Warehouse 13 Fic: This is goodbye: 11-12/?
Title: This is goodbye
Author: Carly Carter
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Characters: Myka centric fic...incl Pete, Claudia, Artie... a bit Pete/Myka ish...
Rating: PG ish, some language, violence, adultish themes
Disclaimer: Don't own anything!
Summary: Sets off in mid episode 10 "Regrets" then diverges from canon.
"He remembers the desperate determination in her eyes, the madness, the agony, as she held that gun to her own head. It frightens him, looking to her now and seeing that it's all still there. He had not been expecting that."
A/N: Unashamedly out of character in some parts, what can I say, the story wrote itself, take it for what it is. I know the time line is slightly altered, to suit my twisted plot, I hope it won't cause too much distress. Also completely a character story with very little sci-fi as i know next to nothing about such things.
A/N2: A big thanks to those who have left such encouraging comments, it means the world, i'm glad you are enjoying the story.
A/N3: All my love and appreciation to f3iv3lin3 for making me these awesome story banners (even though she does not watch Warehouse 13- which clearly she should!!) I <3 u, and <3 the banners so much!
Chapters 1 & 2 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35399.html
Chapters 3 & 4 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35770.html
Chapters 5 & 6 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35984.html
Chapters 7 & 8 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/36117.html
Chapters 9 & 10 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/36612.html
~
Chapter 11
Claudia doesn't know how she got through to her, she isn't even entirely sure that she did. She only knows that one minute Myka had been walking away from her, virtually running away. And the next she stopped dead in her tracks. For a moment neither of them spoke, neither moved. Until finally Myka turned around to face her.
“You don't know what you're talking about.” Myka tells her again. “You don't understand anything, you're just a stupid kid and everything is so simple in your eyes.” She doesn't mean to be intentionally cruel to the girl, she just wants Claudia to stop. She wants everything to stop. But the venom in her voice turns Claudia's blood to ice.
Claudia is taken aback by the undeserved attack. Why is she the one in the wrong all of a sudden? She isn't the one who shot Pete. Isn't the one who ran out and left him injured. Claudia raises her hands in defeat “Ok, whatever.” She mumbles.
Myka only shakes her head silently, before getting into her car and driving off into the night.
Myka had no intention of going to see Pete. All she wanted was to get as far away as possible. But the sinking suffocating feeling creeps over her and she just can't shake it off. Claudia is right about everything. It was a lousy thing to do, to take off and leave Pete like that. Claudia is spot on, if the situation was reversed, Pete would move heaven and earth to be by her side, she knows it. She knows too that if she does not go and see him, does not make her peace with him, tell him goodbye, then yes he is going to come after her for answers. It's only fair that she gives him some sort of closure. She thinks too, about Sam. About how she would have done anything for one more chance to see him, for a chance to tell him she was sorry. And here she has that chance with Pete. She owes him an apology at least. She tells herself that if she goes to see Pete, if she faces up to what she has done to him, then maybe, just maybe, she will be able to breathe again.
~~
Artie plays the scene in his mind, over and over. He wonders if he is imagining things. He hasn't slept, not since the phone call informing him that Pete had been shot and Myka was missing. Perhaps he is too exhausted to think clearly? Besides, he had been distracted that day. His mind had been elsewhere. He had been shocked to find himself summoned to a regent meeting. Shocked to find what he considered far too “ordinary” people with such control over the warehouse, over him. He thinks back to the man in the far corner. The quiet, unassuming man who never said a word.
He thinks to himself that man was the spitting image of Myka's father. It puzzles him. For all intents and purposes, Myka's father was a simple book store owner. A legitimate, struggling, business man. There was nothing remarkable about him, not on paper, nothing the slightest bit “warehouse.” Artie still finds himself surprised at this. He still has the expectation that the people in charge of the warehouse ought to be somehow special, despite the way he had been reprimanded at the regent meeting for voicing those very opinions.
His initial thought is this- why didn't Myka ever mention this? Then reality sets in. She does not know about her fathers connection to the warehouse. How could she?
He looks back on her horror at being reassigned here, her disbelief each and every time he showed her something new, her utter disdain for the place, for everything in it. Pete had been different, like a wide eyed child, open minded, enthusiastic. Not she. She had been sceptical and belligerent from the start.
He is certain, fairly certain, that she knew nothing of the warehouse before she arrived. He feels that he knows her now. Feels he can see right through her, and she just is not capable of making such a pretence.
Mrs Frederic, on the other hand, knows all things, knowable and unknowable. And this, he feels, can not be considered a co-incidence. She must know, surely, Myka's fathers connection to the warehouse. It must mean something. Something to do with her insistence Myka returns to the warehouse, the inability to let Myka walk away.
And he is still left with one very big problem, just how is he going to persuade Myka back to the warehouse? Artie can not shake the nagging feeling of guilt that it is wrong to pull her back into a dangerous life that she wants to walk away from. After all if he forced her to return and something happened to her, that would be on him. And try though he might to remain detached, he can not deny he cares about her and Pete both.
But apart from all of that, he simply has no idea where to begin. How on earth is he going to convince her to return when she is so dead set against it? He had seen her stubborn determination at the diner. That almost self destructive gleam in her eyes. He doesn't think he has anything left to hold over her head to force her to comply with Mrs Frederic's instruction. There isn't anything he personally can do, he realises this almost instantly.
If he is to win Myka back, he is going to have to use Pete.
As for the revelation that Myka's father is one of the regents, Artie files the information away, as something interesting, although not particularly useful at this point in time. Whether it be something Myka had kept from him all along, or something he is now keeping from her, it still stands as one more obstacle between them. One more hindrance in their already strained relationship. He feels he has nothing to gain in that moment by disclosing his knowledge to anyone, and so he vows to keep it to himself for the time being.
~
Chapter 12
She stands silently in the doorway of the hospital room, watching him. He looks pale, he looks tired. His upper leg is bandaged from where the bullet struck him. She wonders how long it will be before he is able to walk independently. She wonders if there is any permanent damage. And she thanks a God that she doesn't really believe in, that the injury wasn't more serious.
He startles her out of her thoughts by calling her name. “Myka.” He is undoubtedly happy to see her, his eyes light up, and relief floods his face.
“Pete.” She answers him cautiously, although she does not move closer to him. And after an awkward silence she adds “Are you ok?”
He smiles, it strikes her as odd. He smiles right at her. “Yeah. Take more than that to bring me down. Be as good as new in a few days. Lucky for me you're a terrible shot.”
He is joking, trying to lighten the mood to break the ice. She knows it, because she knows him, it's what he does. And he is doing it for her benefit. But she can't let herself smile back at him, not this time, she can't turn this into a joke.
“I'm sorry.” Is still all she can think of to say to him. The weight of guilt is so oppressive, it leaves little room for anything else.
He looks directly at her in that moment. He catches her eye, looking deeply into her troubled gaze. He sees something that just doesn't belong there. Darkness and guilt. He sees the hideous thing he had seen in her eyes at the prison. Something he had attributed to the effects of the hallucination, something he had not expected to see now, away from that place, now that the hallucinations had resolved. He remembers the desperate determination in her eyes, the madness, the agony, as she held that gun to her own head. It frightens him, looking to her now and seeing that it's still there. He had not been expecting that.
Hallucinations- he could deal with. Freaky minerals and electrical energy, no problem. He could wrestle a gun from her in that crazy state (not altogether too successfully but it could have been worse, he supposes).
But now, something has shifted. Now it's just her. Just her, and him. And he doesn't know where to start. He wonders why it is so damn hard for her to let it go. After all, he managed. He faced his long held guilt over his fathers death. He broke free. He felt instantly lighter, as if a weight he had been carrying for all those years had dissipated. Why couldn't she just let it go? He wants more than anything to take that weight from her shoulders, and yet he senses already that he can not. That no one can, it's something she has to do for herself.
“It wasn't your fault.” He tells her, this time all trace of humour has vanished from his voice, there is only sincerity.
She laughs slightly, shaking her head. He knows he will have to do better than that.
“I know.” He tells her “I know that it wasn't you, Myka. I know, because I was lost inside my own head too. I saw my father, clear as day. You can't imagine what that was like for me, after all these years, to see the man standing before me. And yet, he wasn't happy to see me. He was condemning me, blaming me, as if his very death was my fault, all because I didn't warn him. And believe me, not a day has gone by that I don't ask myself that question- why did I sit back and do nothing when I knew he was never coming home?” Pete is talking faster and faster, telling his own story, hoping that it will be enough to keep her from turning and walking away from him. Surely she wouldn't, couldn't, walk away from him now as he is pouring his heart out to her, lying injured in a hospital bed. And sure enough, she stands mesmerised as he speaks.
“You were just a child.” She tells him. And for a moment he sees her face soften, for a moment he sees a glimmer of the Myka he knows shining through.
“I know.” He answers. “And deep down I know my father would never blame me for what happened. But in my own head I had constructed this scenario, all those years of guilt finally got the better of me. I know what it's like to feel guilty, to have regrets. I know the power that holds over you. But you have to let it go, Myka, before it destroys you.”
“That's easy for you to say.” She tells him. She doesn't elaborate, but the unspoken message is clear. That's easy for you to say, you escaped with your life. Sam, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.
She is standing at the foot of his bed by now, somehow inching closer to him against her will. He reaches his hand out towards her, beckoning her to come closer still, to sit beside him. He tells himself that if he can just touch her, he can make her see that he is ok, that everything is ok. That no matter how dark things seem right now, everything really will get better.
But she has learned from experience , from Sam, that it just doesn't pay to let people in, to let people touch you. Tempted as she is to hide in his embrace, she stands firm, at the foot of the bed, out of his reach. She keeps the walls built high around her. For both their sakes.
“I just came to tell you I'm sorry.” She tells him.
“It wasn't your fault, it was an accident.”
He is looking to her expectantly, waiting for it to sink in, waiting for her to make some sort of connection with him. And as much as she wants to give him what he wants, she knows she can not.
“I'm sorry I left you.” She tells him, and she means it. She is beyond sorry. But she knows that if she had the chance to do it all again, she would not do it any differently. She hates herself for it, but it's the truth.
“I'm really glad you came back. ” He tells her, realising that all his assurances that it was not her fault are not going to get him anywhere.
It strikes her as an odd thing to say. She had expected his reaction to be more like Claudia's, demanding to know what she had been thinking, taking off and leaving him like that. But if he harbours any ill will towards her, he hides it well. And Myka does not know quite what to make of that.
She feels like she can not walk away from him a second time. Feels like her feet are nailed to the floor. Something in his stare is holding her to him. And while she is still fighting the urge to sit beside him, to let him take her hand, to let him into all the things going on inside her head, she knows that she can not walk away, not this time.
And so, to bring the topic of conversation back to something more neutral, she decides that now is as good a time as any to tell him about her meeting with the man at the diner. After all, he and Artie ought to know if someone is planning to steal an artifact from the warehouse.
Author: Carly Carter
Fandom: Warehouse 13
Characters: Myka centric fic...incl Pete, Claudia, Artie... a bit Pete/Myka ish...
Rating: PG ish, some language, violence, adultish themes
Disclaimer: Don't own anything!
Summary: Sets off in mid episode 10 "Regrets" then diverges from canon.
"He remembers the desperate determination in her eyes, the madness, the agony, as she held that gun to her own head. It frightens him, looking to her now and seeing that it's all still there. He had not been expecting that."
A/N: Unashamedly out of character in some parts, what can I say, the story wrote itself, take it for what it is. I know the time line is slightly altered, to suit my twisted plot, I hope it won't cause too much distress. Also completely a character story with very little sci-fi as i know next to nothing about such things.
A/N2: A big thanks to those who have left such encouraging comments, it means the world, i'm glad you are enjoying the story.
A/N3: All my love and appreciation to f3iv3lin3 for making me these awesome story banners (even though she does not watch Warehouse 13- which clearly she should!!) I <3 u, and <3 the banners so much!
Chapters 1 & 2 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35399.html
Chapters 3 & 4 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35770.html
Chapters 5 & 6 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/35984.html
Chapters 7 & 8 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/36117.html
Chapters 9 & 10 carlyisnot.livejournal.com/36612.html
~
Chapter 11
Claudia doesn't know how she got through to her, she isn't even entirely sure that she did. She only knows that one minute Myka had been walking away from her, virtually running away. And the next she stopped dead in her tracks. For a moment neither of them spoke, neither moved. Until finally Myka turned around to face her.
“You don't know what you're talking about.” Myka tells her again. “You don't understand anything, you're just a stupid kid and everything is so simple in your eyes.” She doesn't mean to be intentionally cruel to the girl, she just wants Claudia to stop. She wants everything to stop. But the venom in her voice turns Claudia's blood to ice.
Claudia is taken aback by the undeserved attack. Why is she the one in the wrong all of a sudden? She isn't the one who shot Pete. Isn't the one who ran out and left him injured. Claudia raises her hands in defeat “Ok, whatever.” She mumbles.
Myka only shakes her head silently, before getting into her car and driving off into the night.
Myka had no intention of going to see Pete. All she wanted was to get as far away as possible. But the sinking suffocating feeling creeps over her and she just can't shake it off. Claudia is right about everything. It was a lousy thing to do, to take off and leave Pete like that. Claudia is spot on, if the situation was reversed, Pete would move heaven and earth to be by her side, she knows it. She knows too that if she does not go and see him, does not make her peace with him, tell him goodbye, then yes he is going to come after her for answers. It's only fair that she gives him some sort of closure. She thinks too, about Sam. About how she would have done anything for one more chance to see him, for a chance to tell him she was sorry. And here she has that chance with Pete. She owes him an apology at least. She tells herself that if she goes to see Pete, if she faces up to what she has done to him, then maybe, just maybe, she will be able to breathe again.
~~
Artie plays the scene in his mind, over and over. He wonders if he is imagining things. He hasn't slept, not since the phone call informing him that Pete had been shot and Myka was missing. Perhaps he is too exhausted to think clearly? Besides, he had been distracted that day. His mind had been elsewhere. He had been shocked to find himself summoned to a regent meeting. Shocked to find what he considered far too “ordinary” people with such control over the warehouse, over him. He thinks back to the man in the far corner. The quiet, unassuming man who never said a word.
He thinks to himself that man was the spitting image of Myka's father. It puzzles him. For all intents and purposes, Myka's father was a simple book store owner. A legitimate, struggling, business man. There was nothing remarkable about him, not on paper, nothing the slightest bit “warehouse.” Artie still finds himself surprised at this. He still has the expectation that the people in charge of the warehouse ought to be somehow special, despite the way he had been reprimanded at the regent meeting for voicing those very opinions.
His initial thought is this- why didn't Myka ever mention this? Then reality sets in. She does not know about her fathers connection to the warehouse. How could she?
He looks back on her horror at being reassigned here, her disbelief each and every time he showed her something new, her utter disdain for the place, for everything in it. Pete had been different, like a wide eyed child, open minded, enthusiastic. Not she. She had been sceptical and belligerent from the start.
He is certain, fairly certain, that she knew nothing of the warehouse before she arrived. He feels that he knows her now. Feels he can see right through her, and she just is not capable of making such a pretence.
Mrs Frederic, on the other hand, knows all things, knowable and unknowable. And this, he feels, can not be considered a co-incidence. She must know, surely, Myka's fathers connection to the warehouse. It must mean something. Something to do with her insistence Myka returns to the warehouse, the inability to let Myka walk away.
And he is still left with one very big problem, just how is he going to persuade Myka back to the warehouse? Artie can not shake the nagging feeling of guilt that it is wrong to pull her back into a dangerous life that she wants to walk away from. After all if he forced her to return and something happened to her, that would be on him. And try though he might to remain detached, he can not deny he cares about her and Pete both.
But apart from all of that, he simply has no idea where to begin. How on earth is he going to convince her to return when she is so dead set against it? He had seen her stubborn determination at the diner. That almost self destructive gleam in her eyes. He doesn't think he has anything left to hold over her head to force her to comply with Mrs Frederic's instruction. There isn't anything he personally can do, he realises this almost instantly.
If he is to win Myka back, he is going to have to use Pete.
As for the revelation that Myka's father is one of the regents, Artie files the information away, as something interesting, although not particularly useful at this point in time. Whether it be something Myka had kept from him all along, or something he is now keeping from her, it still stands as one more obstacle between them. One more hindrance in their already strained relationship. He feels he has nothing to gain in that moment by disclosing his knowledge to anyone, and so he vows to keep it to himself for the time being.
~
Chapter 12
She stands silently in the doorway of the hospital room, watching him. He looks pale, he looks tired. His upper leg is bandaged from where the bullet struck him. She wonders how long it will be before he is able to walk independently. She wonders if there is any permanent damage. And she thanks a God that she doesn't really believe in, that the injury wasn't more serious.
He startles her out of her thoughts by calling her name. “Myka.” He is undoubtedly happy to see her, his eyes light up, and relief floods his face.
“Pete.” She answers him cautiously, although she does not move closer to him. And after an awkward silence she adds “Are you ok?”
He smiles, it strikes her as odd. He smiles right at her. “Yeah. Take more than that to bring me down. Be as good as new in a few days. Lucky for me you're a terrible shot.”
He is joking, trying to lighten the mood to break the ice. She knows it, because she knows him, it's what he does. And he is doing it for her benefit. But she can't let herself smile back at him, not this time, she can't turn this into a joke.
“I'm sorry.” Is still all she can think of to say to him. The weight of guilt is so oppressive, it leaves little room for anything else.
He looks directly at her in that moment. He catches her eye, looking deeply into her troubled gaze. He sees something that just doesn't belong there. Darkness and guilt. He sees the hideous thing he had seen in her eyes at the prison. Something he had attributed to the effects of the hallucination, something he had not expected to see now, away from that place, now that the hallucinations had resolved. He remembers the desperate determination in her eyes, the madness, the agony, as she held that gun to her own head. It frightens him, looking to her now and seeing that it's still there. He had not been expecting that.
Hallucinations- he could deal with. Freaky minerals and electrical energy, no problem. He could wrestle a gun from her in that crazy state (not altogether too successfully but it could have been worse, he supposes).
But now, something has shifted. Now it's just her. Just her, and him. And he doesn't know where to start. He wonders why it is so damn hard for her to let it go. After all, he managed. He faced his long held guilt over his fathers death. He broke free. He felt instantly lighter, as if a weight he had been carrying for all those years had dissipated. Why couldn't she just let it go? He wants more than anything to take that weight from her shoulders, and yet he senses already that he can not. That no one can, it's something she has to do for herself.
“It wasn't your fault.” He tells her, this time all trace of humour has vanished from his voice, there is only sincerity.
She laughs slightly, shaking her head. He knows he will have to do better than that.
“I know.” He tells her “I know that it wasn't you, Myka. I know, because I was lost inside my own head too. I saw my father, clear as day. You can't imagine what that was like for me, after all these years, to see the man standing before me. And yet, he wasn't happy to see me. He was condemning me, blaming me, as if his very death was my fault, all because I didn't warn him. And believe me, not a day has gone by that I don't ask myself that question- why did I sit back and do nothing when I knew he was never coming home?” Pete is talking faster and faster, telling his own story, hoping that it will be enough to keep her from turning and walking away from him. Surely she wouldn't, couldn't, walk away from him now as he is pouring his heart out to her, lying injured in a hospital bed. And sure enough, she stands mesmerised as he speaks.
“You were just a child.” She tells him. And for a moment he sees her face soften, for a moment he sees a glimmer of the Myka he knows shining through.
“I know.” He answers. “And deep down I know my father would never blame me for what happened. But in my own head I had constructed this scenario, all those years of guilt finally got the better of me. I know what it's like to feel guilty, to have regrets. I know the power that holds over you. But you have to let it go, Myka, before it destroys you.”
“That's easy for you to say.” She tells him. She doesn't elaborate, but the unspoken message is clear. That's easy for you to say, you escaped with your life. Sam, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.
She is standing at the foot of his bed by now, somehow inching closer to him against her will. He reaches his hand out towards her, beckoning her to come closer still, to sit beside him. He tells himself that if he can just touch her, he can make her see that he is ok, that everything is ok. That no matter how dark things seem right now, everything really will get better.
But she has learned from experience , from Sam, that it just doesn't pay to let people in, to let people touch you. Tempted as she is to hide in his embrace, she stands firm, at the foot of the bed, out of his reach. She keeps the walls built high around her. For both their sakes.
“I just came to tell you I'm sorry.” She tells him.
“It wasn't your fault, it was an accident.”
He is looking to her expectantly, waiting for it to sink in, waiting for her to make some sort of connection with him. And as much as she wants to give him what he wants, she knows she can not.
“I'm sorry I left you.” She tells him, and she means it. She is beyond sorry. But she knows that if she had the chance to do it all again, she would not do it any differently. She hates herself for it, but it's the truth.
“I'm really glad you came back. ” He tells her, realising that all his assurances that it was not her fault are not going to get him anywhere.
It strikes her as an odd thing to say. She had expected his reaction to be more like Claudia's, demanding to know what she had been thinking, taking off and leaving him like that. But if he harbours any ill will towards her, he hides it well. And Myka does not know quite what to make of that.
She feels like she can not walk away from him a second time. Feels like her feet are nailed to the floor. Something in his stare is holding her to him. And while she is still fighting the urge to sit beside him, to let him take her hand, to let him into all the things going on inside her head, she knows that she can not walk away, not this time.
And so, to bring the topic of conversation back to something more neutral, she decides that now is as good a time as any to tell him about her meeting with the man at the diner. After all, he and Artie ought to know if someone is planning to steal an artifact from the warehouse.