Sitting in the driveway as the sun makes itself known in the sky, Myka finally turns on her cell-phone and the Farnsworth; both of them light up with messages missed and frantic calls gone unheard.

And she remembers how strange it was to walk back into the Warehouse, all those long days ago, and feel guarded instead of overjoyed. It was strange to stand there and wonder if she'd be welcomed back, to wonder if she'd manage to fill out the spaces that she alone had left behind.

It was strange, at first, but ever so slowly the silence retreated and there was wonderful noise again – the hum of the Tesla in her hand, Pete's laughter in her ears, Claudia's voice skipping behind her like an excitable kid.

Ever so slowly, Myka retraced her steps and found the way home once more.

But Myka doesn't feel the same amount of trepidation this time around. She doesn't feel nervous or unsure. She isn't wondering about acceptance or about being understood.

Myka just feels tired.

It is as if all the lost hours of rest have caught up with her and it takes incredible effort to peel her fingers from around the steering wheel, to push the driver's side door open, to move her feet from gravel to a painted front porch.

For a second, though, her hand hovers over the doorknob and Myka closes her eyes.

And she listens.

She listens for movement inside of Leena's. She listens for the familiar footfalls of Pete as he thunders down the stairs or the bellowing of Artie's voice from around a corner. She listens for the call to breakfast and for the sound of conversation that normally follows.

Myka listens for any sign at all that this world is worth more than the one she found under the influence of an artifact, that this world won't end up ruining them, one by one…

…But Myka knows better.

She's always known better.

This world is as cruel as it is beautiful; this world gives and this world takes - without forethought, without prejudice. This world, with its unending capabilities for both goodness and horribleness, is always the quiet entity in the room; always the solemn sentry that keeps watch while bodies rot and while mountains crumble.

Myka has always known better than to try and make this world talk, than to try and make this world explain itself.

"Hate turns so easily into fear… Don't walk away from your truth."

Helena demanded answers from the world and got nothing in return – and so the woman walked away; into the bronzer, into the web of time, into the kind of sorrow that can kill a person's soul.

"Hate turns so easily into fear…"

And more than a hundred years ago, Helena stood at a door and listened with intent. Helena listened for a child's feet upon the floor or for the minutes to wind backwards like air being sucked out of a room.

But the only sound the woman heard was the deafening peal of silence.

"…Don't walk away from your truth."

Helena's words, once said so softly and with such weary hindsight, run through Myka's mind as she opens the door to the bed-and-breakfast.

And it is nothing but silence that greets Myka.

"…Don't walk away…"

It could just be a memory that Myka is replaying as she stands motionless in this quiet foyer; just another faded reel that has gone through the loops a hundred times before.

"…Don't walk away…"

It could just be the slick and seductive residue from using an artifact that is sliding over Myka's brain, clouding her common sense just like Mrs. Frederic's phantom disapproval.

But maybe it really is Helena reaching out, from somewhere just shy of oblivion, to share these pearls of hard-won insight.

Somewhere in the blue-green strands of an aurora's tail, there you are, still knowing me better than anyone else… isn't that right, Helena?

Maybe Helena is still trying to save Myka Bering from herself.

"I'm not walking away…" Myka says aloud, her own voice so low and so delicate when surrounded by all this stillness, "…I'm just trying to get back home again."

/ /

TBC