Disclaimer: Don't own any of the characters because if I did this episode would have been like 3.5 times better. No infringement meant or monetary compensation to be had through the creation of this ficlet.

A/N: Because "Instinct" made me really, really sad. It might be the Corona talking, but, really?! Really?! Lame. Also, I don't remember the guy's name that H.G. is shacking up with…so for the purposes of this fic, his name is Daniel. Sorry if it offends you. Heehee…get ready for some down and dirty reaction-fic. Special thanks to Icona Pop.

Usefulness

7 months earlier…

"'Mission accomplished' like you lot love to say." H.G. purposefully strode to the chair across from Kosan, slumping into it and throwing her arms across her chest. Her feet naturally propped themselves onto the oak wood table. She didn't care if it was an act of disrespect or taken as such.

"The Brotherhood once again house the astrolabe?" Kosan asked in his ever-even tone.

"In so many words." Helena narrowed her eyes. "Now there just remains the little matter of my repayment." Kosan's eyebrow arched, made more apparent due to his lack of hair.

"We are not in the habit of providing compensation to our agents for doing their job."

"And if I'm no longer an agent?" She let the question hang in the air…

7 months and one day later…

How do you even begin to cook breakfast the day after saving countless human lives? Helena pondered this exact question as she continued to scramble the eggs in the skillet. The cooking class she had taken a few months prior had suggested constant moving for the most tender of eggs…right now she was quite content to let them burn.

This was what she had been afraid of all along: the feeling that this normal life she had constructed for herself around Adelaide and her dear father would not be enough to satisfy one H.G. Wells. She laughed into the empty kitchen thinking how apropos Artie would find the residual effects of the hyena jawbone artifact: that it would induce her to want more.

Helena was exhausted after spending half the night trying to explain her complicated existence to Daniel. She talked around the Warehouse and her old age as much as possible whilst all the while remaining as truthful as she needed to be for her own welfare. It was worth giving them the chance at a future; she'd grown rather fond of the young girl after all. Yet she remained uncertain if he was "the one" she'd choose to share her secrets with.

It didn't help that she kept flashing back to the backwards glance Myka gave her as she and Pete drove out of her driveway. It didn't help even more that she knew Myka was lying through her perfect teeth when she told her to give him a chance. As if H.G. hadn't spent enough time with the young woman to know the subtle changes in her vocal patterns when she was trying to appease another individual against her own good will. Myka obviously still loved her and Helena had been too stubborn to admit she felt the same way. It had almost escaped her lips when they hugged goodbye. One more second physically bound together and Helena's hands would have moved further down Myka's back as she whispered love notes in her ear. Instead she got the red glare of brake lights moving quickly down the road on a chilly Wisconsin night…

At this point the eggs were beyond repair. Emily tossed them—err, Helena tossed them in the bin and went to the freezer to retrieve the frozen waffles.

"Yay! My favorite! Can I have some raspberries on top, please, please, please?" Adelaide tumbled into the kitchen, hair still mussed from sleep. Oh, the resiliency of youth! Young Addy had not been affected by the unimaginable events of the past twenty-four hours in the slightest, taking her own kidnapping in stride as it had been a planned school field trip of some sort. Though as the girl hugged Helena about the waist with fervor, the older woman imagined that her "coolness" factor had increased tenfold given the passage of recent events. Being a badass had its merits indeed.

This girl. This precious child whom she'd been inextricably drawn to for reasons Myka had so easily identified. Yet she was not her Christina and never would be. She was instead her second chance of a life she should have had. She deserved it, right? After years of grief and madness after losing her own child, here she was, finally useful again. Being a mother.

And yet there was something severely lacking in this fantasy Helena had created for herself. Was it usefulness when Adelaide and Daniel had been such a self-sufficient unit prior to her arrival? They had lost Annabelle almost six years ago and were doing quite well without her interference. As she spread the berries across the crevices of the warmed waffle, she pondered her own selfishness. Selfishness of invading this family for her own purposes and a new sense of selfishness of wanting so much more than cooking breakfast for a pre-adolescent child who wasn't even her own flesh and blood.

Usefulness was saving the world. Usefulness was the Warehouse. Usefulness was passing out in exhaustion every night against the woman she loved after a day of artifact hunting.

How would Helena G. Wells become useful once more?

A/N2: Not gonna lie, at this point I can't wait til the series finale so I can try and fix the H.G./Myka storyline. Travesty, I say! (P.S. Stopgap chapter on the horizon…stay tuned!)