Helena met Myka Bering when she was twenty three years old. At the time, she had a six year old daughter, an idiot brother and an apprenticeship at Warehouse 12.

If someone asked her then if she was happy, she would say, "No one is ever happy. They either live in contentment which isn't a bad way to live but you tend to miss certain things or they live hungrily and hungry people are rarely happy."

She thought she knew it all. Why wouldn't she? She had already made the biggest mistake in her life who turned out to be the most beautiful gift she had ever gotten. She had a reason to hate the world and yet she didn't. And at twenty three, people were already lining up to listen to her even though they were too small minded to accept that she was a woman.

But the answer she should have given was, "Yes, I am happy."

She had a sweet little girl who thought the world of her. She had a partner in crime whose sensible thinking often made her wonder if they were really related but also kept her grounded. And she had a job that was dangerous but fun, always fun and only annoying sometimes (when she had to do inventory).

She didn't know what happiness meant until it was taken away from her. Several times.

The first time it happened, she didn't even notice it.

Myka had told her to go to the Warehouse that morning to return the telescope. She was very specific about it. Helena must place it between the Venetian Eyeglass and the Lippershey Spyglass in the visual instrument section.

When Helena refused, Myka said, "You're in enough trouble as it is. It could affect your apprenticeship."

And of course Helena didn't want that. There were only three months left in her apprenticeship. She was quite excited about it, becoming a full-fledged agent.

"Come with me," Helena had said because they had so little time and she wanted to spend every minute of it together. "I can sneak you in without anyone knowing."

"No," Myka said immediately.

She had that same angry look she gave Mrs Douglas when the headmistress called Helena a bad parent. Only this one was more intense, more…hateful.

"I have to clean up the mess in the clock shop anyway," she smiled, trying to hide her hostility towards the Warehouse. But it didn't fool Helena because Helena knew all her smiles for reasons she was told but not quite believe. "I want to make Elizabeth's return as pleasant as possible."

Now that she thought about it, she ought to be more persistent with Myka for her young self's sake. Because the emotional turmoil she felt after caused a careless mistake which extended her apprenticeship for another two months. But her stupid young self can't seem to let go of her distrust towards Myka.

Now, well, now Myka was standing in front of her. It took all her strength (and the threat of death) not to charge forward and embrace the woman whose image had been haunting her for the past hundred or so years.

The one clever thing her younger self did was to dip the telescope in the neutralising liquid before putting it on the shelf.

There was no cackle. No pop. No spark.

She did it again just to be sure.

And when she did it the third time, she already knew what would happen.

MacShane yelled some threat she couldn't care to listen as she exited the Warehouse.

A million thoughts ran through her mind. How could she? Could she? Maybe she had her own reasons. No, she lied. She's a liar, Helena.

She tried her best to dodge the crowd and when she couldn't, she shoved them while yelling an apology. She won't stop. She can't stop.

She burst through the door, not caring that she stubbed her toe against the doorframe and almost fell. She wanted to yell all sorts of accusations but between the pain and the panting, she couldn't get a word out.

Myka wasn't too surprised to see her. "That didn't take too long," she said.

"Why?" Helena asked when the panting had slowed down enough to allow her voice to come out.

"I didn't want to find you because I knew that I had to leave. But I did and I'm sorry," said Myka, leading Helena to a chair. "It definitely made my job easier to have you. And apparently I was supposed to find you."

After she helped Helena to settle on a chair, she walked back to the counter and grabbed a piece of paper.

"Dear Helena," she read. "The person who is currently reading this to you is the love of your life. You've known it since you were eighteen. You don't quite believe it yet because that's how we are, we only trust what we see even though we claim to have a boundless imagination. You're still trying to find that apple-scented perfume in the Warehouse, aren't you? Well, you won't find it. Don't be angry with Myka. She's only following the instructions she gave to herself. And as we expected, she didn't follow it very well." Myka rolled her eyes. "She thinks it will spare our feelings. Myka, don't worry. You just pinched me for that comment. Now Helena, she doesn't know about the telescope. Another reason you shouldn't be mad at her." Myka frowned.

"It wasn't an artifact," said Helena before Myka could ask.

"We sent her to you because we knew how much she missed you," Myka continued reading. "Me. Us? I'm still trying to make sense of everything. So it is quite understandable that you are very confused by this. I chose you because I wanted her to get to know the person I was before everything happened." Myka cringed. "To see that I wasn't always so…tortured. That I used to be happy. I'm happy now but the kind of happy you are is different from mine. It's a break from all the things she's been through with me.

Myka paused. Her eyes flitted back and forth on the paper.

She looked up at Helena. "There are some blanks," she said. Then she returned back to the letter, "Well, I did try. There is only so much that the universe can allow. Something very horrible will happen to you. It still gives me nightmares. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing I can say to ease the kind of hatred you are about to feel. But the woman standing in front of you right now," the corner of Myka's lips quirked up slightly. She let out an exhale that resembled a very soft laugh. "You read the rest yourself. That first sentence made me feel awkward enough," she was blushing.

Helena took the letter from Myka. Sure enough, it was her handwriting on the piece of paper. She didn't read the rest immediately.

"How?" she asked.

"Do you know what the Venetian eyeglasses can do?"

"It started out as a handy pair of reading glasses. The man who owned it was in love with his neighbour but he was too shy to tell her. He kept thinking, if only he could see into her soul, then maybe it wouldn't be so hard. The years of yearning transferred itself into the eyeglasses. But instead of letting him see into her soul, they let him see her insides."

"That property allowed the glasses to scan an item like an X-ray machine without the dangerous radiation. One day, Pete, being Pete was playing with the eyeglasses while we were doing inventory. When I was placing them back on the shelf, it was at an angle that directed it towards the telescope. And I saw that there was something in it. So, the next day, I went back to the shelf and took out whatever was in it. It was a blank piece of paper. For some reason I put it in my pocket and forgot about it until, umm, the day you left. The first thing I did after, was laundry because do you know how smoke seeps into your clothes and it's very hard to get the smell out?" Myka paused. Helena assumed the question was rhetorical. She then cleared her throat. "So I was emptying out my pockets and, surprise!" she exclaimed. "There's a paper with my handwriting on it telling me to go back to 1889 and find the Cassegrain Telescope and…" she trailed off. "You know the rest. But it turns out it's not even an artifact and I thought, I thought that it would bring you back to me. Now I know, it's all for nothing."

Helena had so many questions. Like what is this terrible thing that is going to happen to her? It terrified her to be honest and not because her alleged future self just told her it was going to happen. She still needed to process that. It was because of the way Myka treated Christina.

She was so protective of her. Christina fell when they were in the park the day before and the way Myka reacted was like she had gotten more than a skinned knee from her fall. Myka insisted on carrying her all the way to their house but eventually, Helena managed to convince her that Christina was quite capable of walking with some assistance.

Helena had given up on the questions. If Myka wanted to tell her, she would have done so sooner. Not now when she was about to leave. So Helena concentrated on the puzzle before them.

Helena looked at the paper in her hand. "Where did you get this?" she asked.

"From the telescope. I mean, the one in this time."

"Maybe the telescope isn't the artifact you are supposed to find."

Helena could see the wheels turning in Myka's head.

"It's the paper," Myka said excitedly. "But do you really think that we, from the future, would send me here just so that we could spend time together? Not that it wasn't great. But really? I'd like to think we don't just do things based on emotions, even if it's in the future."

"The blank lines in the letter and the line after. Maybe they can't tell us."

Myka snapped her fingers. "That's why you can't remember. It's the universe's way of maintaining its balance."

"Even so, I still have those dreams. And how did you know that I was coming back here earlier than the time we agreed on?" Helena asked.

"Future me told me that I should go to the Warehouse with you and spend the remaining hours we have together there."

"But you didn't want to."

"And every time I do differently than her instructions, the outcome is still somewhat similar. We're not in the Warehouse but we're together."

"So not every event is fixed. We can say, deviate it a little."

Helena loved this feeling. She gets it every time she is trying to solve a puzzle. She never thought having a partner would make it more fun. Or maybe it was Myka.

"But what do we do with that piece of information?" Myka asked.

Helena read the last lines in the letter. "This person seems to put a lot faith in you. I think it's up to you now."

Myka smiled. Helena hadn't realised that they were standing quite close to each other until then.

"Who is being vague now?"

Helena knew this smile very well. She didn't want to get her hopes up because it always ended in her being disappointed.

But she had a feeling…

After MacPherson debronzed her, it took a while to recover all her memories. Some were already present but still a bit fuzzy. They were her last thoughts, she figured, before they flipped the switch that took her freedom and imprisoned her in her own body.

Maybe this is how death feels like, she thought moments before she was bronzed because there were flashbacks of her memories. Mostly events that brought her to where she was. Played backwards in her mind.

Starting with Mary's death.

Even after Myka left, the Scott siblings still visited her and Christina almost every day.

Elizabeth thought she lost her mind within those 22 hours and 19 minutes when Myka inhabited her body. She was very grateful to Helena for taking care of her during her mental episode and also for not telling anyone about it. So she let her children frequent Helena's home.

At some point, their families became close and when… that terrible thing happened, the Scotts became unbearable to Helena. They sent enough food for ten every single day and every time they came, they would stay for hours when all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and pretend to try to fall asleep.

So Helena chased them away one day.

She went to apologise a few days later with flowers and Mrs Brown's apple pie. Elizabeth immediately welcomed her into their home and invited her to stay for dinner. All the children except Mary hugged her. Between the greetings, the hugs and the endless questions from Patrick about hot air balloons, she didn't even get the chance to say her apology.

She still couldn't stand them but during those quiet few days, she found that it hurt more when they weren't around. So she stayed.

It was the day she laughed for the first time in three months. It was a joke Mary made about scaring her siblings and Christina with her version of Snow White. The Evil Queen won in her version.

Mary was a smart girl. That was why Helena recommended her for an apprenticeship at the Warehouse when she turned eighteen.

She was the one who helped build the Temporal Consciousness Transfer Engine which she said was a stupid name.

"If you think about the acronym," she had said, "it almost spells like tacit. Call it what it is; it's a time machine."

That was the last time her joke made Helena laugh.

Helena became obsessed with saving Christina. She kept going back and every time she failed, she became more and more miserable.

Until one day she couldn't stand the rage any longer, she shot one of the robbers.

He turned out to be Mary.

The girl was too smart for her own good. No one should be able to access the machine once it started. But she did. She followed Helena 20 hours and 34 minutes after Helena left according to the logs.

Unfortunately, her tweaking didn't allow her to be too picky about the body she chose.

"I'm mad, really mad at you," she said to Helena in her last moments. "But there's nothing we can do about it, can we?"

"No—" Helena tried to say.

"I need," she grabbed Helena's hand, "you to tell Mum that I'm not angry with her. Just give Patrick a chance."

Helena begged for her to hold on just for a few seconds, enough time for Helena to return to her present body and bring her back.

But she kept talking like it was too late. "I can be mad because I was just shot. But you need to stop being so angry, alright?"

"Just stay alive and I'll do whatever y—"

The machine brought Helena back. But she was too late. Mary was gone.

She was supposed to feel cold due to the freezing process but all she felt was burning rage as images of Christina's death played in her mind like a bloody moving picture. She tried to hold on to Mary's last words. But it only made her more furious.

Wolcott said it was supposed to be quick and painless. But all she felt was pain and it wouldn't stop. Helena can't blame him. He had never been bronzed before so he wouldn't know for sure.

Then she remembered the kiss.

She had a feeling she wasn't going to be disappointed this time but she didn't put much weight into it as she had the same feeling the previous two times when they almost kissed.

She refused to believe it even as Myka inched closer to her. Even as she closed her eyes and puckered up when those pair of lips she craved for were merely milimetres away from hers.

It was delightful. Mind-blowing. There were sparks and fireworks. Her stomach flipped. There were flowers blooming. A comforting warmth embraced her. It felt like they were the only two who existed in the world. And all those rubbish described in romance novels.

The kissing though, she could tell it wasn't their first time. She wanted to make it simple but sweet because she didn't know what Myka liked. But apparently, she knew. The way her lips and her tongue moved, it was like she didn't even have to think about it. And Myka definitely knew what she liked.

She forgot about breathing. It was only when Myka gently pushed her away that she thought of inhaling some air. It was quite possible that the light-headedness she felt was due to the lack of oxygen in her brain.

"It's time," Myka said, her eyes tearing up. "I didn't really want to say goodbye because we've said goodbye too many times."

"I only hope that this is one of the good ones."

Their foreheads touched. "It is."

Then Myka collapsed in her arms.

When she woke up a few minutes later, she was Elizabeth.

Those were the memories which were prominently featured in the Helena Wells' Mind Theatre for the past hundred or so years. She hadn't counted. There were a lot of other more important things occupying her at the moment. The number one being how can she weasel her way out of two armed Warehouse agents? One of them was Myka. But she thought it best to leave it for another day.

Time doesn't have meaning when you are bronzed. You relive past memories over and over again. And unfortunately, you can't pick and choose which memory you will relive. So it went from Mary's death to Christina's and then the kiss between her and Myka.

The kiss became a resting point from all the pain and anger and hate. It made it easy to remember how Myka looked like.

And when she saw Myka outside her home, she almost couldn't believe her eyes.

She ran down the stairs, almost tripping on one of the steps, to greet her.

All grown up Myka. Still tall. But no longer awkward. She had a certain confidence in her stride that was missing the first time Helena saw her. The Myka who wasn't just Myka inside but also Myka outside. All of Myka. Her Myka.

She didn't quite believe in the existence of a god but she was very tempted to use his or her name right about now. Because god, she looked more beautiful than Helena remembered.

But then she reminded herself that Myka was a Warehouse agent. And she was just debronzed by a questionable character. Adding to that, no one nice had been bronzed before. They have all committed some heinous crime. Hence, Myka will not trust her. She will act hostile towards her and will possibly try to bronze her.

It would take some convincing on Helena's part. In the meantime, she needed to retrieve the Imperceptor Vest.

She would have done so quietly if it wasn't for Myka's buffoon of a partner. He had to startle everyone by confronting the impersonator which left her with no choice but to trick them in order to get to her vest.

It didn't change anything, seeing Myka again. Christina was still dead. She still killed Mary. And she brutally murdered those robbers. She didn't deserve this second chance.

But it did give her something she hadn't felt in a long time.

Hope.

The end. For now.

Thank you for reading.