A slightly shorter chapter this week. Not quite sure how I feel about this one; I didn't enjoy writing it as much as the last one (which you were all very quiet about). I can only assume from your silence and the few faves/follows that this story is still passing approval. I'm struggling with Christina's character a little. I want to write more dialogue for her, but she's not talking to me :-/

Thank you to my one guest review - it was much appreciated! (hint, hint ;-))

Well anyway, here goes...

Chapter Seven

She wanted to pace. She wanted to charge off in the same direction she'd seen Myka leave. She wanted this day to end so she could cuddle up in bed, safe and sound with her family. She wanted to feel Myka's arms wrapped tightly around her waist, the warmth of the American's body surrounding her as they watched Christina sleep beside them. She couldn't.

Raucous thoughts tumbled over one another in an effort to be heard as she voiced platitudes to her daughter. It was beginning to dawn on her that there was no escaping the Warehouse. Even in the middle of a suburban idyll, it had found her. Running again was not really an option. Not only could she not leave Myka, but she couldn't rip Christina from the only other parent she'd ever known. It was a difficult reality to come to terms with, but she would have to.

Lila had gently suggested that they find a picnic table to sit at while they waited and HG silently agreed. Now, the inventor was sitting astride the bench in a very unladylike fashion with Christina facing the table, her head resting forlornly against HG's chest.

A long silence followed as each of them passed the time with introspection. Helena's arms held her daughter close, a hand stroking midnight locks and senses taking in every good feeling that made the wait just about bearable. After a while, she felt the girl's body sag and knew that the long day was beginning to wear on her.

"Are you tired, Love?" Helena kissed the top of Christina's nodding head and then looked down into worried depths. "We shouldn't have to wait too much longer. Myka is rather good at this sort of thing." She caught Lila's raised eyebrow and cracked a smile. "Pete, Claudia and Steve have their moments of brilliance too."

"How long have you known them?" Lila wondered aloud, looking to pass the time.

Helena thought for a moment. "Three years. Though as a recurring... colleague, rather than a permanent fixture." It felt like she had known Myka her entire life. Was it really only three years? "When I met Pete and Myka, they were charged with apprehending me after I escaped confinement," she smirked, though the expression had nothing of its usual energy. Still, she treasured the confusion that fell over Lila's face. "Suffice it to say, we've had many interesting moments." She studied the woman for a moment, chewing over a thought that had pleaded for her attention for a while now. "You remind me of someone I used to know."

"I do?"

"Yes." HG shifted a little and looked down to see if Christina was managing to stay awake. Though her eyelids were drooping, there was too much worry there for her to find rest yet. Helena checked her watch again. Ten minutes wasn't long for Myka to be gone. "Christina," she prodded gently, hoping to help keep all their minds distracted for a few minutes. "Does Lila remind you of anyone?"

The girl's curiosity got the better of her and she lifted her head to study Uncle Pete's girlfriend. Since meeting Lila a few weeks ago, she had found a fascination with her pretty, reddish blonde hair and kind grey eyes and taken an almost instant liking to her. Pete was especially goofy when she was around too and that was always entertaining. There hadn't been many blondes in her family's acquaintance and only one that had shown such patience and understanding. "Josephine," she ventured at last.

Helena smiled fondly at the memory of her mother's young maid. They had practically grown up together and the girl had been a young HG Wells' first crush and first kiss. "My thoughts exactly."

Lila noted the familiar look of love lost and canted her head to one side. "Ex-girlfriend?"

HG hummed her amusement at the idea that she and Jo could have had anything resembling an open relationship, even if the young blonde hadn't eventually married and left Helena to find her own trysts, and before long, Christina's father. She had returned to work for the Wells matriarch and was put in charge of Christina's care whenever Helena was forced to visit with her mother. "Not quite. I suppose you could say that we had a close friendship that crossed an experimental line once or twice. She was very dear to me. Christina has her namesake."

Lila was quiet for a minute, worrying her lip as she thought about another close relationship. "Has it ever worried you; Myka and Pete working so closely together?" The young woman hesitated as she considered how much of her concern she should share. "Pete mentioned that she had an affair with her partner before..." she trailed off at the sudden spark of fury in HG eyes. "Sorry, I don't mean to question her character, I just... I've been burnt that way before."

The older Victorian nodded and tried to soften her expression. "Quite frankly, no. I trust Myka implicitly. Pete has proven his penchant for women of many a variety, but he is loyal and I've seen the way he looks at you; he won't stray." She sighed and looked at her watch again. "If you decide that this is a life you could live with, of course."

Lila couldn't help checking her own watch and sighed. "I don't suppose it would do me any good to ask you to tell me what's really going on?"

Helena shook her head regretfully. "I'm afraid not, dear. It's Pete's place to discuss the many pitfalls and perks to being permanently associated with our queer little family." She noted the deepening worry in those grey eyes and decided to take pity on the young blonde. "In my vast experience dear, there is really only one question you should be asking yourself; is he the one?"

A thoughtful silence fell over the trio again as the seconds ticked by painfully slow. HG had taken out her Farnsworth (a condition she had requested as part of agreeing to take up the mantel of Key Researcher) and took to gazing at it, willing it to ring. They heard the sirens just seconds before the jarring klaxon of the communicator caught their attention and, with suddenly trembling hands, the inventor fumbled to open it.

Helena's heart sank the moment Agent Lattimer's face appeared on the screen instead of Myka's. He looked like he'd been dragged through a hedge backward; there were scratches along his jaw and down one side of his face, a tissue stuffed up one nostril to stem the tide of a nosebleed, and a rapidly purpling area around one eye, which by morning would probably be black. On another day, HG might have spared a thought for Lila who would have to be a special woman to see the result of an hour of their work and still want to date Pete, but she was too concerned with her own lover's well-being to even care.

Pete began to talk in his usual roundabout way without getting close to the point, prompting an irate stare from the Victorian. "Bloody hell Pete, will you please put a sock in it and tell me where she is!" She felt Christina jump a little and breathed a little deeper in order to calm herself down. "I'm sorry love," she whispered gently, feeling the girl relax into her body again even as she knew that her daughter was keeping a sharp ear out for news.

Pete appeared chastised and adopted a rare expression of seriousness. "She's fine HG. Only one scratch, but it was a tiny bit deeper than these beauties," he gestured to his own face. "So the medics are just patching her up. She really kicked ass; I recognised a few of your moves in there too. Have you two been working out all that tension with Kenpo?"

She wasn't in the mood to humour him, but knowing Myka was safe was enough to stop her yelling at him again. "Very well. Thank you. If you don't require any assistance and there's nothing further to be aware of, then we shall meet you out by the car." She had a spare set of keys for her girlfriend's car and wanted to find somewhere semi-private so she could talk to Christina and then take some time to appreciate the relief she felt. "Would you like to talk to Lila?"

"I'd love to but I'm being herded towards a medic for some TLC. Myka and Steve are starting to wrap things up, so we won't be long... What? Yeah, ok buddy, I'm puttin' it away... Gotta go HG, love to Lila!" Pete's face vanished and Helena closed her Farnsworth with a gentle click.

"Did he look bad?" Lila asked, having noticed the initial alarm on the Brit's face when she first answered her strange looking phone. She too was relieved that the bizarre end to their otherwise wonderful weekend was over. She was mildly disappointed that Pete hadn't fought to speak to her, but then she wasn't sure she was ready to see him hurt and knew logically that it was best for him to receive medical care first.

Feeling a little of herself returning, HG smirked. "That would depend on your meaning. He's always looked peculiar to me and he really does need to visit a barber. If you're referring to his injuries however, they're all superficial wounds." She suddenly had a vision of Myka in the same condition and didn't find it so amusing. "I'm sure you'll be quite alarmed when you first see him but truly, within a week, you will barely notice anything."

"Mummy," a sleepy voiced grumbled. "Are we going home now?"

"Yes, love." Helena stood and steadied Christina as she wobbled to her feet. She wrapped her arm around the girl's shoulders, wishing that she had the strength to carry her to the car. "We're meeting Mama at the car and then we're going home."

The next few hours were a bit of a blur to HG Wells. The second she spotted Myka approaching the car, she leapt out, began checking her over, 'Pete told me the medics were dressing a laceration', and then wrapped up her in a tight embrace, tears gathering in her eyes. The American returned the gesture eagerly, for her own sense of relief as well as her partner's, while she murmured soft words in her lover's ear; 'I'm here Helena... I'm here'.

Other than a few reassurances that they were all fine and had cleared up enough of the chaos that they could take off if they wanted, there were few words spoken. Lila and Claudia volunteered to drive as neither one was too emotionally or physically exhausted and within no time it seemed, HG was standing by her daughter's bed, agonising over leaving her. There was no extra bed in the room like at Leena's though so other than sleep on the floor, she had no choice but to go.

Lethargic arms wrapped themselves around her waist and a gentle voice murmured in her ear. "We could have put her in our bed for one night."

It was tempting. Like her wishful thinking from earlier in the day, curling up in bed with Myka and Christina would solve her immediate anxiety, but she knew it would be a huge step back in the long run. She closed her eyes and tried to relax into her lover's embrace. "She needs me to be stronger than that... and so do you. We will not progress far by treading backwards."

Myka refrained from commenting and buried her nose in fragrant hair, breathing in the Brit's calming scent. She agreed with what Helena was saying but felt the conflict too. The afternoon's anarchy had planted a seed of fear in the young woman's heart and she found herself calculating risk factors that normally sat easy with her. For the first time in a long time, she seriously considered resigning from her fieldwork. "I need you to be happy. If that means being strong right now, then I'll support you all the way."

As quietly as possible, the pair exited their daughter's room, leaving the door ajar as they plodded across the landing. Rather than try to sleep right away, knowing that it wouldn't come easily, they began to quietly pack up their belongings ready for an early start the following morning. Eventually exhausted, Myka stripped down to her underwear and threw on a t-shirt, encouraging Helena to do the same, even as the inventor protested between yawns that she wasn't tired. She pulled her girlfriend into bed, gently requesting the other woman's presence to help her sleep.

Helena lay on her back; Myka's arms wrapped securely around her middle, and stared at the ceiling. There were choices to be made, conversations to be had, and plans to be set in motion. Her mind had never been able to let her rest when there were questions to be answered. She found herself in a quandary; stuck at a fork with no sight of where either road might lead her. Currently, the only thing she knew for sure was that, whichever path she moved forward on, Myka and Christina had to be by her side.

She recalled a similar dilemma she'd had when her daughter was merely an infant. Should she spend her time nurturing the little girl at home, while unknowable dangers surfaced all around them? Or should she use her vast skills to make the world a safer place for when said child one day ventured out on her own?

Could she ask Myka to leave the Warehouse? Would the dedicated agent even consider the option? HG had been the cause of the brunette's departure once before, but that had been a crisis of faith, this would be a decision made as a family wanting to live a life free of random attacks from not-so-inanimate objects.

Helena rolled her eyes. Ridiculous, she thought to herself. In her many years as an agent and later as an enemy of the Warehouse, no one had ever left and managed to stay away. Those who caught the attention of the regents were invariably connected to the peculiar happenings therein for life. The reason more people didn't get sucked in, was quite simply because they didn't sense that the bizarre things they sometimes glimpsed were not simply figments of their imagination.

She and Myka were in far too deep to just ignore the weird and wonderful, and Helena had to admit to herself that, underneath the fear and anger, there had been a tremor of excitement the moment of Claudia's olfactory discovery, just as there had been in Boone as she'd been swabbing that prisoner for evidence.

The Warehouse would never completely let go of her and it seemed as if she would never entirely let go of it either.

She sighed wearily. If she was going to try living semi-normal life while continuing to investigate artefacts with her fellow agents, she was going to have to accept the risks that came along for the ride. Running away was a path that moved in a perpetual circle and eventually she would end up right back in this place of uncertainty. Grabbing the bull by the horns seemed like the only logical option any more. This time though, she would have support.

Glancing down, she thought about how precious and precarious life was and knew that nothing in the world could ever stop her worrying about Myka or Christina. It was a difficulty she would have to learn to live with because, like it or not, this was their life.

Eyelids eventually drifted shut over a resolute gaze. She was HG Wells. She had built a working time-machine that transported one's consciousness to bodies from the past. Had lain in bronze for over a century and woken to eventually win the love of the beautiful creature resting beside her. Had been given a second chance to be the mother she had always wanted to be. Was free from a time when her independence had been looked upon more like a disease and free to make her mark out from under her brother's shadow.

Time to stop living in the past, her inner voice muttered as sleep finally took over and pulled her under.