The Time Traveller

"The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness."

Steve Jinks had been a Warehouse agent for a while, and an ATF agent before that. He had seen many things in his life that were upsetting, unpleasant and even a few things that were devastating. He'd even had some very bad sexual experiences with women, and as a gay man that was truly disturbing. But nothing had ever prepared him for the sight of Pete Lattimer enthusiastically kissing Myka Bering. She kissed him back, and smiled and played along, but he could feel the lies she was telling in her every movement, every touch. It was a loud jangling inside his head, a gong discordantly clanging and making it impossible to concentrate. Steve couldn't stand it. He could swear he had retinal burns from the sight of their incestuous kisses and he was starting to worry about his hearing too, with all the phantom jangling inside his brain. Pete's happiness and Myka's pain were horrifying to behold. That was when his mind started whirring. He'd been working with Claudia Donovan long enough to be capable of being pretty devious. The first problem to take care of was Pete.

Myka had been busy on a Warehouse case for a few days in Prague. She had dropped off the artefact that she and Pete had bagged at the Warehouse and was making her way back to the B&B to get some sleep. She stopped the car outside in her usual spot and switched off the engine. She wasn't ready to face Pete again, to see the joy in his face with every touch and kiss they shared. Her guilt was choking her. She had genuinely thought that she loved him, that the Warehouse was giving her a sign that he was her 'one'. But when it came down to it, she realised that each kiss they shared felt like incest, like kissing her brother but with tongue. She'd managed to put off going any further than kisses for now. It all felt so wrong, but Pete loved her so much that she couldn't see a way out. Her heart ached fiercely from both the pain of what she had done to Pete and the feelings she was working so hard to conceal and bury. She sighed and put her head in her hands, elbows on the wheel of the car. Her curly hair tumbled forward in a cascade, and her shoulders shook as she gave in to tears. She saw brown eyes, almost black, every time she closed her eyes. She didn't hear the car door opening almost silently behind her, nor did she sense anything until the needle stung the side of her neck. Then she felt nothing at all.

Helena Wells was in New York, making her way to her home through the quiet streets at midnight. Her boots made little sound on the wet pavement. After her ill-conceived attempt at suburban happiness with Nate and his wonderful daughter Adelaide, she had moved to the Big Apple to try to start again. She was running away and she knew it. She got a job with the coroner's office where she could use some of her skill, and took up with a beautiful French ballet dancer called Giselle. She didn't need Freud or anyone else of his ilk to tell her why she had begun a relationship with a tall brunette with flashing green eyes and a mass of curly hair. Or why the relationship failed so spectacularly thereafter. Europeans, with their great passions and jealousies! Giselle had been using Helena's laptop one day, saw some of her email exchanges with Myka, and asked Helena the questions she'd been dreading. Who was Myka? What did she mean to Helena? Helena tried to brush off the questions – after all, her email exchanges with Myka were painfully polite, painfully...empty. But she couldn't meet Giselle's eyes, fearing the woman would see the pain in her own. After that the outcome was inevitable. A lot of dramatic shouting in French, some (admittedly wonderful) angry sex, followed by the usual dramatics that accompany the end of a relationship with a dancer. She smiled a little at the thought, and then her brow furrowed as her traitorous mind showed her the green eyes she both craved and avoided so assiduously. She stopped in her tracks, long fingers going to her temples as she tried to banish the image of Myka's clear green eyes brimming with tears. "Eyes that last I saw in tears..." she quoted to herself, softly. She didn't hear the quiet footsteps behind her. The sting of the needle was a shock. She tried to spin and face her attacker but darkness claimed her before she had taken a step.

Pete looked from Steve to Claudia, his jaw working as he tried to take in what they were saying.

" She doesn't...she doesn't love me?" He looked at Steve, then Claudia, his eyes pleading with them both as they tried to comfort him.

"Of course she does, Pete. She loves you so much!" Claudia clasped his hands in hers as she knelt down beside him. "She just doesn't love you in that romantic way, honey."

Steve put his hand on top of Claudia's. "She's been trying to make it right, Pete, but I can see her struggling to tell you. She loves you like a brother. Sometimes, when you want something to be true that badly, you try and make it happen. It looked like the perfect match on the surface, and God knows you love her. She tried, man, but she doesn't feel the same way. Deep down, you know this." Steve leaned forward and knelt beside Claudia. "Every word she's said to you since that day at the Warehouse has been the loudest bell ringing in my head. You must have had vibes telling you it wasn't right. " Pete looked at Steve with pain in his eyes, and then dropped his gaze.

"I felt it. I just hoped she would...that she could grow to love me. But I felt how much it was hurting her. I think she loves someone else. I just wish I could work out who." His brows came together in puzzlement. "Man, I'm so ashamed of myself..." he trailed off.

Claudia and Steve looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and Claudia said, "Really, dude, you have no idea?!" Steve looked at Claudia and leaned over and whispered in her ear, "He really doesn't know. He's telling the truth." Claudia stifled a giggle.

"What?" Pete said, looking up at them with eyes brimming with tears. "What am I missing here guys?"

Claudia cleared her throat and looked at Pete sideways, trying to reconcile the idea that he could be that oblivious to the truth. "Uh, Pete honey, I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Myka has been in love with one HG Wells since the moment they met." Pete's eyes widened, and his brows furrowed comically as he looked left, then right, muttering to himself the whole time. "But they...but she...Mykes and HG? Seriously? Hang on, that is why they always spent so much time...but she's a girl!" His eyes widened comically, his mouth in a wide "O" of surprise. "Steve, did you know about this?!"

Steve stood up, shuffled his feet, and put his hands in his pockets. He couldn't meet Pete's eyes.

"I'm sorry Pete. I kind of always thought you knew. The way they were with each other...the "get a roominess of them"..." Claudia high-fived Steve with glee at his Buffy reference. "Double points for the lady-loving reference, Jinkster!" Steve glared at her, whispering urgently, "not the time, Claudia!" She tried to plaster a guilty look onto her face, but the giggles lurked underneath and Steve took a deep breath so that he wouldn't laugh at this truly inappropriate time. Looking at Pete's face, however, did not help.

Pete looked from one to the other, his expression the very definition of "flabbergasted". Then his expression changed to the dictionary definition of "horny frat boy" as he contemplated the implications of what Steve and Claudia were saying.

"So you guys let me believe...let me think that Myka loved me, and not only that but you..." He stopped, looking so completely enraged for one moment that Claudia and Steve's hearts stopped, stricken with guilt.

"I could've been having the BEST dreams this whole time!" he shouted at the two of them, getting to his feet and gesticulating wildly. "I know HG is scary and, like, reformed evil and all that, but she's so HOT and you guys didn't tell me that she and Myka...that Mykes and her were into each other?!

What the hell is wrong with you people! I could have had so much happy Pete time and you two robbed me of that! I will never get that back!"

Steve and Claudia looked at each other, then at Pete, not sure whether to feel guilty, sad for Pete, or sad for Pete and his mention of happy time.

Claudia recovered first and said, "Eugh, Pete, you are such a douche. One minute you're mourning your lost love and the next minute you're being the grossest. I felt guilty there for a minute..."

Pete rounded on her, waving his arms around, red-faced. "You should feel guilty, Claud! You know how I feel about the lady-lovin! It's one of my favourite things! I could've been so happy and you took that away!" He glared from one to the other. "I'm going to get something to eat. You guys suck!"

Claudia and Steve stood in stunned disbelief, watching the retreating back of the agent. When he was out of earshot, the two of them looked at each other and tried to stay composed, but Jinks' mouth quirked and Claudia couldn't hold it in anymore. They exploded into fits of laughter, the kind of giggles that people normally grow out of before they reach puberty, and every time they caught each other's eyes, they just laughed harder.

"Dude, he was madder about missing out on the dirty thoughts than he was about Myka not loving him...and to think we were so worried about breaking his heart!" Claudia gasped and tears ran down her cheeks, streaking her mascara across her face and making Jinks laugh even harder.

Steve tried to talk, tried to get his words out, but all he could think was "Pete's happy time..." and he had to sit on the floor to try and hold his insides together. His stomach muscles hurt so much that he thought he might not ever need to do another sit up. Claudia suddenly stopped laughing and ran to the nearest bathroom, wailing "I'm gonna pee myself". Jinks lay on the floor, giggles slowly subsiding as his partner in crime retreated to save her dignity. And her pants. His mouth curled in a soft, but slightly smug smile as he let the peace and approval of the Warehouse wash over him. Helena and Myka were in for a surprise.