Swimming Through Snow II
Title: Swimming Through Snow II
Author: dodo31, "2k" on ff.n
Rating: K+
Characters: Claudia, Pete, Joshua, Artie, Juliet O'Hara (Psych), Bodyguard, Myka. Undertone of Cladia/Artie.
Spoilers: Warehouse 13: Everything through MacPherson. Psych: AU after Psy vs. Psy.
Summary: Pete returns Claudia and Artie along with the new recruit to the Warehouse, and the persistent mid-July snow is only one of the surprises waiting for them.
AU Continuity: Part II of the slightly cracky semi-crossover began with Swimming Through Snow. Posted as chapter 2 to that same story on ff.n.
Previous chapter HERE
Notes: The crossover elements are relatively minor, and no knowledge of Psych is necessary for the enjoyment of this fic. If you're completely ignorant of the fandom, the lone crossed over character can easily be viewed as an OC. Once more I make no promise for a sequel, or part 3, or what have you, so just wait and be pleasantly surprised if something turns up.
I've read through it a thousand times, but I could a thousand more and still not catch whatever mistakes remain. Please call me out on them.
Comments are awesome ♥
Claudia doesn't think she'll ever forget the sight of the Warehouse as she'd seen it the last time. Broken and defeated, the façade had been strewn in a large cemi-circle, white-hot metal burning black spots into the dry grass. She'd seen the billowing plume of smoke from the road, over a mile away, but it hadn't even begun to prepare her for the actuality. Her first real home since before foster care, ruined by the person who had helped her get there.
Seeing it now doesn't hold any more comfort. The feeling of home she'd hoped would return does, but it's fractured and stilted and probably more a product of the people rather than the place itself. The entire front is new, bright steel reflecting the intense sunlight that's somehow coming through the thick blankets of snow. That's weird, the snow, because she's never been here in the winter and right now it's the middle of July and it really, really shouldn't be snowing.
As soon as the SUV stops she leaps out and bounds to the door, choosing not to hear Pete's words of caution.
"There's something you should know!" he calls after her, but it's too late as she stops in her tracks, watching the heavy door open itself and Joshua wheel himself out.
He looks more like a comic book villain than her brother, wheelchair-bound with half his face as she remembers and the other half missing, pale-blank skin staring at her in place of half his smile.
"Claudia!" he says, and the sound is as wrong as his face is but she surges forward anyway, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Despite the new height difference he still feels like her brother and that's what counts right now. It's not enough, to just have him feel like her brother, but part of her realizes that's all she'll get and far more than she had expected fourteen years ago when she thought he'd died.
She hears the crunch of footsteps behind her and familiarity tells her it's Artie. She doesn't let go of Joshua or turn around, feeling intensely selfish as she tries to keep him to herself for a moment longer.
"Nice to see you, Joshua," he says, not sounding surprised or alarmed, and she figures he actually listened to Pete. That or he can tell exactly what happened to him because of exactly what artifact, just by looking, and that is a thought that leads to others she would rather not dwell on.
"You too, Professor," her brother says, and she lets him go to see him smile with his half-mouth. "I hear you're my brother-in-law now. Nice to have you in the family." She hits him on the arm for that, not sure if he's being facetious or not, and he scowls at her. The expression is clear even on his broken face.
Pete saunters up to them, self-sure and real, and tucks his thumbs into his front pockets. "We've gotta go in and give Juliet the grand tour," he says, and for the first time since they arrived here, Claudia remembers the presence of the other woman. She's standing by the car, shivering and looking a little alarmed.
She can't blame Juliet for how irritated and confused she must be, but the expression on the bodyguard's face makes her uncomfortable. She's never seen him wear his emotions this openly before. It's obvious guilt and resignation and it worries her that it could be more because Mrs. F isn't around than the intensity of his emotions. She's had to deal with a lot of the ramifications of repressed emotions in the last two years.
"Myka's down in the Warehouse," Joshua says, "looking for some missing artifacts from the Dark Vault. We've been checking the shelves, in case they've just misplaced themselves, but..." He trails off, and no one acknowledges that this means MacPherson is probably in possession of some of the most dangerous objects imaginable.
No one except Juliet, of course, but not in the same. "How can an artifact misplace itself?" she asks, sounding unsure of the words she's using, and Pete half-grins. "This isn't part of what you explained to me in the car."
"You'll find out in a minute."
The white tunnel of bombs has been reconstructed, complete with bombs, and it makes Claudia nervous. It must make Artie nervous too, because he reaches for her hand and squeezes tight. She fights the urge to close her eyes as they pass through it, and sneaks a glance at him only to see that his gaze is on her. She forces an encouraging smile onto her face and returns his grip and soon they're in the office.
Pete and Myka had told the truth about nothing being damaged in the explosion. She hadn't been allowed to see it, the structure was too dangerous, but from the steampunk computer console on the desk to the out-of-place modern plastic chairs to the suit of armor everything is the same. Even the weird mechanical hand was sticking up from the table, holding a stack of printouts. For a second she thinks it's a bit weird that they've kept Artie's decor without Artie, but then she realizes that he himself had probably inherited it from his predecessor.
"What is this place?" Juliet asks, looking around as if she can't quite believe it. Claudia can relate.
"America's attic," Artie mumbles from beside her, making Pete laugh, and she doesn't know why he finds that so funny.
"Warehouse 13," says Myka from the doorway and Claudia turns towards her, startled, not having heard her enter the room. "As someone told me once, we're gatherers and protectors of secrets." That makes Pete laugh, too, and she's really very sure she's missing something.
Myka looks exactly the same as she remembers, right down to the perpetually stunned expression on her face. Claudia is almost overcome with the urge to hug her, but that's what the Claudia of two years ago would have done. The Claudia of today liked to believe herself a bit more mature, so she settled on a small wave, raising her right hand to shoulder height and wiggling her fingers, saying, "Hey, Myka."
Artie squeezes her hand once more and lets go. "How much progress have you made in finding Mrs. Frederic?" he asks before any more pleasantries can be exchanged. Right down to business, and suddenly Claudia is wondering if he's as thrilled to be back as she is. It's not something they've exactly had a chance to talk about and she's kicking herself for it now, wishing she'd found a private moment where she could have asked him.
Joshua frowns at Artie's question. "In the week since Leena disappeared with her, absolutely nothing. We've spent the last three days going through their things -- the ones dark-and-broody will let us at, anyway." He clearly means this as a joke, but the expression on the bodyguard's face doesn't change from its stony mask of guilt. "The only things we were able to find were a few vague correspondences Leena had with someone, probably MacPherson."
He pauses then, the expression on his half-empty face to read, and Myka picks up where he left off.
"We thought we'd bring you back, see if you could help us," she says, and Claudia can read between the lines.
Artie obviously can, too. He masks his troubled look by glancing around the office but after the last two years living in a secluded cabin in the woods with him she knows him better than anyone else in the room has a chance to. "It wasn't an order from the Regents?"
"There may have been some hints," Pete says quickly, and puts a hand on Juliet's shoulder to steer her out the door. "Let's not keep the newbie waiting for explanations, yeah?"
"Uh-oh, quick subject change. Someone's in trouble." Claudia says it with more enthusiasm than she actually feels now that she knows they think she could still be a threat and goes with the others into the body of the Warehouse.
Twenty minutes later she's alone with Juliet in the darkened recesses of aisle 397, the others having gone off to discuss the missing Dark Vault items and how they might relate to the kidnapping or disappearances or whatever they're calling it right now. Things are a bit more complicated than they'd been led to believe when they'd been pulled from their fake-real-new lives in New York.
It's not lost on her that this is a two-way babysitting job. She's here to make sure Juliet doesn't maim herself on an artifact, and the new recruit is here because she's the only one who's emotionally unattached enough to Claudia to not choose to ignore any hints that she might be a double agent.
"Why aren't you with the rest of them?" Juliet asks, as if she's reading her mind, and reaches out to touch a battered pillow sitting on a low, glass pedestal.
Claudia lurches forward to stop her, placing a hand on her wrist before it makes contact with the aged fabric. "Don't touch that! Never touch anything, at least not without gloves on," she says, and she feels a bit like Artie as she fishes a spare pair of gloves from the tool belt she'd snatched from a supply closet and hands them to Juliet. She points to the electronic marker next to the object, labeling it as H. P. Lovecraft's pillow. "That'll give you crazy tentacle nightmares forever, man."
"Sorry," she says, and Claudia doesn't quite believe her but at least she doesn't go grabbing at the pillow again. Instead, she snaps the gloves on with obvious practice and moves to run her fingers along the edge of a lacquered wooden chest.
"Stopstopstop!" she nearly screeches, and this time she pulls Juliet away with hands on her shoulders. "That's why they left me with you, to make sure you didn't manage impregnate yourself with an evil clone." In retrospect, the Aisle Of Things That Can Make Your Life A Living Hell was probably not the best place to wander to with someone who apparently needs to touch everything.
Juliet looks a bit stunned, obviously not having expected to be manhandled like that, but recovers quickly. She shrugs off Claudia's grip and straightens her tailored suit jacket, wiggling her head from side to side a little bit and reminding Claudia a bit of a flustered kitten trying to pretend it didn't just do something really stupid with people watching.
"Come on," Claudia says, "let's go back to the office before either one of us winds up mangled by an artifact. I can introduce you to Sucky, if he's still around, and you can hear the story of how he once got me trapped in a replica of the B&B."
"Sucky?" Juliet scrunches her nose and tilts her head, no doubt trying to figure out whose horribly offensive nickname that was and why she hadn't met him yet.
Claudia laughs, the low sound reverberating off of several nearby objects. "Automated vacuum cleaner."
"Like a Roomba?" It sounds like both a question and a statement, a way of affirming a bit of normalcy in a world that's just gone topsy-turvy, and Claudia finds she's almost having fun throwing the pretty blonde off-balance.
"Not quite," is Claudia's reply, and it's Juliet's turn to laugh.
It still doesn't feel like the home she had a brief taste of after rescuing Joshua, but she doesn't think it ever will. Too much has changed; she's changed. Part of her wants to grab Artie and run back to hide, return to their house at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of a tiny town, living as modern-day hermits, but the part of her that's still the nineteen-year-old who forced her way into a secret government warehouse won't let her. There's work to be done, a scary ninja lady to save, and maybe a new place to make for herself in this madcap collection of people. There's also the mystery of blizzards in South Dakota in mid-July.
On the hike back to the office, Claudia talks with more enthusiasm than she feels as she tells tales of crazy warehouse hijinx. Juliet laughs where it's appropriate, and even nudges her arm a time or two, asking questions. The false enthusiasm and stiff laughs slowly turn true, and by the time they reach the steps she's wondering if there's also a new friend to be made here.
Part III HERE.
Author: dodo31, "2k" on ff.n
Rating: K+
Characters: Claudia, Pete, Joshua, Artie, Juliet O'Hara (Psych), Bodyguard, Myka. Undertone of Cladia/Artie.
Spoilers: Warehouse 13: Everything through MacPherson. Psych: AU after Psy vs. Psy.
Summary: Pete returns Claudia and Artie along with the new recruit to the Warehouse, and the persistent mid-July snow is only one of the surprises waiting for them.
AU Continuity: Part II of the slightly cracky semi-crossover began with Swimming Through Snow. Posted as chapter 2 to that same story on ff.n.
Previous chapter HERE
Notes: The crossover elements are relatively minor, and no knowledge of Psych is necessary for the enjoyment of this fic. If you're completely ignorant of the fandom, the lone crossed over character can easily be viewed as an OC. Once more I make no promise for a sequel, or part 3, or what have you, so just wait and be pleasantly surprised if something turns up.
I've read through it a thousand times, but I could a thousand more and still not catch whatever mistakes remain. Please call me out on them.
Comments are awesome ♥
Claudia doesn't think she'll ever forget the sight of the Warehouse as she'd seen it the last time. Broken and defeated, the façade had been strewn in a large cemi-circle, white-hot metal burning black spots into the dry grass. She'd seen the billowing plume of smoke from the road, over a mile away, but it hadn't even begun to prepare her for the actuality. Her first real home since before foster care, ruined by the person who had helped her get there.
Seeing it now doesn't hold any more comfort. The feeling of home she'd hoped would return does, but it's fractured and stilted and probably more a product of the people rather than the place itself. The entire front is new, bright steel reflecting the intense sunlight that's somehow coming through the thick blankets of snow. That's weird, the snow, because she's never been here in the winter and right now it's the middle of July and it really, really shouldn't be snowing.
As soon as the SUV stops she leaps out and bounds to the door, choosing not to hear Pete's words of caution.
"There's something you should know!" he calls after her, but it's too late as she stops in her tracks, watching the heavy door open itself and Joshua wheel himself out.
He looks more like a comic book villain than her brother, wheelchair-bound with half his face as she remembers and the other half missing, pale-blank skin staring at her in place of half his smile.
"Claudia!" he says, and the sound is as wrong as his face is but she surges forward anyway, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Despite the new height difference he still feels like her brother and that's what counts right now. It's not enough, to just have him feel like her brother, but part of her realizes that's all she'll get and far more than she had expected fourteen years ago when she thought he'd died.
She hears the crunch of footsteps behind her and familiarity tells her it's Artie. She doesn't let go of Joshua or turn around, feeling intensely selfish as she tries to keep him to herself for a moment longer.
"Nice to see you, Joshua," he says, not sounding surprised or alarmed, and she figures he actually listened to Pete. That or he can tell exactly what happened to him because of exactly what artifact, just by looking, and that is a thought that leads to others she would rather not dwell on.
"You too, Professor," her brother says, and she lets him go to see him smile with his half-mouth. "I hear you're my brother-in-law now. Nice to have you in the family." She hits him on the arm for that, not sure if he's being facetious or not, and he scowls at her. The expression is clear even on his broken face.
Pete saunters up to them, self-sure and real, and tucks his thumbs into his front pockets. "We've gotta go in and give Juliet the grand tour," he says, and for the first time since they arrived here, Claudia remembers the presence of the other woman. She's standing by the car, shivering and looking a little alarmed.
She can't blame Juliet for how irritated and confused she must be, but the expression on the bodyguard's face makes her uncomfortable. She's never seen him wear his emotions this openly before. It's obvious guilt and resignation and it worries her that it could be more because Mrs. F isn't around than the intensity of his emotions. She's had to deal with a lot of the ramifications of repressed emotions in the last two years.
"Myka's down in the Warehouse," Joshua says, "looking for some missing artifacts from the Dark Vault. We've been checking the shelves, in case they've just misplaced themselves, but..." He trails off, and no one acknowledges that this means MacPherson is probably in possession of some of the most dangerous objects imaginable.
No one except Juliet, of course, but not in the same. "How can an artifact misplace itself?" she asks, sounding unsure of the words she's using, and Pete half-grins. "This isn't part of what you explained to me in the car."
"You'll find out in a minute."
The white tunnel of bombs has been reconstructed, complete with bombs, and it makes Claudia nervous. It must make Artie nervous too, because he reaches for her hand and squeezes tight. She fights the urge to close her eyes as they pass through it, and sneaks a glance at him only to see that his gaze is on her. She forces an encouraging smile onto her face and returns his grip and soon they're in the office.
Pete and Myka had told the truth about nothing being damaged in the explosion. She hadn't been allowed to see it, the structure was too dangerous, but from the steampunk computer console on the desk to the out-of-place modern plastic chairs to the suit of armor everything is the same. Even the weird mechanical hand was sticking up from the table, holding a stack of printouts. For a second she thinks it's a bit weird that they've kept Artie's decor without Artie, but then she realizes that he himself had probably inherited it from his predecessor.
"What is this place?" Juliet asks, looking around as if she can't quite believe it. Claudia can relate.
"America's attic," Artie mumbles from beside her, making Pete laugh, and she doesn't know why he finds that so funny.
"Warehouse 13," says Myka from the doorway and Claudia turns towards her, startled, not having heard her enter the room. "As someone told me once, we're gatherers and protectors of secrets." That makes Pete laugh, too, and she's really very sure she's missing something.
Myka looks exactly the same as she remembers, right down to the perpetually stunned expression on her face. Claudia is almost overcome with the urge to hug her, but that's what the Claudia of two years ago would have done. The Claudia of today liked to believe herself a bit more mature, so she settled on a small wave, raising her right hand to shoulder height and wiggling her fingers, saying, "Hey, Myka."
Artie squeezes her hand once more and lets go. "How much progress have you made in finding Mrs. Frederic?" he asks before any more pleasantries can be exchanged. Right down to business, and suddenly Claudia is wondering if he's as thrilled to be back as she is. It's not something they've exactly had a chance to talk about and she's kicking herself for it now, wishing she'd found a private moment where she could have asked him.
Joshua frowns at Artie's question. "In the week since Leena disappeared with her, absolutely nothing. We've spent the last three days going through their things -- the ones dark-and-broody will let us at, anyway." He clearly means this as a joke, but the expression on the bodyguard's face doesn't change from its stony mask of guilt. "The only things we were able to find were a few vague correspondences Leena had with someone, probably MacPherson."
He pauses then, the expression on his half-empty face to read, and Myka picks up where he left off.
"We thought we'd bring you back, see if you could help us," she says, and Claudia can read between the lines.
Artie obviously can, too. He masks his troubled look by glancing around the office but after the last two years living in a secluded cabin in the woods with him she knows him better than anyone else in the room has a chance to. "It wasn't an order from the Regents?"
"There may have been some hints," Pete says quickly, and puts a hand on Juliet's shoulder to steer her out the door. "Let's not keep the newbie waiting for explanations, yeah?"
"Uh-oh, quick subject change. Someone's in trouble." Claudia says it with more enthusiasm than she actually feels now that she knows they think she could still be a threat and goes with the others into the body of the Warehouse.
Twenty minutes later she's alone with Juliet in the darkened recesses of aisle 397, the others having gone off to discuss the missing Dark Vault items and how they might relate to the kidnapping or disappearances or whatever they're calling it right now. Things are a bit more complicated than they'd been led to believe when they'd been pulled from their fake-real-new lives in New York.
It's not lost on her that this is a two-way babysitting job. She's here to make sure Juliet doesn't maim herself on an artifact, and the new recruit is here because she's the only one who's emotionally unattached enough to Claudia to not choose to ignore any hints that she might be a double agent.
"Why aren't you with the rest of them?" Juliet asks, as if she's reading her mind, and reaches out to touch a battered pillow sitting on a low, glass pedestal.
Claudia lurches forward to stop her, placing a hand on her wrist before it makes contact with the aged fabric. "Don't touch that! Never touch anything, at least not without gloves on," she says, and she feels a bit like Artie as she fishes a spare pair of gloves from the tool belt she'd snatched from a supply closet and hands them to Juliet. She points to the electronic marker next to the object, labeling it as H. P. Lovecraft's pillow. "That'll give you crazy tentacle nightmares forever, man."
"Sorry," she says, and Claudia doesn't quite believe her but at least she doesn't go grabbing at the pillow again. Instead, she snaps the gloves on with obvious practice and moves to run her fingers along the edge of a lacquered wooden chest.
"Stopstopstop!" she nearly screeches, and this time she pulls Juliet away with hands on her shoulders. "That's why they left me with you, to make sure you didn't manage impregnate yourself with an evil clone." In retrospect, the Aisle Of Things That Can Make Your Life A Living Hell was probably not the best place to wander to with someone who apparently needs to touch everything.
Juliet looks a bit stunned, obviously not having expected to be manhandled like that, but recovers quickly. She shrugs off Claudia's grip and straightens her tailored suit jacket, wiggling her head from side to side a little bit and reminding Claudia a bit of a flustered kitten trying to pretend it didn't just do something really stupid with people watching.
"Come on," Claudia says, "let's go back to the office before either one of us winds up mangled by an artifact. I can introduce you to Sucky, if he's still around, and you can hear the story of how he once got me trapped in a replica of the B&B."
"Sucky?" Juliet scrunches her nose and tilts her head, no doubt trying to figure out whose horribly offensive nickname that was and why she hadn't met him yet.
Claudia laughs, the low sound reverberating off of several nearby objects. "Automated vacuum cleaner."
"Like a Roomba?" It sounds like both a question and a statement, a way of affirming a bit of normalcy in a world that's just gone topsy-turvy, and Claudia finds she's almost having fun throwing the pretty blonde off-balance.
"Not quite," is Claudia's reply, and it's Juliet's turn to laugh.
It still doesn't feel like the home she had a brief taste of after rescuing Joshua, but she doesn't think it ever will. Too much has changed; she's changed. Part of her wants to grab Artie and run back to hide, return to their house at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of a tiny town, living as modern-day hermits, but the part of her that's still the nineteen-year-old who forced her way into a secret government warehouse won't let her. There's work to be done, a scary ninja lady to save, and maybe a new place to make for herself in this madcap collection of people. There's also the mystery of blizzards in South Dakota in mid-July.
On the hike back to the office, Claudia talks with more enthusiasm than she feels as she tells tales of crazy warehouse hijinx. Juliet laughs where it's appropriate, and even nudges her arm a time or two, asking questions. The false enthusiasm and stiff laughs slowly turn true, and by the time they reach the steps she's wondering if there's also a new friend to be made here.
Part III HERE.