Title: Ours
Author: A. Windsor
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Characters: Myka Bering, HG Wells, Pete Lattimer, Max Lattimer, with supporting roles from everyone else.
Pairings: Myka/HG, Claudia/Leena if you're inclined to see it.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. My two years and a half of law school could allow me to legalese this a little more, but it also tells me it's pretty useless. So please don't sue; it's not mine, I'm just playing! And Max is mine, so please don't steal him!
Summary: Helena allows herself to want.
Author's Note: I hope people are still interested! This last semester of law school is slightly kicking my butt, but here's a new chapter! Thanks! Oh, and happy blizzard! Stay safe and warm, everyone!
Max amazes him more every day, and not just because of his preternatural abilities with technology, though Claudia does have to change the passwords on all of their devices every few days and has taken on Max-proofing like it is some sort of insult to her own abilities.
Right now, Max is hard at work with Leena, seated at the kitchen table, paintbrush in hand. Each has their own masterpiece in front of them, but both pieces of paper have the tell-tale marks of the other on them, proving a little cross-pollination and maybe even a paint war for dominance. Max has one of Claudia's old flannel shirts, rolled to his elbows and splattered with paint. Pete sits across from them and watches the masters at work.
"See, Daddy? Flower. Like spring."
Max jabs a finger onto the paper, causing the still wet paint to smudge. A brief flash of panic crosses Max's face, but then he just dabs another glob of red on to cover it up.
"It's beautiful, Max," Leena praises, leaning over to pick at a partially dried gloop of green in Max's hair. She makes a face and then laughs, promising: "It'll come out in the bathtub."
"You did a great job, buddy," Pete agrees. "I wish spring would hurry up and get here, though."
He glances out at the cold, grey April morning. Sometimes South Dakota is just so South Dakota.
Leena hangs the paintings (his and hers) to dry on the line that stretches across the kitchen, and Max pulls out a fresh piece of paper. After taking suggestions, Max begins another, uh, abstract project.
"Are you okay?" Leena asks Pete softly once Max is distracted.
"Fine. Yeah. Why?"
"Everyone's auras are just a little... high strung these days. Except for Claudia's. Which is very, very... peppy."
"I thought auras were colors not adjectives," Pete muses, a little annoyed.
"Do you really care which colors correspond with which emotions?" Leena asks pointedly.
"Yeah, okay," Pete concedes.
"So what's up?"
"Nothing, Leena," Pete smiles gently. "Don't worry about it."
"Myka and HG are the other two so on edge. Do you know anything about that?"
Pete makes a face before he can catch himself.
"If it's a secret..." Leena quickly backs off.
"It is," Pete sighs.
"But it's bothering you, whatever's bothering them."
"Don't worry about it," Pete reassures her, repeating himself.
Leena gives him a very skeptical look, but drops it, for now.
"Myka and HG are gonna have a baby. Maybe," Pete finally blurts three hours later.
God, this is the worst kept secret ever. But in his defense, Claudia totally squealed the last time, not him.
"What?" Leena asks, hands faltering only slightly as she folds the dozens of tiny t-shirts Max seems to get dirty in a week. Pete pushes into the laundry room and starts to help, grabbing for the pile of unmatched socks.
"That's what's up with my aura."
"And theirs," is all Leena says, nodding thoughtfully.
"Yeah."
"So why does that have you all over the place?" Leena asks mildly.
Pete doesn't answer, not for awhile. Not until after he's paired all the tiny socks and has moved onto the superhero briefs.
"It's just, y'know, our thing," Pete sighs. "Me and Myka."
"What was?" Leena asks gently.
"Having a kid. Together. It was- HG gets everything else. But we had this."
"Oh, Pete."
"That sounds ridiculous," Pete sighs, dropping some Iron Man undies onto the stack. "Forget I said it."
"Okay," Leena agrees with one more of her searching looks.
Now onto the towels.
"I'm happy for them. If that's what they want. I mean. They're, you know, them. Unlikely, once-in-a-lifetime, them."
"I know you are," Leena assures. "It would change a lot, though. It would be an adjustment for Max. For you. For all of us."
"Yeah," Pete says, because what she says makes sense.
"And you'll have to share her with someone else."
Pete smiles wanly.
"I've been sharing her for a long time now."
Leena doesn't have a chance to respond, though, because they're interrupted by a war cry and a flurry of activity: rubber sneaker soles on wood floors, Trailer's nails following along, Max flinging himself deep into the laundry room.
"Daddy! Save me! The monsters is chasing me!"
"Get back here!" comes one familiar voice, following by another:
"You can't hide forever!"
"Aunt Claud and Uncle Steve is gonna gets me," Max squeaks.
Adult footsteps grow closer, and Claudia declares:
"Stand aside, Trailer! We know he's in there!"
Pete thinks fast. He grabs two close-by brooms.
"Arm yourself, Maximus," Pete tells his son, who is cowering between his father and aunt. "We'll defeat them together."
Claudia gives a frustrated huff before typing a few commands into the netbook. A gaggle of smartphones and tables is spread around her on the dining room table, and they all simultaneously chirp, buzz, and flash.
"Alright. Try to beat that, you little stinker."
"At what point is it going to be just you and Max that can get into those?" Leena asks, dropping a hand onto her shoulder and startling her.
"He keeps ruining my Fruit Ninja stats. Plus, he has sticky fingers," Claudia complains. "You know, I never thought hacking was genetic. Not like this."
"It would be far from the strangest thing we've ever seen."
"True," Claudia allows. "Not that I don't love another techno geek in the family. The damage he, HG, and I could do when he gets old enough..."
Claudia cranes her neck up to see Leena giving her the raised eyebrow.
"I mean, good," she says as she clears her throat. "The good we can do."
"Mhmm," Leena says skeptically. "Did you change the security settings again?"
"Yep. We'll see if this holds him for at least a week."
Leena squeezes her shoulder and then takes the seat next to hers, opening up a book. Claudia grabs up her smart phone and swipes at the screen, leaning back in the chair and focusing.
"Are you working on your Fruit Ninja?" Leena teases.
"Hush," Claudia reproaches, eyes never leaving the screen and forefinger hard at work.
Leena rolls her eyes. They share a companionable silence for awhile. Around them, the inn buzzes with its usual life. Steve and Pete are away on assignment and Artie is puttering away at the Warehouse, but Dre and HG are in the living room catching up on some paperwork and Myka has taken a particularly grumpy Max to bed a little earlier than usual.
"Are you humming?" Leena asks with a soft laugh, grinning.
"No," Claudia defends, mock-affronted, staring resolutely at the screen in front of her and very faintly blushing.
"Mhmm."
"Fine, yes. Yes, I'm humming. Max and I took a drive today, and we were listening to They Might Be Giants, and they're catchy, okay?"
"You took a drive?"
"Yeah, when I had him this afternoon. Sometimes we... go for drives. In the Prius."
"Where do you go?" Leena asks curiously, setting down her book.
"Anywhere," Claudia shrugs. "Nowhere. We're just taking a drive. We put on the stereo and just... go."
"How did I never know this?"
Claudia shrugs again.
"I dunno. It's usually just when everyone else is busy. It's our thing."
Leena smiles at her, and Claudia scowls.
"Stop looking at me like that."
"It's sweet."
Claudia rolls her eyes. Leena picks up her book, to avoid further embarrassing the adult hacker in their midst. She studiously avoids making a comment when Claudia starts humming under her breath again.
He falls asleep halfway through tonight's stories, but Myka shuts out the light and continues to rock him anyway. His breath is heavy and steady against her neck, head nestled at her shoulder, Pooh wedged between them. Outside the door, there's the low hum of domestic life in the bed and breakfast, but Max seems to have learned to fall asleep no matter the noise level, the quiet din of his large family's bustling everyday life often just outside the door.
Myka closes her eyes and tries to remember what it was like to hold his tiny infant body like this. In many ways, it feels just like yesterday, but in others, it's fuzzy, slipping. She remembers how even at three or four months, he must have had active dreams, because she'd sit up late with him and he'd be stretching out his little arms and feet, movin' and shakin' while half-asleep.
He does sleep through the night now, and that is certainly not something he did as a tiny, squalling baby who preferred sleep in two hour increments. It had been a welcome reprieve when the nights he stayed asleep from bedtime to breakfast outnumbered the two a.m. wake up calls. It's been a wondrous year of normal (at least for Warehouse agents) sleep.
Is she ready to start back at newborn?
It's a silly question amid a million more serious ones, all of which she's turned over in her head over and over, but she is leaving no stone unturned in her soul-searching decision about whether to bring a child into this world. The process is probably getting ridiculous at this point, and Helena is being so wonderfully patient, but Myka has always tried to be deliberate in her decision making. Maybe she's too deliberate at times, but when she's let her emotions overcome her sensible, rational thoughts, it hasn't always ended well. Except...
Except Helena.
Except completely and irrationally allowing herself to fall in love with HG Wells. Which was disastrous to start with, but in the end, so completely worth it.
Maybe she's close to stumbling upon her answer.
Myka wakes to Max wailing.
"Daddy!" he begs between long gulps of air and pitiful sobs.
But Pete and Steve are on a job in San Francisco, so Myka begins to throw back the covers.
Beside her, Helena jolts awake. Myka sees the confusion cross her face, then the momentary gasp of heartbreak that always follows. The gasp is chased by awareness, though, and worry.
"The poor darling," she says hoarsely, slipping out from under the blankets.
"Hopefully it's just a bad dream?" Myka offers as they cross the hall and hurry into Max's room. "Hey, buddy."
"Throwed up," Max hiccups when he sees them.
The evidence is all over his sheets and his fleecy sleeper.
"Oh, Max," Myka says as she gathers him into her arms. "It's okay. We have you."
She kisses his sweaty temple and rocks him against her shoulder as he cries.
"Don't - feel - good," Max says between shuddering breaths.
"I know, my love," Helena says, brushing the hair out of his eyes, frowning at the warmth.
"He's a bit feverish."
Myka nods worriedly.
"A bug, we shall hope," Helena says resolutely. "Here. I'll go clean him up a bit if you'll take the sheets downstairs to the wash?"
"Sure."
Still rocking him gently, Myka turns Max in her arms so that Helena can unzip him down to his Pull-up. Helena tosses his sleeper onto the bed with the rest of the soiled linens, then lifts the boy into her arms.
"Okay, HG's got you," Myka encourages softly. "I'll be right back."
Out in the hall, a bleary Deandre stands in his doorway and asks through a yawn:
"Everything okay with the little dude?"
"A stomach bug," Myka frowns.
Dre takes one look at the wad of sheets in Myka's arms and pulls a face.
"Y'all need any help?"
"No, we've got it."
"Alright. G'night. Let me know if you need me."
Downstairs, Myka packs everything into the washer, including her own t-shirt, and starts the wash cycle. Thankfully, there's a clean load waiting to be folded, and Myka finds one of her wrinkled button-ups to pull on.
The walls of the old inn creak from the water pushing up to fill the bathtub upstairs. Myka gets a cold glass of water from the kitchen in the hopes that Max can keep that down at least.
Yawning, Myka pads up the stairs. The tap stops running in the bathroom when she reaches the second floor, and she can just barely make out the sound of Helena's voice, gently murmuring. Myka pauses, leaning against the cool wood of the closed door, listening.
There's some soft splashing, and then a light giggle.
"Oh-ho. You want to play it that way, hmm?"
Another laugh, which Helena echoes.
"Come here, little one. Let me wash your hair."
Max says something, but it's too soft to hear through the door.
"Okay, Max, let's get you dried off. Are you feeling a little better? Oh good. Aunt Myka should be back soon, yes, and we'll head off back to bed. Mhmm."
There's more splashing, and Myka assumes that Helena is grabbing him from the bath now and wrapping him in his fuzzy Super Man towel. Footsteps approach the door, and Myka hears:
"Love you, Agey."
"I love you, too, Macsen," Helena promises seriously.
Myka's heart flutters and she has to pause a moment with her hand on the door to catch her balance. Then, she opens the door before she can be caught eavesdropping.
"Oh, there she is," Helena tells the boy on her hip.
Max gives her a soft smile from where his head is nestled under Helena's chin, and Myka gives him a beaming grin in response.
"Hey, you," she greets. "Are you feeling just a little bit better?"
"Mhmm," Max nods with tired eyes, cheeks still red from fever.
"Good. Do you want HG to put you to bed?"
Max nods again, and Myka smiles.
"Okay, drink some water first."
He takes a few tentative sips, and then Helena spirits him off to his bed. Helena takes a few minutes to calm him down and settle him, talking softly, steadily the whole time, and Myka waits in the hallway, butterflies in her stomach.
When Max's door clicks shut behind Helena, Myka meets her eyes and says, shakily but with total conviction:
"Yes."
tbc