MykaCat settled into life at the B&B quickly and surely. Like all cats, she appeared as though she owned the place, moving about where and when she pleased... though like her human counterpart, she could often be found haunting the library or snoozing in Helena's lap. While they all missed human Myka terribly, it took no time at all for the inhabitants of Leena's B&B to fall completely in love with MykaCat - except perhaps for Leena herself...
Pete and Helena had been sent on a mission. It was to be a quick snag, bag and tag at an antique store a few towns over, but still, Helena was reluctant to leave. The reality of Myka's condition and her own singular role in her restoration had hit Helena and she did not want to leave her alone. After four attempts to sneak MykaCat into the car, however, Pete had rescued the thoroughly ruffled feline and delivered her back into the B&B under the watchful eye of Leena.
If Helena was opposed to the idea of having a cat as a pet, Leena was opposed to cats in general and, after Helena, was the one who was the most eager to restore Myka to her human form. It was hard enough, sometimes, to look after this rag tag collection of agents; make sure they slept enough, ate proper meals and didn't fall apart from the sheer insanity of their daily lives. Everything was made much harder when covered with a thick layer of cat fur.
Leena had accepted the extra vacuuming into her routine, she had learnt to deal with MykaCat joining them at the table, sitting primly on Helena's lap, she had even grown accustomed to her friend's trailing off mid-conversation, hypnotised by some apparently adorable feline manoeuvre MykaCat was currently engaged in. But on this day Leena's waning patience gave out. The sound of tearing fabric was surprisingly loud, carrying far into the next room as MykaCat's sharp claws shredded the leg of the lounge.
It was the last day MykaCat spent alone in the B&B with Leena.
MykaCat fared far better in the warehouse, her destructive catty tendencies never surfacing. Artie believed that the ambient energies of the multitude of artifacts worked together to mute the effect of the Bast artifact. Helena, however, was of the opinion that Myka simply felt more comfortable here in the Warehouse, it being the place she was often the most happy.
Since her banishment from the B&B during the day, MykaCat had been bundled up with the agents every morning, but, far from being content to be the warehouse's temporary but much loved mascot, she had taken to striding down the aisles with purpose, joining Claudia in her never ending stock taking. No amount of admonishing would make her - or Claudia, who thought it wonderfully entertaining - stop. Thankfully, MykaCat was content to stay off the shelves, and was actually quite in tune with the warehouse's eccentricities, often hissing any wayward artifacts back into place before they had a chance to misbehave.
When she tired of this roaming, however, MykaCat would always return to the same place - atop Artie's piano, one leg and that perpetually twitching tail hanging from above. Artie did not approve of her apparently favourite resting place - which was, no doubt, the very reason she favoured it so.
Hours were wasted with Artie's fruitless shooing, his force removal of her to the floor (resulting in the clearly spiteful move to sit directly upon the keys), and his plaintive looks at Helena - who enjoyed the show far too much to interfere.
After hearing Leena's decree, Artie had let MykaCat into the warehouse, but he was an old bear of a man and was often cranky at anything that disrupted his usual routine. It was clear, however, that just like human Myka, MykaCat had a special pull on Artie, and she seemed to enjoy provoking him whenever possible. She seemed to take immense kitty satisfaction whenever she was able to draw him from his work, to the point where he would, begrudgingly, pet her awkwardly.
And so it was that MykaCat came to spend her afternoons with Artie. He claimed MykaCat to be a nuisance, one who evilly delighted in pouncing on his pen and blocking the computer screen at the most inopportune moments. And yet for all his complaints, Helena had found him, on more than one occasion, conversing with the cat when he thought no one was around. Propped up on the piano, MykaCat would watch, entranced by his fingers flying over the keys below as Artie quietly discussed everything from the current mission and their team to the correct wrist movement of the perfect arpeggio.
Helena wasn't sure how much Myka understood in this state, but it was obvious that, if nothing else, she was soothed by the gruff growl of Artie's voice. It warmed Helena's heart to know, to see so clearly, that there were others who loved Myka as much as she, who would be there to comfort her if ever she could not be.
Pete took to MykaCat with all his usual subtlety. There was no doubt that he missed his partner immensely, both in and out of the field, but he was compensating this loss by subjecting the poor creature to an inordinate amount of attention. Helena did not know if he had had a pet as a child, but she truly hoped that he had not, for it's sake if nothing else.
Pete fashioned small, cat sized hats and socks from his own wardrobe - cutting the fingers from his gloves to pull over her little paws. Nothing was sacred, with even Claudia's Star Wars bear having it's robes and tiny lightsabre repurposed and becoming clothing for the ever suffering cat. To her credit, MykaCat endured it with good humor, with Pete suffering only a minimum of scratches.
Helena's efforts to make him stop were half-hearted at best, because it was clear that he truly did miss his friend. The man was a big kid with an even bigger heart, Helena knew, with his days divided between his work, the sibling war he seemed to be engaged in with Claudia and his loving torment of MykaCat. And, to be fair, the trauma he was subjecting MykaCat to was not truly any different to the treatment he would have given its human counterpart - it just so happened that MykaCat was smaller and therefore ill equipped to evade the crazy man with the tiny Jedi outfit.
There came a night, however that MykaCat did not join Helena at her work table, nor did she appear from whomever had been pampering her to follow Helena up the stairs to their room. Helena had changed for bed and drawn back the covers waiting for her to arrive and yet still she had not. Grabbing Myka's thick flannel robe from the back of the door (far cozier than Helena's own satin one on the accompanying hook), she set out to find her.
There were difficulties to living in a household full of adults, and one the number one concern for all involved was that of privacy. As such, there was nothing more sacred than a closed door. Pete's door, however, had been left open just enough to let the light fall out across the landing, the sound of some gratuitous violence falling from his TV.
Slipping inside, Helena was stopped by the sight before her. Pete had clearly fallen asleep midway through the movie, but not before he had built a little nest of bedding for his companion. MykaCat, however, had abandoned his construction, and the now thoroughly knotted ball of yarn from Leena's stockpile (Helena made a note to do something nice for the poor woman soon) dangling over the side of the bed. Seeking warmth or comfort, the cat had curled her small body between mattress and Pete's ribs. At some point in his sleep Pete had curled his body around the cat protectively.
Helena had discovered the pair, and sometimes Claudia, in similar positions several times over the months she had been living here in the B&B, and she had always thought (perhaps ironically given Myka's current state) that they had reminded her of a litter of puppies, drawn together and ultimately dropping from their shared excited exhaustion. This was a part of Myka's world to which she did not belong, this give and take comprised of equal parts love, protection and provocation, but she found that she didn't mind so much.
Standing in the doorway she watched as Pete gave off a snore, no doubt induced by the awkward angle he was sleeping in. MykaCat opened her eyes slowly at the disruption and Helena's heart warmed as those green eyes, still oh so Myka, locked onto hers. MykaCat gave her a soft mewl and Helena nodded as she turned off the TV and returned to her room quietly.
'He needed me tonight,' it said. 'He is better now, but he needed me."
Helena understood her just fine.
It was quite clear from the outset that MykaCat preferred Helena's company above all others - it was her lap that she would curl up into at every opportunity, her ankles that she wound around again and again as if marking her territory clearly against any potential interlopers. Not that any of the others were surprised by this, mind; Myka had been fascinated by and enamoured with every aspect of Helena's existence since her arrival in their time.
Despite MykaCat's obvious preference, however, the rest of her odd little family enjoyed the company also, and tended to rebel whenever Helena and her new little shadow retired to their bedroom of an evening. And so it came to be that every night after dinner the inhabitants of the B&B would gather, one by one, in the lounge. On this particular evening, Claudia was the first to bound into the lounge, forgoing Leena's offer of hot chocolate for the opportunity to snag the best seat.
Helena was last to arrive having had to wheedle the location of her tea leaves out of Pete (the latest in their ongoing coffee/tea debate) and then stand by Leena as they made their hot beverages together. By the time her leaves had steeped to their fullest, all the others had taken up their preferred placement around the room.
Usually by this time, MykaCat could be found roaming from person to person, her surprisingly heavy footfalls skipping from one lap to the next as she gave each of her people their due love and attention (or, translated into feline, giving them all the chance to give HER due love and attention). Tonight, however, MykaCat appeared to be having some sort of fit, darting sharply from side to side, before dropping low to the ground and issuing a determined snarl.
Helena abandoned her tea on the side table, not even slowing to ensure it had made purchase on the surface, rushing forward with her heart in her throat. What was happening? Had the effects of the artifact gone on too long? Was the stress of the transformation too much? It was all her fault. Myka had depended on her - on HER - and she had let her down, and now there was nothing she would ever be able to do to make it up to her.
The sound of laughter pulled Helena up short. Claudia, Pete, Leena - even Artie, who had been spending more time at the B&B lately - they were all joining in a happy chuckle.
Now closer, Helena could see that MykaCat was not having a seizure, but was, in fact, quite happily attacking a bright red spot on the ground, pouncing around the room as Claudia moved the laser pointer from one surface to another.
"What is going on here?" Helena asked, her tone a little sharper than she had intended, but since she had just bypassed a near heart attack she figured it was forgivable.
Claudia glanced over at her, and even in the scant seconds she afforded her, Helena could see the glee on the young woman's face. It was rare that Claudia did anything for sheer in-the-moment pleasure, despite Pete and Myka's attempts to guide her in that direction. She had certainly not shown anything close to this degree of pleasure since Steve's passing.
"Aw, mum, we're just playing," she said. "She likes it, look."
With that, she moved the light slightly from side to side, MykaCat watching it intensely, before flicking it up to land squarely on Artie's forehead. There was a short beat in which for Artie to realise exactly what was happening, but since MykaCat had not hesitated in her movements it did him little good. Her claws hooked into the linen of his trousers as she scrambled up his legs, over his lap and up onto his shoulders in order to reach the offending spot. Despite his attempts to glare at her, not even Artie could resist the gales of laughter that came from Claudia as MykaCat hung, belly on the top of Artie's head, in order for her paws to bat at the spot.
MykaCat didn't look confused when the spot disappeared, as Helena had expected her to, but rather just gave them all what looked like an indulgent look.
Reaching behind the cushion, Claudia called for Helena's attention, "Actually, HG, if you don't mind, I've made her something." She pulled out what looked like a modified grappler. Helena had been working on updating the device and had several discarded models lying about her workbench; it seemed that Claudia had appropriated one for her own use.
Depressing the trigger, they all watched as a ball of tightly wound yarn flew from the end (Helena was relieved to see that it was the same yarn Pete had confiscated earlier, though she avoided Leena's eyes all the same). MykaCat pounced on it immediately, her earlier frenetic movements overshadowed by this new display of joy. Flipping a toggle she had installed on the butt of the device, Helena watched as Claudia's ingenuity allowed for the yarn to return to the barrel, winding itself as it did so.
Helena laughed in delight, "That is marvellous, Claudia darling. Perhaps I should be enlisting you with my modification attempts in future."
Claudia's grin grew even wider under the praise, and Helena reminded herself just how young Claudia was, and how much she needed her. Looking around the room and the smiling happy faces, she revised her thoughts: needed all of them.