Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and for all the alerts! I hope you enjoy this chapter- please leave me a review!

Disclaimer: I don't own Warehouse 13... sadly!

Chapter Two: "Hinky"

'You told Artie.' It was a hiss Pete had learnt to associate with trouble long before he and Myka had gotten to together.

'You told Claudia...' And that was wheedling tone that Myka had learnt to recognise within weeks of meeting him.

They were fifteen minutes into the flight to Vermont and the awkwardness from the Warehouse had followed them. The journey to the airport and all of the check in had been filled with some mundane chat regarding the case. And whilst Pete had been glad not to argue; Myka, apparently, had simply been biding her time.

'They are not the same thing. Artie is not Claudia.'

'Your college education certainly paid off.' Pete said sardonically.

'Appose to yours which lets you think that it's okay to talk about our personal life with our boss!'

Pete couldn't help but smile at Myka's outraged expression. She was still beautiful, dark hair lose around her face and her eyes blazing. They had spent the last six weeks trying to muddle through creating a relationship out of a partnership. A romance out of a friendship... Without making things between them weird. Or weirder really.

'Look maybe Artie wasn't the best choice-' Myka snorted. 'But you've got to admit things between us aren't right.'

There was silence from Myka. Pete watched her; she was gazing out of the plane window watching clouds blow past. For a moment her face softened and she unexpectedly seemed vulnerable somehow. He felt his chest tighten. Despite having to navigate some murky water over the last six weeks the way Pete felt about Myka hadn't changed. She was still his best friend. He was still in love with her.

'Myks?'

'Pete.' She turned her eyes from the passing sky to her partner. She felt a familiar pull of butterflies in her chest as she remembered he wasn't just her partner anymore. 'I'm sorry, you're right things aren't brilliant. But it's not that I have cold feet or anything.'

'Me neither. Okay? I want this.' He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Myka's forehead.

'Maybe...' Myka shifted in her seat to face him. There was the look in her eye that meant she'd thought of something. 'Maybe... this is just something we have to figure out. We're a pretty good team. We work on tougher things than this every day. Let's just treat it like a case?'

'Yeah. That could work. Logical rational thinking.' Pete nodded grinning. Then a thought struck him. 'No artefact though, right?'

There was a pause both agents looked a little disconnected as they raced through a list of possibilities... At the same time the couple shook their heads.

'No artefact.' They shared a relieved sigh.

'So...' Pete blew out his cheeks at Myka. 'We haven't...'

'No. But we want to... right?'

'Of course! Come on Myks! Look at you I mean hot-...' Pete paused as the stewardess walked past. He lowered his voice and said- 'I want to.'

'Me too.' Myka dipped her head letting her dark curls hide her flush. Her partner watched her for a moment before reaching out and lifting her chin.

'It's not just about that though Myks. Things between us- something is just hinky. It's that I don't like.'

'Yeah... I mean sex isn't that important, some couples never have sex.' Myka saw the expression Pete tried to hide. 'I'm not suggesting it.'

'Phew!'

'It's just even if we were... doing that... I not sure... I still think something would be-'

'Hinky.'

'Yeah.' Myka leant her head onto Pete's shoulder. There was a small sigh from both of them. The plane seemed to fill up with the unspoken words.

Six weeks of muddling a partnership, friendship and long hidden emotions into a relationship... Six weeks of working out how to live in the same house, work in the same job, be in the same relationship without going insane. Yet it had felt easy. Natural even. For the first few weeks at least. Then they'd discovered the problem.

The problem as Myka thought of it seemed to sneak up on them in their quiet time together. Fooling around suddenly started to feel weird and unnatural. Watching a movie became uncomfortable. Even going for a walk turned into an argument. For no reason and they were always the sort of pointless arguments that really have no beginning, come to no specific end and have no actual substance.

Arguing with Pete used to be fun. Now with her head resting on his should as they flew into the evening the idea terrified her.

(###)

Claudia jerked awake. Where was she? What's going on? Her heart was thundering and there was a stabbing pain in her back of her head. As she straightened her neck, wincing at the clicks the young woman glanced around her. She was in Artie's office. The lights were dim across the Warehouse and her computer was sleeping itself.

'Working full time and doing college... not good idea.' She muttered forcing herself to stand up. A dark green tartan blanket slid from her shoulders: that must have been Artie.

There was the salty residue of tears on her cheeks. Ever since she'd been into Fargo's stupid computer game Claudia had been having nightmares about the institution. It made her miss Steve... she was so comfortable talking to Pete and Myka but somehow Jinks was easier to tell things to. Especially things like that... to do with that.

Pushing her hair back from her face, Claudia saw her English notes. Groaning she leaned over the computer and checked the progress of her essay. As the machine whirred into life she noticed the note from Artie- "Hey, Whizz-kid- get some actual rest! A"

The Whizz-kid's smile froze as, opening up her essay, she read the last few lines written. Glancing behind her, she suppressed a shudder. Frantically she deleted the sentences. Her thoughts were just as frantic... She knew that there were several programmes she could run to find out when those words had been written. Claudia couldn't remember how to use any of them.

Managing to remember how to get out of the essay, she hit the save button. The screen died. A second later it resurrected itself and slowly wrote out in blue letters the sentences she had painstakingly removed seconds earlier.

It was only early evening but suddenly the Warehouse felt dark. Computers were Claudia's safe place. Being a tech-y was her identity- her proudest moments were almost all hacking related. There was nothing a computer could do to scare her.

Or rather there had been nothing a computer could do to scare her.

Normally she knew every noise but now each little bleep or groan of metal cooling was hugely loud and chilling. Moving away from the computer, Claudia realised she had to get out. Turning and pulling on her jacket she ran out to the umbilical.

By the car she threw up.

Driving to the B and B she realised she was shaking violently enough to cause several near misses with street signs and mail boxes.

At Leena's, safely inside her room with both computers turned off and unplugged, Claudia felt herself relax.