What is a regular update schedule? I'm not sure I actually know. So thank you guys for putting up with my weirdness. Anyway, read, enjoy, review if so inclined.

Myka woke up with a start. She whipped her head around, scanning the room quickly for whatever had woken her so suddenly. There was nothing there, though. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. She bit the inside of her lip. Why had she jerked awake like that? It wasn't like she had a nightmare or anything even close. The only nightmare was the fact that she was still stuck here and not at home with Helena.

Myka looked around once more, this time looking for things disturbed instead of actual people. Everything looked the same as her eyes swept the room. She sighed. She was probably just being paranoid because of the whole Artie thing. It was nothing. Something had just startled her awake. It was late enough in the morning that someone could be moving about and made enough noise to jolt her out of her sleep.

She sighed and got up and got ready for the day, opting for the most comfortable clothes that she owned. There was no need for anything more when she was just going to be sitting at the kitchen table all day again. She looked back at her bed just as she was walking out the door and pursed her lips. Myka walked in the room again and grabbed a pillow before exiting the room and heading downstairs.

The pillow helped the mild discomfort her back was feeling after days of sitting in the same position for hours at a time. Leena shot her an amused smile as she set a plate of breakfast in front of her. Myka blushed slightly and shrugged. The chairs weren't exactly very comfortable.

Pete drifted in a few minutes later looking like he was more sleep walking than actually awake. He perked up a little when Leena put a plate in front of him, but not as much as normal. Myka titled her head and looked over at him.

"What's wrong, Pete?" she asked.

"Nothing." Pete yawned. "Just couldn't sleep." He shrugged. "Happens sometimes. Marine memories."

Myka nodded, understanding. "Oh, okay."

Leena sat a cup of coffee beside him and patted him on the shoulder once before drifting back into the kitchen proper once again. Pete sipped the liquid without adding anything. Myka winced. He hated black coffee. It must have been a really bad night.

They ate breakfast in silence. Artie came in grabbed a plate and left. The whole entire time that he was in the room Myka's muscles involuntarily tensed up. Her back was ramrod straight and the fork kept traveling to and from her mouth in almost jerky robotic motions. She prayed that he would get out of there quickly, her back muscles felt like a thousand tiny needles were being poked through them.

When he finally left she breathed a sigh of relief and slumped forward. She could practically feel Leena's eyes on her, but she chose to ignore her. Myka was not ready to face him. No matter what Leena or even Helena said she did not feel like she could do this. Shoot a target thirty feet away ten times through the bull's-eye? That she could do. Talk about feelings…that was debatable at best. She had spent years bottling everything up. Why did everyone now think it was so easy for her to just let everything go and talk? Perhaps Helena had a little more of a reason, she had after all finally cracked and admitted her feelings for the Brit and was now having no trouble expressing her feelings, but that was different. Leena had no reason at all to think that she was just the master of feelings.

Myka scratched at the back of her neck and stood, taking her empty plate to the sink, avoiding eye with Leena diligently. She sat back down at the table again and set to work once more reading through a pile of files that she had pulled from yet another box. She was going to have to tell Helena what new boxes they had broken into to keep her up to date with everything. Her brow scrunched in displeasure as she lightly chided herself for not saying something about the files last night during their dream. She didn't even know if the boxes matched up in Helena's universe yet. Still, she memorized the numbers of the boxes they'd gone through anyway.

The rest of the day any time that Artie came in Myka tensed up. And every time she felt Leena looking at her. Artie himself seemed to remain oblivious to the whole thing, for which Myka was thankful. She didn't want any confrontations with him. Hell, she didn't even want to be alone in the same room as him right this second. But at least with Pete and Leena in the room that wasn't a problem for the moment.

Around midday though Pete left, muttering excuses about trying to nap to offset some of the sleep deprivation. As much as Myka tried not to begrudge him that after a rough night, she still felt a little abandoned. But it wasn't as if he knew the whole thing that had happened yesterday. Myka was sure if he did he wouldn't have left her side. Leena, however, she didn't trust not to disappear at the drop of a hat next time Artie appeared in the room.

Tension started to creep back into her muscles slowly bit by bit. She waited and waited for Artie to show up once more and for Leena to suddenly not be beside her or puttering around the kitchen. By the time he actually did walk in Myka felt like she was going to snap right then and there.

She glanced up at him and then quickly back down at the file. Myka reigned in the urge to flip around and look for Leena. She already knew she was gone or at least would be ignoring whatever was going on between the two others in the room hard enough that it would be like she wasn't there anyway.

Myka desperately hoped that Artie would just walk back out the door the same way he had been all day. Just a quick pop in to grab a sandwich, a glass of water, whatever and then immediately leave. But of course it seemed he wanted to be left alone with Myka just as much as Myka wanted the opposite. He sat down in his usual chair almost across from her, looking somehow pleased even though he was wearing his normal scowl.

"Glad to see you haven't tried to go on anymore excursions today."

"Yeah, well it wasn't like you were going to let me go anywhere near that room, we both know it." Myka felt like she was about to vibrate out of her skin. She didn't even know muscles could get this tense without snapping.

Artie nodded. "True enough." He looked up at her. "You'll thank me, you know."

Myka's hands clenched into fists. "Are you kidding me? I'll thank you for calling me insane and trying to trap me here in a universe that I don't belong in? In what world does that even make sense?"

"In a world that you realize you really have made it all up. You'll thank me for snapping you out of it." Artie sat back and crossed his arms.

"No, Artie, I won't. Because the world you're talking about? That's a totally different world. Here the pen has registered as an honest to god artifact. I am not lying. I am not the one who's had a psychotic break." Myka shot him a significant look.

"And you think I have?"

"What do you think, Artie? We're a team here and you've gone and betrayed my trust. I know we haven't always had the most trusting relationship, but we've worked something out. But it doesn't feel like it right now. If you trusted me you would believe me, but you don't. Funny thing is, that when I did think Helena was dead, you got it. You were supportive. You tried to help. But the second it wasn't true? It was like a switch just flipped in you and you became this…resentful monster."

"I did not."

"You did Artie. You really did. And I know that McPherson was special to you. And I know he hurt you and left you. And I know that his apology hurt you as much as it helped you. God, the hallucinations I had of Sam under the influence of certain artifacts were horrible, even the ones after I finally accepted that I wasn't the cause of his death. The ones where he told me that it wasn't my fault? Those were almost worse in a way, because then everything was fixed again…except for the fact that he wasn't there. But eventually, they hurt less and less because I moved on. I accepted that he wasn't coming back just as I accepted that it wasn't my fault that he died. And because I moved on I could actually see Helena as she was, someone who could love me, when she appeared."

"But she's gone."

"But she isn't."

"She is, you're just refusing to admit it."

Myka took a deep breath. "No. She's not. Do you ever think that the recording of McPherson on the pocket watch was just a delusion of yours? Do you ever question it for one second?"

"I have, yes."

"Yeah, I do too. And what's the conclusion you always come back to?"

"That it has to be real because even I couldn't come up with something so James as to put a miniature projector in a pocket watch ten years before the technology was even available to do so."

"You took that projector apart piece by piece, didn't you?"

Artie nodded.

"You see, I keep going over everything that happened in the other universe and this one and the one that Helena and I seem to inhabit in our dreams, and you know the conclusion that I come to?"

Artie's hands fell to grip at the table. "What?"

"That I literally couldn't have come up with so much detail for a delusion. That every single sign points back to everything being true. At first it was difficult to accept. I did really think I was insane for a good long while, but I know I'm not. I have evidence, Artie, concrete evidence that you're trying to tamper with, to destroy."

"If the pen's destroyed then maybe you'll be able to break the delusion."

"Artie, that's not how it works. I was delusional I'd have to break the delusion myself, not just have some object destroyed. The only thing breaking the pen does is strands me here. How would you feel if you had the one thing that could reunite you with McPherson and someone was trying to destroy it because they didn't think that it was possible? How would you really feel?"

Artie just scowled at her.

"Yeah, you would hate it. Artie, I've been ripped away from one person I've loved. Nearly ripped away from another twice. I'm not about to let someone come in-between Helena and I now that we're almost on the other side of all the shit we've had to go through just to be together. I'm not delusional. I'm in love. And sometimes those are the same thing." Again Myka looked at Artie. "Because love…it breaks as easily as it builds and it does so much damage when it does shatter. But what I have is strong. Because I let go of that old love. I still love Sam in a way. But he's not my be all end all anymore. McPherson shouldn't be yours. Artie, it's the 21st century. You could find someone else if you just let yourself. And that wouldn't mean that you love him any less, but it would mean that you let go of the painful parts once and for all. McPherson would want that. That was what he was trying to do sending you that apology, trying to help you let go of the hurt he caused. And you know what the first step of trying to let go? You don't destroy the pen. You don't prevent me from going home. You let me stay until we find a way to save the Warehouse. And you let me go home to the woman I love."

Myka pushed her chair back and stood, towering over Artie. "Because maybe for once instead of trying to make someone else feel the pain your love cause, maybe you should try to let them see how good it made you feel instead."

She turned and left the room, retreating to her bedroom for the rest of the day.