A/N: Spoiler Alert: There is going to be a bit of a plot, and at some point you won't feel like crying into a bucket of Ben & Jerry's after each chapter, k?
It's very quiet in the house and Claudia is trying really hard to keep it that way.
Since one of the things she has never been able to get used to is socks without shoes, her bare feet keep making small slapping noises against the stone floor of the kitchen.
It is the only sound apart from a bird singing absurdly loud out in the garden at this early hour.
The redhead scavenges the countertop for the stash of waterbottles that keeps shifting its location ever since Leena isn't keeping things in order any more.
If Pete buys them, he'll put them on the countertop, into the corner next to the sink, when it's Steve's turn, he'll put them atop the fridge, Myka's grocery runs usually end up with the bottles stacked neatly, three rows high on the floor, next to the garbage cans and dog snacks.
If Claudia comes along, she'll insist on buying a ten gallon container for saving on plastic and that will sit next to the fridge.
The psychiatrist is usually making an art out of stuffing them into the cooler.
But it's obviously been Pete's turn last, so Claudia grabs a bottle from where it is wedged against the wall and meanders over to the couch in the living room.
It's better to be sitting on a couch with a bottle of water at the crack of dawn, doing nothing, than lying in bed, staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night.
Claudia has had experience with both, and to be honest, she was planning on making herself some tea,or hot chocolate, but Helena's tea kettle is sitting in the sink, and that has made her heart skitter all over the place and her head spin in turmoil again, and she's decided that she simply can't deal with any hot beverages right now.
And waking people, who would then come down, while preparing some, is something she can deal with least of all at the moment.
So water it is.
And she is very careful to suppress any creaking from the plastic bottle while twisting the cap off and settling into the couch.
Helena is back.
If you're very quiet and concentrate very hard, you might even be able to smell or sense her in the potpourri smell of the Bed & Breakfast in a very Hannibal Lecter kind of way, but there are other clues that tell of the British inventor's whereabouts to the keen eyes of a Warehouse agent.
The intricately woven blazer hanging on the hallway rack.
Very British, very Helena.
Especially in the sweltering summer heat.
There are also the boots that are a tad bit smaller than Myka's by the door.
But most of all, it is the bag of loose tea no one ever touched since she left, sitting opened near the stove.
Claudia hasn't smelt Earl Grey in what seems like forever and it is the aroma of the bergamotte oil, that is slowly creeping back into every little nook and crevice of the Bed and Breakfast like motor oil seeping into a rusty machine.
The redhead sighs and hugs the embroidered couch pillow closer to herself.
To be honest, she loves having HG back.
She had tried not to listen when Myka and Pete had returned from Wisconsin a few months ago and she had certainly not counted the doors that had slammed shut on the SUV back then, full of hope.
One, Pete's forceful shove of the driver's side, two, Myka's guiding the door by the handle and pushing it shut on the last few inches with an audible click, a short while of hopeful heartbeats later another, softer, click, and the hydraulics of the trunk and her heart had sunk like stone when that, too, had been succesfully shut and only two pairs of legs had made their way up the steps of the B&B.
Pete had given her a look that had shut her up effectively before she could have even asked, and Myka's hair had been a wild mess, her eyes wide and full of tears, and she had not asked about Helena at all until Pete had filled her in later that night.
Pete had told her about the whole „Nate Situation" as they had come to call it, and well, Claudia had made good use of her newly won right to get herself soused.
So, gratefully, Helena has come to her senses at last.
It is seven am, and right about now, Leena woud be getting up and start making breakfast for all of them.
Claudia can't help but wonder what Leena would have had to say about all of their auras and their changing.
Leena would probably be putting on that freakishly old fashioned kettle while making coffee and apple pancakes simultaneously.
And Leena would start setting the table, with an extra setting for Helena, in between Claudia and Myka, with a typical beatific Leena smile.
And she would put extra sirup near Pete's plate, and extra butter on top of his pancakes, and Steve would sigh and bite back a comment about carbs and saturated fats and Artie would burst through the door and grumble half to himself and half to all of them, and he would spare Helena a side glance and a gruff „Welcome back." and Pete a reprimand about his table manners and all of them a curt good morning, and Myka would slap Pete's hand when he'd reach for the sirup next to her plate, just because it was „the real Canadian Stuff", and Helena would chuckle and start asking questions about the intricacies of Miracle whip and Trailer would look at her with big eyes and try to pretend not to be begging at the table when Artie would catch him, but then their boss would slip the dog a piece of pancake, and Leena would get up and get some dog snacks and some more coffee and she'd make a joke about the dog getting diabetes in the near future with Artie's baking and his cookies and everyone except Artie would laugh, and the world would be ok.
And it would be just as it should be.
Claudia doesn't notice that she is crying until she has the overwhelming need to empty her nose into the comforter she's wrapped herself in.
She pads back into the kitchen and finds some Bounty made from recycled paper and wipes the tears from her face and the snot from her nose.
An ugly crier.
That's what the kids at school said after her parents had died.
Her brother had been furious and had gone to the principal and even the parents of the kids in question, who had, predictably, felt rather embarrased and shitty about the whole matter of their evil offspring.
But then, her classmates had been right.
And while Claudia had never been much about appearances, she had learned to cry quietly and finally had stopped crying altogether.
After her brother had disappeared, there'd been simply too much hope and work to do, to cry.
And when Leena had passed...there had been a world to save.
But she feels her, Leena, in the B&B, every day.
It's as though a part of her essence, the part that had been irrevocably linked to the B&B and given it a life of its own, even when Leena was still alive, remains.
And Claudia wonders if it is going to be the same with Myka.
She can't help but wonder, if, with the passing years, it will be her,the youngest of them, on that couch, wrapped in that selfsame comforter, with the memory and company only of ghosts.
One would think that the more people you loose, you get better at it, like with jogging and riding a bike, or swimming,even, but fact seems to be the actual opposite.
Claudia doesn't know how to stand it.
She simply doesn't.
She has lain awake all night, and is sitting up all morning, because she can't figure out what to do about the plate and the seat at the table that is Myka's.
She can't bear putting another chair away and everyone scooting closer together, until they are going to take the same chair and set it back at the table again, so a stranger can sit in it, and everybody will pretend that it isn't weird as shit.
Or who is going to sit in Myka's spot during movie how they're going to look up translations at the Warehouse without crying nonstop.
She can't figure these things out.
She simply can't.
Of course, she could go down the sickly hopeful route and pretend that everything is going to be one hundred percent all right,a ok, that the treatments are going to stick, that Myka's going to be all well, and everything's going to be just fine.
But what's the chance of that happening exactly?
She had been so proud of brave and courageous and loyal Steve when he hadn't betrayed them and gone undercover for Sykes.
She had been so proud and so relieved and so sure of him..and then Steve got killed.
And she had been completely blindsided by Leena.
And she is not even going to go there with her parents and how long that took her to even understand, that they were gone for good and ever.
People die.
It is a fact.
Some sooner and some later, and she needs to get her shit together and pony up.
Because if it gets harder and harder instead of easier, maybe she needs to get stronger.
With that in mind, Claudia gets up and starts making coffee, and she starts making tea.
And then she fries bacon in a pan and eggs in another.
And she sets the table.
All of the places.
And she brings an extra chair.
For all of her future ghosts.
And when she is done, and she can hear Pete predictably crawl about upstairs at the smell of food, she scavenges around the kitchen for another roll of Bounty.
Because the other one is all gone, already.
All gone.