Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed.

This chapter takes place across the episode Love Sick and includes some of the dialogue and references to scenes from that episode. If you recognize something, it's probably not mine. Also, I've taken a few liberties with what happens when a person is bronzed/unbronzed since they didn't give a whole lot of information in the show.


* * (pre Love Sick) * *

"—even see it?"

"For the tenth time, yes, I saw it," Steve shot back. "And then I saw the replay. And then the slow-motion replay. And then I caught the commentary on the news this morning too. The call was good."

"You are totally—hey, Claudia, how long were those hallucinations supposed to last, again?" Pete asked. "Because it's been two days since you got back, and your partner is still seeing things."

"Are you two still arguing about last night?" she asked, pushing aside the remains of an empty crate so she could get into the room. "I mean, seriously, it's a game. Who cares?"

"Sacrilege," Pete said with a shake of his head. "Total sacrilege. You two deserve each other."

"What's up, Claudia?" Steve asked.

"Well, I think I've got it."

"The plague?"

Claudia stuck her tongue out at Pete—which, after having been stuck listening to his impassioned defense of his losing team since dinner as they broke down the crates from the previous collection of Warehouse Two arrivals, Steve could totally understand—and then held out a square of paper to him.

"Uh, what am I looking at?" he asked.

"An answer to why that Hand we found tried to strangle you. This is the short version of the report on the first one that was brought back to the Warehouse, the one that unlocks things. Apparently when they're engaged like ours was when Mr. Thompson tried to freeze me, and someone breaks the connection like you did when you took it from him, there's a defensive response that involves trying to kill the perceived attacker." She made a face. "The card was in the wrong place in the file cabinet, which is why Artie didn't find it before we went. Totally why these things should all be in the computer, but from the way Artie acts you'd think that the scanner requires some kind of ritual sacrifice before you can use it."

"It defends itself with strangulation?" he had to ask. That was a pretty concise summary of what the card she'd handed him said—well, minus the line here that said that one of the Warehouse agents who'd retrieved that Hand had ended up in the hospital with a crushed larynx, a fate that he was just as glad to have been spared—but wouldn't escape be a better option?

She shrugged. "Well, it is a hand. Its travel distance is kind of limited, and what are the other options? Repeatedly punching you in the face?"

"Okay, I guess you've got a point," he said after a minute. He wished they'd known about the defense mechanism before they'd gone, but it wasn't as if it would have changed his actions so there wasn't much point in complaining about it. "You've got the new Hand stowed with the others, then?"

"Leena put it right beside the one that sets things on fire in the hopes that they'll cancel each other out. And, of course, I get to add that aisle to my list of things to get screens for."

"But you're going to fix the big forklift, first," Pete said. "Right? Because I'm pretty sure that Artie said something about another shipment arriving within the next couple days, and I really don't want to have to carry another set of crates in here from the loading area by hand."

"Dude, seriously, do you think I have an unlimited supply of free time? My to-do list is like four pages long. And I write small."

"Claudiaaaaaa."

"Wow, you sound like a six year old." She sighed. "Fortunately for you, I am totally cool, and the forklift is next. The idea is to get it done tonight, although if I have to order—or machine—any parts it could take a few days."

"Do you need a hand?" Steve offered.

"Do you know anything about engines?"

"The basics."

"Good enough. Come on."

Pete headed off in another direction, presumably to find Myka or Artie although one could never be sure, and Steve trailed Claudia off to yet another area of the Warehouse that he'd never been in. "Thanks. If I'd had to hear yet another variant on 'we were robbed' I think I might have strangled him."

"Don't thank me yet. Something exploded in that engine."


"Claudia, no, don't release the catch until I've got the blocks in place!"

"Relax, I can—"

There was the screech of metal-on-metal, and then an echoing crash as the thing slid sideways and hit the ground. And then there was silence.

"Oops," Claudia said after a minute. "Jinksy? You aren't...squished...right?"

"No, I'm fine. Are you?"

"Yeah." Her head appeared over the edge of the frame, a splatter of oil on her face. "Maybe I'll pull it back up and keep it there until you've got the blocks in place."

"Good idea. And you've got…." He gestured vaguely at her face, and she scrubbed the stain off with a grimace.

"I guess it's a good thing that my sweater's already black. And that I didn't get any on my shirt. I'll get that thing pulled back up." A buzzer interrupted them before she'd taken more than two steps towards the control panel, and one hand went to his gun automatically.

"Chill, that's just the general alarm. If something was wrong, it'd be buzzing faster and we'd be hearing Mrs. Fredric making some kind of announcement. Or possibly Artie yelling over the intercom. And by the way, you've got a Tesla for a reason. Bullets flying around in here would end really badly."

"Oh. Right." He drew it, checking the charge quickly. He was finally getting used to the weight, at least, but reaching for the Tesla just wasn't his first instinct. "Should we go check that out?"

"Yeah. This way."

They were closer to the office than he'd realized, and when they entered, they found Pete, Myka, and Artie already there.

"Artie, where are you going in the middle of the night?" Pete was asking as Artie pulled on a jacket.

Artie laughed nervously. "Uh, nowhere. No place." He shifted uncomfortably, and Steve would have known that he was lying even if he hadn't been looking in their direction. "Why?"

Claudia tilted her head. "Is that the coat I got you?"

"This coat? Uh, so what? Yeah."

"Is that a clean shirt?"

"No, it's not."

Probably a lie, but Artie had been looking down so there was no way to know for sure. Pete and Myka moved to circle around behind him, and Steve suspected that whatever Claudia was getting at, they knew, or at least had a guess, as well.

"Did you trim your eyebrows?" Claudia pressed.

"Hm? No."

"What's that smell?"

Pete and Myka made a show of sniffing the air.

"What? I don't—" Artie shook his head. "I don't smell anything."

"Exactly. You primped." Her grin widened. "You're going to see Dr. Vanessa."

"Who's Dr. Vanessa?" Steve had to ask.

"No one," Artie said quickly.

Definitely not true, and one hand went to his temple in reflex. "Oh, wow. I have never had a lie hurt before."

Pete and Myka exchanged glances, and then Myka stepped in front of Artie as he tried to move past. "She is the Warehouse physician."

"And Artie's girly-girlfriend," Pete added, neatly blocking Artie's retreat.

"Uh, yeah."

Artie was obviously getting annoyed, and Steve really hoped that they weren't pushing too far even as his felt his lips twitching at the grin Claudia was giving him. He knew that this team was more flexible than he was accustomed to, but there were limits to how much a person could push his supervisor.

"Dr. Calder feels that there is an artifact that may be causing trouble at a hospital in Utah," Artie said, obviously trying for casual and failing miserably as he knocked something off the desk behind him. "And she has asked me, a colleague, to consult. And that is it. And now, if you will excuse me." He turned and headed for the door, only to come to a halt as Claudia planted herself in front of him. "Did I not leave enough food in your bowl?"

"I'm coming with you," she informed him.

"Why? No. Why?"

"A hospital, Artie? There will be blood. When you faint, someone's going to have to break your fall."

"Oh." Artie actually shuddered slightly at that. "Fine. Fine. All right."

"Is he really…?" Steve asked quietly. Not that getting queasy around blood was all that unusual, but it wasn't something that he'd have expected from Artie.

Myka nodded, keeping her voice equally quiet. "Yeah. A little."

"Are you wearing Spanx?" Pete asked as Artie and Claudia headed into the umbilical.

"Stop looking at me," Artie ordered without looking back.

Myka laughed at that, and Pete looked vaguely offended for a moment. And then, "Hey, Steve, what's with the Tesla?"

"What? Oh." He glanced down at it, still in his hand, and then he shook his head. "I was just telling Claudia that I'm not used to carrying it yet."

"Do you want to do some target practice?" Myka suggested.

"Ooh, target practice, I'm in," Pete said, before Steve could say anything. "If Artie's gone, I'm definitely done filing things for the night."

"Is there a range around here somewhere?" Steve wasn't sure that there was such a thing as a Tesla range, but taking shots at a shelf full of artifacts didn't seem like such a great idea either.

Myka shook her head. "We use a targeting coil. It's down in the Warehouse. Come on."


* * (post Love Sick) * *

Steve was reaching out to open his door, planning to shut off every light source and go to sleep and hope that this blinding headache would be gone—and that the world would make sense again—by the time he awoke, when it opened for him. It took a moment for his surprise to pass, and then that surprise turned to anger. "What are you doing?" he snapped.

Claudia blinked. "I—"

"You know, I don't care," he interrupted. "Just get out of my room. And stay out of my room. Does the concept of personal space mean nothing to you people?"

"But—"

"Out." That was more snarl than snap as he felt his nails dig into his palms, and he would have felt guilty about her almost-imperceptible flinch if she hadn't been in his room. Between the fact that he hadn't slept last night—even if he wasn't entirely clear on where all the time had gone—and Pete and Myka's hazing, or whatever it was that they'd done, and this damn headache, he was just not up to dealing with her.

"Okay." She shifted the tool belt slung over her shoulder and then held up her hands. "Okay. I'm going." She stepped past him. "Geez, what died in your cereal?"

Steve bit back a sharp retort, stepping into his room and shutting the door behind him. Firmly. He took a deep breath. Peace. Center. Unclench hands. Claudia hadn't been here when whatever had happened last night or this morning or whenever had happened. It wasn't fair to take his irritation, or his headache, out on her. But she also had no business being in his room. It was bad enough that the door didn't have any useful kind of lock, just the standard interior-can-be-picked-with-a-paperclip type; the least that she could do was respect that it was his and stay the hell out.

The light coming in through the window from the streetlight beside the B and B had never bothered him before, but right now it was making his head throb almost as badly as the random lights on the drive back from the Warehouse had, and he hurriedly pulled the curtains shut. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough, and he didn't bother to do more than kick his shoes off as he downed a couple aspirin from the first aid kit in the bathroom before flinging himself down face first onto his bed. He just needed to sleep. Tomorrow this would all be nothing more than a bad memory.

There was still light shining around the edges of the curtain when he awoke again, and he rolled onto his back and blinked up at the ceiling. The light wasn't from the street, he realized after a moment, it was sunlight. Apparently he'd managed to sleep the night away sprawled out on top of his blankets. He continued staring upwards for a few minutes, long enough to confirm that he had only the lingering remnants of a headache, nothing like what he'd been feeling as he'd fallen asleep. And the light didn't make him want to beat his head against any brick walls anymore either.

A shower and a shave was enough to make him feel human again, and when he got downstairs he found a note on the counter telling him that Leena was shopping and that there were some breakfast leftovers in the fridge if he wanted them. The others were probably at the Warehouse by now, and he stuck the covered plate in the microwave and dropped down at the table.

He was very sure that Pete and Myka had done something—most likely something artifact-y—to him, despite what they'd tried to tell him when he'd stumbled out of that weird round chamber too disoriented to read them, but he had no idea what it had been. As long as it never happened again, he figured that he could chalk it up to hazing and get over it, but he'd probably always be curious, and he kind of hated leaving mysteries lying around. And what had happened after that…. He winced and shook his head. He still wasn't thrilled that Claudia had been in his room, but he could have least found out why she'd been in there before biting her head off. Or better yet, asked her to stay out without biting her head off at all.

Leena's food was good even reheated, and he devoured the leftovers quickly and then headed for the Warehouse. Artie was scowling at the computer screen when he arrived, and while he was almost positive that he'd seen Pete and Myka hurrying down the steps into the Warehouse as he'd opened the door from the umbilical, they weren't his primary concern at the moment. "Good morning," he greeted

"Ah, hello," Artie said, looking up, and Steve was a little relived to see his scowl disappear. "Are you feeling better?"

"Much. Thanks."

"What happened? Pete and Myka didn't say very much beyond that you had a nasty headache."

"I have no idea."

Artie shook his head. "I told you not to bother the artifacts. Would it kill one of you to listen to me?"

Steve debated defending himself for a moment and then decided that it wasn't worth it. Especially since he didn't know what had really happened. "Right. Do you know where Claudia is?"

"Finishing repairs on the forklift, I believe."

"Thanks."

"Don't touch anything!" Artie yelled after him as he headed down into the Warehouse.

Steve shook his head and didn't reply. That was one warning that he really didn't need. He retraced his steps and was able to get back to the bay without much difficulty, although the loud sounds of metal striking metal that were clearly audible from some distance away helped.

"Go in!" he could hear Claudia ordering as he approached. "I measured four times, and you damn well fit, so go!"

Another series of clangs followed, and he made his way around the side of the machine carefully, waiting until she stopped banging on the object in front of her to speak. "Claudia?"

She spun around, glaring fiercely. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

"It won't go."

Judging by the glare that she was giving him, she held him personally responsible for that fact, and he held up his hands as he stepped forward. "What won't go?"

She jabbed at the forklift with her wrench. "I had to pull one of the gears in the lifting mechanism since the crack was too big to patch, but now I can't get the new one into place. Even though I know it fits."

It was pretty obvious which gear she was talking about and where it was supposed to slot in, and he gave it an experimental push. It didn't budge, but it looked like it was only caught on the bottom edge by the smallest amount, so…. "Wrench?"

She handed it over, and he braced a shoulder against the inside of the gear and lifted as hard as he could, slamming the handle of the wrench against the bottom tooth. At first he didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but then there was a creak as the gear rose just the smallest amount, and with another blow the thing slotted neatly into place.

"How'd you do that?" she demanded. "I've been trying for twenty minutes and it wouldn't budge. I thought I was going to have to go dig out a jack or something. And don't ask me what I was going to brace it on because I hadn't figured that part out. It was way easier to break out the old one."

"I'm a little bigger than you."

"Okay, that's a true. Annoying, but true." She shook her head and took back the wrench. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. And, uh, I'm sorry about yesterday. About snapping at you, I mean."

She shrugged, apparently finding something interesting on the floor. "It's okay. I should have thought to ask before I went in."

"What were you doing, anyway?"

"Replacing the back outlet. Leena said you'd been having trouble with it." Another shrug. "I was still kind of wired when Artie and I got back, and I figured I'd check a couple things off the to-do list at the B and B while I had the energy."

"Oh." That explained the tool belt that she'd been carrying. And why she'd been surprised that he was upset. "Sorry," he repeated. "And thanks. That extension cord was a fall waiting to happen."

"It's what I do." She looked back up. "And no worries, really. Most of the time I come and go as I need to when someone wants something fixed, and it didn't occur to me that you're not used to that. If you'd rather, I can ask before I do anything in your room."

"I'd appreciate that. It's nothing against you," he added quickly. "It really isn't, it's just…." Not very zen of him to be that protective of space, and he knew it—he'd never had that kind of problem when it came to possessions—but then, he'd never claimed to be perfect.

"It's cool. But as long as we're talking about it, is there anything else that you need fixed? Unless it involves the curtains or the paint job, it'll probably be me doing it anyway."

He grinned slightly. "You weren't kidding about being the one who fixes stuff around here."

"Handyman slash gadget-girl slash-inventory-freaking-expert slash part-time Warehouse agent, at your service. I so hate being bored."

His grin grew. "Fair enough. But no, everything else is fine."

"Are you okay?" she asked after a minute. "You seemed pretty on edge yesterday, and I don't think it was all me. And you looked like crap."

"Thanks so much." Tact was never going to be her strong point. "I feel better now. And you're right, it wasn't just you. Yesterday was weird."

Her eyes narrowed. "Weird how? Did you touch something?"

"I don't think so. It's hard to explain." It didn't even make sense to him, and he'd been there.

"Well, thanks to you, the forklift is now at a hundred percent, so I've got a few minutes. If you want."

He opened his mouth to decline automatically and then realized that he kind of did want to talk. And if there was anyone besides the two agents that he was pretty sure had been responsible for what had happened to him who could help him figure out what had been done, it would be her. And it wasn't like she was hard to talk to.

With a slight nod, he looked around and then decided that the floor was as good as they were going to get and sank down to sit on the concrete. She didn't hesitate to join him.

"After you and Artie took off, Pete and Myka and I decided to get in some target practice. We were talking while the targeting coil was charging up, and one of them asked if I had a girlfriend back in Jersey, so I went ahead and told them I was gay. Their reaction wasn't bad at first—well, okay, Pete taking his shirt off was totally unnecessary and I hope he never does it again—but then he knocked something off a shelf, and that's when they started acting really weird. One minute they were right there, then they disappeared, and then when I found them again Myka was blonde and Pete wasn't wearing any shoes."

"Wait, what do you mean, disappeared? Like 'poof' and gone?"

"No, no, they just…ran off. Weird, like I said." Like pretty much everything else that had happened. "Anyway, after I found them and made them put down the artifacts they were playing with—hey, maybe that's why Myka turned blonde—they took me to this room full of statues to show me something. We found Pete's shoes, but when I went to get them, they locked me in this tube thing. And then the next thing I knew they were staring at me like I was the one who'd gone off the deep end. Even though Myka was still blonde. Plus there's like eight hours that I can't account for. I mean, I don't think I fell asleep or anything, it's like time just…stretched out." He rubbed his forehead. "I don't know. I mean, at first I thought it might be some kind of hazing—" either because he was still the new guy or because he'd just told them about being gay—"but—"

"No way," she interrupted. "Not Myka. Even if she did that kind of thing, which she doesn't, she wouldn't play around in the Warehouse. Pete would, but he'd also stop as soon as he saw that you were getting upset."

That was about what he'd have expected of the other two agents given what he'd seen of them since he'd joined the team too, but it didn't help explain what had happened to him. He let his hand drop back to his lap. "I don't know. Maybe I did touch something."

She bit her lip. "The room that they took you to, with the statues, what did the statues look like?"

"Like statues. Of people. Uh, they were metal, probably bronze. Actually I'm pretty sure that Myka did call it the Bronze Sector, now that I think about it."

"And you've got about eight hours of time that you can't really account for, and let me guess, half of your headache was because your eyes were really sensitive to light after you got out."

"More than half," he admitted, even though it didn't really sound like a question. "You know what happened to me, don't you?" Whatever it was, she didn't look very happy about it.

"It sounds like they bronzed you. Which is not cool."

The sense of familiarity was back again, stronger than before as her eyes flashed, but he still couldn't place it. "What do you mean 'bronzed'?"

"They turned you into one of those bronze statues. It's what we do to really bad people—like people who would turn into Hitler—so they can't turn into Hitler. It's not what we do to other Warehouse agents." She shook her head. "I don't know why they'd do something like that, but…."

"Well, I guess now I know." Not that he was thrilled to learn that he'd been turned into a statue, but hey, at least they'd fixed him. And it was good to know that he wasn't crazy. "But how did you know about the light thing? Or is that on page two-thousand-eleventy of the manual and I just haven't gotten to yet."

She grinned and shook her head. "No, HG told me. She's the one who told us about the whole being-aware-while-bronzed thing too, but then we were talking once and she said that the worst thing about being unbronzed was the whole reactivation of the optic nerves and that it took awhile for her eyes to readjust and the headache to fade. MacPherson had to take her out of the Warehouse with a blanket over her head just to keep her from passing out from the pain. I'm guessing the amount of time spent bronzed probably affects how bad it is…from what Artie said, he didn't have any trouble, but then he'd only been bronzed for like two minutes."

"Wait, Artie was bronzed?"

"What? No, MacPherson."

"And MacPherson and HG are…?"

"It's a long story." She shook her head. "The short version is that MacPherson was an ex-Warehouse agent—he used to be Artie's partner—who went darkside. Way darkside. He stabbed Artie and then blew him up."

"Blew him up?"

"He got better. And HG is HG Wells. She was a Warehouse agent in Warehouse 12—"

"Wait. HG Wells like the writer? The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, that HG Wells?"

"Right."

"Is a she?" That probably shouldn't be his major concern at the moment, but….

"Yeah. It kind of threw us at first too." She shrugged. "I liked her right up until she decided to end the world. But Myka stopped her, and then the Regents took her away somewhere. We don't know where."

"You're serious. About all of this." He didn't really need to ask, not when she'd been looking him in the eye the entire time, but he couldn't help himself.

"Yeah. I should find you some copies of the case files."

"I would appreciate that." Because every time that he thought he'd heard the weirdest thing possible about this place, something else came out of left field.

"One more question about your whole mess yesterday, though. What artifact did Pete knock over that started this whole thing? Because they must have been out of it to bronze you."

"I don't know, some kind of bouncy ball. Well, three of them, actually."

"Bouncy balls?" She shook her head. "What did the screen say?"

"What screen?"

"You know, those annoying electronic things that I spend half my life installing? I know all the aisles around the targeting coil have them so it shouldn't have been hard to check what the artifact does."

"Oh." He felt himself flush. "I didn't think to look."

She sighed. "Genius is never appreciated. All right, bouncy balls near the Targeting coil…juggling balls, maybe?"

"That would make sense," he said after a minute. "Like I said, there were three of them. Myka caught one, Pete caught two, and neither of them were wearing gloves."

"Well, WC Fields' juggling balls make people act drunk. And they are on one of the high shelves in the area."

"Drunk would match how they were acting when I found them," he agreed. "Pete insisted that they weren't, and he wasn't lying, but if it was an artifact that did it he might not have known."

She pushed herself to her feet. "We can check the records to see for sure. Come on, I can walk and talk at the same time. And anyway we need to plot revenge." A pause. "I can make their phones play the Macarena for hours on end if you want."

He felt himself start to grin. "I think you would, too."

"Of course. I told you, bronzing other agents is not cool. Being totally out of it at the time still doesn't make it okay."

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it, all right? I know what happened now, and at least they weren't themselves when they did it. It's over and done with so I'm okay with forgetting about it unless they bring it up."

"All right," she said after a minute. "I guess it is your call." She glanced up as they turned the corner. "What were you saying earlier about Pete taking his shirt off?"

He shook his head. "We're not talking about that."

She grinned. "Come on, give me something."

"Never going to happen. Ever."