#beringandwellsappreciationweek | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deathtodickens · 2 years

Text

Later.

"She has my bear."

"She has your bear," Pete confirms.

"But I have my bear."

"You sure?"

"It's in my room. I triple-checked.”

Pete shrugs. "Maybe she has a similar bear."

"I looked at her bear. It is as old as I am. It has my name on it. In my mother’s handwriting.”

Pete shrugs again. “When she wakes up, ask her where she got the bear from.”

“She looks like me."

"She looks," Pete tilts his head as he surveys the child sleeping on the B&B’s library sofa, "very purple. Why did you do that to your kid, Mykes?”

“She’s not… mine, Pete,” Myka breathes.

“But she called you mama.”

“She did call me mama. I just don’t recall having any children. Unless…”

“The table,” they say at once, horrified.

“Look. It was only half of one day before Abigail goo'ed it, there’s no way,” Pete offers. “I mean, I know the warehouse does weird things but it doesn’t just… make people.”

Myka, relieved, nods with agreeable confidence and says, “You’re right, you’re right. We need to remain logical about this.”

“Besides that, she called me Uncle Pete, not Dad Pete.”

“She called you Uncle Pete?”

“She did. Before you came along and stole all of my thunder. She called Claudia Aunt Cloudy.”

“What did she call Artie?”

Pete laughs, “She didn’t call him grandpa, that’s for sure.”

When the child is awake again, Myka asks, “What’s your name?” And at this confirmation, of Myka’s unfamiliarity with the child before her, this child before her ducks her head low and begins to cry. A quiet cry. So quiet that Myka doesn’t, at first, know she is crying. But Myka is overly familiar with the look of that cry. She knows it well because she knows it on herself. The way this child looks away. Closes her eyes. Quiets her sadness. Tries to keep it all to herself.

Myka was so much like this child when she was a child. This child is… so much like her.

“Hey,” she tries, a gentle hand below a tiny chin, lifting a teary-eyed gaze up to her own. “I’m sorry. Maybe I look a lot like your mama but I don’t have...” She thinks better of telling the crying child, who thinks herself Myka’s child, that she doesn’t have a child. Thinks better about what it might mean to reject this child in that way. At a time like this. At any time at all. “Maybe… if you tell me your full name, I can help you find your way back to her.”

The child sniffles and swallows and sits up straight, confidently, and takes in a deep breath before saying, “Sammy,” and another before correcting, “Samantha,” and then, “Christina,” and a longer pause before, finally, “Bering-Wells.”

“Bering… Wells?”

The child nods and Myka shakes her head.

“That’s not possible,” Myka tells her, then a puff of laughter, “is this... a joke? Because that’s just… it’s impossible. I haven’t seen Helena in years.” And teasing, “In what universe do she and I have a child… together?”

And the child, Samantha, Sammy, she answers with all the confidence of a child of Helena George Wells, “In mine.”

#bering and wells #endless wonder wives #beringandwellsappreciationweek #i do have a comic for all the days of this week but no guarantees they'll be posted on time #making these afterwards up as i go because otherwise i think about it too much #even this little dialogue was cut down from way too much previous writing #i'm trying okay lol

63 notes · View notes

beatricethecat2 · 2 years

Photo

Bering & Wells: Split Screen #311

#BERING AND WELLS #Warehouse 13 #split screen #Myka Bering #Helena HG Wells #I've had negative zero time to work on anything new #but I think it's #beringandwellsappreciationweek #so I'll tag it as I think this still fits #as a general B&W - not the prompt #though I don't know what day of the week it even is anymore #I've been at work so much #dw i wedi blino

60 notes · View notes

nerdsbianhokie · 2 years

Text

everyone deserves the flames but it's such a shame, such a shame

Last week or so I made a post about what fic I should work on since I had finished one, and @magicmumu2 said something for Bering and Wells appreciation week, and I had this one in the line up already, so I moved it up.

Inspired but a prompt from @dailyau : We had a really bad break up three hundred years ago, but neither of us realized the other was immortal until we meet today while shopping for groceries

You stare at the name on the screen.

It isn't possible.

It just isn't.

They wouldn't do this to you.

The Warehouse wouldn't do this to you.

"We should go see if Leena can find anything about this," Pete said.

You nod. You follow him back, barely responding to his confused comments about the turn of events.

He doesn't seem to notice your distraction.

Or, maybe he does. You can feel Leena's concern at your state when you enter the office, but Pete cuts in.

"She's processing. Not every day you learn your hero has been bronzed."

But H.G. Wells isn't your hero.

H.G. Wells is so much more.

:readmore:

You should tell them, tell them everything you know.

It's important information.

It could be vital to finding MacPherson.

You can’t even put the words together in your head.

Instead, you retreat to the library, to the first editions of the stories you know so well.

They have been your closest comfort the past century.

Your only comfort, really.

The library settles you.

It is your place.

The way the Warehouse itself is Irene.

The way the B&B is Leena.

This library is you.

The words swirl around you and the smell of centuries settle into your nerves.

You have a plan.

When you return to the office, carrying a pile of books as a vaguely weak, but very Myka reason to have been away, Pete finds the news of the break in at the H.G. Wells house.

You should tell them.

You don't.

You have a plan.

You sleep over the Atlantic and dream of dark eyes and soft touches and stolen moments.

The H.G. Wells house is almost exactly as you remember.

The London street around it has changed with the times, but the house itself is the same.

You almost expect to hear small feet running upstairs, almost expect to smell that specific blend of tea, almost expect to turn a corner and see…

“Myka?”

You grab her hand - for the first time in one hundred and eleven years your hand feels right - and pull her through another room and into one blocked off by a rope.

The sitting room.

You flash back to you and her and Charles and Christina and so many others.

“Myka?” she says again.

“Hi, Helena,” you say.

It is a bit anticlimactic, after how long it had been, after how angry your last words to her were, that all you can say is ‘hi’.

“How are you…” She raises one hand to touch your cheek, but curls her fingers into a fist and pulls away. “You’re alive.”

You nod. “I can explain later, I promise, but I need you to come with us.”

She stares at you, inspecting your face. “You’re still with the Warehouse.”

Of course you are. You can never leave the Warehouse. You are a part of it.

She doesn’t know that.

You never had a chance to tell her.

Her face goes blank in the way that you know means she is furious. She steps towards you.

“You’re still with the Warehouse and you never bothered to…”

You have always been able to know what she’s thinking, just as she has always known the same for you.

You never bothered to unbronze her.

But you didn’t know she was there.

“They told me you died,” you say.

She softens.

“Myka! What’re you doing?”

Pete.

Goddamnit.

“Pete,” you say. “Meet Helena George Wells.”

“Helena George… as in H.G.? H.G. Wells? I may not have read his books, but I'm pretty sure H.G. Wells is a man.”

You ignore him.

“Come with us,” you say to Helena. “Please. We can figure it out, but MacPherson is not a good person.”

“Yeah,” Pete jumps in. “He’s already tried to kill me and Myka.”

Anger flashes across Helena’s face and you know she’ll come with you. You know she won’t work with anybody who put you in danger.

You’ll have to explain to Pete and Claudia how you know her.

You’ll have to explain to her how you’re alive.

You’ll have to come to terms that she didn’t die. She didn’t die and has been in the Warehouse for the past century.

And you didn’t know.

#bering and wells #beringandwellsappreciationweek #myka bering #Helena Wells #my fic

48 notes · View notes

apparitionism · 2 years

Text

Appreciation 4

“All the AUs”... I’ve written a few, and they always make me recall words from Elaine Scarry that I used in an essay about such things a while ago: “Beauty brings copies of itself into being.” An AU is a particular sort of copy, one that may be wildly inflectionary... also I personally prefer AUs, much of the time, because I think Joanne Kelly and Jaime Murray would be well served by appearing together in non-Warehouse contexts that make use of their sparking magic.

This fourth stave of appreciation follows “Architecture,” “Bridge,” and “Worry.”

House

Elizabeth Bishop, “Sestina.” New Yorker 15 Sept. 1956: 46.

With crayons the child draws a rigid house / and a winding pathway.

****

Myka Bering is selling her house. She has lived in it for two years, but it is simply the wrong space, and its wrongness has become too much to bear.

When she conveys her decision to her friend (and real estate agent) Pete Lattimer, he says, with gloom, “And you blame me because I sold you the house in the first place. And because I sold you on the house. Because I said I had a feeling.”

Myka assures him this shouldn’t be his worry; the house just didn’t work out. On the other hand, she doesn’t tell him that she’s disappointed, even though she is. It isn’t that she really believes that any feeling Pete has is really some communication of real meaning, something from elsewhere... but he’s in the past had an uncanny ability to steer himself and his friends toward productive choices.

But, okay, not this time.

Pete concedes it’s a good time to sell: “Hot market,” he tells Myka.

“You just like saying ‘hot,’” she accuses, and he grins.

****

Barely seventy-two hours after he lists the house, he shows up at her door—but she’s trying to stop thinking of it as “her” door—and announces with glee, “You got a love letter.”

She can’t have heard him right. “I got a what?”

“From a buyer. Saying how much they love the house so you should pick their offer. Toldya the market was hot.”

“Is that a thing?” she asks. She certainty didn’t write a letter to the previous owner of this place; everything was very straightforward: offer, escrow, inspection, close.

“Huge thing in markets that are hot.” He repeats it, “Hot hot hot!”, and giggles. “Kind of a sliding scale of realness to ’em though—you get your flippers pretending they’re gonna take such good care of the place all the way to people so, like, heartfelt, you just want to hand over the keys on the spot. Normally I wouldn’t even show it to you.”

“But?”

He shrinks back a little from the threshold, like a cowed vampire. “You’ll hate me, but I got a feeling.”

Myka sighs. “Hand it over.”

“I gotta be up front about this,” he tells her, not quite apologetically. “You’ll get multiple offers. Some’ll be better than this one.”

“Don’t tease me with a feeling and then wimp out. Hand it over.”

“Promise not to blame me if you leave money on the table?”

She laughs. “Are you insane? No.”

“Fair,” he says. He places in her hand a creamy envelope addressed simply to “Myka Bering.” Then he waggles his fingers in goodbye and scoots away, as if the faster he moves, the lesser the consequences.

****

The letter is written in a precise, not-quite-cursive hand.

Dear Ms. Bering,

A letter such as this may be viewed as manipulative, my Realtor tells me; she tells me also, however, that they can succeed in influencing a sale. I do want to influence you, for I would very much like to buy your house. No, I should be more specific: I feel that I need to buy your house, so that my child and I can live in it.

Allow me to explain. My mother, with whom we have lived since Christina was born, passed away some months ago, and due to difficulties with the estate, her house had to be sold. We are thus both contending with loss, but Christina more so than I: not only of her grandmother, but also of her only home.

We’re seeking a bridge—from our previous life to a new one, from grief to... I’d say “acceptance,” but neither of us is yet able to imagine that such a state exists.

And yet in this house—your house—I feel a difference. It may not be the right difference; that, only time can reveal. But Christina asked me, upon walking in, “How does this one make you feel? Do you feel okay?” and I had to acknowledge that I did, while adding a caveat that I was unsure what “okay” meant in the present moment. I asked her the same question, and she answered, “It makes me feel like I know what okay means in the present moment.”

At that, Myka has to stop reading, because it is exactly what she’d hoped for, in this house, and exactly what had eluded her.

That may seem a bit koan-esque, but the fact of the matter is, Christina is seven years old and far wiser than I.

Apparently I needed a seven-year-old around to tell me what was what, Myka thinks.

In conclusion, lest you think my feelings about your house are entirely metaphysical: the kitchen, to my eyes, is a marvel. The available information indicates it is your remodel, and I applaud your choices, as does Christina. She said, and I quote, “I like the stove. It looks new. The right kind of new. Like someday it will be old.”

Forgive me for turning to her words again, but I find them more meaningful than my own, and I hope you will as well. Or is it evidence only of further attempted manipulation?

If so, I hope it works.

Sincerely (if that doesn’t, in context, seem too much of an oxymoron),

Helena Wells

****

Myka calls Pete. “Is the offer reasonable?” she asks. “The one with the letter?”

“I guess. But like I said, you’ll get—”

“Still got your feeling?”

“Why are you making me say it? Yeah, I still got my feeling.”

“Feel anything about my Viking stove?”

“I feel like I was right to tell you to pay through the nose for it when you redid the kitchen, because it fits the architecture so pretty. Better than anything cheaped-out would’ve. I also feel like you used it that one time to cook—well, ‘cook’—that Thanksgiving turkey till we all could’ve used it to play touch football in the backyard and had to order pizza for dinner. And then I feel like you never used it again. I could be wrong, but I hope not.”

Myka would like to be able to be mad at him about the Thanksgiving description, but he’s entirely right. About all of it. “Take the offer,” she tells him. “I think I know why you had your feeling, first about me buying this place and then about the letter: they need this house.”

****

In addition to her little-used (but extremely aesthetically pleasing) Viking stove, Myka leaves for Helena Wells and her daughter another item she hopes will be of interest: the small almanac she discovered in the attic some months after moving in. It belongs to the house, not to her.

It’s a 1911 facsimile of Poor Robin’s almanac, published by Ben Franklin’s older brother James. (Myka of course researched its provenance.) It proclaims itself to be “The Rhode-Island almanack. For the year, 1728. Being bissextile, or leap-year.”

She determines she should leave a note in the homely little book: her own “love letter,” as it were, to the almanac itself, to the house, and to its new inhabitants. She’s not quite sure what to say, given that she doesn’t need to persuade anyone of anything... It’s just a document of existence, she tells herself, so she tries to write some things that are true.

Dear Helena and Christina Wells,

It’s only fair that I answer your letter, given that it’s why you’re here. First, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m thankful that this house was here when you needed it, certainly at first, and if this letter finds you settled in the way you want to be, I’m of course even happier.

I’m glad also that you’ve now come across this almanac, which has clearly lived in the attic here for some time. It captivated me from the moment I saw it, mostly because its title taught me a new word, and I love anything that can do that.

You’ll notice that the pages are worn. That’s not my doing, but I did think it was a little strange that a reprint, not even the original useful thing, was so handled.

Then again, once you fight through the colonial typography and spelling, there’s a lot of useful guidance. For example, here’s October’s instruction: “Now button your Garments close, for the Cold comes insensibly, and oft times begets a whole Winter’s Cold. Consult your Taylors as well as Physicians.” Which reminds me to warn you—or maybe you’ve already discovered—that even though I added more insulation, there’s some draftiness, so around October, the warmth of your Garments will come to seem pretty important.

There are also some lovely natural-world auguries. Here’s my favorite: “When the Owl scrietcheth in foul weather, it is a Token of fair weather at Hand.” I have to admit I’ve never heard an owl around here, but ever since I read that, I’ve felt myself hoping, when storms come. As they do.

Whatever would signify fair weather for you two, I hope you hear it in this house.

Sincerely,

Myka Bering

P.S. I’m envisioning you using the stove, insofar as I can envision people I’ve never seen, and I think it’s very happy to be used. I think it wants to grow old that way.

****

Some months later, Myka picks up a call from Pete. She lives in an apartment now, a generic space that isn’t right but at the very least isn’t wrong.

“I know you’re sick of hearing this,” he starts, then stops.

“What am I sick of hearing?”

“A feeling...”

Great. Just what she needs. But she’d better let him tell her, or he’ll keep bugging her... either that, or he’ll burst. “Fine. What’s it about?”

“Did you put a note in a place?”

“Did I what?”

“Note. Place. You. Putting.”

“I heard what you said. What are you talking about?”

What follows is a convoluted story of a Realtor who contacted him “because the lady who bought your house found a note that you left and now she wants to get in touch but she thinks that might be intrusive or aggressive or something so she wants to make sure you’re okay with it but anyway what note are we talking about and why do I have this feeling?”

Well. “I don’t know about your feeling,” Myka says. “But I did leave a note. In the almanac.”

“Is that some secret code? Is the note in code? What do you want me to say?”

Myka, who has a feeling of her own, tells him, “I want you to say yes.”

****

In retrospect, her feeling was justified, for when she and Helena Wells met, on the threshold of that house in which Myka felt wrong, they fell into what seemed to be a predestined exchange.

Helena Wells said, “It’s October.”

“Are you keeping your garments buttoned close?” Myka asked.

“On good advice, we are.”

That was all, for their first words, as time slowed... as they both stopped, as if in agreement to be conscious of that slowing, to ponder its meaning, to accept its novelty.

Then, a small voice from behind Helena said, “We made an apple pie.” Then Christina Wells emerged, positioning herself next to her mother, albeit a ghost-width behind.

All three of them in the doorway: waiting. Liminal.

“How’s the stove working out?” Myka asked at last.

“It didn’t burn the pie,” Christina said.

“It would have if I’d made it,” Myka said. “I guess it likes you.”

Christina considered. “Or pie.”

More silence, while two pairs of Wells eyes scrutinized Myka. Inspection. Due diligence. “Any owls yet?” she tried, after a time.

“Maybe,” Christina said.

And Helena said, “Come inside.”

So Myka did.

****

After they had shared apple pie in the kitchen next to the happier stove, after Myka’s time in the house had stretched such that taking her leave felt embarrassingly overdue, after she stood and made I-should-go noises, Helena asked, “Will you come back?”

And Myka once again said yes.

Not twenty-four hours later, she did go back, for Helena texted her: “I want to teach you a new word.”

When Myka arrived, Helena asked, “What were we to listen for the owl to do?”

“Screech,” Myka said.

“That’s the word,” Helena said.

“That isn’t new,” Myka told her. Was that the right thing to have said?

“It is for us.” And Helena took Myka’s hand—not their first touch, but their first to augur of more—and drew her in.

****

Pete’s feelings. How many tears of gratitude has Myka shed for them, for the way they have bestowed such beautiful contours upon her life? Many, but she’ll never tell him; he’d be embarrassed. But she has said the words “thank you” more times than either of them are comfortable with.

She’s said them to Helena too, of course, and even more often.

“It’ll appreciate,” Pete had originally said of the house’s value.

He was right.

END

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Appreciation #House #Bishop's Sestina is a true exemplar of the form #then again anything by Bishop is an exemplar of itself alone #reflecting and embodying her singular gifts #and she'd without question be appalled by my miserable attempt at tribute #anyway the book mentioned herein is real #a fact of which I hope there could be no doubt #beringandwellsappreciationweek #day 4

37 notes · View notes

anandabrat · 2 years

Text

Found

For the final day of Bering and Wells Appreciation Week - free choice.

As mentioned earlier this week, I'm on a road trip. I turned over a little striped stone on a beach, and as it turned out, there was a story hiding under it.

Found

Helena finds the box way in the back of the bedroom closet.

It’s behind the Christmas tree ornaments, behind the box labeled in Myka’s careful handwriting ‘Tax Receipts ’31-'38,’ underneath Helena’s bound Master’s thesis and two photo albums. Still further back, trapped against the wall, is Myka’s father’s manuscript, yellowed and dusty, still sealed with a twine bow as it was when Myka’s mother passed it on to her.

Helena pulls the box down, climbs down the stepladder carefully, brings it into better light, by the window. It’s not much larger than a shoebox, and shallower; made of jointed wood, polished once upon a time. Now it's dusty, just along one edge, where it didn't line up with the books that covered it.

Helena doesn’t open the box. Finding something she doesn’t recognize in her own room is such a novelty. An unexpected surprise in the midst of her recent days, which have been full of discussions and low-grade arguments and half-empty boxes labeled “donate” or “toss.” A kitchen table of careful piles of who might want to keep what. There won’t be room in the new house for everything they’ve gathered in this one.

Helena doesn’t open it, but curiosity compels her to leave the bedroom, box in hand, weave her way through larger, cardboard boxes dotting the hall, and down to the living room, where Myka is folding laundry and humming absently to herself.

“Myka, love? Is this yours?” Helena holds it out for her to see.

Curiosity brought Helena to Myka; now anticipation tugs at her while Myka finishes folding a towel, as she flattens it down neatly, as she holds out her hands and Helena passes the box to her.

Myka looks down and cocks her head in that way that always brings at least the beginnings of a smile to Helena’s lips, no matter what the circumstance. It doesn’t matter what holds Myka’s attention. That look of interest, of inquiry, of examination – Helena can’t get enough of it, and probably never will.

“Hmm,” Myka says, after a beat. “I’m not sure. Should I know it?”

“I don’t know.” Helena shakes her head slightly. “It was in the back of the closet. I’ve never seen it before. Shall we open it, then?”

Myka is already doing so, her fingers finding the lip of the box and pulling upward gently. It opens soundlessly, though Myka draws in a breath as she looks inside. She puts a hand out behind her, finding the arm of their sofa without looking and sitting down carefully. Helena peers down curiously, tilting her head to the side to see around Myka’s grey halo of curls.

What meets her eyes only fills her with more curiosity: there are, perhaps, two dozen objects scattered on a piece of creamy satin glued to the inside. Pebbles. A feather. A dried flower. A piece of paper, or two. A faded bit of cloth. Nothing that she recognizes immediately. And when she brings her eyes up to Myka’s face, possibly nothing that Myka recognizes, either.

(Though that isn’t so surprising: Myka’s memory is not what it used to be. She still knows Helena, of course. And Claudia, when she stops by. She recognizes Steve, and their neighbors. She keeps their houseplants alive, and she still quotes long passages of her favorite stories, word for word.

But Helena sees her blink once, twice, trying, where once there was no need. Helena would never draw attention to it, just as Myka would never point out what’s changed, what’s been lost to Helena, either. Myka didn't say a word when Helena tripped on the steps twice in a week coming home from their morning walk. Helena just came home, one day, groceries in hand, to find Steve’s son putting in a handrail on their front porch stairs, and as she unpacked them, another one on the steps down to the garden while he was at it.)

Myka has been staring down at the contents of the box for what feels like an eon to Helena’s anxious heart, when she suddenly lets out a little bark of laughter and reaches down for a stone.

“Helena. You should remember this!” Myka’s voice is filled with amusement. Helena sinks down next to her and holds out her hand. Myka’s fingertips brush Helena's when she lets the stone go. Helena lets it slide into the palm of her hand. It’s smooth to her touch, flat and rounded on three sides, about the size of a penny, with a black mark through the center of it.

“I should? It is lovely…” Helena turns it over again, noting that the black mark extends all the way around.

“You gave it to me, Helena. Let’s see, it was… twenty-thirty-three. Yes. April. We were at Moonstone Beach, in California, and it was nearly high tide, foggy and windy. You kept complaining about your hair in your face, but you wouldn’t take one of my elastics. You had on my jacket, I remember, because you’d ruined yours in the retrieval, and so then I was shivery. You put your arm around me, and then you said, ‘oh look, Myka, a lucky stone,’ and bent to pick this up. You told me that finding a stone with a ring all around it meant good fortune, and then you told me that despite it sounding like a myth it was in actual fact true, because you were extremely lucky. And you kissed me in the fog and you had mist all in your eyelashes and you were so beautiful, Helena – so beautiful. I’ll never forget it. And I put this stone in my pocket and I kept it until we got home, and then… then I put it in my Helena box.”

Myka’s eyes light up and she tugs the box closer to her, both hands curling underneath, cradling it to her chest carefully. “That’s what this is. This is my Helena box!”

Helena finds that her throat’s closed nearly entirely. “Your… your Helena box?”

“Yes!” Myka carefully plucks a papery, rusty red flower out and places it gently in Helena’s hand, next to the stone. “Look – here’s the rose you gave me at Claudia’s wedding. I’m pretty sure you stole it right out of her bouquet, but you would never confess to that.”

Helena grins. “I remember that day. I did take it, but it was after the ceremony, so I’m reasonably certain it was fair game. And it was lucky as well, in my opinion.”

Myka leans over and kisses Helena on the cheek. “Silly. That wasn’t luck. You didn’t need any luck.”

“Courage, then, perhaps.”

“Like I would ever have said no.” Myka leans into Helena, tucking her head into the crook of her neck as Helena snakes an arm around Myka’s shoulder, a gesture performed so many times it’s become seamless, nearly unconscious.

They stay that way, until Myka suddenly straightens up and picks out another stone, this one dark grey and utterly without features. She holds it up between two fingers towards Helena, her smile gleeful. “Look, here’s a stone from the path to our first apartment – you remember that place, right?”

“Our Escape Hatch? Of course I do. I don’t remember the path having stones, though.”

“It didn’t, really. I found this one on the concrete one day and it seemed fortuitous.”

Helena spies something yellow and square underneath a crow’s feather, and her breath catches as she spots her own handwriting. “May I?”

Myka nods.

Helena peels the piece of paper away from the bottom. “Myka, you kept this? But this was long before…”

“Before us? Yes. I don’t know. I can’t explain why. I had… a feeling? I called it evidence at the time, of course. But I didn’t put it in your file, I hid it in my copy of The Invisible Man and pretended I forgot about it.”

Myka picks up a scalloped shell next, then the feather. They sit for hours, until the late afternoon sun slants through the window, shining through Myka’s hair and filling the room with warm pools of light. Myka tells Helena a story for every object in the box, until there’s only one left, one that had been hiding underneath one of Helena’s treasured pocket handkerchiefs.

They both stare at it.

“Well now, Helena, there’s no way at all you don’t remember where this came from.”

“No.” Helena replies quietly. “This one, I know.”

“Well then. I’ve been doing all the talking. Your turn to tell me a story, H.G. Wells.”

Helena smiles at Myka, then carefully, lovingly, replaces each item she’s holding in her hands back to where they belong. Only then does she reach back among them and pull out the loop of wire. It’s striped blue and white, darkened from oil along the inside, with a twist of copper where the join is.

“One day, Myka, one day a long, long time ago, you came into my lab at the Warehouse. It was quite late, and you had only just returned from a retrieval. I had been up for far too long, because even then I didn’t sleep well when you were away – ah. Perhaps you didn’t know that?” The amused look on Myka’s face confirms Helena’s hypothesis. “Well. Anyway, darling, you sat across from me, pulled yourself right up on a table amongst all my bits and pieces, and you were so tired and upset. The retrieval hadn’t gone well at all, and you felt responsible - of course you did, you always did – for the trauma you’d caused a couple whilst doing your job. They’d been separated as an effect from the artifact for days before you could reunite them. And you told me how they’d been so relieved to be back together, how they’d cried and held onto each other like they hadn’t seen each other in years. And you asked me, possibly rhetorically, if anyone would ever miss you that way. If you’d ever know what it was to be wanted, needed in that way.”

Myka nods. “I was… well, you know. The job can get to you. Not just in the moment, but.. and all the examples I had. Crazy, evil, or dead, right?”

“Yes, absolutely. So there you were, and there I was, and I couldn’t not say it. I told you that I would miss you that way, if you’d let me. And you looked up at me, and said, ‘really?’ with this catch in your voice. And I told you, ‘yes really,’ and I stepped in, and -”

“And you kissed me.” Myka’s face is warm, peaceful, joyous.

“…and I kissed you. I thought this one was mine to tell?”

“Sorry. Sorry. I just like this part a lot.”

“So do I, love. I kissed you, and then I stepped back, and I was about to say something very silly like, ‘I beg your pardon, I don’t know what came over me,’ but I didn’t get a chance, because you grabbed me and pulled me back to you, and then you kissed me.”

Helena pauses, and holds out her spare hand for Myka, who grabs it firmly and laces her fingers through Helena’s. “Then, you stepped back, Myka my darling, and you said, ‘but how do I know you mean it’? And I told you, ‘you can’t, not today, but I’ll show you, every day until you know that I do,’ and I reached over and grabbed this piece of wire and I put it around your wrist. ‘It’s no ring, and even I know that it's moving ludicrously fast,’ I told you then, ‘but it is nice to have something to look at when you’re not sure. So perhaps this will do for now.’”

Helena pauses. “But Myka, I always wondered what happened to this – if you thought it was just too unspeakably corny, or an overstep, or not enough. I haven’t seen this wire since the day I gave it to you.”

Myka shakes her head. “No, it was none of those things. I wanted to believe you, Helena. But I couldn’t just leave it… wearing it out in the world felt like a declaration. And I wasn’t ready for that, you know? So I kept it in my room, and I took it out and I wore it sometimes, just for myself, and then, one day I didn’t need it anymore. Because you did show me, even if it took me a while to let myself believe it. And the day I realized I didn’t need this anymore was the day I started the Helena box.”

Myka stands suddenly, then, and blinks hard, determinedly. “Well then, Helena. Where do we sort this box? Do we donate it?” She says it lightly, as if they’re talking about extra dish towels, and makes her way to the kitchen table. ”Should we give it to a friend?”

Helena rises, crosses to tuck herself in behind Myka, arms folding around her. “I know you’re teasing - but it’s your box. Where would you like it to go?”

They stand together in their home, the real home they built together over many years. Over family dinners and late night movies and baking. Over arguments and tears and deep hurts, and then reconciliations and apologies and kisses. Helena wishes she couldn’t count the number of days they still have in it, even as she knows the new place they’ve chosen is better in many ways. Closer to people who care for them - Claudia and her partner are right down the street. Steve's son and his family are only a mile away. It’s practical. And wherever Myka is, Helena will be home. Still.

Myka turns around, still in Helena’s embrace, and now tears stand in her eyes. “You.”

Helena jolts from her musings. “Me, what?”

“I would like this box to go with you. And the next time we find it, you tell me the stories. In case I… just in case. Can you do that for me?”

Helena drops her hands and takes the box from Myka carefully. Reverently. “I can do that, my love. My darling. Oh, Myka. It's going to be alright.” The box finds its way to a clear bit of table, and Helena’s arms are back around Myka.

“I just worry,” Myka chokes out. “I worry that I’ll get lost, you know? I’ll get lost if I don’t know where I’ve been anymore.”

“You won’t get lost. I’ll be here.” Helena softly kisses Myka’s cheeks, her lips, runs her fingers through Myka’s hair. “I’ll tell you where you’ve been – where we’ve been. Anytime you need. I promise.”

#beringandwellsappreciationweek #bering and wells #warehouse 13 #myka bering #helena wells #my fic

43 notes · View notes

julieverne · 2 years

Text

Helena looked up from the counter. She was back again - the woman she'd seen here every day for weeks, sometimes in scrubs, sometimes in high-vis. She was always in a rush, always just wanted a coffee - black, no sugar.

She seemed stressed, and every day Helena put a cookie on top of the coffee, in case she didn't have time to eat.

She was here with a man, this time. He was a fireman who'd been here before, both of them in jeans and shirts today, and he was talking relentlessly, and Helena felt a stab of jealousy. She saw Myka - she wrote the name reverently on the coffee cup each day - grimace at something he said. She'd already started the pour, having to move it into a mug when Myka asked for dine-in service. She slid the cookie onto the saucer, pulling a caramel frappuccino for Pete, along with a slice of cake.

It looked like a date, and Myka looked like she'd rather be anywhere else. Pete kept offering her bites of cake.

"I don't like sweets," Helena overheard Myka say a little too loudly, and she blushed with embarrassment. For weeks she'd been slipping her cookies, and she didn't even like them.

"But you're eating a cookie," Pete pointed out. Myka dipped it into her black coffee.

"It's salty oatmeal, and it's bitter with the coffee," Myka said, and she looked up at the counter, and Helena had to hide the instinct to duck, caught out, caught in that friendly gaze.

"They never give me cookies," Pete grumbled, and Myka looked up at Helena again.

"I think it's a special? With the Americano."

"Isn't that bitter?" Pete asked, making a face.

"I'm a neurosurgeon. I need the kick."

Pete looked down at a device on his pants. "I need to get back to the hospital," he said, standing. He grumbled and shoveled the cake in his face, and Myka grimaced again, watching as he walked away. She went to the counter.

"Can I please get the rest of this to take away?" Myka asked. "And I can't see the oatmeal on the menu - could I get another please?"

"They're... they're not on the menu. I make them while I'm studying."

"What are you studying?" Myka asked, glossing over the fact that Helena had been smuggling her homemade goods for weeks - months.

"Electrical engineering," Helena said, transferring the coffee and topping up the takeaway cup.

"Is that where you," Myka gestured to the burn on Helena's arm.

"Oh! Oh, no, that's from the oven here. I always forget..."

"If you ever need a doctor..." Myka said, raising an eyebrow.

"A neurosurgeon doesn't look at burns."

"So you were listening," Myka's eyebrow raised again. "Why do you bring me cookies?"

"I... uh... I find the cookies here, the food here in America too sweet. Sugar in everything. So I made something comforting to bring in on my shifts. To remind me of home. I noticed, when you came in, you looked hungry, but you didn't pick anything to eat. I had a spare..."

"They're perfect. Um. I'm." Myka watched as Helena pulled a small baggie from a handbag. "Oh! No, I didn't mean to..."

"I make them for you," Helena said, biting her bottom lip, letting it go reluctantly, putting the cookie on the takeaway mug. Every night she baked cookies, she thought of the little, pleased smile on Myka's face the first time she'd given her one. The smell of oatmeal cookies baking made her blush. "I make them for me," Helena blurted out. "But I always make sure I make some for you, too."

"I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"That's sad," Helena said without thinking. "I mean, it's just a cookie." Helena looked up reluctantly, and Myka was smiling down at her kindly.

"It's not just a cookie to me," Myka said. "It's thoughtful. And it's sweet. I don't normally like sweet, but from you..." Myka looked away, bit her own lip. "I know you're probably just being nice because you're at work, and even if I... I'll miss the oatmeal cookies if you... Um. Here's my number." Myka slid a card across the counter. "You don't have to call..."

"I do," Helena said without thinking. "I mean, I will." She was sure the blush on her face must match Myka's, but Myka's eyes were shining, and she was smiling.

"Good," Myka said, looking down at the device on her belt. She sighed. "I have to go back to the hospital, but I look very much forward to your call."

Helena nodded, swallowing, dusting down her apron.

"Delicious," Myka said, taking a bite of the cookie, but eyeing Helena instead.

---

Day 4 of Bering and Wells appreciation week: AU.

I've never written an AU; this was fun.

#beringandwellsappreciationweek #bering and wells #bering & wells #otp: bering and wells #myka bering #helena g wells

33 notes · View notes

galactic-pirates · 2 years

Photo

This is your one week reminder :)

September 19th - 25th

Prompts/Days:

Day 1 (Monday 19th): Dancing Day 2 (Tuesday 20th): General Family Vibes Day 3 (Wednesday 21st): Culture / Holidays / Anniversaries / Special Occasions Day 4 (Thursday 22nd): All the AU’s! (e.g. Road Trip, Fake dating, or anything you want) Day 5 (Friday 23rd): Apples / Warehouse Shenanigans Day 6 (Saturday 24th): Myka and/or HG as parents/in a parental role Day 7 (Sunday 25th): Free Choice

Some notes (and if you have more questions feel free to ask):

You can contribute anyway you please: gifs, edits, fanart, fics, videos, fanmixes, metas, other fan things I’ve forgotten to mention etc.

You can just contribute once and not do the other days, you can do multiple things in a day and everywhere in between. You don’t have to post it on the exact day, if you are late we’ll still love it so please still share. You also don’t have to make anything at all and just reblog and enjoy. Whatever is cool, just have fun :)

I hope that the prompts are broad enough to inspire and will also work for a variety of media. You can merge the prompts together or use them in any direction you choose (so unrelated to whatever the other prompt is). It’s whatever inspires you. I want this to be as inclusive as possible, so if people want to take part they can.

Tag your work with #beringandwellsappreciationweek as well as the usual tags so we can all find it and enjoy it.

Please reblog this post to signal boost.

#bering and wells #bering & wells #Warehouse 13 #beringandwellsappreciationweek #W13 #WH13 #joanne kelly #Jaime Murray #Myka Bering #hg wells #helena wells #helena x myka #angst and pain #otp: I believed in you and I was right

108 notes · View notes

taikoturtle · 2 years

Photo

Bering and Wells Appreciation Week 2022 - Day 4: AU

HG Wells is an illusive thief who always seems to be one step ahead of Agent Myka Bering and though this game of cat and mouse proves to be endlessly frustrating for the ace detective, she can’t help but find herself enjoying the thrill of the chase.

#bering and wells #warehouse 13 #myka bering #hg wells #beringandwellsappreciationweek #Thief AU #this feels kind of carmen sandiego lol #myedit

123 notes · View notes

purlturtle · 2 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Warehouse 13 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells Characters: Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells Additional Tags: bering and wells appreciation week, day one - dancing, Ginger and Fred, Canon Compliant, Fluff, (bring your own angst)

This is my contribution to this year's Bering and Wells Appreciation Week! Day One's prompt was "dancing", and I've always wanted to write something a little Ginger and Fred for them.

---

There is art for this too! A commission by @valerisalo - isn’t it gorgeous?! I’m so in love with it!!

(ID: Leyendecker style digital painting of Helena and Myka dancing; Helena is in front in a green dress, Myka behind her in a black tux and white tie. Helena looks up at Myka; Myka's eyes are closed and she's smiling slightly.)

#bering and wells #warehouse 13 #beringandwellsappreciationweek #my fic #fic with art

27 notes · View notes

lonely-night · 2 years

Photo

Bering and Wells Appreciation Week

>> Day 4 (Thursday 22nd): All the AU’s

>> Day 6 (Saturday 24th): Myka and/or HG as parents/in a parental role

warehouse 13 x stranger things:

An artifact sent Max Mayfield from the 1980s to current Warehouse timeline (post-season 4). At first the regents pointed Helena as Max’s guardian, much to her dismay. Helena was good with children, not moody teenagers. When Helena and Max moved nearby the Warehouse instead of living in New York, Helena and Myka became co-parents to Max.

30k, slow burn, mutual pining, found family feels, angst with a happy ending

#bering and wells #beringandwellsappreciationweek #bw appreciation week #warehouse verse madness #warehouse x stranger things #bwedit #i've headcanon this before #now i just want visual skjdgfkjdshk

58 notes · View notes

lilolilyr · 2 years

Text

(readmore cuts off here btw)

Sources + some other versions of my moodboards for the Bering&Wells meets S.H.I.E.L.D AU, plus a bit of background info! Made for the AU day of beringandwellsappreciationweek, thanks for the idea @galactic-pirates ! :D

I like the above one best because it's just aesthetically pleasing idk xD but it cuts through the w14 image in a kind of weird way because I used the long 1×3 pic on purpose for that so... Didn't turn out to be my final selection bc of that, but it gets the place of honour here!

A bit about the AU:

Honestly, I don't have any clear cut thoughts on this, just many ideas that even contradict each other in parts... Which is why I probably won't write an actual fic for this, but if someone else feels inspired by my idea, feel free to adopt it for yourself!

>>> I'm leaning towards it being a merge instead of a crossover, so warehouse personell in a Marvel-y world, not characters from both worlds. They're still Warehouse Agents, they just have the helicarrier instead of Univille! Or perhaps both, the 'carrier as a mobile unit and the Warehouse to store the masses of artefacts?

If we're vaguely replacing SHIELD characters with Warehouse ones, I think Artie would be the leader (Coulson), Claudia of course the hacker (Skye), Mrs F is Fury... that's where it stops making sense to replace anyone directly

Both Myka and HG work but don't really work as the the pilot and fighter (May), Helena because of Slightly Unhinged vibes, Myka because she could be reluctant to go back in the field after Sam dies on her watch, so she'd have that in common with May... H.G. of course works better as a scientist, but from characteristics she doesn't have a lot in common with the SHIELD ones

>>> On the other hand, a X-over would also be fun!

For starters, Mrs F and Fury and the Regents and the WSC just clashing adsfghjkl

Pete and Tony Stark either getting on great or absolutely despising each other!

Oh, and if we're rly making it Marvel/MCU with all the Avengers characters, Nat and Myka could exchange fighting tips, Clint would steal Helena's grappler to improve an arrow design...

Skye and Claudia would definitely take over the world via computer!

HG could meet Captain America, and bemoan the way they are lost in time together!

>>> Though that brings me to the question: are the Warehouse characters identical to canon, or do their backstories change? I don't want to take Helena's backstory away entirely, she wouldn't be herself if she was just a modern sci-fi woman without the jump forward in time. But maybe she is the equivalent of Captain America in this merge?

Also, I can't decide whether SHIELD should actually exist in some way, or just be replaced by the Warehouse... In canon, it more or less belongs to the FBI, so in this AU the Warehouse could be an even more secret division of the already super secret S.H.I.E.L.D. agency xD

>>> The helicarrier is also definitely problematic (not going into how MCU is problematic in so many ways anyway, bc then we'd still be here tomorrow lol), and I can see the Warehouse regents misusing that power, and that leading to conflict...

More moodboard variants:

This one I also like, kind of more grunge, dark aesthetic... Looks less techy and more like a steampunk-y sci-fi world still in the dangers of an invasion imo

Also I hadn't turned Myka's image yet, and while the original with Maria Hill looks fine as is, somehow the manip just looks weird without tilting her more upright

Aaand a long one:

Image sources:

Myka

Helena

Myka's body (Maria Hill) & background

Helena's background

W13 font

Helicarrier background image

Helicarrier

Warehouse shelves

Warehouse

Warehouse logo

All edits by me :)

If you also want to use SHIELD!Myka and Helena on the Helicarrier, here are the full pics, just credit me/this post if you use them!

I'm pretty sure I still don't have a W13 tag list? On the other hand I actually have a Bering and Wells sideblog @hgwellsmykabering , so if you follow that one you'll probably get all my content anyway :D if someone still wants to get tagged when I post new W13 things, just let me know!

#my post #beringandwellsappreciationweek #my w13 #bering and wells #warehouse 13 #marvel #warehouse 13 crossover #marvel fusion #my marvel #my agents of shield #mine #lilo makes moodboards #w13 moodboard #bering and wells appreciation week #Bering and wells moodboard #marvel moodboard #lilo edits #lilo creates #galactic-pirates

31 notes · View notes