It was suppertime at the bed and breakfast.

Steve was setting the table in the dining room and Pete was in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove.

"Dinner for three again, I assume?" Steve asked quietly.

Claudia, who lifted up her laptop as Steve placed a plate in front of her, answered, "Yeah. Myka's spending the evening in her room."

Steve nodded, left the room, and returned with utensils, which clinked against each other as he set them on the table. "Rough day today?"

Claudia shrugged. "If you ask me, we got the short stick of the day, chasing down Agnodice's swaddling cloth. Running interference in a hospital's hard, okay? Anyways, I think she and Pete just did inventory today."

"I dunno, I didn't even have to ask how she was doing to know she wasn't fine," Steve said. "Something was definitely on her mind when she got home this afternoon."

From the kitchen, Pete trumpeted, heralding supper. "Lady and gentleman," he began, carrying a saucepan into the dining room and setting it in the middle of the table. "I doth present…our dinner." He lifted the lid, revealing a steaming bowl of pasta with a hearty topping of tomato sauce.

"You didn't even burn the water, Pete," Claudia said, surveying the pot with wide eyes as she set her laptop off to the side. She tied her auburn hair—which she was letting grow out a little, time to mix it up a bit, she'd said—into a pony. "I'm impressed."

"Credit where it's due, milady," Pete replied. "Bon appétit!"

Pete was dangling a particularly long noodle over his mouth when something moved out of the corner of his eye. He froze and slowly turned his head to see just what had caught his attention.

"Mykes!" he exclaimed, dropping the noodle, which landed with a splat! on the side of his face.

Claudia and Steve turned in their seats. Myka stood mid-tiptoe in the hallway.

"Would you like some pasta?" Steve offered.

Myka turned to them and shrugged. "Just thought I'd make a cup of tea. Thanks, though."

She continued on into the kitchen, leaving the other three in concerned silence.

Claudia finally leaned in, which prompted Pete and Steve to do the same. "You guys, I'm serious, she looks like crap. Pete, can't you get her to eat something?"

Pete shrugged. "Says she hasn't been feeling well this week. Oh! Maybe it's, y'know…" He trailed off, his eyes widening as if they were supposed to be in on something. "Y'know…that time of the month?"

"Geeze, Pete, are you twelve? No, she's not pms-ing. She'd have hoarded the cookies by now," Claudia said with a roll of her eyes and pointed, indicating some leftover sauce on Pete's cheek.

They heard shuffling of feet and quieted when Myka stepped into the room, a cup of steaming tea in her left hand.

"It's okay, guys," she said with a small smile. "I'm fine. It's just been a rough week." She glanced down at the ring on her finger and looked up again quickly.

She started forward when—

"Oh good, you're all here," Mrs. Frederic announced, from the other side of the room. Pete almost fell out of his seat.

"I'm telling you, that'll never get old," Pete said under his breath as clambered back into his chair.

"Claudia," Mrs. Frederic said, approaching the table, "you can start the trace now."

Everyone looked from Mrs. Frederic to Claudia, who opened up her laptop, and back to Mrs. Frederic.

Myka frowned, unable to fight the old knot that was forming in her gut. She met Pete's gaze. He, too, appeared concerned, but more towards her than the fact that the warehouse caretaker had simply materialized in the dining room.

Myka panicked a little, could feel the blood leaving her face. Checklist. Claudia, Steve, Pete: check, check, check. Artie was at the warehouse…check. Helena…no check. All systems normal, she told herself, so why was her heart racing?

"What's wrong?" Myka finally asked, an unmistakable edge to her voice. Her breath was shallow.

"Not wrong, Myka," Mrs. Frederic said, almost smiling. "Something right. Agent Wells is coming home at last."

The sound of the ceramic teacup breaking as it hit the floor was loud in Myka's ears, almost as loud as the pounding of her heart. The room spun. Claudia's image melted into Steve's, who melted into the outline of Mrs. Frederic, who melted into the fuzzy blob she could've sworn was Pete a moment ago.

She was out before she hit the floor.

Night had fallen over South Dakota.

Myka sat on the edge of the bed, something she'd insisted on despite protests from everyone up to and including the newest addition to her bedroom, Dr. Vanessa Calder, wearing a more-than-slightly dazed expression and adamantly opposed to lying down. She was tenderly massaging the bump on the back of her head when Dr. Calder returned with a compress, which Myka only begrudgingly took. It's not that she wasn't grateful for the help, she just wasn't prone to indulging in being cared for.

"I'm fine. Really," Myka insisted. "It was just…low blood sugar or something."

Vanessa Calder ushered everyone out and took a seat on the edge of a chair beside the bed and shone a penlight in Myka's eyes. Satisfied with whatever she'd found or not found (true to doctor form, Myka noted, right down to that inscrutable expression seemingly required of all physicians, whom, Myka also noted, she'd had enough of to last two lifetimes) she sat back and pulled her reading glasses from the top of her head and perched them on her nose as she picked up and scanned the contents of the manila folder tabbed Bering, Myka O. in her hands.

"I might remind you," Dr. Calder continued conversationally, handing Myka a piece of candy, "that not so long ago you were toeing the line between life and death, which is something that this job expects you to experience on an almost-weekly basis. Any particular reason you're mentioning your recent lack of appetite and subsequent blood sugar crash, symptoms which possibly speak to a bigger issue and certainly warrants my concern, only after you inexplicably fainted?"

"Maybe because South Dakota's a little far from the CDC and I didn't want you to make the trip twice?" Myka offered sheepishly, staring at the candy in her hand. "And it wasn't inexplicably, okay? I was just…shocked. That's all."

"Thoughtful, Agent Bering, but unnecessary, as your health will always be my concern. If you were jockeying for Agent of the Month, well, I'm sure such thoughtfulness will not go unnoticed," Dr. Calder replied. "Eat that, you need glucose."

Myka sighed and unfolded the candy wrapper.

"Anyways," Dr. Calder continued, "given what Mrs. Frederic shared with me during your foray into unconsciousness, I'm to understand you have quite the reason to be shocked."

"I just…can't believe that after all this time…" Myka trailed off, tucking an errant curl behind her ear and slipping the hard candy into her mouth. "It's been a year and a half."

Dr. Calder looked up at her, nodding in understanding. "And how is the good Agent Wells?"

Myka looked down at the floor, which made her head spin. "Apparently, she's…she's okay." She folded her hands together. "Her birthday was yesterday."

Vanessa watched Myka closely over the top of her glasses. "Tell me, what's on your mind, Agent Bering?"

Myka considered the very real possibility of having a heart-to-heart. She just wasn't sure she was ready, wasn't sure she'd ever be. "Nothing," she sighed. "I'm sorry for making you come all the way out here this late."

Vanessa inclined her head, trying to regain Myka's gaze. "You said it yourself. I've already made the trip. This sounds like something you aren't able to discuss with the likes of Artie or even Agent Lattimer."

Myka glanced up and quickly looked away. She waited a moment before nodding silently.

"It's just, I've been thinking, y'know, since all this happened. There was a time when I entertained the idea of being closer to her. Physically, emotionally…" Myka's voice trailed off, as did her thoughts.

"She mentioned to me once, when we were hunting down an artifact and she'd just been reinstated as an agent, how she'd started thinking about her future, since she was out of the bronzer and had something of a new lease on life," Myka continued, taking a breath as she reorganized her thoughts. "She'd just spent over a hundred years mourning the loss of her daughter, which was as fresh on her mind when she left the bronzer as it when she went in. She said that sense of loss would never truly leave her, but made her wonder if time could heal such wounds."

Dr. Calder sat up a little higher in her chair and folded one leg over the other. She clasped her hands together atop the open file in her lap.

"It was such an innocent thing, then. To her…and to me," Myka said. Her eyes unfocused as she remembered. "'You were right about many things, Myka. You once said I didn't really want the world to end. You spoke the truth. Part of me wonders if the cosmos will forgive my past transgressions. To have another child, maybe even one with Christina's eyes...'"

Myka blinked, forced herself back into the present. "She had considered the possibility of having another child. Not to replace Christina, of course, but maybe to give herself hope. And…with the orchid, with the countless number of artifacts we've all been exposed to, with the bronzer. It's gotta take its toll sometime, right?" Myka asked, finally looking up to meet Dr. Calder's knowing gaze.

"It is possible," Vanessa said, removing her glasses and carefully folding them in her lap, "that, after all this time, an unquantifiable amount of damage was done, damage that we simply cannot assess because we lack the knowledge and the means."

Myka replied, her voice quiet, "So you're telling me MacPherson brought her back just so she could do his dirty work and if anything had happened to her during her time in the bronzer, those concerns were secondary to his goal and…" She sniffed. "Nobody asked her what she would've wanted."

"Well, considering what we now know about MacPherson, Helena wasn't in a position to bargain."

"I know," Myka replied. "If only I could've stopped her from getting a hold of the trident, maybe I could've asked her, but by then, there were more pressing matters. As always."

"Did you ever think maybe that was part of her motivation?" Vanessa asked, rising from her seat to she gather up her things. "That, not only was the future an unsafe place, but she realized she was just as enslaved in this time as she was during her own? That she would never have another chance to have a child?"

"There wasn't any time to think, Vanessa," Myka said, running a hand through her mussed curls. "Besides, the two weren't mutually inclusive. Whatever dreams she had of future children, she understood that maybe, just maybe, those dreams vanished when she put herself in the bronzer." Myka couldn't help but notice the bitterness in her voice.

"She bronzed herself for the sake of many people, Myka. In some ways, even for you, even if she had no way of knowing it then."

"But Helena was brought back to fight someone else's war," Myka said, desperation underlying her words. "And what does she have to look forward to?

"Had MacPherson given Helena the luxury of choosing to work for him or of marching off into the sunset of the future, do you think we would still be here, having this conversation?" Dr. Calder asked gently, but the sadness was evident in her eyes.

Myka looked thoroughly dejected. "We're not having this conversation," she said through a sigh. "It's—it's not important."

"Isn't it, though? Have you considered that maybe, all this time, she's waiting for you?" Vanessa asked, sounding remarkably sure of herself. "Waiting, and hoping that you'll come around and welcome her back and tell her everything you're telling me? Where do you think she is now?"

"She's coming home," Myka said quietly. "Mrs. Frederic said she was."

Dr. Calder continued, matching Myka's quiet tone. "Do you know what she was doing, all this time?" Myka shrugged.

"I think you do. There's a possibility that Helena really was out in the world fighting the good fight, not worrying about whatever children she might not have because she was too busy fighting for a world for whatever children you might have."

Vanessa watched as Myka shifted on the edge of the bed. It was obvious she would really rather be wearing a hole in the floor. "You either want her gone, whereabouts unknown so you can finally have the freedom to stop blaming yourself for her absence and relieve yourself of your fear that you can't give her the future she dreamed of, or you want her back here, home, because here is where she's safe, and here is where you can give each other a future. She has changed. And you know it. I believe it's time to make your decision."

"I guess…" Myka sniffed. "I just wanted someone else to feel about it all as I do. I mean, there's only so much worth living for."

"I think the both of you have the world and more to live for, Myka," Vanessa said, placing a reassuring hand on Myka's arm. "You'll never know if you don't take a chance. The result might surprise you."

Myka was silent, reveling in slipping the weight of the world off her shoulders for a moment. When it came right down to it, Myka granted, Vanessa Calder was a damn good sounding board.

Myka finally smiled at her. "And you expect me to believe you got all that from me fainting?"

"They didn't make me a warehouse doctor for nothin', y'know," Dr. Calder teased. "What's weighing on your mind goes far beyond medicine, Myka. You're right to wonder about these things. You are, after all, only human."

Myka made to stand up to see the doctor to the door, but Dr. Calder promptly stopped her, with a shake of her head. "Ooh, no you don't. I'll have Pete bring up something for you, which you will eat. Doctor's orders."

Vanessa added, with a smile, "Try and get some rest, Agent Bering. Tomorrow's a big day."

Myka watched the doctor leave the room. She sat back, feeling remarkably better than she'd done all week, and examined the ring on her finger. She sighed and crawled under the covers. The knot in her stomach had eased itself some and she was relieved to find she wanted to turn off the lamp. The darkness would not be bringing her nightmares tonight.