There were voices outside the bedroom, and Helena muzzily wondered why Shep hadn't started barking or, better yet, attacked the intruders. Part shepherd, part retriever, part three or four other breeds Myka had said, and, in Helena's opinion, entirely worthless. But Shep wasn't here, he was with Claudia, or maybe Pete by now. She supposed if the intruders weren't after the family silver - families didn't keep silver anymore, that was right, too time-consuming to maintain - they would be after other things. She hadn't been practicing her kenpo for awhile, but she would be good for a few moves. Unless they had guns. She pulled the sheet higher over her head; she'd just have to rely on her wits then. The voices became more distinct, separate, one higher-pitched, the other lower, and now there was barking.

Myka tried to leap from the bed, but her foot was still hooked around Helena's and she more or less hopped out, grabbing at the wall for balance. "What are they doing here?" She sounded more anxious than angry, and, balanced restored, she was picking up her clothes from the floor.

"Hey, Mykes," Pete shouted. "Are you here? The Drewster and I thought we'd take you out for breakfast. Claudia's decided we could all take a day." Lowering his voice, he said, "Maybe she's out for a run, think we should wait around?"

Drew's response was muffled. Helena pushed her pillows up against the headboard and nestled into them, watching Myka as she worked her way into the pants and blouse she had worn the day before. She swept a hand through her hair, trying to shake it into some semblance of order. Muttering "I smell like sex," she hurried toward the bathroom; she stopped, on the verge of asking Helena something, Helena could tell, but decided against that too, moving to the door and saying loudly, "I overslept. I'll be right out."

"Your mom never oversleeps," Helena could hear Pete saying. Myka threw a glare over her shoulder at the door. Her blouse gapped where she had a missed a button, and her curls had matted on one side of her head. A Myka thrown out of her routine was adorably befuddled, for the first few minutes, anyway, and Helena hid her smile in a yawn. "Am I to hide in the bedroom? Is that the plan?"

"I need to. . . prepare them, that's all," Myka said, darting into the bathroom. She emerged a few minutes later, smelling of toothpaste and hand soap, and she had drawn her hair back with a clip. The blouse had been rebuttoned and tucked into her pants. Opening the door just wide enough that she could slip through it, although Helena doubted either Pete or Drew would be able to see into the bedroom, she was already saying, "Hey, buddy, I missed you."

The voices alternated, as if in canon, first Pete's, then Drew's, and Myka's trailing behind. Drew's remained at the same speed and level of enthusiasm, and Helena caught "treehouse" and "New York" and "Claudia's cool," while Pete's slowed, becoming less jovial and more embarrassed, as he took in the import of Myka's excuse of oversleeping. Because she didn't oversleep. Helena sighed and slid out from under the sheet. Myka would have been better off saying that she didn't feel good, or that she had just returned from her run, something that wouldn't have automatically flagged itself as a lie. Deception still came too hard for her. This time, because Myka wasn't there to see it, Helena let the smile spread across her face, unguarded and tender and. . . gobsmacked. Just a little bit and justifiable after last night. She waited outside the bathroom for a beat, then shrugged. It was going to be hard to deny there was someone else in the house with the plumbing going full force.

Pete and Myka were standing farther apart than Helena normally saw them when she left Myka's bedroom. He turned his head, but he wasn't surprised to see her. "Process of elimination. There was no car in the driveway."

Myka didn't have her arms wrapped around her chest, but there was a defensiveness in her expression. Her chin had that stubborn tilt, and her "You could have called" had an unmistakably accusatory note.

"Won't be making that mistake again," he sighed. "You're welcome to come along, H.G., though it may be just Drew and me."

Drew was sitting on one of the stools drawn up to the island. Although he seemed absorbed in whatever he was drawing on a pad of paper, Helena was sure he was listening to everything that was being said, and not said. She touched his shoulder as she came to stand in front of the cupboards. "Why don't we have breakfast here? You must have some pancake or waffle mix around."

Both Pete and Myka stared at her. "I can cook," she said, "but I generally prefer not to." As they continued to stare, she added, "It was a part of every nineteenth century. . . ." She trailed off as she looked at Drew, who had stopped drawing long enough to point to the pantry. "It was what every girl learned to do when I was growing up. Ah, yes, thank you, Drew."

As she opened the pantry door, Pete said, "Do we have everything you need - a wood stove? Cast iron skillet? Butter churn?" Behind her she heard shuffling, then Pete's "Ow."

By the time she found the mix, which was buried behind several boxes of cereal, Pete and Myka had gone out onto the patio. They were talking more animatedly than they had allowed themselves to do in the house. Drew was observing them, his drawing, for the moment, forgotten. "They're mad at each other," he said matter-of-factly.

Helena was viewing the contents of the refrigerator, looking for the milk. She leaned back and peered over at the box of mix - her glasses were in the trunk, too - those two ovals, they must be eggs. "They're not angry, they're embarrassed."

"Why?"

The old habit of being almost unsparingly honest with Christina hadn't deserted her. Unfortunately. Helena closed the refrigerator, resting her head against the door. Taking a deep breath, she crossed over to the island, placing the milk and carton of eggs close to Drew. "I'm sure you must have done something that, although it wasn't wrong, you thought your parents might not like? And your mom or your dad found out about it?"

With the show of concentration that made him so uncannily resemble his mother, Drew gave the question some thought before nodding his head. "My friend Colton and I were racing dirt bikes over the ridge. Mom never said I couldn't do that, but she never said I could either. Colton's mom told her."

"And how did you feel?" Helena was guessing that rather than being defiant, Drew, like the otherwise compliant child he appeared to be, would have swiftly succumbed to guilt. She turned the box so that its instructions faced Drew. "Would you read those out to me, please?"

"I felt bad. Mom wasn't angry, but she said we could have hurt ourselves jumping off the ridge like that." He looked around the box to see how Helena was mixing the ingredients. "Says you're supposed to gently mix."

"Forgive me," Helena said dryly, slowing her rotation of the whisk. "This morning your mom feels bad, and your dad does, too." She glanced at Pete and Myka on the patio. "They're just trying to sort things out between them."

"Is it because you stayed over in my mom's bedroom?"

Helena dropped the whisk into the mix. Gingerly fishing it out, she went over to the sink and washed her hands. She hadn't become a nun by any means after Christina was born, but the number of her liaisons declined and the ones she did conduct, she conducted away from their home. Her unsparingly honest conversations with Christina hadn't had to include explanations of why a strange man or woman had come out of Mama's bedroom in the morning. "Do you have an electric skillet somewhere?" At Drew's blank look, she began opening cupboards. Perhaps a little banging might help drown out that question of his still hanging in the air. She vigorously shut and opened the cupboards, even drawers, rattling the silverware thoroughly. Finding two skillets, neither electric, she set the largest on the stovetop. Hot but not too hot, she reminded herself.

"Colton says when your mom starts letting someone stay over in her bedroom, it means that they're going to be her boyfriend. Colton's mom has a boyfriend, and he sleeps in her room." Drew's features were scrunching into a speculative squint at her. "You can't be my mom's boyfriend, but does it mean you're going to be at our house a lot now? Cause Colton said his mom's boyfriend is always over there."

Hmmm, Colton did not appear to be a fan of his mother's boyfriend. But she thought Drew seemed more neutral than opposed to the possibility that she might become a permanent houseguest. An unlikely possibility given the rocky unfolding of events over the past 24 hours, but that she would keep to herself. She could simply change the subject, although she thought it was the coward's way out. Or she could tell him that it was a conversation he needed to have with his mother, which was equally weaselly in a different sense, since, really, it was a conversation she and Myka should have first, what they were to one another now. Carefully pouring a small amount of the mix into the skillet, she said, "Staying in your mom's room overnight doesn't make me her . . . ." For once, Helena couldn't find the word she wanted. "It doesn't mean I'm going to move in," she said bluntly. Too blunt for an eight-year-old? But Drew's steady, thoughtful regarding of her hadn't changed. "It doesn't have to mean anything at all." Applying a cheery smile that she hoped looked more sincere than it felt, she said, "And it certainly doesn't mean anything is going to happen this morning, other than having pancakes, that is." Perhaps it was a good time to get him more involved in the breakfast-making process. "Do you want to start setting the table for me?"

She had to get the plates down for him, but he collected the silverware, counting out the required number, and methodically set plates and knives and forks on the small dining table. She turned the pancake over, noting with some degree of satisfaction that it didn't look too brown. "Are you going to stay in her room again?" There was no whisk to drop in the mix this time, but she did nearly burn her finger on the rim of the skillet.

She looked at him. So far being honest with him hadn't backfired on her. "I don't know." She had a question of her own. "You seem to have been giving a lot of thought to your mother having a relationship with someone. Why is that?"

"Colton says she's going to get a boyfriend, and then everything will change," he said with adult resignation. "I want to be ready for when it happens." His determination to be prepared made him sound so much like Myka that Helena wanted to fly across the kitchen and hug him to her, but she cleared her throat instead and lifted the pancake up to see if it had browned on the bottom. He put a napkin under each knife and then, without prompting, opened the refrigerator and took out a tub. . . of some mixture of hydrogenated oils. If it was possible to be a dairy snob, Helena counted herself as one. She joined him at the refrigerator, scanning its shelves. No butter. What about syrup? Myka couldn't be so uncompromising as to have pancake mix without syrup. A small bottle. They both looked at the bottle and sighed simultaneously. "Maybe it'll be that guy who came over the other night. She goes out on dates with him." He shrugged, putting the margarine on the table as Helena heated the syrup. Squinting up at her, as if he were trying to take her measure, he said, "Would you like it if he was her boyfriend?"

Perhaps Drew would become a Warehouse agent when he grew older, he already had the dogged quality down, Helena grimly reflected. She smelled something burning and turned back toward the skillet. Bollocks. Flipping the burned pancake onto a plate, she turned the heat down and poured more mix into the skillet. "No," she said, "I wouldn't."

A crooked smile appeared on his face. "Me neither. At least you're building me a treehouse." The smile widened into a cocky grin reminiscent of his father's, and Helena laughed. Shaking her spatula at him, she said, "I'll have to keep my eyes on you. You're a sly customer."

Then he was back in Myka mode, frowning as he worked the term over. "What's a sly customer?"

#####

Burned and unburned pancakes were about evenly split. Pete gallantly took all the burned ones, noting as he slathered margarine over them, "You may have learned to cook as a girl, but I'm thinking you haven't cooked since you were one." He took a bite then pointed at her with his knife. "Didn't you meet Nate in a cooking class?"

Helena sipped at her tea. "I was new in town. It was a way to meet people." Her pancake, half-uneaten, lay cooling in its syrup. It wasn't burned, but it was tough. She was blaming the age of the mix for that.

Drew had a lake of syrup on his plate in which he was dredging tiny triangles of pancake. Myka seemed to be meditating over her cup of coffee, her eyes closed, the cup even with but not touching her mouth. When Pete and Myka had come in from the patio, they were smiling, but Helena could see that the tilt of Myka's chin hadn't noticeably lessened. Pete, however, seemed more at ease, teasing his son and commenting approvingly on Drew's drawing, which was a reasonable facsimile of a pirate ship.

"Drew, why don't you finish up your pancake and brush your teeth." He looked from Myka to Helena. "We're going out to the baseball diamonds. Drew's going to wear his lucky Yankees cap and jersey and shag some balls." As Drew took a few more bites of his pancake and then carried his plate over to the sink, Pete asked innocently, "What do you girls have planned for today?"

Myka opened her eyes and glared at Pete. "I've got work to do," she said. Lowering her voice, she said to him, "You really shouldn't push this." Drew was shuffling slowly toward the bathroom, looking from one parent to the other, and Helena, catching his glance, smiled reassuringly at him.

Pete held his hands up in surrender. "Did you get up on the wrong side of bed or something?" He laughed as Myka threw her napkin at him. "Sorry, but it's just too easy, you know." Turning toward Helena, he said, "I hear that we're going to be roomies." At Helena's look of alarm, he amended, "Not roomie roomies, but, you know, floormates or whatever they call it." His eyes were bright and mischievous. "The things we have in common now. Who would've thought?"

"Pete, seriously, it's time for you to go." Footsteps thundered down the hall toward them, and Myka looked over her shoulder. "You ready, Drew?" Helena thought he had had just enough time to put a curl of toothpaste on his brush and then rinse it off. He nodded enthusiastically and kissed his mother's cheek before scurrying toward the door, Shep running to join him. "Pete. Go. Now," Myka enunciated testily.

Pete got up from the table, flashing a grin at Helena. "Enjoy your new place. I'll be over later with the 'welcome to the neighborhood' casserole." After he put his dishes on the counter, he started whistling an off-key but recognizable version of the theme music to The Odd Couple.

After they heard the front door slam, Myka groaned and buried her head in her arms. "I'm so sorry about how things turned out this morning." Allowing herself one more groan, she pushed herself away from the table and went to the kitchen to pour herself another cup of coffee. "Do you want any more tea? Coffee?"

"No, thank you." Helena took her knife and idly sliced through her pancake. "They were pretty awful, the pancakes, weren't they?" The refrigerator door opened with a small pop, as if it had been vacuum sealed, and she heard Myka moving containers. "How long have you been putting milk in your coffee? You used to shudder when you saw any of us drinking our coffee diluted."

"My stomach can't deal with it straight any longer. And, yeah, the pancakes were awful." Myka slumped back down in her seat.

"It's not as though they walked in on us, darling," Helena said.

"All but." An eyebrow and a corner of her mouth quirked up at the same time, and Helena wondered how Myka would react were she to reach over and take the hand that wasn't gripping the cup like a life preserver. She wanted simply to touch some part of her that was ordinarily in the public view and touch it in a way that wouldn't suggest she was asking for a commitment of Myka's feelings or her future.

Helena wryly reflected that a morning after was no less awkward now than it was when it had been the custom to believe that they didn't exist. Hard to have a morning after when, in polite company, the night before didn't exist either. She couldn't remember so wanting to touch someone she had just been lying next to only hours before. Usually she had had a surfeit of touching, a surfeit of her partner before there was a morning after to endure. That was why she was out the door, hailing a cab (or calling for one), before the morning could make its appearance. Last night she had made no escape plan, hadn't surreptitiously looked up cabs on her phone, hadn't set her internal alarm (although normally there wasn't much need for that, she was awake long before she crept out of the bed), hadn't fixed in her mind where she had left her clothes so she could find them in the dark. As a result, here she was, paralyzed by indecision about whether she should run her thumb across the back of Myka's hand and feeling wistful that the morning, in all its awkwardness, with the child and the ex-husband, the burned pancakes, and, now, the painfully halting conversation might not be repeated. Taking Myka's hand didn't have to be a question, it could be a statement, hers, that this morning was fine as it was, that last night had been even better, and that she was completely open to doing it all over again.

Instead Myka was taking her hand, lacing their fingers, or trying to. Their hands weren't in the right positions or, maybe, they weren't in the right positions for it to be easily done. Helena felt her fingers bending backward as Myka tried to fit her own between them. It wasn't painful, just a little uncomfortable. But it was good to feel the discomfort, to get the confirmation that Myka wanted a connection too.

"He never shows up like that, to take me out to breakfast. I mean, we're still close. But he doesn't ordinarily just walk into the house." Helena's thumb was free, and she was gliding it along the base of Myka's thumb. "We do try to observe some boundaries." Myka laughed, but her eyes were focused on the movement of Helena's thumb. "It's all been a comedy of errors, hasn't it?" As Helena's thumb slowed and came to a stop, Myka's eyes widened with the disappointment of a child witnessing the dying motion of a wind-up toy. "Not last night," she said hurriedly. "We were kind of stumbling around, but that was to be expected. . . . . Us, you know, together, it was good," she finished inarticulately.

Taken aback by the intensity of her relief, Helena said lightly, "We could always repair to your bedroom and -"

"'Repair?'" Myka repeated. "And, what, engage in quaint nineteenth century sex?"

"Did it feel quaint? Superannuated? I think this old woman more than kept up with you." Helena recognized their teasing for what it was, flight from a vulnerability that neither wanted to expose, but at least they weren't mutually acknowledging that the night had been a mistake.

Myka gave her a long look. "Don't challenge me. I doubt that you're up to a rematch yet." At Helena's scoff, she said warmly, gently, "I have agents to check in with, and you have to get to the B&B. Remember when Artie gave us days off?"

"We vacationed doing inventory. Yes, I remember."

"Claudia doesn't give days off either, not really. Technically, she can't." Myka released Helena's hand. "Only I can, and, thanks to you, I have more research to do to find the connections, if there are any, between Afton and the victims in San Francisco."

Helena watched her as she rinsed the dishes in the sink and then frowned at the state of the skillet. There had been the "more" that started in Myka's bedroom and there was the "more" that started, or continued, really, outside it, when they were sitting, dressed, and talking to each other coherently, about things other than how they wanted to go faster or slower, have it sweatier or sweeter. The intimacies weren't separate but linked, one leading into and out of the other. She had experienced something like that with Nate, but the sense she had had that they were never quite in sync, the nagging recognition that the distance between them never diminished made it harder to feel her way with him. At some point she was always brought up short, not sure how she would get from, say, talking with him about Adelaide's reluctance to take swimming lessons to joining him in the shower. Nothing ever flowed with Nate. She wanted things to flow with Myka. She wanted to find the right word, the right gesture that would allow her to lead Myka, who seemed to be completely absorbed in her scrubbing of the skillet, from the sink to her bed. Possibly not today, because she thought Myka might be able to laser the burned dough from the skillet with the strength of her glare, but tomorrow or the next day or whenever it was that they might be together, here, again.

Indeed, there was no flow from the kitchen table back to Myka's bedroom, at least not for Helena, since once the dishes were rinsed and put away in the dishwasher, except for the skillet which was left to soak, Myka took her phone from the counter and was calling Jacqui as she went down the hall. Helena had gone out to the tree she had chosen for Drew's treehouse, making sure it would support what she was envisioning, glancing occasionally at the windows of Myka's bedroom and trying not to imagine Myka showering. Myka remained all business as they got into the car and started the drive to the airport parking lot. But If the silence between them wasn't as charged as it had been on the way to Myka's house, it retained an intimacy that surprised Helena, considering how easily Myka had shifted from lover? friend? to the agents' manager.

In slacks and a short-sleeved blouse, which, Helena noted approvingly (if only to herself), looked much better on her than the DHS-mandated pantsuits she had been wearing in New York, Myka would let her hand drop from the steering wheel and rest it on Helena's knee. Sometimes Helena would try to move it higher, which earned her a reproving shake of Myka's head and, sometimes, making a gesture toward decorum, she would simply cover it with her own. But Helena was aware that the only moment more awkward than waking up next to someone was the moment, usually at the door or, in this case, the car, when a signal about whether this was to be the first or the last of their moments together had to be given. During the few times she hadn't been able to slip out unseen in the morning, thereby making the decision for the both of them, Helena had been the one doing the signaling, and almost always, she had signaled that it wasn't going to be the first of many more moments together. She knew what she ought to signal, if Myka didn't beat her to the signaling first, but she knew what she would signal, if given the chance. Helena looked over the top of her sunglasses to see if she could read anything about which way Myka was leaning in her face. She had hopes from Myka's blushing, cavewoman-like "Us, it was good" admission earlier, but that was what lent this moment, this moment with her, its awkwardness, all she had were hopes, she couldn't know.

Myka pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, just in front of the gate to the lot. "I can drive in, you know. I can handle the ticket."

"Darling, we don't want to overburden the DHS expense account. I'll wheel my bags down that little passageway there," Helena said, pointing to a narrow concrete path that led past the gate into the lot.

Myka pressed the lever to open the trunk as Helena tried to think of some way to casually ask when she might see her again, outside the Warehouse that is. Myka began to lift her bags from the car. Would tomorrow be too soon, suggest that she was too needy? Dinner? No, Myka was with Drew in the evenings. Lunch? Helena remained inside the car, biting the temple piece of her sunglasses. It had been so long since she had asked someone out on a date. How did people survive doing it more than once?

Myka knocked on her window, and Helena jabbed at the button to open it. "Helena?" Myka looked at her curiously.

"Lunch, would you go out to lunch with me tomorrow?" My God, she had actually gulped before she said it.

Myka looked away and then down at the ground. "I made plans to have lunch with Jeff tomorrow."

"Of course." Too clipped, too automatic. When had she had time to make plans with Jeff? Not last night, that was certain. Helena refrained from closing her eyes. Jeff wasn't important. She almost said 'Some other time,' but that would have sounded wounded, as if she were brushing Myka off because she felt she had been brushed off. Casual. She needed to be casual.

"I'm free for lunch on Wednesday, though. I don't have to pick Drew up until 3:00." Myka squinted at her, smiling a smile that seemed uncertain whether it ought to stay.

Three sounded rather late for lunch. Why was Myka giving her such a large window? "Are we speaking euphemistically, darling? Should I be using air quotes when I say 'lunch?'" Helena slipped on her sunglasses.

"You're the one asking." Myka opened the car door for her and slammed it, perhaps a little too decisively, once Helena was out.

"Lunch it is. You wouldn't mind though, would you, if I came back to your house afterward?" She paused, waiting to see what Myka would make of her request. As Myka blushed, her mouth crimping in frustration at the blush, Helena said, "I need to take some measurements for the treehouse." Jeff might make Myka blush from embarrassment, as he did the night he returned her bra, but he couldn't make her blush by snookering her into revealing what was on her mind. That required someone who didn't play fair and who knew that, down deep, Myka liked it that way. Sometimes, anyway. Helena walked toward the parking lot, suitcases bumping behind her, smiling smugly.

The suitcases were bumping behind her as she walked up to the B&B. Like the last time, Claudia was waiting for her on the verandah. "Did I ring the Warehouse's bell again?" Helena asked sardonically as Claudia hopped down the steps to pick up one of the suitcases.

"Well, that, and Myka called to let me know that you were on your way." Claudia grunted as she hefted the suitcase. "What do you have in this one?"

"Shoes."

Set in the wall parallel to the reception/security counter (Helena still was unsure what face the DHS wanted to present to visitors), which was unstaffed today as well, was an elevator, and Claudia pressed the button. "Two floors, but the last time we housed some mid-level executive from the DHS, he complained about having to carry his bags and groceries up the stairs. Big baby." The door opened, and Helena and her suitcase were barely able to squeeze in next to Claudia and the other suitcase. "And they were cheapskates about it too." As the elevator banged and rattled through its short ascent, Helena couldn't help but agree. "Don't you think it's powered by a team of oxen?" Claudia said querulously, as she yanked the suitcase over threshold and rolled it toward the opposite end of the corridor. "Your place is down here."

It was beige. Beige carpeting. Beige walls. Beige furniture. Claudia plumped down on the sofa, pressing the cushion on either side of her. "Comfy," she said, her sarcasm thick. Helena deposited her suitcases in the single bedroom with its putatively double bed, and returned to the living/dining area, taking a slow tour around the room and the no-frills kitchen that opened off it.

"It will do." She sat in the lone arm chair, which was positioned at an angle to the sofa. Both were set close to a small tv on a stand. Helena had boiled down rental decors to three, luxuriant, executive, and utilitarian. This was definitely utilitarian.

"You can always stay with me in the old B&B, if all the, uh, neutrality gets to you," Claudia offered, her eyes roaming the room. "But we don't know how long that's going to be, unless you've had a brainstorm about the replicated artefacts."

"No brainstorm. A few ideas." Claudia looked at her alertly. "You said that the DHS keeps track of everything, including visitors to the Warehouse. I'm assuming it also tracks what sections people have visited, what artefacts they've asked to look at."

"We have thousands upon thousands of audit reports. You can't sneeze in the Warehouse without a system recording it."

"I want to know how many people have been interested in the time-related artefacts, and I want to know who they are." Helena hesitated, seeing in her mind the print behind Bergstrom's desk. "I also want to know who's visited my time-machine, who's asked about me and my time with the Warehouse." Claudia's gaze continued to sharpen. "The last, Claudia, is between the two of us. You share it only with me."

"Myka's your partner on this, H.G."

"She's not to know. Am I being clear, darling?"

Claudia rose from the sofa. She was dressed more like the Claudia of old today, the denim distressed and ripped, the shirt a t-shirt with a faded Star Wars graphic. Opening the refrigerator, she whistled a long, low note. "We need to order some supplies for you." She moved on to the cupboards, surveying random shelves. "At least you have some glasses and bowls." Coming to a stop behind the breakfast bar, she leaned on it, propping her chin on her fist. "I'm not lying to her, H.G. I don't know where you were last night, and I'm not asking because I have to take it on faith that you're both big girls, but I'm not going to be part of hiding things from her. That's not how Myka and I operate."

"It's not lying, it's deferring disclosure, if that makes you feel better. At least until I have a better idea of what we're dealing with," Helena said, feeling suddenly tired. She swept a lock of hair away from her face, all black, no white. That, at least, was reassuring.

"You silver-tongued devil, you. I'm defenseless before the government-speak." Claudia rounded the breakfast bar. "If she asks me what I'm doing, I'm telling her. All of it." As was beginning to be the case, it seemed, in her interactions with this older, more authoritative Claudia, Claudia could be all smiles while those dark eyes remained fiercely intent. "Am I being clear?"

"Perfectly."

"I'll put my minions on the audit logs. If the DHS asks why, I'll tell them my efficiency expert wants to know. As for the other part of it, the one dealing with you, I'll handle it personally." In what appeared to be no more than two strides, and Claudia didn't have long legs, she had crossed the room.

"How much does the DHS know about your efficiency expert?" Helena trusted that Claudia, in inventing her cover, would have done everything possible to eliminate any connection to H.G. Wells, but if there was a. . . mole . . . in the DHS, the Warehouse's sudden hiring of a consultant would spark some interest.

"They know her name is Emily Lake, and that she comes recommended by several Fortune 500 companies." Claudia's expression softened. "She comes with her own Social Security number, which always helps. With a little creative stitching here and there, Jane and I were able to establish a plausible-enough backstory for her. It's solid enough that it should stymie anyone snooping around her." Digging the toe of her shoe into the carpet, which was one layer more plush than that used in dentist offices, Claudia said to her feet, "Of course, it won't last forever. If we can't get to the bottom of these replicated artefacts anytime soon, or if, you know, you would have some other reason to stay, we'd have to come up with something else for why you'd be hanging around the Warehouse. Is that a possibility, H.G.?" She looked up at Helena through her eyelashes. "I shouldn't put you on the spot like that, but tell me this much, is it a mistake to have put you this close to Pete?"

"Far from it. He's bringing me a casserole," Helena said blandly.

It didn't take her long to unpack her suitcases once Claudia left, especially since one was, as she had said, filled with shoes. In the tiny utility room next to the bathroom, there was an even tinier washer-dryer combo. Helena looked blankly at it; she didn't wash her clothes, hadn't since she left Boone, she hired others to do it for her. Perhaps Univille had attracted a dry cleaner in the years since she had been gone. Then there was the matter of meals. She would have to tackle the grocery mart, in particular its frozen food section. These weren't the things she wanted to concentrate on. So she wouldn't. Taking her laptop, she sat at what was little more than a student desk - with all the sturdiness of one, she noted as one of its legs wobbled - and began working over her theories about the artefacts.

It wasn't just a knock, it was a performance, raps and thumps and, to end it, a bellowed "Welcome Wagon!" Pete wasn't carrying a casserole dish, he was carrying a box, whose contents he theatrically displayed to Helena. At the breakfast bar, Helena, pushing the frames of her reading glasses up as she rubbed her cheeks, stared disbelievingly at the items Pete was setting on the counter, cans of Campbell's Chunky soup, Dinty Moore's beef stew and Hormel's chili, packages of donut gems, a six pack of Gatorade (fruit punch flavor), and a small bottle of Tide.

"Just a few extras I had," he said magnanimously.

"You won't be offended if I tell you that the laundry detergent is the most appetizing," Helena said, picking up a can of soup and reading its ingredients. "Why am I not surprised that sodium is listed first?"

"It is not," he protested, looking over her shoulder. "It's, like, the fourth one listed." He tapped the can. "This will look awfully good about ten o'clock tonight."

"Unfortunately, you're probably right. I haven't had a chance to go shopping yet." She gestured toward the beigeness that stretched beyond the breakfast bar. "Please don't tell me this is how your apartment looks."

"God, no. This is one reserved for visitors. The ones for staff are larger, and we can decorate them any way we want. Well, mostly. They nixed the jacuzzi and the sunken living room I wanted to put in." At Helena's puzzled expression, he said, "Joke," and wandered through the living room, down the hallway, poking his head in the bathroom, the utility room, the linen closet, and the bedroom. Helena tensed as he stood in the doorway to the bedroom. He slapped the frame and hooked a thumb over his shoulder as he walked back into the living room. "I'm surprised there's room for you and your shoes in there."

Helena relaxed, slightly. "I have water. . . and Gatorade, if you'd like anything."

"You thought I was going to make some crack about you and Myka trying to fit into that bed, didn't you?" Pete pulled a chair out from the dining table and straddled it.

"The lovely gifts notwithstanding, aren't you here to give me the speech about how the universe won't be small enough if I hurt her?" Although she was tempted to busy herself by putting the cans of soup and stew away, Helena didn't turn away from Pete, holding his gaze steadily.

"Do I really have to give it?" Pete asked quietly. Helena shook her head, and he continued, just as softly, "It's not my place, anyway. Myka's more than capable of taking care of herself, and if she doesn't have your number by now, H.G., she never will."

"My number?" She had meant to repeat it so haughtily that her mere intonation would serve as a denial, but, instead, it came out almost beseechingly, as if she were asking Pete to explain to her all the frailties that made her such a poor prospect.

"You're the poster child for 'hot mess,' and if Myka has a weakness, she loves a mess." Pete rubbed the back of his head, smiling to himself. "First there was Sam. Yeah, he was separated, but he and his wife weren't moving at lightning speed to get a divorce. Then there's me, a drunk, a divorced drunk at that, and, I admit it, not the most mature guy around. And then there's you." He shared his smile with her, one that was not a little wistful. "To be honest, H.G., although you gave me a helluva kiss when we first met, I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole. But Myka? She can't resist. She couldn't then, and she can't now. Whatever the two of you have, it's just. . . different."

Helena didn't bother with trying to muster a defense, she looked at him openly, nakedly. "How can you want me around your son? How can she?"

Pete's squinting grimace was more squinting than usual, as if he were trying to understand what she had said. "I'm not going to pretend to know what you went through when Christina died, though I have a much better idea now, with Drew. I'm not worried about you being around him. You'd die before you'd let anything or anyone harm him, and as for your. . . influence, he's got his mom and he's got me. I'm not worried, H.G. When I say I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole, I mean that I have too much on my plate to ever want to take on your stuff. But if you're what Myka grooves to, I have to respect that."

Helena displayed her own version of the Lattimer squinting grimace. "I always knew you were a better person than I, but this kind of forbearance. . . . If I were you, I'd find it difficult even to be civil to me, especially after this morning."

Pete sighed. "When you've had years to prepare for it, you're relieved when it finally happens.'

"Years?" Helena echoed. Gingerly picking up the Gatorade, as if uncertain that it actually was something to drink - Helena thought it might be better used as antifreeze or washer fluid - she put it in the refrigerator. "Pete, Myka and I weren't in contact after you married, and up until a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't sure I'd ever come back here. There was no other shoe to drop."

He appeared to consider what she had said, eyes abstracted, but he eventually shook his head. "I had vibes, and they were about you, H.G." Anticipating her question, he said, "Yeah, you're special that way, you've got your own vibe. It twanged like hell right before we got the call from you in Boone, but after that, it quieted down. I didn't feel it for a long time, and then it started again. Off-and-on, not all the time, but I knew you were coming." He was looking at her the way Claudia had looked at her in the hotel room when she had pitied, yes, pitied her in her ignorance. "H.G.," he said gently, "you'd only ever come back because of her."

"She loved you," Helena said stubbornly, insistently. "She told me so when we were in New York. She wasn't waiting for me."

Pete got up from the chair and pushed it back into place. "I know she did, but she's always loved you more." In response to Helena's stunned expression, he said, "One of the first things they tell you in recovery is to accept the things you can't change. It's even part of the prayer, you know? If I was going to be with Myka, that was something I was going to have to accept, and I did." He approached the breakfast bar, eyes never leaving Helena's face. "And being with her and having Drew, it was better than I ever expected. When I first started getting the vibes, again, I kicked at it, sure, and tried to pretend it wasn't going to happen. But I had a choice to make, I either accepted that you were going to waltz back into our lives, or I did something stupid that would cost me Drew. And I wasn't going to lose him, H.G., not over you."

Helena inhaled shakily. "You do understand how I felt about Christina. Nothing was more precious." She searched his face, seeing traces of an old resentment (how could there not be?) but, what was more, seeing an acceptance that encompassed not only her imperfections and his but Myka's as well. Because in a perfect world, perhaps not perfect but better than the one they were in, Myka wouldn't have given her a second look, wouldn't have found her sad history a magnetic draw, would have found her, in fact, just a mess with not an iota of hotness.

Slapping the counter decisively, Pete said, "Enough with the gooey stuff. You and I, we're not gooey, and I guarantee you, I have no desire to see you and Myka all gooey with each other."

Helena cleared her throat. "We'll keep the excessive PDAs to a minimum." Which wouldn't be hard at this point, their Wednesday lunch not auguring much in the way of volcanic passion, passion period. She looked at a can of Hormel's chili, it really didn't sound bad at all. "Pete, would you humor me and tell me when you started to get the vibes about me?"

He was almost out of the apartment, but he made a quarter-turn and leaned against the jamb. "I can't pinpoint it for you, but I'd say they started four or five years ago. Just a few, but they got stronger a couple of years ago, I was getting them, like, every month. It didn't come to me as a surprise when, at about the same time, Myka said she wanted a divorce. Can't fight fate, H.G."

Five years ago she had still been living on Capri, which had been a rather whimsical choice of residence on her part, made mainly out of the knowledge that, for years, it had served as a temporary home for other footloose ex-patriates. But tiring of Italian politics and of her involvement with an Italian model, she had decided to relocate once again. The fact that relocating to New York would put her some several thousand miles closer to Myka hadn't even entered her mind. Two years ago, she wasn't thinking of Myka either. She was busy doing her appraisals and what little down time she had, Suzanne or some other willing body filled it adequately enough.

Pete's vibes about her hadn't been heralding her return. They had been about something else. As Helena searched the kitchen drawers for a can opener and a saucepan to heat the chili in, she knew she didn't want to know what Pete had actually been sensing.