Summary: Claudia has an interesting encounter with an artifact and the Regent Valda. Told from Claudia's POV.

A/N: Set after Around the Bend (2.06) but before Buried (2.11), but no real spoilers for anything except the fact that Claudia and Valda exist.

Rating: T for a few swear words.

Disclaimer: Don't own, not making any profit.

So, if you're reading this, and you're the person who usually reads these, you already know I hate paperwork. (That's why I'm the techie.) Anyway, Artie threatened to lock me in my room at Leena's if I didn't do this today, and since there's no computer there and I'd have to actually write it, here I am. Here goes nothing:

Claudia Donovan's version of the events of April 14, 2010.

I got to the Warehouse at about 8:30, I don't remember exactly, and started doing inventory about 8:40. Pete and Myka were somewhere in India going after Gandhi's spinning wheel and Artie was somewhere both unpronounceable and unspellable in South America chasing after something to do with the Titanic, so I was alone in the Warehouse.

At 9:03 my cell phone rang, which I thought was kind of weird, 'cause Myka, Pete, and Artie use the Farnsworths if they need something, Todd was at work, and my brother was probably sleeping. The number wasn't in my phone, which just made it all the weirder, because everyone who has my number is in my phone.

I answered it, of course, just in case it was something important (and inventory is not the most exciting thing in the world).

"Claudia Donovan?" I didn't recognize the voice right away, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Male, British…

"Yeah, speaking. Who is this?"

"Benedict Valda, one of the Regents." Naturally, I recognized him as soon as he said it. My next thought was, Crap, what did I do?

At least I wasn't dead yet.

But he was still talking, so I figured I'd better pay attention.

"I just left Coeur d'Alene and I'm heading your way. I have an extremely dangerous artifact with me and I'll need someone to meet me halfway."

I was already up and looking for my portable tracker. "Coeur d'Alene? Where is that, France?" I knew I left it next to the Farnsworth stand, but Artie must have moved it. (I really need to get a box or something…)

"Idaho. Listen, are Agents Nielsen, Bering, or Lattimer there?"

"Oh. Um, no. It's just little ol' me."

"Well, it'll have to be you then." He sounded kind of disappointed. My tracker was still eluding me, so I grabbed a notebook and pen to start writing stuff down while I searched.

"Yes, uh, this might seem kind of random, but how old is your phone?"

"I got it sometime last year, why?"

"All newer phones have a GPS chip that—there you are!" My tracker was next to Artie's spinny-top-thing-in-a-jar. On the other side of the room. How it got there, I will never know.

"Excuse me?"

I should really see about having Artie find another techie-type-person, so I can get out of my habit of talking to myself. "Um, not you. My tracker. Okay, what's your number, service provider, phone model…"

About a minute later there was a lovely yellow dot on the screen about twenty miles from the Idaho state line. Score one for Claudia.

About ten minutes later I was in my car heading toward Montana with a container of goo, various sizes of containment bags, and a box of purple gloves in the back seat and begging Leena to pick up the damn phone.

"Hello, Leena's Bed and Breakfast, Leena speaking."

Finally. "Hey, Leena, it's Claudia, bit of an emergency, I've got to leave the Warehouse for a few hours, can you cover for me?"

A 3.8 second long pause. "What?"

"Warehouse business emergency. I have to leave for a few hours, can you make sure nothing blows up, becomes sentient, or causes an international incident while I'm gone?"

She still sounded dubious. "Yes, when are you leaving?"

"Uh, about five minutes ago."

"Okay, then. I'm on my way."

"Thank you. I owe you big time."

Artie really doesn't like it when we leave the Warehouse unattended. All that stuff I told Leena to make sure didn't happen? It's happened. (But then, you probably knew that.) So, I called Leena, since she was the only other one of us not out of the continent and I did not want Artie mad at me. That never ends well.

So, now that I knew Artie wouldn't be too mad at me, I hit the gas.

Four hours later, somewhere in the middle of Montana (looking at a map now, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere just west of Columbus, but don't quote me on that), Valda and I met up on a side road that led to the interstate. It was in such bad repair that it looked like no one ever came this way, which was good for us, I guess.

He was already there when I drove up, looking vaguely impatient. "Miss Donovan. Glad you could join me."

I raised my eyebrows. "Okay, I broke about forty speed limits to get here fast. You went farther than I did and beat me here. How many did you break?" I probably shouldn't have said that, but hey. Make a snarky remark, get a snarky comeback.

He just chuckled a little. "Touché. What did you bring?"

"The usual snag, bag, and tag kit." I started getting the stuff out of my car. "Neutralizer goo, wasn't sure how big it was so there's another bucket in the trunk, some bags and gloves…."

"Excellent. That should do." He took the container of goo and a pair of gloves and went over to his own car.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking—" I stopped, since I wasn't sure exactly how to ask it.

"I probably don't, so just spit it out."

"What is it and what does it do?"

He turned to look at me from whatever he was messing with in his car. "The artifact? Yes, I suppose you should know." He paused for a second. "It's a model of the Sphinx, the original model of the Sphinx that was used for making scale calculations when it was first built. The pharaoh who commissioned it, Khafre, made it himself. Legend says that, because of the difficulty of constructing something so complicated on such a scale, Khafre had to search for a very long time before he found a builder who would attempt it. Over that time the model became imbued with… certain properties that helped Khafre persuade the builder who finally accepted the commission. Khafre's desire to build the Sphinx was so great that, after a certain time, anyone who looked at it almost immediately began to unquestioningly obey him. The model more or less short-circuits the self-motivation part of the brain and renders a person completely unable to make their own choices. If there is no one to make choices for the person, they will default to protecting the model at all costs. If that is impossible for some reason, they will become catatonic and eventually die. Khafre used it on most of the masons that worked on the Sphinx to ensure their compliance."

"Whoa. That's… creepy." I honestly didn't know what to think about that. I still don't. Usually an artifact strikes me as cool or evil right away. This one… not so much.

"Indeed. There are currently about ten people scattered across the west coast under its influence, so time is of the essence. If you please, Miss Donovan…"

"Oh, yeah, of course."

I grabbed my own pair of gloves and went to help him. There was a rather expensive looking case in the back seat of his car, about as big as a decent sized shoebox.

"Okay, what do you want me to do?" I asked.

"When I'm ready, you will take the model out of its case and place it in the neutralizer. Whatever you do, do not look at the eyes. They are the most powerful part of it."

"Got it. Don't look at the eyes."

"Oh, and don't be surprised if it's a little warm."

"All right." I could handle this. I work in a Warehouse full of weird, after all. "You ready?"

He nodded. I gingerly picked the case up, opened it quickly and grabbed the Sphinx. It wasn't just a little warm, it was freaking burning! Ten thousand years of evolutionary reflexes beat out rational thought and—I dropped it. And on the way down, I caught a glimpse of its eyes. I saw red, and then I didn't see anything.

When I finally came to, I was in the back seat of Valda's car with the middle seatbelt wrapped around my wrists and waist so I couldn't move. Valda was standing over the container of goo, which was sparking like a toaster full of aluminum foil.

"What'd I miss?" I asked. My right shoulder was killing me and I just knew I'd have the mother of all headaches in a little while.

Valda came over. "Are you all right?" He looked genuinely worried.

"Except for my shoulder, yeah. What happened?"

He reached over me and unbuckled the seatbelt. I got myself disentangled and just sat there for a minute. "Sorry about the shoulder. I assume you looked at the eyes?" I nodded. "Immediately after you did, you attacked me. After I got you tied up, I dropped the Sphinx into the neutralizer and you came back to yourself."

Oh shit. "I attacked you? I'm sorry, I mean, I didn't hurt you, did I?" I am so dead…

"Hardly." Thank goodness for that. "You'll probably have some rather spectacular bruises tomorrow, though. Now, tell me the truth, how do you feel?" He was giving me that "lie to me and I'll know it" look, so I figured I'd better.

"My shoulder hurts pretty bad, and my head feels like I just got over the cold of doom, but otherwise I really am fine."

"Good. Can you drive for a couple of hours?"

I was slightly confused. "Yeah, where?"

"Back to the Warehouse. I want to get that shelved as quickly as possible."

That did not clear things up. "Okay, but what about your car?"

"I can get someone to come pick it up. Are you sure you're fine?" One of his eyebrows was about halfway up his forehead, making it pretty obvious he didn't believe me. Looking back, I can see why.

"Yes, I am fine. Let's go." All I wanted right then was to get back to Leena's and take a serious nap.

When we were on the interstate back to the Warehouse, Valda said, "Do you mind if I sleep for a while? I've been chasing that thing for three days across five states and I don't think I slept for about a day before that."

"Yeah, no, it's okay." And damn awkward.

"Thanks. Wake me up in two hours." He folded up his jacket, stuck it under his head as a pillow, and was out like a light.

Talk about weird. But hey, at least there wasn't the awkward silence of us not talking and me wondering what he was thinking of my choice of radio stations.

Two hours later, as predicted, my head was killing me. I stopped in a gas station parking lot, fully intending to ask Valda to take over driving after I woke him up. It turned out I didn't have to do either of those. He woke up as soon as we stopped, and immediately asked me how I was feeling.

"Truthfully, my head feels like a nuclear bomb went off inside it," is how I answered him.

He looked extremely worried. "Do you feel warm or cold?"

"Uh, no?" He reached over and felt my forehead. It made me jump a little—his hand was freezing. It felt kind of good, though, other than the skyrocketing weirdness levels.

"You have a fever," he announced. "I'll drive the rest of the way, you should sleep."

You have no idea how relieved I was.

We switched places, and, rather unexpectedly, he more or less insisted that I used his jacket for a pillow. Weird and awkward, yeah, but also rather nice of him, especially when I was used to him pretty much being a jerk. His jacket even smelled kind of good, which is when I started wondering if I had a serious concussion, because under normal circumstances I would never ever think that.

A while later, we stopped again. I have no idea how long, since I was trying to fall asleep and didn't look at the clock. It felt like an eternity though, because I was absolutely miserable. I heard Valda get out of the car, then come back a few minutes later. He touched my shoulder, and I jumped a little. I opened my eyes, and he put a bottle of water in one of my hands and a small container of ibuprofen in the other.

"Miss Donovan, it was rather obvious you weren't sleeping. That should help your headache."

"Thanks." I downed two pills and about half the water before I tried to sleep again. I didn't have much time to ponder his unexpected niceness before I was out.

I woke up to him gently shaking my shoulder outside the Warehouse.

"You might want to take some more of those—" indicating the ibuprofen "—before we go in. The ones you took earlier have probably worn off, and Agent Nielsen has returned."

I looked to my right, and yep, there was Artie's car. To quote some of my favorite movies, I had a bad feeling about this.

I took Valda's advice and downed two more ibuprofen.

I was the first one to enter the office. Leena was sitting at the computer trying to be unobtrusive and Artie was, as expected, pacing in his usual cranky way. The minute he saw me, he went into full-on lecture mode.

"Claudia! I've been worried about you, I told you, don't go off on your own chasing artifacts, you have no experience and it never ends well—" He stopped rather abruptly, after seeing Valda. "Oh, Mr. Valda! Ah, this is unexpected…"

"Agent Nielsen. I would like to have this shelved as soon as possible. In the Dark Vault." He handed the goo container to Artie.

I flopped into the comfy chair by the door. My ibuprofen hadn't kicked in yet, and my head was starting to hurt again.

Artie just looked stunned. "May I ask what happened?"

The corner of Valda's mouth twitched. "You may."

The stunned look was not going away. "Um, what happened?"

"I ran into that a few days ago in California. I finally caught up with it in Coeur d'Alene and I required some assistance, so I contacted Miss Donovan. Since none of your other agents were available and time was of the essence, she rendered said assistance."

"Oh." A slight pause. "Claudia, was the Warehouse left unattended—"

"No, Artie, I called Leena right after I got off the phone with Mr. Valda." I really didn't want to deal with Artie right now. I just wanted to sleep.

"She did, and I came as soon as I could," Leena spoke up. She turned to me. "Claudia, are you okay? Your aura looks… damaged."

I'll bet, I thought. What I said was, "I'm fine, just tired." She didn't look convinced. Why do people never believe me when I say I'm fine?

Valda spoke up. "If you don't mind, I would like to take Miss Donovan back to the Bed and Breakfast now. She needs to sleep; she was briefly under the influence of the artifact and that is the best way for her to recover."

Artie quickly went from stunned to his peculiar combination of peeved and worried. "Claudia—"

Damn it… "Artie, I'm—"

"Miss Donovan performed quite admirably." That shocked both of us into silence. A compliment from a Regent, and one as tetchy as Valda? "Now, I am going to take Miss Donovan back to the Bed and Breakfast. Please shelve that as soon as possible. I believe it is harmless now, but I still recommend putting it in the Dark Vault with something covering its eyes." He started towards the door. "Miss Donovan?" I jumped up. I was so out of it I kind of forgot he was talking about me for a second there.

I fell asleep again on the ride back to Leena's. I'd never felt this tired in my life. When Valda woke me up, I more or less stumbled my way up to my room with him hovering rather annoyingly. All I wanted was to sleep, and he would not leave me alone. I messed around with some stuff in my room, the lamp, my laptop, waiting for him to leave. Eventually, I just snapped at him, "Look, I'm gonna change, so why don't you go get yourself some cookies, coffee, tea, whatever, I don't really care."

He chuckled and said, "Very well. I expect you to be asleep or close to it when I come back, though."

"Yeah, yeah..." I may have slammed the door in his face. May have. (I was pretty much asleep on my feet, okay? That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

I changed into my pajamas and lay down. I don't remember him coming back up, but he must have, because when I woke up the bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water were sitting on my bedside table, along with a note reading, "I know you probably don't want to, but you have to sleep for at least the next forty-eight hours if you want to heal properly. Your brain doesn't take kindly to parts of it being shut down against its will. Leena and Agent Nielsen have been informed and have promised not to disturb you. Take some more ibuprofen, eat some cookies, coffee, tea, whatever, I don't really care, but get some sleep. BV"

That made me chuckle. But then, my head started hurting, and I was still pretty tired, so I took his advice (and a couple ibuprofen) and went back to sleep.

A/N 2: About the artifact: It is generally believed that Khafre did indeed commission the Sphinx, but everything else about the model and its history is completely from my head and not at all based in fact.