Of all the things that she was supposed to worry about, Myka was worried about that damned cat. She was about to step into a freaking cyclone and all she could think about was Dickens, Helena's cat. Well, she wasn't sure whether Helena wanted to keep him or not but she kept thinking of him as Helena's anyway. If anything, he was Myka's more than he was Helena's. After the Warehouse exploded, she volunteered to clear up Emily Lake's apartment. She was taking down the frames that held Emily Lake's fake past when she felt something rubbing against her leg. It was Dickens. She hadn't thought about him until then.

He didn't look like he was starving. He must have found a way out and looked for food on his own.

"You're smart, aren't you?" she said to him as she crouched. "And loyal."

He meowed as if agreeing to what she just said and stuck his chin up.

"And not shy with compliments too." She stroked his chin. "I guess I can keep you until your mommy gets back. But be warned, she's not the same person as she was."

Even then she didn't believe that Helena was gone. And now she was bringing her back as she promised Dickens on that day. Myka just needed to remind Leena to leave out a bowl of milk for him at night. Every night, like clock work, he would wake up at quarter past one looking for milk. If it wasn't in his bowl, he will try to find some and the kitchen will be in a mess the next morning as a result.

"Don't worry," Leena said. "I haven't forgotten about the disaster he caused."

It was Myka's fault really. She had trouble sleeping after the Warehouse blew up so at quarter past one each night, she would go down to the kitchen and get a glass of milk in an effort to make herself fall asleep. One night, Dickens came into the kitchen and she poured some milk for him as well. Ever since then, that became their ritual. The night after Myka went back in time to meet a young Helena was the first time she had a good night sleep. And the next morning, she was woken up by Leena's shrill scream.

"All these reminders on Dickens," Pete said, "do you not want to do this? Because Mykes, I'd rather you not go into a cyclone that spins at the speed of light."

She took a deep breath and tried to remember why she was doing this. And she saw Helena with that smug grin on her face. She wanted to see it again because she knew beneath that smugness, there was a genuine smile, only reserved for her. She wanted her H.G. back. She exhaled and said, "No, I'm doing this."

"Fine," Pete sighed. "Go now before I have the urge to lock you up until you get to your senses which we know will take forever. And I do have better things to do than be your prison guard."

The cyclone was created when Artie turned back the clock on the Warehouse. Since the Warehouse contained a lot of high energy objects, the process of bringing them back to their previous states required a large amount of energy as well which cannot be extracted from the present time only but also the past and possibly the future. This created a time-space continuum disturbance at the very center of the Warehouse.

This disturbance didn't actually look like a cyclone. As a matter of fact, it didn't look like anything at all. Through the naked eye, it appeared to be an empty space. They didn't even realize it existed until it almost ate Claudia (Claudia's words not hers). Claudia immediately activated the emergency goo sprinkler when she felt something pulling on her. That seemed to neutralize it for a few minutes, just enough time for her to step away from the cyclone. They tested it by throwing a balled up piece of paper at it. The paper spun for a few seconds and disappeared into thin air. Because of the way the paper spun, Pete dubbed it a cyclone.

Myka stepped into the chamber Claudia had built just outside the effective radius of the cyclone. It will disintegrate Myka's body into separate atoms for a safe journey into the cyclone and when she has arrived at her destination, it will reintegrate them back. This was made 37.7% possible using Helena's time machine. So there was a 62.3% chance she would die. And if she did make it, there was a 50% chance that the atoms will not reintegrate as it was meaning she could end up becoming a tree in say, 1957. Helena would have thought of it as an exciting prospect.

"It is," she could practically hear Helena say. "We always think that being a homo sapien is the best species one could be but we are humans, are we not? Of course we would think that."

She looked around to find the voice but then she remembered that she no longer had eyes to see and a neck to turn her head. She didn't know how to describe it. Was it seeing? Was it listening? No, it was a feeling. She could feel Helena's presence. Helena's excitement.

"Maybe being a tree is the best thing one could be," Helena said or…communicated to her.

Then she felt as if someone was holding her hand, even when she had no hands to be held. But she recognized the comfort. The warmth of another on her palm.

"Don't worry love. I am here for you."

Those were Helena's last words before Myka found herself in 1942.

...

"I've been waiting for you," the man said.

But Myka was not convinced just yet. A tree might still understand human language, she thought. She looked down to her hands. Good, human hands and not tree branches. She had ten fingers and her hands were not her feet and her feet were not her hands. But still, her other body parts might not be where they were supposed to be.

"Do you have a mirror?" she asked the man. She could speak so her vocal chords were intact.

"Here you go," he handed a face mirror to her.

Okay, those were her lips. And that was her nose. By now, she had guessed that her eyes were not displaced between her nose and lips but she still had to make sure just in case they ended up on her forehead. And yes, they were still between her nose and forehead. Except wait. Her eyes were blue. But she supposed that was fine since she didn't end up looking like a Picasso piece.

Now, finally, the question she was supposed to ask earlier on, "Who are you?"

The man smiled and held out his hand, "My name is Eloi. It is great to finally meet you, Myka Bering."

This must be a joke.

"Your name is Eloi?" she asked.

"I have many names," he replied. "Eloi just happens to be the one that I remember at this present moment."

"And it has nothing to do with me?"

His brows furrowed. He rubbed his chin and said, "I suppose it does since everything is connected even when we don't see it. Do you see it?"

"Do I see what?"

"The connection between you and I."

"Seeing as I've only met you five seconds ago, no, I don't."

"Oh, yes. I do apologize," he said. "I assumed that since you are time traveler like me, you would see things the way I do."

"What do you mean?"

"When you have traveled through time as much as I have, you no longer experience time linearly. It will feel like everything is happening all at once."

"I'm only doing it five times," Myka said. That can't have too big an effect, can it?

"That is more than enough."

She wondered if this man was one of the obstacles she must face in order to save Helena.

"I have a car," he said.

"And?" she looked around. The terrain looked familiar. But then she shouldn't be so surprised. Where else could she be if not here? "Where is the Warehouse?"

It reminded her of the Warehouse (or where it was supposed to be) after the explosion. Minus the big giant hole in the ground that is. That was redundant; using giant after big. Helena would have disapproved of that.

Pete had told her a few too many times that everything reminded her of Helena. "Maybe you should stop," he had said. She didn't know what he meant at the time. Whether he wanted her to stop seeing Helena everywhere or he wanted her to stop trying. But those two kind of go hand in hand. She supposed he meant both.

"It's below you," Eloi said. "There are a few airfields built around here. The Regents didn't want a stray pilot to come across it especially since a war is going on. With all the weapons in the Warehouse, I can imagine the military would want to use some of them."

"They could do that?" Myka asked.

"It's not the first time."

And yet another reminder of Helena, albeit a painful one. She made a mental note for them to see a therapist when all of this was over.

"You mentioned a car?" she needed a car after all or she would have to walk seven miles to the nearest town.

"Yes," Eloi said. "Oh," he tapped his forehead with a finger, "and—"

"You want to give me a ride," Myka said.

"Fantastic. We do think alike."

She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

...

When she met with the eccentric Henry Stewart, she didn't know what to expect. She had purposely chosen him for his reputation. One of his papers was entitled, 'Was the Mayans right?'. She figured go to a crazy man to solve a crazy problem. She was straightforward about her situation when she met him She told him that she had a loved one who was killed and asked him what she could change in the past so Helena's life would be spared. But she still called it a hypothetical situation just so she didn't have to explain about artifacts and the Warehouse.

"Do you have a means to go back?" he had asked.

She nodded.

"Then I can help you. But I would need her history and how she came about her demise. I assume it will all be hypothetical."

"Yes."

He had looked at Myka as if examining her expression, trying to find any sign of deception. But she was a trained Secret Service agent. She knew how to hide it no matter how bad her lie was.

"Good," he had said, still staring unblinkingly at her. "A lot of people have come to me with weird requests but I've never seen one who looks as desperate as you."

Yes, she was trained to hide her deceit but she was never trained to hide her desperation.

The first thing she had to do was to stop two people from meeting.

"Do you know the repercussions of your plan?" Eloi asked.

She shook her head. She only needed to know the details of what she must do. She need not know its effects other than it will save Helena.

"Are you sure you don't want to know if they are soul mates? That their status will be bumped to star-crossed lovers if you do this? Imagine the pain you will have caused."

"No," she answered simply and hoped that will end the conversation.

"There isn't even the slightest bit of curiosity? You could be stopping a murder. What if it's a good thing?"

"No." Because once she knew the consequences, she had to justify her choices. Well, she would have to eventually. Just not right now.

"You're not very chatty, are you?"

"Maybe because you're a really bad conversationalist. Where are we heading to anyway?"

"Where you're supposed to be. And I resent that. I've been trying really hard to act…what's that word?"

"Normal?"

"Yes, normal."

"Okay, I'll teach you," Myka said. "When I ask you where we're going, you give me a location, not some vague answer that I'm supposed to interpret."

"Noted."

She waited for a few minutes to give him the chance to realize it himself but he kept tapping away happily on the steering wheel, humming to some tune she didn't recognize.

She cleared her throat.

He briefly glanced at her before focusing back on the road and said, "I'm sorry there's no radio in this car."

"Not that," she sighed. "Where are we going?"

"I thought you knew," he said. "We're going to 43.52109 north, 96.69971 west." Finally, a clear answer. And the correct one too so she didn't have to worry about jumping out of the car at some point of this journey. "Exactly where you're supposed to be," he added, "at 7.38 pm today. We should reach there just before seven."

"Would that be seven in the morning or afternoon?" She could guess which one it was but she had to make sure.

"Afternoon. Don't worry," he smiled. "I think I get it now."

...

Charlie liked to practice his pitches until it was dark. He loved the summer because it meant he could get longer hours for his practices. Maybe if Charlie practiced hard enough, he could throw a ball his dad can't hit when he comes back from the war.

Rose was sick of her family. She can't stand her five sisters. She liked her older brothers better but they've all gone away. They said it was to protect her so no one could take away her favorite doll but that's a lie because Ella went missing this morning. Maggie said maybe she went to the park.

At 7.38 tonight, Charlie's ball will hit Rose. It will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship and the catalyst to a love story.

Myka didn't know if this was true but if it was, she was about to ruin a fifty seven year marriage. Then she decided that a baseball shouldn't be the only thing that determined their future together.

"I mean if they were really meant to be, shouldn't it take more than a missed opportunity to break them up?"

"But what if MacPherson didn't debronze Helena?" Eloi said.

"That's not a missed opportunity. We've met way before that."

"But if MacPherson changed his mind, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have known who Helena was. H.G. would just be some old boyfriend who broke your heart."

"But that didn't happen, did it?" she cried, not noticing her raised voice until young Charlie was standing next to her.

"Are you okay, miss?" he asked. "Is this man bothering you?"

She mustered a smile and said, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she reassured him.

"Okay. I'll be right there if you need me," Charlie said and gave Eloi a menacing glare.

Myka had to stifle her chuckle. "Don't worry. He's plenty scared you."

Eloi nodded to confirm, with a shadow of a smile at the corner of his lips.

As they watched him walk away, Eloi said, "Do you really want to rob that young man of his happiness? But wait," he looked at his watch, "you already did."

And there Rose was, walking past Charlie as he crouched to pick his ball up.

Myka just watched as Charlie and Rose went about their business, not even sparing a glance at the other.

"It's just some made up story," she muttered.

"You should know," Eloi said. "You're the one who made it up."

But somehow, she still felt like the worst person in the world.

...

"I'm taking the bus," she told Eloi.

"Where?"

"To the Warehouse."

"Why?"

The constant sighs. The silent treatment. The yelling. He still didn't get how much he annoyed her.

"Because I don't like you very much," she said. She figured telling him outright would make the message clearer.

"I gathered that." So he did get it. "But I thought you wanted to go to 1847 Hong Kong."

"I do. But the time machine is in the Warehouse in 2013."

"And how will you get there?"

"Claudia set the time machine to pick me up in three days."

"You don't know, do you?" he asked. She was so glad she will never see him again. This thing he did where he assumed she knew things she had no idea about was getting old. "I'll show you. Okay, close your eyes."

She didn't.

"Come on, close your eyes," he insisted. "I promise it's going to be good."

Well, what's the harm in closing her eyes?

"Now I want you to imagine a place. It can be on a map, a picture or a per—"

She opened her eyes and found a pair of dark brown eyes staring back at her. She knew them well. Her lips curled up to greet the owner but she felt out of breath suddenly. She started to panic, thinking that her lungs were missing.

"Inhale."

She complied. Yes, she can still breath. Thank goodness. She had momentarily forgotten how to do it after suddenly being greeted by those brown eyes that never failed to hold her gaze hostage. It was always so hard to look away.

She wondered if it was a dream. That it had always been a dream.

Maybe it was. She had encountered too many impossibilities for it not to be a dream. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she'd wake up and all this pain would melt away.

"Don't close your eyes just yet," Helena said, as if reading her mind.

And she was right. But if this was a dream, Myka could change it easily. So instead of waking up to some unknown reality she had long forgotten about, she would have this sweet dream where she could carve whatever happy ending she wanted.

"Myka?" she felt a light tap on her cheek. "Myka?" and again, but a little harder. "Myka?" it was starting to hurt.

"Ow!" she cried out as the fourth one landed on her cheek. That felt more like a slap than a tap.

It wasn't a dream after all or that wouldn't have hurt as much as it did.