Here's the thing about Pete and Myka being… PeteAndMyka. They don't have sex. They had sex once, after Pete's freakout about losing her and a kiss, Myka feeling impulsive and vulnerable in a way she hadn't been since Sam. They slip into Pete's room that night, ignoring Claudia's flirty, knowing, wink, and Pete kisses her sweetly against his closed door, his fingers hooked into her beltloops. She pushes him towards the bed and steps on a nerf football, stumbling as it squeaks.
"Seriously?" she mumbles against his jawbone.
Pete flops back to lie on his bed, grinning at the ceiling. "I do my best thinking playing sports."
It's been a long time since Myka's had sex, and her collarbone tingles where Pete had scraped his teeth over the fine skin covering the bone. She straddles him on the bed and ruffles her fingers through his hair. "Too long," she murmurs.
Pete slips her fingers up her shirt and traces her ribcage. Myka's breath catches and her hips roll, lazy. "Mykes," Pete breathes, and sits up to kiss her again.
The sex was soft and loving and sweet and after Myka kicks a bag of corn chips off the bed to make room for them to roll out of the wet spot Pete slips behind her and helps her shove the mass of her curls off her sweaty neck, blowing on her skin to make her shiver and laugh, and they whisperI love yous before falling asleep.
/
After that there's a week in the Netherlands chasing Daniel Fahrenheit's blown glass mercury thermometer, which is causing world record temperature highs. Myka and Pete agree they would both rather die that touch each other, themselves, anyone or anything, and in fact death or an icy pond would be preferable than staying one more day in the Hague.
/
Ten days in Newcastle with Claudia tracking down Douglas Gairdner's folio of extensive notes, sketchings, pictures, and interviews-compiled to protest male circumcision.
("Reports indicate the artifact has… complicated effects." Artie adjusts his glasses.
"I'm out," Pete says, and snatches at Claudia's inventory tablet. "Steve?"
"Inventory party," Steve agrees, and clicks a pen.
"Lady party," Claudia cheers, holding her fist out for Myka to bump, and then her face twists, "but less gay. Not that I'm against the gay." She turns to Steve in a panic. "I love the gays!"
"The gays thank you," Steve says seriously.)
/
And after it's just… easy. It's easy for Myka to sit tucked in the curl of Pete's body while they watch terrible monster movies and Claudia throws popcorn at the screen, easy to fall asleep with their legs tangled, to kiss him once, closed mouth as they split for missions.
Myka takes on a project-complete and total inventory, digitally compiled into a single database, to be organized by name, artifact creator, location, side effects, date, and anything else she can possibly think of. Available in the cloud or downloaded for Agents in the field. "It's perfect," Myka says, pacing in front of her bed with one hand pressed to her forehead. "I don't why I didn't think of it before!"
Pete flips a page of the comic book he's reading on her bed and ticks his words off on his fingers. "Artie blew up, your dad choked on the House of Usher, H.G. tried to end the world, Sykes tried to end the world, Parrotcleftus tried to end the world."
"Really," Myka interjects, "you get The Fall of the House of Usher but not the father of toxicology?"
Pete snorts and flips another page with a flourish. "Father of asshole-ogy."
Myka shoves his booted feet off her bedspread and ignores his comment. "See, Artie doesn't so much catalogue things as throw them onto a shelf organized by word association, smash his fingers against the input keyboard and wax poetic about the ideals of the Luddites."
"Harumph I miss the days of yore of quill and ink and blinding syphilis," Pete adds in his best old man voice.
Myka waves her hand impatiently, "A complete database," she continues, almost dreamy, "we could maybe-reorganize? Alphabetically, and put in plexiglass-" The number of times artifacts have fallen off shelves and activated, honestly.
"Mmm," Pete says in his sexy bedroom voice, which is vaguely reminiscent of a cross between the cookie monster and Yoda, "talk Dewey to me."
Myka lets herself be hooked by his flailing ankle and drags her feet, playful, until she topples over the bed and lands on top of him. "You did that to yourself," she says when he wheezes.
"How do you say pointy elbows in Latin?"
They kiss once, light and easy, and Myla leans back to better see his smile, and knows she loves him and he loves her too.
She reads Brynhild and he falls asleep in the space between her hips, her nails scratching lightly across his scalp.
/
"Okay," Claudia says in Bakersfield, stretched out on a shitty motel bed and feeding the Magic Fingers quarters, "girl time. I need me some girl time." She digs in a pocket and produces a bottle of cheap black nail polish. "I found this the other day, Nick left it behind-god, how did I not see that evil betrayal coming?"
Myka tucks her go bag into the tiny closet and kicks it shut with the back of her heel before entering the bathroom to splash water on her face. She takes a deep breath and looks at the water dripping off her skin in the mirror. "You never see betrayal coming," she murmurs, and wipes at her mascara with a tissue from her bag. She hears the Magic Fingers rumble to life and Claudia moans. Myka leans on the doorjamb and watches her stretched out, the streak in her hair bright yellow. It makes her hair look like flame, flickering, and she still looks so young, and cheerful, and happy to be here in Bumfuck California investigating suspicious cow tippings. Myka treasures the sight, commits it to her perfect memory, and then bounces on the mattress to join her.
"There's a thing I want to talk about," Claudia says, "but it might upset you. And Pete. And me. And then all our upset with upset Artie, and maybe New Girl."
"Abigail," Myka corrects absently, not too worried about it. She's pretty sure Claudia likes Abigail. "What about Steve?"
Claudia waves a hand dismissively, "Steve is zen. No upset."
"Claudia," Myka says, adopting the firm big sister tone that generally reaps results when Claudia gets cagey and anxious. "What's wrong?"
"It's you," Claudia says finally.
Myka blinks. "Me?"
"You and Pete," Claudia clarifies.
"Me and Pete," Myka parrots, and sits up. "Claudia, just because Pete and I have changed doesn't mean-" she falters. "You're family. Always."
"No," Claudia says, "that's not- look, not that I want to hear you guys getting your freak on, but it's hard to miss that I don't hear it."
"You're upset because you haven't been hearing us having sex," Myka says, incredulous.
"You and Pete have this connection," Claudia says, staring at the ceiling. "One of the reasons I wanted a partner so bad… me and Jinksy have our own thing, and I love it. You and Pete, you have this amazing, beautiful, intense relationship and I think…."
Myka feels suddenly on edge. "What do you think, Claudia." Her voice comes out harder than she meant, and Claudia flinches.
"I think that you guys confused finding your platonic soulmate with finding a love connection and you're both using it as a crutch." It comes out of her in a rush, her eyes screwed up against Myka's possible reaction.
The Magic Fingers click off, and the room is painfully silent. "I see," Myka says stiffly. She stands and grabs her jacket slung over a chair. "I'll be back."
Claudia scrambles to her feet. "Myka wait-"
"I'll be back," Myka says in a tone that shuts down all argument. She pauses with the door open. "Lock it behind me," she says, making a momentous effort to gentle her tone. Claudia nods, stricken, and Myka is careful not to slam the door behind her.
"Family," Claudia echoes, and shoves her palms into her eye sockets. "ugh Claudia, you are just the worst."
/
Myka ducks into a secluded corner of the train station and hovers her finger over Pete in her contacts, marked with a little gold star under favorites. She clicks the phone dark with a pulse of pressure and breathes loud and frustrated through her nose. She thinks about the last kiss she and Pete had, three am at the B&B, her bag over one shoulder. Pete tucked her glasses into the bag and clipped her gun to her belt.
"Have fun with Claud," he said, sleepy eyed, and kissed her temple while she chugged coffee.
Myka calls Steve.
/
Here is a thing that happened once:
Helena curled on the chair in Myka's room, twisting a lock of dark hair around one finger, lazy and languid, tapping a finger on the cover of the book she's reading. She's squinting, just a little, and Myka wonders if she needs glasses. She's reading The Leather Boys, and there's a very slight furrow between her eyebrows and she turns the pages, fingers so very gentle on the paper.
Myka sits propped up on her bed, fever flushed, drinking chicken broth out of a thermos Leena gave her. There's a copy of The Two Towers on the mattress next to her, her favorite get well book, but she waits, just a moment, to watch Helena's mouth quirk at the corners when she finds a passage she likes. Myka watches, and idly, almost lazily, wants.
/
"Myka?" Steve's voice is rough, and Myka checks her watch. Eleven in California means two in the morning in Massachusetts.
"Did I wake you? How goes the search?"
"Tourists," Steve grumbles, "so many tourists. You know, I thought the Warehouse would have tracked down all the Salem artifacts by now. Pete's in the next room, complaining about rocks, I can...?"
"No," Myka says quickly. She rubs a hand across her eyes. "I called to talk to you. I was wondering if you could," she pauses to struggle for words, "use your power? On me?"
She can practically hear Steve frowning over the phone. "I'm always using my power, Myka, it doesn't have an off switch. You want to lie to me for practice?"
"Well," Myka says, fumbling, "what if I just say a few things, and then you can tell me if I'm lying." There's another dragging pause.
"That's not really how this works," Steve says finally. "It's not nuanced. I can tell when someone is straight up lying, but blended lies are difficult, and if the person themselves doesn't know if they're lying…"
"Right," Myka says, forcing her voice to stay even, "yeah, of course. I'm sorry for even bringing it up."
"Myka," Steve starts, and Myka takes a deep breath.
"Good luck with the artifact," she says, and hangs up before he can finish.
/
Myka dreams about Sam, for the first time in ages, the early stages where they had sex on the stairs of his condo, against the wall of her apartment, just because they couldn't stand to wait, to walk fifteen more steps to the bed. She dreams about the jolt in her skin where he touched her and the way heat would curl in her belly just at one look from him, how when they were apart she trailed her nails across her hips and thighs and just the thought of him made her wet.
/
Claudia is timid the next day, restrained and unhappy, moping over her gravy fries. Myka picks at the roadside diner house salad, the lettuce sad and wilted. The Italian dressing is all oil and Myka throws her fork aside with a sigh. "What's our next move?"
"Here's the thing about cow tipping," Claudia says, brightening slightly at the prospect of a good educational ramble, "it's basically not a thing." She shoves four fries in her mouth at once and continues, slightly muffled. "Cows are like, seriously massive, and they don't even sleep lying down! It's basically a giant myth idiot teenagers and college students tell each other to seem like something cool ever happens on the giant manure collections some call family farms."
Myka recalls the last family farm they visited. "I saw those cows and they were definitely tipped." Really, definitely, violently tipped. Claudia had gone white and thrown up behind a tool shed, and Myka had trouble not following suit. Claudia pales a little just remembering, and puts down the fry that had been halfway to her mouth. Myka snatches it up and immediately regrets it, cold potato and heavy flour gravy.
Claudia perks up at Myka's grimace. "Have we considered aliens? I've watched The X-Files, you know. Cattle mutilation is definitely aliens."
Myka reviews the case file. "Mm. There's a university nearby. If stories and rumors of cow-tippings are linked to schools, we should start there." She tosses some cash on the table and stands, draining the last of the shitty coffee. "Let's go."
Claudia scootches across the vinyl booth, her jeans dragging loudly. "You're for sure Scully, Mykes. For sure."
Myka pauses, change for the tip jangling in her fingers. "You're not the worst, Claud."
Claudia gapes at her. "Witchcraft," she accuses.
Myka rolls her eyes. "I just know you, that's all. And I'm sorry." She grinds to a halt, unwilling to elaborate, and lets the quarters fall from her hand to the plastic coated tabletop.
Claudia links their arms together, tight enough to draw them up, pressed side by side. "I got your back," she promises.
/
"I think you might have been right," Myka says, leaning in a dorm hallway. Claudia blinks at her. She opens her mouth to respond and is interrupted by a dorm door swinging open.
A nineteen to twenty-something girl blinks at them. She's dressed in a snuggie. There's gum in her hair, pulled sideways into a ratty braid, and she's eating ramen noodles out of a plastic ziplock bag. "You know anything about cow-tipping?" Claudia asks, chipper.
The girl blinks. "I like your hair," she says. Claudia brightens.
Myka sighs and grabs her badge off her belt. "Secret Service."
The girl squeaks and drops her noodles. Fake chicken broth splashes Myka's boots. "Is this about the torrents?" The girl asks. She looks terrified. "Oh my god, I didn't think people really cared about that."
"Cow-tipping," Myka repeats. "I need information on a cow-tipping in the area."
"I'm taking Organic Chemistry this semester," the girl says, "I don't even go outside."
"Be a good person," Claudia says with an over-exaggerated wink, "don't pirate!"
/
"You're hot for a FBI lady," nameless frat boy #7 says, and Myka lets herself roll her eyes.
"I'm not with the FBI," she says. The boy smells like weed and sweat and old beer and Myka is so over it. She puts her hand on his chest and applies pressure until he steps back, hungover eyes broadcasting confusion. She reaches past him for the doorknob and shuts the door in his face.
"I'm so over this," Claudia says, echoing Myka's thoughts, and Myka spares her a smile. There's a thumping pain just behind her eye-sockets, and she wonders if she was this much of a dipshit when she was in school. "This is the college experience you and Artie were pushing on me?"
Myka rubs at the space between her eyes. "Believe me, I'm re-assessing."
Claudia's phone beeps. "Hey," she says, frowning at it. "remember the Farmer Bill?"
"Frank," Myka corrects.
Claudia makes an impatient motion the hand not holding her phone, "Dead cow man. My background check came in, and he was arrested for breaking into a frat house two months ago, waving a hoe-a farming hoe not a-" Claudia looks up. "You know. Anyway, broke in, waved rusty metal tools around and shouted something along the lines of stay off my lawn. And away from my cows."
Myka taps her fingers on her hip. "Did he take anything?"
Claudia flicks her nail against the screen, scrolling, "Frat boys claim he stole items with 'sentimental value.'" She looks up in disbelief. "What, the empties of their ancestors?"
"He would have been angry," Myka muses, "frustrated, not planned out. Things he could grab, shove in his pocket. Small objects."
"Artiact-y objects," Claudia agrees. She shoves her phone into a pocket. "Back to Farmer Dave?"
Myka taps a finger on her nose.
/
"Ah-ha!" Claudia crows, zipping a static bag shut with a plasticky snap. "Just call me the cow saviour. Bovine Jesus, if you will."
Frank, the farmer that owned the keyring artifact, makes the sign of the cross and glowers disapprovingly. Myka hooks her hand into Claudia's elbow. "The Secret Service thanks you for your service to your country," she says, and drags Claudia to the car. "Call Artie," she says, "we're headed to the airport."
Claudia starts to roll the window down, panting overdramatically in the dry blistering heat, and then stops. "Oh god the stench," she gags, and jabs at the window button in a panic until it seals with a snap. Myka clicks the central air on and hands her the Farnsworth. "Artie," Claudia calls cheerfully when he picks up. "Frat keychain, filled with all the grossness of boys pretending they've done things they've never done. We're lucky cow tipping is the only thing that went down."
Artie peers at them, distorted by the faintly fishbowl lens of the Farnsworth. "Good. Get back here, I have… news." He hangs up before they can question him further.
Myka pulls on the highway and flips on the radio, dialed down to play softly in the background. "Myka," Claudia says, and then stops, fidgeting. Myka waits her out. "About what you said, earlier."
"I'm just sorry," Myka says again, "about…. snapping. Pete and I will work ourselves out. Don't worry, okay?"
"I'm not worried," Claudia says. When Myka glances at her sideways her brow is furrowed, a wrinkle between her eyes. "I just. I want you to be happy."
Myka reaches across them and grips Claudia's hand, gently clasped over the gear shift between the seats, more direct than she usually allows herself. A gesture of comfort more like Pete than Myka. "I'm not unhappy," she promises.
/
Claudia lurches out of the SUV and groans, bow-legged and stiff. "God," she grumbles, and arches her entire body in a lingering stretch. Myka slides out after her and leans backward until her spine cracks, releasing pressure in a series of satisfying pops. She rolls her head to ease the ache in her neck and pulls their duffels from the backseat. The screen door to the inn bangs and Steve trots down the stairs.
"Jinksy," Claudia calls, joyous, and bounds forward for a hug. Myka tenses-Steve's face is tight, his jawbone clenching and unclenching, and although he gathers Claudia close, warm and automatic, his eyes seek out Myka's and hold.
"Where's Pete?" Myka asks, casting her gaze behind him. Shadows move in the doorway, but she can't quite make it out.
"He had to take a walk," Steve says, carefully measured. "Myka, there's something you should know before you go in-" He keeps talking, but his voices fades out to a mumbling murmur, Myka's full attention consumed by Helena walking outside, a loose white shirt and black slacks, her hair longer than Myka has ever seen it. Her nails are painted clear and shiny, her fingers hooked around the edge of the screen door. A breeze ruffles across them, fluttering her bangs. Myka smells green apples and soft leather.
The world returns. "H.G.'s back," Steve says.
/
"I'm tired," Myka says. She holds her breath as she moves, and still she can feel the warmth of Helena's body when she slides past her in the doorway. She quickens her strides to reach the stairs.
"Myka," Helena calls out, and follows her up the stairs. "If you'd allow me to-"
Myka ducks into her room and turns, pasting a wide smile on her face. "Welcome back," she says, and gets her first full look at Helena's face, vulnerable and hopeful all at once. Involuntarily, her smile evolves into something sincere. "Are you sure, Helena?"
Helena tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "I am."
"I'm glad," Myka says, and jerks her free hand behind her, "I'm just. Kinda tired, you know?"
Helena steps back. "Of course. We'll have time to speak more later."
"Right," Myka says, and shuts the door. She leans back against it and takes a deep breath. Then another. She lets her bag fall from numb fingers and drags her feet on the floor. Flops face first on the mattress. She pulls a pillow over her head and smells the laundry detergent on her sheets, soft and sweet.
/
The bed dips and Pete leans on her. She groans and bats at him. "What's the play, Mykes?" he asks.
Myka lifts the pillow of her head and hands it to him, a plea for mercy. He snorts and tosses it to the side. "Where were you?" Myka demands, her voice muffled. She rolls over and drags her hands across her face.
"I was angry," Pete says, "I had to. Take a walk." Myka feels a flush of guilt. She'd forgotten about Pete's anger towards Helena, about Kelly, his mother, Cairo. She sits up and Pete takes her hand. "I know she's done good things," Pete continues, "but she's so hard on you, you know? Makes me mad." Warmth blooms sweet and easy in Myka's chest, flushing her cheeks. She feels butterflies. She catches Pete in a kiss, awkwardly hunched over, and for the first time in a while her belly drops when his tongue touches hers. She presses against him, traces her nails through his hair.
"Hold on," he mumbles when she's practically in his lap, "hold on, hold on. Come here." He pulls the blankets up and rolls them under it, pulling the sheet over their heads. He settles over her in a way that manages to be comforting rather than oppressive, and she feels herself settle for the first time since she saw Steve coming down the steps, that look on his face.
/
Myka wakes alone, and stretches in the empty expanse of the bed before going to the sink and splashing water on her face. Four in the morning, reads her watch lying on the bathroom counter. She pulls one of Pete's shirts over her head and digs in a drawer for running shorts. The inn is achingly quiet as she goes down the stairs, gathering her curls into a loose bun. The silence seems loud all of a sudden, screaming at her, so she quickens her step until she's easing the door shut behind her. Birds are just starting to caw and chirp, heralding false dawn, and bugs hum faintly. She takes a deep breath of brisk morning air and starts out slow, her feet puffing dust into the air.
/
She gets back before it's fully light out and runs her hands under the kitchen tap, drags cold fingers across her collarbones, around her neck. Water drips down her back and she shivers.
"You're up early," Helena says, and hands Myka a kitchen towel, checkered black and white.
"Went for a run," Myka says. The clock hanging on the wall ticks gently, and the water trickles as Helena holds the kettle under it, a metal green monstrosity Lena bought to make Helena feel more at home. Myka opens the gas line and flicks the light. Blue flames leap up under the back burner, and Helena murmurs thanks as she clunks the heavy kettle onto the coils.
"I feel as though I owe you an explanation," Helena ventures, leaning against a counter. Myka makes herself busy with the coffee machine, switching off the automatic brewing function and dumping the water out to refill again. "Considering how we left things."
Myka adds two scoops of ground beans to the already filled filter. "You don't owe me anything."
Helena lets the silence drag out for a moment, long enough for the coffee machine to start gurgling and hissing. "I do believe that is the greatest lie you've ever told."
Pete arrives in the kitchen with a thump. "Shower's free," he crows, and catches sight of Helena. His expression freezes.
Helena's face twists. "Excuse me." She leaves, and Myka feels guilty again. She pulls the coffee pot out and sloshes too-strong coffee into the mug Claudia got her for her birthday, an internet joke she doesn't fully understand painted across a seafoam green background. Coffee drips while she's got the pot removed from the warmer, hissing against the hot metal plate, and she hurries to return the pot back to the machine.
"Ewww," Pete teases, "you're sweaty." He makes a big show of being disgusted, and Myka laughs. "No seriously, don't come near me," he continues, and Myka advances, backing him up against the sink. She rubs her face on his shirt and giggles when he kisses her.
"Pardon me," Helena says stiffly. Myka jumps, and Pete settles his hands on her hips to steady her. The kettle whistles, and Helena turns the stove off. They stay in awkward silence while Helena pulls a mug out of the cupboard, purple with red accents, and a tea satchel. She leaves without another word, and Myka lets out a long exhale.
Pete steps away from her and braces his hands on the edge of the counter top. "What's the play, Mykes?"
Myka pours her coffee down the drain and soaks the mug. "I need a shower."
/
Pete pulls the plug on her hairdryer. "Myka."
Myka exhales, heavily, and drops the hairdryer into a drawer. She buttons up her blouse. "It's not her fault."
Pete shrugs. "It's not yours."
Myka drags fingers through her curls. "It's good she's here. She belongs here."
"Okay," Pete says. He picks up her mascara and pulls the little wand out. "Do you think I could rock this? Be honest. I'm thinking my eyes could use defining."
Myka grabs it from him, smiling. "You're pretty just as you are, princess."
/
"They're having an exhibition showing of Kokan Shiren," Artie says at breakfast. Abigail's pancakes are the palest shade of blonde, just the way Claudia likes them. Pete microwaves them for thirty seconds then drowns them in maple syrup. Myka slices a peach in half with a butter knife and pries out the pit, lets the juice runs down her fingers and across her wrist. "San Francisco. The flight leaves in three hours and it's a two hour drive to the airport." Artie slaps a case file down on the table. "Who wants it?"
"A choice?" Claudia gulps a mouthful of pancake down to make the first comment. "Sure you're okay, Artie? Coming down with something?" She holds the back of her hand to Artie's forehead, faux concern. Artie slaps at her, irritated.
"Dibs," Pete calls while Claudia's distracted. "Myka and I haven't been in the field together in ages." He snatches the file up, leaves a smear of syrup across the manila, same shade as the pancakes on Myka's plate.
"No fair," Claudia grumbles, "that means I get Frederic training and you get to shack up with Myka in San FranMcAwesomeville?"
"We'll send you a postcard," Pete says cheerfully. "I gotta pack." He drops the folder at Myka's elbow and clomps up the stairs.
"Inventory," Steve says before Artie can. "I'll… show H.G. the ropes."
Helena is eating pancakes with a knife and fork, the only one at the table to do so, since Artie is sullenly consuming oatmeal, the healthier option Claudia spooned him with a pointed look. "I've been navigating the ropes since before you were born."
Myka can feel Helena's eyes on her, and she opens the case file briskly, licking peach off her wrist and grimacing at the sticky syrup smear on the cover. She's already packed, her go bag in the car, always prepared. "Great," Steve says, forced cheer. "It's gonna be an awesome day."
"Loveshack," Claudia hums, laying pancakes over her eyes and making zombie hands at Steve. He throws grapes at her, and she catches one in her mouth, blind and smiling, "baby, Loveshack."
/
Pete drools on her shoulder, and Myka watches the Bay come into view from the dirty plastic window. Airplane air gives her a headache and makes her mouth dry, and she digs in the seatback pocket for a bottle of water. She pokes Pete in the ribs and takes three quick swallows before offering him the bottle. He drains it, digging sleep from his eyes with his knuckles and wiping his fingers on her shirt, tired grin. She rolls her eyes and the captain comes on the intercom, ordering the flight attendants into their seats.
"Give me the rundown," Pete says, flicking the case file sitting loose in Myka's lap. "Unless you'd rather join the mile high club before we touch down." Myka rolls her eyes. "Maybe on the return trip," he amends, and wiggles his eyebrows.
"Kokan Shiren," Myka says, stumbling over the pronunciation. "Most famous for his Chinese poetry, fourteenth century. Disappearances follow his exhibitions dating back to the 19th century, most notably art curators and museum workers in charge of artifact upkeep." She hands Pete a page of glossy photos, very old paper with gold leaves around the edges, Chinese characters fading in vertical rows. "A few of his surviving pieces are being put on brief display at San Francisco State University." She scans down, idly committing relevant information to memory. "On loan from Beijing University."
Pete unearths a few peanuts that had fallen into the folds of his pants earlier and pops them in his mouth. "Last disappearance?"
Myka snaps the file shut and hands it to him. "Nearly fifteen years ago, a paper cleaning expert at Miho Museum in Japan. They don't display his work very often." She rolls her neck, feeling a crick coming on, and Pete's palm, broad and warm, falls on her shoulder, massaging absent-mindedly.
"Artie fix us a way in?"
"Sort of," Myka murmurs. There's a weight in her pocket she's not thinking about.
/
The poetry is being displayed in a small room off a library, dimly illuminated with soft gentle light and decorated with signs warning against flash photography. A security guard stands just inside the door, bored and underpaid. Pete bends over the glass, squinting, and Myka goes to the side, scanning the plastic white placards. "Rhyme Prose on a Miniature Landscape Garden," Pete says. "The trees are cool, though."
There are small miniature gardens lining the walls, displayed in raised containers. Sand and rock formations, intricate designs, trickling streams only a centimeter across, all dotted with miniature bonsai trees. Myka marvels at the delicate detail, and holds out a finger, hovering over tiny branches. The placard's text is stored in her brain, and Myka indulges in showing off her memory, standing at Pete's shoulder as they look at poetry they can't understand. "The marvelous thing about miniature landscape gardens is that they are imitations of mountains and streams. If do you think this miniature landscape is big? Do you think it is small? I will blow on the water and raise up billows from the four seas. I will water the peak and send down a torrent from the ninth heaven.."
"Cool," Pete repeats and grins at her. Endless wonder, Myka thinks, doesn't always come from the pseudo-magic of the Warehouse. They exhale in tandem and stand. Pete casts a glance back at the security guard and lowers his voice. "I've been thinking, Mykes. Not so many disappearances, all people left alone with the paper or in charge or actually touching the paper."
Myka frowns. She had considered it on the plane, but-"They would have all worn gloves," she says, "which doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't have been affected, but-" But gloves do tend to lessen artifact influences, even non-neutralizing pairs.
"Myka," Pete says, "if there's one thing I know, it's that people cannot resist touching things they're not supposed to touch. Trust me."
"Okay," Myka says. She lowers her voice to a whisper. "How do you feel about breaking into a library and touching things no-one's supposed to touch?"
"That's the hottest thing you've ever said to me," Pete answers, and loops an arm around her waist. His arm feels suddenly heavy.
"We're working," Myka says, sharper than she meant to, and shakes him off.
/
"Come on," Pete wheedles, "we're cat-burgling! You gotta dress like a cat burglar!"
"You look like a composite drawing of a mugger from Central Park," Myka informs him, and pulls on her blazer. She's wearing dark slacks, a dark shirt, shoes she can run in. There are lock picks in her pocket. She feels like she's exerted enough effort.
Pete looks down at himself, all black sweats and gloves. "Is the beanie too much?"
Myka lets her look speak a hundred words. "Take this." She hands him a pen, worn out and old-fashioned.
"Henry Fermentation's click-pen," Pete says, excited.
"Enrico Fermi," Myka corrects, rechecking her pockets and grabbing the car keys off the dresser.
Pete waves her correction away like smoke in the air. "Electro-magnetic pulse on command. So. Cool."
"It should take care of the cameras and alarms," Myka says and turns to see his thumb hovering over the depressor. "Maybe I should-"
"You should definitely," Pete agrees, and hands it over. "Give me the magic glass cutter."
Myka rolls her eyes, but digs out the penlight and lets him take it. "Boys and their toys."
Pete sticks his tongue out at her, casual, and makes lightsaber noises all the way to the car.
/
With no lights, the miniature gardens are even more beautiful, lit by blue lights under the water, casting unearthly glows across the crystalline rocks and tiny tree trunks. Myka slips the Fermi's pen and Madhukar Prabhakar's lockpicks back in her pocket. Pete clicks on Joshua Cowen's flashlight and hands it to her, so she can light him while he cuts.
The laser cutter hums and whines, and Pete stops when he's got a good enough circle cut out. Myka, with her smaller hands, tips the circle inwards, slides her hand in and catches it before it hits the bottom of the case. She pulls it out and miscalculates. The edge, still burning hot, catches her finger. She hisses, fingers releasing automatically, and it falls to the ground where it clinks, loud. "Shit," she mutters, and they freeze, ears straining. There's a noise like footsteps, a keyring jangling.
"I'll goo it," Pete whispers, "gimme the can. You're dressed less sketchy, go handle the guard."
"Meet me at the car," Myka agrees, and slips out the door, careful to shut it behind her. She pulls her hair out of its ponytail and shakes it out, strips off purple gloves and shoves them in a pocket. The light from a flashlight flickers around a corner, and she fixes her best bitch-in-boots look on her face.
She rounds the corner, making her steps click loudly. "You call this security?" She demands. The security guard fumbles, caught off-kilter and scared, and drops the can of mace instead of aiming it at her. It rolls away into the dark. "Oh well done," Myka sneers.
"Stop right there!" The guard shouts, delayed. He's youngish, maybe late twenties, dark hair and dark eyes. He's wearing a gold cross around his neck, on a thin chain.
Myka rolls her eyes, big and theatrical. "Oh please." She flashes her badge, then holds long enough for him to read it, match the picture to her face. "I don't think the Dean will be pleased to hear the President is reconsidering his visit."
The guard pales, then stutters. "Well-I-no."
Myka presses the advantage, withdrawing a small notepad from her pocket and Fermi's pen, which she carefully doesn't click. Instead, she drags the bottom of the pen across the page in a sloppy illusion, scratching indents but no ink. "A power outage brings security to its knees? Doesn't fill me with confidence on how you'd handle a viable threat, Mister…." she makes a show of looking at his nametag, "Gado. G-" She makes exaggerated writing motions, "A-D-O." She snaps the notebook shut and turns on her heel, taking confident strides towards the exit, marked by floor lighting patterns. She tosses back over her shoulder, "The White House Chief of Staff will be in touch."
/
Pete is leaning against the car door, and when he sees her, he does jazz hands. "Just call me Catwoman."
Myka clicks the car unlocked and hauls open the driver-side door. "So we were right? It was the poetry itself?"
They settle into the leather seats and Myka turns the engine over. "I'm not sure," Pete says. "There was sparkage, but it was… odd."
"Partner artifact?" Myka suggests, pulling out of the darkened parking lot and pointing the car towards the motel. "Maybe we should stick around for a few days, see if there's activity."
Pete pauses for a few seconds, then shakes his head. "Nah. It wasn't that weird. Sometimes they interact weird with the neutralizer, we know that."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Pete says, firm. "With the gaps in activity anyway it wouldn't do any good to stick around with no evidence. We'll have Claudia put a tag on the exhibit, and if something happens again we'll track it down."
"Sounds good," Myka says, but when Pete pulls out the Farnsworth she stills him with a hand on his elbow. "Maybe we should stick around. But not for the artifact, just…. " She casts her eyes through the windshield, foggy early morning. "For us."
She can't see Pete's face, but when Artie picks up he speaks quickly, says they're tracking down another lead, doing a thorough job.
/
They stay up late and sleep in late, Myka dozing off during the Jurassic Park marathon, her head on Pete's bicep. She wakes up at noon with popcorn in her hair, Pete snoring in her ear, and rolls into the shower. The water stays barely lukewarm no matter how she cranks the two unmarked dials, and she pours cheap shampoo over her palms and watches it bubble. She brushes her teeth at the sink in a towel, and frowns at her face. She'd meant to-do something, last night. Sex, or talking, or… something. Something climatic, something more than laughing at Pete's velociraptor face and falling asleep still in her slacks and socks.
She pulls on underwear, bra, and goes out into the chill of the room for running clothes. Pete is awake, clicking through daytime soaps and lying half-on and half-off the queen mattress. He wolf-whistles at her, and she bends to kiss him half-dressed, close mouthed. Barely six months together and it feels familiar as her whole life. But it doesn't feel like the butterflies she had in the middle school gym, her first slow dance with Bryan Reynolds, doesn't feel like the first kiss with Sam, whiskey flavored, doesn't feel like the ropes twisting her and Helena together, heart-pounding. She drags a shirt over her head and steps into running shorts, sits on the mattress to tie her sneakers. On the television, a woman tells her lover she's pregnant by another man.
"Is this working?" Pete asks, behind her. She looks at him over her shoulder and his eyes are wide and soft. Vulnerable.
"I love you," Myka says, and then, "I don't know."
The dramatic music reaches a crescendo and then cuts out. A commercial for toothpaste blares out. "Go running," Pete says, "I know it helps you think."
There's no one that knows Myka like Pete does, and Myka smiles at him, uncertain. "We'll talk when I get back?"
"Count on it," Pete agrees.
/
The air is brisk and cold and wet, and Myka taste fog dew on her lips. Her skin breaks out in goosebumps, and she hops on her toes to start warming up. She turns towards the steepest hill and starts a loping jog.
The run leaves her sweaty but settled, her calves and quads aching from the San Francisco slopes. She detours through the motel's all day complimentary continental breakfast and fills a paper plate with biscuits and burnt sausage links. The elevator's broken, and she takes the stairs as a cooldown. The keycard beeps green on the door and she kicks her shoes off as she comes in. "I got you grease," she calls out. "Eat while I shower and then we can-" the room is empty. Myka frowns, and leans over to check the bathroom-the door is on and the lights off, but there's no one inside. "Pete?"
She checks her phone and the notepad on the provided desk-nothing. His bag is still here, his shoes abandoned by the door. Myka goes to her bag and pulls her gun, her instincts clamoring. She clears the bathroom more thoroughly, checking the shower, and the closet, under the beds. Nothing. She searches for the Farnsworth and can't find it. Finally, she sits on the bed, knee jumping, and Facetimes Claudia.
"I haven't heard from him," Claudia says, the diner in the background. She slurps at something loudly. "Steve's calling Artie. You tried his phone?"
"Yeah, it's here." Myka turns his phone over in her hand, tilting it so Claudia can see it. Last call was from her, more than twenty four hours earlier.
"Claudia," Steve says suddenly, and his tone makes Myka sit up straight. The call tilts, then jerks, as Steve wrests it out of Claudia's grasp. His concerned face steadies, and he turns the Farnsworth so she can see Artie through the phone. "Artie needs to tell you something."
"Myka!" Artie's voice is slightly distorted. "Myka, you're in the motel room, right?"
"Yeah?"
"Okay, good. Go to the table next to the bed, the side with the lamp, and tell me what you see."
Myka can see the nightstand from where she's sitting. "There's nothing there."
"Get closer," Artie orders.
Myka sighs, and turns the camera around on the call so it's pointed outward. "Look, Artie, there's nothing."
"Closer."
Myka stands and goes to the table, leaning down. "There's nothing-" Except there was something, something moving. Myka jumps, and drops her phone. She gets on her knees and eyes the table from two inches away. And there, on the cheap wood, is Pete, just shy of an inch tall.
"Hi," he shouts in a tinny voice. "I think maybe we didn't get the artifact."
Myka gropes on the floor until her fingers curl around her phone. "I'm gonna have to call you back," she says faintly, and hangs up.
/
Myka has to be within a foot of Pete to be able to hear him, and even then his voice sounds like he's shouting. "I was holding the Farnsworth when it happened," he explains, "it shrank with me, and I was able to call Artie. And hike to the table from the pillow."
"You said it was weird when you sprayed it," Myka says. It's really annoying she can't pace while she works through it, but if she stands Pete can't answer her questions. "How was it weird?"
"It sparked, so it's definitely an artifact. But it kinda… frizzled?"
"So it's a partnered artifact? Or it requires something to complete it. Like the Folio." She gets too antsy and stands so she can pace on the cheap carpet. "We'll have to go back tonight and hope it's not partnered." A plan in place, she lets her mind work through the new information. "It shrinks. It must have shrunk the the other victims-" And they must have died. Stepped on, or eaten by animals, starved or drowned. She goes back to the nightstand and kneels. "Okay?"
"I believe in you, Mykes, but we can't go back tonight. There's an event in the library, I saw the posters."
"Tomorrow night," Myka says, rubbing her temples. "tomorrow night, we'll go."
"Cool," Pete agrees. "Hey, can you bring that plate over here? This is a limited-time opportunity for my dream of bigger than life-sized breakfast."
/
Myka spends the day worrying. She worries a fly or a spider will come while she's not paying attention, she worries they won't figure it out, that Pete will have to move into some kind of dollhouse, that she'll step on him, that the little rumble in her brain is relief she's postponed the talk about their relationship. She falls into a doze around ten, after layering tissue paper on the tabletop for Pete to sleep on. She wakes with a start at six to pour water into a bottlecap for Pete and lie on the bed, watching Turner Classic flicks. She orders pizza to be delivered, Pete's favorite toppings, and cuts a slice into tiny pieces.
At four someone knocks on the door, and Myka answers it, casting a quick glance at Pete, still absorbed in pepperoni and mushrooms. It's Claudia, and Myka blows out a sigh of relief. "I'm going crazy waiting."
Claudia makes a beeline for Pete, bending low to squint at him. "Honey I shrunk the Warehouse Agent," she breathes. "When are we leaving?"
Myka checks her watch. "Nine hours. Did you bring anything?"
"Yeah," Claudia says, pulling something out of her pocket. "Not a Warehouse thing, a tech thing." It's a sticker, a raised red circle. Claudia puts it on the end of her finger and taps it against Pete's chest, knocking him over. "Sorry dude. But now we can always find you. It's like a GPS thing," she says to Myka, "synced with my phone."
"Good," Myka says. "Pizza?"
"Yeah." Claudia grabs a slice and flops on the mattress. "No Magic Fingers? Boo. What's on the tube?"
/
They break in at nearly one-thirty, Pete in Myka's breast pocket, lined with tissues. "Cool," Claudia notes. The display case is empty, the exhibit removed as a result of their last break in, and Myka wanders the room, restless. "Artie says since the artifact reacted so much last time it's more like the Folio than the Poe situation."
Myka fishes Pete out of her pocket and sets him in one of the sand gardens. "The Folio was a spoken component. Is that common?"
"Warehouse records point to yes," Claudia says. She flicks the plastic panel on the wall where the information placard used to be. "This guy was a poet, right?"
"Right," Myka says slowly. She had read some of the poetry before, and then that night-something Pete had said sticks in her brain, and she leans close to him. "You touched it, didn't you?"
Pete has the grace to look shifty. "Everyone touches things they're not supposed to, Myka. Didn't you go to Catholic school?"
Myka was public school all the way. Her father managed to both go to church every Sunday and hate religious influences with a fiery passion. When she was younger she thought maybe it was because of the connection between religion and book censorship. When she got older she realized it was because he had enough hate to go around. She rolls her eyes at Pete and stands to speak with Claudia. "The poetry was translated on the wall there," she says, "I can-" She closes her eyes to remember the exact wording. "People who climb mountains do not dislike the so-called baldness; rather, the love the sense of height." A breeze roars through the room, unnaturally strong and loud. Myka smells fresh grass and wet rock.
"It's doing something," Claudia shouts over the raucous noise. "Keep going."
Last time Myka had picked what she thought was the most evocative line, a line about what the author had thought, what had moved him, rather than descriptions of how to cultivate a garden. And isn't that what makes a writer a writer? What connects them to artistry rather than descriptive fact? Sights that touch you, move you, drive you to try to phrase it so it moves other people too. "There are caves as if carved in the cliff sides to hide saints and immortals," she says, and the breeze becomes a hurricane. Claudia yelps, falling over, and Myka slams into the wall, using it to steady herself. She spares a thought for Pete, how he would fare in the hurricane. She pushes past it. "Jetties and spits flat enough and long enough for fishermen," she continues, pressing her hands to her ears to block out the howling wind. "The paths and roads are narrow and confined, there are lagoons deep and dark enough to hide dragons."
"Hurry up and finish!" Claudia yells.
"There is a vast plain on a fly's eyelash," Myka bellows, barely able to suck in enough air to hear her own voice, " and whole nations in a snail's horn!
The wind dies with a whisper, and Myka blinks, trying to adjust to the abrupt change. Claudia sits up from where she'd been lying on the floor. The wind had ripped paint from the walls, strewn crime scene tape everywhere like confetti paper. Conversely, the gardens stand untouched. "Holy Haiku, Batman," Claudia groans.
"Not a Haiku," Myka corrects automatically, and the familiar nitpicking jogs her brain back into action. "Pete!"
"Here," a normal voice calls. Pete is lying in the only garden ripped apart, destroyed because he'd gone from miniature to normal in a snap. "Ugh," he groans. Myka hugs him, unbearably relieved, and then draws back.
"Are you… covered in pizza sauce?"
"Myka come on. How often in life can we say we lay in a bed of pizza and then ate it?"
"Jealous," Claudia moans, and they high five.
Pete runs his hands across his torso. "How am I not literal pizza from Typhoon Haiku?"
"Square cube law," Claudia says, at the same time Myka mutters, "terminal velocity-and it's not a Haiku!"
Footsteps thump closer, and a man's voice shouts. "I don't think you're gonna be able to talk us out of this one," Pete says. He and Claudia crows up to Myka's shoulders. Myka reaches into her pocket and fingers the weight that's been dragging on her since they left the Warehouse for the Bay.
She pulls out the barometer and feels Pete's breath catch. "Six seconds," she reminds him, and he nods.
"What?" Claudia asks.
The door swings open. Myka activates the artifact. "Run!" Myka grabs Claudia by the arm and hauls her. Pete shoulders past the frozen security guard, knocking him off his feet. Myka counts the seconds down in her head, maps the shortest route to an exit.
"Sorry," Pete calls back to the guard on the floor, "just turned big again!"
Claudia giggles a little, breathless with adrenaline, but Myka thinks that guard will suddenly find himself flat on his back with no idea what's happened. The same way Sam had, except it's Myka using the artifact this time.
/
Claudia books their flight for that night and goes down to the liquor store on a candy run. "Find something good to watch," she calls, and bangs the door shut behind her. Pete changes and they sit on the bed, a foot of space between them.
"So," Pete says.
"So," Myka agrees.
/
When Myka was in high school there was a girl on the track team with her that had tattoos on her ankles, matching arrows. Nothing stylized or fancy, just two boxy black lines ending in a triangular point. During warm up stretches she told the team she snuck out of her room through the window, down the tree that grew outside her bedroom, and went to that block of downtown all their parents warned them about. "Used my sister's fake," she'd said, grinning.
Later they'd been alone, Myka and her, leaning against the bleachers, panting and sweating and sharing a cup of gatorade. "Why arrows?" Myka asked.
"To remind myself, to always move forward." She'd had long hair, Myka remembers, dishwater blonde in the shade, strawberry blonde in the summer sun. She always put on bubblegum chapstick before the meets. "There's a better place somewhere, Myka, better than here and… home. And I'll get there if I just keep going forward."
Myka had thought of the argument she'd had the night before, her father threatening removal of fencing if she pulled another B in physics, the way her mother had left to wash dishes when she started to cry, frustrated and furious and so, so trapped. Senior year she and that girl had gotten drunk at a house party together, and Myka had run her fingers across those arrows, inked on thin skin and fine bone, loose from alcohol, and had wondered, just for a second, what bubblegum chapstick would taste like on someone else's lips.
/
Myka thinks there's nowhere to go but forward. "This isn't working," she admits.
Pete blows out a long breath. "I know." Myka jerks her head up, surprised, and he's smiling, even if it's a sad smile. "Don't you think I know you, Mykes?"
Myka bites her lip. "Why isn't it working? I still love you."
Pete scoots close to her and wraps an arm around her shoulder. "I'll always love you, that'll never change. But I think we… got confused."
"Claudia says we're platonic soulmates."
"Yeah," Pete says, "I think that's what we are. I thought about my future while I was small, you know? Because I thought... anyway, I thought about what I wanted."
Myka leans her head on his chest. "What do you want?"
"A family," Pete admits, "a wife that makes fun of me, and three kids, a son named for my dad, a daughter for Leena, and a surprise. Maybe an Artie. Maybe a Myka." He pauses, and his breathing hitches. "And I see you there too, always. Aunt Myka, the no-nonsense."
Aunt, not mommy. Myka feels a lightness in her chest. It's relief, clean and purifying. "Not the cool Aunt?"
Pete snorts. "Claudia's the cool Aunt Myka, please." His hand tangles with hers. "What do you want?"
Moving forward, Myka thinks. "I don't know," she admits. "But I'll figure it out."
"We'll figure it out," Pete promises, and kisses the top of her head. He clears his throat and stands, wiping at his eyes impatiently. "I'm gonna shower. Tell Claudia to save me some Swedish fish, okay?"
Myka sits on the bed, alone. "Okay."
/
Myka starts running in earnest, laps around the inn, sometimes down the road to the warehouse and back, long hard runs. Winter comes and Steve joins her, bundled up with hats and gloves and long-sleeved underarmor to keep their body heat from drifting away. They steam by the time they're back, noses numb, clattering in the kitchen to drink Abigail's coffee and the pastries she buys. Leena had baked every pastry herself, but Abigail says she isn't much of a baker, buys danishes and bear claws by the pound and leaves them in sealed tupperware containers on the counter.
Helena is partnered more often with Steve, now that Claudia is immersed in learning every inch of the Warehouse. They seem to get on well, and sometimes Steve tells her about missions during their cooldown walk: the time she tried to use her American accent to pass as Secret Service, the time he got hit by a Shakespearean mask that made him speak entirely in iambic pentameter and call a New Jersey detective a fustilarian. But mostly they run in a calm silence, the only sounds their huffing breaths, their shoes on the dirt.
/
Helena waits for them one morning, and Myka doesn't miss the little nod that passes between her and Steve, as Steve peels away for a shower and forgoes their routine of coffee and danishes on the front porch swing. "Conspiring already?" she asks Helena, and pours herself a coffee. "You want one?"
Helena holds up her mug of tea, already made and steaming. "We are partners, you know."
"I know." Myka picks an apple out of the bowl on the counter and hesitates. Helena is standing in front of the knife drawer. Their eyes meet.
"I seem to be suffering a distortion of memory," Helena says.
"Oh?" Myka is carefully neutral.
"I thought we had previously parted as friends."
Myka twists the stem of the apple until it comes off in her hand. "I thought so."
"I've been back nearly three months. I think maybe you've looked at me twice, not counting just now."
Myka knows for a dead fact that isn't true. She doesn't think she's ever been in a room with Helena and not looked. "Oh," she says instead, and then, "excuse me." She moves towards the drawer and stops when Helena doesn't move. Helena takes a step forward, throwing Myka a dare with her eyes.
Myka purses her lips. She could back down, easily, withdraw. She doesn't need a knife. But instead she steps closer and reaches around Helena, fumbling blind for the drawer handle so she can keep their gazes locked. Helena smirks, very faintly. "Are you trying to make up for all the looking just now?"
Myka's fingers find a paring knife, but she doesn't back away. "Well if it's been bothering you…"
"Oh," Helena says, "ever so much."
Myka forgoes the knife and bites into the apple, big and loud and challenging. They're standing close enough that a few droplets of juice splash on Helena's neck, and she starts at the sensation.
"Ping," yells Artie from the next room, "everyone get in here."
The moment breaks and Myka rocks backwards. Helena arches an eyebrow. "Not going to clean that up for me?"
Against her will, Myka's eyes flick to Helena's collarbones, the curve of her neck. ping, Artie hollers in the background, ping, ping, ping "I think you can handle it," she says.
/
"Can I tap out?" Myka asks Artie over the Farnsworth two hours later, digging in her closet for the softest hand towel. "Pete's sick, and since the new vet in town doesn't do housecalls, I want to take the day to baby him."
Artie peers at her. "Pete the ferret?"
"No," Claudia's voice comes through somewhere behind Artie, tinny and distant, "Pete Lattimer has decided to stop with the pretenses and make veterinarians his primary care physician."
Artie eyes roll heavenward and hold. "Fine. I'll send Pete and Steve." Myka flips the lid closed and goes to her bed, where Pete the ferret is curled up in a sad ball. He scrapes his paws over his face and sneezes snot all over her pillow. Myka wipes at his face gently with a tissue and lifts him up to settle him on the soft towel. She scratches him behind the ear with one finger, the way he likes, and coaxes him to drink water. Her other hand scrolls through her phone, perusing articles on ferret flu.
A series of thumps come closer and closer in the hall and Pete sticks his head in. "Hey. Artie give you leeway?"
"Yeah." Myka looks down at ferret-Pete and frowns. "Do you think he's breathing okay? Does he look like he's breathing okay?"
Pete crosses the room and leans close to the ferret, turning his head to align his ear. "He sounds okay. You'll take care of him."
Myka frowns harder. "Yeah. Oh, here." She gives him the Farnsworth.
"Thanks," Pete says and there's a second right before he turns to leave that is awkward, as he rocks forward to kiss her goodbye, muscle memory, and then stops himself. He shakes his head a little, like he's lost and off kilter, and it makes Myka's chest hurt. She pitches herself forward and catches him in a jumbled hug, her arm around his shoulder from the side.
"I'm sorry," she mutters, caught up with worry and the burning desire to fix it, too impatient to let time mend gentle wounds.
"Hey," Pete says, turning to hug her proper. Myka presses her face into his shoulder and takes a deep breath. "it's okay Mykes. We're good, right?"
Myka steps back and pulls herself together around the edges. "Of course. Go snag and bag."
"And tag," Pete says, grinning, and Myka lets his joy pull a smile out of her. "take care of Petey Junior, Steve and I can handle Tess Nelly's window chair."
Myka stares. "T.S. Eliot," she corrects, not without effort. Pete shrugs, and waves tickets in the air.
"And I will give your best to the Red Sox."
Myka turns back to getting ferret-Pete to drink. "I'm a Mets fan." Behind her she can hear Pete sputter in disbelief, sharp fake choking sounds of disgust.
Pete puts his hands on her shoulders, dead serious. "Myka, why. You're from Colorado!"
Myka shoves him away, rolling her eyes, and feels easy in her own skin around him for the first time since their haltering talk. Pete snaps a towel at her and she throws used ferret tissues at his face as he leaves. "I like an underdog," she calls after him, and is still smiling when she hears the door shut downstairs.
/
Artie texts her just after noon, Myka in the kitchen picking through the fridge for the sandwich Pete made late last night and only ate half of. fret ok ? come now hell Anna vent orator help goop Ernie. Myka frowns at the message and shuts the fridge. When she looks up Abigail is there.
Myka jumps, "Jesus!"
"Sorry," Abigail says, "Are you needed at the Warehouse?"
"Yeah," Myka pops a coke can open and drains it in long quick swallows, savors the acid sugar taste against her teeth.
"Cookie for the road?" Abigail offers her a large chocolate chip cookie, wrapped in a napkin.
"I don't eat sugar," Myka says, and grabs her bag, fumbling for her keys without looking.
Abigail looks at the empty soda can on the counter. "Right. I can check on Pete once in a while, if you want. Rodent Pete, not Sandwich Pete."
"Ferrets are weasels," Myka says, successfully digging out her keys and slipping her glasses on, "not rodents." She blows through the door and heads for her car, calling back over her shoulder, "Thanks!"
"Weasels," Abigail repeats as the door slams, "right."
/
"Artie?" Myka calls, stepping into the central office. "What's a goop Ernie?"
Artie makes impatient eyebrows at her. "What are you talking about?" Myka holds up her phone, the nonsense text visible. Artie squints. "H.G. was doing inventory, we need help in the gooery. Something caught in the cogs again, I think. She's already there, go make sure it's not part of a… plot."
Myka rolls her eyes. "She doesn't have any plots, Artie."
"That's because she used them all up almost killing us and ending the world," Artie grumbles, but his voice isn't as sharp as it could be. Myka grabs a hard hat from a hook on the wall and heads for the door. "I didn't think you were her biggest fan anymore anyway," Artie calls to her, and she pauses halfway through the door.
"Just because we're not best friends doesn't mean I think she's evil," Myka snaps. "Again," she mutters, and heads for the gooery.
She can hear the grinding as the gears fail to turn before she turns the corner. Helena is frowning at the console interface against the wall, clicking her fingers against each other. "More silly string?" Myka asks, coming to hover at her shoulder.
Helena starts violently, her hand coming up to her chest. "What?"
"Nothing," Myka says, scanning the screen, "nevermind. What's wrong?"
"Something caught, certainly," Helena says after a moment. "I was attempting to use the sensors to ascertain specifically what, but I think an old fashioned approach would be best."
"Let's do it," Myka says, and taps a button and then an override code. A klaxon sounds once, deep, and everything shudders to a halt. Somewhere close, something drips from the ceiling to the cement floor. Myka crosses to the center machinery in three swift steps and reaches into the gears, feeling blindly.
"That was brash of you," Helena says, sounding surprised. "What is it?"
Myka grunts and her fingers slip over something, wet and thready. "I can't tell with the goo… something soft. A cloth, maybe?" She strains to reach it, going on her tiptoes, and pinches it between her pointer and ring fingers. "Got it,"
On the wall, the screen beeps twice. The room hums mechanically. "Something's wrong," Helena says, tapping commands into the computer with no result. "Remove your hand before the machine does it for you."
"I've got it," Myka snaps, pinching her fingers together hard and tugging. Her grip slips and she fumbles to get it again. She can feel the gears twitching against her arm. "just a second."
"It's starting," Helena says, more urgently, "don't be foolish-"
"I said I've got it," Myka snarls, and jerks at the cloth again. It's heavier than she thought it would be, and she can't quite yank it out. The machine comes to life with a clank and she yelps as it catches on her sleeve, dragging her further into it. Her chest bruises against the old metal teeth.
"Myka!" Helena grabs her by the back of the shirt and hauls. Myka flies free with a jerk, falling backwards hard, and impacting something soft and giving. oof Helena grunts, and Myka realizes Helena has broken her fall, moving loose and disoriented under her. Myka sits up, rolling off Helena's legs, and stands. Her right sleeve is ripped from elbow to wrist, but between her fingers is a square of thick but worn cloth, brown with age, covered in a thin layer of neutralizer.
"It doesn't seem enough to jam anything," Myka muses, but everything is humming along again, all the indicator lights are cheerfully blinking green. Helena's Farnsworth buzzes on the floor where it's fallen and Myka answers it.
"Good work," Artie says. "what was the obstruction?"
"I'm not sure," Myka looks at the square in her hand, turning it over.
"How did it get stuck in the gears?"
"I don't know." Myka balances the Farnsworth against her wrist and wipes the worst of the neutralizing goo from the cloth onto her pantleg.
"Well what good are you?" Artie asks, and hangs up. Myka rolls her eyes and turns to Helena, snapping the Farnsworth shut and shoving it into her back pocket.
"I think it's part of something," she says, "a purse, or," she rolls it between her fingers, "very old shoe? It's doubled layered, something inside it, to make it sturdier." she sighs, and walks to the doorway. "If the new database was up-"
Helena has moved to block her way. "What the hell was that?"
Myka stares at her. "What? We did it, problem solved."
Myka tries to walk past Helena and is brought up short by a white knuckled hand on her upper arm. "You risk unnecessarily," Helena says, and Myka realizes she's angry, eyes flashing, jaw clenched. "I told you to retreat, to wait. Your arm was nearly crushed!"
Myka pulls her arm out of Helena's grasp with a hard jerk. "And I knew I could handle it before that happened." She knocks her shoulder deliberately into Helena's as she walks past. "And I was right."
Helena chases her, yanking at her elbow until they're side by side. Myka refuses to look at her. "You would hurt yourself, risk death, just to spite me?"
Myka quickens her stride. She was hardly at risk of death. "Not everything is about you, Helena."
Helena grabs her by the lapels and pulls her around. "I want to know why you keep punishing me, Myka!"
Myka's hands clench into fists, suddenly more furious than she has ever been in her entire life. There's a pinprick of pain in her palm, where she's clutching the stiff square of fabric, the corner digging into her skin. The flare of pain is lost in her wave of rage. "Are you seriously telling me you don't deserve to be punished?"
Helena rocks back like Myka's slapped her. Her hands fall to her sides and curl, loose and lost, into the long sleeves of her button down shirt, the cuffs hanging undone. She folds her arms across her chest quickly, defensively, and looks down. Myka walks past her, and Helena follows, silent except for the soft clicking of her boots on the floor.
Myka holds the door into Artie's office for her and Helena walks past, eyes downcast. Myka feels the faint stirring of guilt in her gut and shuts it down viciously. When she hands Artie the square he makes noises about washing it, how some artifacts 'tend towards escape.' There's blood in the cradle of her palm, a tiny nick across her lifeline. She flicks at it impatiently with her thumb and forgets about it.