DISCLAIMER: Warehouse 13 and it's characters belongs to Jack Kenny and Syfy.This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A huge thank you to purrpickle for editing this for me, and finding all my silly errors. Her help was invaluable!
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To atsammy[at]gmail.com
SEQUEL: To Reflections in a Cage
Caged Bird Sings
By atsammy
Seeing Myka again was harder than Helena expected. Harder still because she wanted to reach out and touch her, and she knew that she couldn't. She could see and hear, but could not feel her skin or smell the perfume that Myka loved to wear, a slightly sugary floral scent that Helena never learned what brand it was. She remembered nights lying in Myka's arms, pressed against her shoulder, a faint hint of that scent tickling her nose as she fell asleep.
Perhaps the biggest surprise had been the lack of hatred in Myka's eyes. Surprise, definitely. A trace of fear, hesitance. Pain, most of all. Helena had spent the time between Mrs. Frederic's request and the meeting, somewhere around a day, choosing her words carefully. It fell apart in seconds when she finally understood that as similar as she and Myka were, in many ways they were completely different. Myka's pain would never turn into the hatred, the intense need for revenge, as it had in Helena. Myka would run from her pain for a time, but she would face it. She would not let it fester, let it rot inside her until there was nothing but the pain to control her.
She never expected to see Myka smile again. Scream, yell, refuse to look at her... All those things and more were what she had readied herself for. They were what she would have done. Had someone betrayed her as thoroughly as Helena had betrayed Myka, a dagger to the heart would have been her response when next they met, not a smile. If she never saw her again, she would keep that hint of a smile with her always.
After that meeting, her pacing slowed, and she spent more time during her days seated on her bed, staring at the wall. On a mission to Madras in 1900, her first after Christina's birth, she'd had an opportunity to study meditation in the weeks before a ship would return her from the Indian Empire. It was something new after her lessons in Tae Kwon Do, and it helped her pass the time. It was also an affective method to keep the pain of her seperation from her daughter at bay. It helped her now, and as she gazed at the blank wall, her mind focused on the little things that no one else could see.
The way that Myka's newly straightened hair framed her face. The clear brown of her eyes, even as Myka shrank back away from her. The curve of her lips as she held back that involuntary smile. That image made her ache; it was of such greater importance now than it ever was before, when Myka would smile at her ten times a day. Her own eyes unfocused, she remembered their conversation, running through it repeatedly, the moment where Myka told her that she did not hate her standing out (at least, she chose to focus on that, and not that she might have meant that she didn't hate the Warehouse.)
So deep in that memory, she failed to notice right away that she was not alone in the room. The feeling came over her slowly, and her only reaction was to blink and continue to stare at the wall. "Mrs. Frederic."
"Ms. Wells," came the response from the enigmatic woman.
It had been at least a week since last they'd spoken, and Helena wished she had a calender to mark the passing of time. Then perhaps she would have more to say on those occasions where she had companionship.
"I wanted to thank you personally for your assistance. You succeeded where we have failed for the last four months."
Helena nodded, forcing down the urge to ask questions. She didn't have the right to question anything anymore, even as she was desperate to know just why Mrs. Frederic approached her for help.
"Myka... She has returned to the Warehouse, then?" she asked finally, hoping that her voice carried a nonchalance she did not truly feel.
"Yes."
Helena wished suddenly that Claudia was there. During her rather short return to the Warehouse, the young woman had provided great levity whenever Mrs. Frederic was around. Now, as she found herself wishing the woman would actually stay and talk with her (really, wishing for any sort of companionship), Claudia would have been quite useful in getting Mrs. Frederic to converse. She had before.
As it was, Mrs. Frederic unclasped her hands, a movement Helena recognized as a sign that she was about to disappear again.
"Why did she leave the Warehouse?" she asked hurriedly, wincing even as the desperation rang clear in her voice.
Mrs. Frederic looked her in the eyes, and replied, "Why didn't you kill her when you had the chance?"
She vanished, and Helena was left to sit there, annoyed despite herself that Mrs. Frederic knew everything. Because, blast it, she had a point.
The End