fic; waiting for the road to be laid [warehouse 13]
waiting for the road to be laid
Warehouse 13 | Myka Bering, Pete/Myka at the end. AU-ish?
spoilers: Everything up to and including the season 2 finale.
a/n: This fic was written September 24th of last year. Procrastination, I has it.
I thought it might be good to post this before tomorrow, because I surely won't do it then.
un-beta'd.
I'm goin' down, follow if you wanna- won't just hang around like you'll show me where to go,
I'm already out of foolproof ideas, so don't ask me how to get started- it's all uncharted. Sara Bareilles, 'Uncharted'
one +
Objectively, Myka realizes that she is running (away), no matter how many times she tells herself otherwise.
It doesn't make her slow down.
After she leaves the warehouse, she points the car in any direction that isn't the one she came from and drives. It doesn't really matter where. The miles fly by under her wheels; dirt roads turn to pavement and the smooth asphalt of the highway. If there's one thing she's enjoyed about South Dakota, it's that the sky seems to stretch on forever ahead of her. She almost thinks it's a beautiful day.
The rolling hills and wild country of the badlands give way to farms and ancient homesteads dotting the prairie grass when she hits Minnesota. The weathered old buildings tell stories of hard winters and hot summers and struggling to get by, and she finds something poetic about that.
As beautiful as the Twin Cities are this time of year, she knows the alternately sleek and shoddy urban landscapes aren't hiding any of the answers she needs; it's better to save the gas and change courses now.
The miles pass and even though there's nothing but the open road in both directions, she can't get the image of Pete running after her out of her head. Not that she actually saw it, but she knows he followed her out just as surely as she knows a hundred other random facts about her partner.
Myka's half convinced she'll see him in the rearview mirror if she squints. She carefully keeps her eyes on the road ahead and counts grain silos in between the mile markers.
(Fifteen, seventeen, thirty-two...)
The next country road she finds takes her through a stretch of long, flat cornfields as far as the eye can see. Her foot tightens on the gas, applying more speed. Iowa has never been the most inspiring location, even under the best of circumstances, so she picks up I-80 and drives straight on through. If she speeds a little, well- it's not like there's anyone else in the car to tease her about it, is there?
(She studiously ignores the guilt that is almost a tangible presence and keeps driving.)
Her practical side rails at the disruption, but a growing portion of her wonders what the point is. She can follow the rules til she's blue in the face but what if she can't trust herself anymore?
The sun sets as she nears Nebraska, and for someone who hates being without a plan, it's starting to feel a lot like drifting.
Untethered, directionless, she thinks, and starts a mental list of related words. Aimless, scattered... It's almost like being back inside the mirror...
The unbidden thought sends a tremor down her spine and she almost turns the radio on just to break the quiet. Another moment and the sense of dread passes enough for the silence to feel like a familiar friend again.
Darkness falls as she passes a truck stop boasting the "cleanest bathrooms on the interstate" in the humble estimation of its management, and she almost smiles.
Somewhere along the line her partner (no- former partner) has become the voice in her head that cracks mildly obscene jokes about anything he can get away with and plenty of things he can't; the truck stop is no exception.
She almost smiles, but she does not slow down.
two +
The glowing lights on the dashboard console read 11:54 when she approaches the state border. A time-worn 'Welcome to Colorado' sign flies by at midnight, along with the last of her denial about her destination. The witching hour, she thinks, and shakes her head. It's not that there's been any shortage of oddities in the recent past but that idle drama has simply never been her genre of choice; she's always been inexplicably drawn to the tragedies.
By the time she pulls into Colorado Springs the night is half gone and she wanders the quiet, moonlit streets aimlessly only to find herself back where she started, staring at a doorway that leads to her past.
At some point in the recent past, Bering and Sons has become Bering Family Booksellers, though no one saw fit to apprise her of that fact. She doesn't know what to think, but a tiny part of her warms all the same.
The second floor windows are dark; she uses a worn old silver key instead of knocking and feels a bit like a teenager. The thing is, she doesn't live here anymore and she's a good decade too late to reclaim the years she spent hiding inside books instead of sneaking out with Tracy. Even now, she doesn't know that she would want to.
She takes a step inside, fills her lungs with the familiar scents of tea and old pages and remembers.
There's still an old knit afghan in the back storage room, and she thinks nothing of curling up on a once familiar bench there, inexplicably comforted by the fact that the room is largely unchanged from what she remembers as a child.
She's spent hours inside her mind, turning over fears and regrets and dreams that will never see daylight; she's been fighting back tears since the moment she gave her life away, but it's only here that it feels right to let them go.
This room was her refuge long before farnsworths and endless wonder and bronze people. Even before offices and firing ranges and dead partners.
The salty drops travel freely down her face and dry alongside her slow, steady breaths.
three +
She is inside the mirror and Pete is running after her in and out and around while the world shimmers and grays.
The bright lights are gone, the colors are chaotic and jumbled and they may never be the same again.
He's still running, always running somewhere but this time he's following her, and she wants to tell him to turn around and run as far as he can- to get away from this place and from her.
Not that he would listen.
The ground ripples beneath them as he gets closer, and even if he could reach her, it's still going to be the end of the world.
(Her fault. H.G. wasn't to be trusted. Artie knew that but he and Claudia and Mrs. Frederic are probably dead and that's her fault too.)
The ground shakes again, and the skies darken overhead -only one more chance to save them all- she blinks once and then Pete is on the ground, Kelly hovering above with a knife. "You're my happiest place on earth, too. You have to die."
He meets her eyes at the last second, mouth open on words that he no longer has the breath to say, but all she can do is watch through the glass as the light goes out in his eyes and the ground shakes again. The mirror is tipping backwards and -falling falling falling- and when it cracks she'll shatter too. She let them all down.
A raven floats calmly through the darkness overhead, glimmering eyes radiating intelligence and something akin to pity, just before she hits the ground and-
"Myka? Myka, wake up!"
A hand touches her shoulder, solid and warm, jolting her out of the dreamscape with a long, shaky breath. Her cheeks are wet again and her head feels as heavy as her heart. Through the blurry early morning light she can make out the shape of her father kneeling beside her.
It's too much; everything she's been fighting to keep inside boils over in an abrupt confluence of tears that startles her.
It's a reflex to try and choke it all back like she did during any one of a hundred other moments in this very room. It even still has that same cathedral hush she'd counted on, the books stacked floor to ceiling absorb most of the noise as they always have.
So many times she cried alone here- and honestly, her father has never known what to make of her. Warrior, woman-child, scholar, to his mind, all of them have been singular and without need of his interference.
Warren Bering realizes abruptly that he's been wrong for years; he shouldn't have let his daughter cry alone, no matter how little he understood her. He doesn't stop to second guess his own presence, instead wrapping her in a long overdue hug. It's a start, he thinks, and holds on.
four +
Myka doesn't say anything for the longest time, though she's grateful he's there. Her dad hasn't said a word other than her name, but when she finally lapses into silence, he squeezes her gently.
"What happened?"
She sniffles loudly and starts to pull away, feeling like an embarrassed child.
"I'm sorry dad."
"Myka," he starts gruffly, halting her movement. His voice gentles. "You have nothing to apologize for."
"But dad-"
He's utterly baffled when her eyes start watering again, but the edge of his shirt sleeve works perfectly well for blotting the tears away.
"No, I mean it. Now what's this all about?"
A long sigh. She doesn't know where to start but even if she did she'd still be duty-bound not to tell them. Her parents couldn't handle knowing the truth about what her life's been for the last two years.
"I... I screwed up dad."
Everything stays silent, just the sound of them breathing in the early morning quiet- her mom won't be up for at least another hour so for now it's just them.
"I trusted somebody I shouldn't have and she almost killed Pete. And everybody else," she mutters quietly. "He knew she was trouble, so did our boss. I thought I knew better."
He turns those few thoughts over in his mind and knows he's getting a highly sanitized version of what his secret agent daughter has been up to lately. Whatever happened has shaken her badly enough to make her run all the way back here, to a place that doesn't have many good memories for her.
"And what happened?" He finally asks.
"We got her. Pete's okay, they're all okay, everything's fine! It's me they can't trust anymore. I don't know, I had to just go, okay?" It all comes out in a jumbled rush that raises his ire.
"They don't trust you? They made you leave?"
The carpeting is the same dingy grey as it always has been, Myka notices, lapsing into silence where she cannot speak the words. Avoidance has never worked well against her father though, and he won't let her dodge the answer for too long.
"Well?" He nudges her side gently.
"I don't know dad, okay? I don't know. I gave our boss's boss a letter for them." She slumps back, half against the wall. "I don't know what they think, but I'm not good for them."
Times like these, her father most regrets that they never had much of a relationship.
He doesn't even know if she believes him when he tells her how extraordinary she is, but it's the truth and he's going to have to tell her more often.
five +
After a few phone calls, Myka's officially on leave for the next three months, apparently she has more time off amassed than is recommended for active field agents and would've faced enforced downtime soon anyway.
Her mother asks a few questions when she finds them sitting together sorting books an hour later, but for the most part both of them are willing to let her work through things, which Myka's oddly grateful for. She moves back into her old room and they settle into a strange sort of routine.
She has tea in the early mornings with her dad, they're getting to know each other for the first time. She hasn't forgotten everything else that's happened, but it's nice to have something else to focus on, even if her dad doesn't always cooperate with the plan.
-
(They're sipping tea and doing inventory when Myka finds a first edition 'Illustrated History of Comic Books' and lapses into a memory a few months old- they had curled up together and read comic books for hours, she even broke her 'no sugar' rule and ate three or four cookies. It was the best afternoon she'd had in such a long time, just trading laughter and corny jokes, doing nothing.
She doesn't notice the quiet, sad smile on her face, but her father does.
"You love him." He doesn't ask.
"Yeah." It slips out before she can think about it, though she hastens to add, "he's like the brother I never had, really."
"Really."
"Yes, really!" It's the closest thing to her usual spark he's seen so far, this denial, and he merely raises an eyebrow in disbelief.
"I'm serious, dad. He's annoying and infuriating and he doesn't know when to shut up and quit goofing around. I swear he's like a kid sometimes, and-"
"-And he makes you laugh, and watches your back and makes you miss him when he's not there." He finishes.
"Yes, but that's not..." she sighs. She doesn't know where to go with this argument. Maybe she does love him like that, but he is in South Dakota and she is here, and it all seems rather irrelevant and tiresome. She sighs again, longer this time, and shelves a paperback copy of A Clockwork Orange.)
-
In the afternoons, she and her mother mind the store, reading all their old favorites in between customers. Sometimes the three of them eat dinner together, sometimes she walks the streets until she finds a restaurant with something she can pretend to eat before she leaves to walk for however long it takes to quiet her mind.
The stars are bright overhead, but that only makes her think of Pete and his dad looking at constellations. She sees a little bit of Claudia in every teenage girl she passes, especially the ones that don't quite fit in. The waitress at the diner reminds her of Mrs. Frederick in a frightening way that leaves her half convinced that just having the thought is going to make the woman materialize in front of her, and Mister Friedman at the old grocery store reminds her just enough of Artie that she avoids going there more than she has to. The girl who works at the new gas station has the same curly hair and bright smile as Leena, but when Myka smiles back it never reaches her eyes.
It hurts to remember them but it would hurt more to forget, so she walks a tightrope in the middle, dodging memories during the day and writing letters she'll never send to them at night.
six +
It's the middle of the second week when she looks up from the cash register and sees a familiar face in the truck parking across the street, determined strides as he gets out of the car and paces restlessly when a truck cuts him off from crossing the street.
She's known he was coming since she woke up this morning, felt it in her bones as surely as he knows his vibes. Her bag is already waiting at the back door and she hurries to flip the closed sign, rushing through a note as she heads out the back.
'I'm so sorry but I have to go. Tell him I'm sorry too.'
She scrawls a sloppy heart that could also be an 'M' at the bottom and wedges it in the screen door, slipping out into the cool fall air. It's only a few minutes before she's on the road again.
It didn't take Pete this long to find her, so she knows he's been waiting (or has been told to wait) and trust that she'll come home.
The problem is that she has yet to figure out what home is.
seven +
He misses her by an hour in San Diego, and by just minutes in Los Angeles. On a beach at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, he actually catches sight of her from a distance, but she's already walking away, back to her car and leaving again, always leaving.
She doesn't know where to go to get him to stop following her. She doesn't know how to make everything okay again. She just doesn't know, period.
Days float by like autumn leaves slipping away from trees and she wakes up every morning in a different town. Dark circles persist under her eyes and her dreams never give her much peace. They're either endless variations on everything that could've gone wrong or equally painful scenarios of all the ways everything could've gone wonderfully, perfectly right. She's not sure which is worse.
eight +
In a Seattle coffeehouse she waits in line, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up a few seconds too late. The man who entered a few seconds behind her is her partner, and even though it's been a month she still can't fit the word 'former' in there.
Stunned speechless long enough for him to lean around her and order her pumpkin latte perfectly along with his own drink, she snaps out of it when he takes her elbow to lead them to a table.
"Pete, you can't-"
He pinches her lips together with a hint of the grin he usually wears when he wants to charm someone. Myka huffs and narrows her eyes, but she's not really upset.
"If you still want to, you can leave after you have your coffee- but look, I did not just pay four dollars for that thing so you could run off without it."
She doesn't want to fight him on it, she's already tired. "What's the catch Pete?"
Pete doesn't like this docile, listless version of his partner, but refrains from commenting on it. "No catch. I'm still gonna follow you but you can go if you want to."
"I never asked you to follow me."
His face scrunches in that way of his that is somewhere between adorable and just strange. "Yeahhh... see that's the thing- you're stuck with me whether you like it or not, Mykes. We're partners, you don't get to tell me not to watch your back."
She's annoyed, but it's mostly directed at herself- she can't even tell him that they aren't partners anymore, it would feel too much like lying.
nine +
As good as his word, Pete lets her go, but everywhere she goes, she sees him. Another month passes from there, and he still finds little ways to let her know he's there.
She wakes up in Salt Lake City and finds a bag of still-warm cookies and a hot coffee outside her door.
After lunch in Albuquerque, Myka finds a simple red daisy on the windshield. It amazes her a little that he knows so many small things about her that no one else does, and she can't help but smile. The Gerbera rides all the way from Albuquerque to Tucson in a little cardboard cup of water where she gives it to a curly haired pre-schooler leaving the library with her mother.
She always finds Twizzlers in the glovebox, and in more flavors than she thought possible- she has to wonder about the chocolate ones. A bobble-head comic book superhero (she will never admit to knowing it's the Iron Shadow) finds his way onto the dashboard while she pumps gas one day, and a copy of a book he knows she's been wanting to read the next.
Gradually, Myka starts slowing down and enjoying the journey. Spends two days in Tallahassee and gets an alligator keychain just to say she did. She stops to buy a whole peach pie in Georgia and splits it with her partner when he just happens to walk into the cafe. They don't always talk, sometimes they just watch the cars pass by outside. Sometimes he tells her the latest news from Claudia. Sometimes she doesn't see him for a few days even if she always knows he's there.
She stops for egg rolls and cashew shrimp in Dallas and finds an unwrapped fortune cookie on top of her check. The handwritten fortune inside makes her hands shake and her eyes water, one lone drop blurring a corner of the receipt.
'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.'
It's something she knows he wouldn't share with just anyone, and she carefully folds the sheet inside her wallet behind a picture of her team and one of her parents. Her family, such as it is.
One night in Tennessee, she finds a note on the driver's side window.
'When we forgive ourselves for being imperfect we become human. -Ready when you are.'
For two more weeks they skip through a good portion of the rest of the country before she heads east.
Myka talks to her parents everyday now, letting them know where she is, or at least that she's okay.
Pete's turned into her shadow, everywhere she goes he is as well, and if she stops to think about it for any length of time she only winds up confused. 'Shouldn't he be chasing Kelly?' a small part of her wonders, and is relentlessly quashed.
He's following closely enough today that when she looks in the rear view mirror she sees him, watching her and nodding along to whatever classic rock song he's no doubt blasting on the radio. It takes a few seconds before it hits her. When it does, she pulls over onto the grassy shoulder, crying and laughing at the same time.
ten +
They're thirty miles outside of New Orleans, and she doesn't know why the penny finally drops when it does- apparently none of them blame her. Maybe it's taken Pete following her halfway across the country and back to say so, or the steady stream of photographs that are texted, untraceably to her phone every morning from Claudia and a perpetually grumpy looking Artie, or the fact that she's certain she actually has seen Mrs. Frederick a few times.
Whatever it is, she knows it's happening because for some odd reason, they care. (And also because Mrs. F. could have her in an unmarked truck headed to god knows where inside of a few seconds if she wanted to. The fact that they're giving her time means a lot.)
Pete walks up and taps on the window patiently, though when he sees her face he pulls the door-latch, all concern and wonder and affection, just like normal. She blinks and he pulls her into one of those hugs that always seems to make everything better.
"Myka, what did- what's wrong?"
She holds on for a while before she pulls back to meet his eyes with a smile of her own.
"Nothing's wrong."
"Then why are you-"
Pete never really gets to finish the thought, she leans in and kisses him quickly, then grins at the slightly gobsmacked look on his face. "You..."
He really is adorable sometimes, so she does it again (because she can, and because it's okay now- her chest doesn't hurt like it did when she left) and then leans back in the driver's seat looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
"Come on," she laughs. "We can go back tomorrow, I wanna see New Orleans."
He starts to say something and then thinks better of it. This time he kisses her like he means it. They're both a little breathless when it ends.
He tugs playfully at one dark curl and tucks it behind her ear. "I'll follow you."
-playlist-
songs I listened to while writing this or which I mentally link to this story. they do not necessarily apply, though melodies and phrases certainly inspired portions.
o1 - damien rice, amie
o2 - the temper trap, science of fear
o3 - greg laswell, sing, theresa says
o4 - sara bareilles, uncharted
o5 - daphne loves derby, cue the sun!
o6 - guster, satellite
o7 - opshop, one day
o8 - foo fighters, walking after you
Warehouse 13 | Myka Bering, Pete/Myka at the end. AU-ish?
spoilers: Everything up to and including the season 2 finale.
a/n: This fic was written September 24th of last year. Procrastination, I has it.
I thought it might be good to post this before tomorrow, because I surely won't do it then.
un-beta'd.
I'm goin' down, follow if you wanna- won't just hang around like you'll show me where to go,
I'm already out of foolproof ideas, so don't ask me how to get started- it's all uncharted. Sara Bareilles, 'Uncharted'
one +
Objectively, Myka realizes that she is running (away), no matter how many times she tells herself otherwise.
It doesn't make her slow down.
After she leaves the warehouse, she points the car in any direction that isn't the one she came from and drives. It doesn't really matter where. The miles fly by under her wheels; dirt roads turn to pavement and the smooth asphalt of the highway. If there's one thing she's enjoyed about South Dakota, it's that the sky seems to stretch on forever ahead of her. She almost thinks it's a beautiful day.
The rolling hills and wild country of the badlands give way to farms and ancient homesteads dotting the prairie grass when she hits Minnesota. The weathered old buildings tell stories of hard winters and hot summers and struggling to get by, and she finds something poetic about that.
As beautiful as the Twin Cities are this time of year, she knows the alternately sleek and shoddy urban landscapes aren't hiding any of the answers she needs; it's better to save the gas and change courses now.
The miles pass and even though there's nothing but the open road in both directions, she can't get the image of Pete running after her out of her head. Not that she actually saw it, but she knows he followed her out just as surely as she knows a hundred other random facts about her partner.
Myka's half convinced she'll see him in the rearview mirror if she squints. She carefully keeps her eyes on the road ahead and counts grain silos in between the mile markers.
(Fifteen, seventeen, thirty-two...)
The next country road she finds takes her through a stretch of long, flat cornfields as far as the eye can see. Her foot tightens on the gas, applying more speed. Iowa has never been the most inspiring location, even under the best of circumstances, so she picks up I-80 and drives straight on through. If she speeds a little, well- it's not like there's anyone else in the car to tease her about it, is there?
(She studiously ignores the guilt that is almost a tangible presence and keeps driving.)
Her practical side rails at the disruption, but a growing portion of her wonders what the point is. She can follow the rules til she's blue in the face but what if she can't trust herself anymore?
The sun sets as she nears Nebraska, and for someone who hates being without a plan, it's starting to feel a lot like drifting.
Untethered, directionless, she thinks, and starts a mental list of related words. Aimless, scattered... It's almost like being back inside the mirror...
The unbidden thought sends a tremor down her spine and she almost turns the radio on just to break the quiet. Another moment and the sense of dread passes enough for the silence to feel like a familiar friend again.
Darkness falls as she passes a truck stop boasting the "cleanest bathrooms on the interstate" in the humble estimation of its management, and she almost smiles.
Somewhere along the line her partner (no- former partner) has become the voice in her head that cracks mildly obscene jokes about anything he can get away with and plenty of things he can't; the truck stop is no exception.
She almost smiles, but she does not slow down.
two +
The glowing lights on the dashboard console read 11:54 when she approaches the state border. A time-worn 'Welcome to Colorado' sign flies by at midnight, along with the last of her denial about her destination. The witching hour, she thinks, and shakes her head. It's not that there's been any shortage of oddities in the recent past but that idle drama has simply never been her genre of choice; she's always been inexplicably drawn to the tragedies.
By the time she pulls into Colorado Springs the night is half gone and she wanders the quiet, moonlit streets aimlessly only to find herself back where she started, staring at a doorway that leads to her past.
At some point in the recent past, Bering and Sons has become Bering Family Booksellers, though no one saw fit to apprise her of that fact. She doesn't know what to think, but a tiny part of her warms all the same.
The second floor windows are dark; she uses a worn old silver key instead of knocking and feels a bit like a teenager. The thing is, she doesn't live here anymore and she's a good decade too late to reclaim the years she spent hiding inside books instead of sneaking out with Tracy. Even now, she doesn't know that she would want to.
She takes a step inside, fills her lungs with the familiar scents of tea and old pages and remembers.
There's still an old knit afghan in the back storage room, and she thinks nothing of curling up on a once familiar bench there, inexplicably comforted by the fact that the room is largely unchanged from what she remembers as a child.
She's spent hours inside her mind, turning over fears and regrets and dreams that will never see daylight; she's been fighting back tears since the moment she gave her life away, but it's only here that it feels right to let them go.
This room was her refuge long before farnsworths and endless wonder and bronze people. Even before offices and firing ranges and dead partners.
The salty drops travel freely down her face and dry alongside her slow, steady breaths.
three +
She is inside the mirror and Pete is running after her in and out and around while the world shimmers and grays.
The bright lights are gone, the colors are chaotic and jumbled and they may never be the same again.
He's still running, always running somewhere but this time he's following her, and she wants to tell him to turn around and run as far as he can- to get away from this place and from her.
Not that he would listen.
The ground ripples beneath them as he gets closer, and even if he could reach her, it's still going to be the end of the world.
(Her fault. H.G. wasn't to be trusted. Artie knew that but he and Claudia and Mrs. Frederic are probably dead and that's her fault too.)
The ground shakes again, and the skies darken overhead -only one more chance to save them all- she blinks once and then Pete is on the ground, Kelly hovering above with a knife. "You're my happiest place on earth, too. You have to die."
He meets her eyes at the last second, mouth open on words that he no longer has the breath to say, but all she can do is watch through the glass as the light goes out in his eyes and the ground shakes again. The mirror is tipping backwards and -falling falling falling- and when it cracks she'll shatter too. She let them all down.
A raven floats calmly through the darkness overhead, glimmering eyes radiating intelligence and something akin to pity, just before she hits the ground and-
"Myka? Myka, wake up!"
A hand touches her shoulder, solid and warm, jolting her out of the dreamscape with a long, shaky breath. Her cheeks are wet again and her head feels as heavy as her heart. Through the blurry early morning light she can make out the shape of her father kneeling beside her.
It's too much; everything she's been fighting to keep inside boils over in an abrupt confluence of tears that startles her.
It's a reflex to try and choke it all back like she did during any one of a hundred other moments in this very room. It even still has that same cathedral hush she'd counted on, the books stacked floor to ceiling absorb most of the noise as they always have.
So many times she cried alone here- and honestly, her father has never known what to make of her. Warrior, woman-child, scholar, to his mind, all of them have been singular and without need of his interference.
Warren Bering realizes abruptly that he's been wrong for years; he shouldn't have let his daughter cry alone, no matter how little he understood her. He doesn't stop to second guess his own presence, instead wrapping her in a long overdue hug. It's a start, he thinks, and holds on.
four +
Myka doesn't say anything for the longest time, though she's grateful he's there. Her dad hasn't said a word other than her name, but when she finally lapses into silence, he squeezes her gently.
"What happened?"
She sniffles loudly and starts to pull away, feeling like an embarrassed child.
"I'm sorry dad."
"Myka," he starts gruffly, halting her movement. His voice gentles. "You have nothing to apologize for."
"But dad-"
He's utterly baffled when her eyes start watering again, but the edge of his shirt sleeve works perfectly well for blotting the tears away.
"No, I mean it. Now what's this all about?"
A long sigh. She doesn't know where to start but even if she did she'd still be duty-bound not to tell them. Her parents couldn't handle knowing the truth about what her life's been for the last two years.
"I... I screwed up dad."
Everything stays silent, just the sound of them breathing in the early morning quiet- her mom won't be up for at least another hour so for now it's just them.
"I trusted somebody I shouldn't have and she almost killed Pete. And everybody else," she mutters quietly. "He knew she was trouble, so did our boss. I thought I knew better."
He turns those few thoughts over in his mind and knows he's getting a highly sanitized version of what his secret agent daughter has been up to lately. Whatever happened has shaken her badly enough to make her run all the way back here, to a place that doesn't have many good memories for her.
"And what happened?" He finally asks.
"We got her. Pete's okay, they're all okay, everything's fine! It's me they can't trust anymore. I don't know, I had to just go, okay?" It all comes out in a jumbled rush that raises his ire.
"They don't trust you? They made you leave?"
The carpeting is the same dingy grey as it always has been, Myka notices, lapsing into silence where she cannot speak the words. Avoidance has never worked well against her father though, and he won't let her dodge the answer for too long.
"Well?" He nudges her side gently.
"I don't know dad, okay? I don't know. I gave our boss's boss a letter for them." She slumps back, half against the wall. "I don't know what they think, but I'm not good for them."
Times like these, her father most regrets that they never had much of a relationship.
He doesn't even know if she believes him when he tells her how extraordinary she is, but it's the truth and he's going to have to tell her more often.
five +
After a few phone calls, Myka's officially on leave for the next three months, apparently she has more time off amassed than is recommended for active field agents and would've faced enforced downtime soon anyway.
Her mother asks a few questions when she finds them sitting together sorting books an hour later, but for the most part both of them are willing to let her work through things, which Myka's oddly grateful for. She moves back into her old room and they settle into a strange sort of routine.
She has tea in the early mornings with her dad, they're getting to know each other for the first time. She hasn't forgotten everything else that's happened, but it's nice to have something else to focus on, even if her dad doesn't always cooperate with the plan.
-
(They're sipping tea and doing inventory when Myka finds a first edition 'Illustrated History of Comic Books' and lapses into a memory a few months old- they had curled up together and read comic books for hours, she even broke her 'no sugar' rule and ate three or four cookies. It was the best afternoon she'd had in such a long time, just trading laughter and corny jokes, doing nothing.
She doesn't notice the quiet, sad smile on her face, but her father does.
"You love him." He doesn't ask.
"Yeah." It slips out before she can think about it, though she hastens to add, "he's like the brother I never had, really."
"Really."
"Yes, really!" It's the closest thing to her usual spark he's seen so far, this denial, and he merely raises an eyebrow in disbelief.
"I'm serious, dad. He's annoying and infuriating and he doesn't know when to shut up and quit goofing around. I swear he's like a kid sometimes, and-"
"-And he makes you laugh, and watches your back and makes you miss him when he's not there." He finishes.
"Yes, but that's not..." she sighs. She doesn't know where to go with this argument. Maybe she does love him like that, but he is in South Dakota and she is here, and it all seems rather irrelevant and tiresome. She sighs again, longer this time, and shelves a paperback copy of A Clockwork Orange.)
-
In the afternoons, she and her mother mind the store, reading all their old favorites in between customers. Sometimes the three of them eat dinner together, sometimes she walks the streets until she finds a restaurant with something she can pretend to eat before she leaves to walk for however long it takes to quiet her mind.
The stars are bright overhead, but that only makes her think of Pete and his dad looking at constellations. She sees a little bit of Claudia in every teenage girl she passes, especially the ones that don't quite fit in. The waitress at the diner reminds her of Mrs. Frederick in a frightening way that leaves her half convinced that just having the thought is going to make the woman materialize in front of her, and Mister Friedman at the old grocery store reminds her just enough of Artie that she avoids going there more than she has to. The girl who works at the new gas station has the same curly hair and bright smile as Leena, but when Myka smiles back it never reaches her eyes.
It hurts to remember them but it would hurt more to forget, so she walks a tightrope in the middle, dodging memories during the day and writing letters she'll never send to them at night.
six +
It's the middle of the second week when she looks up from the cash register and sees a familiar face in the truck parking across the street, determined strides as he gets out of the car and paces restlessly when a truck cuts him off from crossing the street.
She's known he was coming since she woke up this morning, felt it in her bones as surely as he knows his vibes. Her bag is already waiting at the back door and she hurries to flip the closed sign, rushing through a note as she heads out the back.
'I'm so sorry but I have to go. Tell him I'm sorry too.'
She scrawls a sloppy heart that could also be an 'M' at the bottom and wedges it in the screen door, slipping out into the cool fall air. It's only a few minutes before she's on the road again.
It didn't take Pete this long to find her, so she knows he's been waiting (or has been told to wait) and trust that she'll come home.
The problem is that she has yet to figure out what home is.
seven +
He misses her by an hour in San Diego, and by just minutes in Los Angeles. On a beach at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, he actually catches sight of her from a distance, but she's already walking away, back to her car and leaving again, always leaving.
She doesn't know where to go to get him to stop following her. She doesn't know how to make everything okay again. She just doesn't know, period.
Days float by like autumn leaves slipping away from trees and she wakes up every morning in a different town. Dark circles persist under her eyes and her dreams never give her much peace. They're either endless variations on everything that could've gone wrong or equally painful scenarios of all the ways everything could've gone wonderfully, perfectly right. She's not sure which is worse.
eight +
In a Seattle coffeehouse she waits in line, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up a few seconds too late. The man who entered a few seconds behind her is her partner, and even though it's been a month she still can't fit the word 'former' in there.
Stunned speechless long enough for him to lean around her and order her pumpkin latte perfectly along with his own drink, she snaps out of it when he takes her elbow to lead them to a table.
"Pete, you can't-"
He pinches her lips together with a hint of the grin he usually wears when he wants to charm someone. Myka huffs and narrows her eyes, but she's not really upset.
"If you still want to, you can leave after you have your coffee- but look, I did not just pay four dollars for that thing so you could run off without it."
She doesn't want to fight him on it, she's already tired. "What's the catch Pete?"
Pete doesn't like this docile, listless version of his partner, but refrains from commenting on it. "No catch. I'm still gonna follow you but you can go if you want to."
"I never asked you to follow me."
His face scrunches in that way of his that is somewhere between adorable and just strange. "Yeahhh... see that's the thing- you're stuck with me whether you like it or not, Mykes. We're partners, you don't get to tell me not to watch your back."
She's annoyed, but it's mostly directed at herself- she can't even tell him that they aren't partners anymore, it would feel too much like lying.
nine +
As good as his word, Pete lets her go, but everywhere she goes, she sees him. Another month passes from there, and he still finds little ways to let her know he's there.
She wakes up in Salt Lake City and finds a bag of still-warm cookies and a hot coffee outside her door.
After lunch in Albuquerque, Myka finds a simple red daisy on the windshield. It amazes her a little that he knows so many small things about her that no one else does, and she can't help but smile. The Gerbera rides all the way from Albuquerque to Tucson in a little cardboard cup of water where she gives it to a curly haired pre-schooler leaving the library with her mother.
She always finds Twizzlers in the glovebox, and in more flavors than she thought possible- she has to wonder about the chocolate ones. A bobble-head comic book superhero (she will never admit to knowing it's the Iron Shadow) finds his way onto the dashboard while she pumps gas one day, and a copy of a book he knows she's been wanting to read the next.
Gradually, Myka starts slowing down and enjoying the journey. Spends two days in Tallahassee and gets an alligator keychain just to say she did. She stops to buy a whole peach pie in Georgia and splits it with her partner when he just happens to walk into the cafe. They don't always talk, sometimes they just watch the cars pass by outside. Sometimes he tells her the latest news from Claudia. Sometimes she doesn't see him for a few days even if she always knows he's there.
She stops for egg rolls and cashew shrimp in Dallas and finds an unwrapped fortune cookie on top of her check. The handwritten fortune inside makes her hands shake and her eyes water, one lone drop blurring a corner of the receipt.
'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.'
It's something she knows he wouldn't share with just anyone, and she carefully folds the sheet inside her wallet behind a picture of her team and one of her parents. Her family, such as it is.
One night in Tennessee, she finds a note on the driver's side window.
'When we forgive ourselves for being imperfect we become human. -Ready when you are.'
For two more weeks they skip through a good portion of the rest of the country before she heads east.
Myka talks to her parents everyday now, letting them know where she is, or at least that she's okay.
Pete's turned into her shadow, everywhere she goes he is as well, and if she stops to think about it for any length of time she only winds up confused. 'Shouldn't he be chasing Kelly?' a small part of her wonders, and is relentlessly quashed.
He's following closely enough today that when she looks in the rear view mirror she sees him, watching her and nodding along to whatever classic rock song he's no doubt blasting on the radio. It takes a few seconds before it hits her. When it does, she pulls over onto the grassy shoulder, crying and laughing at the same time.
ten +
They're thirty miles outside of New Orleans, and she doesn't know why the penny finally drops when it does- apparently none of them blame her. Maybe it's taken Pete following her halfway across the country and back to say so, or the steady stream of photographs that are texted, untraceably to her phone every morning from Claudia and a perpetually grumpy looking Artie, or the fact that she's certain she actually has seen Mrs. Frederick a few times.
Whatever it is, she knows it's happening because for some odd reason, they care. (And also because Mrs. F. could have her in an unmarked truck headed to god knows where inside of a few seconds if she wanted to. The fact that they're giving her time means a lot.)
Pete walks up and taps on the window patiently, though when he sees her face he pulls the door-latch, all concern and wonder and affection, just like normal. She blinks and he pulls her into one of those hugs that always seems to make everything better.
"Myka, what did- what's wrong?"
She holds on for a while before she pulls back to meet his eyes with a smile of her own.
"Nothing's wrong."
"Then why are you-"
Pete never really gets to finish the thought, she leans in and kisses him quickly, then grins at the slightly gobsmacked look on his face. "You..."
He really is adorable sometimes, so she does it again (because she can, and because it's okay now- her chest doesn't hurt like it did when she left) and then leans back in the driver's seat looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
"Come on," she laughs. "We can go back tomorrow, I wanna see New Orleans."
He starts to say something and then thinks better of it. This time he kisses her like he means it. They're both a little breathless when it ends.
He tugs playfully at one dark curl and tucks it behind her ear. "I'll follow you."
-playlist-
songs I listened to while writing this or which I mentally link to this story. they do not necessarily apply, though melodies and phrases certainly inspired portions.
o1 - damien rice, amie
o2 - the temper trap, science of fear
o3 - greg laswell, sing, theresa says
o4 - sara bareilles, uncharted
o5 - daphne loves derby, cue the sun!
o6 - guster, satellite
o7 - opshop, one day
o8 - foo fighters, walking after you