Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
AN: Hello, Warehouse 13 fandom! I was browsing the show tag on tumblr, looking for character studies, and I saw some really great fanart by the super talented and gracious threeofeight. I'll place a link to the post in my profile, since this site eats hyperlinks in stories. This site is also hell on formatting, so feel free to let me know if anything in the text is especially out of place and I'll head back in to clean it up.
The Phantom is almost upon her.
Lieutenant Commander Myka Bering of the Systems Alliance is pinned down on a ledge overlooking the courtyard of the Cerberus facility she had been sent to raid. I could jump, Myka thinks for a wild moment as she unloads her last clip futilely into the Phantom's barrier. The drop from the ledge is only about twenty feet down, her hardsuit would absorb most of the shock. She thinks she has enough juice left to even cushion some of the impact with her biotics.
But the Phantom is too damn fast, she's too damn tired, it's too damn late.
She throws up a weak barrier when the Phantom is within striking range, the effort sending a hot spike of pain shooting through her skull, but the Phantom cuts through her biotics with ease, its monomolecular blade piercing the barrier like a hot knife through butter. When the blade reaches her, blows out her shields, pierces the material of her chestplate she realizes she's not even scared.
It hurts like hell, but then, so do a lot of things.
Myka slides to the ground. She wants to reach up, evaluate the severity of the wound on her shoulder but she can't find the strength to do it.
Wait.
Shoulder.
Blackness is creeping into her vision, it's hard to concentrate on anything other than the heaviness of her own eyelids, but she struggles, blinks blearily up.
She sees the sun.
Bright, so bright. And near. She's never been this close to a star. It feels impossible. She wonders if it's just something that happens when you die.
The sun fades, its brilliance reduced to colorful spots swimming in her darkening vision. Where the sun once blazed, now there is an angel.
"Myka," the angel says. She has a beautiful voice, but her visage is frightening; a giant, shining yellow eye set in a featureless white face. The angel takes off her head, and underneath is pale skin, dark hair, something familiar. Something...
"Myka, darling, hold on," the angel says, dropping to her side, cupping her hands around Myka's face. "Myka, please."
She takes a rattling breath, and stops trying to fight the heaviness of her eyes. Dimly, she is glad that the last thing she sees is something beautiful.
x.x.x
It was about a week after the invasion hit when they came for her. She'd been stationed in Denver, the only N7 in her entire company, trying to hold down the hospital Alliance Command had claimed as a base of operations.
She was woken up from the first chance she'd had to sleep in more than 50 hours, still jittery and sick from the stims she'd been taking to compensate. A stern looking officer in full hardsuit informed her she was being drafted into a special operation on the order of Rear Admiral Irene Frederic and she was to leave immediately. She slept that night in the back of the shuttle as it raced toward the nearest relay, its size and speed the only thing keeping it from becoming a target for the Reaper ships that set the sky ablaze around them.
She awoke in the docking bay of a larger ship, being shaken awake by the same severe looking officer. "You're the last to arrive, Commander," he informed her as he lead her through the stark, echoing hallways of the ship.
The relief she felt when she entered the debriefing room was so powerful, so sudden and overwhelming that she almost wanted to weep.
Pete "To Hell with Protocol" Lattimer shot up from his chair and swept her up in a bone crushing hug, lifting her bodily off the ground and swinging her in the air once, twice, three times before setting her back down again. The last she'd heard he was stationed at Arcturus, she had no idea how he was alive, resolved distractedly to ask him about it when there was time. She pressed her forehead into his cheek and squeezed him hard before stepping back and turning to salute her commanding officers.
"Ma'am," She addressed Admiral Frederic. "Sir," she made only a small effort to keep the fondness from her voice when she spoke to Captain Nielsen.
"At ease," Frederic's voice was hard, as always, but her eyes were kind. "Now that you're here, Commander Bering, we may begin."
The debriefing was mercifully short. Operation Warehouse was a joint effort with the Turian and Asari militaries, and a rather straightforward affair. The enemy had certain advantages, and the Alliance wanted as many of them removed as possible. A number of specialized stealth vessels would be deployed across all areas of Citadel space, carrying teams of 4-5 elite operatives, and a small support crew. Their mission was to strike hard and fast at strategic enemy locations, collecting valuable intel, stealing experimental technologies, taking out supply chains, and shutting down communications. Myka would be serving aboard the SSV Univille, under Captain Neilsen's command, as a member of one such cell, designated Warehouse-13.
Frederic left almost immediately and Pete began introducing her to the other members of the team. Lieutenant Junior Grade Steven Jinks was a biotic, like her, and a graduate of the fourth level of ICT training. He struck Myka as kind, if a little serious, but she could hardly blame him for it. The war hadn't left much to laugh about. The only other new member of team was Claudia Donovan, 19 years old and just recruited out of Grissom Academy. She had no rank, just a skillset impressive enough and a recommendation from Nielsen solid enough to get her onboard the operation via a hastily drafted civilian contract. Myka worried a little about the girl's lack of combat experience, but she knew Artie wouldn't advocate for just anyone.
"Our first target," Arite announced when the introductions were over, "is a Cerberus base in the Horse Head."
Artie locked eyes with her across the table, and she felt the weight of Pete's worried gaze on the side of her face, but she had long since learn how to keep her expression blank, even when her heart leapt into her throat to choke her.
"When do we leave?" Myka asked.
x.x.x.
The world is much too bright.
When Myka opens her eyes, the room spins around and around, the motion making her queasy. Her limbs feel leaden, her mouth tastes like a dumpster, and she can feel the buzzing edge of pain that hovers just beneath the suffocating numbness of hospital-grade pain medication.
"Myka?" Pete
It's Pete and she doesn't know what's going on, but she's glad he's here. She wants to tell him so, but she can't seem to figure out how to make words happen.
"Hold on, I'll go get Dr. Caulder," he assures, her squeezing her hand before she hears the squeak of chair legs on the aluminum floor and a door opening and closing.
She's so tired.
Myka gives in to sleep again.
x.x.x.
The assault on the Alexandria facility had been a disaster from the beginning.
It was bad intel, but of course they hadn't realized that until they had boots on the ground, and by that point it was too late to pull out. The base was supposed to be running on a skeleton crew, most of the Cerberus operatives in this system were providing backup for Minuteman Station. They had anticipated maybe twenty, maybe thirty operatives left behind, mostly scientists and 'researchers. They'd been very wrong.
Pete was a powerhouse on the battlefield, a walking tank. His armor was thick, heavy, a weapon unto itself as he charged across the field, taking out large swaths of enemies all at once with his arsenal of grenades and the rapid fire bullet storm of his Typhoon. Jinks darted around from cover to cover, picking off the targets with sniper fire and well timed biotic attacks. Claudia performed remarkably well for her first mission, staying mostly in tactical cloak and knocking out enemy shields and electronics. She hacked into the base's network, updating the squad's maps with accurate information and blowing through the locks and security systems to clear a path for Myka to retrieve the intel they'd come for.
Each of them had performed well, but it hadn't been enough. They were outnumbered.
When it was apparent that they wouldn't be able to clear the base like they'd planned, Myka had broken off from the group, determined to retrieve the intel and complete the mission.
It had been reckless, but they hadn't had any other options.
She'd made it into the labs at the heart of the base, had downloaded the data they needed from the central terminal, and was halfway back to the extraction zone when she made contact with the Phantom. She was low on thermal clips, her biotics pushed to their limits, painfully staggered by the aftereffects of overloading her biotic amp, and already bleeding from wounds she'd sustained fighting her way through the labs. To make things worse, she let the Phantom corral her into hallways and, finally, the balcony above the courtyard, and every soldier from here to the Citadel knew close quarters combat with a Cerberus Phantom was as good as suicide.
And then she'd been stabbed.
In the shoulder.
Phantoms never aimed for anything less than a deathblow and their cybernetically enhanced accuracy didn't leave room for error. Phantom had stumbled, right at the last minute and then the sun...
Not the sun-
An incineration.
The angel in the Cerberus helmet had known her name.
Not an angel.
Helena.
Helena
x.x.x
"Easy there," Dr. Caulder's voice is warm and low, her hands are gentle as she helps Myka ease herself into a sitting position. "You have been receiving the best care the Alliance has to offer," she boasts playfully. "But your wounds aren't quite healed yet, Commander."
Myka manages a shaky smile, "Aw, c'mon coach, put me in."
"In due time, Myka," Dr. Caulder smiles at her fondly. "Now, how are you feeling? You gave us all quite a scare."
"Tired," Myka answers after a long moment, staring hard at the sheets covering her legs, trying to piece together the fragments of memory floating around in her brain. "Sore, a little. Confused."
"Confused?" Caulder probes gently. She's checking for brain damage, Myka realizes. She knows the worst of her own injuries is the shoulder wound she'd sustained, but her body had been pretty thoroughly rocked even before she'd been cornered by the Phantom. The gaps in her memory indicate a concussion, at the very least. Caulder is just being thorough.
"I remember," Myka begins and then falters.
The sun.
The angel.
"Myka, please."
"Myka?" Caulder tries again.
It all clicks together at once, the realization as traumatic as any Phantom's blade.
"Wells," Myka demands, gripping the sheets so tightly her knuckles turn white. "Where is Operative Wells?"
x.x.x.
She met Helena Wells for the first time on another mission under Captain Nielsen's command. She wasn't Navy, like Myka, or a Marine like Pete. She never divulged her branch, would only admit that she was special operations and claimed anything further was need to know.
It was infuriating.
The woman was infuriating.
And brilliant. And kind. And sweet, and terrifyingly competent, and obnoxiously attractive, and she made Myka's heart pound like nothing else ever had.
They were lovers.
More than that, Myka had thought.
She'd been wrong, apparently.
Of all the lies Helena had told, the line about special ops hadn't been among them. She was a Corsair, a covert operative of the Systems Alliance military that ran around the galaxy with just enough autonomy for the Alliance brass to wash their hands of them if things went wrong. Corsairs got up to some nasty business; sabotage, espionage, wetwork. Myka had learned all of this after the fact, of course, when Captain Nielsen pulled some strings and dug into Helena's service records.
Helena Wells had been a Corsair, an N7 graduate, a patriot, a writer, an inventor, an engineer, a passionate lover, and a double agent, feeding Alliance intel to Cerberus for at least three years of her service.
And she'd sabotaged the security systems at Yellowstone Station, making off with terabytes upon terabytes of highly classified information and leaving Pete and Myka to die.
x.x.x
Medigel is without a doubt the most impressive feat of human ingenuity ever invented. Packed full of the stuff, she's well enough to walk around the ship on her own, even if she's not cleared for combat yet. She needles Artie for days until he grants her permission to visit the brig.
The Univille isn't a particularly big ship, so there's no real brig, just an equipment closet cleared of its contents and locked from the outside. Helena sits on a cot in the corner, hands bound and resting on her lap. She looks up when Myka enters, rises halfway off the bed before thinking better of it and slouching back down against the wall.
Myka always thought she'd have something to say to her the next time they saw each other again.
Helena has a way of flipping all of Myka's expectations on their head, though.
"I.." Helena begins, voice rough from disuse. She clears her throat delicately and risks a glance up to Myka's face as she tries again. "I'm glad you're well."
Myka can't stop herself. She laughs, it's a brittle, harsh sound and when she hears it Helena flinches as if struck. "Oh are you?"
"Myka," Helena rises desperately, face twisted in agony. "Please, I-"
"You left me to die in a burning space station," Myka says. You broke my heart, she thinks. She can feel biotic energy rise in her body, the air snapping and crackling around her, sending tremors of sharp pain ricocheting around her skull.
"No," Helena shakes her head frantically. "No, not to die. When the time came, I found myself unable to... to follow through. I was to destroy all means of evacuation, but I didn't. I left you the shuttle, remember?"
"I remember that fifty people died on that station, Helena," Myka explodes, a wave of biotic energy rolling unconsciously from her body, slamming Helena against the wall, flipping her cot onto its side. Myka stumbles backwards, gripping her head against the searing pain of utilizing her blown out amp. Her legs feel like jello, her stomach is rolling sickly, she's afraid she might pass out.
She feels hot. Her skull feels like it's splitting apart.
There are cool hands on her face, and then they're clutching her forearm, activating her omni-tool.
"Deck 3 to bridge," Helena's voice is uncharacteristically shaky. "Commander Bering is in need of medical attention."
"Copy," came Claudia's voice. "Sending help."
"Please hurry."Helena gathers Myka into her arms, she presses a kiss to Myka's temple. Through the pain, Myka hates herself for the comfort she finds in this woman, even after everything. She hates the way her body still relaxes in her grasp, the way her heart speeds up.
x.x.x.
Because living a double life hadn't been complicated enough, Helena had apparently decided to go for a third.
Roughly half a year ago, she had gotten back in contact with the Alliance, offering to provide classified Cerberus intelligence. The deal had been brokered through Adwin Kosan, apparently, a politician with a strong military and intelligence background.
Artie relayed all of this to Myka as she rested in the med bay, recovering after having her malfunctioning biotic implant surgically removed by Dr. Caulder. It was a dangerous operation that most biotics never had to undergo, but Myka hadn't had a choice. The amp had been blown on the Alexandria raid, and if it remained in place any longer it could have killed her. On the bright side, she'd been fitted with a top-quality L5x implant which would boost her output tremendously.
"What happened on Alexandria?" Myka asked. "When she saved me?"
"She carried you to the EZ, put you on the shuttle, and surrendered herself to Alliance custody."
"Why?"
Artie was silent for a long time before he shook his head. "Who the Hell can figure out how her brain works?"
x.x.x.
Pete escorts Helena to the med bay. She looks small and used up, hands still cuffed, but she manages a strained smile when she meets Myka's eyes.
Pete presses a kiss to Myka's cheek and nods respectfully when she asks for privacy, even though she knows the thought of leaving her alone with Helena must be driving him crazy.
"Why did you do it?"
Helena swallows, takes slow, deep breaths before she speaks. "Because I love you."
"No," Myka won't allow herself to hear that confession. Not now. Not yet. "Why did you betray us?"
"I... I can't answer that question," Helena answers at length, voice so soft that Myka isn't sure if she's imagined it.
"Dammit, Helena," Myka growls. "I need answers. I deserve answers."
"I cannot answer that question in a manner you would find satisfying," Helena answers slowly, enunciating each word, speaking with a conviction Myka hasn't heard from her since before Yellowstone, "because those were the actions of... of someone else. The woman I was then is scarcely recognizable to the woman I am today."
"You don't get to do that," Myka snaps. "You don't get to just... disown yourself from what happened."
"No," Helena inhales shakily. "I don't. You're right, I don't."
"Why, Helena?" Myka presses, but the anger's gone. She feels tired, now.
Helena's bound hands rise to her chest and Myka notices for the first time that Pete and Artie must have let her keep her locket, even when they'd stripped her of other personal effects. "My Christina was my stars and my moon. I... I'm afraid, when her light was so cruelly extinguished, all that was left in me was darkness. I gave myself to it, quite a good deal more willingly than is easy to admit. The pain consumed me. Hatred was easier than tears."
Helena's daughter, Christina, was a casualty of the Skyllian Blitz. Helena had been deployed in the Attican Traverse, leaving her young daughter in the care of a family friend on the colony of Elysium when the pirates struck. They had only talked about it once, Helena drunk and undone on the floor of a hotel on Illium. They had never talked about the records in her file that noted an increasing xenophobic attitude after the Blitz, her volunteering for the raid on Torfan and the subsequent charges of war crimes she'd narrowly escaped in the aftermath, after surfacing reports of her execution of Batarian POWs.
Myka thinks that if they could have talked about it, if she had known, maybe things would never have gotten as bad as they did.
It hurts, even just to speculate, so she pushes the thought away, return's her focus to Helena's words.
"I've had contacts in Cerberus since my enlistment. They are not difficult people to meet for one that asks the right questions, has the right background. These were not kind men, but I felt the time for kindness had long since past. I... I made the decision to cement our affiliation after the human colonies began disappearing last year, when it was clear the Alliance wasn't prepared to safeguard human interests where it was inconvenient. I... didn't want what happened to Christina to happen to any other children.
"I told myself I was doing the right thing. I told myself that you were an... unavoidable casualty. And I believed it, almost, until I was sitting in the shuttle leaving Yellowstone, watching it burst into flames in my wake..."
Helena ducks her head silently for a long time, and when she looks up again Myka can see tears in her eyes.
"I reached out to an old contact still with the Alliance. I offered to turn myself in. He felt that I could better serve the Alliance by resuming some of my duties as a covert operator, and I could scarcely disagree. Deception is my strong suit, after all."
It's too easy. Myka almost hates herself for how easy it is, but she can feel all the anger, all the bitterness that had suffocated her these last eight months thaw and melt, laying bare the love she had tried so hard to rid herself of.
This is the rest of Helena.
This is the part she had never shown to Myka in all the time they'd been together before. The vulnerable part, the weak part, the part choked by self doubt and self loathing.
Myka knows she loves this part just as completely as the rest of her.
She lays her hand palm up on the hospital bed. An invitation.
Carefully, Helena covers Myka's hands with her own.
She leans up, slants her mouth against Helena's. Feels the tentative response of those soft lips, the gentleness with which Helena presses aginst her.
There's a long way to go, Myka knows.
They'll go there together.
AN: If the ending feels abrupt, that's because it is! I needed to wrap this up so I could resume work on other projects, it was threatening to run away from me. Feedback is appreciated, constructive criticism welcomed. Thanks for reading.
-Orange