The sharp metallic click and it's corresponding creek that had echoed around the room once before, did so again, breaking a silent vigil. Both women shot bolt up right, their concentration re doubled on the image playing out on Helena's tablet screen. In place of the gallery crew who had been dealt with so effectively, there were two figures, two men steeped in the shadows provided by a still dark room.

"Weisfelt and McPherson?" Myka questioned, squinting at the screen and drawing her glasses from her overall pocket in hope of a better view.

"We'll see." Helena responded, her concentration only sharpening as she flicked through menus on her screen, switching to a night vision lense's view of the intruders.

Focusing in shades of green, the newly clear picture revealed what had been planned for all along. The culmination of months worth of planning and the capture on camera, in the present day of Arthur Weisfelt and James McPherson. Together and decidedly not where they had any lawful business being.

"It's them." Myka announced, hand tightly clasping the headphone that rested on her right ear, ready for whatever would be revealed by the men's actions.

Helena only continued to stare, her eyes locked and un blinking. If Myka had been looking her way she might have been shaken as the last shreds of expression drained from Helena's face at the images unfolding before her before her.

Arthur Weisfelt and James McPherson had been trusted colleagues, friends and partners in a world that offered little by way of personal reward. Decades away from their careers, separated by years from the intelligence work that had been their lives they were now, no less focused. They were no less skilled as they went to work on the object of their concentration, the portrait of Alice Liddell.

"Quite captivating isn't she Arthur?" McPherson considered pausing before the painting.

"Oh yes...sure if you enjoy the suffering of a poor young woman that most people can't separate from a Disney cartoon!" Weisfelt shot back, his hands furiously racing across their equipment. A prepared shipping crate and lifting devices that corresponded perfectly with Miss Liddell's likeness.

"The painting should have been hung by now, we might not have much time." He continued, drawing on a pair of heavy leather gloves over his already latex covered hands.

Weisfelt's companion only continued to stare in rapt consideration of the portrait. He may as well have been spending a lazy Sunday afternoon browsing the gallery or sipping champaign at the holiday gala the picture had been destined for.

"JAMES!" Weisfelt began to instruct, his temper only flaring.

"Focus and help me get this thing loaded! If we're going to get it hidden in the right removal truck we need to get moving! You think Sykes is going to forgive ANY kind of slip up!

That's not what he pays for."

Finally meeting his partner's efforts McPherson turned his attention away from Alice Liddell, slipping on his own gloves.

"It's still a pity that an uneducated twit like Sykes gets to decide the face of such a fascinating piece." He replied working open their shipping crate.

"Well maybe one day you can buy it from whoever the hell he sells it to! Now hurry up!" Weisfelt again complained, through huffs that brimmed with righteous indignation and impatience at his partner's unhurried pace.

"Oh I'm sure he'd let me live if I knew where it was heading." McPherson grinned back.

The pair continued their work, busily loading the portrait. They were almost ready to make their retreat when the gallery's back door swung open to reveal a young woman training a gun on them with cold ferocity.

.

.

.

.

.

Minutes earlier.

"The painting should have been hung by now, we might not have much time." The heavier figure, Weisfelt insisted to his companion.

"This is it, we've got them!" Myka announced, excited and focusing in on the unfolding theft.

"Helena, we can prove it now..." She continued, turning to her partner. Excitement and satisfaction breaking through her concentration.

"...we can prove it's Weisfelt and McPherson!"

Helena didn't respond, her expression didn't even flicker at Myka's words. She just continued to stare for a moment, finally taking a shuddering breath before she turned.

"Myka...I'm sorry." Was all she said, her blank stare breaking painfully, if only for a moment as she spoke Myka's name.

"..what?" Myka replied in confusion.

"Helena, what do ...?" She began to question, brow furrowing, honestly lost for her

partner's intent.

Helena didn't wait for Myka's sentence to finish before she sprung up, her hand quickly dashing into her bag. She snatched a shinning piece of metal that Myka barely got time to register as she sprinted toward the gallery.

.

.

.

.

.

Now

"Away from the crate." Helena instructed, gun steady in her hand, trained squarely on the two men before her.

Weisfelt and McPherson turned her way, confusion breaking into caution as their eyes met her weapon.

"AGAINST THE WALL!" She commanded, slowly beginning to move toward her prey as Myka raced into into the gallery behind her.

"Helena!" She yelled from the doorway, panic torn across her face.

"Against the wall." Helena commanded again, calmer and colder this time. Still utterly focused on Weisfelt and McPherson.

The two men looked from each other to Helena and then to Myka, as hands raised they heeded the instruction, backing against the gallery's far wall.

"Young lady, I do not believe you know precisely what you are doing." McPherson measured out, meeting Helena's gaze.

Weisfelt's response was characteristically more dramatic and familiar.

"Wells..?" He began, instantly recognising the students who knew him as "Professor Nielsen."

"Bering..? What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

Helena only drew her attention sharply into focus on her literature professor.

"What needs to be done." She began.

"What I couldn't do before." She completed, stepping closer to Weisfelt.

Weisfelt didn't blink at the gun pointed in his face. Meeting Helena's eyes, he simply drew up in challenge.

"You don't know what you doing you stupid child." He spat out.

Helena's response came instantly, she smashed him across the face with her weapon. Cold metal tore through flesh and knocked the middle aged man several feet across the floor as he staggered to stay upright.

"HELENA!" Myka yelled again.

"What the hell! What's going on?!"

Helena's grip re tightened on her gun as she drew it to Weisfelt's forehead, ignoring Myka's plea.

"HELENA!" Myka yelled once more, reaching out to her companion, carefully gripping her shoulder.

"They can't do it again," Helena uttered in low tones.

"I can't let them." She completed, roughly shrugging off Myka's grip.

"Not after Christina."

"Your sister..?" Myka questioned, inching almost imperceptible closer, turning to aim for contact with Helena's eyes.

She knew only a little about Christina. Helena's younger sister died shortly before she came to the states but that was basically all Myka knew. The entire subject was carefully avoided in conversation, details revealed only rarely, in vulnerable moments that were few and far between.

The Wells family had been comfortable, yet not without their own tragedies. Helena's parents had both past away while their three children were still relatively young. At only 18 years old they left Helena, her younger brother Charles and her even younger sister Christina alone but non the less, well provided for. What Myka didn't know, was that with Helena and Charles away and Christina in the care of a family friend, the Wells home, with it's collection of historic books and rare antiques, had one night become a target for art thieves. Art thieves who bore little preparation for their discovery, art thieves who had violently dealt with the residents of a house they expected to find empty and who had, by their actions, ended the life of a six year old girl and her guardian.

"Tell me how to find him." Helena demanded, making every effort to ignore Myka's contact.

"Tell me about Sykes." She continued, pressing the barrel harder into Weisfelt forehead.

Weisfelt was too calm for the situation he found himself in, bleeding from the gash across the cheek, he again fixed Helena's stare with his own.

"You're in over your head." He warned.

"I don't know what happened to your sister but trust me you do NOT want to go there. Give this up and walk away..."

"...both of you." He added turning to Myka.

Myka was still reeling for the turn of events, she'd known, she'd guessed about the darkness that lay behind Helena's eyes but she'd never gotten close to thinking it could be this. She'd never gotten close to thinking that Helena might kill to avenge her sister's death, or to find the people responsible.

"Helena, you can't do this." She begged, forcing her face into her partner's view.

"You don't even know if it was them." She insisted, looking to Weisfelt and McPherson.

"We'll find the people who did it, we'll find this Sykes person! If he's linked to these two then we'll find him. Just put the gun down...please."

Helena's eyes fought to stay cold, to stay focused on Weisfelt. She was fighting to ignore Myka's pleas, fighting to keep away any link to reason, any link to something other than the men who'd killed Christina. Men who made it possible to blame someone other than herself.

As Helena's grip on her gun began to loosen, as her wrists starting to shake, imperceptibly at first and as tears welled in her eyes. Events took a chaotic turn.

McPherson lashed out, reaching desperately for Helena's gip, his long arms straining and knocking the gun away from Weisfelt forehead.

Within a moment Helena's eyes were dry again, she fought powerfully against her taller but older opponent, refusing to let the weapon out of her hands.

Myka wasn't stupid, she could see where this was going and as foolhardy, as rash as it was, she joined the struggle, wrestling against McPherson and Helena's attempts at control. The three of them fought for the weapon, flying hard against the gallery wall until, eyes now raging Helena swept a leg underneath McPherson's own. Knocking him to the floor and pulling away the last of Myka's grip in the process.

As McPherson fell, as his hands slipped across the weapon in a violent lurch and as he fought for his last grip, the inevitable happened. With a shuddering, echoing ring, a shot rang out. Flying past all three who had struggled for the gun and with a bloody suddenness, it exploded into Weisfelt, dropping him to the floor.

Blood quickly began to pour from his shoulder and he desperately reached for the wound, fighting to stem the bleeding. Myka reached forward too, quickly pressing her hands onto the gash, her eyes darting from Helena to McPherson and back.

"Somebody call an ambulance, NOW!" She commanded, straining to aid the wounded man.

Helena was simply starring at the gun loosely retained in her hand. Her eyes were wide and blank, the world clearly dropping away around her.

McPherson paused for a moment, roughly slumped against the wall he took in his partner and the two women before him. Planting a firm hand on the gallery floor and hauling himself up right, he only briefly looked Weisfelt's way.

"I'm sorry Arthur." He admitted, limping as fast as he could for the gallery exit.

Myka only possessed basic first aid training and as much as she knew that gunfire would bring a more sizable audience to the scene. She also knew that her efforts to stem the bleeding, were temporary and in effective at best.

"HELENA, call an ambulance!" She yelled again.

Her call met with little effect save for a single shuddering breath that drew through Helena's body. Straightening to her full height, shoulders drawn back, she pointed the gun McPherson's way.

"STOP." She called across the gallery.

Almost at the door, McPherson headed her instruction and paused, turning to face his would be assassin.

"This is pathetic, all you are is a scared little girl throwing a temper tantrum." He shot back, raising his hands.

"You think that this will get you the men who hurt your sister?"

"The men who killed my sister." Helena, very calmly, clarified.

"Maybe it won't but if it doesn't, you'll never get the chance to find out."

She trained the weapon up, aiming dead at McPherson's forehead, stepping closer to him with a calculated coldness.

"You'll never get the chance to hurt anyone else."

"Helena, that's not the man who killed Christina!" Myka called out, seeing exactly where events were headed and desperate to stop her from taking action that she couldn't return from.

"I don't care." Was Helena's only reply, her eyes fixed.

"On your knees." She instructed McPherson.

"Hands behind your head."

Myka should have been horrified that the woman she'd fallen for was so different from what she'd thought. Instead, though horror and fear did well up inside her, she was also filled with sadness. She was filled with anger at the life that Helena was throwing away too, not just McPherson's or Weisfelt's but her own. Leaving Weisfelt slumped against the wall, tattered rags stemming his bleeding for now, Myka slowly got to her feet, making her way in

Helena's direction.

"Don't do this." She pleaded again, only this time it came as an instruction, as a steady command.

Helena didn't respond...she didn't pull the trigger either.

Drawing closer, Myka spoke again.

"This isn't who you are." She clarified, absolute certainty ringing in her voice.

"Maybe it is." Helena shot back, starring McPherson down.

"Maybe it's all that's left."

"That's not true." Myka insisted, stepping in front of McPherson, the barrel of the gun now squarely pointed at her.

"I know you." She continued, her own steady expression cracking to reveal a brief and sad smile as she raised a hand to cup Helena's cheek.

" and if you're going to do this." She began again, her steady resolution returning as she gripped the gun and drew it to her own forehead.

"Then you'll have to shoot me first."

Helena's expression flickered, the coldness in her eyes wavering and melting into panic, into uncertainty. The gun suddenly unsteady in her hand.

"Helena." Myka spoke once more, softly this time, searching deep and dark eyes and reaching with utter belief for the woman she knew, for the woman she loved.

In the deserted gallery, they simply stood, the moment stretching out. As Helena's hand wavered, as her breath hitched and expression began to flood back into her eyes, the gallery door burst open.

"F.B.I., put your weapon on the ground!" A voice rang out as a dozen or more figures, armed and in jacket's that clearly marked them as federal agents flooded through the door.

At their head was a woman that to her shock Myka knew, a woman that she quickly recognised rushing to Weisfelt's side, holstering her weapon. Compassion replaced her authoritative tone as she directed fellow agents to draw Myka, Helena and McPherson into handcuffs.

The woman was Leena Williams, someone Myka only knew as "Professor Nielsen's" teaching assistant. She wore the same F.B.I. jacket that the other agents wore and she exuded a clear air of command as Weisfelt was tended to and placed on a stretcher.

Drawn away by two agents to the side of the room, along with Helena. Myka was beginning to realise that there was more to this case than they'd discovered, there were details that dramatically altered the established chain of events.

"Jack, Rebecca," Leena acknowledged, addressing their guards as she approached.

"Go look after Artie. He's complaining about the stretcher already!"

The agents nodded with a clearly familiar and relieved smile as they left.

Leena paused and turned her attention to Myka and Helena.

"Ladies..." She began.

"...we have some talking to do."