Disclaimer: Warehouse 13, the world and the characters that inhabit it do not belong to me in any way, though sometimes I lie away at night wishing that they did and what I'd do with them if they did. And then I write those thoughts down.

A/N: This is my response to a prompt that was anonymously left in my ask. "I would love a little scene set after the latest ep with Myka wondering why she wasn't totally into it with that dude, leading to 'he's no h.g, leading to telling pete and claude, leading to another epic hug?" It's... okay, I totally didn't hit the mark at all like you might have wanted me to, but hopefully this will suffice. ;)

H.G.'s return had been as sudden and unexpected as her disappearance weeks before. Only instead of being draped in a blanket of solemn and heavy silence, the bed and breakfast came alive at the inventor's arrival. As if new life had been breathed into the building with the opening of the front door. She'd been accompanied by Mrs Frederic and Adwin Kosan, both of whom looked about as happy as they ever did, which was to say they looked as stoic as usual, and it hadn't taken very long at all for them to explain her reinstatement.

There had been very few questions from her, once more, fellow agents and Artie had offered nothing but a fleeting, though sincere, smile in the seconds before H.G. was rushed by a positively vibrating Claudia. And H.G. had never experience what was, quite possibly, an actual bone-crushing hug. And then Pete had descended upon her like a grizzly, and she'd learned the true meaning of that expression. Steve had stood a little awkwardly off to one side, unsure of what to do since they hadn't actually been formally introduced yet, but H.G. had met his gaze with her own warm one. And then her eyes had found Myka's over Claudia's shoulder.

And standing across the room, all glassy eyes and soft smiles that broke partway through only to continue on, stronger than before, she'd stolen the very air from H.G.'s lungs.

Pete had managed to find the party poppers Leena had hidden from him after what had been dubbed 'Claudia's B-day Party Fiasco Twenty-Ten", and Leena had proceeded to escape the madness and ear-splitting explosions by disappearing into the kitchen. She'd returned to a colourful-ribbon-covered room a short while later proffering an entire baking sheet full of cookies, that she pointedly offered to Pete only after serving everyone else. He'd sat glumly on the sofa, nibbling on his handful of home-baked goodness, eyeing the poppers that he'd left alone on the table after promising to stop setting them off behind his unsuspecting house mates.

Eventually, they'd lapsed into comfortable conversation. Helena had opted to sit in the mismatched recliner in one corner of the room and Claudia had quickly taken a place atop one of the armrests. The inventor had exchanged a fleeting glance with Myka at that, before Leena had cut through their line of sight with another plate of cookies and Pete had started shovelling them into his mouth whilst simultaneously asking just where exactly H.G. had been. She'd let out a sigh at the question and teased her fingers through her hair, furrowing her brow.

"Might I put off that particular conversation a little while longer?" Anxiety had slithered into the room at her words, making the air thick, almost tangible, and it had lifted the hair on the back of Myka's neck with an unsettling ease. "I must confess that the day's events have rather mentally exhausted me."

"Do you need to-" Myka's worry had been evident, and H.G.'s interruption had been gentle.

"No." She'd insisted, smile small, almost restrained. And she'd broken eye contact to turn her tone excited as she looked at each of them. "I'd much prefer to be caught up on all that I've missed!" And everyone had glanced around a little awkwardly at that. "Have I... missed much?" Beside her, Claudia had shrugged, letting her head loll to the side so that she was looking at the older woman.

"Pretty sure I went on the scariest date of my life." H.G. had arched her eyebrows at that. "With Mrs Frederic." They'd almost touched her hairline. Across from them, Steve had raised his hand.

"I came back from the dead." He'd offered, then returned Claudia's smile.

"A turn of events I was as surprised as I was happy to hear of." H.G had confessed, reaching over to pat the redhead's knee. There had been a flurry of movement as Pete bounced excitedly in his seat, like a five-year-old who couldn't wait to share his trip to Disneyland with the class.

"I kinda turned into a tentacle monster!"

"Pete." Myka had snapped, gaining the attention of both her partner and the inventor, though she'd found H.G.'s curious gaze far more tolerable than Pete's smug one.

"Oh, ho, ho." He'd started, and Myka had felt the insurmountable need to shut him down grip her a few seconds too late. "And Mykes totally gots her mack on with Mister Toronto." He announced, once more dredging up his 'Sassy Best Friend' persona. The confession had turned the room silent. Myka had felt her cheeks begin to burn as she caught sight of Claudia pinching her lips together with a thumb and forefinger.

"Is that right?" H.G. had drawled, tone deceptively calm as she thumbed the ring on her finger and pinned Myka, who had most definitely fixed her gaze elsewhere, with an intensely focused stare.

And she had honestly never expected to one day wish that Steve, of all people, would have somehow spontaneously lost the power of speech.

"And then there was Pete also kind of getting her pregnant." But at that moment, Myka had been unable to recall a time when she'd wished for anything more.

"I beg your pardon?"

Later, after all immediate misunderstandings had been taken care of and thoroughly explained away, Myka had followed Leena into the kitchen in order to aid her with any needed clean up, and eventually returned to the living room to find the chair H.G. had been occupying decidedly vacant.

"She's out on the porch." Claudia was hovering in the doorway, waggling her finger in the direction that H.G. had gone and wearing a small smile that widened when Myka returned it. Her family was back together. All of them.

"Thanks, Claude." She mock saluted the older woman and turned to make for the stairs, casting a lingering glance over her shoulder as Myka disappeared through the door.

The evening air was warm despite the gentle breeze that sent the wind-chime affixed to the low roof of the porch singing. Helena looked up at the sound of the door being pulled closed and Myka caught a glimpse of something unnamed clouding dark eyes in the milliseconds before they cleared.

They remained there, as if suspended in time, staring at one another for a long moment. Uncertainty and a barely concealed longing for things to be different hanging between them.

Myka was the first to move. She released her grip on the doorknob and walked around to take a seat upon the swinging bench beside the inventor.

The quiet that settled over them wasn't altogether comfortable, it had been absent too long for them to grown accustomed to it so quickly, but it wasn't unpleasant. It whispered of previous stolen moments spent in the company of one another as they spoke of their chosen books of the week, or told tales of their childhoods and earlier lives. They were memories that now only served to bring a smile to Myka's face, despite the darkness that lay behind them.

"So," Helena began slowly, and she hadn't been gone long enough for Myka to forget exactly what that particular tone of voice usually led to. "A hockey player?" Green eyes rolled, Myka tugged at the blanket covering the inventor's legs and H.G. relinquished the desired portion without thought.

"Oh, what?" Myka's curls bounced as she swung her head to the side, glaring at the other woman with a kind of exasperated accusation. "I can't like a nice, eventually polite, not completely arrogant hockey player?" H.G. arched a solitary eyebrow and let her amused smile part her lips.

"They make those, do they?" For a few long heartbeats, Myka simply stared at her. And they were long enough to make Helena at the very least begin to reconsider her words, though tere was not a crack in either woman's façade as the seconds ticked by. And so there was little warning when Myka's smile erupted and she let a burst of laughter fly free.

"Apparently." She finally said, once her laughter had quieted and H.G. was regarding her with a smile of her own.

"Will the wonders of this new age never cease?" Her drawl was weighted by the kind of thinly veiled sarcasm that belied a buried soreness, and the sound of it drew a chuckle from Myka.

"You're kinda sounding a little jealous there, Agent Wells." She teased, watching as H.G.'s eyes widened momentarily before they became slatted and she pursed her lips, pensively.

"Don't be absurd." The inventor glanced sidelong at the woman next to her, who had sat close enough that their knees were touching beneath the blanket, and she huffed. "I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I have never in my life wished to kiss a hockey player." And despite the fact that Myka, and she suspected the rest of the Warehouse employees, found everything the Englishwoman said pleasing to the ears, Helena had a firm grasp on how to make something, or someone, sound utterly unappealing. But they shared a smile, as tentative and unsure as all of their meaningful ones had been. Because they both knew that wasn't what Myka had meant. The inventor dropped her gaze and fiddled absently with one edge of the blanket, a motion that betrayed the nervousness that might have seemed uncharacteristic to those who did not know her as well as Myka did. "You, however..." She let the sentence fall away, flames withering to the near-death of glowing embers.

"And yet you haven't." That were stoked and brought back from the brink of darkness by words that were carried upon a soft and lilting sigh, that Helena echod with a heavy one of her own making.

"The perfect time seemed never to arise." She confessed, sliding her fingers into dark tresses and shaking jet-black locks free of apparent invisible bonds. She'd wondered how this conversation might go, during the evenings she had spent within the building she'd come to assume was some kind of Regent headquarters, as she'd never been offered a definitive explanation as to where exactly she'd been whisked away to.

"And you are notoriously stuffy when it comes to perfection." H.G. made a noise that Myka could only think to describe as 'haughty'.

"Ah, I believe you've mistaken 'stuffy'," and she struggled over the word, as if the mere notion of it offended her, "for elegant grace." Myka barked another laugh and the sound of it curled the corners of H.G.'s mouth. "A mistake that is made as easily as it is corrected." The taller woman shifted slightly in her spot, brushing their knees together once more, and her smile turned sad at the edges.

"If only all mistakes could be as easily rectified." She saw Helena's face transform, watched as the frown manifested upon her brow and hurt scrawled itself across every perfectly sculpted feature of her face.

"Myka-"

"Please don't apologise." The interruption was born of a stern warning, her continuation a pointed one. "Not for that." And there was no question as to what she was referring to. Shaking her head, Myka tilted her gaze to stare up at the stars, a kind of imploring wonder casting a shadow over her expression. "God knows how many times I've forgiven you for that." Eyes fixed on Myka's profile, H.G. didn't blink as her mouth parted and she drew in deep, steady breaths. "Quietly in my head, in dreams, out loud." And the idea that she might one day forget the memory of hearing those words pass Myka's lips wasn't one that seemed plausible to her, in any capacity. Neither was the notion that she might one day be able to move past just how undeserving of those words she felt herself to be. "It feels like it all happened a lifetime ago." At that, Myka turned her head to look at H.G, wearing the kind of thoughtful expression that made her eyes glitter like the sky overhead. "I guess it kind of did." Because they were both different people now. Myka sat back, the motion sending the bench beneath them swinging. "But you can apologise for leaving without saying goodbye to-"

"I believe I'm rather violently disinclined to agree with that particular assertion of the actual events." She interjected, equal parts indignation and humour lacing her voice. Because of course she would have said goodbye. If given even a moment's reprieve from the attention of the Regents who'd come to collect her, she'd have used every skill she'd seen fit to store away within the confines of her magnificent mind in order to reach Myka and speak that one word.

If given the chance, she would have changed the course of events so that the need to speak it would never have arisen at all.

"And you can apologise for constantly interrupting me," Myka continued, as if H.G. had never uttered a word, "but I don't ever want to hear you sorry for that again. Okay?" A moment of reflective silence found them then, as H.G. studied Myka's face as though she hadn't already committed every edge and curve to memory.

"All right." She finally breathed, the gentle breeze almost carrying the soft exhalation away, but Myka heard it.

H.G. Wells surrendered, truly, to few. And yet, Myka Bering had somehow managed to bring her to her knees repeatedly. And Helena would give over all that she was and place her heart and soul in hands that might not even be waiting for such an offering.

"So, it would appear as though my mother was right?" Her breath left her shakily, her attempted humour cracking under the force with which she'd pushed it out, but Myka pretended not to notice and allowed their moment of shared intensity to be broken as she tilted her head in confusion at the inventor's question. "Kissing can in fact land a lady pregnant." Myka rolled her eyes as she chuckled, and H.G. just couldn't help herself. "And how did you find the kiss?"

"That's quite possibly the most clinical way I've ever been asked to describe a kiss." Myka responded, once the initial shock of the question had word off.

"You'll forgive me for not seeming too terribly interested in all the gritty detailed." The inventor's quip was droll, and dryly so, but the insecurity behind it was there for Myka to see. And Myka alone.

"it was... nice." She admitted, pursing her lips a little as she felt H.G. stiffen almost imperceptibly beside her. "But it wasn't... he wasn't you." The confession came hurriedly, as though Myka was afraid it might die partway through and never be voiced. "I don't know if part of me was hoping that it might compare to everything I've built up inside my head, but when it was over," she lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug, "it didn't. It was nice and sweet, and maybe once it might have been everything I could have wanted in a first kiss."

"But no longer?" Helena watched the stars twinkle as she asked.

"No." The word, usually a dampener to situation, was like music to her ears. "I guess I'm still holding out for perfection." And somehow, the comfort that had eluded them suddenly returned, settling around them as though it had never been gone and urging them to slide into the comfortable conversation that followed Myka's admission and saw her and Pete's most recent mission recounted with the kind of clarity that she'd deemed 'unfortunate'.

"I mean, I knew during that it wasn't real." She explained at length, absently worrying her lower lip in the pause that followed. "That there wasn't actually a baby. But all the symptoms and the cravings and the, the nausea?" She wrinkled her nose, making a face, and Helena smiled at her, ardent fondness clinging to the corners of her eyes as they creased in tandem with the curving of her lips. "Definitely real." Shuddering at the memory, Myka made a derisive noise in the back of her throat and stretched her arms above her head, as if working out a kink the retelling of the story had placed upon her shoulders.

"Have you never thought about having children of your own?" H.G. asked, head tilted slightly as she followed Myka's arching movements. The taller woman stretched one arm along the backrest of the bench, the heel of her palm brushing H.G.'s shoulder blade.

"I've thought about it." She admitted, lifting a hand to pinch her bottom lip between her forefinger and thumb and tug on it thoughtfully. "But only fleetingly." She baulked as a thought hit her and let her hand fall to her lap abruptly. "And never with Pete." There were questions there that were not to be voiced that night, lingering hidden between the lines, waiting for the right moment just like H.G. herself was.

"Ah yes, and what about our dear Agent Lattimer?" Myka furrowed her brow.

"What about him?" Charmed as always by her fellow agent, H.G. chuckled dryly at her confusion.

"How do you perceive his errant wish gone awry?" But for all her bravado, there was a very real diffidence beneath her often calm and collected exterior. If one looked hard enough, there were ripples to be found.

"I think that he's starting to realise what he wants from life." She surmised with a half-shrug and a smile to match. "Maybe he's finally growing up." Helena scoffed, raising her eyebrows.

"Heaven forbid. Should it come to that, I fear Artie's good cheer toward me might turn sour in favour of falling back on an old outlet for his ill-tempered moods." Catching sight of Myka beaming at her in her periphery, H.G. turned her head to look at her more fully. "What?" Myka's smile only widened, even with the gentle shake of her head.

"I just..." she huffed a laugh and suddenly H.G. found that she was looking into glassy green eyes, the moonlight dancing over tears yet to be shed. "I really missed you, Helena." She could recall but a few moments in her life that had seized her heart with such wonder, such fierce emotion as to render her momentarily incapable of speech, even breath. And sitting beneath a canopy of wooden beams in need of painting, on the porch of a bed and breakfast in Univille, South Dakota was a place she'd have once deemed perhaps the least likely to be the setting for such a moment, but then the world did have a way of surprising a person.

She had learned that the hard way.

It wasn't until Myka's fingertips brushed the exposed skin of her neck, visible behind the collar of her shirt, that H.G. even realised she was being touched, though the trail of burning warmth should have been an obvious indicator.

"I missed you, too." She heard herself say, but the only thing she felt herself truly aware of was Myka's smile. Wondrous and beautiful, as a familiar playfulness ghosted across it.

"Helena?" She whispered, the slightly rough wood of the bench scratching lightly against the skin of her under arm as she slid it closer to the other woman.

"Yes?" And again. H.G. did not blink, nor dare she breathe for fear of breaking the fragility of the moment.

"That perfect moment you've been waiting for?" The inventor dropped the leg she'd curled before her, giving Myka the space she was seeking to move in closer as the arm at her back wound around H.G.'s shoulders. "It's here." And Helena's quiet laughter was warm against Myka's lips.

"I suppose it would be remiss of me to let this one pass us by, now that it has finally arrived?" Myka's fingers disappeared into silken depths the colour of darkness and she rested her forehead against H.G.'s as her eyes fluttered closed.

"I really wish you wouldn't."

And as their lips met for the first time, Helena fleetingly wondered whether there was anything she could refuse the other woman.

Later, she would discover that there was not a single thing she could deny her.