Warehouse 13 AU: Persist In Folly (7/9)
Jul. 25th, 2012 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTen comments if you want the story to continue! Just kidding, I'm going on a trip for a few days, no internet access. Update when I get back. Enjoy the total closure and absolute non-cliffhanger of the ending.
Title: Persist In Folly
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,675
Characters/Pairings: Myka/HG
Previous: Part 6
Next: Part 8
Summary: Helena wasn't expecting to see Myka again. But she hoped. Like an idiot.
Helena was thinking about last words. She was drinking cheap wine in a cheaper hotel room; a fitting last residence for a writer (she still thought of herself that way. She wasn't a mother anymore.) Evocative. Like Hemingway or Plath.
She was thinking about her last words to Myka. That was the trouble with being alive. There was always room for improvement.
In all likelihood, Myka was still asleep, although that was by no means a certainty. As long as Helena was playing the villain, she would refrain from underestimating the heroes.
The thought of hearing Myka's voice, no longer a fond memory but fresh and twisted with betrayal, ate at Helena's confidence like a cancer. But if she was asleep, Helena would get her answering machine, and she could leave something to last beyond the sting of what had to happen. Something for Myka to hold onto once she started missing Helena.
The phone was in her hand. Helena looked at Myka's contact photo. It was hellish, but a hell she deserved.
"Myka, you must understand… please understand… try to understand, Myka…" She hit the call button. The words would come. They always did.
Myka's ringtone trilled from behind the bathroom door.
Helena was spinning even as it rang again, instinctively reaching for her gun, but by the time she was facing it the door was open and there was Myka. Helena froze.
Myka's gun was in her hand, but it wasn't pointed at Helena. It dangled limply from her arm, like a hand that needed to be amputated. "Well. We finally managed not to point guns at each other."
"I'm curious," Helena said after a long pause.
"Yes. Claudia pulled the reservations of every hotel in the city, 'Edwina Dante'. The Count of Monte Cristo. You never could resist showing off how smart you were."
"To be fair, I am very smart." Helena sat down on the bed like she'd just walked a thousand miles. "Of course, Edmond Dantès had to become a new man to get his revenge. I had to go back to being who I was."
Myka stepped into the bedroom, staring down at Helena not liked a cornered animal, but like someone she was visiting in a hospital. She paced, trying to outstrip her feelings. "So the woman who lived with me, the woman that gave me a child, that wasn't you?"
"It's someone I was forced to be." Helena swallowed down more she had to say. "They took me away from you. It wasn't my choice."
"You always have a choice! Pete's mother, you spared her! Don't tell me it was just a coincidence."
"Not sentiment. Payment." Helena's eyes stopped following Myka's pacing. "He'll have to take care of you when I'm gone. I want him to owe me."
"Shut up. Just shut up. None of this…" Myka threw herself next to Helena like she'd been holding herself back, and the pressure that'd built up had become just too immense. "None of this has to be the way it is. You can turn the Regents back—"
"Back? You don't understand. Of course you don't understand. Circe's Cup doesn't change. It just… gives one over to their true nature." Helena smiled. It was stunning, even now. "We, of course, know how dangerous that can be."
Myka felt sick. She stood, slamming her Tesla back in its holster, her back to Helena. "Then why'd you have moly on you? What were you afraid of becoming?"
Helena reached for her. Pulled her hand back by the time Myka looked at her again. "I won't ask you to help me. But please—for the baby—please, just go. Let me finish this. I'll set you free from the Regents."
"Free to do what? To raise a child alone? To miss you every day for the rest of my life?"
"To have a normal life!" Helena stood and opened her mouth and lunged at Myka as if to embrace her, shoving her against the wall and holding her there instead. "You think this is where you're meant to be? Solving mysteries, retrieving Artifacts, saving the world? So did I! Where do you think I was when Christina…" Helena let Myka go. "Have a normal life. You'll think you're giving something up now, but when you first hear her… when you see her face and she's yours… you'll see. You'll see."
Myka stood there, propped against the wall like it was the only thing holding her up. "I chose this. All of it. The Warehouse, the baby, and you. And the things I've chosen have made me complete. I forgot what that felt like until a few months ago. Helena…" She took a step. Helena backed away as if frightened. "I don't need the Warehouse to be complete. I don't even need this baby. I just need you. That's all. So just… stop this and be mine. Come with me and let me fix this."
Helena couldn't take it anymore. She tried to turn away, but Myka wouldn't let her. She moved in and held H.G., just held her, no embrace, no grab. As soon as they touched, Helena just melted against her, her body going into overdrive, hyperventilating like she was trying to purge a demon. Feeling Myka's hands and her warmth and the baby, still inside her but already a tangible presence, a mnemonic for what they'd shared.
Fix. Fix what? Fix her? Fix them? Fix the world and her dead daughter and the Warehouse and all its possessors. There wasn't enough skill under heaven to mend all those cracks.
But, God help her, if trying felt like this…
"How?" Helena asked.
Neither of them had noticed the door crack open. They barely noticed the Tesla grenade rolling in.
Helena was thinking dive out the window. It's a two-story drop, land on your feet and you'll only bust a leg, but you'll be right next to the street, you can hijack a car and go. But her body was grabbing Myka, twisting them so that they were both between the grenade and "The baby!" Helena screamed as the pulse went off, lighting up the entire room, and when she closed her eyes her sleep was bright, bright blue.
***
She was waking up, she was opening her eyes, she was in a warehouse, she was trying to see in the dark, she was feeling around for Myka, she was handcuffed, she was testing her bonds, she was looking for something to pick the lock. Her thoughts were still fractured by the blast, crashing into each other, she saw herself doing three things at once. She felt Myka's leg. They were tied together, back to back, chains linking them to a support beam.
"Myka," Helena said as she shook her leg and rattled her chains. "Myka, wake up."
She wasn't hearing anything.
"Myka, please."
She wasn't hearing anything.
"Myka, I'm sorry, please, please…"
"She's sedated." Said from somewhere distant, that echoed before it reached her.
The voice was crisp and cool and British. It took Helena back to the days of Empire; her people never spoke like that anymore. Like they ruled the world.
"Let her go. She has nothing to do with this!"
"No?" the Treasurer asked, and a light came on, hitting Helena like a pesticide. She kept her eyes open against the pain, searching the shadows for that voice, but there was only darkness. "She led me right to you."
"You had her under surveillance. Not the same thing. She doesn’t know you people like I do."
"Well, that changes everything." Footsteps on hard cement. On Myka's side of the warehouse. Helena wiggled around, trying to find just one of her lockpicks, but she'd been so efficiently searched that Helena felt a touch of belated violation. Then the click of a round being chambered and Helena stopped moving.
"Miss Bering is a very good agent. But so were you, once. And we did without you."
In the corner of Helena's eye, light glinted. A gun. Pointed at Myka's head.
"Where's Circe's Cup?"
"Wait, stop—"
"You used it on the Regents, so I know you have it. Tell me where it is or I will kill her."
"I will. Of course I will, you miserable excuse for a human. It's in the pool of the motel I was in. The drainage system."
The gun withdrew. "Not miserable. Committed. You taught me that."
"A hundred years and you still think you rule the world. You're middle management at best. I've taught you nothing."
"Give me some credit. I did learn one or two things from you." And then, the voice softly began to sing. "Lavender's blue, diddle diddle. Lavender's green. When I am king, diddle diddle. You shall be queen. Lavender's green, diddle diddle. Lavender's blue. You must love me, diddle diddle. 'Cause I love you."
Helena was still staring into the shadows, her lips knotted together, as Myka came to. "How dare you…"
"Helena?" Myka asked, blinking awake. "Someone… someone took us?"
"The Regents," Helena answered. "They have a very poor sense of humor."
"Who said I was joking?" the woman asked. And stepped out of the shadows.
Helena found herself looking into a mirror.
“You make it hard to be a good daughter. You defy my every attempt to fit you into a pleasant life. Perhaps I should’ve simply left you in Bronze. You don’t belong in the new world. You barely fit into the old one.”
“H.G., who is this woman?" Myka demanded. "I thought we were talking to the Regents.”
“You are. I am the Regents. The others… well, they come in handy when some idiot like MacPherson is throwing bullets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your place to understand, Agent Bering. It’s hers. All the times you tried to bring me back… did it ever occur to you what would happen if you succeeded? I remember, mother. Everything those men did to me. Everything you didn’t prevent. Well? Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Christina…”
Title: Persist In Folly
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,675
Characters/Pairings: Myka/HG
Previous: Part 6
Next: Part 8
Summary: Helena wasn't expecting to see Myka again. But she hoped. Like an idiot.
Helena was thinking about last words. She was drinking cheap wine in a cheaper hotel room; a fitting last residence for a writer (she still thought of herself that way. She wasn't a mother anymore.) Evocative. Like Hemingway or Plath.
She was thinking about her last words to Myka. That was the trouble with being alive. There was always room for improvement.
In all likelihood, Myka was still asleep, although that was by no means a certainty. As long as Helena was playing the villain, she would refrain from underestimating the heroes.
The thought of hearing Myka's voice, no longer a fond memory but fresh and twisted with betrayal, ate at Helena's confidence like a cancer. But if she was asleep, Helena would get her answering machine, and she could leave something to last beyond the sting of what had to happen. Something for Myka to hold onto once she started missing Helena.
The phone was in her hand. Helena looked at Myka's contact photo. It was hellish, but a hell she deserved.
"Myka, you must understand… please understand… try to understand, Myka…" She hit the call button. The words would come. They always did.
Myka's ringtone trilled from behind the bathroom door.
Helena was spinning even as it rang again, instinctively reaching for her gun, but by the time she was facing it the door was open and there was Myka. Helena froze.
Myka's gun was in her hand, but it wasn't pointed at Helena. It dangled limply from her arm, like a hand that needed to be amputated. "Well. We finally managed not to point guns at each other."
"I'm curious," Helena said after a long pause.
"Yes. Claudia pulled the reservations of every hotel in the city, 'Edwina Dante'. The Count of Monte Cristo. You never could resist showing off how smart you were."
"To be fair, I am very smart." Helena sat down on the bed like she'd just walked a thousand miles. "Of course, Edmond Dantès had to become a new man to get his revenge. I had to go back to being who I was."
Myka stepped into the bedroom, staring down at Helena not liked a cornered animal, but like someone she was visiting in a hospital. She paced, trying to outstrip her feelings. "So the woman who lived with me, the woman that gave me a child, that wasn't you?"
"It's someone I was forced to be." Helena swallowed down more she had to say. "They took me away from you. It wasn't my choice."
"You always have a choice! Pete's mother, you spared her! Don't tell me it was just a coincidence."
"Not sentiment. Payment." Helena's eyes stopped following Myka's pacing. "He'll have to take care of you when I'm gone. I want him to owe me."
"Shut up. Just shut up. None of this…" Myka threw herself next to Helena like she'd been holding herself back, and the pressure that'd built up had become just too immense. "None of this has to be the way it is. You can turn the Regents back—"
"Back? You don't understand. Of course you don't understand. Circe's Cup doesn't change. It just… gives one over to their true nature." Helena smiled. It was stunning, even now. "We, of course, know how dangerous that can be."
Myka felt sick. She stood, slamming her Tesla back in its holster, her back to Helena. "Then why'd you have moly on you? What were you afraid of becoming?"
Helena reached for her. Pulled her hand back by the time Myka looked at her again. "I won't ask you to help me. But please—for the baby—please, just go. Let me finish this. I'll set you free from the Regents."
"Free to do what? To raise a child alone? To miss you every day for the rest of my life?"
"To have a normal life!" Helena stood and opened her mouth and lunged at Myka as if to embrace her, shoving her against the wall and holding her there instead. "You think this is where you're meant to be? Solving mysteries, retrieving Artifacts, saving the world? So did I! Where do you think I was when Christina…" Helena let Myka go. "Have a normal life. You'll think you're giving something up now, but when you first hear her… when you see her face and she's yours… you'll see. You'll see."
Myka stood there, propped against the wall like it was the only thing holding her up. "I chose this. All of it. The Warehouse, the baby, and you. And the things I've chosen have made me complete. I forgot what that felt like until a few months ago. Helena…" She took a step. Helena backed away as if frightened. "I don't need the Warehouse to be complete. I don't even need this baby. I just need you. That's all. So just… stop this and be mine. Come with me and let me fix this."
Helena couldn't take it anymore. She tried to turn away, but Myka wouldn't let her. She moved in and held H.G., just held her, no embrace, no grab. As soon as they touched, Helena just melted against her, her body going into overdrive, hyperventilating like she was trying to purge a demon. Feeling Myka's hands and her warmth and the baby, still inside her but already a tangible presence, a mnemonic for what they'd shared.
Fix. Fix what? Fix her? Fix them? Fix the world and her dead daughter and the Warehouse and all its possessors. There wasn't enough skill under heaven to mend all those cracks.
But, God help her, if trying felt like this…
"How?" Helena asked.
Neither of them had noticed the door crack open. They barely noticed the Tesla grenade rolling in.
Helena was thinking dive out the window. It's a two-story drop, land on your feet and you'll only bust a leg, but you'll be right next to the street, you can hijack a car and go. But her body was grabbing Myka, twisting them so that they were both between the grenade and "The baby!" Helena screamed as the pulse went off, lighting up the entire room, and when she closed her eyes her sleep was bright, bright blue.
***
She was waking up, she was opening her eyes, she was in a warehouse, she was trying to see in the dark, she was feeling around for Myka, she was handcuffed, she was testing her bonds, she was looking for something to pick the lock. Her thoughts were still fractured by the blast, crashing into each other, she saw herself doing three things at once. She felt Myka's leg. They were tied together, back to back, chains linking them to a support beam.
"Myka," Helena said as she shook her leg and rattled her chains. "Myka, wake up."
She wasn't hearing anything.
"Myka, please."
She wasn't hearing anything.
"Myka, I'm sorry, please, please…"
"She's sedated." Said from somewhere distant, that echoed before it reached her.
The voice was crisp and cool and British. It took Helena back to the days of Empire; her people never spoke like that anymore. Like they ruled the world.
"Let her go. She has nothing to do with this!"
"No?" the Treasurer asked, and a light came on, hitting Helena like a pesticide. She kept her eyes open against the pain, searching the shadows for that voice, but there was only darkness. "She led me right to you."
"You had her under surveillance. Not the same thing. She doesn’t know you people like I do."
"Well, that changes everything." Footsteps on hard cement. On Myka's side of the warehouse. Helena wiggled around, trying to find just one of her lockpicks, but she'd been so efficiently searched that Helena felt a touch of belated violation. Then the click of a round being chambered and Helena stopped moving.
"Miss Bering is a very good agent. But so were you, once. And we did without you."
In the corner of Helena's eye, light glinted. A gun. Pointed at Myka's head.
"Where's Circe's Cup?"
"Wait, stop—"
"You used it on the Regents, so I know you have it. Tell me where it is or I will kill her."
"I will. Of course I will, you miserable excuse for a human. It's in the pool of the motel I was in. The drainage system."
The gun withdrew. "Not miserable. Committed. You taught me that."
"A hundred years and you still think you rule the world. You're middle management at best. I've taught you nothing."
"Give me some credit. I did learn one or two things from you." And then, the voice softly began to sing. "Lavender's blue, diddle diddle. Lavender's green. When I am king, diddle diddle. You shall be queen. Lavender's green, diddle diddle. Lavender's blue. You must love me, diddle diddle. 'Cause I love you."
Helena was still staring into the shadows, her lips knotted together, as Myka came to. "How dare you…"
"Helena?" Myka asked, blinking awake. "Someone… someone took us?"
"The Regents," Helena answered. "They have a very poor sense of humor."
"Who said I was joking?" the woman asked. And stepped out of the shadows.
Helena found herself looking into a mirror.
“You make it hard to be a good daughter. You defy my every attempt to fit you into a pleasant life. Perhaps I should’ve simply left you in Bronze. You don’t belong in the new world. You barely fit into the old one.”
“H.G., who is this woman?" Myka demanded. "I thought we were talking to the Regents.”
“You are. I am the Regents. The others… well, they come in handy when some idiot like MacPherson is throwing bullets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not your place to understand, Agent Bering. It’s hers. All the times you tried to bring me back… did it ever occur to you what would happen if you succeeded? I remember, mother. Everything those men did to me. Everything you didn’t prevent. Well? Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Christina…”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-25 11:05 pm (UTC)You can't do that. I love where this story is going.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 01:30 am (UTC)MORE PLEASE! I so need my happy ending right now. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-07-26 03:11 am (UTC)This story is fabulous...but you're just mean to leave us (and HG and Myka) hanging, literally and figuratively.
If only I had access to an artifact... :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-05 06:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 12:22 am (UTC)Jeez, she's real. She's alive. And apparently rather bitter. *faints*
~unable to even leave a proper signature~