the bar asked and Pete nodded in response.

He sighed heavily and took the chip he kept tucked inside his wallet. Ten years sober. It had felt like such a huge achievement to him, he even showed it to Myka. It was one of the few times she had initiated a hug with him. He set the chip on the bar where the bartender could clearly see it.

"Just get me a water." He said gruffly.

"You're doing the right thing for your family, man." The bartender nodded knowingly before fetching Pete a glass of water.

By time he turned back around, though, the agent was nowhere to be seen. He had gone up to his room, wanting no audience to his self-loathing. How many times was he going to nearly slip up? Just how weak was he?

He lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and praying to God for a dreamless sleep. For once, it seemed like God was listening to him, and he drifted into peaceful blackness.

The end of that day found sleep for everyone. Offering peace, if only for a few hours, to the people working so hard to bring Myla back. Everyone, that is, except HG Wells.

She had come to accept that rest would not find her. Not until she saw Myka open her eyes once more. Pete had given her picture to the people at the hospital, excluded her from the visitors list. But Helena didn't know that. After being exiled from the hospital room, she swore to herself she wouldn't return until she found the man responsible for her condition.

She hadn't slept since she got a call from Claudia. It had confused her, as she lifted Emily Lake's phone from her pocket, to see a number she did not recognize.

"Hello?" she asked, politely.

"Who is this?" a voice she almost recognized asked.

Normally HG would have hung up the phone, believing that the caller should at the very least know who they were looking for. But something in the hushed tone of the voice kept her listening.

"This is Emily Lake, may I ask who is calling?" HG responded, stopping in her steps.

"Fantastic, cut the crap HG and listen up." HG suddenly recognized the voice of Claudia Donavan, she was speaking low, and quickly, but she could understand her, "Myka is in the hospital. Don't ask questions because I don't have the time or information to fill you in right now. I just thought you'd want to know. She's been in a coma for a couple days, they're moving her back to Univille. They can't figure out what's wrong with her…" Claudia kept talking but HG was no longer listening. The phone had slipped through her fingers and fell to the cement, cracking the screen and effectively ending the call.

She didn't remember the drive to the airport, only arguing with the man issuing flight tickets. Trying to explain to him, to get him to understand why she needed to be in South Dakota now. He insisting it was impossible, and finally had airport security escort her out when she started swearing loudly and threatening him.

It would take her nine hours of continuous driving to reach Univille, but the prospect didn't deter her. She got in her car and drove. Her stomach felt hollow and her chest ached, she continually had to wipe tears from her eyes and she bloodied a knuckle punching the dashboard, but she made the drive. Stopping only once to fill the tank with gas.

Then she saw her agent, so frail looking and pale. Wrist and leg wrapped. And guilt and sadness were the first emotions to wash through her. Pete was right, this was her fault. If she had only picked Myka that night, spoke to her more often, explained to her what had happened after she left.

Then was a deadly calm, the only things she felt were murderous rage and determination. She would find the man who did that to the woman she loved, and she would make him wish he had never been born.

She didn't expect help from the Warehouse agents, so she didn't ask. She did however, keep a close eye on all the progress they were making. Admittedly, it wasn't much. So she did what they didn't do. She started where it had begun. In Anchorage. And she worked and investigated, never ceasing in her efforts. She would kill the men who did this or she would die trying.

Myka was having her own troubles.

"What's your name?" Dr. Calder asked as she shone a light in Myka's eyes, watching them dilate with the changing stimuli.

"Myka Ophelia Bering." She responded in a flat tone, still trying to come to terms with Christina being alive. And not only being alive, but referring to Myka as Mom.

"When were you born?" Vanessa put her fingers to Myka's wrist, counting out the beats of her heart.

"June 23, 1982, it was a Wednesday, I was born in Colorado Springs." She recited without thinking, "I'm thirty one years old, my parent's names are Warren and Jeannie Bering, my sister is Tracy." She stated these things out loud, wanting to reassure herself with facts she could hold on to, couldn't be disputed.

"Who is the woman standing beside you?" Dr. Calder watched Myka's face closely now.

"Helena G. Wells." Myka looked up and HG smiled in response, though the expression didn't reach her eyes.

"And everyone else in the room?" Dr. Calder tilted her head, eyes squinting ever so slightly.

"Pete Latimer, Steve Jinks, Claudia Donavan," she waved to each in turn, pausing for a moment as she looked into Christina's eyes. She turned her head expectantly, waiting for Myka to say who she was. Her mother's wife had played a huge role in her life, had been there to help raise her, and now she was watching her mom struggle to speak whenever she looked at her, "And that-that is Christina Wells."

Pete was throwing a rubber ball at the wall, wanting to get out of the Warehouse as soon as possible. Being stuck on inventory for the last few nights with Jinks had seriously put a dent in his social life. Steve had his arms crossed, leaning in slightly, listening for a note of falsehood in Myka's voice. Claudia sat on the arm of the sofa to the left of Myka, eyes flitting from Vanessa to Myka, trying to see what the doctor was seeing in her friend.

"And what year is it?" the doctor asked the last of the control questions.

Myka sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, "2013. Can we talk about what is wrong here now?"

Everyone stopped moving, stopped breathing, just stared disbelievingly at the agent. Pete's ball hit the wall and bounced away, forgotten. "My dear," Dr. Calder put a hand on her patient's knee, "It is 2016 not 2013."

The doctor looked back at the human lie detector, who had a perplexed look on his face.

"Claudia, would you be a dear and take Christina out?" Helena suggested, "Maybe get some ice cream and stop by Leena's?"

"Sure thing, boss," Claudia nodded at the same time Christina protested with a "What for?"

Christina complied though, stopping to the door like the teenager she was, with Claudia pushing her shoulders lightly.

AS soon as the door shut, Helena began pacing across the floor in long strides. "I knew it, I knew something was wrong. She was talking all sorts of nonsense and acting odd and didn't remember that we had moved the Warehouse. And she went on asking if Christina is alive!"

"Why did it surprise you that you saw Christina?" Vanessa asked as she rose from her crouched position.

"Because Christina is dead!" the words were a whispered shout with the sound of restrained tears, "I don't understand how she is here."

"What are you talking about?" HG demanded, stopping in front of her wife, "It is one thing to say you are three years younger than you are, to not remember certain things, but how could you possibly think that my daughter is dead?"

"Because she was killed in 1899," Myka refused to make eye contact, "She was murdered by robbers and it's why you invented your time machine, it's why you went crazy and tried to start another ice age."

"Myka, daring, no," Helena shook her head, "It's true Christina almost died in 1899, that's why I begged the regents to bronze us. She had diphtheria. I figured that if we waited long enough, someone would find a cure for the disease and I was right. You freed us from the bronzer six years ago, the only one who bothered to remember my request after a hundred years." She smiled with a twinkle in her eye.

"So clearly, Agent, your memory has been altered somehow," Dr. Clader concluded, "The only question now is to figure out how and to what extent."

"Oooh, get to talk about all of Mykes' biggest secrets," Pete pulled up a chair and sat in front of her.

Myka felt a migraine coming on at the antics of her childish partner, even an imagined Pete, it seemed, was annoying.

But what if it wasn't imagined? What if she was really here and all of this was her real life?

No, no it couldn't be.

Could it?

AN: The quote I was referencing in this chapter was "Every man is like the company he wont to keep", spoken by Greek philosopher and poet, Euripides, who lived from 480bc-405bc. I guess that's what happens when I decide to write through my Philosophy class rather than, I don't know, take notes for my final?

AN2: Methylphenidate is ADHD medication that is a really strong stimulant that some college students use as a study aid. This writer does not condone or suggest such usage, please be like me and just use Redbull coffee mixtures. Drug abuse is a serious issue and trust me when I say it ruins people's lives. Please do not misuse ridilin or Adderall while studying for your finals, just space your studying and get a lot of sleep.

AN3: Oh, and time does move slower for Myka, I don't know why, that's just what happened. I picked a random day for her birthday, because it only says she graduated from high school in 2000, so I subtracted 18 and got 1982. So if anyone can tell me her real bday that'd be fantastic.