One day.
/
Despite the exhaustion that hangs upon her body, Myka finds her feet wandering once more – away from Claudia's words and Claudia's anger, away from the metronome and its wicked promises, away from the faint lamp light and well-worn pages that have kept Myka company for nights on end – and she ends up in the basement.
It is there, as she is surrounded by a darkness that is punctuated periodically by the faint glow of purple, that the weariness finally kicks in. And so Myka reaches back, palm sliding against the cool brick wall until the rest of her follows; the rest of her, slowly sinking onto the equally chilled floor and dissolving into the shadows.
It is there, with recently found wonders sitting dormant on metal shelves and the cobwebs creating artistic landscapes in every corner, that the giving in finally occurs, too.
And Myka closes her eyes.
And Myka inhales deeply; so deep that her chest shudders with the effort.
And Myka doesn't make another sound, even as that heat behind her eyelids breaks free and turns into tears; she keeps this sorrow silent, she keeps this moment of fracture private from everyone else – sharing it only with the artifacts and the bricks and her own battered heart.
It is there, with Myka too tired to hide and with no one left to protect from the obvious, that the feelings rush in like a flood – it is the Warehouse turned to dust, it is Mrs. Frederic's body reduced to a sunken-in corpse, it is Steve's frozen gaze, it is Helena's smile eclipsed by a blinding white light – and Myka is carried away on a tide she has been fighting since this madness began.
She isn't one to sob uncontrollably.
She isn't one to heave up the sadness, leaving her throat sore with the pain.
She isn't the kind of person to fall completely apart.
But the cracks have spread all the same. And these imperfections, made manifest in sleeplessness and in a subtle refusal to deal with what has happened, have grown into rifts too wide to ignore tonight.
Tonight, Myka can no longer deny the reality that she is living in; it is the sort of honesty that goes down rough and lands in the pit of her stomach, cold and unmovable. But the real sucker punch still manages to sneak up on Myka, swiftly stealing the air from her lungs and effectively pinning her to the ground.
There will never be another chance to say all that I wanted to say to her.
And it is there, as Myka's gaze reopens directly upon a pair of glittering ruby-red slippers, that circumstance marries with remorse and a crazy kind of opportunity arises.
And everyone else would call it a coincidence.
But, of course, Myka knows better.
/
One day and not a single second more.
/
Bethany Jackson was unconscious for almost five days.
And, conceivably, she could have remained under for a few more days and still been relatively safe. Studies have shown that a person can survive for up to ten days without water - if they are in good health and if the surrounding temperatures are ideal (not too cold, not too hot – as in a childhood tale). To go further than ten days, however, is to risk permanent damage to vital organs and to the brain; and for many who have put on the ruby-red slippers, rescue did not come in time and a corpse was the end result.
Bethany was lucky, though; lucky that her boss cared enough to call the police when she didn't turn up for work after three days and lucky that her condition came up on the Warehouse radar when it did. But Myka recalls the expression on Bethany's face when they brought her out of that artifact-induced state – and it wasn't the look of someone who felt lucky.
It was a look of complete loss; as if everything that ever mattered had been stripped away in seconds, as if death would've been an acceptable trade-off for a few more moments spent in a glorious dream.
It was the look of someone who wanted to stay asleep, even if that meant to sleep forever.
Unlike Bethany, though, Myka wants so badly to wake up (from this wreckage, from this silence, from this mess we are all in) and therein lays the difference between the two women.
For Myka, this wouldn't be about giving up one existence for another.
She knows that the shoes merely create a fantasy and nothing more. And Myka knows that artifacts are always just a facsimile of the real thing, with each item like an elaborate magic trick; sawing a lady in half or rabbits out of a top hat – artifacts are masters of illusion.
And peril only comes if you are deluded enough to believe in what those slights-of-hand show you – that's when you will be lost.
Myka knows better, though – she knows better than to fall for those traps.
/
Just a chance to really say good-bye, just a chance to tell her how I feel… Just one day, that's all…
/
It's not that hard to come up with a plan; it's not that difficult to construct a small lie and then carry it out.
But, then again, it isn't the easiest of things to do either. Not when she looks up from the table, breakfast barely touched, and catches the tail-end of Pete's concerned stare. Not when her eyes meet Artie's and Myka is the one who must eventually look away from the wondering shade to his gaze.
They are family, after all; it is possible that they suspect something bigger is going on but Myka doubts that they could ever imagine what she is going to do. Instead, the disquiet that Pete or Artie may feel when Myka is around blooms into full-grown worry when Claudia comes into a room. And so Myka is safe from too much inspection because of a stronger distraction; she is still trusted to be the one who can sort out sanity from the rubble of emotion, she is still seen as the 'big sister' who won't run away – at least, not again.
Of course, these notions are as true as they are false and Myka is fully aware of the contradictions that live inside of her. She depends on the rules and regulations so often, to give structure where others fall into chaos. And, yet, there are so many times when she has just thrown all that stability away – and it always comes down to her heart; unruly and wild, like ivy choking out the flowers, feelings taking over when caution would be more prudent.
Like with Sam. Like with Helena.
Myka has learned to keep these conflicting actions a secret, mostly, but that is one trick that Claudia has yet to learn – and probably never will. Where Myka internalizes, Claudia eviscerates. In a way, Myka is envious of the younger woman because anger – while unpredictable and potentially cataclysmic – can be a far quicker way to deal with the ache of melancholy.
You can burn it out – the weeping and the emptiness and the injustice of it all – and then, bizarrely, you can start anew; forests out of ashes or a phoenix out of the flames. With the type of mourning that you just can't accept, but that you just cannot let go of either, going forward seems like the most impossible idea of all. You become stuck in a moment that has ended. You become a shadow of yourself, living only to remember.
But, in both cases, most people will do whatever they have to in order to set things right again.
For Claudia, that is the metronome and every possibility – good or bad – that comes with it. And so Claudia is somewhat correct in thinking that she and Myka are exactly alike; they are both seeking out some form of closure in a manner that is not fitting of a Warehouse agent. However, Claudia wants to actually bring Steve back from the dead; she wants to alter the path that reality has taken, regardless of how it might affect the world at large, regardless of how it might affect a resurrected Steve Jinks as well.
For Myka, though, this isn't about bringing anyone or anything back.
Myka knows that she won't be able to turn back any clocks or reset any dials on this journey. There is no way for her to erase the past and make it into something brand new; there isn't some device that can roll back the hours and help her to capture those precious minutes before everything went to hell.
As the saying goes, what's done cannot be undone.
But these Shakespearian-like troubles can be soothed – without tampering with what has been or what will be. These endless evenings can be put to rest and these longings still caged can be freed; eyes finally opening upon a dawn without regret.
And maybe it'll be a little bit painful, this fairy-tale farewell; maybe it'll be a little bit beautiful, too. Maybe it won't be perfect, maybe not by a long shot… but it'll be better than what Myka has been left with.
And Myka knows better than to ask for anything more than that.
/ /
TBC