Fusion: Warehouse 13/The Crow

Notes: This is the fifth in a collection of seven AUs spotlighting Bering & Wells - one for each day of AU Week. Some will be one-offs, others I hope to revisit in more detail later.

I'm on the fence with this one - it would make an awesome fusion, but The Crow is a little darker than I'm comfortable writing. That said, I was struck by how much more human Eric seemed during his scenes with Albrecht, and decided to play with that a bit here.

~~FIC~~

Homicide victims did not return from the dead to exact bloody vengeance on their murderers - Detective Myka Bering knew this with absolute certainty.

It was, on the other hand, rather hard to dismiss what she'd seen with her own two eyes - or thought she'd seen, to be precise, as there had to be some logical explanation for what she'd witnessed earlier that night.

She'd had her partner Pete pull the Wells files while she finished her report on the pawn shop explosion - a report that failed to include the rather bizarre conversation she'd had there with an even more bizarre woman in a bird mask. It was risky, poking around again into the same case she'd almost gotten dismissed for obsessing over the first time, but Myka was confident that Pete would cover for her.

He'd hated having to let the case drop just as much as she had, and that's why - safely tucked into her tiny apartment, far away from work, and nursing a beer to fortify herself - she'd told Pete about the strange woman asking about Christina Wells. She wasn't sure she was actually comforted by the fact that her partner believed her, or by the fact that he was more prepared than she was to believe that Helena Wells had somehow returned from the dead.

The woman Myka had spoken with certainly looked like Helena Wells - maybe a sister or a twin or something, though records showed that there wasn't one, just a brother over in London. That didn't necessarily rule out a sibling who just wasn't on record, but the idea seemed a little far-fetched.

Myka, sitting at her kitchen staring at copies of the case files, couldn't prevent a bitter laugh. A ghost or zombie or something, sure, no problem, but an unknown sister somehow strained belief? Turning back to the files in front of her, she stared again at the photo of Helena G Wells that Pete had hastily drawn a bird mask on - nothing new came to her, though, and she shoved herself away from the table with a sigh of frustration.

Knowing that obsessing over the case all night wasn't going to accomplish a damn thing, Myka took a quick shower and got ready for bed, promising herself she'd take a fresh look the next day. She'd just barely drifted off when a loud noise out in the living area jerked her back to full consciousness - grabbing her gun from her bedside table, she padded silently across her bedroom and slipped through the open door.

The apartment was mostly dark, but there was enough ambient light to make out a dark figure standing at the kitchen table, quietly leafing through the various parts of the Wells file she'd left scattered across it. Raising and aiming her gun in one smooth motion, Myka announced her presence. "Not one move!"

The figure reached up very slowly and cautiously - hand splayed to show it was empty - and turned on the light above the table. Fortunately, Myka's eyes adjusted quickly to the sudden brightness - not that what she saw made her any less inclined to lower her weapon.

Trusting in her instincts, she did so anyway. "Jesus H. Christ, lady! I could have shot you! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Helena Wells - it couldn't be anyone else now that Myka was face-to-face with her again - chuckled darkly, something flickering across those unnerving black eyes. She'd removed the mask and set it on the table, but it didn't make her any easier to read. "I didn't mean to frighten you, Detective. I... need your help."

Myka, unsettled, reached over and switched on another light. "You have a funny way of asking for it."

Helena actually smiled as her eyes raked over Myka, a flare of all-too-human interest crossing her face before it faded away. It was more disturbing in its way than the mad glint it had replaced, and Myka suddenly felt very exposed as she realized that she was standing there in just a tank top and boy shorts.

Myka waved vaguely at the fridge. "Get some food or a drink or something. I'll be right back."

She emerged from her room a moment later wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, which Helena seemed to find amusing. "There was no need to dress up on my account, darling."

Myka watched the other woman putter around her tiny kitchen like she owned it, seemingly intent on making them both a cup of tea. The sheer normalcy of it just seemed wrong, given everything, and Myka found she couldn't stay silent. "How are you even here? You... died. I watched them bury you - you and..."

Myka trailed off then, not sure what might happen if she mentioned poor little Christina Wells. Helena seemed to understand what she was getting at, though. "You watched them bury me alongside my daughter. I understand, and I haven't any more idea than you do of how I'm standing here before you. All I know is that I am."

Helena set a cup of tea in front of Myka before taking a seat with her own, and they sat in silence as they sipped absently at the brew. Myka watched Helena's every move, of course, and it seemed that the other woman became more and more human with each moment that passed - something... other still lingered behind her eyes, of course, but it wasn't nearly as pronounced now.

Finally, Helena spoke, and Myka could almost pretend she was simply sitting with any one of the bereaved family members she dealt with on a daily basis. "Detective Bering, I have two favors to ask of you, though I understand that I hardly have any right to impose. The first, odd though it may sound, is the use of your shower."

Myka blinked at the unexpected request. "My shower?"

"Indeed." Helena smiled then, but it faded away almost instantly. "Then - once I am presentable and in better control of my faculties - I need you to tell me what happened the night I... we died."

It wasn't the oddest request Myka had ever had from someone involved in one of her cases, not by a long shot, and she was more than willing to encourage Helena's attempts to pull herself together - Myka was convinced the woman had had something to do with the explosion at the pawn shop, and her gut said that she could only expect her to stay this rational for so long before reverting back to whatever it was she had been when they'd encountered each other there.

She managed to find something for Helena to wear - a pair of old sweats, which Helena was still oddly grateful for - and then sat down to check the files over again while she waited. Helena's mask caught her eye instead, though, and she picked it up to get a closer look - it was a small black and silver mask shaped like a diving crow or raven, with a large circular piece of moonstone at the top and small red gemstones for the bird's eyes.

The bird motif fit, somehow...

"It was meant to be part of my Halloween costume," Helena said softly. The woman was now at Myka's left shoulder, having somehow managed to approach without making a single sound - that stunt, plus the lingering sense of just being off somehow, meant that not even old, worn, borrowed sweats could make Helena Wells look innocuous.

Myka forced herself to appear composed even as her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. "Please don't do that."

Helena grinned - again, almost human but still not quite - though it didn't really reach her eyes. Taking a seat across from Myka, she picked up the mask that the other woman had dropped onto the table. "I'm ready, Detective. I need to know what happened that night."

"There isn't any nice way for me to explain all of this," Myka warned as she gestured at the file scattered across the table. "I'll try, but..."

Helena nodded her understanding, and Myka pushed on into a recap she did her best to frame as gently as possible. "A group of armed thugs were sent after you at your apartment. You fought like hell, but they overpowered you. They... beat and raped you, then shot you multiple times."

"That matches what I remember," Helena said quietly after a moment, though Myka suspected she was nowhere near as calm and in control as her voice implied.

She got up from her chair then, pacing around the tiny dining area as she toyed with the locket at her throat. Finally, she turned back to face Myka, seeming both strangely human and strangely vulnerable. "My Christina... The men who abused me - did they-?"

Helena couldn't say the words, but Myka knew what she was asking and shook her head. "They never touched her. As strange as it sounds, I don't think they ever even knew she was there."

Helena looked confused. "Then how did she die?"

"As best we can tell," Myka said, "she was hiding - I'm assuming you told her to once you realized something was wrong. The thugs shot the place up after shooting you, and Christina got hit by stray bullets that went through the walls."

Myka blinked back the tears that came whenever she thought about that night. "I was the one that found her. Your little girl was so strong, Helena - she held on in intensive care for 30 hours, until she just couldn't fight any more."

That called to mind something Myka had almost forgotten, and she jumped to her feet. "I'll be right back - I have something, something of Christina's I think you'll want."

It only took a couple minutes to find the item in its box and return to the living room. Myka knew it by heart now, had stared at it so often that she'd memorized every inch of it - a white mask sized for a child, shaped like a dove with its wings spread.

"Christina was holding this when I found her," Myka explained as she held the mask out to Helena. "I brought it home for safekeeping once it was processed. I'm not sure why - maybe I just couldn't stand to think of it sitting there gathering dust when it obviously meant so much to her."

Helena reached out to take the mask while simultaneously placing a hand on Myka's bare wrist to thank her, and the world suddenly spun into a sickening freefall. It was like the worst case of vertigo Myka had ever had, including all the nausea that went with it, and she considered it a minor miracle that whatever was in her stomach stayed there once the world righted itself.

Myka's knees buckled and she let herself fall into a chair. "What the hell did you just do to me?"

Helena, to be fair, seemed equally startled, if considerably less queasy. "I... saw Christina, through your eyes."

She looked at Myka as if in awe. "You stayed with her the whole time, were holding her hand when she died."

"I couldn't leave her there alone," Myka admitted, tears threatening again. "I was hoping she'd pull through after all, and maybe help us get the bastards who'd attacked you both."

The madness returned to Helena's eyes for a split second, but she fought it back as she tugged at her locket again. "Why didn't you - get them, I mean?"

Myka made an angry, frustrated noise as she yanked a hand through her curls. "I tried - no one would talk, not after what had happened to the two of you. Some of them wanted to help, I could see it in their eyes, but they were too scared. Finally, I annoyed the wrong people and was told I'd be fired if I didn't let the case go."

That seemed to mollify Helena, who glanced around Myka's apartment as she tried to compose herself. Her eyes settled on a framed photograph of Myka and Pete, and she moved to examine it more closely. "Is this your partner?"

"Pete," Myka confirmed, unable to completely suppress her smile. "Best damn partner and surrogate brother a girl could wish for."

Helena smiled back - this time, it reached her eyes. Her tone, like that smile, was a little wistful. "I know it sounds hopelessly trite, Detective, but cherish your loved ones. You truly never know how much time you'll have together."

"I know," Myka agreed in a voice that said she'd known her own share of loss. "Believe me, I know."

Busying herself to cover the sudden flare of emotion, Myka gathered up the various papers on the table and put them all back in the file. After that, she carried both dirty coffee mugs into the kitchen and placed them in the sink.

"Listen," she called out to Helena, "do you have someplace to stay?"

There was no answer, and she stepped back out into the dining room to find that Helena was fast asleep on her couch, seeming not so much scary and supernatural as simply weary and lost. Shaking her head at the strangeness that had suddenly invaded her life, Myka grabbed the spare blanket and placed it over her sleeping visitor.

Helena Wells was gone when Myka woke up the next morning, and Myka couldn't quite explain the sudden sense of loneliness that came over her in the other woman's absence.