Disclaimer: Characters of Warehouse 13 don't belong to me, sadly. I'm just playing with them. I'll put them back once I'm done!

A/N: After fuckyeahpikacha posted a manip (see my profile for linkage) and i went on a kind of tag-fic rant, she, racethewind10 and alittlebitaces all dropped me an inbox to tell me I needed to actually fic it. So I did. This was supposed to be shorter and smuttier, but it got away from me and the smut wouldn't come. So this is what I ended up with. And remember, your reviews are welcomed and appreciated! Don't be shy; I don't bite. ;)

It was stupid. She was being childish and irrational, and she knew it. But the knowledge didn't make her any more able to crawl back out of the bed she'd already vacated once that morning, and so there she lay, fully clothed beneath the covers with a black cloud of lies hanging over her. Because she'd fumbled her way through some lame excuse involving potential food poisoning that she didn't even remember any more, a lame excuse she knew H.G. had seen right through, and Artie had just waved her back to bed while Pete and Claudia looked on with expressions of concern that ate away at her gut. Myka Bering didn't lie. She went out of her way to do the exact opposite. She fibbed on occasion and there were times when she'd just neglected to tell the truth, but she didn't lie.

She just honestly didn't think she could survive another day spent deep within the bowels of the Warehouse with no one but H.G. around for what could easily be miles. Obviously, it wasn't a case of her finding the other woman tedious or boorish or any other entirely implausible descriptors; it was that once she was alone with the inventor, Helena's charm and magnetism and flirtatiousness seemed to throw caution to the wind and explode in an outward array of unseen force that, while invisible, was most definitely felt. There were burning gazes that lingered upon Myka's turned back, gazes that she could still feel in the coolness of Univille's chill mornings, and comments that would normally have been made with a kind of offhanded, coquettish tone of voice were spoken with such thickly laced innuendo that the air seemed to literally become dense around them. Helena would go out of her way to lean in close to Myka under the guise of retrieving an artifact or checking its log and her brain would insist on dredging up the impression of H.G.'s body pressing flush against her own. And in the inevitable reliving of them, Myka wasn't sure that all those random sparks of electricity they sometimes spotted crackling between the aisles had anything to do with excess energy the artifacts put off. Because she could feel the other woman's breath on her neck, her breasts pressing against her back, the way her hair stood on end when Helena's arm would brush against her shoulder as she reached over Myka for something.

Screwing her eyes closed, Myka pulled the comforter over her head and let out a quiet groan of frustration.

She would not be joining the others at the Warehouse that day because she simply could not take any more thinly veiled leers or lustful observations. She would spontaneously combust, and as much as Helena was driving her crazy, Myka didn't want her being blamed for reducing her to a pile of steaming ash. No, she needed time to think, time to process things away from fathomless brown eyes that seemed to drink every inch of her in. Away from the sounds of rich, tinkling laughter and inexplicably seductive English tones. Away from H.G.'s hands and lips and hair and her everything. She needed a few minutes to forget that the other woman existed so that she could focus on other things; breathing, for example. Because she'd been continuously forgetting how to do that and it was becoming tedious. And H.G. always slid a kind of teasingly knowing smirk onto her face whenever Myka forgot how to breathe – and, god, how was that even possible? She'd been breathing for years – and it would only serve to stoke the flames slowly burning a hole through her. Because Helena knew exactly what she was doing and she revelled in the reactions her advances elicited from Myka. Still, despite her obvious enjoyment, the Englishwoman never pushed.

Beneath the covers, Myka absently worried her lower lip as she stared blankly at the underside of her bedspread. Why didn't she push? Was it all just a game to the inventor, little more than a pleasant way to pass the time? Or was it more likely that the ways of her peers of old had indeed worn off, albeit only a little, on her and she was being courteous by not making the first move? Myka paused at the thought, lip sliding from its place nestled between her teeth and leaving her mouth slightly parted so as to allow her sigh to escape. Not that she herself would be making any kind of move, and most definitely not the first of them. Besides, couldn't any of their previous 'encounters' be considered a move of sorts? If they couldn't, she dreaded to think of the sorry state she'd be left in once a move was finally made. If she felt perilously close to fainting whenever Helena so much as brushed against her, what would happen if-?

No. That was exactly why she'd fled to her bedroom after taking one look at the woman from across the breakfast table that morning and she hadn't even really done anything that time. Unless you could count smiling politely and bidding her a cheerful "good morning" as 'something'. There had been a brief onceover though and Myka distinctly remembered the feeling it had evoked, like her muscles were trying to crawl of her skin, but could really only manage a couple of powerful twitches; which was actually what she felt like ninety-percent of the time she was in H.G. Well's company.

H.G. Wells. Myka groaned again. It was all too much. The idea that a fellow agent was coming onto her was one thing, the notion that that fellow agent was a thought to be long-dead author she'd admired for years, and was also, by the by, usually thought of as a man was another entirely. Because H.G. was most definitely not male, nor was she dead.

"Myka?" And she was apparently standing right outside of Myka's bedroom door. "Are you all right?" Had she knocked? Had she just not heard it? "I'm coming in." What? The sound of the door handle being turned brought her curly head out from beneath the duvet just in time for her to see the door open and Helena step a little cautiously into the room. For a second, Myka was caught by the look of concern shadowing the other woman's face, but upon seeing the downed agent lying in the bed, H.G.'s face became radiant once more. "Ah, you're still with us." She said, lips stretching in a genuine smile that had Myka forgetting those most basic of motor functions. H.G. closed the door behind her, leaning against it as it clicked into place. "Marvellous." And Myka felt every ounce of saliva in her mouth evaporate.

"Helena." For a heartbeat, she became almost insurmountably distressed over the fact that the woman's name left her as a gasp. Names were things to be spoken, not gasped; unless in the throes of passion. Scrambling a little, Myka pushed herself into a more or less upright position, pressing her back against the wall framing her bed.

"After voicing various concerns over breakfast, we came to the collective conclusion that one of us should perhaps check on you prior to our departure for the day." Her smile slipped a little then, dipping into something far more sultry than could be considered necessary for the current conversation. "I was happy to oblige." Pushing herself off of the wooden surface of the door, the endlessly svelte agent began to cross the space that separated them and Myka felt herself start to sink down into the bed. Brown eyes glimmered with some private mirth and, unable to tear her gaze away, Myka had to suppress a shiver. "I wanted to make sure there was nothing that you might…" Her English drawl stalled as she appeared to search for a word, tongue wandering aimlessly along her lower lip before her mouth reformed her smile. "Need." Myka's entire body seemed to simultaneously shut down and flare to life at the word, or more precisely, the way it was said; around a pointed smirk and dripping with playfully suggestive amusement. After a few moments of painful silence, she finally regained the ability of speech.

"No, no, I'm fine." And found things spilling far too hurriedly from her lips, enticing an amused chuckle from the woman standing before her and pulling a stream of awkwardly nervous laughter from herself. "I mean, obviously I'm not fine." No, because she was 'sick'. She cringed inwardly, a fleeting thought of her teenaged-self becoming a stuttering mess because Kurt Smoller had smiled at her swimming unbidden and wholly unwelcomed through her mind. "But I don't need… anything." She finished, lamely. Absently thumbing the ring on her finger, Helena took a few more carefully placed steps towards the bed, quirking an eyebrow archly.

"While I should beg to differ over just how fine you truly are," and this was what Myka was talking about, what she needed to escape, just for a second so that she could regain her wits and her long lost composure. To be free of the haze that clung to her whenever Helena was within flirting distance, which was now considered a more than accurate measuring system in her opinion. "I wouldn't want to risk goading you into an, albeit friendly, argument whilst you're in such a fragile state." She knew. There was no denying the fact that H.G. knew that Myka was faking it. She hadn't felt this chagrined since the one time she'd attempted to feign some variation of stomach flu in the eighth grade before chickening out. Swallowing hard, Myka attempted a smile and felt it falter at the edges. She wasn't about to risk speaking again and besides, what would she say to that anyway? Helena pursed her lips as she came to a halt at the foot of the bed, eyes flickering inquiringly over Myka's face. She could practically feel the other woman's gaze probing at her, running over the surface of her skin in search of carefully hidden thoughts and feelings, could feel them straining to break free of their bonds and curl into the other woman's curious embrace. "You wouldn't be avoiding me, would you darling?" And then every nerve ending in Myka's body fizzled and died as the question overloaded some central part of her body that had direct connections to every other part, rendering every last inch of her completely inoperable. Helena ran her fingers along the edge of the bedframe, smile coy and the way she blinked entirely too flirtatious.

"I…" Her first attempt failed spectacularly, but ever the Secret Service agent, she managed to dust herself off and try again. "What? No, of course not! Why would I be trying to avoid you?" She could feel her brow quivering under the forced strain of the frown she adopted and, distracted by the concentration required to keep it in place and not simply allow her face to slide into a dumbfounded expression, the idea that H.G. might just speak the truth never occurred to her.

"I must admit that there was a moment during which I feared I'd perhaps taken my little game with you a tad too far." Myka felt something inside her shrink and then expand suddenly, filling her chest and making it difficult to breathe.

"Game?" She asked weakly, eyes following the other woman as she slowly made her way around the side of the bed, fingers trailing along the frame in her wake. Was that disappointment she was feeling? She didn't need that, not now. She needed space, time alone to think, to process. Unaware of any inner turmoil, H.G. hummed aloud.

"Indeed." And she sighed as if the world had just been proffered to her on a silver platter, only to have someone tell her at the last second that they'd gotten the name wrong and this particular gift was meant for someone else. "And while I have found it immensely pleasurable, it was never my intent to make you quite so uncomfortable as to render you bedridden. I had hoped the opposite effect would be had," an all too familiar smirk curved along Helena's lips then and Myka's heart gave an overly exuberant thud, "though I can't say I would have been opposed had the end result been somewhat the same." Myka's cheeks coloured, even though she was all too aware of it she could do nothing to stem the sudden rush of blood, and H.G.'s laughter was teasing and charming and it made her head spin just a little. "And you are so devastatingly endearing when you blush." It was then that Myka became acutely aware of the fact that she was very much alone in a small, enclosed space with the other woman; a much, much smaller space than they usually inhabited. And just like that, Helena's charm and seduction became a tangible concentrated substance that seemed to sink into every available pore on her body. The haze she hadn't yet become accustomed to suddenly expanded, turning into a thick fog that swathed her brain and severed the harsh focus she'd been keeping on her composure. Just like that, it was gone, and all she could do was swallow convulsively as H.G. finally rounded the side of the bed.

"Helena, I don't…." It was not a sentence that had been destined for completion and with all the elegant grace of a jungle cat stalking its prey, H.G. was upon her before she could blink. In one sweeping motion, she'd closed the distance between them to hover over Myka's body that was pressed tightly against the wall.

"Do you not?" She queried, tone hushed, and the words ghosted over Myka's face as the time traveller pressed her hands against the mattress to support her lean. Myka felt her heart sputter to a stop inside her chest and then kick-start itself, beats per minute suddenly rivalling that of a mouse in some effort to make up for lost time. Her stomach rolled in a way that was not unpleasant and she found herself holding her breath, unable to pull her gaze away from the sparkling brown eyes dancing inches from her own. "Tell me, Myka…" She'd never really disliked her name, but whenever it left Helena's lips it made her feel as though it was something she should actively want, but that wasn't a notion she could process at that particular moment. Not with H.G. so close, their bodies almost touching. Unbidden, Myka's gaze flickered down to skirt the space separating them, lingering on the inventor's lips on the way back up. She didn't realise that she was staring until the mouth she'd become so captivated by began to curl upward at the corners, and she jerked her attention so that she was once more focusing on H.G.'s amused face. "Have I taken this altogether too far?"

It was madness; the entire thing was beyond the scope of human comprehension. How had it escalated from food poisoning to this? How had things shifted from thinly veiled flirtatious banter to Myka lying prone beneath H.G.'s almost predatory gaze? The answer was the same as it was for most madcap questions; simple. H.G. Wells had the ability to turn a glacier into a smouldering inferno with little more than a glance, so the fact that she could reduce Myka to a shivering melted mess was unsurprising, but the seemingly perpetually flustered agent had been so fixated on staving off the other woman's advances and manhandling her own feelings to the back of her mind that she'd completely neglected to note exactly how close H.G. had been advancing over the last few days. And so there she was, practically draping herself across Myka's frozen form, her grin somewhere between impish and seductive, very obviously waiting for a reply that there was no way Myka was going to be able to provide her with. She was too caught up in their closeness and the way the air had become almost statically charged in the areas where they were almost touching, crackling in her ears as if it was annoyed that she was fighting the Englishwoman's omnipresent gravitational pull. It stole her breath, and what remained of her senses, storing them away for a time that would find them more useful. Her eyes still worked perfectly however, there was no stilling them, and they roamed the face of the woman before her as if searching for something, but before they had time to find it Helena was pulling away from her. Straightening, H.G. tossed inky black tresses over her shoulder and Myka was helpless to do anything other than follow the motion. The inventor laughed again, the tinkling sound like some unsung melody, beautiful and tantalizing, forever leaving you longing for more.

It was as Helena turned that the cold air seeped in to paw at Myka's skin and the hairs on her arms rose as if to protest of the sudden lack of the other woman's closeness and draw her back toward her. So her flesh could feel that burning warmth once more.

And the knowledge hit her like an anticipated bolt of thunder; expected, but able to surprise you nonetheless. It freed the pressure in her chest, like a stretched elastic band suddenly cut, and the contents of what she'd been trying to supress spilled forth to tingle every nerve ending in her body.

It was not simply Helena's laugh that left her longing; it was everything about the woman. The woman who'd stepped out of her own time and into another to find things different but wholly unchanged. It was her undeniable beauty, her intelligence, smile and mannerisms. The way she spoke, the way she'd arrange her features when words were not needed, and all of the other countless details that made up H.G. Wells. Myka longed for more of everything.

She was moving before her brain had time to register the motion, stumbling over her limbs as she crawled across the length of the bed and half leapt for Helena's arm. She pushed herself onto her knees at the foot of it and gave a hard tug. H.G. spun to face her, all remnants of her teasing seduction slipping from her face to be replaced by the uncharacteristic flush of surprise. As she turned, Myka's hand slid to Helena's wrist and she unconsciously tightened her hold, drawing a startled gasp from the woman who was now staring down at her with confusion shining in her dark eyes. A thrill of excitement trickled through Myka at the idea that she'd gained the upper hand, if only for a second, and she brushed her thumb against the skin of the wrist she held in her grasp.

"Not far enough." The admission came as little more than a whisper, but its power was keenly felt in the quiet of the room. Like a silent earthquake, shaking every molecule of air between them and rearranging it, changing it. Making it something new.

Helena was staring at her as if she had no clue as to how her teasing had come to this and had received no indication that it ever could, the blame for which Myka supposed fell squarely upon he own shoulders seeing as how she was usually only able to make vague imitations of facial expressions and hollow vowel sounds whenever Helena's charm fell upon her. Myka wore a similar mask of mystification, though her own confusion was over the fact that it had taken her so long to realise why. She was a Secret Service agent; details and clues were her thing, and the veritable mountain of them that were converging on her at that second meant that she should have been able to see this coming blindfolded. How had her feelings snuck up on her so quickly? No, she knew how that had happened. She'd been too busy running to bother to stop and a take a peek at what exactly it was that was chasing her. But now, they were both at a standstill. And all of that haze and fog began to clear.

Her fingers felt as though they'd been scorched where they touched the other woman's skin, but the burn seemed to soothe some ache inside of her and, seeking more of the warmth, she slowly began to pull on the wrist she'd grasped, turning Helena more fully towards her and pulling her in. In one fluid motion, Myka relinquished her hold and let the limb hang uselessly as she felt Helena's hand brush the inside of her palm on the way up to her cheek. Green eyes fluttered closed at the contact, the air slipping from Myka in a quietly audible exhalation, and the thought came as unbidden as it was clichéd; the touch was electric.

"Myka." And there was her name again, being spoken with some kind of reverent wonder, and she knew that she should open her eyes, but the hand on her cheek was warm and soft and still there. Eventually, she managed it. And found impossibly deep dark eyes searching her face, looking for confirmation or permission, maybe even a dismissal. After all of the unabashed teasing, coquettish touches and glances that could melt glass, H.G. became just as unsure when faced with a previously thought to be unattainable possibility as any mere human might have. "Are you quite certain-" The rest of Helena's question was swallowed by a gasp of her own as Myka lifted a hand to cover the one at her cheek, her lips curving upward into a smile.

"Checkmate." She whispered, and then shuffle the few inches to the end of the bed to close the remaining distance between them. She dropped her hand to Helena's hip and the inventor's fingers slid into her hair with the momentum of Myka's advance, and then with one last pointlessly calming breath, H.G. dipped her head and brought their lips together.

She felt weightless, fire replacing the blood in her veins and carrying her on a bed of flames towards uncharted waters that had no hope of extinguishing them. Helena's lips were soft and tentative against her own for that first endless instant and then she seemed to crest on some unseen wave, surging forward until her knees bumped against the end of the bed. Myka felt the fingers in her hair tighten around her messy curls, holding her in place and preventing her from pulling back to release the gasp suddenly desperate to escape. She exhaled noisily through her nose instead and wound her arm around Helena's waist, pressing their bodies close together. Her tongue snaked out to run along H.G.'s lower lip, seeking entrance that was quickly granted, and when the kiss deepened Myka felt every neuron in her body explode. Like tiny bolts of lightning striking every inch of her, teasing the hair on the back of her neck into rising. And feeling Helena pressed against her now, similar but so different from those moments in the Warehouse, the last thing Myka wanted to do was turn tail and run. She just wanted Helena closer.

Lifting her hands, she slid them into H.G.'s jacket and over her shoulders, easing it away from the other woman's form. Helena jerked her head back and, whimpering her protest at the abrupt lack of contact, Myka blinked her eyes open. The Englishwoman's expression stole her breath. A mix of unabashed desire and a kind of desperate trepidation that conveyed one inarguable fact; Helena wanted her. And it settled something that had been roiling against the pit of Myka's stomach. Unable to breathe and determined not to blink, she pushed at the jacket again, more forcefully, her eyes never leaving H.G.'s face.

Things became a blur then, the haze that had been lifted replaced by some new variant and making everything fuzzy around the edges. Myka heard the jacket fall to the floor and was aware of the fingers in her hair retracting as her own hands came up and she gave into a temptation she hadn't realised had she'd been harbouring. Helena's hair was like silk beneath her palms, inky black strands sliding between her digits over and over again as she combed them through dark tresses and hummed her appreciation. Helena's mouth parted, her eyelids flickering, and Myka saw it for the invitation it undoubtedly was. She crushed their lips together and deepened the kiss immediately, the thrill of a new obsession running through her to light fuses at all corners of her being. Her hands drifted to the front of Helena's shirt, usually deft fingers becoming clumsy in their close quarters, and it took her a distractingly long time to undo that first button, but when she did it was a victory keenly felt.

"You appear to be having some difficulty, darling." Helena said, pulling out of the kiss long enough to mumble the words against Myka's lips. "Allow me to help." And Myka's desire spiked as she felt H.G.'s hands slide over her own and resume the unfastening of her buttons. A little stunned, she sat back on her haunches and let herself be captivated by the sight of H.G. Wells undressing while wearing that look, the one that made Myka feel like the other woman wanted to eat her alive.

And god, that held an entirely different meaning for her at that moment; entirely different and endlessly enticing.

When the last button was freed, Helena shifted to shrug out of the garment.

"Don't!" Myka said hurriedly, pushing herself up to grip the edges of the shirt, and Helena arched an eyebrow. "I want to take it off." The inventor's lips curled upwards at the confession and Myka felt her cheeks warm. She dropped her gaze to avoid the other woman's amusement and found herself once more enthralled by the thin strip of skin that had become visible through the parting in the shirt. She wasn't counting the seconds as they passed so she couldn't say how long she spent just looking, but when she finally shakily released the breath she'd been holding she felt her lungs burn. And then giving in to the way her palms were literally itching to touch the newly revealed skin, Myka's hands slipped inside and she pressed her palms flat against H.G.'s sides. A moan was sifted from one of them, both of them perhaps, at the contact and it proved to be some kind of catalyst.

It would not be the last moan that filled the room that day, nor the days and nights that followed.