Disclaimer: Error 404: rights to "Warehouse 13" not found.
AN: This needs to be more Artifacty. Sorry if this is late getting up. I'm currently typing it while my best friend drives us to Monterey for the day. Maybe I'll find a cutlass… hmm…
… you make me happy…
Chapter Eleven: Lackluster
Myka pretended to sleep as Pete drove them to Fresno to visit Kurt and Amanda for the weekend, thinking of how the previous three weekends had gone for them.
They drove down the first weekend after school started as well. Myka had been a little nervous, but no more than usual. It wasn't as if she and Kurt hadn't seen each other the week previous, talked every night on the phone. She was happy to be seeing him, but not as excited as Pete thought she should be. He had been practically bouncing in the passenger seat, excited to see his girlfriend because the Skype dates weren't enough for him. He wanted to hold her hand while they spoke, to feel her skin on his. The first week of school away from her had been the longest seven days of his life.
Amanda and Pete spent the weekend alone together, "catching up." As if anyone didn't know what they really meant. Amanda's roommate had kept herself occupied out of the apartment from Friday to the end of Sunday.
Kurt spent the weekend taking his girlfriend to different parties, showing off her beauty as an accessory while unconsciously being sure no one knew she was anything more than a pretty face and killer legs. Myka didn't mind being paraded around so much, or not talking to Kurt's friends, she had grown accustomed to it over the summer, and spent the weekend texting HG and Claudia anyway.
The following weekend, it was Amanda and Kurt's turn to make the Drive up to Fairview. This made Myka a little more anxious and she spent most of Friday glad she didn't have a class and cleaning her apartment top to bottom. Pete even helped, equally nervous about Amanda seeing it for the first time.
Helena had been at the apartment, sitting on the bed, observing Myka flip out as her daughter ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the counter.
"I thought his fraternity was a pig sty?" She commented as Myka whirled around her, "What would it bother him if you have your books unalphabetized?"
Myka didn't answer, knowing HG wouldn't appreciate what she had to say, and it would just cause her to get that look in her eye. The one that made her look as if she smelled something rotten. Myka felt like she was still trying to impress Kurt, which included having a nice apartment.
HG was leaving with Christina when Amanda and Kurt arrived, so she stepped to the side to allow them through the doorway.
"Hey, Helena!" Amanda greeted with a smile, "Who's this little girl?"
HG smiled, she had a good feeling about Amanda, "This is Christina, my daughter. Say hi, darling."
Christina waved shyly, but smiled up at Amanda brightly.
"You got a kid?" Kurt's voice had HG tensing automatically, he dumped his bags on the living room couch, "Who knocked you up?"
Amanda rolled her eyes, "Ignore him, Helena, trust me. I've had to listen to him tell me dumb blonde jokes for the last two and a half hours."
"I just mean, you look good for a mom," Kurt insisted as he began to look around the movie and game shelf, "You're a total milf."
Helena quirked an eyebrow and looked to Amanda for translation, but the blonde shook her head in a "you don't wanna know" gesture.
"Right then," HG nodded, "I'll just be going then, Pete should be home soon, I believe Steven is out for the evening with Claudia, and Myka is just getting out of the shower now. She told me to tell you to make yourselves comfortable."
When she finally got out the door, Kurt was sitting down in front of the game console and Amanda was putting her bag in Pete's room. Claudia told her later what 'milf' meant, and never before had Helena felt so simultaneously disgusted and angered by a single comment meant to be a complement.
Pete and Amanda managed to leave Pete's room a few times to go on a double date and socialize, but Steve had to keep his stereo on most of the weekend regardless.
Now, Myka wasn't exactly thrilled to be in Fresno. Kurt had been distant this week, not that Myka noticed, having been equally distant with him. It felt like a chore waking up that morning to pack for the weekend trip.
She knew it was Nate's weekend with Christina, so she was sure to have Steve know to look out for weirdness happening across the street. She also double checked to make sure there was actual food in his kitchen, having been let in by Christina, her father still passed out in his room from the night before, so she was left to mostly fend for herself. Myka made sure that the milk and juice was on a low shelf in the fridge, and her snacks could be reached on the shelves so she wouldn't risk hurting herself by climbing on the counter tops.
"If Nate doesn't wake up before lunch time," Myka told the girl as she was leaving, "Call me and I'll have Steve bring you some food, okay, kiddo? And don't answer the door for anyone except Mom, Steve or Claudia, okay?"
"I know Myka." Christina nodded seriously, "You know, I like having you live close to me. It's like I have three parents." She looked over her shoulder to Nate's closed bedroom door, "Or, at least two."
Myka sighed, one month down, seventeen to go. She found herself counting the days along with Helena until she would be before the judge again. Myka was looking into custody case files, trying to figure out how to help her friend. Short of Nate relinquishing paternal rights, it was going to be messy no matter what.
Friday evening was awkward for Myka. She couldn't keep her mind on anything. Not really difficult since they were at another house party with Kurt's friends, but noticeable to the other girlfriends trying to converse with her.
Kurt's boisterous personality was beginning to grate her nerves. His laugh making her want to punch him sometimes. But she knew it was only because her head was somewhere north. Things used to be so easy with Kurt, now all she could think about was getting back home to Christina and HG. It being Nate's weekend meant HG was going to work herself into the ground and Christina would be lucky to get more than Lucky Charms to eat. She was extremely worried for them both, keeping her phone held tightly in her hand, determined not to miss a text or call.
By Saturday midmorning, Myka was praying for a distraction from the extremely tedious duty of being Kurt's arm candy. And it came, with Amanda asking Pete and Myka to go with her to the school's theater where there was practice for a play that wasn't set to open until the spring. Amanda was on the build team that made the sets, but she knew Myka liked Shakespeare and was able to get them in for a practice. Kurt elected not to join them, having better things to do then watch the director yell at the new actors.
As Myka watched the actors and actresses from the left side of the stage, her head on her knees as she said the lines for Othello under her breath along with the actors. At one point, when the actress playing Desmonda forgot her line, and the person supposed to be calling them out for the actors was distracted backstage, it was Myka who called out the words for her.
She was enjoying herself thoroughly. As was her best friend who was torn between watching his girlfriend work in her element, and watching the drama that had nothing to do with Shakespeare unfold. Two passive aggressive girl fights, a begrudged students sulking and one thrown screwdriver later, the only casualty was Pete's phone, and that's because he tripped over a tool box and it fell from his pocket into a bucket of paint.
About an hour into the practice, the actress playing Desmonda stormed off the stage in a fit of premodona anger. So they started the scene over without her, excepting her to enter the stage on her cue.
When she didn't, the actor playing the Cassio repeated his line louder, "Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits. And bring all Cyprus comfort!"
Emilia, Iago and Rodrigo looked over their shoulders for Desmonda. But when she didn't appear, they began to sway uneasily and look to the director.
"Oh for christs sake!" he shouted, "Where is my Desmona! Let's go!"
The acress stumbled on stage, looking around fearfully, grabbing at her wrist, then neck.
"There you are!" the director sighed dramatically, "Well?"
The actress fell against a prop with flourish, "Oh Antony..nay..I will take thee too." Her voice was thick, as she looked out to where the crowd would be before letting her head fall back.
"Oh come on!" The director threw down his copy of the script, "Is it too much to ask that you all remember the lines from the correct fucking play!? Stacy, you are Desmonda!"
But the actress didn't move from her pose, so the director yelled at her again. Still there was no response.
The stage hand behind the prop she was leaned against came around to her under the death glare of the director. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook her. Stacy's head lolled to the side, and now two small puncture wounds could be seen bleeding on her neck. Myka sat up straighter.
The stage hand put his fingers to the other side of her throat, "oh god!" he pulled back suddenly, "She's dead!"
There was a brief moment where everyone, including Myka, thought he was joking. But when it became clear he wasn't, a small panic ensued. The director's assistant was the one to calm the actors and get them away from Stacy as an ambulance was called.
Pete was standing next to Myka and Amanda as the EMT's wheeled Stacy's covered body away.
"That was… weird, right?" Pete asked his best friend, who's only response was to nod.
A feeling nagged at them both as they exchanged a look.
"I'm gonna go make a phone call." Myka told them absently as she stepped away.
Claudia answered on the third ring, "Hey Mykes! How's the valley? Enjoying the smog?"
"I can feel my lungs slowly dying as we speak," Myka rolled her eyes, "Listen, can yu do me a favor? Are you near your computer?"
"Are you kidding me?" she could practically feel the sarcasm oozing from the other end of the phone, "What do you need?"
"I need you to run your curiosity program?" she whispered, looking around to be sure no one ws listening in, "See if you get a ping in Fresno."
There was a pause on the other end, all Myka could hear was the techie breathing, "I thought we were out of the curiosity hunting business? Remember? Scary agents? Life and death situations? Any of this ringing a bell?"
Myka sighed as she leaned from one foot to the other, "That vacation was never supposed to be permanent, Claud. We were just supposed to lay low for a while."
It was quiet again on Claudia's end, Myka knew she would have to push her a little harder. Claudia still hadn't really gotten over the near death experience if what Helena told her was true. But she also knew how much fun Claudia had over spring break.
"I feel like this might be something that needs to be dealt with by one of us," Myka told her, "And besides, you can't tell me you don't miss it."
"That doesn't mean I miss the danger Mykes."
"A girl died, Claudia," Myka poke quickly now, "So, if this is something the police aren't going to be able to solve, she deserves to have us at least look into it."
"Okay, okay," Claudia sighed, "I'll run the system to sweep, but it'll take about an hour to run through the variables."
"That's fine," Myka nodded, "Pete and I will poke around a bit."
"Okay, be careful, Mykes." Claudia said sternly.
"I always am." Myka said cheerfully before hanging up.
She sent a quick text to HG before turning to find her best friend to catch him up.
Helena was completely fried. Between school, work at Leena's and taking care of Christina, she was often running on fumes.
Her daily coffee dates with Myka were the only things that kept her going most of the time, that's why the weekends were always so hard on her. It worked so that her weekends without Christina were the same weekends it was Myka's turn to make the trip south to visit Kurt. She spent those weekends working a double shift and getting lost in rebuilds so she wouldn't have to think about either loss for too long.
She was working when her phone buzzed in her pocket so she ignored it.
Working at Leena's was harder than she thought most times. Keeping up the fake smiles hurt her face, customers were often rude and demanding, and the work was as monotonous as it was exhausting.
Despite the nature of her work, Helena took pride in it. If you were going to do something, you had to do it right. That was one of the few values HG's parents had managed to program her with. So she had memorized the menu the first day, so she knew it forwards and backwards, could answer any question, and the regulars who knew that sometimes liked to test that fact for fun. She didn't mind that. Regulars tended to tip her more than sporadic patrons and new visitors.
Thanks to the time she spent questioning Pete about his sister, Helena also had a basic understanding of American Sign Language, and because of that, a deaf student by the name of David now frequented Leena's. He was one of Helena's favorite customers, and even if he wasn't sitting in her section, she always took the time to have a conversation with him.
There were always a few unbearable customers. The ones who made it their mission to torment the workers who served them. Helena mostly made due with putting on a polite smile, taking the abuse silently to their faces and swearing vehemently in French in the kitchen while she waited for her orders. When one patron tripped her, after sending her back to the kitchen three times to fix the order, claiming she had gotten it wrong even though she had perfect recall even without the notepad, she learned about how her coworkers dealt with it.
She was the newbie. Her position had been held by four different people before her in the last six months alone. So the other workers, the hostesses, cooks, baristas, waiters and waitresses, and busboys, often distanced themselves. That is, until Helena had proved herself to them.
So while she dripped a plate that shattered on impact, the busboy on duty rushed to sweep it up while the dining area clapped at her misfortune and she blushed deeply. She worked to control her anger while she wiped her hands on her apron.
"Careful there, doll." The man said as his tablemates high fived him.
Unfortunately, he was one of her regulars. Always ended up in her section because none of the other wait staff wanted him and she was the new girl. But now that Helena was one of them, they began to help her.
He sat in a different section every time, his food, while always made perfectly, was always delivered after his table mates had nearly finished with their orders. He never received a refill unless he asked specifically, his chair was almost always bumped or jostled "accidently" as he ate. It was passive aggressive warfare. Not at all what Helena was used to, but she joined in on it. Whenever he would tell her something snarky, she had a quick come back that left him baffled, wondering what she just said as his friends laughed in his expanse.
When he finally complained to Leena, she told him if he had a problem, he could stop eating there every day. There was a mini celebration when he stopped showing up and the other staff began to treat her as an equal, having beat her first pain in the ass customer. Suddenly, she had more… well not exactly friends, but people she could stand to talk to on a daily basis.
And she had been speaking to Leena a lot more. About her growing stress over money and Christina. About her hatred for her ex. About her ridiculous course load. About her lack of sleep. About Myka…
As promised, Leena didn't act like a therapist for Helena, but she did advise her a lot. Drop a few classes, choice hours for the diner, assurance that yes Nate was an awful person, to go to bed at an earlier time and stop drinking so much coffee. And she was trying to get Helena to confess her for Myka aloud without telling her to do so.
Helena just spent so much time gushing over whatever she and Myka did together that it was obvious to pretty much everyone who worked with her. The other wait staff actually had a pool going, seeing how long it would be before Helena and Myka were a couple.
Helena wasn't looking forward to a quiet night without her friend or her daughter, so she worked three back to back shifts, only getting away with it because Carl called in sick and they were short staffed for the dinner rush. She kept herself extremely busy the whole time.
So it wasn't until she returned to her dorm where a mountain of work awaited her, homework and back logged repairs, that she checked her phone. She walked through the door as she frowned at the dead screen of her mobile.
"How long are these things supposed to keep their charge?" She asked her roommate who was sitting at her desk bouncing her foot rapidly, her own repair load forgotten, "Do you think we could fix it to last longer than a single day?"
"Hm?" Claudia snapped her eyes up and they followed her roommates path to her own work station, "What?"
Helena held up her cell for Claudia to see, "This iPhone 5 you made me buy? It's about as useful as a paperweight right now." She mumbled as she plugged it into the outlet and the white apple logo appeared.
"Oh, so you haven't heard from… anybody? All day?" she asked, rising to her feet and worrying her hands in front of her.
"No, I've been at Leena's. Should I have?" She looked at the redhead closely, "What is it, Claudia?"
"Okay don't hate me," Her eyes were wide, and she held her hands up to HG in a pacifying manner, "Don't kill the messenger now, okay?"
"Out with it Claud," Helena crossed her arms over her chest and glared icily at Claudia.
"Something may," Claudia took a step back from the chill Helena was emitting, "Or may not, have happened to Myka…"
Helena's blood froze in her veins, "You have five seconds to explain yourself Claudia Donovan."
AN: By random coincidence, Fresno State is actually working on Othello to be premiered this spring, so…