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Chapter Text

Loid’s luck always seemed to run out when he let his guard down.

The Berlint Golden Funfair was supposed to be the perfect opportunity for the Forger Family to get closer with each other, as well as appear in public as a healthy family unit. It wasn’t exactly upper-crust entertainment, but Anya saw a poster for it in the supermarket the previous week and begged to go and…well…Loid Forger was still trying to figure out how a child’s puppy dog eyes could be so effective in persuasion. Or maybe it was just the effect she had on him specifically; after all, his heart had flipped in a similar way once they arrived at the gates, paid for their entry tickets, and he saw both her eyes and her smile widen at the sight of all the attractions. He was lucky that Yor was fast enough to keep up with the little girl as she bounced from the balloon stand to the bean bag toss stall to the ring toss stall (where she managed to, somehow, win a small stuffed dog prize that he was sure would end up in Bond’s mouth by the end of the night).

Yor tried her hand at a strength tester game as well, and Loid tried hard not to think about the small smile that fought its way onto his face as he watched the hammer strike the bell at the top and then break off. The smiling families and laughing children around them loosened his tension hour by hour and, by the time Anya had pushed him towards the shooting gallery, he had to admit that a part of him was enjoying himself. Of course, it wouldn’t do for him to reveal his incredible sharpshooting skills, but one could forgive him for wanting to show off for his girls a little by hitting almost every target in a slightly longer amount of time than he normally would.

(His girls.)

Right now, dusk had fallen, and the lights of the carousel were a little too bright for his liking. He tipped the brow of his hat lower, shielding his gaze as he watched Anya and Yor go round and round. The little girl was smiling from ear to ear, sitting in Yor’s lap on the decorated horse, and would wave at Loid whenever she passed the spot where he was standing. Anya had initially wanted to sit with her papa, but Loid Forger got dizzy easily. Twilight didn’t – a ride like this was child’s play for his inner ear – but Loid Forger had that minor weakness.

 Besides, he needed to hold the half-eaten candy floss they had picked up at some point.

The horses slowed down and Yor hopped off the ride, carrying Anya in her arms.

“That was quite fun, wasn’t it, Anya?” she smiled down at the girl with such care, and Loid was suddenly so happy that he had chosen her as Anya’s mother figure.

“Anya wants to go again!” the girl immediately said as Yor put her down to stand on her own.

Loid smiled, “Its starting to get late, we should be heading home.”

Anya looked up at him with her best pout, “But we haven’t tried all the stuff. We can’t leave until we’ve tried everything!”

“You’ve been running around all day. You’ll be too exhausted to try anything else.”

“No, Anya won’t!” Anya insisted, shaking her head viciously.

Loid sighed. Children…

Yor piped up, saving him, “The fair will be here for another month, so we can come another day. And spend plenty of time on every ride.”

Anya stopped and thought about it, “Tomorrow!” she demanded.

Loid couldn’t help but chuckle, “Next weekend…and only if your homework gets good grades.”

Anya continued to pout but said nothing. Loid rolled his eyes but said nothing else. Yor giggled lightly at the standoff between father and daughter, “Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to stay for one more hour?” 

Loid tore his gaze away from Anya to see Yor looking at him steadily, but twiddling her thumbs in anxiety. He knew she still felt weird about ‘stepping in and making parental decisions’ – as she called it – but he appreciated her attempts to act as a third party of compromise. He looked back at Anya, who’s stubborn expression had turned to one of hope. He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“One more hour. But you have an extra hour of studying tomorrow.”

Anya nodded her head vigorously and Loid internally groaned at what he’d gotten himself into. Children were so short-sighted; she would say anything to get her way now, but he knew he was in for a world of a headache tomorrow once he asked her to hold up her end of this deal.

“Before we head to the next thing,” Yor spoke up, “I need to stop off at the ladies’ room over there. I’ll be right back!”

Loid nodded in acknowledgement and watched her go for a second, before handing the candy floss stick back to Anya. It briefly occurred to him that the candy was the same shade of pink as her hair. ‘Cute.’

He swiftly kicked that thought into a box in the back of his mind labeled ‘Unnecessary Thoughts’.

Anya beamed up at him and reached for his right hand, “Thank you, papa!”

Loid raised an eyebrow, “For what?” He took her hand and looked around, “We should find a bench to sit and wait for —”

“…Anya?”

‘Who just—?’

Turning around, he saw a man staring at them. No, staring down at Anya. Loid’s grip on Anya’s hand tightened as he measured up the stranger before him; square face with dark brown eyes flanked by long crow’s feet, and dark hair peppered with grey in a neat coif on his head. Just on appearances, he seemed to be about a decade older than Loid, but a few centimeters shorter. With a fitted blue polo shirt that implied an active body, a cream fedora that matched his cream trousers, and well-maintained skin that indicated a life of minimal physical labor, Loid guessed that the man was middle- or upper-middle class. Loid had memorized the faces of all of Anya’s teachers and all the parents of her classmates. This man was not one of them.

Either way, if he was related to Eden and knew Anya as a student, it would have been more appropriate to address Loid directly, as her guardian. Loid didn’t like that this man immediately fixated on the girl, and his eyes narrowed slightly as he noticed the man’s hands fidget at his sides, clenching and unclenching.

Anya’s grip tightened around his fingers before falling loose, and Loid looked down to see that her eyes were locked on to the man as well. She let go of Loid’s hand completely to hide behind him, grabbing onto his pant leg, and Loid felt her shaking slightly. Whoever this man was, Anya was afraid of him.

“I’m sorry,” Loid said, and the man’s gaze darted up at the sound of his voice. Loid made sure his polite smile was plastered on. It would do neither of them any good if this conversation started out confrontational, “Who are you?”

The man opened his mouth, glanced at Anya again, then looked back up at Loid.

“I-I’m sorry to bother you,” the man’s voice was deep, but had a soothing timbre to it that was slightly marred by nerves, “But what is your little girl’s name?”

Loid noted the avoidance of his question. He allowed a little of his apprehension show in his expression, “Do you know her, Mr…?”

The man drew himself up to his full height as if remembering himself, “Ah, yes, my name is Peter Roche.”

Roche.

Roche.

"She’s been fostered out and returned four times…" Loid remembered Franky relaying to him a year before.

‘Anya Williams…Anya Levski…Anya Roche…’ he remembered reading.

Of all the terrible coincidences…Loid had been sure that the families with those surnames were either no longer in Berlint or at least lived or worked in the other side of the city. For the ones that were still close, he made sure to keep Anya away from any neighborhoods or establishments that would increase the chance of a run-in. And in a city of almost 1.3 million people, there was a very small chance that the Forgers would run into any of them by happenstance. It was a small enough chance that Loid had discounted to possibility after doing the math.

Perhaps that chance hadn’t been small enough.

“Sorry for my behavior,” Peter continued, “I was just very surprised. I was heading over to the Ferris Wheel where my wife and son are waiting and I recognized that hair and I…” he trailed off to look at Anya again, “I’m sorry,” he said, directing his words to her, and Loid felt her hug his legs even closer, “I’m sorry that we couldn’t take care of you.”

Loid cleared his throat, “You may be mistaken, Mr. Roche, sir. This is my daughter and—”

“Yes, yes I figured. I’m sorry, how impolite of me!” Peter stuck out his hand for Loid to shake, “I’m thankful that you’ve given Anya a home. I didn’t want to abandon her, you see, and when I last saw her, she was so miserable…”

Loid’s first thought was ‘How dare this man abandon her the way he did!’

His second thought was ‘Twilight, you hypocrite!’

A look of true sorrow crossed the man’s face and Loid couldn’t help but ask, “How did you…lose Anya.”

“My wife,” Peter said, waving his hand in a general direction, “She was so happy to have a daughter, but Anya was a little…difficult to handle. ‘Trouble acclimating to the new environment’ we were told. The usual, y’know, attachment issues, erratic behavior, nightmares where she would wake up screaming. But she also just seemed to know things she shouldn’t and that worried my wife. And then there was the fire...” he shook his head quickly and looked down at Anya again with determination on his face, “I promise you I didn’t believe it was you.”

‘What fire?’ Loid’s eyes narrowed, ‘Anya was involved?!’

A gasp and a sniffle drew Loid’s attention to the girl at his feet. Anya was crying now. Large, silent tears. Loid immediately shifted so that he could pick her up. She immediately buried her face into his neck and she began to sob in a way that tugged at Loid’s heart. Peter Roche shifted his weight, looking awkward.

“I’m sorry,” Loid said, trying not to sound as annoyed as he felt, “I think you should go.”

“No, no its entirely my fault,” Peter said, “I didn’t mean to upset her. If you would like to talk more, here’s my card.” He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. At a glance, Loid saw that he carried a lot of cash on him, but his eyes were quickly directed to the card that was presented to him.

It was printed on good quality stock paper, with his profession, name, and number embossed in solid black ink. Loid recognized the logo on the back as that of one of Berlint’s largest advertising companies.

‘This is enough to start with’ Loid thought as his mind raced with all the new information, ‘I’ll see what Franky can do with this, first thing tomorrow. Operation STRIX depends on this man not being a threat to my family.’

Externally, he accepted the card graciously and promised to call.

“I’m glad you have a new family.” Peter said to Anya. Then he tipped his hat to Loid and left.

Loid watched him go and it seemed, with every step of distance between Peter and the two of them, Anya’s crying ceased. He had a feeling this man had just opened up a can of worms in his face that he wouldn’t be able to control.

“Who was that, Loid?”

Loid jolted in surprise and cursed himself for not being aware of his surroundings more. Of course, it was just Yor coming up to his side, but what kind of spy was he that she could sneak up on him so flawlessly, even when he had his guard raised? He'd already had two experiences with her immense strength aimed his way and, while he couldn't bring himself to think of her as a threat per se, he really needed to get better at being aware of her.

“Mama!” Anya shouted in relief. She reached for the woman and Loid allowed her to fall into Yor’s arms. Yor frowned at the tear streaks on Anya’s face and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe them away.

‘Good ol’ reliable Yor.’ Loid couldn’t help but think as he watched his wife dote on their daughter. As a professional, it probably wasn't wise to actively appreciate Yor's presence so much. That line of thinking only lead to attachment, which a spy was never supposed to indulge in. But deep cover usually involved pushing personal boundaries, right? Loid could welcome a stray thought, here and there, if it was an indication of how effective a unit the Forger family was becoming.

“Who was that, Loid?” Yor’s repeated question brought him back.

Loid looked at Anya, who had turned her face towards him. He knew she remembered their agreement that nobody was to know she was adopted, but her eyes widened in a way that told him she absolutely did not want him to say a word about what had just happened.

‘Why is she so scared of Peter Roche?’

“Um, just an old university friend. I haven’t seen him in years but, as luck would have it, he’s here with his family and he recognized me as he was passing by.”

“Oh, an old friend of yours?” Yor looked in the direction that Peter Roche had disappeared, “How nice!” But then she frowned, “Did he make Anya cry?”

“No! I did, unfortunately,” Loid said, “He also knew Anya’s mother and talking about her made Anya a little emotional.”

Yor was silent for a moment, “What was he saying about a ‘new family’?”

‘Shit, she heard that?!’

“Well, he’d never met Anya before. He’d left the country shortly after my first wife and I got married and he only came back recently, so he was just saying he was glad to hear that I had Anya and you to look out for me now.”

Loid’s stomach turned a little at the lie as Yor responded by absolutely beaming at him.

“I’m glad that I’m here to look out for you, too, Loid.”

Her eyes seemed to sparkle and Loid felt his face warm a little. Now that certainly wouldn't do. He kept his expression as neutral as possible and strengthened the walls around his emotions as soon as Yor looked back at Anya to ask, “Are you ready to try that stall over there?”

She pointed at a balloon popping game nearby, but Anya's gaze remained on Yor’s face.

“Anya wants to go home now.”

Her tone was so flat, so devoid of its usual joy, that it was almost unnerving. Yor looked surprised, but Loid couldn’t blame the girl since he wanted to go home too. He couldn’t think efficiently in such a noisy, overstimulating environment.

“Ah, it seems like waiting for you allowed her body to finally catch up,” he choked out a weak laugh, “Maybe, we should get her to bed.”

Yor frowned for a second time, disappointed, before nodding, “Well, okay…”

Loid felt bad about putting her through all this tonal whiplash. He hoped she wouldn’t twist herself into a spiral of anxiety, trying to think of what went wrong while she was gone. He would have to get her mind off it. Maybe take her on a date tomorrow…

As the Forgers walked back to their car in silence, Loid glanced down at the business card that was still in his hand.

The name Peter Roche winked back at him.

Chapter Text

For the first time in months, Loid heard sobbing behind Anya’s bedroom door.

It wasn’t loud wailing or choked, wet cries - not something that he would easily hear through the door if he was a normal father walking from his room to the bathroom at 5 o’clock in the morning. It never was. In the eight months that Anya had been a Forger, for as noisy and wail-y and impulsive as she could be when the sun was high, these moments at dawn were probably the quietest she ever expressed herself. A normal father would be able to walk on by, completely oblivious.

But Loid wasn’t a normal father, so he heard her.

He'd caught her, the first time, a week after he had taken her to the hospital for her school project and promised himself that he’d pay more attention to her mental state. When he'd burst into her room to check on her, worried that the muted gasps he was hearing was choking, he’d found her huddled under her covers with tears streaking down her face, soaking a spot on her pillow, and she was grasping Mr. Chimera as if the toy was the only think keeping her from breaking apart. He’d learned that this was far from the first time she had woken up like this under his nose. It would also be far from the last, now that he knew. Of course, he beat himself up about this; he was supposed to be the perfect father and every sniffle and gasp was like a stab to the heart. He hated children crying. This was something he had to fix.

But the fearful way Anya had looked at him as she’d wiped her eyes that first morning, muttered “Nightmares…”, and refused to tell him what they were about, stuck with him every time afterwards and kept him from giving in to his urge to ask her more directly. He left the room assuming it was due to the circumstances that left her an orphan, or her experiences in the run-down place he’d found her.

Hearing her through the door now though, with the context of their meeting with Peter Roche just the night before, made that desire to fill in the blanks even stronger. Spies needed as much information as possible in order to work effectively, and Loid felt uncomfortable staring at this new gap in his mental folder labeled ‘Anya’.

Loid turned away from her door to continue his morning routine but, once he emerged from the bathroom, instead of heading to the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of coffee and tackle minor paperwork until Yor emerged from her room all bleary-eyed – as he always did on Sunday mornings – he went back to his room to get dressed.

He was going out.

~*~

“Peter Roche. Senior Project Manager at Markenverwand,” Loid tossed the business card on Franky’s newsstand counter in greeting, “Has a wife and son, used to have an adopted daughter. You gave me his address last year but I need more. Give me everything you can find on him.”

“Mornin’ to you too,” the shorter man groused, still yawning, “So is there a reason you’re suddenly desperate for—”

“Had a run-in last night. I need to make sure he’s not a threat to Operation STRIX.”

“A run-in?”

“He spotted Anya and I at the Berlint Golden Funfair and made a beeline for her.”

Franky was suddenly fully alert, “He what?”

“Don’t worry. I easily redirected his attention and made sure he wasn’t an immediate threat. The conversation was short, but he gave me this card to ‘talk more’ another time. Anya was a little shaken up by him, though.”

“Roche…” Franky picked up the card and squinted at the name, “When I did a brief check on all the families with the same names in Anya’s file, I came up with a dozen Roches. None of them turned up with any direct or secondary connections to the Ostanian government, but I can talk to people and snatch some documents to see if there’s anything deeper going on with this guy.”

“And his family,” Loid interjected, “His wife and son too. Our brief conversation makes me think something…suspicious…was going on in that house while Anya was there and I need to know what.”

Franky scrutinized Loid as he tapped the card on the counter, “I see…So are you asking for that as Twilight or…?”

Loid narrowed his eyes. He had a feeling he knew what Franky was really trying to ask but he’d rather dare the man to finish his sentence. Luckily, the man didn’t seem eager to start something so early in the morning so he just sighed.

“You’re lucky my soft spot for Anya overrides the fee I’d charge you for this extra job. You could have just learned most of this information by doing your thing and approaching him yourself.”

Loid was well aware of that fact. But there was no way he’d let himself enter an arena empty-handed. Peter Roche already knew for certain that Anya was adopted and knew things about her and her past that Loid didn’t; one slip up or mislaid assumption on Loid’s end could alienate Roche and could mean that a potentially massive threat to the success of Operation STRIX, almost as large as Donovan Desmond himself, would be that much harder to manipulate.  

“I’ll take whatever you can give me before I go down that route.”

As Franky slipped the card into his pocket and handed Loid a copy of that day’s paper, he asked, “Just out of curiosity, what did he have to say about Anya Roche?”

‘…nightmares where she would wake up screaming…’

‘And then there was the fire…’

 “Not much we don’t already know,” Loid lied, “But his wife apparently found her… ‘worrying’.”

“Worrying? Anya?” Franky laughed, “I can’t imagine that ball of energy being thought of as worrying to an ordinary civilian.” He dropped his voice to add, “Sure, you need to think of her behavior in terms of her being an asset to STRIX, and you need to be careful with how attached she’s become to you, but she’s too young to be doing anything that a normal foster family would find unexpected, right?”

“Roche said ‘she knows things she shouldn’t’.”

The smile on Franky’s face wavered in a way that set off an alarm in the back of Loid’s mind.

“What?”

Franky adjusted his glasses awkwardly and shrugged, “Well, she is weirdly perceptive.”

“Yes,” Loid agreed, “I think everyone who talks to her can see that. She’s not as sheltered as her peers and she’s very observant.”

“No, I mean, when I look after her there are times where she knows things in the moment that she shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” A morning jogger passed by them and Franky cut himself off. Loid looked at his watch and saw that it was already 7 o’clock. Anya may have gone back to sleep, but Yor was usually up at this time, “We’ve been talking long enough. I’ll get you that information. Just…pay attention to Anya and you’ll see what I mean.”

Loid nodded in acknowledgment. Maybe it was time to ask the little girl what those nightmares were about.

~*~

When Loid returned to the apartment, he was surprised to find both Yor and Anya awake and in the living room. Both were still in their pajamas – Yor was sporting a light yellow nightgown and Anya was in her usual ratty black dress – but each was in a different position; Yor was nursing a cup of what was likely tea on the sofa as she watched over the younger girl, who was using Bond’s mass of fur as a pillow while she watched some morning cartoon he didn’t recognize. Yor jumped up from the sofa as he shucked off his coat and made her way over to him.

“Welcome back, Loid! I was just thinking of starting breakfast.”

Loid smiled, “Oh don’t worry about that, let me get started.” He looked over at Anya, “I haven’t seen Anya up this early before.”

Despite his light tone, he could feel Yor matching his concern as she responded in a low voice, “I actually found her out here when I woke up. She said she couldn’t sleep.”  

Loid stared at the girl curled up in front of the television.

 ‘…nightmares where she would wake up screaming…’.

That’s what Peter Roche mentioned as one of the symptoms of Anya’s ‘trouble acclimating’, just that previous night. Loid’s cover as a psychiatrist didn’t stray much into the realm of child psychology, but he’d read enough to recognize a symptom of PTSD when he saw it. Roche’s comment merely confirmed it. Now he just wasn’t sure if he could say her previous screaming affair becoming more held back was a sign of progress.

Loid hated not being sure about things.

He noticed Anya’s fists clench in Bond’s side. She must be able to hear them, but she didn’t turn to look at them or interject as she normally would if they were talking about her. Interesting.

~*~

Sunday morning breakfast was baked potato slices with onions, eggs, bacon, and bread with jam – this was the newest Forger family tradition. It was Yor’s idea. It was a small thing for them to look forward to, a small activity to bond over, a hearty meal to warm their stomachs on this lazy day. Loid didn’t mind that Yor wanted to spend more time in the kitchen; they worked efficiently together, and anything that would lessen her anxieties about being an effective homemaker was welcome.

He also had to admit to himself that he enjoyed her company. They had begun cooking side by side within a few months of the Forgers coming together, but it had only been these consistent Sunday breakfasts that made him realize that he liked her silent, but steady, presence in what he’d assumed – in the beginning – would always be his space.

But that was to be expected, right? It would be terrible for the mission if he couldn’t tolerate his spouse.

As he rolled up his sleeves and began peeling the potatoes and onions for Yor to slice, she spoke up.

“I don’t know how to talk to her.”

“Hmmm?” Loid glanced over and saw that Yor was gazing at Anya through the window into the living room.

“I know you said everything was fine,” she said, playing with the small knife in her hand, “But…I can’t help but feel like something happened last night.”

Loid tensed.

“Why do you—?”

“She said she had a nightmare, when I found her this morning. And she seemed so sad last night that...” she took a deep breath and glanced his way, “You said your friend brought up her mother…a-and I think she’s still upset about it.” Her face went red, “Not that she shouldn’t be! That would be ridiculous! But she's dealing with things alone and I want to help but I can’t talk to her. I can’t comfort her.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have the right to. I’m the one who replaced your first wife,” Yor continued, her voice getting smaller. The knife in her hand spun faster, “I didn’t know her. I don’t ask about her, and I’m sure you two don’t talk about her out of consideration for me. I’m forcing you guys to hold back; it would be an insult for me to try to tell her daughter how to mourn her, y’know?”

Loid blinked. Based on what he knew about her, he expected her to say that she didn’t think she’d be good at it. She’d spent a lot of time becoming more comfortable as ‘the mother’ of the Forger household, but the lingering worry that she wasn’t doing a good enough job, regardless of his reassurances, still hung on like burrs. Anya had latched onto her from the get-go, naturally desperate for a mother, and he was certain that the relationship between the two was ironclad (in a way that he found harder to replicate, as the girl always seemed to stay just one step out of his full comprehension). But maybe it wasn’t, at least on Yor’s end.

“Yor,” he put down the potato peeler and grabbed the knife from her hand to place on the counter, “Look at me.”

It took another brief second, but she did. Alarmed to see the beginnings of tears in her eyes, Loid was hit with the urge to wipe them away. He kept that urge to himself. Instead, he dared to put his hand on her empty one, just to ground her more. It had been only a few weeks since she'd stopped flinching at a touch like this.

“Yor, Anya would never be offended by you trying to help her handle her mother’s loss. I certainly am not offended by you trying to help. Anya doesn’t see you as a replacement and neither do I. You are so much more and that is why we chose you.”

“You didn’t choose me.” Yor said, her face still red, “I asked you to marry me on a whim and you were just polite enough to say yes.”

Loid smiled, “No, actually. Anya chose you, remember? Back in the tailor shop.”

Yor’s eyes widened slightly, “Oh.”

“And she may be young, but she’s a good judge of character.”

Yor smiled a little, thoughtful, “Was her mother?”

The hand at Loid’s side twitched. He held his tongue. But Yor didn’t seem deterred by his silence like she usually was.

“You don’t have to act like she didn’t exist. I…I do actually want to know more about that part of your story. Its just that... y'know, my nerves...”

She trailed off but her point was clear. Now Loid was the one who couldn’t look at her. Her ruby eyes were still shining, to him, and there was no worry of tears. But he still knew he was firmly placing himself on the edge of a minefield with however he responded next.

So he turned away, swallowed, and said, “Yeah.”

A brief silence.

“She must have been a good judge of character, if she married you.”

Loid hummed and picked up the peeler again, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. He knew he should feel proud of himself, having gotten that verbal confirmation that she was perfectly happy with him. Happy wife, happy life, strengthened (and stress free) cover. But the irony was sitting heavily in his gut for once and refusing to shift, no matter how much the Twilight side of him was yelling in the back of his mind for him to get it together.

“If it makes you feel better, I could talk to Anya first.”

He internally sighed with relief when Yor nodded firmly in agreement. She probably thought that he would be the better parental figure for Anya to talk over her mother with, but Loid just really wanted to get to the bottom of the real reason for Anya’s behavior. If something happened to her within the Roche household that would help him better predict future obstacles to the smooth running of STRIX, he would get it out of her. And there was also the thing that Franky had mentioned…

“Would you mind telling me more about her?” Yor said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked over at her, eyebrows raised, “Your first wife,” she clarified, picking up the knife again and turning back to the chopping board, “When you feel more comfortable, of course.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He almost choked on that lie.

He really shouldn’t have skipped his morning coffee.

~*~

When Loid re-entered his room after breakfast, he tapped out a quick coded message to Handler:

Operation STRIX asset connection under investigation.

Threat Level: Minor.

Chapter Text

Tick

Tick

Tick

The noise of the clock seemed to reverberate throughout Anya's room. Father and daughter stared, eye to eye, neither willing to back down from their contest. Out of his peripherals, Loid saw that Anya’s hands were fidgeting. A clear sign of nervousness.

He wasn’t exactly sure how things had become so tense. Breakfast had gone well enough – he and Yor’s efforts had resulted in a well-prepared and delicious meal, as usual, and they made sure to listen to Anya talk about the show she had been watching while the two of them were in the kitchen – but as soon as Yor got up to clear their empty dishes and he’d offered to help Anya study in her room, thinking it would be the perfect lead in to asking her about the weirdness from the day before, the girl had instantly frozen in her chair. A normal reaction to the word ‘study’ would be whining, excuses, or trying to run from the room. Not staring at him with wide eyes and tense shoulders as if she knew he had more than helping her with mathematics on his mind.

But she didn’t say anything as she shuffled out of her chair.

She didn’t say anything as she led him to her bedroom.

And she still refused to say anything as she sat at her desk, not even moving to reach for her schoolbag to retrieve her study materials.

It seems like Loid would have to be the one to make the first move.

“Anya…” he started, carefully keeping his tone light, “Yor told me you had a nightmare?”

The girl’s gaze flitted between his eyes, back and forth, as if she was sizing him up.

“…Yes?”

 “…Was it about what happened last night?”

Anya finally broke eye contact with him and shrugged. Loid sighed.

“Anya, I’m not upset with you about anything, I’m just concerned.” He kneeled down to her level and put his hand on her shoulder, hoping it and his words would provide even a modicum of comfort. This conversation would be like pulling teeth if she shut down on him.

‘Let’s just cut to the chase.’

“Mr. Roche was your guardian before me, wasn’t he?”

Anya nodded, and Loid couldn’t help but imagine what her life had been like in that household. Did Peter find her as unfathomable as he sometimes did? Did he spoil her? Did he comfort her after her nightmares? Was he the one to introduce her to Spy Wars? What did her bedroom in his house look like?

‘Did Anya latch onto him as quickly as me? Did she…love him?’

“Papa is the best papa, though,” Anya blurted, grasping the hand that was on her shoulder, “Anya doesn’t want to go back! Promise!”

Loid blinked. Right. There is no point trying to imagine all that when it wasn’t relevant. The twinge of jealousy must have been showing on his face, too, if Anya had been prompted to respond to him like that. He needed to get a hold of himself.

“I wasn’t worried about that,” Loid forced himself to laugh, “I was just wondering why he seems to scare you so much.” He let his brow crease, “Did he…did he ever hurt you?”

Anya’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head emphatically.

“Did his wife? Or their son?”

Anya hesitated, before shaking her head.

“You don’t seem as sure about that.”

Anya sized him up again, the silence stretching out, before she whispered, “Sometimes they called Anya a freak.”

That…that wasn’t exactly what Loid expected. He was pretty sure she wasn’t that sensitive, to be traumatized by a little name-calling. He knew from her occasional complaining (and from spying on her at school to see for himself) that some of her classmates, including Damian Desmond, had called her many more things that could be considered more hurtful, but she always seemed to bounce back from those fairly quickly.

(And thank goodness for that, because the Friendship Scheme would have been dead in the water from day one if emotional sensitivity had been an issue).

But maybe all of it really affected her in ways that they weren’t seeing…

“A-and Bruno would jump out and scare Anya for fun,” Anya hastily continued, “And old-Mama got mad easily.”

Loid nodded slowly, but he was still confused. The picture before him was still…off. Not that he didn’t believe her – he had lived with this girl for long enough to know when she was lying or exaggerating. All of this was the truth. It really seemed like much of her bad experiences from the Roche household did not stem from the man they’d met last night.

But her stutter, and the nervous smile on her face that only ever appeared when she was lying, told him she was still hiding something.

Anya stopped smiling.

As Loid raised his eyebrow and opened his mouth to question her sudden change in mood, Anya bent over to pick up her schoolbag and pulled out her math notebook. She turned to a random page and grabbed a pencil before glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. The message was clear.

Loid sighed. If this was as far as he was going to get, he might as well not push her. He stood up and started to reassure her, just so things wouldn’t end on such an awkward note, but he was interrupted by a knock at Anya’s bedroom door. Loid looked to the door, and then back at Anya, who seemed to throw herself into playing the part of being fully engrossed in the math problems in front of her. Although, it would be more believable if she actually wrote something down instead of just miming.

“Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Yor, still in her yellow nightgown, holding a small tray with two mugs of steaming liquid and a small bowl of peanuts.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “I know we just had breakfast, but I thought you two would like a drink and snack while you worked.”

“Thanks, Mama!” Anya said cheerily, as if she hadn’t been so sullen only seconds before. Her notebook now had random scribbles and Loid felt his usual exasperation at the messiness of her handwriting.

Loid smiled warmly as he took the tray from Yor but his stomach was still in turmoil, as if he’d missed a step while hurrying down a flight of stairs.

And he didn’t become WISE’s most successful operative by ignoring his gut.

He needed to talk to Franky again.

~*~

He gave the informant three days before he returned to the newsstand. Work and school took up the Forgers’ days, and he was still getting short missions from Handler so he hadn’t had the chance to talk to Anya in the evening before her bedtime on Monday, but Loid had gotten the distinct impression that she was trying to avoid him in the few hours they did find time to share. She barely made eye contact with him at the table when they ate, and she had asked Yor to take her to the bus stop alone on both Monday and Tuesday with the excuse that she wanted more mother-daughter time.

(Of course, Yor beamed at the sound of that, and Loid had to look away).

On the evenings that he was home, Anya ignored him, preferring to mutter at Bond and steal glances his way every few minutes. Every time he even thought about pulling her into another ‘study session’, she would hole herself up in her room. Agent Twilight found it maddening – he had a source of information right in his home, and the mood of a six-year-old should not be an obstacle to this – but, as a father, Loid had learned that children are more likely to be cooperative on their own terms.

He would give her space.

But meeting with Franky on Wednesday afternoon made him want to go back on that.

“What child did you pick up when you went to that orphanage?” Franky asked cryptically as he handed Loid a newspaper that both men knew was hiding a manila folder of information within its folds, “I wasn’t expecting you to send me down a rabbit hole when you asked to know more about the Roches.”

Loid narrowed his eyes, “Is Operation STRIX in danger?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Franky said, “But I was only able to get so far before I had to back out.”

Back out!?

Spies didn’t trust people, on principle, but Loid at least trusted Franky’s ability to be shrewd. One had to be, in the field of intelligence. Franky had connections in many levels of Ostanian society, from the moderately powerful to the ordinary to the…less than savory…and, for the social strata he couldn’t reach on his own, that was where the connections of his connections came in. That was the power of networking, and Franky did it easily; his short stature and demeanor meant that people were likely to find him likeable and trustworthy, but harmless. They would underestimate him. But Loid knew that clever eyes hid behind those glasses, and Franky knew that information could come from everything and everywhere. And he knew how to follow its trail accurately.

Both men also knew that valuable information was risky to come by - the more valuable, the riskier. It brought unwanted questions, at best, and put a target on your back, at worst. So for Franky to find himself in a situation where he knew he would attract the wrong kind of attention…?

Someone in the Roche family was dangerous.

Loid clutched the newspaper even tighter, itching to get back to his office and read exactly what was in the file.

“Anything you think I should pay attention to?”

“Yeah,” Franky said solemnly, “A house fire at the Roche’s residence at 43 Sheiling Street.”

Loid’s mental alarms went off.

‘And there was the fire…’

“They used to live in Mittle?” Loid asked, to distract himself from that ominous recollection.

Franky nodded, “They’re currently at the address I gave you before, in East Berlint, but there was an incident during the time Anya was still living with them. The apartment faced serious damage but nobody was injured. The fire brigade and emergency services arrived fairly quickly, but the Roches moved out anyway and Anya disappeared from their life shortly afterwards. You found her at that orphanage four months after the incident.”

“Arson?”

“Definitely. It occurred in the middle of the night when the family was all asleep, and an accelerant that didn’t already exist in the home was found at the source of ignition, so faulty wiring or accidental fire was ruled out. Either way, Mr. Roche was heard saying that he was sure someone was after him and so packed up the family and moved to their current borough. Their new home has smoke detectors, which is rare, so its safe to say that they’re taking precautions.”

Loid nodded, taking this in, “How were the fire brigade alerted so quickly?”

“Mr. Roche was the one who called it in. There was one whisper that he had mentioned to a colleague that his daughter had woken him up, but the colleague assumed he was confused because he didn’t have a daughter. Of course, though, we know about Anya…”

Loid nodded, his mind abuzz with this new context.

“…I didn’t believe it was you…”

“Has the family dealt with any other ‘incidents’ since moving?”

“Nothing that they would notice, but different people have kept a casual eye on them since then,” Franky leaned in and lowered his voice, “I should let you know that I ran into my roadblock when trying to find out who may have set that fire. All I could get was that it was an underground organization that was given a hit. Mr. Roche, or someone in his family, definitely angered someone powerful. Whatever method you use to contact him, you’d better make sure it doesn’t bring that danger onto your own doorstep.”

~*~

As soon as Loid returned to his office in Berlint General Hospital, he did his usual sweep of his office for bugs that could have been placed while he was away (it didn’t hurt to remain vigilant) and, once satisfied, called for Fiona.

Ms. Frost entered, face as indecipherable as ever, “Yes, Doctor?”

Loid placed the manila folder on his desk for her to see, “There’s been a…small development…with STRIX.”

“A development?...A threat?”

“Possibly. Possibly not. One of Anya’s old adoptive parents has popped up.”

Fiona’s left eye twitched. Loid imagined it was the closest thing she would show to open disconcertment, “You accounted for that, though.”

“Yes,” Loid said, “Yes I did. But my informant attempted to do a deeper background check and was threatened. That is not normal. Mr. Roche invited me to meet with him, but I shall only do so once, for the safety of the mission. While I keep my distance, I’m going to need you to keep a close eye on him and his family afterwards and update me on potential threats.”

Fiona nodded curtly, “Have you notified Handler about the situation?”

“Yes, I have. She has allowed me to conduct this tangential investigation, as I am best equipped to know what is best for the Forgers at this stage in the mission.”

“Has the girl said anything?”

Loid sighed, “Not much. She seemed shaken by the initial encounter, but she won’t say why and has started avoiding me.”

“You haven’t interrogated her?”

Loid frowned, “I learned very early on that you cannot interrogate children the normal way, if you want anything out of them. It would affect her morale and threaten the mission.”

“If I could sit with her –”

“No,” Loid cut her off. Fiona was good at her job, but he knew she was too cold to handle children. She would most likely terrify the girl and drop their chances of getting any new information to zero, “I need you to handle the Roches. I will handle Anya.”

Fiona nodded and left the room, orders received.

Loid grabbed the folder and opened it to the first page to begin reading the details of what Franky had found for him. As his eyes skimmed the first paragraph, he also picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Hello good afternoon, this is Dr. Loid Forger from Berlint General Hospital. May I speak with Mr. Roche, please?

Chapter Text

The contents of the Roche file did not raise any alarms. Which made things even more suspicious.

Peter Roche, by all accounts, was an ordinary man with an ordinary family. He had attained his job at Markenverwand straight out of university, with a degree in marketing, and had steadily climbed his way through the ranks with no suspicious promotions or signs of corruption. Like most men his age, he had participated in the Ostanian military machine during the war, but he had spent most of his time in administrative positions with few opportunities to meet important officials. Some of his current work involved creating propaganda pieces for Ostanian political parties, but he himself didn’t seem to express interest in politics. He had never been arrested or put on the SSS radar for any ‘unsavory’ actions or vocalized opinions. He had no relatives that had government or SSS connections either, coming from a family of butchers; both of his parents were fully retired, and his older brother had taken over the family business. His finances were clean.

His name showed up on paperwork regarding Anya’s adoption from a small children’s house in southern Ostania, but there was no paper trail indicating how she ended up at the run-down orphanage Twilight had found her. That was the only ‘suspicious’ thing attached to the man specifically but, given the sketchiness of the place, Twilight could understand a citizen like Peter not wanting to sully his reputation by being caught abandoning an innocent child there. Franky noted that, to the people who knew the Roches, the story was that they had tried fostering a child but that it simply hadn’t worked out.

His wife was Brigitte Roche, née Weber, an elementary school teacher, and had almost as clean a history as her husband. She came from a family of bankers and had no degree, finding herself working as a secretary at Markenverwand once graduating from secondary school. She met Peter there and they married a year after that. She left her secretary position a year after that to become a stay-at-home mother to their biological son, Bruno, but applied for teaching positions after he was old enough to be more self-sufficient. She had an acquaintance whose daughter was part of the National Union Party’s youth branch, but their contact was minimal.

The fire at their 43 Sheiling Street address took place almost exactly a year previous, on March 20th. Just as Franky deduced, the incident had many signs of a targeted arson. Aside from the foreign accelerant that was designed to spread flames quickly and produce a toxic smoke, the family’s apartment on the 5^th floor was the only targeted residence within the building and the phone in the sitting room had been dismantled; if Mr. Roche hadn’t recently installed a secondary fixed phone line in the master bedroom, the family would have had no way to call emergency services. Of course, the apparent assassination attempt failed – fire services arrived within fifteen minutes of the call being sent out and nobody in the Roche family suffered more than a scare.

Different underground investigators had been hired to keep a casual eye on the family afterwards, but the surveillance stopped after three months.

It didn’t make sense!

There was no reason that a normal set of upstanding Ostanian citizens would be targeted in such a brazen manner unless there was something darker hidden under their roof! Franky was fallible, sure, but he was an expert at digging up whatever lay beneath the surface when it mattered. His major stumble had occurred when investigating the culprits of the fire, which was proof enough that someone in the household had ties to them. Loid highly doubted that the 5-year-old Anya or 10-year-old Bruno could have attracted such attention, but both parents seemed as clean as one could be in this day and age.

They must have missed a possible avenue of investigation…

Just one small thread…

“Loid!”

The man in question blinked back to awareness, as he felt Yor’s fingers graze the back of his hand.

Oh, that’s right. He was on a date. Yor was watching him.

Loid mentally berated himself. Sure, he’d gotten the idea to take Yor out at the beginning of the week, before this new mystery had come to light, but it was quite rude of him to have his mind wander and completely neglect his partner while she was standing right by his side.

He had to admit that going on dates with Yor was becoming less of a mission checklist item and more of a reason to relax in her company, which was definitely a good thing. He knew how to fake enjoyment of an activity for the sake of the mission, but it was always easier when he didn’t have to do so. And it kept Yor happy, all the same.

But here he was, ignoring her attention in favor of a work side project.

The slight breeze tickled his jaw. He’d been staring, unfocused, into the light of a streetlamp, halting their steady pace around the perimeter of the open space of the park near their home.

“Sorry.”

But Yor didn’t look annoyed at his lapse in concentration, merely curious.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Anya.”

It was as close to the truth as she was going to get.

Yor smiled softly, “Oh? Don’t worry, I don’t think she’s mad at you. She just needs some space.”

Loid raised his eyebrow in question and Yor chuckled.

“I noticed that she’s been…avoiding you. And when I asked her about it, she said that she doesn’t like when you’re annoyed with her.”

Loid frowned, “I’m not annoyed with her…”

“Well, maybe you should assure her of that, since that’s what she thinks happened when you spoke to her.”

“Oh.”

‘Anya thinks I’m annoyed with her. Anya could tell that I was trying to get information from her. And she is fully aware that I know she is not giving me everything...’

Yor looked at the ground and began fidgeting, “I-I’d hate to tell you what to do with your own daughter, but I think…I think maybe you should be a bit softer with her. I assumed you spoke to her about h-her mother, which could still be a hard topic for the both of you…”   

 “I’d asked her about her nightmare on Sunday,” Loid scratched the back of his neck, “If it was related.”

“Was it?”

“Partially…” In a manner of speaking.

Yor was quiet for a moment, before she asked, “Was Anya there, when she…died?”

Loid looked at her. She was wringing her fingers again, but she had raised her head to look him in the eye. In their eight months together, she had never directly asked about the ‘death’ of her supposed predecessor. Of course, there had been nobody and, although Loid had a cover story written down to the smallest detail, he was hit with the urge to give her a sliver of honesty.

He was getting that urge more often these days.

“No. She wasn’t,” he looked over to see her watching him, so he feigned a slightly shaky breath, “Her mother was ill and in the hospital. We were all tired and miserable and I wanted to distract Anya from all that, so I tried to take her to get something to eat. We didn’t get back to the room in time. She died alone.”

He didn’t expect his voice to break on that last word, but it did, and he was immediately thrown back to his childhood. That day…

“AIR RAID! Get to the shelter!”

“Hey kid, get back here!”

“Mom! Mom! MOM!”

“I…regret not being there,” Loid said, looking away, “She shouldn’t have had to die alone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Yor said quietly, “What was her name, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Loid didn’t know what his mother’s first name was. He had been too young to know her as anything other than ‘Mom’.

“Ilse.”

“That’s beautiful.”

Long, shining hair. A sing-song voice that made him feel safe.

“She was.”

Yor reached out and grabbed his hand, “Thank you for telling me.”

There was nobody around to keep up appearances for. Her hand was warm.

She squeezed his once, quickly, and then kept holding it.

Loid let her.

~*~

“Papa! Papa, look, I did well this time!”

Loid blinked down at the papers being thrust in his face, having just returned from work. He was surprised that Anya was talking to him again, after three and a half days of freezing him out. As he took off his hat and overcoat, Anya bounced impatiently. Yor got up from the sofa where she had been reading, already out of her work clothes.

“Evening, Loid,” she greeted, “Anya’s been talking about the results of her last pieces of homework since she got home. She was really excited for you to see them.”

“Oh?”

Loid took the papers from Anya and looked at the marks:

Classical Language: 55%

Mathematics: 30%

History: 35%

Well…it could be worse. Her grades had been a frustrating mix of ‘steadily improving’ for some of them and ‘frustratingly stagnant’ for others. In terms of improvement, he supposed he should be happy that she was now consistently getting double digit scores in mathematics, given that it was her worst subject at the beginning of the school year. Literature was still a struggle for her, for some reason that evaded Loid’s understanding, given that she seemed to love reading (or maybe that was just comics?). Classical language was still her best subject. Overall, her spelling was getting better, but her handwriting was still supremely unintelligible. Loid could only guess at how long it took for her teachers to decipher what she was trying to say, let alone mark the content…

Loid looked down at Anya. Her cheeks seemed puffed in frustration, completely at odds with her excitement a minute earlier.

“Did Anya do good, Papa?” Her usual question came out softer than usual, like she feared his answer.

Loid arranged his expression into one that would be seen as more reassuring and handed her work back to her, “Yes, you did, Anya.”

“Papa’s lying,” she pouted.

Loid blinked, “I’m not! I’m happy to see that your mathematics score is getting better.”

Anya sighed, relief clear on her face, “So Anya’s helping!”

‘Huh?’

“I mean,” she added, “Papa wants me to be good, so I’m helping!”

Yor giggled, tearing Loid’s attention away from the confusing girl, “Do you think you can keep being good and let your father out of the entryway now?”

“Okay!” Anya said, “Anya wants to help Mama make dinner!”

As the girl maneuvered around Yor’s legs and Bond to get into the kitchen, she shot Loid a look that he assumed was supposed to be meaningful. He had no idea what she was trying to tell him.

Yor watched her go, then smiled back at Loid, “I guess she’s had enough space for now.”

“I guess so.”

Yor looked at his wan smile, “You look tired. Maybe you should rest a bit after dinner.”

“I’d love to,” Loid said, “But I’m actually not staying for dinner, sorry. I’m going to freshen up and then I’m meeting my friend for dinner and drinks.”

“Friend?” Yor tilted her head for a second before realization crept in, “Oh, from Saturday? Why don’t you invite him here. I don’t mind making extra servings.”

‘Bad idea!’

“I don’t think—”

“Uwaaa,” Anya’s cry came from around the corner, and she poked her head out, “Papa’s leaving again?”

“Only for a few hours…”

‘I have to change quickly. It would leave a bad first impression to keep Mr. Roche waiting for even a second.’

If anything, Anya’s eyes grew wider, “No Papa! You can’t go!”

“Huh? Why not.”

Anya seemed to struggle to come up with an answer, but she eventually blurted, “Anya wants all of us to have dinner together!”

Loid looked between her and Yor. Loid didn’t understand where this sudden distress was coming from. Maybe he should stay, if Anya wanted him to be around so badly; refusing her now would probably put her back in a bad mood, which is the last thing he wanted now that she was talking to him again. But it would be a mistake to stand up Mr. Roche when he was so close to getting some answers…

“Mama, tell Papa to stay!”

Yor merely looked amused, “Your papa can’t just cancel. I’m sure he really wants to see his friend after so many years apart, right? We can have dinner together tomorrow night.”

Anya grabbed onto Bond and looked into the dog’s eyes, “But Anya was good!” she muttered.

‘Oh. I think I get it.’

“Don’t worry Anya, this isn’t about you,” Loid said, crouching to her level and patting her head, “I’m still happy you did a good job, I promise. It’s just dinner with an old friend. I’ll be back.”

Anya shook her head, “But…but…Anya’s feeling sick and really needs Papa to stay.”

Loid raised an eyebrow, “You seemed perfectly fine a few minutes ago,” he placed the back of his hand on her forehead, “And you don’t have a fever.”

“Anya will be sick after eating Mama’s food!”

“Hey!” Yor grumbled from above them.

“Now Anya, that’s very rude to say,” Loid scolded, “Yor hasn’t made anything sickening in weeks.”

And thank goodness for that!

“Hey!!” Yor said again but, thankfully, there was no hurt in her voice.

Loid sighed, “Is there a reason why you want me to stay home so badly?”

Anya looked like she was about to cry, “That man…he’ll—”

Anya looked up at Yor pleadingly before grabbing at Bond again. She gave Loid that significant look again. He still didn’t know what it meant.

Loid stood and looked at the clock. He had twenty minutes before Mr. Roche expected him.

His girls were watching him. One with fear, one with concern.

“Yor, um, I do have to go, so…”

“Don’t worry,” she said, before turning her attention to Anya, “If you really missed Loid, you can try to stay up; maybe your father can be back in time to put you to bed. How about that?” She reached down to ruffle Anya’s hair as well, “You wanted to help me make dinner, right? How about we make a special batch for him to have when he gets back, if he’s still hungry.”

As she led the girl back into the kitchen, Yor shot Loid a look that clearly said ‘You’d better be hungry’ and Loid felt his face grow warm.

‘Cute.’

That was another one for the ‘Unnecessary Thoughts’ box.

~*~

“Mr. Roche.”

“Peter, please, Dr. Forger. It’s a pleasure to meet you again!”

The restaurant Loid had chosen for their evening, Venge, was a moderately casual hole-in-the-wall type establishment, offering a good variety of good food and good drinks without needing to get dressed up. It was all purposeful, to set the atmosphere as easygoing enough for Mr. Roche to let his guard down. He had also chosen a place that was in Mittle, on Mr. Roche’s old territory, closer to his place of work than his current home, so he wouldn’t have the time to be able to mentally reset like Loid had. That would, again, ensure that Mr. Roche's mind would be more eager to shake off the pressures of the day and bring its walls down where Loid could best exploit it.

Was it an unnecessary strategy? Perhaps. Mr. Roche was an ordinary man who didn’t seem paranoid; Loid didn’t need such subtle psychological manipulation to get what he wanted out of him. Mr. Roche hadn’t complained when Loid had selected the restaurant and had even made a few menu recommendations.

But Loid needed any advantage he could take, especially since this involved STRIX.

As he shook the shorter man’s hand and sat down across from him, Loid felt somewhat at ease. Things were under control.

Until Peter Roche pulled a small, wrapped box out of his briefcase and placed it on the table, pushing it towards Loid.

“Did you do anything for Anya’s sixth birthday? It was last week, right?”

And Loid felt the ground fall out from beneath him.

Chapter Text

Operation STRIX needed a six-year-old child.

‘I’m six!’ The little girl insisted, straining her toes to look as tall as possible.

“Ah yes, we did celebrate!” Loid answered, “The Golden Funfair was her treat; she’d been asking me to go all week and I knew she would love it!”

Loid made sure to maintain his pleasant smile as he reached for the gift Peter offered him, but his mind was racing.

A six-year-old was the best, practically. Too young, and they would be barred from Eden due to not making the age cutoff. Too old, and there would be added scrutiny around whether they were old enough to be put a year ahead of Damian Desmond.

A six-year-old was best, developmentally. Speech, coordination, comprehension of complex ideas, attention span; all of it improved exponentially as each year went by in that crucial stage – a six-year-old was just better equipped, mentally, to succeed at accomplishing their part of Operation STRIX.

It had never even occurred to Twilight that he’d failed to complete the first, easiest, step of the mission…

Peter chuckled awkwardly, “Well I’m sorry if my presence upset her on her special day…”

“No, not at all,” Loid lied easily, “She got on the merry-go-round and forgot all about it.”

Maybe Anya didn’t know how old she was?

Loid tossed that possibility aside quickly. If Peter Roche had been as attentive as he appeared, he would have ensured that Anya’s birthday was celebrated one way or another. So, given the timeline, her birthday was only a few months before Loid found her. She would have known she was only five years old.

Maybe Peter was mistaken?

That didn’t seem likely either. He originally found her at a well-to-do orphanage before leaving her where Loid had found her. It was an above-board adoption, so they would have had paperwork and been given documents that included a birth certificate. The only reason Franky had to fabricate a new one for Anya was because the orphanage she’d been left at didn’t ‘do’ paperwork, given its shady nature.

Maybe she lied because she wanted to be adopted?

More likely, but children usually aged themselves down, rather than up, to appeal to prospective parents. Families usually aimed for younger children because they were considered ‘cuter’ and less likely to have deep-set emotional baggage from being in the system too long.

“That’s good to hear,” Peter said, “How is she doing otherwise?”

“I assure you, she’s happy,” Loid smiled, and felt a twinge of pride at the realization that that wasn’t a lie.

A waiter came over and asked for their food and drink orders. Peter ordered rice pilaf with a light beer.

Safe choice. Comfortable enough to unwind a little, but not enough to actually get drunk with a stranger.

Loid followed his lead on the drink but ordered a chicken and gnocchi dish. That was what he had planned to make for Yor and Anya for dinner tonight if he didn’t have this little mission. He wondered what they had cooked instead, in his absence.

He glanced over at Peter. His initial assessments of the man indicated that he was a mellow enough person that getting him to reveal what Loid needed to hear wouldn’t be too hard, but Loid still didn’t want to appear suspicious by pushing. Peter Roche was very clear about his care for Anya’s security, so if Loid approached this conversation by appearing as a new father worried about her mental health, Peter would likely be more willing to open up to whom he would assume was a kindred spirit.

Once the waiter had passed on, Peter asked, “How is she handling school? By end of June, she should be done with her first year of proper education, right?”

“She’s doing well, I’d guess. Maybe not as well as I would hope,” Loid added with a laugh, “But as long as she’s happy, I’m happy,” Well, not exactly, but Roche doesn’t need to know that. “She goes to Eden Academy.”

He watched the man closely to see how he would take that last piece of information. Peter Roche’s expression only revealed genuine delight.

“Oh Eden!” he exclaimed, eyebrows high, “That’s a good place for her! She was always so clever.”

“I know,” Loid said, his smile failing to reach his eyes as the ghosts of her poor test scores flashed before his eyes, “She already has three Stella!”

“Already? That’s impressive! I always thought she was quite an intelligent child. Always felt like she could see right through me.”

Loid was struck with the weirdest sense of déjà vu. Didn’t he say the exact same thing at the family interview?

Maybe I should give a little nudge…

“Oh, of course,” Loid nodded, “She just has this ability to read people…must seem a little off putting…”

Peter Roche stiffened for a fraction of a second, but sidestepped the implication of the comment with a nod, “I’d always wondered if her academic aptitude matched her emotional aptitude, but she left us before schooling beyond kindergarten was an option...”

‘”She left us”? More like you left her…’ Loid thought indignantly.

‘Just like you will, once Operation STRIX is over…’ Twilight reminded him, at the back of his brain.

Loid cleared his throat, “Mr. Roche –”

“Peter, please.”

Loid nodded, “…Peter. May I ask why she…left you? Although she has been thriving as my daughter, I recognize that she may have some…trauma related to her past experiences, and she was so upset when we crossed paths with you that it made me quite concerned.”

The man shifted in his seat, “Anya didn’t tell you?”

Not enough.

“No,” Loid said, “I didn’t want to ask in case it upset her even more.”

That only seemed to make Peter Roche more uncomfortable.

“I appreciate that you’re trying to be a good father,” he said, clearing his throat, “Anya doesn’t deserve any less.”

“I can only try,” Loid said, “But I don’t want to accidentally run into any triggers for her…”

Loid let his question hang unasked at the end of his sentence and Peter acknowledged it.

“My wife,” he said, clearing his throat again, “She spent more time with Anya than I did and…” he paused, giving Loid an analyzing stare. Loid made sure to keep his expression as neutral as possible. It wouldn’t do him any good if Peter Roche clammed up because he thought Loid was judging him. “Please don’t think we adopted her, then dropped her, on a whim. We’d always wanted a daughter, a sibling for our boy, Bruno. But we had trouble conceiving; Bruno himself was a miracle. My parents suggested adoption while we were visiting them in the south, in Schenfeld. Anya basically fell into our laps, and I was happy. But –”

Loid cursed internally as their waiter returned with their beers and Peter heartily took to the distraction; he thanked the waiter, who let them know their food would arrive in a few minutes, and took a large sip of his drink, clearly trying to stall for time. Loid figured that, whatever happened to result in Anya’s stay at that shady orphanage, the man sitting across from him clearly regretted it, or at least had little to no say in it happening. It was a good thing that Peter seemed insecure enough to overshare in the name of proving that to him.

“Does she still watch Spy Wars?”

Loid blinked at the non-sequitur, “Yes?”

Peter broke into a wistful smile, “That was our thing. I introduced it to her because Bruno liked it when he was younger and when I came home from work, or on the weekends, I would sit with her, and we’d watch it together and I’d listen to her ramble on about her favorite part of the latest episode, and it was good. It was our father-daughter thing.”

Was it now?

Loid thought of reading Spy Wars with Anya until she fell asleep at his side and tried to drown the twist in his gut with his own gulp of beer.

“I could handle the quirks, and the hyperactivity. I could handle the attachment and trust issues. When a kid has issues like that, you just have to love them and show them you love them, you know? But the nightmares…” he broke out of whatever reverie he had fallen into and focused on Loid again, “Does she still have the nightmares?”

Loid nodded. Peter Roche seemed saddened by that, and Loid suddenly felt like he’d failed Anya somehow, so he quickly added, “She doesn’t yell or scream, though. I remember you said she used to wake up screaming.”

“Well, at least there’s that, “Peter Roche accepted, “It was horribly scary, the things she’d cry out. I don’t even think she realized.”

“Can you tell me?” Loid asked, “I’ve thought about having her see one of my colleagues, a child psychologist, but I need to know what kind of help she needs.”

Peter Roche let out a bitter laugh, “If your colleague is used to kids who tend to shout ‘Stop it! It hurts! I don’t want to!’ in their sleep, then by all means, go ahead!”

Loid’s blood ran cold.

His mind flashed back to seeing Anya in tears that first time he’d caught her sniffling, clutching her stuffed toy like it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

What on earth…?!

“But anyway,” Peter said quickly, “I didn’t have any issues with her and was fully ready to raise her, issues and all. But my wife came to me one evening after the kids were in bed.” Here, he began to look nervous again, “She told me Anya made her and Bruno nervous. She said that Anya always seemed a little too observant and just tended to…to know things. Anya could always tell when she was lying to her, respond to things she’d never said, know what she was doing, what she was thinking…”

‘Sometimes they called Anya a freak.’

“Did you believe her?” Loid was aware of how clever Anya could seem, but he’d never describe it as going that far.

 “I’ll admit, no man wants to call his wife a liar, but I thought it was just her feeling really vulnerable around this new person in our lives. So, at first, I thought she was just exaggerating.”

“At first?”

The waiter returned with their dishes but, this time, Peter didn’t seem to notice.

“I began to notice her doing the same thing with me. I’d tell a white lie, and she’d look at me all confused and ask why I’m lying. If I looked at her and thought about how I loved spending time with her, she would hug me and say ‘I love you too’. And then…”

He picked up his fork and stabbed at his food but made no move to eat. Instead, he leveled another discerning gaze in Loid’s direction.

Loid wanted to assure the man that he was right in his initial assumption. If Anya was truly a mind reader, Loid would have noticed it by now. While he had noticed that she had a keen eye for reading emotions and expressions, she had never indicated that she knew more than what any other emotionally attuned person could. Her age might make her having that skill seem more surprising, but there was nothing beyond that.

But he stayed quiet.

“I mentioned that we had a house fire.”

Loid nodded.

“She saved our lives, I think.”

Loid blinked in surprise. “Pardon? Anya?”

Peter finally took a bite as he nodded, “We used to live in a neighborhood near here. The fire broke out in that home, in the middle of the night.”

“Nobody got hurt, I hope,” Loid asked. He already knew the details of that night, but he knew it was appropriate to ask that anyway.

“Thankfully, no, because I actually hadn’t been asleep. I didn’t hear anything, but I smelled the smoke right before Anya came knocking at our door, crying.”

“That was lucky, then. She must have heard something that you didn’t.”

Peter shook his head, “That wasn’t the strange part. I hadn’t gone to sleep because Anya had warned me beforehand, and I couldn’t get what she’d told me out of my head.” He looked at Loid again, and Loid was struck again with that feeling of being in over his head, “She’d been antsy all evening and, when I’d asked what was wrong, she said that she had seen a man outside our building thinking about how he would burn our house down. And then it happened.”

Loid took a bite to think about how to respond.  

There had been mention, in the information that Franky had found, that Peter had offhandedly told a colleague that his daughter had saved him, but Loid had assumed that the warning from her had come after she had noticed the flames and smoke herself; he had asked Franky for a blueprint of the apartment the Roche’s had lived in and it seemed that Anya’s bedroom had been the one closest to the living room, where the ignition site had been. But now he was hearing that she had warned the family earlier that night? He didn’t exactly believe that Anya had literally heard the culprit thinking. Peter was probably describing how she had heard the strange man muttering to himself about his plans.

He’d have to find a way to ask Anya about that man. That single thread to the organization that Franky was certain was behind all of this based on his own information gathering. The first key to figuring out how much of a threat Anya’s past would prove to be regarding Operation STRIX.

Either way, that man further proved that the fire had been targeted, which brought Loid back to the pressing mystery.

“How do you think the fire happened? Was it an electrical fire?”

Peter shook his head, “Nothing should have been malfunctioning; we’d replaced all our old appliances a few months before,” he leaned in conspiratorially after taking a swig of beer, “I think it was arson.”

Loid feigned surprise, eyebrows raising, “Why do you say that?”

Peter Roche kept his voice low, “I have a coworker who has a brother who has…connections…from the war. And I got a promotion that he had been gunning for.”

That was it?

Now Loid’s surprise was real. There was no way that was the real reason. It seemed like such an overreaction to basic workplace politics. From personal experience, Loid knew it was much easier to just direct the SSS to someone if you disliked them enough. If this colleague had family with unsavory connections, using said connections so brazenly would be unwise.

But the look in Peter’s eyes told Loid that he genuinely believed what he was saying.

Was Peter Roche lying? Or did he really not know why his family was targeted?

If he wasn’t the target, then who was?

After tonight, he would be handing off Roche surveillance to Nightfall, so he made a mental note to ask her to look further into everyone that Peter Roche spoke to on a frequent basis, as well as any of their less-than-reputable connections. It would be more work, but nothing she couldn’t handle. He’d taught her well.

“The whole incident only scared my wife more,” Peter Roche continued, sounding more somber, “Of all the things that happened last year, my biggest regret is telling her what Anya had told me that night. After that, she became very cold towards Anya and eventually broke down crying, saying she couldn’t live with her in our home anymore.”

“And so you just…”

Loid must have let a sliver of his anger show through, because Peter Roche shifted again and responded defensively, “Please don’t think I just caved immediately – I defended Anya as fiercely as I could! But seeing my wife upset also broke my heart, and then Bruno also started bullying Anya, calling her a freak, and I realized that my home was not safe for her anymore,” he wrung his hands, and Loid bit his tongue to stop from pointing out that the orphanage he’d left her at didn’t seem much safer, “Bruno blamed her for us moving further away from his school and friends and no amount of explaining things or punishing him could make him stop hating her. Anya became quieter and she stopped making observations and asking questions. She clung to me more, but that just created a rift between me and the rest of my family.

“That is why I was relieved to see Anya happy and healthy by your side at the Fair. After I dropped Anya off at that place, I insisted that my wife and son go to therapy and they’ve come to a point where they both deeply regret how they behaved, but the idea of bringing another child into my home is just….” He trailed off and picked up his fork again.

‘Unthinkable’, was what Loid imagined Peter would have said. A part of him was grateful that the man recognized when a child was hurting and sought to remove them from a bad situation. Peter definitely wouldn’t be a threat to Anya herself. Loid remembered how Anya often freaked out in his early days with her, pleading, at the drop of a hat, for him to not abandon her, and he couldn’t help but feel annoyed that she had to experience that in the first place under the Roches’ roof.

If the man thought this meeting was an opening to reintroduce himself into Anya’s life, Loid needed to quash that immediately. For the sake of the mission.  

“I understand,” Loid said, putting on his best ‘psychologist voice’, “Your household was such a source of stress for everyone, with tension that built and built. Now you’re grieving and dealing with the guilt from the consequences.” He chewed some food, pretending to think, “I think Anya is still dealing with things too, in her own way. She needs space from all this.”

“May I speak with her once more, just to let her know that I hold no ill will towards her? None of this was her fault.”

“I’ll pass on your sentiments and ask if she wants to see you. But if she doesn’t, then I won’t force her.”

Of course, Loid had no intention of giving Anya any more contact with the Roches.

It was time to steer the conversation into safer waters.

~*~

As soon as Loid returned to his car, he carefully unwrapped the gift that Peter had handed him to give to Anya.

It was the latest issue of the Spy Wars comic and a toy model of Bondman’s pistol.

Chapter Text

Everything was falling apart.

She’d been able to distract herself easily enough while making dinner with Mama. Papa had left some chicken in the fridge, so Mama had proposed they make baked chicken, a sweet sauce she had learned to make last week at her lessons to go with it, and leftover rice. Anya had fun getting her hands messy with the batter and breadcrumbs and sneaking small pieces of the meat to Bond when Mama wasn’t looking. While the chicken was in the oven, Mama showed Anya how to add each ingredient together to make the sauce and that was fun too. At one point, Anya had splattered some on her nose and Mama giggled as she stretched her tongue to try to lick it off.

Anya liked Mama’s laugh.

Anya wanted to cry when Mama assured her that they’d leave a serving for Papa to try when he got back from seeing his ‘friend.’

That man wasn’t Papa’s friend. He was her old-Papa, and he was going to tell Papa everything and Papa would be mad at her. He would come home and take her back to the orphanage and she’d never see her family again. She’d never get to go back to school and see Becky again. Or Sy-on Boy. Or his idiot friends. Or Scruffy.

Things had been happy so far too! Anya had been studying and getting better grades for World Peace, and Sy-on Boy and his lackeys weren’t as mean to her as they used to be…even if they were still annoying. Mama was getting better at cooking, and it made her very happy and she was always telling Anya how much she loved being her Mama.

Papa seemed to be happier too. He was still very serious, and his thoughts were too noisy, but he thought about his tummy aches a lot less and he didn’t seem to get as annoyed with Anya as much as he used to. Whenever he glanced over at Mama, his fast thoughts that sometimes gave Anya a headache would quiet a bit and go warm and fuzzy around the edges.

Anya wanted to cry so badly.

They finished eating. Mama had let Anya help her clean the dishes (Anya hadn’t dropped any!), and they were sitting on floor stroking a sleepy Bond just as the front door opened.

“Welcome back, Loid!” Mama said, standing quickly, “Did you enjoy yourself?”

Anya looks up to see her Papa staring right at her. His thoughts were a mess, as usual, but one struck her louder than the rest:

‘Who are you?’

Anya’s stomach flipped. She tried to open her mouth to greet him like Mama and pretend everything was normal.

All that came out was a wail.

~*~

The thought struck Loid as he made his way down the hallway towards the Forger household, Peter Roche’s gift tucked under his arm.

“I’m six!”

(He had thought, from the beginning, that she seemed too small…)

Back in the restaurant, he had only considered how Anya’s true age affected Operation STRIX – how a six year was optimal for infiltrating Eden, and how it made more sense that she struggled in many things. On his way home, he considered how it affected his perception of her skills – the fact that she was actually on the younger end of five when she made it into Eden College, and also managed to keep up with her classmates enough to avoid getting kicked out, was impressive. After all, the majority of her Tonitrus Bolts had been awarded for poor behavior, rather than poor academics. Somehow.

But as he walked towards the front door, it occurred to him…

How did she know he was looking for a six-year-old?

When he had entered the orphanage, looking for a child to take part in his mission, he stated that he wanted a child who could read and write. A child who already had a foundation for the basics would be easier to prepare for the entrance exams and that was all he’d cared about.

He’d never insisted on an age requirement. The drunk caretaker had stated that she was the only child in that place who could read and write so, if she had been too young or too old, he would have just left and gone to another orphanage. The war, and the instability that remained in the years right after the war, left a lot of abandoned children and adults too traumatized to raise children in Ostania. That was one thing that Westalis and Ostania had in common. Too many abandoned children crying in the streets.

So he had options.

But Anya had looked at him once, declared that she was exactly what he was looking for, and filled out a newspaper’s crossword puzzle to convince him she was what he needed. It was all too convenient.

Thinking about how convenient it was, now, just made him feel dread.

Was she a plant? Did Ostanian intelligence somehow know of WISE’s plan? This couldn’t be the domestic branch of the SSS – they were too direct for such a roundabout scheme. The orphanage had a reputation in the underworld for being shady, so did someone plant a child to sabotage the Eden infiltration, knowing that their adoption from that place specifically was likely? No it couldn't be - Twilight was the top spy in Westalis for a reason; as the man of a thousand faces, nobody outside his agency knew his true face, so there would be no way for them to target him specifically. And even if they had, their plan must have failed because Anya wasn’t acting as if she was instructed to sabotage Operation STRIX. In fact, she was studying harder than ever and frequently spoke about ways to get Stella. Her goals seemed to align more with his own than with any obstructive parties. If she wanted to prevent him from gaining access to Eden College, she could have failed her entrance exam from the beginning.

Loid sighed. He really thought his days of suspecting his fabricated family were behind him.

Yor, at the very least, was still awake – he could see the main lights streaming from under the front door. He really hoped that Anya had gone to bed after dinner because he really didn’t want to deal with her while he was still making his mental threat assessment. Whether or not she was placed in his path for some reason, he had to admit that she hadn’t done anything. No five-year-old could comprehend the complexities of international politics enough to genuinely volunteer for such a scheme (if, indeed, she had been directed by some puppeteer) so she was innocent.

So innocent…

The sight of her crying in bed flashed in his mind once more and he resolved, as he opened the door, to greet his family and act as if everything was normal for now. He would speak to Handler in the morning, gather more information on what exactly was going on, and reassess if he and WISE needed to be aware of external threats to Operation STRIX, just in case they truly were compromised.

He would not push that on Anya. She was a child caught in the middle of something much bigger than her. He would not treat her like a threat.

But all those thoughts flew out the window as he opened the door, heard Yor’s melodic greeting, made eye contact with the little pink-haired girl over her shoulder, and was hit with a loud, desperate cry.

“Anya?!”

Yor whipped back around, her hair spreading in a wide black arc. Bond, lying on the floor near the television, jumped to alertness and looked around for the sudden disturbance before nuzzling against Anya in confusion.

“Anya, what’s wrong?!”  

But Anya seemed too distressed to even focus on answering Yor. Loid had never heard anguish like that from her before; tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was forcing the air out of her lungs like she was hoping she could use her voice to push him and Yor away from her. Even as Yor grabbed her shoulders to hug her, she did not tear her eyes away from Loid and Loid was stunned at the sheer fear he saw in them.

Loid put the box on the dining table and tried to walk over and help Yor calm Anya down. Anya, to his horror, took a step back. Loid froze as he was hit with an unexpected wave of nausea.

She was afraid of him.

He raised his hands in a placating gesture.

Yor looked back at Loid pleadingly as she picked Anya up to cradle her, “I’m sorry Loid! I didn’t know she’d be so upset about you not being here for dinner!”

“Neither did I,” Loid said. He turned his attention to Anya who was burying her face in Yor’s shoulder, now refusing to look his way at all, “What’s wrong, Anya?” he tried, “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you, see? Please, Anya, don’t be sad.”

Anya stopped wailing, but clung to Yor tighter as she trembled, “Please don’t…” she whimpered.

“’Please don’t’ what?” Loid asked, but Anya shook her head.

Loid looked at Yor who seemed dismayed, “Maybe it’s time to go to bed,” she proposed quietly, “Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning?”

Anya nodded slowly and Yor took her to her bedroom. Bond tilted his head at Loid for a second before following.

As soon as Anya’s bedroom door closed, he collapsed into a chair and put his head in his hands. This was not how he expected his evening to go. At all. Anya broke down as soon as he stepped through the door – he hadn't even had any time to open his mouth. She panicked as soon as he stepped through the door.

This was not good…

Loid heard Anya’s door creak open a few minutes later and he raised his head to see Yor giving him an evaluating look.

“You still have your coat on.”

“Oh,” Loid immediately stood and undid the buttons, a little embarrassed that he’d forgotten something so simple. He was too vulnerable, having her see him act exactly as tired as he felt. The urge to repress everything and put on an affable smile itched in his brain, but he found that he didn’t care about that right now. Not when he needed to put all his attention into treading carefully in this situation.

As he hung up his coat and returned to his seat, she twiddled her fingers, “Do you want something to eat or drink?”

He shook his head, “Sorry, I was planning to, but I have no appetite now,” he looked towards Anya’s room, “Can’t really think about eating after all that, you know? I don’t know why…”

Well, he had an inkling of the ‘why’, but it was a good excuse as any to get to his room as quickly as possible. He needed to think of his next steps.

"Maybe she missed you more than we both thought." Yor still looked at him as she walked around to the other side of the table and sat down. She reached for the package between them, “What’s this?”

“Mr. Roche brought a gift for Anya. Do you want to see it?”

Yor played with the edge of the wrapping paper, but didn’t say or do anything else, seemingly lost in thought. She opened her mouth to say more but closed it and looked at the table.

A part of him wanted to ask what was on her mind, but he also didn’t want to open the door to a conversation he didn’t know if he could handle right now. He hoped she would lose her nerve and stay quiet or change the subject.

But Yor was becoming more confident these days, at least around him, and she sighed before saying, “Anya said something as I was trying to calm her down…” Yor glanced at him but looked away just as quickly when they made eye contact, “She said… ‘Old-Papa ruined everything’...”

Loid stiffened, but Yor wasn’t done, “A-and she said, ‘Please don’t let Papa give Anya away again’.” Yor finally looked up at him and Loid’s throat tightened as he saw concern in her eyes, “Who is ‘old-Papa’? And why did she say, ‘give me away again’?”

Loid swallowed. Forget tomorrow morning, he needed to talk to Anya now.

“I don’t know.”

“To which one?”

“Both,” Loid said, “I have no idea what she's talking about and I’ve never given Anya away to anyone. I’ve never even thought about such a thing. I promise.”

‘Liar.’ Twilight whispered, and he felt a twinge of shame. 

Yor’s evaluating expression was back and Loid was struck, once again, by how little he knew about how her mind worked. She was observant and empathetic, but she was also very naïve, and he had no idea which side of her would win out.

“You would tell me if something was wrong, right?” she said softly, “I asked you to rely on me, remember? We’re partners.”

She was giving him an opening to tell her the truth. But the truth can get him killed, in his line of work.

Loid nodded, “I know.”

Yor nodded and Loid got up, giving her a small smile that he hoped was reassuring.

~*~

When he opened the door to Anya’s room, the first thing he saw was her bedroom window.

Open.

Panic flooded his brain as he thought, for a second, that she had somehow jumped out. Was she trying to run away? But Bond was lying on the floor under the windowsill and there was no way he would have let her leave. There was no balcony outside her bedroom window and the street was three floors down…

Then he saw a lump under the duvet on her bed.

“Anya?”

The lump shook. She didn’t respond, but Loid felt relieved anyway.

‘Why is this girl giving me such emotional whiplash tonight?!’

He shut the door and turned on her bedroom light, “I know you’re not asleep.”

He waited for one minute, leaning against the door, before deciding to speak again.

“Why is your window open?”

“Air,” came her small voice. Loid sighed.

The lump still didn’t move, so he walked over and pulled the covers off to reveal the girl curled in the fetal position. She scrunched up her face at the sudden light, but didn’t open her eyes or move, so Loid decided to just sit at the edge of the bed and wait. Eventually, she peeked one eye open to look at him and uncurled, but she kept her eyes on her lap and her fingers played with the hem of her pajama shirt.

“Anya wanted to run away,” she admitted. Her voice wavered.

“Why?”

“Because Anya doesn’t want to go back to that stinky orphanage.”

“Who said you were going back?”

Anya looked up at Loid, “You want to. Now that old-Papa told you everything, you’re going to send Anya back.”

Loid felt that twinge of shame return. She had already made up her mind that he would hate her for whatever she thought Peter told her. She was ready to run away rather than face what she thought was inevitable. Loid looked up at her bedroom ceiling. He counted the points of the stars that she had stuck directly above her bed as he eased his breathing. Five yellow stickers…25 points. Five stickers out of an unnecessary pack that he had bought for her anyway, just because decorating her room made her happy.

Anya was not a threat. This was just an innocent girl who thought she was going to be abandoned, who needed reassuring that she wasn’t.

“What do you think Mr. Roche told me.” Loid asked, leaning back in a more relaxed position.

“That Anya’s a freak,” she teared up again.

“He didn’t say that," he threw her a soft smile, “He was actually quite worried about you.”

Anya looked at him with her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to judge his honesty.

“Anya could always tell when she was lying to her…”

“He told me he was sad that he missed your birthday and gave me a gift to give to you,” he continued, “Your sixth birthday.”

Anya grew tense and her gaze darted towards the window for the first time. Loid shifted closer to her on the bed so that if she tried to make a break for it, he could grab her. He had no idea how impulsive she would be in such a direct confrontation.

“When we first met, you told me you were already six,” Loid let a little of his suspicion come through in his voice, “You knew you were five, so why did you say that? Did someone ask you to say you were six?”

Anya shook her head.

“How did you know to say that, then?”

Anya looked back in her lap, “Papa wanted a six-year-old…”

“I never said that.”

Silence. Anya looked at him with wide eyes as Loid narrowed his, “Please, Anya, I need to know.”

Anya shook her head, but Loid had another scary thought.

“Mr. Roche also told me you warned him about their house fire. He said you heard a man plotting outside. But that you didn’t hear him speak…”

Anya’s lips wobbled, “Anya just said what Papa was thinking so he’d choose her! Please don’t be mad at Anya!”

“What I was…?”

Anya threw both her hands over her mouth.

“Anya,” Loid said, more sternly, as he turned to face her fully, “What do you know about my thoughts?”

Anya’s tears flowed faster now, down her cheeks and over her hands which were still firmly over her mouth.

“Anya,” Loid said, frowning, “Who are you?”

And that’s when the dam burst.

Chapter Text

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, Anya’s so sorry!”

Anya threw herself at Loid and buried her face in his chest, her breathing ragged and her tears quickly soaking into his shirt. He’d been so focused on the possibility of her trying to go out the window again that this sudden move shocked him, but he cradled her anyway, almost instinctively. His mind was a flurry of thoughts that he had difficulty grasping, an uncomfortable itch in his head that contrasted with the soft skin and hair of the girl in his arms.

This wasn’t how he wanted to spend his evening – he was too tired and hadn’t even had time to process what Peter had told him at dinner – but this was important. He needed to get some answers from Anya, for once, before he left this room and dealt with the rest of the world.  

“Anya,” Loid said in as calm a voice as he could muster, “I’m not mad. I just need to know what’s going on…”

Anya furiously shook her head, refusing to look up, “You will be mad.”

Her crying wasn’t as loud as before, but it was still enough for him to reflexively glance at the bedroom door, hoping that Yor wouldn’t come to investigate.

“Mama’s not coming,” Anya said softly.

Loid froze. His gaze dropped to confirm and…yes, Anya’s face was still firmly pressed into his body.

‘So how…?’

Anya sniffled, “Anya’s sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

When Anya remained silent, Loid pulled her away from him to look down at her face. It was red, the way it usually got when she cried hard, and mucus was dripping from her nose. As soon as he noticed, she rubbed her face with her sleeve.

Loid sighed, “Let’s start over, okay? How about I just say what I think is going on, and you tell me yes or no?”

Anya finally looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. She was examining his expression again and, despite his years of practice putting on whatever mask he wanted, he still felt like she could see right through him. He hoped, for the sake of this going well, she didn’t hate what she saw.

Eventually, she blinked and nodded slowly. She looked so tired.

‘You and me both, kid.’

“Okay,” he let out a mental sigh of relief, “…You are six years old?”

Anya nodded.

“Were you six when I met you?”

Anya tensed for a long second, but eventually shook her head slowly.

‘So far so good.’

“Did Mr. Roche know you were only five?”

Anya nodded.

“So you think I’m mad at you for…lying about your age?”

Anya nodded, then paused and shook her head.

Loid nodded once, firmly, “I figured it was more than that, because you wouldn’t try to run away over something as simple as that. You wouldn’t have been so desperate for me to not meet with Mr. Roche if it was as simple as that,” he looked back up at the stars on her ceiling, “and you wouldn’t tell Yor that I was going to give you away if it was as simple as that.”

Anya nodded again when he looked back at her to confirm.

“Anya…you just told me you can read thoughts…”

At that, Anya suddenly tried to twist out of his grasp. Loid held on as he quickly conducted a risk assessment. Does she need the space to talk? This is a delicate topic. Or is she trying to get out the window again? He held her with one arm as he got up and shut the window, making sure to latch it. She continued to fight after that, so he put her down, and she reached for Bond, who was still sleeping under the sill.

“Hey, don’t wake up Bond,” Loid snapped out of habit, “That’s rude.”

Anya flinched but didn’t touch Bond. Instead, she stared desperately into the dog’s face, as if it might hold all the answers in the universe, and then Loid saw fat tears roll down her cheeks once again. 

“Anya?”

The girl wiped her face and climbed over to her bed once again. She reached for Mr. Chimera and hugged the stuffed toy tightly as she stared at a spot on the wall to the left of Loid, but stayed silent. Loid sighed, ready to put his foot down and demand answers if she was just going to try and avoid the conversation again…

But then he heard her speak.

“Anya’s sorry she ruined your mission.”

A cold chill ran down his spine.

Compromised. Compromised. Compromised.

“Anya,” he sat at her side, fully alert now, “What-?”

But she wasn't done.

“You wanted a six-year-old, and Anya’s not. You wanted someone smart, a-and Anya’s dumb and doesn’t like to study. Anya can’t get Sy-on Boy to be nice to her…”

Compromised. Compromised. Compromised.

“And now old-Papa has told you how much of a freak Anya is and now you’re mad and you’re gonna send Anya back to that orphanage and get another, smarter kid and Anya will never see you or Mama again…”

Anya was squeezing the life out of Mr. Chimera and Loid could bet she was going to start hyperventilating at any moment, “Anya, stop! Stop!”

He reached for her hands. She flinched but stopped talking.

“How…why do you think I wanted…”

Anya looked at him again. Her eyes were so green.

“Anya can see thoughts,” she finally admitted, shakily, “Anya knew Papa was a liar from the beginning.”

The pit of dread that had started forming in his chest expanded. His thoughts were all a-flurry again, running through all his contingencies for a situation like this, running through where he may have slipped up.

“Who told you?”

Anya shook her head, “Nobody. You did.”

“Mind reading isn’t real.”

Anya fidgeted, “Think about something that Anya doesn’t know.”

‘Once partially stripped and separated into its three main components, the pistol is ready for cleaning. It is advisable to remove the recoil spring from the barrel. A few drops of acid-free, non-resinous oil should be applied to the various ports…’

The cleaning and repair manual for his pistol was his go-to train of thought for whenever he needed to distract himself. Had been for years. It only occurred to him three sentences in that it probably wasn’t very appropriate for a six-year-old to hear. If she even could hear –

Anya’s face pinched in concentration, “Stripped and separated…cleaning…remove the recoil…resin…” she shakes her head, “You’re thinking too fast.”

‘Well, I’ll be damned…’

“Now you just thought a bad word.”

Loid let out a laugh. He could hear the edge of panic in it.

Mind reading wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

Mind reading was real.

He was sitting beside a telepath.

“How?”

Anya starts wringing Mr. Chimera’s neck again, “Anya just can. Not just for you, it’s for everybody. But that’s why Anya knows about the mission.”

“Who else knows?” he asked. If a six-year-old knew about the details of Operation STRIX, then who else knew?

Compromised. Compromised…

“Nobody,” Anya shook her head again, “Papa’s mission is a big secret, so Anya keeps it secret.”

Loid looked at her, hard. He was a trained professional, with years of training and experience in the art of espionage. There was no way that a child could keep so tight-lipped, if she understood the scope of the mission, without letting something slip. Not a child as impulsive as Anya.

Anya narrowed her eyes at him, as if she could tell what he was thinking and was offended that he didn’t trust her. Loid reminded himself, with a start, that she could tell what he was thinking, “Anya doesn’t want Papa to get in trouble, so Anya doesn’t tell. Anya won’t tell,” she insisted, “And Anya would have to explain how she knows and then everyone would know Anya was a freak too.”

“You’re not a freak,” Loid blurted, but then felt the intensity of her gaze on him and felt exposed. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t, “You’re…unique. That’s all it is,” he cleared his throat, “Who else knows about…this?”

“Old-Papa and his family. That’s why they left Anya at that stinky orphanage.” Tears escape again, “That’s why…that’s why you’ll leave Anya too. Papa, please don’t leave…”

Loid’s heart stopped beating, the dread in his chest squeezing tight. He was back in Luwen, losing his father and friends. He was back in Kielberg, losing his mother.

“I just want to create a world where children don’t have to cry.”

This was a child. An orphan he pulled out of dire circumstances, who only wanted a family. Who he had been using for two-thirds of a year for his own selfish gains. For ‘the mission’.

It had been a fact in his mind, casually, before now, but it hadn’t really hit him before. It sure was hitting him now. God, he was going to be sick.

“I’m…I’m not,” Loid said through his closing throat, “I won’t…”

But you will, the cold, professional tone of ‘Twilight’ whispered in the back of his mind, someday.

“I won’t,” he repeated firmly, resolutely.

WISE cannot know about this. They would pull him from STRIX, from this family he had built, from this girl he had saved. Or they would insist he try to use her to hasten the mission’s progress. They would question her powers and her motives. They would call for tests, experiments. Treat her like a tool at best, and an enemy at worst. He might go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning kicking himself for not doing what was best for the mission, for world peace but, right now, he couldn’t. He would not put this on her.

“Does Yor know about me?”

Anya shook her head.

“Does Yor know about you?”

Anya shook her head again, “Anya didn’t want Mama to be scared of her,” she whispered.

Loid’s chest clenched again, and he felt like cursing Mrs. Roche, “Do you want her to know?”

Anya looked down, “Not right now.”

“Of course, of course,” Loid sighed. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he was feeling exhausted again. He definitely had a lot to think about.

“Anya won’t try to run away again, so you can go to bed.”

An honest-to-god telepath. Under his roof. How did that happen?  

Loid got up and headed for the door, but stopped, “I won’t tell anyone about your powers. But we need to talk about this more, another time, okay?”

Anya nodded, but she looked unsure.

“They called me a freak.”

“And I don’t think you’re a freak,” he added, “Mr. Roche didn’t think that way, either. He was upset that he couldn’t take care of you, and he thanked you for saving his family’s life. He also gave me a present for your birthday, and I think you’ll like it. He doesn’t hate you.”

The Bondman comic and pistol flashed in his mind and Anya’s facial expression brightened considerably. Loid fought back the knee-jerk discomfort at being read so easily. He was going to have to get used to keeping his mind clear around her.

~*~

Loid didn’t let himself think about anything else until he was out in the hall and Anya’s bedroom door was closed, but a twinge of paranoia still hit him.

‘How wide is her range?’

“Everything alright?”

Loid startled at Yor’s voice. How had she caught him off guard again?

Today really wasn’t his day.

“Yes,” he said, composing himself quickly, “She just needed to cry herself out. I just sat with her and reassured her I wasn’t going anywhere, until she fell asleep.”

The tension in Yor’s shoulders eased a bit, “That’s good to hear. I was worried.”

A pang of sympathy hit Loid and he gave her a soft smile, “So was I.”

“Do you think she’ll tell us why she was so upset?”

‘I already know.’

“I don’t know. But we shouldn’t push her until she’s ready.”

Yor fidgeted, “I hope we didn’t ruin your good mood. From seeing your friend, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, it was just a quick catch-up. You two are more important.”

Yor bit her lip as her gaze drifted to Anya’s closed bedroom door, and Loid was hit with the urge to reach out and hug her. He couldn’t do that, though; they had been getting used to small, fleeting touches, but that would be crossing a line.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t enjoy the dinner you prepared,” he said instead, letting out a chuckle to diffuse the tension, “I’m sure you two put a lot of effort into it.”

“Oh,” Yor said, gaze snapping back to him, “It’s no problem. I put your dish in the fridge for you to have tomorrow, maybe for lunch. It might not taste as good reheated though…”

“I don’t mind. Thank you.”

Yor finally cracked a small smile. He wished he could make her smile more often.

‘Mission accomplished.’

~*~

The waiter drummed his fingers impatiently on the glass of the payphone, cigarette between his lips, as he heard the dial tone drone on and on. It was late, but everyone knew the boss had an untapped line by his bedside, a radio on his person, and at least one trusted guard to pass on any messages he couldn’t take himself– he should respond. If he didn’t pick up now, he’d have to head to headquarters to give this information in person. This was an emergency, though.

He hated that he was the one to bear such news, but it wasn’t his fault! How was he supposed to expect them to be in his section tonight?!

“Come on, come on…”

The phone clicked and a gruff voice suddenly rang through the line, “Hello?”

“Ah, this is Weiland, just got off my shift. I’m sorry to call you at such an hour, sir, but…” he paused and took a deep breath, “I’ve just received word that Package 007 hasn’t been dispatched.”

Silence on the other end of the line, before, “Package 007? Wasn’t it supposed to be dispatched last year? We got confirmation of its delivery.”

“Yes, sir, I remember. But there must have been an error or miscommunication.”

“…Are you sure you heard correctly? That package was very important.”

“Yes, sir. I ran into the supplier a few hours ago and he was speaking with a client. I happened to overhear the client mention that the package was lost.”

Another silence. The waiter tried to calm his nerves by taking another drag of his cigarette. His fingers were shaking. He knew what this news meant and could only hope that his boss wouldn’t shoot the messenger. Literally.

“Well, we can’t have that,” the boss said, finally, “Were you able to confirm where the supplier sent the package?”

“No, sir, sorry. I was pulled away from the conversation before I could get that information.”

Another pause, “We’ll need to get a few team members to track it down and retrieve it, then. That package is very important. Come in tomorrow and tell me everything so that we can get to work.”

“Of course, sir. Sorry again for calling so late.”

“No problem. Thank you for catching the error.”

The call was over. The waiter hung up the phone and rested his head against the side of the phone booth, exhausted.

He didn’t know who had been responsible for killing the girl, but he knew they would be in a world of trouble now. The boss was right, she was important. A creepy little science project that was important enough for some weasel-y government officials to contact their organization and put out a hit on her when she’d gone out of control. They said one of their own had helped her escape, and that they’d taken care of the traitor, but the girl had fallen off their radar. She had popped up in Berlint, with a family in tow, so they weren’t going to lose her again; she needed to be dispatched. The family she had attached herself to had to go as well too, in case the girl had told them anything, and so that there’d be no witnesses. He’d turned down the job because he didn’t want to kill a kid, but there were plenty of others who he knew would do it without remorse. It was simply business.

He'd read about the housefire in the paper, the team was assured that the target had been neutralized, and that was that. The family survived, but surveillance showed that the girl wasn’t with them. Another job done, another trade made.

But if the job actually wasn’t done…

The last thing they needed was the Ostanian government breathing down their necks again.

Chapter Text

As predicted, Loid woke up kicking himself.

'I am Twilight', he reminded himself, frowning up at his bedroom ceiling, 'WISE’s top agent, and my most important mission yet, Operation STRIX, has encountered an unprecedented threat! There is a chance that the arsonists involved in the Roche fire were after Anya, not the other family members, which means that someone out there also knows about her abilities, no matter what she says about being discrete. I need to take this into account going forward. And sentiment aside, I need to find out exactly how much of a risk she herself poses to peace…'

“Anya doesn’t want Papa to get in trouble, so Anya won’t tell.”

He remembered her vehement assurance that his mission was safe with her, but can he trust it? It contradicted all his training, to trust anyone, especially a six-year-old, but maybe if he spoke to her and convinced her to tell him everything she knew, he could plan for any contingency involving any sliver of that information being leaked.

But he had to keep his cool. Yor couldn’t pick up on anything being wrong, because then she’d start asking questions and any suspicion directed towards him was always a threat to the stability of the Forgers. He couldn’t afford to spook Anya either, because he had no idea what she would do if she began to think he was going to abandon her again. It seemed callous to think a child like her was cunning enough to try and blackmail him, but he also recalled many occasions on which she had used the threat of not going to school to get her way for pettier things. At the time, it had seemed like mere tantrum-throwing, but now…  

As he exited his bedroom to freshen up for the day, he found himself glancing at Anya’s bedroom door.

‘How wide is her range?’ He couldn’t help but think again.

His anxiety at the unknown bubbled. He hated to admit it, but he could understand a little of why Mrs. Roche had been so unnerved.

~*~

His morning routine wasn’t interrupted by paranoia again until he set out to make breakfast.

He made his way into the main living space and stopped when he saw that the gift box that Peter had given him was still on the dining table. The expression on Anya’s face when she read his mind to see what was inside unwittingly flitted to the front of his mind, and he frowned.

‘How did Peter feel,’ he thought as he carried the box to the side-table holding their family photos, ‘when he realized that the girl under his care could read his thoughts, plans, and weaknesses, so easily?’

Or maybe the discomfort he was feeling was just because he wasn’t a normal father. Maybe Peter accepted it better than him. Maybe he was the one who taught Anya to be more discrete with her abilities…

Yor emerged from her room shortly after he began frying eggs. She waved to him, holding back a yawn, before entering the bathroom. As the sound of running water hits his ears, he couldn’t help but wonder how Yor would react to learning what he had the night before.

He couldn’t imagine Yor would be anything like Anya feared she would; she was a much better person than Mrs. Roche. Much kinder and more forgiving. He figured she would be surprised but would ultimately take it as another trait to praise the girl for and nurture. Yor was ordinary, with no secrets important enough to take to the grave like him. She didn’t have the future resting on her shoulders. She could just be a mother.

He envied her, just a little.

Just after he began to fry the accompanying bacon, Anya’s bedroom door opened. Loid kept his eyes on the pan, but he still felt himself tense.

‘What am I so wary of? It’s just Anya! Just don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think….’

“Morning, Papa!”

“Morning, Anya,” he replied automatically, still not looking up.

A brief silence.

‘Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think…’

“Papa?”

“Oh, Anya, good morning! Were you waiting to use the bathroom?”

Loid finally glanced up as Yor emerged, patting her hands on the front of her nightgown. It was easy to let a smile slip onto his face as she maneuvered around the girl and headed for the table. Yor ran her fingers through her silky hair as she approached and he felt a twinge of…something, at the sight. Maybe relief, at being saved from having to have an awkward conversation with Anya so early.

He felt the smile die as he finally locked eyes with Anya over Yor’s shoulder and saw the way she looked at him.

The way she often looked at him.

Like she was studying him…

Anya looked away.

‘Was she reading my mind just now? How much of my thoughts can she parse? What’s her range? Can she hear me now? Is eye contact necessary? Is there a trigger? Are there limits? How can I test them?’

“Loid?”

He blinked, brought back by the sound of Yor’s voice and the smell of the bacon in front of him. It wasn’t burnt yet but was likely crispier than he usually made it. He lifted the meat out and onto a waiting paper towel, to absorb some of the oil, before acknowledging Yor.

She watched him, as she stood by the dining table.

“Ah, sorry, good morning.” he said, “Got lost in thought for a second.”

“Oh? What about?”

Loid hesitated. She must have noticed because she quickly added, “Not that you have to tell me! But…you were frowning a little…”

Was he?

“Was I?”

Yor nodded shyly, skating her fingers across the wood, “Just a little. Different from your usual ‘concentrating’ face.”

“Oh?” he laughed airily to cover his genuine surprise, “There’s a difference?”

“Yes, your eyebrows furrow at a deeper angle when you’re genuinely frowning…” Yor smiled back before catching herself. Her face slowly turned crimson, “N-not that I watch you that closely. I-It’s just something I noticed! It’s normal, right, to pick up on things like that after being around each other for so long?”

Loid felt his face warm a little too, as he felt his heart flip.

“Mama and Papa are flirting?”

Loid’s eyes snapped to where Anya was peeking at them from the hallway. She was still standing there?!

If anything, Yor turned redder, “No we’re not!”

“Go brush your teeth and wash your face,” Loid said, choosing to ignore the comment, “Breakfast is almost ready.”

Anya nodded and finally disappeared into the bathroom.

“Well, she seems a little better this morning,” Yor said, pushing past her embarrassment and moving to join him in the kitchen. She pulled out mugs and began preparing their favored morning drinks. Of course, by this time, she knew all their preferences by heart.

Black coffee with milk on the side for him.

Raspberry leaf tea, steeped for exactly 7 minutes, for her.

Warm milk for Anya.

“Were you worried about her, still?” Yor continued, “Is that what you were thinking about?”

“No,” Loid lied, “I was thinking about…a patient whose case I’m reviewing today. An unprecedented element of their situation came up and I need to re-evaluate.”

Yor smiled sympathetically as she poured the hot water over her tea leaves, “Its admirable, how you’re always looking out for other people, even in your off-hours.”

Loid didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just hummed.

~*~

Breakfast itself was more tense than Loid expected…or wanted.

As they ate, Anya was as chatty as usual, regaling Yor with stories from school and her plans for the day. But Loid sat in silence. Normally he would at least try to contribute to the conversation, like a normal father would. Like what was expected of him. He couldn’t help it this time, though. His mind was racing, running through questions and theories and analyses that were forcing him to multitask at a less-than-optimal level. He hated that, occasionally, Anya would turn to him with a hopeful look in her large eyes, expecting him to make a comment, but it would fade whenever he only replied with the bare minimum to not seem cold. Yor wasn’t fazed, as he had already planted the idea that he was mentally occupied, but he hated how Anya kept trying to bring him into things, even knowing that he now knew about her. As if nothing had fundamentally changed about their relationship with that information.

He didn’t feel like he deserved that.

‘All this time, has she been interacting with Damian Desmond for my sake? Or because she has her own agenda? She talks a lot but doesn’t ask many questions about us in turn. Is it because she already knows everything from reading our thoughts? Does she only tell us what she thinks we want to hear?’

“Papa…” Anya muttered, bringing him back to the present. The wary expression on her face from when he questioned her the night before was back. He looked to Yor.

“You’re frowning again,” she explained gently, “Are you sure there’s nothing else going on?”

Loid tried not to look at Anya as he shook his head, “Just that case I told you about earlier.”

Liar.

That voice in the back of his head sounded too much like Anya, anyway, for comfort.

He put down his fork, even though his food was only half eaten, “I might feel better about it if I talk things through with my colleagues. It might be good for me to head in to work earlier than normal today, so if you’ll excuse me…”

He nodded his head in apology and stood up to go get dressed. As he passed Anya, he felt her grab his hand.

“Papa said he wasn’t mad…” she said in a small voice, and guilt ripped through him.

“I’m not…mad,” and he wasn’t lying. Not exactly. He didn’t know how he felt about things right now, but his feelings didn’t matter in this anyway, “It’s just work, okay?”

“Can Papa help Anya with her homework tonight?”

‘Is that code for wanting to talk things through more?’

Loid saw Yor light up at the suggestion, happy that Anya was still requesting father-daughter time even after the previous night’s meltdown, and he had to fight back his wariness.

“…Sure. I’ll see if I can come home early to do that.”

‘I’m going to be briefing Nightfall about last night, so will she be fishing for information?’

Anya flinched, “The scary lady shouldn’t know.”

Loid’s eyes widened and he pulled his hand out of Anya’s grip.

‘Stop that!’

His movement happened to be a tad rougher than he’d wanted, and Anya flinched. Yor’s stare turned a fraction icier.

‘Shit!’

“Sorry,” he muttered, quickly reaching out to pat Anya on the head reassuringly, “I didn’t mean that. Who do you mean by ‘the scary lady’?”

‘Please say something reasonable…’

Anya glanced back at Yor before staring at her plate to avoid looking at both of them, “Errr…the scary lady who works with Papa. He said before that she wanted to help Anya study!”

“Oh,” Yor said, face returning to neutral. Loid held back a sigh of relief, “Ms. Frost? I guess…”

“I don’t think I’ll be inviting Ms. Frost to tutor Anya. She’s too busy these days.” Loid cut in. He knew he’d long since assured Yor that she didn’t need to worry about anything between him and Fiona, but it wouldn’t do to bring her over and reawaken all those insecurities again, even accidentally. Besides, he was telling the truth; with Fiona assigned to observe the Roches in his stead, she would be too busy for him to also drag her in on this new…whatever it was that Anya’s admission had opened. He turned his attention back to Anya and let a reassuring smile cross his face, “If you want, I can ask another one of my colleagues?”

Anya shook her head, “Anya just wants you, Papa.”

Loid nodded stiffly before retreating to his room. Once the door was closed, he rested his forehead against the wood and sighed.

Was he being too paranoid, or too soft, in interpreting her words as double-speak?

“Anya just wants you, Papa.”

‘Why?’

~*~

His protégée entered his office as soon as he’d finished his habitual sweep for bugs.

“I’m ready for your report, Dr. Forger.”

He had to do this carefully, since anything he said here would be relayed back to Handler. Practically, he only needed to relay the important bits of what he had gleaned from his conversation with Peter Roche – the man was not a direct threat to STRIX, his family was also unlikely to interfere, but surveillance and a deeper background check would be necessary to make sure nobody else they knew would pose a threat, especially since Peter had mentioned a coworker with shady connections. The biggest blind-spot for WISE in this was the fire at the Roches’ previous address, since all possible external threats to STRIX stemmed from that incident. It should be easy to leave out mentions of Anya.

But Fiona had read the Roche’s file, had likely seen Franky’s observation that Mr. Roche had mentioned her involvement, and knew what Twilight was capable of; she would expect him to have filled most of the gaps in knowledge indicated, including those that involved STRIX’s primary asset – either directly or through inference.

He had already promised Anya that he wouldn’t reveal her telepathy to anyone. That was the biggest truth he’d told her last night.

‘It’s unnecessary,’ he reasoned to himself, ‘She’s an anomaly. She didn’t have an answer when I asked her how she got them so it’s likely she was just born with her ability. It is highly, highly unlikely that there are others like her in this world, let alone in this country. Under my control, she will not be a threat to Westalis. I am also fully in control of the direction that STRIX takes so the only reason WISE would need to know of her abilities is if they needed to use her outside of this mission and, while I may be the agency’s top agent, I’m not a recruiter.’

Recounting the beginning of the night was easy enough. Relaying Mr. Roche’s desire to give Anya a gift and his fatherly pride at her having gotten into Eden sent the clear message that the man and his family were ‘clean’ so-to-speak – they had no interest in taking Anya back and would let her live her new life uninterrupted. He relayed the adjustment issues Peter had described Anya having under their roof, and Fiona noted that it was probably an indication that Twilight was doing a good job of keeping her happy since he had never observed anything so extreme.

“I would expect nothing less from you,” she said in her usual monotone, “And are these behaviors the reason why they abandoned her in the end? Seems callous for a family that was prepared to take in an orphaned child. They should have expected difficulties.”

“Sadly, yes. Mr. Roche himself was willing to work things through, but his wife had enough and was insistent.”

Fiona seemed to think for a second, “Is there a concern that Yor Briar will react the same way and jeopardize STRIX? She seems like a…sensitive woman.”

Loid blinked, “Concern? No. I have long since determined that Yor would never abandon Anya. During the few times the girl has experienced distress, she has often consoled and reassured her effectively. She is strong enough to weather any difficulties, which is beneficial.”

For some reason, Fiona’s gaze took on an intensity at his words that he couldn’t help but bristle at. Did she not trust his judgement anymore?!

“So, Mrs. Roche’s final straw was the fire?”

“Yes,” Loid half-lied, “It was arson, and she assumed that Anya was the perpetrator – acting out because she had scolded the girl pretty harshly that day.”

“And you have confirmed that she was not the perpetrator.”

“Of course.”

Fiona nodded once, “So will my duties include looking for the true perpetrator?”

“Observing the Roches may lead you to whoever put out a hit on them, if not the arsonist themselves. Mr. Roche mentioned that he felt some of his colleagues were jealous of him after a promotion he got shortly before the fire was set; you can check those leads first.”

Fiona saluted quickly, then left the room. Loid sighed. One day, he was going to get it through to her that she didn’t need to be so stiff around him.

The day went by as quietly as it could, which was a boon for Twilight. After the night he’d had, he needed a calm day with few patients to focus on so he could wrap his mind around the enigma that would be waiting for him at home.

‘Homework’. That’s what she said she needed him for tonight.

‘Come to think of it, how does she have so much trouble with her grades if she can read her teachers’ and classmates’ minds for the right answers? Is she doing it on purpose to sabotage my mission? Or is she doing it to avoid being discovered? Is it because of some limit to her ability?’

The day was quiet enough that, for once, he remembered to eat lunch. It came in the form of the leftovers from the dinner that Yor had prepared the night before – baked chicken with rice with some dark sauce.

‘Well, she’s definitely improving,’ he thought as he evaluated his first bite. The sauce was sweet and the chicken, even reheated, was the right amount of juicy. The rice was a little too salty, but still edible, ‘It has been a long time since she made something genuinely bad. I should do something to acknowledge her effort, like buy her something nice or take her out? Just to keep her spirits up.’

Fiona came back while he was eating, to let him know that she had contacted Handler, and that he had his first afternoon appointment in one hour. She narrowed her eyes at the boxed lunch in front of him before directing the glare at him and walking back out.

‘What was that about? Was she annoyed that I was eating when I could have been working more?’

Well, he may have had some random paperwork to do, reports from last week’s side missions, but it never hurt to take a short break occasionally. Pre-Operation STRIX, he was the kind of man who gladly embraced the workaholic lifestyle. But he’d quickly learned that having to act as a parent had sapped some of his stamina in that regard. In the past, he had interacted with targets who complained about their families, lamenting the wealth of energy they had before they had kids to raise and spouses to support. That had been one reason why he could never see himself with a family – he felt that he was way too selfish to let anything get between him and his work, his mission, his eternal war against war.

But now that a family was his mission…he could at least understand where those targets were coming from.

The day passed swiftly and, as he had no side missions to attend to that day, Loid found himself heading home during the usual rush hour. On a day like this, he would usually walk home to avoid the trains, which would be full to bursting with the Berlint population commuting out of the city center. He always felt strange in the middle of crowds – he felt that direct suspicion was at its lowest when he was immersed in the flow of people, but having so many people behind him also raised his anxiety. It was all too easy, in a crowd, to sneak up on someone.

His gait on the streets was casual, but every step of his route was calculated. If there were no deviations, he would arrive home in 29 minutes exactly and, given the mundanity of his day, he expected no deviations.

He really should stop making assumptions…

As he passed by a bookstore, he caught the reflection of a woman standing inside, facing the window display with a book in her hand. She was wearing a red beret with the WISE eye stitched into the side, hidden among a larger design. The woman’s hair was short and black, and her makeup was done to make her look about 5 years older, but he’d recognize those eyes anywhere.

‘Handler? Why is she here?!’

He stopped and pretended to examine the display from the outside, lifting his hand to scratch his left ear in acknowledgement. She flipped three pages of the book. An order. She needed to speak with him immediately.

He raised an eyebrow. She scratched the right side of her nose twice, and then her eyebrow once.

This was about his current investigation into the Roches. He was to meet her at the park near the supermarket two blocks from here.

He shifted his briefcase from his right hand to his left and continued walking.

Message received.

~*~

He didn’t have to wait too long.

The park in question was slightly sunken, with steps leading down, so he just sat, pretending to take a cigarette break. The park wasn’t empty, there were a few people who had come to walk their dogs and play with kids, but nobody paid attention as the woman with the beret came up from behind and leaned against the stair railing across from him, pretending to search through her handbag.

“Nightfall trusts you too much,” Sylvia Sherwood said, just loud enough for him to hear, “She takes what you say for granted and doesn’t question you enough.”

…That wasn’t what he expected her to start with.

“I don’t–”

“Whoever it was that attacked the Roches,” she spoke past him, “they cut most of the phone lines to the apartment before the fire was set. Someone going to those lengths to target a single family would not be a petty arsonist. They wanted the Roches dead. But the Roches have been alive for a full year. Independent investigators watched them for weeks after the fire as well. Whoever it was would not be the type to hesitate once they realized their targets were alive.”

He felt her gaze on him, but he refused to turn towards her.

“So maybe the idea that they wanted the family dead is wrong.” He tried.

“True,” Sylvia said casually, “Unless they thought they had eliminated their true target.”

She was baiting him. He took another breath of smoke, and she sighed. He saw her cross her arms out of the corner of his eye.

“Twilight,” she said more sternly, “I know you well enough to know that you came to the same conclusion, and yet you neglected to fully inform Nightfall. Why were unknown agents after Anya Forger?”

There it was. He extinguished his cigarette and tossed it in a nearby bin before finally glancing at her. Her hard expression softened as soon as they made eye contact.

“Is she currently in danger?”

Loid had forgotten the soft spot that his handler had for the girl. He’d be a dead man if he dared to suggest it was because Anya reminded her of her own dead daughter, but he appreciated that it was there all the same, no matter how much she would deny it out loud. At least someone at WISE didn’t see the girl purely as a pawn.

“I don’t know,” he finally responded, “I have Nightfall investigating further.”

“Does Anya know?”

Twilight hesitated, “She knew.”

“So, she told you why she was a target?”

“Not…exactly…”

She sniffed in frustration, “I don’t know why you’re being so evasive with me. I shouldn’t have to remind you that the efficacy of WISE operations relies on its agents being transparent with any pertinent information.”

“It’s not pertinent,” he blurted before smacking himself internally. There was no need to annoy the Fullmetal Lady any more than she already was. She was definitely going to saddle him with particularly difficult side missions in the future as punishment!

“That would be for our analysts to decide,” she countered, “You shouldn’t be relying on your feelings –”

“There are no feelings,” he retorted. Liar, that dark part of his mind said, “Anya did ask me not to tell anyone, but I made the decision on my own because it is a matter that I can control without outside assistance, and it has no bearing on our ability to hunt down any threats to STRIX.”

Sylvia looked at him for a few seconds longer before directing her gaze back out to the green open space before them, “Very well. I trust your ability to think rationally on this. If you ever wish to tell me in future, I won’t hold the delay against you. But if you’re wrong, and this causes trouble, you will be reprimanded. At the very least.”

“Fine.”

She nodded. The conversation was over. She began walking towards a nearby woman with a dog, possibly to start some idle conversation while he slipped away.

“Take care, Twilight.”

~*~

As it was still springtime, dusk was only beginning to settle as he reached the Forger home. Yor and Anya should both be home now, from work and school. However, he was met with silence as he turned the key and stepped over the threshold. The television was off and, while Bond came to greet him as usual, Anya was nowhere to be seen.

“Welcome home, Loid.” Yor called from the sofa, already out of her work clothes and with a book in hand.

“Hi, Yor,” he said back as he shucked off his outdoor coat, “Where’s Anya?”

“In her room,” she said. As he approached, he saw that she seemed nervous, “She wanted to get a head start on her homework before you got home to help her study. But…before you see her, can I…can I ask you something?”

 The gift from Mr. Roche, that he had left on the side table, was on the coffee table in front of her. Open. The comic and toy pistol were on the table. That observation felt more ominous than it should be, but he put on an affable smile to encourage her to continue as he sat in his usual seat across from her.

At his feet, Bond suddenly perked up and looked between the two of them. He whined twice, before running to Anya’s door. It was closed, so he pawed at it until she opened the door and let him in. The door closed again, and Loid turned back to Yor.

She chewed her lip for a second, “I’m really sorry to ask, and I’m sorry if you hate me afterwards, but it’s been bothering me all day and I talked to my co-workers and they think I should talk to you and I just need to get it off my chest and –”

“Yor, Yor, calm down,” Loid said, confused. ‘Is this about her having gripes again?’ “I’ve told you before, you can tell me, or ask me, anything.”

Yor took a deep breath, then looked him straight in the eyes, more serious than he’d ever seen her.

And dropped another bombshell on his day.

“Is Anya really your daughter?”

Chapter Text

“Doesn’t it seem too personal a gift for a stranger to give a kid after one meeting?” Sharon mused, puffing on her usual cigarette.

“He-he’s not a stranger,” Yor defended, “Loid said he was a university friend who recently moved back from another country!”

“An old university friend,” Camilla drawled, “Who is close enough with your husband to keep up to date with his daughter’s favorite things, but who has never been brought up in conversation between you two before? Isn’t it normal for people to know their spouse’s friends…?”

The jab of ‘normal’ made Yor go warm, and her voice came out weaker than she expected, “Loid probably mentioned it in a letter or over the telephone. It’s not that odd!”

This is not how she had hoped this conversation would go when the girls had asked her how her evening had gone and she mentioned the sweet gift Anya had received from Loid’s friend. All she wanted to talk about was how nice it had been, this morning, to see her excitement at unwrapping the box and seeing what was inside! But somehow, it had turned into them calling Loid’s poor friend a creep when he had done nothing wrong, as far as she could see!

“How long was he out of the country?” Millie asked innocently.

Camilla let out a theatrical gasp, “The country wasn’t Westalis, was it? Maybe he’s turned traitor, become a spy, and is trying to re-infiltrate the country by ingratiating himself with your husband!”

“’Ingratiate’? When did you learn such a big word?” Sharon teased. Camilla went red.

“Why, you-!”

“Either way, I think it’s really sweet,” Millie cut in. She turned back to Yor, “Was it for Anya’s birthday?”

Yor paused at that. She was pretty sure Anya’s birthday was at the end of summer – Loid had mentioned that she’d turned six shortly before they’d all met at the tailor’s shop. That wasn’t the kind of thing she would forget…right? So, it couldn’t have been for her birthday. But Yuri brought her nice gifts every time he saw her, even when it wasn’t even close to her birthday! Was it really that unusual for people to give non-birthday gifts to family or friends?  How was this any different than bringing back gifts for friends after a long trip?   

“Or maybe he’s not a spy.” Sharon said, bringing Yor out of her thoughts, “Maybe he’s a long lost relative.”

Yor frowned, “I’m pretty sure Loid said he was just a friend.”

“Maybe he’s the girl’s real father trying to get her back, and that’s what the gift was for!” Camilla countered, a conspiratorial lilt in her tone, “I saw something like that happen on an early season of Berlint in Love!”

Millie laughed, “That would be crazy!”

Yor’s mouth dropped open, aghast. Were they suggesting that Loid kidnapped Anya from his friend? That was ridiculous! Loid was such a kind man who very clearly cared about the girl, and she clearly cared about him too! If Anya had been kidnapped, wouldn’t she be trying to get back to her real parents? Wouldn’t Loid’s friend have been negligent, if he hadn’t reported Loid to the police for kidnapping after all this time? What did it say about her, living under the same roof as a child kidnapper and not having done anything about it? Oh, if Loid was really a bad man, she would have to kill him!

“Maybe you should ask him,” Camilla directed a chuckle towards Yor, “If he really loved you, he would tell you the truth.”

Yor clenched her fist and prepared to defend Loid when the door to the break room slammed open to reveal their section chief with a stormy expression on his face, “Girls! Your break ended five minutes ago! Get back to work!”

“Yes, sir!” All four of them said in unison, out of the room and towards their desks.

But as Yor adjusted her skirt and sat before her assigned typewriter, a memory washed over her like a bucket of ice water – Anya, sobbing into her chest, pale and shaking…And what she had said, in that moment of weakness…

Yor frowned as her own lips formed the same syllables, pieces coming together to form a scary picture in her mind.

“Old-Papa ruined everything.”

~*~

“Is Anya really your daughter?”

A dozen questions passed through Agent Twilight’s mind as soon as he registered her question.

‘What did she just say? What does she know? How did she come to this conclusion? This can’t be a coincidence, after what I learned about Anya just yesterday! Did someone tell her; is someone trying to destroy the Forgers? The story I came up with ages ago is that my wife had difficulties conceiving so we adopted. But is she asking this now because she would have a problem with Anya’s status? Did I miscalculate when I concluded that she would never abandon Anya? Would it be safer to play dumb? The good thing is that she normally doesn’t ask too many questions; I haven’t had to give her much information about our ‘past’ that she can refute if I make something up now. How will she react if I tell her ‘no’? How will she react if I tell her ‘yes’? It would be easier to give a watertight answer if I knew her logic path...’

In the end, it took two seconds to come up with the beginning of a response.

“I’m…sorry?”

Yor’s hands, still clasped around her book, clenched. “I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you. Just forget it…”

“No, no,” Loid said, leaning forward, “What on earth gave you that idea…about Anya?”

The hard cover of the book was creaking under her strength. Yor’s knuckles were turning white. Loid was hit with the urge to grab her hands to soothe her, but he was afraid she’d lash out if he tried to touch her, wound up as she was, “It’s silly…”

“I don’t think it is,” Loid coaxed. It was imperative that this was nipped in the bud now. He couldn’t let her leave the room still stewing on whatever it was that brought her to this dangerous conclusion, “I told you to let me know if you had any concerns and that I wouldn’t judge you for them. You just…surprised me since the question came out of nowhere.”

 She took another deep breath, “I…well I was talking with the girls at work and told them how nice it was to see Anya so happy with such a thoughtful gift,” she nodded to the toy pistol and comic on the table between them, “I wasn’t trying to be weird about it, or anything! They just asked how my evening had gone as usual and I didn’t want to talk about how she’d gotten upset yesterday so I just focused on the good things, you know?” then her gaze dropped as if she was ashamed, “And they…they said things about your friend. They said it was strange for someone to know Anya so well to give her toys when it wasn’t her birthday, but to have never been mentioned as a good friend of yours and then they said…I thought…”

She trailed off, glancing back up at Loid to gauge his reaction to what she had said so far. He kept his expression placid, but he had to admit he was relieved.

He had no idea how she had left a conversation like that with the thought that Anya may not be his daughter, but dispelling the foundation of her worry should be easy enough. Loid had observed enough of her colleagues – up close, and from afar –to know that they were particularly gossipy women. They weren’t being serious, he could say. They were just joking around and Yor shouldn’t take their words to heart. They were the odd ones, he could add, to think that his friend giving a gift to Anya was odd. Of course, Peter Roche knew what Anya liked, he could spin things, he had never met her in person before, but they had talked about her over the phone many times, like long-distance friends would do. It was perfectly natural…

Yor’s voice cut through, shakier than before, “We’re partners, right?”

“…Yes?”

A pause. Yor unclenched her hands and placed the book down beside her. She casually picked up what he assumed was her bookmark – a short, thin stiletto not unlike her favorite earrings or a letter opener – and began fiddling with it. Then, “You said you would tell me if something was wrong.”

“Yes.”

Here it comes…

“Why did Anya refer to your friend as ‘old-Papa’?” her grip on the bookmark tightened, and Loid suddenly thought that it looked too much like a weapon, in her hands, “Did you kidnap her from him?”

…What?

“No!” Loid said immediately, not liking where this conversation was turning. Her mind had jumped to kidnapping? Was that really what her wild imagination had produced? It was a good thing she hadn’t gone to the secret police with this before talking to him, if that’s where her train of thought had led her, but still, “Why on earth –? Yor, where is this coming from?!”

“He didn’t!”

Loid whipped his head towards the new voice. Anya. She was clutching Bond’s fur tightly, standing beside him with a pinched expression. How much of their conversation had she heard?

“Anya!” Yor said in surprise.

“Mama, please don’t hurt Papa.”

Loid turned back to see Yor drop the bookmark onto the couch as if it had burned her. Wariness poked at the back of his thoughts, as he considered that Anya must have read her mind. Had she really been planning to hurt him if her suspicions had been confirmed? Or did she just think that he would attack her and was preparing to defend herself?

“I…I wasn’t...” Yor stammered, glancing between Anya and Loid.

“Papa didn’t steal Anya!” the little girl said, letting go of the dog and throwing herself into Yor’s arms, “Please, Mama, I promise!”

Yor hugged Anya tightly, “Anya, you’ve been so upset since the Fair and Loid said it was because you were reminded of your mother but then you said ‘old-Papa ruined everything’…” she said quietly, “I began to think…”

Anya shook her head, “If Papa was mean like that, Anya would have just run away to the police.”

Yor seemed to consider it. Loid let go of a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Who is 'old-Papa', then? What did he ruin?”

Anya froze for a second, “…I was talking about Papa. I call him ‘old-Papa’ when I’m mad because…because he’s grumpy, like an old man.”

‘Hey!’ Loid bristled mentally. But he guessed it was as good an excuse as any. There was no plausible excuse for Anya to be referring to Mr. Roche as any kind of father figure when Loid had already told Yor that he’d been out of the country for her whole life. Although it seemed like Yor had forgotten that tidbit, anyway, given her kidnapping angle.

Unless she had really come to think he had been lying about that which…wasn’t good. She was a bit naïve, yes, but she most likely believed his lies and excuses because he made sure he came across as impeccably trustworthy. If she began to consider that he would lie to her, doing so in the future would be more difficult.

“Why did you say Loid would give you away?”

“An-Anya was afraid that…that Papa would, because he seemed so mad. Before. And when he didn’t want to have dinner with us.”

The girl was stuttering and the look in her eyes was too manic. If Loid could tell she was lying right now, could Yor?

“Yor,” Loid said tentatively to redirect her attention, “Were your colleagues the ones who suggested that Anya may have been kidnapped?”

Yor shrugged, avoiding his gaze. He gave her a reassuring smile, “I don’t know why, but I think they were probably joking. You didn’t have to believe it.”

That may have been the wrong thing to say because Yor’s eyes immediately filled with tears She began stroking Anya’s hair in what Loid immediately recognized as a self-soothing gesture, “You’re right. I think I may just be stupid. I could have thought things through before believing them and accusing you of something so ridiculous, but I realized that I don’t know as much about you both because I never ask, and I started thinking scary things and I…I…”

“Mama!” Anya whined.

Loid cursed himself internally, “You’re not stupid at all!”

That ever-traitorous thought crossed his mind again:

‘You could tell her the truth…’

In a split second, Anya had turned to look at Loid, scared, but then her look morphed into a glare. He winced, realizing that she heard him. What did she think he was going to say? He mentally apologized to her before…

“But, if it makes you feel better, you were close. Anya is adopted.”

Anya’s glare lost its intensity, but he forced himself to focus on Yor. Her hand in Anya’s hair had stopped moving.

“Adopted,” she repeated. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. Her mother and I adopted her, as a baby, from a nearby orphanage. She is my daughter in every way that is important, so I never thought to tell you.”

Yor remained contemplative, “And you’re telling me now.”

Loid nodded, “I can imagine that not telling you much about our life before you can make you come to some…strange conclusions on your own. That was entirely my fault, for not recognizing that. I apologize.”

Yor looked at him for a long moment before turning her attention to Anya, who had stopped glaring at him completely, “Did you know?”

Anya nodded, “Yes. Sorry Mama, for not telling you before. Anya thought you wouldn’t like her as much, if you knew.”

“Oh, Anya,” Yor wrapped her arms around the girl again, “I could never think less of you for being adopted! You’re too precious to me!”

Anya beamed, and Loid couldn’t help the warmth that spread through his chest at the sight.

“Can we have dinner? Anya’s hungry.” Anya said.

Loid welcomed the change of subject, “I can get it ready if you wait about a half hour.”

“Yay!” the girl cheered. She wriggled out of Yor’s lap and rushed back to her room.

Loid sighed and got up. A major crisis had just been averted, but he was walking away with another massive headache. He had no idea what made Anya leave her room at the perfect moment to intervene, and she could have easily made things worse, but he had to admit she was decent at improvising. Hopefully, Yor would be placated enough not to make any rash decisions or jump to any more conclusions. As he turned towards the kitchen, he felt the woman in question grab his wrist.

He turned to see that the thoughtful look on her face had returned, “Yor?”

“Why did you really tell me that Anya was adopted? Was it really to just make me feel better? Because you didn’t have to reveal something so personal –”

“I wanted to,” Loid blurted. Yor blinked in surprise, and he felt the tips of his ears warm.

Where did that come from?

“It was an offering. I meant what I said about not meaning to keep it from you,” he forced himself to continue, “You are a part of this family. I…I didn’t want you to feel like we were keeping secrets.”

‘Oh, the irony!’ Twilight sneered in the back of his mind, ‘Now, if she finds out the full truth, she’ll have a real reason to want to stab you with that bookmark of hers!’

~*~

‘So, there was nothing suspicious going on with Loid’s friend,’ Yor thought as she watched Loid organize the cooking utensils that he was going to use to make their dinner, ‘I really was just being silly. He’s just a nice man that wanted to make Anya happy! I’m sure I saw his name on the business card that Loid got from him on the weekend– Peter Roche, was it? Maybe, I should get to know him better if he’s such a good friend! After all, its normal to know your spouse’s friends…’

~*~

Halfway through dinner, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Loid said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Anya watched him get up, scrutiny on her tiny face. They were still supposed to talk after dinner, just the two of them, so he could learn more about her mind-reading. He was eager to gain as much information from her as possible, but if this was an emergency from WISE and he was being called out, they’d have to postpone their discussion. What a pain.

“Is this Dr. Forger,” Fiona’s voice rang through the receiver as soon as he picked up the phone.

“Speaking…”

“We have a patient emergency. Case 1387 is having issues and we have to take them through another department.”

“Right,” his eyes narrowed. A case in the 13-series meant ‘emergency’. He would have to rendezvous with her immediately, but not at the hospital, “Which department?”

Fiona gave a name, with the real address for their meet-up location encoded in her parting words, then hung up.

“Loid?”

He turned back to Anya and Yor who were waiting for him. He gave them both a sheepish smile, “Sorry, I have to make an emergency house call. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Yor nodded, but Anya pursed her lips. She had definitely been listening to the call. ‘Could she only hear my own thoughts,’ he briefly wondered, ‘Or could she also technically hear what Fiona was saying since my brain had to register her speech in real time? Does that count as thinking too?’

“I’ll probably be back in time to tuck you in, Anya,” he said aloud, “We’ll have to study together another day.”

Anya’s annoyed expression didn’t lift, but she nodded.

Since Loid hadn’t changed out of his day clothes, all he needed to do was put on his coat. This was a short meeting. He had his pistol in the inside pocket, but he doubted he would need to use it. Fiona had been tailing Mr. Roche tonight, so she must have noted something important. Why it couldn’t wait until the morning, he didn’t know, but Fiona wouldn’t make an emergency call frivolously.

 He said goodbye to Anya and Yor and headed out as quickly as he could.

It would be dangerous for both him and Fiona to be seen one-on-one in a public place after dark, with rumors of infidelity flying easily from people’s tongues these days, so the meeting place was a random bus stop a few blocks away from Berlint General Hospital. Loid approached in his car, saw Fiona already waiting for him, purposefully drove past her, and parked the car a few meters down and across the street. As soon as the engine stopped rumbling, he pulled some papers out of the glove box and turned on a portable, short-wave, two-way radio that was hidden in the floor by his feet. This way, if any police or SSS officers were patrolling at this time at night and saw him in his car, he could claim he was finishing some last-minute work before heading home.  

He put the radio’s receiver in his ear and waited for the machine to crackle to life on her end.

“Roche has two tails.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed at the papers in his lap. Roche was being tailed? Franky had noted that surveillance on the family had stopped months ago – why was it picking up again? Was it a coincidence that it was picking up right after he met up with the man?

“Explain.”

“Two men, both tall and of average build. Both blond, with short-cropped hair. One had a scar through his left eyebrow. They were relatively skilled in being covert, but not enough to notice me. They followed him from the moment he stepped out of his workplace, made a note of everyone he spoke to casually, but did not confront him directly. They mostly spoke to each other.”

“And Roche.”

“He didn’t notice them. After work, he went to a nearby pub and drank with who I was able to discern were some colleagues. Three men. I’ve memorized their faces and will do further research on them when I go to HQ. After half an hour of casual conversation about current and future advertisement projects, Roche left, got in his car, and headed to a bakery. He picked out two apple tarts, spoke with the cashier for a moment, and then got back in his car. The rest of his journey home was uninterrupted. The finer details of my report will be on your desk in the morning.”

He sighed. So, Roche’s day seemed to be as normal as any, save for his two stalkers…

“Were you able to get close enough to learn what his tails wanted, or knew?”

There was a pause. A second, really, but much too long for Fiona’s usual behavior, “They mentioned the Forger girl.”

Twilight’s frown deepened, “What?”

“They were looking for a way to learn about where she was from Roche. One of them asked the other why she wasn’t dead.”

It was as he had feared. Someone was after Anya. And that someone had somehow heard that Anya survived the fire. Did they have a bug, or an eavesdropper, in Venge, and he hadn’t noticed?

“Handler contacted me earlier today and suggested that she was the real target of the Roche arson last year.”

Another uncharacteristic pause, “The Forger girl’s safety is paramount. For Operation STRIX.”

“Yes.” Twilight agreed grimly.

“Does Roche know anything.”

“No,” he said, before he realized something. He mentally smacked himself, “I told him that she’s an Eden student.”

“The school is well guarded, but what about after and before school?”

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

That was a guarantee. That girl was not getting hurt under his watch.

“He also knows your alias. They’ll have no luck confronting you directly, but we’ll need to further classify your employee file at the hospital in case they try to track her down that way.”

“Keep tailing Mr. Roche and his family, learn what you can about the men, or any other tails Roche attracts, and steer them away from any direct confrontation if you can do so discretely.” The Roche family was already being dragged back into dangerous territory for something that was Twilight’s fault. The least he could do was keep them from getting hurt.  

“Roger that,” Fiona said crisply, “Should we try to apprehend the men once enough information is gathered or if they become violent? They may be involved with whoever wanted the girl dead in the first place.”

“Please.”

Twilight knew that that was really the kind of call that only Handler could make, but she had already trusted him on this. He was not going to make any more mistakes or underestimate this mystery threat, for Operation STRIX, and for the Forger civilians who were at home, still waiting for him.

He was going to get to the bottom of this.

Chapter Text

Anya was staring at him.

Anya was always staring at him, he realized – at home, out on the street, on the way home from school...He’d always wondered what she was thinking or what she was waiting for but brushed it off as harmless childhood curiosity. Nurturing a child’s desire to soak up as much sensory information as possible was necessary for their healthy development, at least according to the books he’d borrowed all those months ago.

Now he knew better.

It was Saturday morning so, per the Forger family habits, Yor was humming away as she washed the dishes from their breakfast, he was finishing reading the morning paper, Bond was lounging beside the table, and Anya was supposed to be posted in front of the television, deaf to the world around her as the opening theme of a show began to play. Keywords – supposed to be. Loid had even checked the schedule; there was meant to be a new episode of her second favorite show, Bear Squad, airing in a few minutes. Normally, Anya wouldn’t miss such an opportunity.

Instead, she seemed to be trying to burn a hole through his newspaper with her gaze alone.

‘Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think… It is advisable to remove the recoil spring from the barrel. A few drops of acid-free, non-resinous oil should be applied to the various ports… ’

“Papa?”

When he’d returned from his meeting with Nightfall the previous night, he had found her still awake even though it was past her bedtime. Yor had sheepishly said that the girl insisted on her papa putting her to bed because she missed him. Loid hadn’t believed it for a second. He imagined she had just wanted to get him alone and pick through his mind about highly sensitive information that a six-year-old had no business learning about and…

He had feigned tiredness.

He hadn’t run from her. Agent Twilight did not run from a challenge. But he had needed to…regroup.

Now, he took a small breath before glancing at her over his paper. Making eye contact with her still felt raw, like he was being flayed. He didn’t think she could help it, and he was trying to be better than what she had experienced before, but he couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed by this little girl’s ability to steamroll over every instinct that was beaten into him. The lockbox was that Agent Twilight’s mind was not meant to be breached at all, let alone so easily.

At least he could suppress the urge to flinch openly.

“You don’t have to…” she fidgeted, glancing over at Yor. The older woman was not paying attention to them, caught up in scrubbing a frying pan, “Papa’s always thinking cool stuff, but Anya can focus on Mama…”

‘So, you can direct your telepathy? Since every person is thinking all the time, do all the internal voices overlap, or can you tune out whoever you’re not focusing on? I know you can’t handle crowds so is there a limit to the number of people standing in your ability’s range? What is that limit? How do you handle classes?’

Anya frowned, “Too much too fast.”

Loid snapped out of his analysis, shaking off a frisson of irritation at having dropped his guard again, ‘At least she has that as a weakness…’

Anya’s brows sank deeper, “You don’t like it…”

Loid raised an eyebrow, ‘Can you turn it off?’

Anya’s eyes widened for a second before she shook her head slowly. In that second, he made his decision.

‘We should talk. Like you wanted yesterday.’

She scrunched up her face and glanced over at the television.

‘Ohh no, you’re not running away now. You can watch cartoons after.’

Anya folded her arms.

This was the strangest pseudo-conversation he had ever taken part in.

Twilight was used to non-verbal communication on missions. Contrary to the myths spread about him by the younger agents, although he specialized in solo undercover work, he was not the brooding, lone wolf type. He was efficient, and he did not turn his nose up at working with a partner or team if it heightened the mission’s chance of success. Delicate operations often called for sending and receiving messages to fellow agents in the same room as hostiles without blowing one’s cover – or theirs, for that matter – and it was one of the first skills the Fullmetal Lady made sure he’d mastered.

But this was a different level.

A small part of him, for a fraction of a second, contemplated the usefulness of an agent that could read minds…

Across from him, Anya’s eyes lit up. The flayed feeling returned.

“Okay Anya,” he said aloud, folding his paper and putting it aside, “How about we study now? I’m sorry I couldn’t help you last night, but I’m free today.”

Yor looked up at the sound of his voice, “Good idea, Loid! Oh, but Anya usually has her cartoons first, right?”

A beat of silence. Anya looked down at where Bond was curled by her feet, making eye contact with the dog as she made her decision.

“No, that’s okay!” Anya said cheerfully, her tone catching both adults off guard. Before Loid could say anything though, she hopped out of her chair and ran to her room.

“I guess she really wanted to spend time with you,” Yor said, watching the nameplate on Anya’s bedroom door rattle as it was closed a little too roughly.

“I guess so,” Loid narrowed his eyes, as he stood to follow. Was it worth being suspicious of the girl’s change in attitude when, mere seconds ago, she’d considered stalling?

When he entered Anya’s room, she wasn’t at her desk, but sitting at the edge of her bed, clutching Mr. Chimera and kicking her feet, clearly waiting for him. None of her books or study supplies were on her desk. At least they were on the same page about this not being a normal study session. But what had happened in the span of a minute for her to go from insisting on talking with him, to trying to avoid it, to being excited about it…?

“Anya wants to tell Mama!” she blurted as soon as he closed the door.

He blinked, “…Okay? What has made you change your mind?”

“She wasn’t mad when she found out Anya wasn’t Papa’s yesterday, even though we kept it secret, and Bond can see the future and he just showed Anya hugging Mama so Anya think things will be okay and she won’t be mad –”

Wait, what?!

He didn’t need to assume Anya read his mind to pick up on his reaction to the bomb she had just casually dropped – he figured it was written all over his face.

Anya’s legs stopped kicking, “Bond has magic powers, just like Anya!”

…Right.

A telepathic daughter and a clairvoyant dog. That wasn’t natural. That wasn’t possible. How did that happen? How did that happen to him? The thought that he had been set up, and that Operation STRIX was being sabotaged from the shadows, flitted back into his mind.

He’d ask for proof, but he had no idea how to get it. He knew how to train a dog to attack, to defend, to sniff out bombs. But how on earth do you test an animal for super-cognitive abilities?! He only had Anya’s word and, while she wasn’t a liar by nature, he shouldn’t trust anything that he couldn't 100% verify for himself.

“Can Bond…also read minds?” Loid couldn’t believe those words were leaving his mouth.

Anya shook her head, “Just Anya.”

“Alright,” Loid took a breath. Even if the dog could read minds like Anya and she just didn’t know, it wasn’t like anybody would be interrogating a dog for his secrets.

Anya’s giggling snapped him out of his thoughts. He raised an eyebrow when she offered no immediate explanation and she wilted a little, “Papa’s thought was funny.”

At least she understood that she should look apologetic.

“You really can’t turn it off.”

She shook her head, but then hesitated, “Anya can’t hear thoughts when the moon disappears. The doctors called it ‘eclipsing’?”

“Doctors,” Loid’s eyes narrowed, “What doctors?”

“The doctors that made Anya hear thoughts.”

‘So, she wasn’t born like this?’ “You said you didn’t know how you got your powers.”

“Anya doesn’t,” she took a second to think, “There were pokey machines and they made me study a lot. But Papa makes me study a lot too…”

How old would she have been, when this all started? This was child experimentation, if he was deducing things correctly. Multiple actors, since Anya said more than one doctor. Multiple professionals, machinery…this would have taken money, space, and time. Who would sponsor such an undertaking? Was Anya the only test subject? Was she the only successful test subject?

This was the kind of information that WISE needed to know immediately. When he’d believed that Anya was the only one, he’d felt secure in the knowledge that he could handle her well enough that she wouldn’t be a threat. But if she was one of many, with the others completely invisible to WISE’s radar…

“So, you can hear everyone? All at once?”

“Yes,” Anya squeezed Mr. Chimera, “Crowds are scary.”

‘Well, that answers that. Sounds like eye contact isn’t a factor.’

“What’s your range?”

Anya merely tilted her head in confusion, “Range?”

‘Right. Six-year-old.’

She could barely tell the time, why should he expect her to measure physical boundaries?

“Is that why you have trouble in school with some subjects?” At least saying it that way was less harsh than outright accusing her of sabotage.

“It’s too hard to focus on one person, and if Anya tries, they think too fast to catch the answer. And, anyway, learning is more fun now and Papa said that cheating will make people hate Anya…”

Loid blinked, “When did I say that?”

Anya thought about it for a second, putting her fist to her chin, “Dunno. Ages ago. Or thought it, I guess.”

She really was picking up whatever he said and whatever he thought around her. Months of strategizing, planning, detailing. Months of highly classified information being snatched up by a child who had no idea what she was carrying. But then again…

“Anya, how much of what I think do you remember?”

Anya scrunched up her face, “Is Papa mad? Anya promised not to tell any secrets to anybody!”

“And what secrets do you remember?” he pressed.

Anya looked away and mumbled something.

“What?”

“Is Papa gonna be mad at Anya?” she said, quiet, but more audible.

Loid sighed. He needed to know what she knew in order to make an accurate threat assessment, but he wasn’t going to get anything out of her if he treated her like a threat. Especially when she was actually a target.

“The key to raising a child is trust,” he reminded himself.

“No,” he said, finally sitting beside her on the bed, “I won’t be mad. I am just concerned about what I may have let you know accidentally. What I do…it’s not for kids to know.”

“But Anya thinks its super cool!”

Loid frowned, “It’s not like Spy Wars, Anya. This is real life.”

“Anya knows! Anya’s helped Papa before!”

He ignores the shiver that runs down his back at that statement. There were stories there that he desperately needed to know, but it was all too sensitive to ask with Yor still in the house, “Well, you can’t ‘help’ anymore.”

Anya pouted, “Not even with STIX? Isn’t that why you got Anya in the first place?”

It was said so innocently, but it felt like a slap all the same, because she wasn’t wrong.

“Does this mean Papa is sending Anya back?”

“No,” he said firmly. He couldn’t have her going down this line of thought again, “I am not going to leave you or Yor.”

Anya sniffed, “Papa’s a liar.”

He was the one to look away this time.

“If Anya can’t help Papa –”

‘Did she really think that she’d be abandoned if she wasn’t being useful?’

It was…mildly horrifying to think. Certainly, he knew that was who he was to WISE; as long as he could efficiently complete missions and gather intelligence, he was an asset to the organization. He was a tool. He had made his peace with that. And he had never had a problem using targets as tools too. But he wasn’t cold enough to callously use a child?

Was he? Was that what he’d become?

He was suddenly very, very, aware of how many times he had thought about leaving the Forgers once STRIX was over.

“Can Anya still help with STRIX?”

Damn it all! He couldn’t deny that two thirds of his plan to get closer to Donovan Desmond relied heavily on this little girl who was volunteering to be used for his mission. Maybe he should re-strategize his course of action? How did he go this long without caring one iota…

He knew, though. The difference now was that she knew.

He didn’t know what that said about him.

“Well, it is still good to keep up your studies,” At least Plan A was a goal that any normal parent would strive for…

Anya clearly saw past his excuse because her expression lit up with (in his opinion, misplaced) excitement. Then, almost as abruptly, she frowned.

“Anya can also keep doing Plan B, too, even if Sy-on Boy is a meanie!”

Loid huffed, “I wouldn’t…discourage you from befriending the Desmond boy. It would be good for you to get along with your classmates….”

Anya giggled, “Papa’s such a softie.”

Loid frowned at the accusation and opened his mouth to ask another question when –

“Will you tell Anya what the scary lady said?”

Nightfall’s face flashed into his mind for a brief second, but he locked down his thoughts before the previous night’s conversation could be recalled. “Stop that!” he said, tone clipped. She giggled again, as he mentally recited his pistol’s cleaning instructions.

A part of him was relieved that she had stopped him from vocalizing his new line of inquiry. This girl’s power was dangerous. Given how easy it is to instinctively think about something, she would be able to extract a trove of information from anyone if she asked the right questions. He had considered asking her more about the man she heard before the Roches’ home was set ablaze, but he knew that if she got an inkling of her current danger from his thoughts, she would try to get involved. He had to go.

He needed more information. He just didn’t know where to start.

“Thank you,” he said. The ‘for trusting me’ didn’t need to be verbalized. Credit where it was due, she could have run from him or made excuses or tried lying to him, but she didn’t, even if she had considered it for a second or two, “Will you tell me more if I come back with more questions?”

Anya nodded, “Is Papa going on another mission now?” Her eyes sparkled, watching him as he made his way to the door. He really needed to get it out of her head that his work was anything but a necessary burden. It wasn’t exciting, or fun. It was thankless and grueling.

Twilight was no hero.

“When do you want to tell Yor,” he responded with instead, directing her back to what opened their talk, “Would you like me to be there?”

“Yes!” Anya said firmly, suddenly serious, “Family sticks together.”

His heart flipped as he nodded, “Just tell me when. I won’t leave you alone.”

At least, in that, he could be honest.

~*~

Loid continued mentally reciting nonsense until he was back in his own room. Only then, did he allow himself to think of the most important thing that Anya had revealed.

“Bond has magic powers, just like Anya!”

“Project Apple,” Handler had said, “It was a research initiative conducted by the previous Ostanian regime to produce highly intelligent animals for military purposes.”

“The doctors that made Anya hear thoughts.”

He would start with Project Apple.

~*~

He was being followed.

Just to be sure, he cut through a path that took him outside the park limits before jogging around the block, and then re-entered the park at another entrance.

Yes, he was being followed.

Twilight had no planned rendezvous with any agents and he’d gotten no messages from Handler since he informed her of the possible threat to STRIX. Nightfall had also been notified on what new information to keep an ear out for while surveilling the Roches and their new stalkers. He was just a normal civilian, this early Sunday morning, out for a jog to keep up his physical fitness. There was no reason for the tall man and woman to keep the same distance behind him, refusing to slow down. They were dressed similarly, probably posing as a couple out for some exercise, but, while they seemed to exchange words every once in a while and keep pace with each other, their eyes remained trained on him in a way that set off alarm bells.

Were they SSS? They weren’t in uniform, but that didn’t mean anything. Were they related to the tails that Mr. Roche had managed to attract? Would it be safe to stop and ask what they wanted?  

There was no way he was going to lead them down the seldom used path he normally ran, in case this was the precursor to an ambush, but he didn’t want to stop and head back home either, as that would only lead them to his address.

He decided to leave the park again and duck into a nearby coffee shop. He had never been in here before, but it had just enough traffic coming in and out – not too busy but not sparse on customers either – that the likelihood of his pursuers trying anything with him would dip drastically.

He ordered an apple tart to have an excuse to stay and saw the man enter the shop out of the corner of his eye.

The woman stayed outside.

The man went up to the counter and ordered a coffee. A single coffee. As the barista turned their back, the man looked over at Loid. Loid looked back, undaunted, taking a bite of his pastry.

‘I know you two have eyes on me.’

He wasn’t sure how his information had been pulled so easily, especially since Nightfall had promised that Loid Forger’s personal information was encrypted, but it was clear that whoever was behind this was hemming him in, just like Roche. Public spaces were no longer safe. He wouldn’t be able to interact with fellow agents, Handler, or Franky directly in public for a while. Re-calculating his moves with this new obstacle was easy, but still an annoyance.

The man received his coffee and left. Both he and the woman left the view of the shop window, but Loid was sure they were still nearby, waiting for him to emerge.

The good thing was, they didn’t seem to be experts at stealth, given that he easily noticed them, so it should be easy to give them the slip as well. All he had to do was ask to use the shop toilet, slip through the back exit, and return home via the alleyways he had mapped out months ago.

Every good agent had multiple exit strategies, after all.

~*~

Operation STRIX asset connections under investigation.

Threat Level: Moderate .

Chapter Text

Yor’s anxiety spiked the moment she walked in on Monday and spotted the Director waiting for her by her desk.

‘Is Shopkeeper calling?’ she pondered, ‘Do I have another big mission?’

She tried scanning his expression to get any hint on the situation behind his sudden presence, but he looked as austere as he always did.

He nodded to her in greeting as she approached, “Forger, are you ready for our meeting?”

“Ye-yes, sir.”

“Very well. Follow me.”

Her anxiety spiked even higher as she complied and quickly realized that they were not heading for his office, as usual, but towards the entrance of city hall itself.

This would be no simple phone call. Whatever this was about was important enough for Shopkeeper to want to see her in person. Immediately. As they walked, she couldn’t help but think of the last time such discretion had been needed – the headstrong and kind woman who could no longer be called Olka Gretcher, the brave man who stood by her side, and the warm, smiling boy who looked perfect in her arms.

“Those hands of yours,” the second person ever to really see her had said, “are the reason this child has a future.”

Yor wondered how all of them were doing now, with the freedom she had worked hard to give them.

Shopkeeper’s garden was as breathtaking as ever. Although she rarely entered it, these days, the well-groomed trees and healthy, blooming flowers all around her never failed to calm her mind and slow her heartbeat. Green, yellow, pink, purple, red – as Shopkeeper often reminded her, this rainbow would not exist without people like her cutting away the rot that threatened it.

Life. Tended to by a man who ordered death. It was one reason why she respected him so much.

It didn’t take long to find him in this sanctuary. His thick hair swayed in the light breeze as he watered a patch of flowers with delicate, blue petals popping out amidst green. As Yor approached, he rose to his full height.

“Ah, Thorn Princess,” he said with warmth in his voice, “Welcome.”

“The periwinkles look like they’re blooming wonderfully,” she responded politely, pointing to the blue.

“Yes,” he nodded back, “Such small buds, and easy to overlook, but hardy. As long as the soil is fertile for their development, they will grow, no matter the terrain, and emerge with such elegant color that future hardships will find difficult to tarnish,” he smiled, “Reminds me of you.”

Yor felt her face heat, “I-I’m glad you think so highly of me, Shopkeeper. I always do my best!”

He nodded again, watching her closely, “It is not immune to pests and mold, though, so despite its hardiness, careful attention is still needed to maintain their brilliance.”

 “Oh, wow!” Yor whispered as she bent to better appreciate the almost star-shaped flowers. She had learned about plants over the many years of being around her mentor, but she still didn’t know as much as he did. It was impressive, the amount of knowledge he had acquired for his hobby.

He finally put down his watering can and turned to face her fully, “Have you paid such attention to any threats in your own life?”

Yor blinked. Threats? In her own life?

He clearly read the confusion on her face, “Just like the roots of the unassuming periwinkle, our organization is hardy and widespread. We use our strengths where we find them in order to attain world peace, and we have eyes and ears everywhere…”

Yor didn’t know where this was going so she just nodded slowly.

“The underground world whispers amongst itself,” Shopkeeper continued, clasping his hands behind his back, “And we listen.”

He tilted his head and produced a small photograph from his gardener’s apron. Yor took it from his hands and almost dropped it when she realized who the subject was.

“Tell me, Thorn Princess, why is the name ‘Forger’ being whispered these days?”

~*~

After ditching his stalkers on Sunday, Twilight had swept his residence to make sure there were no recording devices. Thankfully 128 Park Avenue was clean, but he was unsure if the landline had been tapped, so that form of communication was a no-go. His device for sending coded messages, that he kept under his bed, seemed untampered with, but was too rudimentary to be adequate for the complexity of this situation. He couldn’t go to Franky, meet up with any WISE agents in public, or go to headquarters, either, with his new shadows.

It was always two of them. On Monday, it was the man and woman he had evaded on the weekend. Yesterday, it had been two different men. This morning, it had been the man from the weekend and one of the men from yesterday. They followed him everywhere out in public. On foot, they followed him on the streets and onto any public transportation he took be it the tram or the metro. If he entered a building, one would follow him in while the other waited outside. With this thoroughness, and the number of people dedicated to his surveillance, Twilight knew that the organization whose attention he had caught was not small. But, given that his new shadows were most likely related to the situation with Anya, he shouldn’t be surprised.

He quickly discovered their limits. First, they didn’t seem to know his exact address yet; on Monday, he only noticed their presence about three or four blocks out from 128 Park Avenue – at the fake address one would get if they searched up ‘Forger’ in a phonebook, so that confirmed that they did know his false name and not just his face – and he went to great efforts to make sure they couldn’t follow him home from the hospital. As organized as they were, his shadows seemed to be somewhat amateur, so escaping them was generally easy. The annoying part came with having to give them the slip while trying to maintain his cover as an ordinary civilian; it had to be in a way that could be chalked up to them not paying attention or losing sight of him in a crowd. Their own mistakes, rather than any skill on his part. The café he had used to evade them on Sunday was a perfect location to duck into and either quietly escape through the back or put on a disguise in the bathroom and walk back out the front, or he’d disappear into the evening rush on the metro, no matter how much it made his nerves itch. Aside from that first morning when he’d made eye contact with the tall man in the café, he made sure not to acknowledge his tails at all. He didn’t know how they would escalate things if they were made aware that he knew he was still being followed.

Secondly, if he went out in a car, he remained undetected which meant they didn’t recognize vehicles that they didn’t see him enter directly and, since they didn’t know his car, they didn’t know his license plate. That would be helpful if their surveillance of him became a long-term affair, since there would be some days that he’d want to go out unmolested. But he wanted to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible, which meant letting them tail him close enough that he could learn about them too. So, the car was also a no-go for now.

Most importantly, though, it seemed like they couldn’t follow him into Berlint General Hospital. The hospital, thankfully, took security very seriously, and everyone who walked through the doors either needed a staff ID or had to register as a patient or visitor at the front desk. His shadows would watch him enter the building, and be waiting for him outside if he left, but he knew they wouldn’t dare do anything to leave a record of their presence. And he was sure they didn’t have anybody tailing him within the building since he had long memorized the faces of all the staff that came close to him on a daily basis and there were no new faces among them.

Still, he took three days to make sure that was the case before he felt comfortable enough to debrief Nightfall in his office. Twilight entered his office on Wednesday, conducted his usual sweep for bugs, and called her.

“Report.”

She stood before him as stiffly as ever, “Mr. Roche’s weekend was quiet. He stayed in his home with his family except for two occasions – he took his son to a nearby playground on Saturday morning, and went on what looked like a date with his wife that evening after a neighbor arrived to watch their son. They drove to an upscale restaurant called The Grandest and remained for three hours and twenty minutes. Neither Roche spoke to anyone else for any prolonged period of time while they were there. After that, they drove back home.”

Twilight nodded, “And the tails…?”

She stepped forward and held out a manila folder to him, “Investigations managed to build profiles on them.”

Twilight took the folder and opened it, finding two faces staring back at him. Blond, with short-cropped hair, as Nightfall had told him before. The one without the jagged scar through his brow looked incredibly similar to the waiter that served him and Mr. Roche at Venge.

“Stefan Schwarz and Karl Weiland,” Nightfall introduced, “They grew up together in Strausberdt. Schwarz turned to crime eight years ago after his family was left destitute during the war, served two years in prison for aggravated burglary, re-emerged, and promptly disappeared into the Ostanian criminal underworld. We assume he gained his connections while in prison since criminal organizations don’t usually recruit petty burglars off the street. Organization, unknown. Karl Weiland came to Berlint five years ago with his younger brother, Dieter, and supported both of them with a job in sales. Schwarz seems to have approached him two years ago.”

“It’s no coincidence that surveillance of Mr. Roche and his family resumed after I met with him,” Twilight said, tapping his finger on Karl Weiland’s photo thoughtfully, “Dieter Weiland was our waiter that night. If they heard us talking about Anya…Hmmm, how did Mr. Roche’s tails act this weekend?”

“Continued to watch the family. Same two men. Schwarz followed Mr. Roche each time he left the house while Weiland remained stationary. He attempted to approach Mr. Roche and his son both at the playground, and on their way home, but I intervened – first, by approaching Mr. Roche for inane conversation while watching his son, then by bumping into Schwarz and spilling coffee on him. I was in disguise, of course. Both distractions worked. He also followed Mr. and Mrs. Roche on their date but did not approach them. I slipped a tracker on Weiland, as he remained at the house, to make sure he did not try to approach their son, but he did not move.”

So, then who were the people following him? Were they part of the same organization? Were they following him for the same reason as Mr. Roche, or for something else entirely?

Twilight took a breath, “I have two tails of my own. A rotation of men and one woman.”

Nightfall’s eyes immediately narrowed, “Since when?”

“Sunday.”

“And you didn’t report in?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, “I’m doing so now. It would have been dangerous to try and contact WISE without knowing their capabilities and limits, lest I reveal WISE’s presence in Ostania to said malicious actors. I have determined that the hospital is clean, so I’m briefing you on the situation now.”

Nightfall nodded curtly, “How did they find you? What holes do we need to close?”

“They know my face, probably courtesy of Dieter Weiland, but do not know the location of the Forger residence. I have seen them outside the fake address, so they likely know the name ‘Forger’. But they do not recognize my vehicle, so they didn’t use the license plate to trace it. In your observations, did Mr. Roche mention my name where his tails could hear?”

“Not in public. And if he mentioned you inside the household where they would hear it, then I would have heard it as well.”

“Unless they re-activated any equipment that they used to monitor quieter conversations the home from last year…”

“That is a possibility.” She paused to think, “Should we assume that they have access to his place of work? If you have determined that the hospital is clean, then maybe they accessed phone records on his end and noted that he received a call from this office.”

Now that was a good hypothesis.

“I assume evading them while maintaining cover is no issue for you,” Nightfall said, “But should we take precautions to ensure Anya Forger and Yor Briar’s safety? They already seem to be looking for the girl and if they find her…”

Twilight’s mind flitted through all the times the girl could be alone; on the way to the school bus in the morning, and any time between getting off the bus and reaching their front door in the evening, were probably the times she was most vulnerable. She would be safe if he continued to drive her to and from school, and if she was out with Becky Blackbell then he could rely on the military awareness of the Blackbell bodyguard. He and Yor were always there to accompany her when taking Bond for a walk, so there was security in numbers there too. Yor’s schedule was more nebulous to him, but he was sure that she had the strength to deal with anyone who approached her suspiciously or attacked her. And he wasn’t lying in the slightest when he said that he trusted her with Anya’s safety, both emotional and physical.

Despite all that, he still felt the irritating displeasure at the back of his mind at the thought of letting the both of them carry on without the slightest amount of extra protection. At least, this time, his feelings of attachment were urging him to be sensible.

He gave his permission to Nightfall and was certain that Anya and Yor would each be assigned to a junior agent by the end of the day.

Anya hadn’t come to him yet about when she would reveal herself to Yor, and he didn’t know what she was waiting for. Maybe, in spite of her excitement before, she still needed to build her courage to reveal such a big secret. Maybe she had noticed that it wasn’t the right time; Yor had come home from work on Monday in a strange mood and, despite his best efforts to show support without pushing, it had not lifted and she remained slightly standoffish. Maybe she was backing out of telling Yor and just hadn’t told him yet. Either way, he would keep his promise and wait for her, so she didn’t have to do anything alone.

“Anything else I need to pass on to Handler?”

Twilight braced himself before saying, “Tell her I need to speak to her as soon as possible. Here.”

Nightfall nodded, spun on her heel, and headed out of the room. Twilight’s chest tightened with every step.

Because Anya would probably hate him for the decision he had just made.

He had promised her that he wouldn’t tell anyone about her powers, but Operation STRIX was now in more danger than ever before. Nightfall had said that Stefan Schwarz had attempted to approach Mr. Roche twice after only a few days of more distant surveillance. That kind of escalation was dangerous and indicated intent beyond surface level information gathering. Twilight figured it was only a matter of time before his own tails attempted to escalate things too, especially if they were getting frustrated with his ability to constantly lose them. That, coupled with what Anya had told him that weekend – the revelation that there may be more people out there just like her, with the ability to hinder WISE operations if they had fallen to the wrong side…

‘And then there was the fire…’

Some promises were meant to be broken.

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long while, Twilight didn’t know how to start a conversation.

It had only been one hour since Nightfall had left his office with her orders, and the dossier of Mr. Roche’s identified stalkers was still open on his desk beside some half-completed paperwork, even though the faces and biographies had long been memorized.

“A new patient here for a consultation”. 

That was what Nightfall had said when his door next opened, and the woman that sat across from him now may have sported a short blonde bob-cut and bright green eyes, but the calculated intensity behind her unblinking gaze as she waited for him to make the first move was all Fullmetal Lady. As much as he had wanted to speak to her, a part of him had bristled at her speedy response – she must have already been keeping a casual eye on him, to be close enough and prepared enough to answer his call within an hour. The small part of him that still didn’t want to break Anya’s promise had hoped it would take a day or two, so he had time to think through how he wanted this to go, but alas…

Practically, the situation had escalated far enough that it was perfectly within protocol to discuss all new information and possible future steps with his Handler, and she seemed to understand the gravity of things, given that she gave them enough time to talk under the pretense of her being a ‘new patient’ instead of slipping in disguised as a nurse for a short debrief, as she had done before. This was for STRIX – the most important mission he had ever undertaken.

He needed to tell her about Anya.

Still, as he sat across from her on the couch he used for sessions, his elbows on his knees and clasped hands under his chin, he had to fight to keep his throat from closing around the words that needed to be said.

“What can you tell me about Project Apple?” he eventually tried.

Handler blinked, “It was an Ostanian research project to artificially raise the intelligence of animals that could then be used for war, likely funded by Born Industries. It was shut down after its complete failure in producing results as well as the end of the war. Status: defunct,” she raised an eyebrow, “How does it pertain to your current mission?”

Twilight took a deep breath, “What if it wasn’t defunct?”

Her gaze sharpened, “Explain.”

It was a realization he’d come to the night before, a shock to his senses like he’d been dunked in freezing water:

The war had ended a little over a decade ago. And Anya was six years old…

“I learned why Anya was targeted.”

That was all he needed to say. His mentor was a smart woman. Her face remained completely still, but her hands twitched in her lap, “Is this war, then?”

Is STRIX compromised?

That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Project Apple was now a ticking time bomb for them all. As it turns out, STRIX had gone into operation with a massive weak spot in its façade named ‘the fucking Ostanian government’ and keeping it from turning into a full-on fissure might be impossible. If anything happened to Anya, STRIX would fail, months of progress would be for naught, and Westalis might not be able to implement another plan before war broke out again. But if they were too obvious about protecting Anya as the mission’s key asset, the government would become aware of the depth of WISE’s presence in the country and consider that a declaration of war anyway. It should be a lose-lose situation.

But Twilight wanted a world where no child had to cry, and that included Anya.

She’d spilled enough tears.

Twilight shook his head, “Anya’s safety is ensured if we act quickly to dispatch or redirect all pursuers. They’re circling Roche because they don’t actually know where she is currently, and Mr. Roche doesn’t know anything anyway.”

“They’ve found you, though. Nightfall briefed me on what you told her this morning.”

“But you know they won’t get me.”

She did know. He was the best of the best, after all. But he could tell she was still dissatisfied with that answer, “I will make sure your request for agents to protect her and Mrs. Forger gets fast-tracked. If we can contact our moles within the SSS, we may also be able to learn more about Project Apple if records have not been destroyed. I’m sure you are working with your informant, Franklin, to follow leads in organized crime? I’ll order Nightfall to check in with him about this. The nature of Project Apple, especially if human subjects were involved, is something the Ostanian government would want to keep its hands clean of in this day and age.”

Twilight nodded curtly, “That wasn’t all, though.”

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow.

He hesitated for a second, before – “…Project Apple was…successful.”

Sylvia stiffened for a second, before her eyes narrowed and her tone grew sharp, “Have you confirmed this?”

Twilight nodded, “Yes.”

“How?”

Twilight looked away for the first time, “Anya.”

“Anya Forger’s academic performance –”

“Is not an act, unfortunately” Twilight cut in, unable to help the wry smile that crossed his face, “Project Apple did not give her heightened intelligence, but it did give her…other mental abilities,” he glanced over to judge her reaction. She remained still, waiting for him to take that final leap.

Twilight coughed, “I will admit that I failed to notice, or outright ignored, the signs of what seemed impossible, but Mr. Roche brought them to the forefront when we met and, when I returned home, Anya confirmed them. She can read minds. And Bond has…precognitive abilities.”

“I see…” Sylvia said slowly. He imagined that she was thinking of the best way to ask if he had gone mad in the last week or so, “Strength of proof?”

“She was able to recite my own thoughts back to me and respond to them in real time in a way that cannot be chalked up to chance or intuition, and she knows all about STRIX, including details I have never voiced aloud.”

“Range?”

“Unknown.”

“Limits?”

“She can’t focus if thoughts are fleeting, she can’t focus on multiple people, and she can’t hear thoughts at all on a new moon.”

Sylvia nodded.

“And the dog?”

“Unconfirmed, but Anya swears that he has shown her visions of random future events.”

“I see…” This time, there was less judgement in her tone. Only curiosity.

“There is a chance that there are other successful test subjects in Ostania and/or Westalis that could still be under the influence of the Ostanian government. WISE needs to be made aware of that possibility and its consequences.”

“Hmm…You’re right.”

Twilight nodded, satisfied now that he had said everything he had meant to. Handler now knew. Agents would be put on Anya and Yor. They wouldn’t be caught blindsided. End of conversation.

But Sylvia wasn’t done. She tilted her head, studying him, “You’re right,” she repeated, “Which is why I’m not sure why you didn’t notify me immediately when you found out this information.”

Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose, “I needed to ascertain that the threat was as real as I had assumed, first.”

“Yes,” she drawled, clicking her tongue in a rare open sign of irritation, “I remember you saying ‘it wasn’t pertinent’ when I asked you directly. These abilities seem very pertinent, Twilight.”

Ugh. She did tell him that he would be getting reprimanded for this. He supposed he should just be glad it was here and now, instead of in a more official capacity.

“I didn’t know about the extent of things then,” he couldn’t help but protest.

 “I’m not talking about the threat of hypothetical Project Apple subjects. I’m talking about your knowledge of Anya Forger’s abilities. The test subject that is already under your roof.”

“She won’t be a tool for WISE.” Twilight burst.

Sylvia’s eyes widened slightly, before her expression softened, “I wasn’t going to suggest that.”

He was sure she was, but acknowledging the trap he had just fallen into would be worse than ignoring it.

“You’re compromised.”

It wasn’t a question. Twilight stiffened, “Yes, I am aware that the details of STRIX are now in the hands of an overactive child – ”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” the soft, understanding look on his handler’s face had not disappeared, and it was beginning to make Twilight uncomfortable, “You’re emotionally compromised.”

“I’m not,” he spat back instinctively. It wasn’t really a lie, either; he admired Yor and was amused by Anya, but he didn’t care for them like a real husband and father would. He may have had fleeting moments of wishing that he could but that didn’t mean that he actually did. How could he, when he didn’t even know how?

That was fine with him, though. ‘Emotionally compromised’ equaled failure.

“You are,” Sylvia said, finally standing to leave, a gleam in her eye, “But that might be exactly what we need right now. Thank you for the debrief, Twilight.”

He watched her walk towards the door, confused. How could ‘being attached’ be a benefit when they both knew that it would be that much harder to let go once STRIX was over? Feelings led to weakness. Dullness. WISE didn’t need dull weapons. But his handler only seemed to find his confusion amusing, since she turned to him one last time with that uncomfortably soft look before leaving the room.

“There really is nothing as undoing as a daughter, is there?”

As soon as she clicked the door shut behind her and left him in the silence of his office, Twilight walked over to the window. Maybe some fresh air would help relieve the sudden itch in his nerves.

~*~

The itch didn’t leave him at all. Not even as he left the hospital for the day and immediately spotted his shadows.

The two men weren’t even being subtle today. They sat, side by side, at the bottom of the steps of the building as casually as could be. Every time someone walked past them, they would quickly turn their heads to see who it was in case they needed to start following. If they had been here all day, Loid was surprised that an officer hadn’t approached them yet for loitering or suspicious behavior.

As a test, he made sure to keep an eye on them as he raised his voice and bid a colleague goodbye. No reaction from either of them. So, they didn’t recognize the sound of his voice. Good. That meant that disguises would definitely be the best way to go right by them and remain undetected. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be in the cards today. He had evaded them enough times in the last few days that he needed to dial it back to appear more normal. He walked right by them as if he didn’t notice anything amiss.

The result was instantaneous. He saw both men jolt in recognition out of the corner of his eyes as he passed, and he felt their eyes remain on him as he headed down the street. The feeling of being watched only increased as he reached the end of the block and waited at the crossing. Given that the people following Roche were getting bolder, he kept his guard up and allowed a part of him to prepare for a confrontation.

He crossed the street with the evening crowd and, halfway across the road, he felt a jolt in his shoulder as one of them knocked into him. It wasn’t enough to knock him forward or over, and they didn’t acknowledge him in any other way. Loid’s eyes narrowed.

They didn’t interact with him again, but they followed him all the way to the Forger’s fake address. A lower-ranked WISE agent was stationed as the doorman and, as Loid walked through the doors, the agent nodded in greeting and gave him an ‘all clear’ signal to enter the lobby’s back office. The room was small – stocked to bursting with one small table and bookshelves stuffed with lease documents, resident records, and unsorted mail – but behind one bookshelf in the corner was a tunnel that led to the alley behind the building. Twilight figured it must have been used as a secret evacuation point during the war, but now it would be what allowed him to make his way to 128 Park Avenue unmolested. Before leaving, he made sure to take off his suit jacket, just in case the bump from earlier was because they slipped something on his person. The agent would find it and get it swept for bugs or other devices.  

As he reached the Forger home, however, he found that he still couldn’t relax.

It felt really silly that, while spending the morning talking about his fake daughter being a telepath, Loid had forgotten what that actually meant.

“You told!”

Anya’s face, scrunched in anger and betrayal, was the first thing he saw when he opened the door. Because of course she could hear his thoughts through the door. Amusingly enough, she directed the expression towards Bond as the dog innocently bounded up beside her and ducked his head for pats. Loid put down his briefcase and gladly took the invitation to run his fingers through the animal’s fur as he tried to think of how to calm the angry child before him.

“You promised you wouldn’t!”

Loid’s stomach flipped as he looked up and saw her eyes get glassy, “I can explain, Anya,” he raised his hands in a placating gesture, “It’s not as bad as you think.”

“What’s not as bad as she thinks?”

Loid startled as Yor stood up from the sofa and moved towards them. He had been so focused on Anya ambushing him that he hadn’t even noticed the other presence in the room.

‘How’s that for ‘compromised’?’ he thought bitterly. Still in front of him, Anya frowned and bit her lip. He felt he should say something to apologize, but she stormed off to her room before he could say anything, Bond trailing behind her.

“Hi Yor,” he greeted, ignoring the guilt churning in his stomach at the sight of Anya’s nametag clattering against the slammed door, “Just something about work that she didn’t want me to do. I’ll sort things out when she calms down.”

Normally, Yor would accept a simple answer like that, her little concerned frown would smooth out, and she would move on. But, as he watched her frown deepen instead, Loid was suddenly struck with the realization that things hadn’t been normal with her for a while. Not since their conversation about Anya’s adoption. Actually, if he thought about it, she had avoided moments like this – the two of them alone together – since that day.

The distance she had put between them in the past few days was suddenly terrifying.

“Loid,” she said, consideringly, “Where’s your jacket?”

“Ah, I forgot it at work,” he said as casually as possible, scratching the back of his neck in faux embarrassment, “I didn’t notice until I was halfway home,” he watched her fingers clutch at the hem of her sweater, “Is something wrong?”

 “I met Mr. Roche at lunch today.”

Loid’s thoughts immediately turned to static.

Compromised. Compromised. Compromised.

Where? How? No, why?! Why did this happen on the one day that Nightfall wasn’t there to see that disastrous meeting and warn him? What about Roche’s tails? Was it too much to hope that they weren’t close enough to hear her identify herself or bring up anything that would confirm her connection to Anya? Was he too late in requesting WISE’s assistance?

“I thought it would be nice to get to know your friend better, so I looked him up and called and he invited me to lunch,” Yor said as Loid failed to respond, “…He’s not your friend, is he?”

Loid swallowed heavily, “What do you –”

“You lied to me,” she said, taking a deliberate step forward. Loid stepped back. Three more steps and she’d have him backed against the door behind him, “You said you don’t think I’m stupid, but then you lied to me in the same breath, knowing that I’d believe you. Anya is not your daughter, yes, but you only took her in last year!”

“I didn’t –”

“You just lied to me about losing your jacket too, as well as what Anya is mad at you about,” she continued over him, “And I was told something strange at work on Monday…”

She trailed off, which only made Loid panic more. What had she heard about him?

“I like to think you are a good man,” Yor finally said, quietly. To Loid’s horror, he saw tears well up in her eyes.

How was he so good at making his girls cry?

Another man would respond with “I am!” but that would be a lie and exactly the opposite of what she was asking for. Loid knew he wasn’t a good man in the slightest, even if he was roleplaying as one.

Yor seemed to be waiting for a response, but for the second time that day, Loid didn’t trust his voice.

When ten seconds had passed in silence, with him drowning in the ruby red of her eyes as he tried to think of a way out of this new predicament, Yor sighed heavily. Her eyes darted to Anya’s closed bedroom door before she spoke again, “What do you plan to do with her? With me?”

Her voice was calm, but Loid suddenly got the impression that he’d be dead if he didn’t handle this carefully.

‘I want to protect you.’

The thought came suddenly, clearly, and immediately. He felt nauseous, “With you?”

“Because if you intend to hurt either of us…”

“Mama!”

Anya’s door flew open and both adults snapped their heads in her direction.

There was still a frown on her face but, while her brow had been lowered in anger before, now there was only determination.

“Mama,” she said again, making sure she was heard, “Don’t kill Papa.”

‘Oh, so that sense of danger wasn’t my imagination,’ was Loid’s first thought at that.

‘Oh my god, Yor was thinking about killing me,’ was his second.

What was Anya doing?

“I- I wasn’t,” Yor protested weakly, but Anya just looked over at Loid again.

“Papa, Anya’s ready now.”

Oh.

She was choosing now to tell Yor. Redirecting Yor’s interrogation to…save him? Protect him?

What had he just thought about mere seconds ago? ‘I want to protect you.’

He noticed her confidence waver, “Can Anya tell Mama now?”

“If Anya can’t help Papa –”

“Only if you want to,” he assured. Self-preservation (and mission preservation) was definitely his priority right now, but he would be damned if this child threw herself in before she was ready out of a misplaced sense of obligation.

Anya pursed her lips as that thought crossed his mind before shaking her head and turning back to Yor. She reached out and latched herself onto the older woman’s left leg, as if afraid that she would actually run away at whatever was said next.

“Mama,” she took a breath, “Anya heard you think stabby thoughts.”

Yor froze, “W-what?”

“Papa isn’t a bad man,” Anya continued, “He keeps Anya away from bad men.”

Loid tried to keep his face as neutral as possible as Yor looked between the girl clinging to her and him, “Maybe we should sit down for this.”

“Loid, what is she talking about?” Yor asked, not moving, “I don’t want any more –”

“Anya told Papa to lie,” Anya said, voice raising, “Anya didn’t want Mama to know about Old Papa.”

“Old Papa…” Yor echoed, “’Old Papa ruined everything’ – that’s what you said before,” she looked at Loid, confusion clear on her face now, “This is all about Roche? Anya, what do you mean you heard my…stabby thoughts?”

Anya hesitated. This clearly wasn’t going as smoothly as she had wanted.

Loid decided to save her, “Anya wasn’t lying when she said she heard your thoughts. She can hear me too. She can hear everyone. It scared Mr. Roche’s family so he put her in the orphanage where I found her.”

Yor sighed, “I don’t know what thoughts you put in her head, but –”

“Mama has a second job!” Anya blurted.

Yor froze again, her eyes wide with what looked like fear.

‘A second job? What is that about?’

“Think something right now, Mama!” Anya said. A pause, “Unkie Yuri is wrong.”

Yor paled.

Okay, now Loid was concerned, “Yor?”

“Mama was thinking Unkie was right to be ‘spicous of us.”

‘Well, not entirely,’ Loid thought.

“Papa is wrong too,” Anya said, glaring up at him, “Papa is not ‘spicious or bad.”

“This isn’t happening,” Yor whispered.

“Do you believe Anya?”

Yor nodded dumbly.

“Don’t be mad at Papa,” Anya implored.

“I’m…not…anymore,” Yor said, blinking rapidly, “But I have questions…”

Well, that was better than how things were a few minutes ago. Loid raised his hands slowly, “Can we sit down to talk?”

Yor seemed to finally realize how close she had gotten to Loid in her anger, because she jumped back and turned crimson.

“Ah, sorry Loid! I didn’t mean t-to –”

“Its fine, Yor,” he said, letting a reassuring smile cross his face, “Let’s just talk. No more lies, I promise. If you can’t trust me, then Anya can do all the talking, how about that?”

Yor nodded and, with Anya still latched on to her, she left the entryway.

Loid finally felt like he could breathe.

“So,” Yor began as she sat down heavily, “Why me?”

There was that guilt again, building in Loid’s stomach, “I’m so sorry you got dragged into things, honestly. I wasn’t lying when I told you all those months ago that I needed to get Anya into Eden and that she’d need a mother for the interview.”

“Why Eden?”

“I…”

Now it was Loid’s turn to hesitate. There it was, right in front of him, the opportunity to lie to her again. In fact, it was his duty; Yor was a civilian, so far out of the need-to-know about Operation STRIX that it wasn’t even funny. But the guilt was still roiling, and the memory of her unshed tears was making it difficult to listen to protocol.

‘Tell her.’

“For safety,” Anya jumped in, “Bad men want to hurt Anya but they can’t get into school because of the sec-rity.”

“Security,” Loid corrected as relief flowed through him.

‘Thank you,’ he thought, loud and clear. Anya beamed at him.

“Security,” Yor nodded, “I guess that makes sense. But…who’s after Anya?”

“We’re not sure,” Loid said, “But Anya was attacked while she was living with Mr. Roche. Did he tell you about that?”

“No, he didn't” Yor’s expression darkened and her focus seemed to drift to the middle-distance, “Don’t worry, Anya, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Loid’s relief only grew, but Anya’s face paled, “Mama’s thinking stabby thoughts again.”

Yor gasped and shook her head as if that would physically expel whatever she had been thinking, “Oh, I’m sorry, Anya! I didn’t mean to scare you. But I must scare you a lot if you’re reading my mind all the time! I’m so sorry!”

Loid felt his heart flip at the flustered expression on her face. He was glad to hear Yor talk about Anya’s telepathy so casually, so quickly. Maybe it hadn’t quite sunk in yet, in the same way it took him a day to realize the implications of housing a telepathic child, but she at least wasn’t pushing them away. It was nice to be proven right – that Yor was strong enough to not abandon them at the first sign of trouble. In fact, she immediately vowed to protect Anya from the danger she had just learned about. Loid had no doubt that she was strong enough, physically, to do so, but she was still a civilian. She shouldn’t have to put herself in harm’s way for this child. That was his job.

However…’Were Yor’s thoughts really that violent?’ Anya was clearly hearing a lot, but Loid couldn’t imagine it, looking at the woman beside him. He couldn’t imagine that her kind nature would allow for such darkness.

Who was this woman, that he’d chosen on impulse?

He looked to Anya, but she merely shook her head and mimed zipping up her lips. Right, if she was keeping his secrets close to the chest, then it only made sense she would extend Yor the same courtesy.

He cleared his throat to regain Yor’s attention, “I truly am sorry. I’ve been so focused on protecting Anya that it didn’t occur to me until recently that you may be put in danger too.”

Yor frowned at that, “Recently?”

“Yes. I noticed at the end of last week that some strange people have been following me. I’m afraid they may be trying to track Anya down since we last moved and, if they noticed you speaking with Mr. Roche today, they may try to harm you as well for information.”

Loid expected Yor to react to that bombshell with trepidation, or an amount of fear. Some concern for herself. Anger at unwittingly being made a target. Concern for the safety of this family she clearly cared for. He expected more questions.

Instead, he saw her eyes widen with realization, and was hit with the sensation of having missed a stair, “Oh, that’s why…”

“Why, what?”

Yor’s face darkened again. The killing intent in the air returned.

“I have a call to make.”

~*~

Later that night, after dinner had been consumed, dishes cleared away, and the television turned off for the day, Loid took it upon himself to tuck Anya into bed.

“That wasn’t as bad as you hoped, was it?” he asked, watching her get settled.

“No,” she said, “But Anya’s still mad at you for telling.”

He huffed out a laugh, “I guess I deserve that.”

Operation STRIX asset connections under investigation.

Threat Level: Moderate - High.

Chapter Text

She could feel them – two violent auras behind her. It didn’t matter that they were blended into the crowd of fellow morning commuters; Yor had been a part of Garden long enough to be able to sniff out malicious intent like a bloodhound. She supposed she should be more worried, given that the intent seemed directed at her, and Loid had warned her about his own shadows. Her current work attire wasn’t exactly the best for combat if they tried something right now but, honestly, latching onto the unusual sense of danger on this warm morning was the only thing keeping her thoughts from reeling out of control over…other things.

Anya. Her precious Anya.

Attacked, in the past. Hunted, even now.

All because she could…read minds? Apparently?

‘Anya heard you think stabby thoughts….’

She could still barely wrap her head around it. How could she have expected that confronting Loid about what she’d learned from Mr. Roche would result in…all of that? After going to bed, she’d spent much of the night rolling the conversation through her mind, turning over every word for the possible lies. She’d hated considering that her family might be lying to her (taking advantage of her naïveté, like Yuri had often warned) but the betrayal that had sat heavily in her stomach after her lunch with Mr. Roche, and the shame from having been tricked before, forced her to second guess everything all the same.

But Loid’s discomfort and guilt seemed genuine. Anya’s desperation to be believed seemed real.

Anya knew about her second job.

All this time…

‘Anya heard you think stabby thoughts…’

She slapped her cheeks lightly. How could she subject such an innocent child to all of that?! How many times has she casually thought about her missions within earshot (mind-shot?) of Anya? Anya must be so scared of her, secretly knowing that her adoptive mother was such a violent freak! Loid didn’t seem to know anything about her, or he certainly would have kicked her out as soon as he could…Even though he’s never thought badly of her for her feats of strength before, she knew that no man would want a wife that…got her hands dirty…the way she did. She should apologize to him, at least, for her suspicion that he was the threat in all of this. Oh, if anything, how much more danger was Yor putting Anya in by being her mother, given that the Ostanian underworld seemed involved in this mess?!

People were still targeting her, given the photograph Shopkeeper had shown her at the beginning of the week. Yor found herself sinking back into her darkest impulses as she considered the implications of that. People who targeted children were scum. Yor was as professional as they came, but targets that hurt children always found themselves in a little bit more pain than strictly necessary, at her hands.

Her tails were still behind her as she turned onto the street that held City Hall. Her fingers itched to eliminate them.

She casually greeted the receptionist, Sara Schulz, as she always did these days, and poked her head into the kitchenette near the clerks’ office. The only person in there was Sharon, standing by the window, a teacup in one hand and her usual cigarette in the other.

“Good morning, Sharon,” Yor smiled pleasantly.

Sharon looked up and nodded in greeting. Yor liked her. All of the office girls had gotten closer in the last few months, but Yor would always appreciate that Sharon was the first one to make a point of complimenting her for being more normal and inviting her out with the rest of them for drinks. She also had a son that went to Eden; he was in a different class than Anya, but it still felt nice to have someone who could connect with her, even in that tiny little way.

She was also the least likely to needle Yor about her strange behavior, or ask her too many personal questions, which is what she needed right now.

“Have you seen Mr. McMahon this morning?” Yor asked, “I need to speak with him.”  

As expected, Sharon raised her eyebrow in question but didn’t voice any, “I saw him walk past twenty minutes ago. He’s probably in his office.”

“Thank you,” Yor bowed slightly and ducked back out.

It wasn’t normal for her to approach the Director, especially when it came to non-City Hall matters, so when she knocked on his office door and entered at his request, she could sense his surprise.

“Good morning, Mrs. Forger,” he said serenely, even as his sharp eyes bore into her, “What brings you to my office so early?”

Yor thought to the dread and panic she first felt when she saw that photograph of her husband on Monday. The confusion and fear, and then righteous rage, as Loid and Anya explained exactly why that photograph existed. The itch to do something that she’d felt this morning.

She closed his door and locked it.

“Sorry for interrupting, Director,” Yor said, taking a deep breath, “But I have an order request for some flowers from your office?”

His expression didn’t change, “Your call last night was sufficient enough notice for your request to speak with the Shopkeeper. Why re-iterate this with me in person?”

Alright, so if he was speaking about Garden directly, he had already conducted his daily office sweep and found it clean, “I don’t know if Shopkeeper informed you, sir, but this is a matter that cannot wait. There is a matter involving my family that he must be made aware of as soon as possible. Possibly today.”

At that, his eyebrows finally raised in alarm, “Is Thorn Princess compromised?”

Yor hesitated. Did it count if a six-year-old knew, but only because she happened to read minds? “…Its complicated, sir, which is why I need to inform Shopkeeper.”

Mr. McMahon scrutinized her, “Will this require resources?”

“Hopefully not,” Yor said, “I was hoping for permission to deal with it myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Yor insisted, allowing some of that righteous rage to color her expression.

Nobody would touch her family and get away with it.

~*~

Loid was just pushing his work aside for the day when Yor called to let him know she’d be home late.

Compromised. Compromised. Compromised.

The agitation that had been crawling under his skin all day spiked. He couldn’t help it; he knew exactly how far-fetched his current situation must seem to her. An ordinary psychiatrist with an adopted daughter that was being targeted for her ability to read minds? Even if Yor didn’t think he was continuing to lie to him, everything he and Anya had revealed was more than enough craziness to scare her towards the SSS. He’d listened in to her phone call the night before, just to make sure she wasn’t selling them out right away and, although he only overheard her ordering flowers (a strange thing to order so late in the evening after a tough conversation, but maybe she just wanted a distraction to get her mind off things as she worked through her shock?), he couldn’t help but remain on edge.

He hated that he felt the need to resort to it again, but he had slipped a bug under her collar that morning, avoiding the pointed look that Anya gave him and the guilt that roiled in his stomach.

‘This is for Anya’s safety,’ he’d told himself as he followed her to City Hall, in disguise, via Berlint’s alleys and rooftops.

‘This is for the preservation of the Forgers,’ he’d told himself as he spotted two men, one of which looked like one of his own occasional tails, following close behind her. Her WISE detail was further back in the crowd on the street, close enough to still keep an eye on her but far enough not to draw attention in the same way the more hostile pair would. He wasn’t worried for her safety – the men wouldn’t dare approach her in such a public space and he had no doubt she could hold her own in a fight if they did manage to isolate her – but he needed the reminder that, now that Yor had been seen contacting Mr. Roche, she had guaranteed herself becoming a new target for whoever was trying to track down Anya.

As he watched her walk up the City Hall steps, her stalkers stopping at the end of the block, he worked up the courage to activate the bug he’d planted. It was the last gadget he’d gotten from Franky before it had become too dangerous to contact him directly – another functional listening device needed because he’d destroyed his last one. It didn’t matter that he destroyed the last one after Yor had proved herself trustworthy. This was different!

‘This is for STRIX,’ he’d told himself, as his thumb ran over the button to activate the receiver. This was necessary, given that City Hall’s phones were all wiretapped by the SSS and Loid needed to know right away if Yor was going to report them.

He heard her greet some people through the headphones of the receiver as he settled in on the roof. He had to hand it to Franky, the audio quality for this bug’s microphone was much better than the previous one. The receiver’s range seemed to be wider too. For a moment, Loid allowed his mind to drift to all the possible future uses of this device, once he retrieved it from Yor’s person in the evening. But his focus snapped back when he heard something in Yor’s voice change.

“Have you seen Mr. McMahon this morning?” Yor’s voice sang through, “I need to speak with him.”  

‘Mr. McMahon’…Loid flipped through his mental database of City Hall employees. Ah, the Director of Policy. Not Yor’s direct supervisor. Loid frowned. Why would she need to see the director of a different department first thing in the morning? Was this related to work? Was she planning to tell him what she had learned? As the Director of Policy, he was more likely to have contacts in the SSS and would thus be a feasible contact to report to if she didn’t want to make a call. But calling gave her the option of anonymity, and Loid couldn’t see her wanting him to know she was the one turning him in, so why…

He didn’t catch the response she got to her question but heard her thanks clear as day. There was silence, except for the sound of her heels clacking on the tile floor, until he heard a knock and a door open.

“Sorry for interrupting, Director,” Yor said, “But I have an order request for some flowers from your office?”

Loid’s concern turned into confusion. Flowers, again? Was this related to the call she made last night? What about the conversation with Anya had made her remember a task so…mundane?

Yor’s voice suddenly took on a steely tone, “I don’t know if Shopkeeper informed you, sir, but this is a matter that cannot wait. There is a matter involving my family that he must be made aware of as soon as possible.”

Ah.

So that was it.

Compromised. Compromised. Compromised.

It had all been code. ‘Flowers’ was information, and this ‘Shopkeeper’ must be the Director’s contact in the SSS. Maybe Yor wasn’t aware that her own brother was in the SSS, but she certainly seemed to know how to use their resources in a way that a completely ignorant civilian wouldn’t. Anya had mentioned that Yor had a second job…was it being an SSS informant? But if Anya was aware of Yor’s job, why wouldn’t she inform him of the danger, given that his cover would constantly be in jeopardy? Maybe she didn’t understand the consequences? Although, the girl knew enough not to let Yor catch onto him either so maybe she, in her six-year-old logic, didn’t think it mattered?

Loid didn’t need to hear the rest of the conversation. After hearing Yor insist on speaking with this ‘Shopkeeper’ – likely an SSS chief officer connected to City Hall – directly, he’d heard enough. As he rushed to work and settled into his role for the day, he notified Nightfall of the possible Code Red and directed her to ask their mole in the SSS to notify them of any and all movement. He’d need to send an agent to pack up his gear back at the apartment. He would also need to find a way to retrieve Anya as well, or make arrangements for someone to take her in since he wasn’t about to leave the country without her somewhere safe. He needed…he needed…

His thoughts continued to spiral with plans. Even as the hours ticked by and no news came of an incoming arrest or ambush, he mentally prepared to have his office door kicked in by SSS officers at any moment.

And then Yor had called and said she would be home later than usual.

She said she just had to complete some paperwork for a project that had crossed her desk at the last minute. Well, that’s what she had said. He ran through the conversation he had overheard that morning as he gathered his things and tried not to spiral. Everything would be fine. Handler had been updated on the situation, notified of the potential danger, and plans had been solidified for extraction if necessary. The agents that had been posted to follow Yor would notify him if they saw her go anywhere suspicious. Everything was fine.

His stalkers for the day – a stocky woman, and a man he recognized as Stefan Schwarz, this time – were a familiar enough prickle on the back of his neck as he made his way home, but he remained wary of any extra attention directed his way. How long before the uniform that dotted his nightmares (no thanks to Yuri Briar) would cross his path and slap cuffs on him? How long before STRIX collapsed like a house of cards because he had grown soft enough to tell his fake wife a ridiculous-sounding truth?

Ditching his shadows was a little harder than usual, given his distracted state of mind, but he breathed a sigh of relief when he finally shook them off and was able to enter 128 Park Avenue in peace. He remained on edge throughout the whole evening though, even as he distracted himself with mission reports and cooking and watching the news. Anya picked up on his mood as soon as she returned home from school and he resorted to reciting his pistol cleaning manual, front to back, to prevent her from even getting a glimpse of what he was so concerned about. He spotted her staring at him with squinted eyes at different moments during the evening, and a part of him wondered if she could brute force her way past the mental barrier he was putting up, but she didn’t say a word to him outside of her ordinary complaints about school and the Desmond boy and her excitement over that night’s episode of Spy Wars. Tucking her into bed almost caused him to slip, because Anya asked for the third time that night where her mama was, just as he was wondering the same. However, before the thought of what he’d overheard that morning could solidify, he drowned it out with thoughts of Anya’s upcoming math test and how he hoped she’d improve her grades, paired with a very pointed look. Anya gulped and turned over to face the wall, receiving his message to get out of his head loud and clear.

It was close to midnight when Loid, reading a book while waiting for Yor to return, heard a knock at the door. He was immediately alert, given that nobody had any business with him at this time of night, and Yor would just let herself in. He waited to see what would happen, pushing down the desire to go grab his pistol from his bedroom. After a few seconds, the sound of flesh on wood rang out again, but in a familiar pattern. A WISE pattern.

Loid allowed himself to relax a fraction as he opened the door. It was still a possibility that the SSS had managed to acquire WISE’s communication codes, and this was all a trap, so he needed to be ready to defend himself or flee at a moment’s notice.

A young man was on the other side of the door, and he flashed Loid a signal with his left hand as soon as they made eye contact. This was a WISE agent with urgent news. Loid didn’t recognize the agent, but that wasn’t odd; he didn’t know every single agent that WISE employed. That wasn’t his job.

Loid let him in and raised a brow as the agent walked deeper into the apartment and collapsed into one of the dining chairs, “Are we clean?” the man muttered in code.

He nodded, “What is the matter.”

The agent sighed, “I’ve come to give you a report as a member of Yor Forger’s detail today.”

Loid felt his tension return. Did they notice any strange behavior that would corroborate what he had overheard? Were they in danger?

Loid’s eyes flicked to Anya’s bedroom door.

“Did something happen?”

The agent hesitated, and it was that that made Loid notice the man’s hands shaking, which was more worrying than anything he could say. WISE agents were strong, unbendable machines for the state. Everything was for the mission. Obvious tells of stress, and other clear signs of weakness, were beaten out of them within the first year of their grueling training.

“If you aren’t already aware,” Loid continued slowly, “WISE issued a Code Red due to a conversation I heard Yor Forger engage in this morning. I had reason to suspect she may have reported some information to the SSS that could put STRIX in danger. If you have anything regarding her whereabouts today that – ”

“Its not the SSS,” the agent finally blurted, shaking, “Its Garden.”

~*~

Sonja saw the target approaching just as she had made herself comfortable in the shadows at the mouth of the alleyway. She seemed to be a put-together woman walking home from work, an ordinary civilian. Kind of pretty. She seemed well-off enough to spare a few coins on some flowers from a poor beggar woman.

Good.

Sonja knew that all she needed to do was play her part and get the woman to confirm some information for her cohorts listening in nearby. If they were correct about this woman, she would leave the rest to them. If they were wrong, no harm, no foul, and they would circle back to the businessman and that doctor. Still, from the intel they had so far, it did seem like this woman knew something; Erik and Stefan had already confirmed seeing her with Roche and overhearing the girl being mentioned during their conversation. Apparently, the woman had looked after the girl, if she wasn’t doing so still, and that was good enough for their boss to encourage a more direct confrontation. Sonja still didn’t know why this child was needed or why the boss was so antsy about retrieving her location – she wasn’t high up enough for that kind of information – but the money that was coming from this job was keeping her brother fed and healthy and that was all that Sonja cared about.

“Hello, miss?” Sonja asked once the woman was close enough.

The woman tucked her jet-black hair behind her ear as she gave Sonja a once-over. The hesitation was all Sonja needed.

“I have some flowers and handmade toys,” she said before the woman could open her mouth, “I’ve been trying to sell them all day and only need a few more dalc to buy dinner for my young son. Would you mind?”

The woman’s face softened as a smile crossed her lips, “Oh, of course! Let me see them!”

Sonja shifted so that the woman could see the toys she had in the basket beside her, “Thank you, miss,” she waited as the woman chose a block puzzle set that Sonja had purchased mere hours ago for 15 dalc, “Do you have children of your own?”

“Just one,” the woman hummed as she also selected a small doll. The woman put the chosen items down as she began to fish for money in her purse.

“That’s lovely,” Sonja replied, “I can write her name on the toys, if you’d like. Like a personalized gift!”

The woman paused, “’Her?’”

Damn. Sonja thought frantically to recover from her slip-up, not letting the mild panic show, “…I assumed the doll is for a girl. Am I wrong?”

Thankfully, the woman seemed to buy the excuse, “Ah yes,” she said, blushing slightly, “My little girl…”

She handed Sonja the money. 10 dalc.

“What’s her name?”

The woman regarded her for a moment, “…Anya.”

While Sonja retrieved a paper bag to put the toys in – her only paper bag – she began to whistle a soft melody that would certainly carry down the alley to her accomplices. ‘Target hot, proceed with confrontation.’

“Thank you very much, miss, my son won’t go hungry tonight.” Sonja said as she handed the woman the bag.

The woman nodded once and carried on her way. A few seconds later, Sonja packed up the basket, hid it behind a dumpster, and follow in the direction of where the woman went. Technically, her work here was done, but she was curious to see what would happen to the woman and, maybe, what was so special about this Anya girl they were all tasked with tracking down.

She followed the woman for two more blocks before she spotted her accomplices for the night, Erik and Karl, loitering on the empty street. As the woman approached them, Karl’s head whipped up.

“Good evening, miss,” he drawled, “Can we talk to you for a second?”

“Sorry,” the woman said, “I don’t have anything – ”  

“And we’re not going to take anything from you,” he replied quickly, “We just have a few questions for ya.”

The woman clutched her bag closer to her side, clearly uncomfortable, “I really must be getting home…”

“Do you know this person?” Erik pulled a photograph out of his pocket and held it up for the woman to look at. Sonja didn’t know who the subject of the photo was, and she wasn’t close enough to take a look, but the woman must have recognized who it was because her whole demeanor changed. She pulled out of her self-conscious slouch and shifted into a steadier stance.

“Who are you?” she bit out. Sonja’s eyes widened, surprised that such cold voice could come from such a soft-seeming woman. Karl and Erik seemed shocked too. They exchanged glances before Erik reached out his arm.

“We can explain it all if you – ”

It happened so quickly that Sonja thought she might have blinked and missed it. One moment, Erik was standing, casually reaching out to grab the woman’s arm. The next, he was slumped on the ground against a nearby building, head lolling. The woman’s hands went up to her mouth.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, but I’m married! I don’t like other men touching me. And I don’t think I want to go anywhere with you.”

Karl looked between Erik and the woman, stunned for a moment, before his face grew stern. Sonja saw what was about to happen and fought to call out. ‘Karl, you idiot!’ she thought loudly, instead, as she watched the bigger man reach for the woman and get folded in almost the same way. He didn’t even have time to cry out.

With both men incapacitated, the woman looked around quickly before heading to a payphone across the street. Sonja took the opportunity to run over to where they had collapsed.

“Erik!” she hissed, as she approached him. He didn’t seem dead, his head still nodding forwards and backwards like he was fighting to stay conscious, but it could be a near thing if he didn’t get help soon. There was a small spot of blood on the brick behind him so, at the very least, he had a severe concussion. Karl seemed completely unconscious - unmoving on the pavement, sprawled over Erik’s legs. The arm that he had reached out to the woman with was bent at an abnormal angle. The photograph Erik had held was nearby and Sonja turned it over to find that it was a picture of a small, unsmiling girl in a hospital gown. Was this Anya?

“Were you with them?” Sonja was startled as the woman’s voice sounded out behind her. She turned to see the woman standing with her hands on her hips, staring directly at her. She tilted her head consideringly, “You said ‘her’, like you already knew…and then they were asking about her…”

Sonja gulped, “How did you do that to them?”

The woman stepped forward.

Then, Sonja knew darkness.

Chapter Text

The first thing Loid did was check on Anya.

He didn’t know why that was his first instinct to hearing the word ‘Garden’ with such gravitas, but his feet had moved on autopilot even before the meaning of the word was allowed to sink in. She was, of course, still there – the lump under the covers was immediately identifiable, dwarfed by the sheer mass of the silly stuffed penguin beside it, rising and falling in time with the girl’s regular sleep respiratory rate. Bond lay curled up at the foot of the bed, ever the protector. As the light from the door spilled over the dog, he opened one eye, confirmed it was merely his master, yawned, and went back to sleep.

Everything was normal.

He shut the door again and felt the younger WISE agent’s gaze on his back.

“I thought I heard movement and wanted to confirm she was still asleep,” he quickly lied as he stepped back into the living room, “Now…repeat that.”

“It…it’s Garden, Twilight, sir,” the agent said. He noticed that the man was still shaking slightly, “I’d-I’d heard the stories…”

“We can’t rely on stories, agent,” Twilight cut in firmly, “What did you see? Start from the beginning.” As an afterthought, he headed to the kitchen and poured the agent a glass of water before returning to the dining table. The young man thanked him and took a few sips as Twilight settled across from him, back straight and ready to receive his report.

“Right,” the agent said, a tad calmer, “Agent Nebel at your service, sir. Assigned to follow and protect Yor Forger, née Briar, along with Agent Sturm, and began doing so two days ago. Yor Forger left Berlint City Hall today, alone and on foot, at precisely 9:37pm and began taking her usual route back to this address. We followed and observed from across the street. About twenty minutes into her journey, she was stopped by what appeared to be a beggar woman sitting at the mouth of an alley with a basket. A few words were exchanged and Mrs. Forger exchanged money for some items from the basket and moved on. Agent Sturm and I were put on alert when the beggar woman then packed up her basket and began following Mrs. Forger.”  

“The woman was a plant.”

“Yes, sir, and she had accomplices. Two men, one of whom we visually identified as Karl Weiland, stopped Mrs. Forger further down the street.”

Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose, “Did you intervene?”

“We didn’t have time, sir,” Nebel said, his eyes going glassy for a moment, “A few words were exchanged, but before we could do anything, she…overpowered them.”

‘Oh, she did, did she?’

Twilight had to quickly push down the satisfaction that bubbled in his chest. He already knew how strong Yor was and how quickly she could move. He had thought before that it was an odd trait for an ordinary city clerk from a normal background to possess but, as he’d told the woman herself, it was not unwelcome. She was an endearing interesting mix of clumsy and agile, but sturdy in a way that made Anya proudly proclaim that she felt safe around her mama, which was what he needed. He’d even told himself, when considering the new target being placed on the family’s back, that Yor may not even need his protection.

But to hear his thoughts about her confirmed was…

‘Interesting’ really was the best word for it. He could imagine how shocked his junior agents were to see her in action.

“Were they dispatched?” He couldn’t see her actively wanting to kill anyone, but her getting carried away with her strength was the worst case scenario; it would certainly be quite an issue for all of them if Yor had killed them.

The agent before him shook his head, “We were unable to verify, from our distance, whether they were killed or merely injured. But it was quite efficient. But then…then she approached a payphone, closing the distance between us and we heard something…”

“Who did she call?”

Nebel paused, “We’re unsure of who exactly was on the other end. We heard Mrs. Forger state that she was sorry for being late but needed a hand with a ‘last-minute delivery of lilies’ and provided the street name. She seemed like she was going to say more before noticing the beggar woman from before and hung up before attacking her too, and then she pulled all three bodies into an alley to wait.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. ‘Efficient’ certainly was a word for it. It sounded like Yor wasn’t just defending herself, if her actions had extended to not leaving witnesses like the woman. And there was that talk of flowers again; first last night, then this morning – while speaking with the Director of Policy – and now again after finding herself in a situation where she was forced to use her abnormal strength. There was no way she could be speaking of actual lilies this time; there weren’t any flower shops open this late at night and no store would bring in stock from the night before when freshness was paramount.

He had presumed before that the ‘order’ and ‘delivery’ of flowers referred to an exchange of information, and that Yor was some kind of informant, but it seemed like the scope of things was broader than that.

She knew who to call immediately after the incident, too, and knew exactly what to say to get the help she needed. Her actions screamed protocol. He knew that lilies represented serious illness or death in the language of flowers, so was the reference code for a clean-up order, specifically? But why did she not think she could handle the bodies herself? Or was that just not her job?

“Mama has a second job!”

He remembered Yor’s pale face and wide eyes.

“Did anyone show up?”

Agent Nebel nodded solemnly, “The Berlint City Hall Director of Policy, Matthew McMahon. He arrived in a black car with a license plate different from the one he has on record, and all bodies were deposited in the backseat before Mrs. Forger entered his front passenger seat and they took off.”  

“I see,” Twilight said, his mind racing, “Were any words exchanged between them that you could pick up?”

“Mr. McMahon was silent but, just before she got into the car, Mrs. Forger quietly apologized for ‘keeping Shopkeeper waiting.”

Twilight remembered hearing that title used that morning as well, as someone who could directly contact the Director of Policy and who Yor desperately wanted to speak with. And Yor had told him that she would be late coming home from work…

Was that what she was late for? A meeting with this ‘Shopkeeper’? They must be pretty important in…whatever network all this secrecy and code required, so what does it mean that Yor has access to them? Was that indicative of her having a high rank, or just that the organization was small enough (or non-hierarchical enough) to allow it? Whatever this organization was.

Garden, apparently. Although Twilight still didn’t see how. He was getting disparate pieces of a puzzle, but it was still too few to come to the conclusion that that was the picture he was supposed to be building. Sure, it didn’t sound like how the SSS operated, but he still couldn’t rule it out completely, and Yor being involved in anything clandestine was a major threat. Given her physicality and behavior, Yor didn’t seem to be an insignificant member, but he needed to know what this second job was and who she worked for – she had just become the biggest threat to STRIX.

He was Twilight, the best Westalian spy. How could he have brushed off all the signs that Yor was more than she seemed? The situation with Anya was excusable – she was a child; nobody sane would see a child acting odd and think ‘telepath’ over any other possible reason – but Yor? How did his suspicion only go as far as thinking she knew about her brother’s role in the SSS?

It was annoying that, even now, his mind was rebelling against all this new information.

Yor’s soft smile as she handed him his cup of coffee in the morning, him knowing that the perfect amount of milk had already been poured into it…

Yor holding his hand on a late night after he told her how his mother wife died...

Yor making Anya laugh...

But…

Yor kicking a man so hard that he went flying.

Yor destroying the strength-tester game with ease.

Yor sometimes coming home at odd hours with strange excuses.

Yor's killing intent last night...

“Mama’s thinking stabby thoughts again!”

Anya knew. She knew exactly what the woman she called ‘mama’ was and hadn’t said a word. She kept quiet and protected her secrets, just like she protected his own. Was it too much to hope it was because Yor didn’t pose as much a threat as he was fearing, instead of being a case of typical six-year-old shortsightedness?

Agent Nebel narrowed his eyes in concern at the silence between them, “The Code Red is still active. Do you need immediate extraction?”

“It depends,” Twilight said slowly, trying to calm the whirlwind of worst-case scenarios flying through his mind, “How did you conclude that this incident indicated Garden involvement?”

“The term ‘Shopkeeper’. After the context of your Code Red request was made clear, our analysts sent out feelers to see if anyone could pinpoint the meaning of the title and…” he gulped, “It came up in an old, coded message from our last high-level mole in the SSS. You know, from before he got caught.”

Twilight nodded. He remembered the internal uproar it caused when Agent Baldr had been discovered to be missing, especially because it had happened shortly after WISE had almost been brought into the open by the agency’s own mole. Twilight himself had been involved in the fiasco, but it seemed like Agent Baldr had been one of the casualties of the scant information that did end up getting leaked.  

The young agent wasn’t finished, “It was sent three years ago to all agents stationed in Ostania – the first time a simple report had ended with an agency-wide warning. Agent Baldr had come to hear of Garden from a high-level officer in the SSS and even they seemed scared to even utter the word. They act as the shadow government’s intermediary with the Ostanian criminal underworld, do the jobs that would put too much heat on the SSS from the public, and they have a squad of highly skilled assassins that are each strong enough to take on a battalion!”

“I…see,” Twilight had heard of Garden – its presence as a para-military organization to be wary of had been part of his briefing at the beginning of STRIX, after all, and he had heard the rumors ramp up in the past year when spies not caught by the SSS had, instead, turned up dead. Franky had also told him a contact of his may have been targeted by them, so it wasn't like he'd stopped hearing about their existence (even if their supposed feats sounded hyperbolic). But he didn’t remember seeing the exact memo that had brought the name ‘Garden’ to WISE’s attention, “And the warning?”

“It told us one thing – stay far away from anyone who uses the title ‘Shopkeeper’.”

‘Ah, and if the events of today are being interpreted correctly, I managed to do the opposite.’

A spy, a telepath, an assassin, and a dog with precognitive abilities, all under one roof. It sounded like the beginning of one of those cheesy jokes.

A spy, a telepath, and an assassin, walk into a bar…

How could he not begin to suspect that someone was out to get him, with odds like that?

“Are you sure Operation STRIX isn’t compromised?” Agent Nebel asked, “If Mrs. Forger is involved with Garden, especially in an assassin-type role, she may direct her organization your way if she discovers anything, if she doesn’t kill you herself first! Or…” he considered Twilight again as he took another gulp of water, “…Excuse me if this is classified, but did you know about this when you chose her to be your wife?”

Hah. If he had done his job well enough to uncover her secrets earlier, he would have at least had enough blackmail material to keep her from reporting any odd behavior on his end like he was constantly worrying.

 ‘As if that would work any better than your attempt at honey-trapping her,’ a voice scoffed at the back of his mind, ‘Your audacity probably would have just angered her faster.’

“Thank you for your report, agent,” he said instead. Thankfully, Nebel took the hint that he was not privy to any answers, “Where is Agent Sturm now?”

“We agreed that I should give you an emergency update while he followed the vehicle containing Mrs. Briar. Given the level of danger, we agreed that he would update us on his status in…” he looked at the clock on the wall, “half an hour. If he doesn’t respond, we are supposed to contact Handler Sherwood and begin extraction.”

Twilight fought back the wince that the word ‘extraction’ triggered but allowed his eyes to flit over to Anya’s bedroom door, “Alright, well, you can wait here. If Yor comes home before then, the bedroom at the end of the hall has a balcony that you can escape from unnoticed.”

Agent Nebel nodded.

They didn’t have to wait too long. Ten minutes before 1am, the silence of the night was broken by the sound of the phone ringing. Twilight heard Nebel give a small sigh of relief as he rose to answer the phone, but something in his gut was telling him something wasn’t right. The call was exactly five minutes too early. Every WISE spy is taught that something as small as timing can be a part of communication, so why would Agent Sturm stray from what he’d decided on with Agent Nebel?

Was this a message in itself? If he had been taken by Garden, he wouldn’t call at all, and if he had been held up, he would be calling late, so why was he early?

Maybe it was Yor, somehow, informing him that she was on her way home? But no, she was too considerate to call, in case he had gone to bed and the ringing would disturb Anya. For all that he'd learned about her tonight, he did know she cared about things like that.

Twilight picked up the phone, “Forger residence?”

A short silence on the other end.

And then a deep voice sounded, “Is this Dr. Forger?”

“Speaking.”

Silence again, “Are you seeing any new patients?”

Is this line secure, or should we worry about eavesdropping?

“No, my schedule is clear in that regard.”

“Good.”

Twilight was about to ask for the code to confirm Agent Sturm’s status when he heard shuffling on the other end of the line. He frowned slightly at the disturbance, "Hello?"

His heart almost stopped as a different, silky-smooth voice responded.

“Good evening, or should I say good morning, Dr. Forger. What do you know of Project Apple?”

Chapter Text

The Shopkeeper knew that Loid Forger was an agent for the West.

It would have been irresponsible for him not to know. As soon as Thorn Princess had let slip that her husband had shown interest in Donovan Desmond, he had to confirm that he wouldn’t have to keep a closer eye on his top assassin’s cover. Garden wasn’t an organization that specialized in intelligence gathering, but they couldn’t be as efficient, or as successful, as they were without knowing how to do their due diligence with what they had. Proper weeding required knowing which roots to pull, knowing a bindweed from a petunia, knowing an amaranthus albus from an amaranthus caudatus. Eliminating the wrong target or overlooking the wrong threat could cause untold damage to the garden, jeopardizing its health and, thus, its potential to foster true beauty.

That could not be allowed.

Of course, a rudimentary check had been conducted once Thorn Princess had informed him of her marriage – Doctor Loid Forger. Ostanian citizen. Registered psychiatrist at Berlint General Hospital. No parents or siblings. One daughter. No political affiliations. No threat. There were a few patches in his recorded personal history, but it wasn’t unusual for men and women of his generation to have lost personal records in the various bombings that occurred throughout the war, especially in the border towns and villages.

But once Thorn Princess revealed that the man who had previously shown no record of any political inclination was suddenly quite interested in the National Union Party, and especially the Chairman himself, he knew he had to look a little deeper. He didn’t know the man, but he knew it was natural to take one’s spouse’s words into account; a word here and there could plant seeds of right-wing bias into Yor Forger’s mind in a way that would impact her pruning missions. Discrimination could not be allowed to dull her blades. Shopkeeper knew he had raised a formidable, dependable flower in his apolitical Thorn Princess, but he also knew that Yor Forger was a woman whose beauty and kindness could leave her vulnerable to those who wished to strangle her with slow-moving vines if she wasn’t careful. She was strong, yes, but the Shopkeeper looked out for all of his own. He had to determine if the NUP interest was a passing curiosity, or the first hint of greater affiliation.

And so, it wasn’t difficult for Garden to dig a little deeper and, with a clue left by a helpful mole, piece together that Loid Forger was actually a Westalian agent.

Possibly, THE Westalian agent.

Now, this on its own did not raise alarms for Shopkeeper. As much as the Ostanian government tried to deny it, and as much as the SSS tried to curb it, there were dozens of Westalian agents in Ostania. Just as there were dozens of Ostanian agents in Westalia. It made no sense to clutch one’s pearls over something that all nations engaged in; it was a basic rule of engagement to know one’s enemy. Shopkeeper wasn’t one to entertain discrimination either – actions mattered more than birthplace, and he would not condemn someone for being from the wrong side of the border. No, Loid Forger would only become worth pruning if his actions threatened to disturb the sanctity of Ostania’s hard-fought peace. Garden would follow the few whispers of theft, of sabotage, of key information ‘going missing’, and judge to see if this was the man who had plagued the nightmares of the SSS’ top officers. One step out of line, and the man would go the way of some of his colleagues whose own missions, in the past, had strayed too close to re-lighting that tinderbox. It would be too cruel to ask Thorn Princess to slit her own husband’s throat, but he could easily throw the SSS at the man and be done with it.

Then, the underworld started talking about a psychiatrist from Berlint General Hospital and the delicate ‘package’ in his possession.

Then, Thorn Princess came to his door with steel in her eyes and 'lilies' dragged behind her. She handed him a photo of her daughter, similar to the photo of her husband that he had handed her at the beginning of the week, insisting that her family was in danger.

A call and response.

He hated that he recognized the girl in the photo, and not from his initial background check on Loid Forger.

~*~

“Who is this?” Twilight hissed out, even as his blood ran cold in his veins.

Agent Nebel froze, midway out of his chair, and locked eyes with him. In a fraction of a second, the man’s gaze turned from confused to concerned, and he quickly raised his hands to sign, ‘Danger?’

Twilight gave the sign for ‘stand down’ as the smooth voice on the other end spoke up again, “What do you know of Project Apple?”

His thoughts were a whirlwind. The dimness of the living room pressed in on his temples, his lungs, his bones, as he began to process what exactly he had just heard.

It had been Agent Sturm on the other end at first – he had given the appropriate code to verify a secure line with him, established when he and Nebel had first been assigned to follow Yor. Yor, who was on her way to rendezvous with…

“Is this Garden?”

A short silence, and then, worryingly, a soft chuckle, “Glad to know my suspicions weren’t unfounded; I don’t have to ask how you know that name.”

No, he supposed he didn’t. No ordinary civilian would know that name.

“Good evening, or should I say good morning, Dr. Forger.”

Did this man know who he was? No, that greeting could have been a bluff. At most, the only thing knowing the name ‘Garden’ confirmed was that Loid might be some intelligence agent.

“What do you want?”

“You don’t seem to be listening,” the man said, a light scold in his voice, “I want to know how much information you have on Project Apple. Your…colleague…isn’t talking so I thought I’d ask directly.”

Twilight bristled. Direct confirmation that they had a WISE agent in their custody, eh? They must think they could use Sturm’s safety as a bargaining chip in this play. Thankfully, he wasn't worried about information leakage - all WISE agents were trained in how to handle interrogations - but what had these people done to Agent Sturm to try and get him to talk?

As if reading Twilight’s mind, the man continued, “We haven’t hurt him in any way. But this is a situation I want dealt with as quickly as possible.”

"Situation?"

"Indeed," came the response, "We were recently, ah, informed of a job left unfinished. The presence of your colleague merely allowed us to gather that you knew enough to help us complete it."

Twilight had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going, “If I knew anything, I imagine you don’t want me to reveal such sensitive information over the phone.”

WISE had not been able to gather much on Garden, other than the rumors of their capabilities, but their affiliation with the Ostanian government was a high likelihood, given the disappearance of many Westalian agents in the past at their (supposed) hands. And not a day went by without Twilight being highly aware of how they salivated over any opportunity to capture Westalis' greatest intelligence agent within its own borders. If they were hoping for an exchange - him for Sturm - there was only one way it could end. But it could also restart a war. They had to know that he wasn't working alone. The Code Red was still active and Agent Nebel was by his side; the response would be immediate. There was a sliver of a chance that WISE would abandon him and claim ignorance, but with peace as fragile as it was, there was no guarantee the Westalian government would spin it that way.

His conversation partner didn't seem to mind being called out, though, “No, I don’t. But I also imagine that you think I just want to bring you out into the open to be arrested by the SSS.”

Twilight clenched his jaw.

“I assure you,” the other man said calmly in the gap of silence, “This is one area where the SSS would be much more of a hinderance than any help. If I wanted to send the SSS after you, I would have done so months ago. I gave the appropriate greeting, no?”

…So, there was no dancing around it.

“Good evening, or should I say good morning, Dr. Forger.”

There was no stopping the chills that crawled down Twilight’s back. Time slowed and existence narrowed into himself, the phone in his hand, and the man on the other end of the line. This man absolutely could hand him to the SSS, but hadn’t. He didn't know what proof they had (which was worrying in itself) but he did know that, if this man wasn't lying, that meant he was more valuable alive in the hands of Garden than in the hands of the Ostanian agency dedicated to rooting him out. He tried not to spiral too much at the implications of that. 

It occurred to him, in a tiny recess of his mind, that although he had confirmed that the phone was clean of SSS bugs and wiretapping, the man’s phrasing indicated that he was still taking all precautions in ensuring that only the two of them were aware of his true identity.

How…considerate?

“And I’m supposed to be grateful?” Twilight asked carefully, “Or are you hoping I would ask ‘why’?”

“We deal in threats, not politics,” the man said simply, “You have not proven yourself to be a threat.”

The implied ‘yet’ hung above him like a sword.

He took a breath and glanced over to where Agent Nebel remained seated at the dining table, “So you need my knowledge on this…project?” If he could continue to feign ignorance in this, at least…

“Yes,” came the response, tone still annoyingly genial, “Your daughter’s safety counts on it.”

Loid couldn’t help how his shoulders stiffened at that, nor how his gaze shot to Anya’s closed bedroom door, as if he could detect if anyone had entered her space in the last few minutes without Bond alerting him. His lax hand twitched at the intruding vision of a shadow holding a knife to her throat as she slept…

"Is that a threat?" The question was snapped out harsher than Loid intended, and he saw Agent Nebel flinch minutely out of the corner of his eye.

"Not at all. I'm merely stating a fact about our shared predicament."

That did little to ease Loid’s simmering anger, “Good. Because I don’t think Yor would be very happy with you if it was the former.”

There was a brief silence where he felt a little smug at catching the man off guard. It probably didn't do well for him to provoke the man who had just insinuated that he could ruin Loid's life and work with a few words to the right people, but...something in him welcomed the pettiness of invoking Yor's name. 

“…So, you do know about her…” the man sounded more amused than wary.

The smugness leached away, leaving cold, at the confirmation he should have expected, "You thought my colleague's presence was a coincidence?" Loid weakly scoffed.

"Not at all! I'm just surprised you'd threaten to turn her against me like that, when I forged her with my own hands."

"Every craftsman knows to respect their tools, lest they pay the price for carelessness." 

"Indeed," the man was chuckling again. It was unnerving, "But that goes for anyone who decides to be careless around dangerous tools, don't you think?"

Loid closed his eyes as something twisted in his chest. A spy, a telepath, and an assassin, walk into a bar…“Was she placed in my path on purpose?”

“I assure you, your meeting was complete happenstance,” there was a chance that the man was lying to him, so Loid should have worried about how quickly his shoulders sank in relief, but following that path would mean believing that Yor could get one over on him for so long. Happily. Coldly. "But you are right, that laying a finger on your girl would invoke her wrath," the man conceded, "In that, our goals are actually aligned, given that I gave the order to destroy the rotten apple in the first place."

What?! And off went Loid's thoughts again. The rotten apple - Project Apple. A secret war-time initiative. But Garden supported the Ostanian government? Or was that just the current regime? All possible staff and sponsors were wrapped up in black tape so thick that WISE couldn't find any individuals associated with it. Not their names, nor faces, nor current whereabouts...

Was Loid really going to trust what he was hearing? What if this was still a trap to draw him out?

Project Apple was supposed to have been defunct for a little over a decade. Anya was six years old. 

"How do I know you're not lying?" 

He could almost hear the other man smile, “Take your lunch break today to visit your wife. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

Then, the line went dead.