Author's Note: I know this one is significantly later than usual, but it took some time to get this where I wanted it. Let me know what you think. And, as always, thank you for reviewing - all of you, even the guests! : )
Helena had been so intent on investigating the newfound hole in Artie's office that she had neglected to observe her lover's reaction to it. It seemed that she was not alone. Pete was peering around Claudia's shoulder and leaning from one side to the other with squinted eyes to try and see the emptiness that expanded before them. Steve was evaluating the darkness with the same skepticism that she imagined the former ATF agent would regard a bomb. Artie's jaw had nearly met with the floor, and he was offering small mumblings about the secrets of his own damn office. Claudia gnawed at her bottom lip and shifted her eyes between Mrs. Frederic and Myka, holding her breath tight in her chest.
Savannah, however, hadn't moved from the floor. It was her who Myka faced, instead of the makeshift entrance that had been created before them. Myka's arms were folded, and the set of her jaw reflected a determination that Helena could admire, but not understand.
After several moments, during which the rest of the team caught on to the silent exchange that was occurring beyond their initial focus, Savannah nodded and stood, dusting off the backs of her jeans. "I'll keep watch here," she said softly, offering Myka a small grin.
"Thanks, bug," Myka smiled in return.
Savannah shoved her way through the team with a small huff and a playful wink at Pete and Claudia, before she reached her arms out to wrap around Myka's middle. Helena briefly relinquished her hold over Myka and took a step away to allow the younger woman the comfort that she somehow knew Myka to be in need of equally as much as her cousin, if not more so.
"Don't touch anything, okay?" Myka instructed, sliding her fingers through straight, dark locks.
Savannah rolled her eyes. "I'm not five, Mykey," she stated pointedly.
"That's never stopped you before," Myka muttered. "I'm serious, though. Don't touch anything, and if anything goes wrong at all, you call for me, okay?"
Savannah blinked and placed a hand over her cocked hip. "What exactly do you think is going to go wrong?"
"With this place?" Artie snorted. "You can never really know. "
"I'll be good," Savannah said, punctuating the sentiment with an exasperated eye roll. "And I won't touch anything. Go," she said, tilting her head toward the opening in the wall.
Myka kissed her cheek. "Okay, bug. We'll be back soon," she said, but glanced at Mrs. Frederic, who offered neither denial nor confirmation of the loose time assumption.
Helena scoffed. Talented though the woman may be, and significant as Helena knew she was, Mrs. Frederic grated at her nerves more often than not. Helena had never enjoyed the idea of being ignorant, and had done everything in her power not to be; Mrs. Frederic's entire being seemed focused on leaving others in the dark, and Helena thought it maddening.
With a sigh, Savannah retreated to the loveseat and threw her head over the armrest, hands folded over her stomach.
Helena reached her fingers up to trail over Myka's cheek, and she frowned. "Are you well enough for this, darling?" She inquired, concerned.
Myka shrugged, and cynically replied, "I'm not really getting the feeling that I have a choice."
"There is always a choice, Agent Bering," Mrs. Frederic informed sagely. "However, in this case, I believe that failing to explore this opportunity will only serve to further weaken you."
"Well," Claudia said with a single clap of her hands. "That settles that, then."
And the redhead promptly shoved at Myka's shoulder blades, effectively driving the secret service agent through the stone entrance.
Helena had enough time to shower the girl with the malice of a lethal glower before pivoting to face Myka, who had stumbled frailly at the sudden jerk – but where there had been darkness before as Mrs. Frederic toed the threshold of the entryway, there were now the glowing, radiant paints of sunset; purples and blues, oranges and reds folding over one another and emerging again as they swirled around her lover in a dance that Helena was certain she could never learn the steps to.
"Um…" Myka inelegantly offered with a small half-rotation of her body as her rigorous eyes devoured every detail of her strange new surroundings.
"It's alright, Agent Bering," Mrs. Frederic assured, taking another step forward into the now lit room.
Helena moved behind her, aware that she had not been invited, but defiantly ignoring that particular detail to reach for Myka's hand and offer a small squeeze of comfort. Myka quickly returned it, but the moment that their fingers connected, the sprightful hues wrapped around her like a warm blanket that left her just a bit too hot, but, after a brief moment of inspection, she could note that Myka – though still feeble in her stance – had ceased to tremble.
"Myka?" She prompted softly.
Myka's eyes rapidly shifted around the shades like Helena would imagine one's opened eyes would appear while dreaming, pupils wide where Helena would have expected them to be but pinpoints with Myka's intense focus.
Her lover's fingers slid up to grip tightly at Helena's wrist, and she quietly whispered, "Can you see them?" without shifting to face her at all.
"The colors?" Helena asked, frowning. But she nodded anyway, and confirmed, "Yes, darling. I can see them."
Myka shook her head and parted her lips to speak, but Mrs. Frederic beat her to it. "She cannot see what you see, Myka," she said gently. "Nor can I, or any other."
"Okay," Myka said slowly, dragging out the 'oh' as she processed information as quickly as her brilliant, clever mind could manage. "Why?"
"This is the room of the Protector," Mrs. Frederic smiled widely.
"The who now?" Pete scrunched his nose up, and Helena was alarmed to hear him so near. She had heard him and the others enter behind her, but the warmth of the colors that swathed her left Helena with a distinct grogginess that left Pete and everyone else outside of Myka in a world that seemed just beyond her grasp. She chanced a look back at the doorway they had come through, but she now saw only the same blackness that she had observed from its opposite end.
Confused, Helena tried to pull her hand away from Myka's hold to dispel of the fogginess that had taken her, but the agent was having none of it. Helena looked up to her bemusedly, but Myka's eyes were suddenly still and locked onto hers, the fear in them unmistakable, and Helena raised her hand to offer a long, soothing kiss to her palm. Awareness be damned; she could do without it. Myka was afraid, and Helena's touch helped to calm her. She had no desire to deprive her partner of that comfort.
"The room of the Protector," Mrs. Frederic stated again.
"Dude, is this why the Warehouse was zapping me?" Claudia demanded. "Was Kosan the Protector, or whatever?"
Artie's brows furrowed and he muttered something under his breath, but Helena couldn't hear him, and did not concern herself with anything but Myka. "Darling, breathe," she counseled, and Myka immediately puffed out a breath of air that had the colors around them livening with glee.
"Mr. Kosan was, indeed, the Protector," Mrs. Frederic confirmed, inclining her head and assessing Myka's stiffened form. "Agent Bering is the Warehouse's chosen replacement."
"What exactly does a Protector do?" Artie growled, facing his boss with a displeasure that nearly matched Helena's own.
"The Caretaker looks after the Warehouse," Mrs. Frederic said simply. "The Protector cares for those associated with it."
"What does that even mean?" Steve asked, an uncharacteristic irritation in his words that Helena found circumstantially appropriate, and she offered a small, dazed smile of appreciation.
"The colors that you see in this room are, to Agent Bering's perception, something else entirely. You may think of them as… files," Mrs. Frederic bowed her head slightly as she finally settled upon the world.
"Files on what?" Pete asked, lowering his hands to his hips and regarding Mrs. Frederic with a rather intimidating suspicion.
"On you, Agent Lattimer," Mrs. Frederic lifted her brow authoritatively. "And on me – on every agent who has worked for the Warehouse in the present and past, on every potential agent for its future, on every person known to have made contact with an artifact dating back to Warehouse 1."
"Why is that making her sick?" Claudia exacted commandingly.
"That is a great amount of information working itself into the confines of Agent Bering's mind, Claudia," Mrs. Frederic shared. "As vast as her mind is, it takes a toll. I've been told that the integration can be rather debilitating."
"Okay," Steve halted, shifting one of his folded arms enough to hold up a ceasing palm, "so what exactly is in these 'files?'"
"They aren't files," Myka shook her head, tugging Helena by the wrist as she staggered a couple steps forward. "It's like… video, with feeling."
"Feeling?" Pete asked. "Mykes, you're not allowed to feel my feelings. I have… man feelings," he said, shuffling and rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassed.
"Dude, really?" Claudia arched a brow in his direction.
"You honestly believe that to be anywhere in her focus?" Helena hissed. "Centuries of Warehouse agents and artifact disturbances imprinting upon her mind, and you expect her to be concerned with your male urges?"
Myka tightened her fingers lightly, but frowned. "What if I don't want to be the Protector?" She inquired softly.
"The Warehouse has chosen you for – "
"Yeah, but what if I don't want it?" Myka interrupted, her query firm and her eyes demanding.
"Mykes, come on," Pete laughed a bit incredulously. "Why wouldn't you want that?"
"It's a serious tactical advantage," Steve admitted reluctantly, but he didn't seem thrilled with the idea.
"I don't just see it, Pete," Myka said quietly, shaking her head. "It's… I'm supposed to protect them. All of them, and I can't – "
Myka broke off with a choke, and Helena circled her hands around Myka's waist and pulled, hard, until her lover was fixed against her with her arms looping under Helena's and grasping onto her shoulders, leaning weakly on Helena's frame.
"Darling," she hushed, "be brave, for me, hm? Be brave," she encouraged softly. "Just a tiny bit longer, my love, and we'll take you to bed. You'll rest, and lay safe in my arms. I won't let anything happen to you, Myka. I won't have it. Be brave, just a little longer."
And, God help her, she'd never smelt so many apples in her life.
Myka nodded against her shoulder.
Artie cleared his throat awkwardly. "She's not a Regent, though… correct?" And the final word rumbled dangerously over his tongue, as though anything but a confirmation to his assumption would be intolerable.
"That is a matter up for discussion," Mrs. Frederic ceded. "The Protectors have, in the past, been reserved a seat at the head of the Regents' table."
"What?" Myka demanded.
"There is no defined hierarchy within the Regents' folds," Mrs. Frederic stated professionally, but pointedly added, "officially. Unofficially, however, it is understood that the Protector… makes the decisions, as I believe Mr. Kosan was inclined to say."
Helena kept her fingers at Myka's hip and took Myka's hand between the unsteady grasp of her free one. But Myka's gaze was not on them; it was secured to a suddenly still, golden hue approximately the size of Helena's palm, but the stricken look in her eyes was more than Helena needed.
"That's enough," she determined resolutely. "Myka has had quite enough for the afternoon. She needs rest, and time to process the information that she has been given. That," Helena said firmly, sparing but a threatening glance in the dark woman's direction, "is enough."
"Agent Wells is correct," Mrs. Frederic nodded. "I shall return in the morning, Arthur. Have a meal delivered to Agent Bering's room as quickly as possible; she requires the strength."
"What, like soup?" Claudia turned to ask, but rolled her eyes. "Of course she's freakin' gone. Of course," she huffed dryly.
"Mykes, are you okay?" Pete asked, stretching his arm out to cover her shoulder with his palm. He quickly retracted the hand, though, and, with wide eyes, he breathed, "Woah. Mykes…"
"She needs rest," Helena insisted, drawing a halt to whatever sentiment Pete had been prepared to express. "Come, darling. We'll take you home now, alright?"
"Thank you," Myka sighed. Helena had only once heard her sound so helpless, and it had been but a week before, when Myka had confessed to missing Helena, and loving her, and being devastated by her abandonment.
It had taken Helena and Pete's strength to all but carry an exhausted Myka to the car, Savannah and Claudia trailing fretfully behind as Claudia tried to debrief Myka's cousin on all that had occurred behind the mysterious wall.
Helena noted from the conversation behind her that Savannah was thoroughly confused, as no time had passed in their absence, but despite her intrigue, she would consider that at another time. Myka was her only concern.
But as she sidled into the car beside her lover, and Savannah on Myka's opposite side, Myka regarded her with tears in her eyes and a pain that Helena could only compare to her own, after the loss of her dear Christina.
"Myka?" She asked gently, cupping her cheek with the utmost care.
She was surprised when Myka's fingers reached up to desperately catch her hand in a tight, needy grip, and her eyes maneuvered over Helena's face like a map that she couldn't even pin herself on – like Helena's face held the answer to a frightening world that she knew nothing of.
"Darling, what is it?" Helena insisted, leaning forward to tilt her forehead to her partner's, worry and fear etched into chocolate orbs and the lines around her mouth.
Myka parted her lips, but promptly closed them and shook her head. "Later," she said simply, but it was hoarse and tired, and Myka never took her eyes from Helena's the whole seven miles back to the inn.
Myka had been pushed enough, Helena decided. She would keep her promise. Myka would lie tonight in Helena's arms, safe and secure, where Helena could protect her from the harms of the outside world and the overwhelming power of her lover's strengthened mind. Because everything that Helena treasured in this world was epitomized in Myka Bering, and Satan would haul her to the frozen tundra of Hell – through earth, and wind, and fire, and water, combatting every bit of treacherous resolution that she had ever possessed before Helena would allow harm to befall this woman she so dearly loved.
Tonight, Myka would be protected by the unmatched vigilance and care of Helena Wells. And, for tonight, that was more than enough for Helena.