Apartement 506 - Warehouse 13
So apparently I'm not over it. Eventually, but not quite. So it's set after Emily Lake/stand. It's not a fix it fic, it's more of a 'it's fixed, now what? Hope you enjoy it.
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506
The black numbers on the door called Helena forward and told her to go away; that she had no right to what was beyond the door. She probably didn’t, as with most things, but it hadn’t stopped her from asking Myka to drive her here.
She touched the numbers with a finger. 506.
Emily Lake’s apartment.
She knew nothing of this woman and yet, she had been her. Or rather her body had lived as Emily Lake for many months. Her mind had been imprisoned on a coin. A vulgar hard disk to be activated at will by the regents. There had been no sense of time in the sphere. Five minutes or a thousand years could have passed and Helena would have never known. Also, there was no state in the sphere, no thoughts and no feelings. Her only awareness came from someone else’s decision. A twist of the wrist and she lit up the world or flickered into nothingness.
It was a cruel fate.
She didn’t think the regents realized how much. While she didn’t suffer her thoughts the same way she had while bronzed, each time the sphere was activated, she was terrified. Helena never knew what she would see. It could be the regents, it could be the warehouse, it could be five minutes after the last time she’d been ‘turned off’ or years. She never knew if she would recognize the people holding the sphere.
She was always frightened to be faced with strangers who would tell her that her people, the only one who had cared about her, that she’d cared about, were gone until no one remained to call on her except new agents when the expertise of H.G. Well would be required.
What petrified her the most, however, was seeing Myka. Helena was afraid to see the passage of time on Myka. Time she hadn’t seen with her, lines added to the beloved face, the origin of which she would never know. She was afraid to see the love fade from Myka’s green eyes and be replaced by someone else’s ring, maybe even children Helena would never get to see. She would live a whole life Helena would never be a part off until that hopefully distant day when someone would think of telling her that Myka was dead and Helena would be the same as ever.
Her body wouldn’t be.
It would live and die and then there would be no way to be put back together until someone took pity on her and destroyed the Janus coin.
It was the worst thing they could have done to her. Helena wasn’t bitter about it. She understood why: Agents needed to be used and she needed to make amends. But when they had offered her this solution and she’d extended her hand for the coin, she never would have imagined it would hurt the way it did.
“Have you lost your key, Emily dear?”
Helena whirled toward the voice that jarred her out of thoughts. An elderly woman stood there, smiling affectionately at her. She had no idea who the woman was, but figured Emily Lake would have so Helena smiled. She tried to remember what Pete had teased her about. Faking the accent was strange, but it was better than the truth.
“No, I was just lost in thoughts.”
“Ah. Is there a problem, Emily? You left so suddenly.”
Lying came as second nature to Helena. She wasn't proud of that fact, but it was a necessity in her life. This was different however. She was unraveling someone's life. It would affect others. It had been a long time since she'd let things like that matter.
“My mother had an accident.”
“How dreadful.”
The little lady came forward and embraced her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Helena forced herself to respond and she hugged the woman back. When they pulled apart, the woman cradled her cheek.
“Poor dear. Anything you need, just knock on my door. And I fed Dickens while you were gone. Little thing was quite desolate without you.”
Helena smiled at Emily's neighbor.
“Thank you.”
“You take care, now.”
The lady patted her cheek and walked to the door next to Emily's. 504. Helena made a mental note of it and took out the set of keys Myka had given her. She took a deep breath and inserted it in the lock. She was surprised at the ease with which it slid home. She had almost expected it to resist, to know she wasn't Emily Lake.
She opened the door, closed her eyes and walked in. Taking a deep breath, Helena opened her eyes. She looked from the bedroom on her right to the living room at the left and she felt nothing. She had expected a sense of familiarity, her body having spent the last months here, but as she stepped further in the space Emily Lake had occupied, it was a void.
There was movement in the kitchen doorway and Dickens came out. He rubbed himself on Helena's calf.
“What do you want?”
The cat looked up at her voice and took a step back. It knew. She didn't know how, but it did. Unexpected sadness filled her and she reached down to scratch his neck.
“I'm sorry, she won't be back.”
Dickens looked up and mewled pitifully before walking away from her. He settled on the couch and observed Helena.
She sighed and looked away from the feline, turning to the photographs on the wall. Her gaze was drawn to the one with no reflection. It had told Myka that Emily Lake hadn't existed prior to this. It told Helena something else.
Emily Lake had been a figment of the regents’ imaginations, a creation, an invention much like the devices Helena came up with. She had served no other purpose than to let the body of H.G. Wells roam freely and safely. But they had shown Emily Lake those pictures, had given her the sketch of a past with people who didn’t exist. Had she looked at those pictures and fondly remembered events that never happened? Mourned people who had never known her? She had lived with the loss of all those people and had been happy to teach those kids and live a productive life.
Helene sighed. The woman living in this apartment had been a lie and yet she had been a better person than Helena had been in over a hundred years, maybe her whole life. Was it really fair to reclaim her body and make the other woman disappear forever? Did she really have the right? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if she simply took back the Janus coin and left her body to Emily Lake?
The door behind her opened and Helen sighed again. She wiped away the tears that had gathered in her eyes before she turned to Myka. The green eyes found her and they saw everything, even what Helena didn’t want her to see.
“What’s wrong?” Myka walked over and took Helena’s hand.
Since Helena had saved everyone, for the second time apparently, and Myka had kissed her, this was the only contact the author had allowed between them and Myka made sure to touch her as much as she could.
“Can we do this, Myka?”
“Do what?”
“Make Emily Lake disappear like she never existed.”
“She never did, Helena.”
“She did to her students, isn’t that worth something?”
Myka tilted her head at Helena, nodding. “Yes, it is. But you’re worth more.”
“How do you know that?”
Helena tried to take her hand away, but Myka held on tight. She rubbed her thumb against Helena’s knuckles and it made her shiver. Did Emily Lake have that? A person who made the world better by being in it? Helena hung her head, but Myka stepped closer and tipped her chin up. Green eyes met tortured brown and held.
“I know that because you saved our lives. I can say it because you believe in me, in Claudia, in Pete. But mostly because I believe in you, I always have. I know you. I’ve known the real you all along. And you’re a wonderful person, Helena. But mostly, you’re a good person.”
Helena shook her head. She wasn’t, not really. Myka let go of her hand and took the beloved face between her palms. “You are, Helena.”
“I almost destroyed the world.”
“But you didn’t. You. Didn’t.”
“Just because I…”
Myka smiled at her and Helena sighed. Maybe she only needed one reason and it had been the same one since the beginning. She hadn’t destroyed the world because she loved Myka more. She still did and it was enough to make her want to heal fully and to look at the world differently. It much easier to hang on to that love and think back on her past, on Christina, with love rather than with the hatred her years in bronze had given her.
It had been a hard lesson to learn. It had cost her a lot. As she looked at Myka, she knew it could have cost her much more.
She smiled for the first time since entering the apartment. Myka smiled back and moved forward, kissing Helena gently. It was soft, affirming, nothing like the needy, fierce kiss they’d shared when the bomb had exploded. This was better. It was a lazy exploration of lips, dancing tongues, shared breath and pounding hearts. It was softness rolled in heat and it left them both breathless. Helena pulled back and laid her forehead against Myka’s. The agents words were barely whispered, but they filled Helena’s heart.
“Let me be selfish in this. Stay with me.”
Helena nodded and passed her arms around Myka, holding her as tight as she could. The pictures on the wall drew her gaze. Given her short time in existence, Helena wondered if Emily Lake had had the chance to start believing in love or in ‘the one’. She hadn’t, but now she knew it was enough.
Helena kissed the side of Myka’s neck. “We’re bringing the cat. We owe it to her. And saying goodbye to her students. They deserve that much.”
“Ok. Then we’re going home.”
Helena pulled back and breathed in deeply, a smile flitting on her lips. “Yes, home.”
Simply because she could, because Helen had given her tacit permission, Myka kissed Helena quickly. “I’ll get his things.”
Helena found the cat carrier and went over to the couch to wrestle the feline into it. She shoved the sweater he’d been sleeping on after him and closed the latch. She wasn’t fond of cats, but she knew Emily would have wanted him to have a good home, and she would give him one. Walking to the wall, she took the picture of Emily and her cat and put it on top of the carrier. She didn’t take anything else, didn’t need anything else, the regents would take care of the rest. Myka came out of the kitchen with a bulging bag, an empty litter box and a box of sand. She walked to the door and stopped, waiting for her lover
Helena looked around the apartment one last time. Soon, this place would be empty and nobody would know Emily Lake was gone and no one would mourn her. But Helena would. She would always wonder what kind of legacy she had deprived the world of, if it would have been better than the one she would create.
A warm hand slipped in hers and Helena smiled. The changes Emily Lake would have brought to the world would have been small ‘stones in a pond’ ripple effect, and maybe that was best. Helena knew that she had nothing left to prove to the world, she’s already been H.G. Wells, maybe this life around she could learn from that and just be Helena Wells, artifact hunter and Myka’s lover; something simple and world altering, her own.
Opening the door, she let Myka go out first. She hesitated on the threshold and sent thanks to a woman she had never known and said goodbye. Helena closed the door and smiled at Myka.
“Take me home.”