"Hello." Helen was situating herself on the edge of Emma's bed; the young woman had woken to her entrance into the room. It was late and she'd just arrived back and was checking on the woman she'd gone in search of.

"Hey." Emma replied, her eyes watching Helen as she smiled at her.

Helen drew in a deep breath, her chest rising with the pressure of the air before she let it fall. "I thought maybe we could talk."

"Now?"

Emma rubbed hands over her face and looked at the clock: just past one in the morning and there was no moon outside. It had been the first time she'd managed to sleep in the past week without a nightmare and she'd only succeeded to have Helen wake her up. Not that the woman knew so she really couldn't blame her.

The brunette was watching her carefully, her eyes taking in the small form on the bed. She looked tired. Will had told her a bit about the recovery, but not much beyond that she had been released and had been addicted to cocaine. She would have to look at the file later; well as soon as Will filed it, which she would make sure would happen soon enough. She sighed heavily and answered, "Yeah, unless you'd rather wait."

"It's the middle of the night."

"Alright." Helen patted the leg that her hand was still on and started to stand. "We'll talk later then."

"Helen—"

"It's fine, Emma."

There was a huge intake of breath from the blonde as she sat forward. It was as if she was going to say something but the warning look in Helen's eyes changed her mind. Magnus couldn't place it, she saw Emma give up; it wasn't something that she knew the woman to do. Often Emma would speak her mind and very forcibly, so to see her suddenly stop the words made her pause. Emma closed her eyes and leaned back. "What did they do to you?"

"Few experiments. Took lots of blood. Nothing detrimental." Helen was looking over the woman once again. There was something off, something that she couldn't quite place, but it was the middle of the night and they hadn't left on the best of terms when the entire scene had gone down. "You?"

"Not much; held me in a room basically." Emma could hardly breathe, the tightness in her chest was increasing and she was fairly sure that Helen saw it but she could do nothing to dissipate the feeling.

Helen was speaking and Emma barely heard the words. "Are you alright?"

A deep breath and release later Emma spoke. "Yeah, just… just tired you know?" Helen nodded her eyes watching the woman carefully. Once again she patted Emma's leg and moved away to the door.

"If you need anything, only two doors down."

"Yeah." Emma swallowed heavily and scooted down in her bed as the door shut behind Helen.

Magnus walked down to her office and started in on the files that had accumulated there after changing her mind about returning to her room. Yet, there was something that wasn't settling right in her gut. When she looked up at the clock it was well beyond three in the morning and Will had stalked in with a weary look on his face, heaved a breath and collapsed on her couch. She looked up and looked over him before moving to sit aside him.

"Can't sleep?"

He shook his head and rested it against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. "Time change."

Air was pulled into her lungs. "Yeah, know what you mean." She licked her lips slowly and glanced in his direction. "Care for some wine?"

"Yeah."

Emma was done after she'd laid there for two hours and had barely even been able to close her eyes. Every time she did she would hear something, they would snap open, and she'd find herself sitting upright in bed with her heart pounding and her nails digging into the palms of her very sweaty hands. She couldn't get around it. Donning a pair of running pants, shirt and shoes she plugged her headphones into her ear and made her way to front doors of the Sanctuary. She needed to run, and she needed to run hard.

Pushing the heavy open she stepped outside into the heavy rain and grimaced. She hadn't even realized it was raining when she'd left her room and she'd been staring out the damn window for hours on end. Drawing in a deep breath she stepped out into the cold rain and let it fall on her drenching her hair and clothes. She tucked her iPod into her sports bra after locking the screen and made for the front gate. She needed a long run.

Her feet were pounding heavily on the ground and she listened carefully to the beats that they made. Her eyes were looking ahead of her but she wasn't seeing anything. She drew in a deep breath and let it out through her nose, steadying her breathing as she ran so that she would last longer. She turned a corner down an alleyway and decided that she liked the darker and quieter aspect of it better than the street lights that seemed to be blaring and yelling at her. She shook her head when a particularly angry drop of rain landed on her eyeball and stung. Crossing the street without looking from side to side and landed a foot in the middle of the pavement when her playlist stopped and there was no sound from her headphones.

"Damn it." Muttering to herself she ignored the silence and raced on, her breathing becoming the only thing that she could hear. It was echoing in her eardrums, the intake and outbreath that was making her continue. Four more blocks and all she focused on was the sound that caused her to keep going, until she stumbled and half landed into the brick wall of an old building. Her arm was pressed into the harsh surface and she was half doubled over trying to catch the air that was escaping from her lungs far too quickly and had simply run away from her.

Breathing and choking on the vomit that was threatening to rise from her stomach she finally had a moment to look up. There was a man standing in front of her with a scruffy beard and Mariner's baseball cap on his head. His fingers were scratching at his arms and he was barely making eye contact with her. In fact, he wasn't making eye contact with her. His would look up and then back down over her body. Emma stood up straight and wiped her face with the back of her wrist and stared at his person. T-shirt that was dirty and faux leather jacket that was loud against the rain that was still pounding down on them, his shoes had holes in the toes and his laces were completely knotted together. Stepping forward she watched as he shuffled his feet but stayed where he was. This was his alley. She got that from his stance. Her head bounced up. "What you got?"

His hand appeared out, palm up for a brief second before he closed his fist again. She'd seen the small little orange pouch that was obviously made for selling. "Ten?"

"Twenty."

Her eyebrows rose and she nodded slightly and spoke firmly. "Ten." His head started to nod and wouldn't stop until she reached forward after pulling the slim bill from her sports bra. He handed it to her and in the same move took the money. She looked down at the small bag now in her fist and when she looked up he was gone.

By seven in the morning Will claimed that he had to go get dressed, not to mention sober up a bit. He and Magnus had been drinking wine for the past four hours or so and he needed to get ready for what was sure to be a very long day. It wasn't going to be long because of things that he had to do, or because there was an emergency somewhere. It was going to be a long day because he'd been up for about two days straight and running only on caffeine and adrenaline for most of it. He was walking through the corridor and ran into Emma. She was drenched through. Her hair was plastered to her face and her clothes were pulling at her body with each move that she made. "Hey?" He questioned her, leaning against the wall with his arms over his chest.

"Hey." Her eyes grew wide and she watched him like a hawk.

"Go for a bit of a run?"

"Yeah."

An awkard and silent pause took over then before he broke it. "Come by my office today, will you?" He watched as her shoulders squared and her jaw clenched.

"Real busy. Paperwork and all that."

"Come by my office Emma. It's not up for debate." He watched as she walked away from him knowing for a fact that she would not be stopping by his office that day. This was going to take far greater skill to get her to see him. And it might take a greater ability than he had to get her to talk once she was in the room with him; he hadn't had to practice pure psychology in years. He'd better brush up on some of the latest techniques.

Detouring back to Helen's office he knocked on the door before entering into the room. "Will, did you forget something?"

"I might need your help."

"Oh?"

"Emma."

"Oh."

"Magnus?" He would have sat in the chair across from her but he wanted to be on his toes. Helen glanced up at him before looking back down and drawing in a slow and deep breath.

"Truthfully, Will, I'm not sure how much of a help I can be." She folded her hands on the desk to prevent herself from fiddling with the files.

He drew in a deep breath and finally sat. "What happened?"

"Honestly I don't really know. We were fine, everything seemed good. Then Henry discovered Tesla's invention and something seemed to change. I can't pin it if she's just scared or if I did something to hurt her or if the complicated nature of any relationship with me and the Sanctuary was just too much for her to deal with. I didn't think it would be…"

"…but you didn't talk about it."

She nodded in agreement. "We didn't talk about it."

"What else happened, Magnus?"

Her eyes shot up to his face and lingered before looking back down. "Nothing."

"Magnus, you know me… what else happened?"

There was a long pause before she began; she wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell him. "It's more than infatuation, Will. At least on my part."

"Ah."

She nodded. "We had a fight and I might have been a bit too forceful."

"In actions or words?"

The question stopped her in her tracks. He was too damn observant for his own good sometimes. "Both. That was just before she went to Croatia and I'm not convinced that nothing happened there."

"Nor am I." Helen nodded her agreement and affirmation.

"I can make meeting with you mandatory to keeping her on staff but in the short time that I've been back I haven't seen any reason to do this yet. It would not look good in her file."

Will nodded and began to depart. "Then wait."