Warehouse 13 Fic: This is goodbye: 1-2/?
Title: This is goodbye
Author: Carly Carter
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Characters: Myka centric fic (with some alarming undertones of Myka/Pete which i find utterly disturbing as I ship Myka with every other person on that show rather than Pete. But the fic wrote itself, and Pete it is. But mostly it's just Myka.)
Rating: PG ish, some language, violence, adultish themes
Disclaimer: Don't own anything, haven't even seen all the eps of season 1 and I know nothing about anything remotely sci fi related, this this is merely a character piece. And I have managed to butcher most of the characters to suit my self pitying plot. Forgive me.
Summary: Sets off in mid episode 10 "Regrets" then diverges from canon.
Myka had to stifle the laughter welling up in her throat. 'No Claudia', she wants to tell the girl. 'The mirror did nothing to me. This is me, this is who I am, who I've always been. Maybe you never realized it before, that's all.'
This is goodbye
Chapter 1
Reality and fantasy are swirling around her in horrid, vivid colors. She can no longer distinguish hallucination from truth.
In that one moment, everything seems so real.
Silently, she berates herself, for her inability to keep her grip. She, always the logical one, Myka- by-the-book- Bering. She, (according to Pete), who had 'no imagination what. so. ever.' She ought to have known better. She, of all people, ought to have been able to keep one foot firmly planted on the ground.
But.. it's.. Sam.
Even though she is standing there, absolutely horror struck, screaming at him to leave her alone, something in her doesn't want Sam to be gone. Something lights up inside of her when she sees him living, breathing, standing right infront of her. Some part of her doesn't want to let Sam go.
Sam knows it too, he is smiling smugly at her. Hurling accusations at her.
“You were late”
Was I?
“You killed me.”
I'm sorry , Sam
“Sorry won't bring me back.”
Sam is angry. Sam is out for blood. And still, she doesn't' want Sam to leave. It feels right, it feels just. That she has to make her atonement. Let Sam have his moment. Let Sam take her life. A life for a life. What did it really matter?
But there is something in her that just can't lay down and die. A little voice inside her, telling her it- Wasn't. Her. Fault.
A strong, firm, voice telling her to fight. She feels it grasp hold of her, not willing to let her go under, to let her drown in self pity and self loathing, to be crushed under the excruciating weight of guilt.
It's Pete's voice. Calling her name.
And it's the one and only thing that is holding her together.
~
Earlier that morning...
“Did I do something?” Pete asked her, and at first he sounded sincere.
She turned away from him, refusing to answer. She had never been very good at the silent treatment, but she was stubborn, and she was determined not to let him win.
“Give me a break, Myka, just tell me what I did.”
She kept up the facade of cold indifference.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw his wounded puppy dog face. It was almost enough to melt her. Almost enough to make her turn to him and smile. Almost enough to make her turn to him and hug him as she did that moment she realized she was free and no longer trapped inside the looking glass.
But she held firm to her stubborn resentment. She turned her head and asked Claudia to pass the salt.
“Whatever it is, I'm sorry, ok?” He told her. He was being a little too nice to her. They all were after the fiasco with the mirror. And so they should be.
“How can you be sorry if you don' t even know what you did!?!” She demanded angrily in return. She isn't so much angry at Pete now, she is angry at herself for breaking her vow of silence. Angry at herself that she let Pete get under her skin.
He was supposed to be her partner. He hadn't even realized that 'Alice' had taken her place. He probably never would have if not for Artie. She could have been trapped for eternity inside that looking glass, and Pete Lattimer would never have noticed, much less cared. She felt let down, betrayed, and yes, angry. But she didn't dare tell him any of that aloud. Didn't tell him that she still couldn't sleep at night, she was still afraid this life was all a dream, and when she woke up she would still be sitting there, inside that looking glass, cross legged in defeat, looking up at Artie, pleading with him to see her, to believe in her, to set her free. And Artie, turning a cold deaf ear. Artie insisting 'The real Myka is in Las Vegas with Pete. Surely Pete would know if Myka wasn't with him.'
And so she was afraid, exhausted, even a little hurt. And all of this somehow manifested itself in anger towards Pete. And somehow, it made her feel slightly better.
“Whoa!” Pete exclaimed, raising his hands to surrender. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed thismorning.”
He turned to Claudia, who was thoroughly entertained by the bickering. He whispered, but deliberately loud enough for Myka to hear him “Are you sure that's the real Myka, and not the crazy chick from the mirror?”
He regretted his joke almost immediately, when Claudia only looked to him in stunned silence. Ok, bad move, he thought to himself. But he had not been expecting Myka to pick up her plate, and smash it to pieces right over his head.
~~
Chapter 2
Her gun is aimed straight at Sam's head. Sam's weapon is aimed at her. He is smiling at her, challenging her. But this is a war she knows she can not win. She lowers her weapon sadly in defeat. She simply can not bring herself to kill him a second time. She closes her eyes. She waits for him to pull the trigger. She longs for it to be over.
But, of course, nothing happens.
Sam isn't real. He is a figment of her imagination. He can't kill her. He can't even touch her. Sam isn't going to be the one to save her.
She feels bitter tears stinging her eyes. None of this is real, she tells herself. None of it, except the gun in her own hand. This, she is fairly certain, is real enough. The metal is cool against her skin. She tightens her grip. It feels safe, familiar.
Slowly, but deliberately, she lifts the gun to her own head. There is one sure fire way to end all of this. Sam can't do it for her, she sees this much now, but she can. She must.
She understands it now, the power of hallucination to push someone over the edge. She knows Sam isn't real. But the guilt, the shame, that's real. Too real. It's eating her alive. She has to make it stop.
She hears the voice again, Pete's voice, so close to her, telling her not to be afraid. She can feel his breath against her own skin. It's almost enough to make her stop. But it's too late. There is no turning back now. Her finger is compelled to pull that trigger.
Everything happens in horrifying slow motion from that point onwards. Pete screams. He screams her name. He screams “No!”
She turns. Sam is gone. But Pete is there, right beside her, always right beside her. Pete is wrestling the gun from her, he is still screaming. There is fear in his eyes. A fear she has never seen on him. He is terrified, even as he is telling her not to be afraid.
Her hands are shaking. It's all happening too quickly, and too slowly, all at the same time. It's confusing, frightening, surreal.
And then, the horrifying sound of the shot being fired.
The surprised and wounded cry from Pete Lattimer's lips.
The heavy dull thud as he crashes to the ground.
And blood, Pete's blood, spilling out over the cold prison floor.
~~
Earlier that morning...
Myka walked as far from the warehouse as she dared. Far away from the scrutinizing eyes of the others at the table. She could already imagine Pete and Claudia telling Artie that she lost the plot. That she, unprovoked, had smashed a plate over Pete's head. She could already feel Artie's disappointment weighing her down.
She meant the things she said to him in that mirror. She thought Artie was great, and somehow it was important to her that he reciprocated her feelings.
It occurred to her in that moment, as she walked alone, fatigued, and mightily hungry, that Artie reminded her of her father. Or rather, that Artie reminded her of the vision of a father she always wished she had. Someone who looked to her, saw her potential. Someone who cared about her in his own way. Even though Artie lied to her (by omission) on a daily basis, and even though it made her blood boil, she could understand on some level, he did it for her own good. A misguided and unnecessary desire to protect her. Somehow, Artie made her feel something she didn't remember ever feeling before-- safe.
She had been angry at him when she found out about his past. She had been hurt. But she would have got over it. But sitting there, trapped inside that mirror, pleading with him to see her. The way he had coldly turned his back, that left scars she wasn't certain would ever heal. Sure he saved her in the end. But was that enough? It was Claudia and Leena who went to bat for her. If it was left to Artie and Pete- she would still be there, for all eternity, neither of them knowing the difference. She was simply that insignificant to them both. And that hurt like hell. That cut her deeply on levels she could never begin to explain to either one of them.
Why was is so hard for either of them to really see her? Claudia had recognized her straight away. Claudia had seen her, seen that trapped expression on her face. Claudia never had a single doubt. Neither had Leena. But Artie, he just couldn't see it.
She told him she felt sorry for him. That he was so blind to the things right in front of his face. But those were brave words, nothing more. What she felt in that moment was completely, utterly, unforgivably, betrayed. What she felt in that moment was invisible.
The feeling was not strange to her. Her entire life she had lived under the weight of invisibility. Knowing she was a disappointment by her very existence, the very fact she was not the son her father always wanted. He never let her forget it. That she was not enough, no matter what she did, never enough. That she wasn't wanted. That she wasn't valued. That she just didn't matter.
And all the while she sat there, cross legged and defiant, like an angry child. She told Artie she needed to know that she mattered. But she knew already, deep down, that she just didn't matter enough. Not to her father, not to Pete, not to Artie. If she mattered, he would have seen her straight away. He wouldn't have stood there, physically restraining Claudia, as if he was afraid of her, as if she was going to hurt him somehow. “That thing” Artie called her. Looked right into her eyes and didn't even see her as a human being.
And what about Pete? Her so called partner? His fantastic 'intuition?” Did he not have the slightest inkling that something had been off? Did he not know her at all? Was she that replaceable in his eyes? And how could she ever trust him again? How could she trust either of them? Sure, they saved her in the end. And relief got the better of her, she hugged them and thanked them as if it was all behind them, as if they could sweep it all under the rug, as if it just didn't matter. But, it still stung like hell.
She still woke in a cold sweat, dreaming of being trapped, isolated, for eternity. And what's worse, never even missed. She still got up in the middle of the night, quietly making her way to the dresser, staring at herself in that mirror, wondering if she was even real? Wondering if that other Myka, the one staring back at her, might have done a better job of living. Maybe that reflection of herself might not have fucked things up so totally. Maybe that's the thing that was wrong with her, the thing that made it hard to breathe, the thing that drove her from her sleep night after night as she woke up gasping for air...she wondered if she even deserved to be free. Perhaps it would have been better all around if she never got out of that mirror?
~~