Part 2

Author's Note: I didn't intend on continuing this fic, but recently Claudia demanded her side of the story and well you just can't say no to that girl can you? Enjoy!

She knows it's in the cards, she just happens to have thrown the deck away a long time ago in denial thank you very much.

But the fact still remains, and recent events have been yet another reminder that either by time or design, one day Artie will be gone.

And she has a feeling that when that day finally comes, she'll be found in the hermetically sealed copy of his room in the Warehouse for weeks, balling her eyes out. Because strange death/disappearance or no, she's gonna need that solace, that reminder of who he was and what he meant to her. She's just incredibly grateful that today is not that day.

But it'd been close. So freaking close. And even curled up against him, falling fast asleep and safe and comforted and dare she say loved, that closeness will haunt her dreams for a while.

They'd been arguing, nothing new there.

She doesn't even remember what about exactly, something stupid in hindsight. What she does remember is that she'd picked up the nearest artifact, not even bothering to check the label, engrossed in using it to state her side and piss him off to the point where she didn't hear the ominous hissing sound coming from said artifact.

It would have been too late if Artie hadn't grabbed the mask and chucked it as far from them as possible before tackling her to the ground, using his own body as a shield against the explosion. The blast sent him flying, leaving her unscathed with her heart in her throat.

"Artie? Artie! ARTIE!" She managed to scream past the pesky organ, scrambling to her feet in a sprint towards the slumped figure amidst several smashed crates. The possible hazardous contents were meaningless, only the man who'd crashed into them mattered.

She froze once she reached him though, beyond scared; he'd been so still. She'd never seen Artie so still, so quiet, even for an old-timer he never truly sat still, and to see him otherwise was truly terrifying. Trembling fingers reached to find a pulse, and she found it, but it was thready, and while he was breathing it was with difficulty.

Pete and Myka found them not minutes later, the explosion had no doubt having caught their attention, but it felt like hours until they got him out of the Warehouse and to Leena's where an ambulance was waiting. The chances of an ambulance actually finding its way to the Warehouse are slim, but for every minute that ticked by she cursed there not being some kind of emergency protocol for such situations. It's when she forced her way into the ambulance, declaring herself to be his daughter, her expression daring the EMTs to fight her, that she'd had the sickening realization that no protocol existed because such incidents must usually result in death. So no emergency services would be required.

He crashed once on the way, the strain of the trip to get him to help almost proving too much, and she tells herself that crying "Dad!" while they worked to revive him was only for show, to confirm that she really was his daughter.

It's an effective lie, and it works all the way through the surgery on his leg and the waiting and over sanitized rooms and hallways that remind her too much of the nut house she'd been in and finally being allowed to see him. But once outside his room she hesitated, she hated hospitals and she knew Artie hated hospitals and the thought of what she might see upon opening that door was almost too much. She'd done this, she was the one to blame, how could she even think she had the right to see him after that?

"Go on, Claudia," Myka had encouraged, nudging her toward the door.

"Myka, I-"

"We get it okay, Claude? We do, but he'll want to see you when he wakes up. You know how he gets, Papa Bear Syndrome and all that," Pete jumped in with a small smile, "We'll be out in the waiting room, c'mon Mykes."

"But I-"

And just like that she'd been left on her own. But her desire to see him overrode the fear of what she'd actually see, and she'd turned the knob with a strength she didn't know she possessed.

And there she'd stayed until he woke up, charming all the nurses into letting her stay well past visiting hours for several days, finishing whatever Warehouse duties were required of her as efficiently as she'd ever done to get more time at the hospital. It got to the point where Judy, the head nurse for Artie's wing, left her sandwiches from the cafeteria, which she ate out of appreciation for the thought and without really tasting because she had a vigil to keep. Mrs. Frederic had stepped in immediately after Artie was hospitalized so Pete and Myka couldn't be there at first, artifacts didn't hunt themselves and all that jazz, but they make it back when it counts.

She won't tell Artie that they did wake her up, though, better not to get him all huffy while he's still in recovery. Plus if they hadn't come in when they had, she never would have gotten to hear his lullaby. It's sweet and soft and everything she wishes she could remember her parents doing, but she has it now, and she can't be sad about it coming so late. Because he's forgiven her, and he's alive, and they're family, and that's all that counts.