Disclaimer: Carmen et al belong to somebody else; I'm just playing with them for awhile.
Author's Note: Written as part of the 2012 Rarewomen fic exchange on lj for renata_kedavra. This story is sort of a companion piece to an earlier fic of mine "Anywhere Out of the World" about Carmen's time at ACME and follows the same continuity. But it is not necessary to have read "Anywhere" to understand the story. Many thanks to aptasi for being my beta. And if you enjoy reading, please review!
Ivy plunked down a dusty cardboard box on the breakfast table with a sigh. Today should have been a pleasure- a rare weekend off instead of one spent chasing after a certain red-coated thief. But, when her father asked that morning if she had any plans for the day, she made the mistake of saying "no." And that was how she had been drafted into helping her dad clean out what he called the "family archives," otherwise known as the basement. She couldn't even count on Zack to lend a hand; he was attending some software conference in Seattle until Monday. It was almost enough to make her wish for Carmen to go on a shoplifting spree at the Louvre.
The young woman rolled up her sleeves and began sorting through the box's forgotten contents. She smiled to see her old karate trophies nestled in among Zack's bronzed baby booties and her dad's moth-eaten softball jersey. Why her mother felt the need to hang on to old homework assignments and fifth grade art projects, Ivy would never understand; those were definitely going in the dumpster. At the very bottom of the box, she came upon a bound maroon and gilt volume she hadn't seen in years: the family album.
Ivy blew aside the dust and leafed through its laminated pages. The photos of her parents' wedding caused her to laugh. Her father's long hair and seventies-tastic mustache made him look like some kind of red-headed werewolf. And it was hard to imagine that her career-driven mother had once been a carefree flower child. She saw pictures of her newborn self sleeping in her mother's arms, her face splattered with chocolate cake on her first birthday, Zack taking his first steps. Christmases and Halloweens and family barbeques. Her parents with their old ACME colleagues.
A young Carmen Sandiego with her hand on Ivy's shoulder.
Ivy gasped aloud and shoved the album away from her, as if it might be demonically possessed. After the initial shock, the rational, problem-solving part of her brain kicked in. It was not something they talked about often, but it was no secret that her parents' tenure at ACME had overlapped with Carmen's days as a detective. Her parents had actually met at the agency while her mother was working part-time as a translator and her father as a forensic psychologist. Of course Carmen would have been invited along to any ACME gathering; she was once the agency's golden girl before she threw it all away. But that didn't prevent a sick knot from forming in the middle of Ivy's stomach. To know these facts intellectually was one thing; to see them all laid out in faded Kodachrome was another.
Her father came into the kitchen and dumped another box on the floor, wiping sweat and dirt from his brow. "Whatcha got there, sweetheart?" Ivy grimaced and slid the album across the table. Her father's normally cheerful expression faded into a frown as he turned the pages. He tapped a photo of a group of detectives smiling for the camera. Carmen was in it, too, but she wasn't smiling, her eyes focused on something far off in the distance . "Oh Carmen," he sighed, "she always did have one eye on the door."
The knot in her stomach tightened, causing her to lash out at him, "She came here?"
"Of course she came here. You don't remember?" her father asked softly, in the tone of voice his daughter always thought of as "therapist-mode."
Ivy frowned and tried to think back to that day. She couldn't have been more than five or six. But all she could recall were the most general of memories. The crackle of sparklers and the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. A fight with her brother over a favorite toy. Trembling with shyness and unexpected pleasure when a dark-haired woman took her hand and smiled at her…
"I guess…I didn't really, until now," she stammered.
Her father nodded. "When she left ACME, you were so upset... you adored her, Ivy. It broke your child's heart when she turned traitor. You even punched that neighbor boy in the nose when he teased you about it, remember? And when you finally seemed to get over it, your mother and I thought it best to not bring it up."
"Dad, for a therapist, you sure did a lousy job of getting me to talk about my feelings."
"At work, I'm a therapist. At home, I'm your father and I don't like to see you in pain." He paused then asked thoughtfully, "Do you want to talk about it now?"
Ivy felt herself getting uncomfortably misty-eyed and sniffed. "I don't know if I can." She looked at the pictures again. Carmen between Suhara and the Chief, the same sly smile playing about her lips, eyes that held a secret, even then. "What was she like?" It was a question she had always wanted to ask, and yet she feared actually hearing the answer.
Her father rubbed his hand across his ginger beard and thought. "Carmen? I can't say I knew her as well as others, but she is probably without a doubt the cleverest woman I have ever met. Don't tell your mother I said that," he said conspiratorially. "Serious and driven. Had an absolutely dry, dark sense of humor the few occasions I glimpsed it." He shrugged. "I'm not sure if she liked me, but I liked her, if that makes any sense."
"Oh," was all Ivy could think of to say. "Was she happy as a detective?"
"She kept herself to herself, so it's hard to tell. I think as long as the cases kept coming in, as long as she could keep chasing after someone, she was happy. She was never a well woman, Ivy, and ACME made her worse instead of better in the end," he told his daughter with regret.
"Oh, not you, too." Ivy rolled her eyes in disgust.
Her dad simply replied, "You asked me a question, and I am answering it honestly. I won't lie to you. Yes, I think ACME was partially to blame for what Carmen became. And yes, I feel partially responsible."
Her father always said he gave up forensic psychology because he realized he enjoyed making people well more than he enjoyed helping ACME catch those who were irredeemably sick. Ivy suddenly wondered how much his failure to help Carmen Sandiego might have factored in his career change. "Becoming a thief was her decision. It can't possibly be your fault, Dad."
"Hear me out, sweetheart." He looked away from her and his eyes took on a sad cast. Her father was a compassionate man; it was part of what made him such a good listener and therapist. It shouldn't have been too surprising that he felt compassion for Carmen, too. Even if she probably didn't deserve it. "When Carmen came to us, she was younger than Zack is now. She was an orphan and she had no family to look out for her well-being. We did her a disservice."
"But the Chief said that ACME was her home, her family," Ivy protested.
"The ACME brass didn't treat her like family; they treated her like an extremely useful tool. A novelty to show off- the brilliant girl detective. And as long as she kept tap dancing circles around our competitors and kept collaring crooks, they were content to let her have free reign." His blue eyes flicked to meet Ivy's green ones. "It wasn't what she needed."
"Dad, if there's one thing I know about Carmen Sandiego, it's that the thrill of the chase is always at the top of her hierarchy of needs," she told him tartly.
He shook his head. "You're confusing want with need."
"All right, what did she need in your professional opinion?"
"It's all pure speculation on my part," the good doctor hedged, "but I think she needed to stay in one spot long enough to put down some roots. A chance to learn how to care for other people and let them care for her." He paused and patted her hand affectionately. "The life lessons you and Zack learned without trying."
Her father's words were warm and gentle and yet they needled Ivy, got under her skin and made her squirm. "It's fine for you to feel sorry for her. You're not the one responsible for putting her behind bars."
"And how do you feel about that?" Therapist mode again.
She groaned. "Save it for your patients, Dad."
"Okay, okay. I need to be going anyway." He glanced at the microwave's green digital clock. "I'm supposed to meet your mother for Italian and a movie in the North End. It's date night." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"I really, really don't want to know."
"Are you going to be all right on your own here? You can come if you like…"
The only thing worse than hearing about her parents' 'date night' would be having to witness it in person. "I'll be fine. Bring me home a slice of tiramisu?"
He kissed her on the forehead. "Anything for you."
After her father had left, Ivy paced in her room, agitated. She kept stealing glances at the album, half-hoping that if she stared at the pictures long enough they would either come to life or spontaneously combust from the heat of her gaze. Carmen Sandiego- public enemy number one, the woman who had led her on a merry chase for years- had once been here, a guest of honor in her own house. She contemplated calling her brother at his conference, but doubted he would understand the tangled mess her heart was in. He was only a toddler when Carmen had left and had never really felt the sting of her betrayal as deeply as she had. Finally, she came to a decision and pressed her thumb to her ACME communicator.
The familiar sight of the Chief's disembodied head sprang out near instantaneously. He popped on a top hat and danced across his bright pink screen, "Hello my Ivy, hello my darlin', hello my ragtime gal," he sang. "I'm thinking if this whole Chief of ACME thing doesn't work out, I might try vaudeville. Whaddya think?"
In spite of herself, she chuckled. "No offense, Chief, but don't quit your day job."
"Everyone's a critic!" he lamented. "What do you need, Ivy? Shouldn't you be enjoying your night off?"
"I need a favor, Chief." The young woman paused. "I need you to get a hold of Carmen for me."
"And what else would you like, princess? A pet unicorn? The Lost Chord?" he asked, exasperated.
"Oh, I know you two talk. Your little chats are ACME's worst kept secret." she said, a simmering anger in her voice. The Chief's lower lip trembled. "I need to talk to her. Tonight."
The Chief nodded, all gaiety drained from his features. "I'll see what I can do."
Sometimes the only way to escape her own personal drama was to get lost in the drama of other people. For example, binging on a Jersey Shoremarathon. And why not? It was stupid to expect that Carmen was actually going to show up just because she asked her to. If only her life was as simple as "GTL."
"Is that what passes for popular culture these days or a National Geographic special? From an anthropological perspective, it seems fascinating. From a sociological one, it's rather disturbing," a familiar voice drawled from the shadows.
A jolt of electricity shot down Ivy's spine, dialing up every muscle in her body to red alert. Carmen's presence always had that affect on her. Heightened, tonight, by the fact Carmen had caught her engrossed in the trashiest of reality television. "You came," Ivy said, with genuine surprise.
"I let myself in. I hope you don't mind." Ruby lips smiled as she silently waltzed into Ivy's room and nimbly perched on the edge of her bed. The woman was unmistakably Carmen but she was dressed differently than Ivy had ever seen her before, like someone out of a bygone era. In one graceful movement, she removed her dark velvet cloak to reveal a strapless dress of shimmering midnight blue. Long black satin gloves reached over her elbows. Her wild hair was pinned up away from her face, all the better to reveal her bare shoulders and the low cut of her gown. She couldn't remember ever seeing the thief so… exposed. Carmen's dark blue eyes met hers with an amused glint in them and she knew she had been caught staring. She felt herself blushing beneath her freckles.
"Can we make this quick, detective? I'd really like to be back in time to catch the third act. Verdi's La Traviata…one of my favorites."
Ivy registered suspicion. "Wait…what opera house?"
"This one. In San Francisco."
"Here?" The woman was impossible.
"Well…here in 1958. Such a memorable season," Carmen closed her eyes in artistic rapture. "Maria Callas, La Divina herself, in the role of Violetta. You should go sometime."
"The Chronoskimmer wasn't created so that I could take vacations in different decades. It was designed to chase after you, Carmen."
"A pity." The thief's blue flashed and glanced toward the open window. Somehow she had slyly maneuvered herself between the room's two exits without the detective even realizing it. Her dad had been right; Carmen always did have one eye on the door. "May I ask what was so pressing as to draw me away from my evening, detective? You're not in some kind of...trouble…are you?" the thief asked with uncharacteristic hesitation.
When it dawned on Ivy what Carmen was implying she nearly turned violet in mortification. "What? No!"
"Oh good," the thief sighed, noticeably relieved.
She thrust the album into Carmen's lap. "This."
Carmen's dark blue eyes seemed to deepen as she glimpsed the photo in question. Her gloved hands reached out tentatively to touch the pictures, but her face gave nothing away. She closed the album, silently, and looked back at Ivy without saying a word.
Ivy tried to hold her gaze but couldn't. "You never said anything, never acknowledged…"
"I didn't presume I was that memorable," the thief said dryly. "If you are asking if I remember that day, I do."
The memory that had eluded her before flooded back, unbidden. "We played hide and seek…" she began.
"You hid and I found you," Carmen finished gently. "Variations on a familiar theme."
So many conflicting emotions warred within the young detective, fighting to be heard. Anger and hurt and nostalgia and regret. But they all came out in a choked incoherent jumble. "But you…how could…why didn't…"
Carmen's sapphire eyes reflected pity but her voice was as sure and as firm as granite. "Ivy, I did not intentionally become a thief for the sole purpose of hurting you…or anyone else for that matter. What I did, I did for me."
"But you had to have known it would hurt people! Suhara, the Chief, my dad…"
"Yes, I knew. I did it anyway," she said, utterly unapologetic.
"How could you…"
"Be so selfish?" At this Carmen paused and drew breath. "Ah, selfishness…the greatest and the least of all my crimes." She rose gracefully from the bed and looked out the window. Her skin glowed in the soft light of the moon and the street lamps. She looked beautiful, impossibly elegant and would not have been out of place at a red carpet gala. Or, center stage, the heroine of her own operatic tragedy. Carmen gazed out the window and spoke slowly and decisively, "I am not in the habit of explaining myself, so I suggest you listen carefully, detective, as you will only hear it once. I did what I felt was necessary. I did what was best for me."
Ivy tried to restrain a snort and failed. "Becoming a criminal was what was best for you?"
"I was angry and bitter, becoming angrier and more embittered with each passing day. I did not like the woman I was becoming." Her eyes flicked toward Ivy in a cutting glance. "I do not think you would have liked her either."
Her words rocked Ivy, left her disoriented and destabilized. Ivy tried to picture a Carmen who stayed at ACME out of loyalty: bored, trapped, chained to a desk with mundane administrative duties. A cranky boss whose glory days had come and gone a decade before. It did not make for a pretty picture, she had to admit. She sank down on the bed and thumbed the old photograph, felt that familiar pang for all that could have been. As she spoke, the knot that had been in heart for years finally began to loosen; "I guess…I always wanted to be a detective. Like you. And I hoped that when I was old enough, you would be there to teach me and we would do this together."
Carmen looked back at her with an unfathomable expression for a moment. Then she came and laid a black gloved hand on Ivy's shoulder, mirroring her younger self. "What do you think I've been doing, Ivy?" she breathed. The gesture and the rich timbre of her voice made the girl want to weep.
They stayed like that, frozen in the moment, until Carmen shyly withdrew her hand. When Ivy found her voice, it was hoarse, and she asked, "Are you better now?"
"Oh, I'm much less angry…and bitter about different things, I suppose," the thief answered. When Ivy shook her head, Carmen mused poetically, "Do I contradict myself? I am large, I contain multitudes."
A conversation with Carmen often felt like a quiz she had forgotten to study for. "Um, Robert Frost?" she guessed.
The master thief raised her eyebrows, aghast. Why oh why did Ivy suspect there was going to be a poetry-themed caper in her near-future? "Walt, Whitman, Song of Myself. Such gaps in your education, Ivy. What do they teach at the academy these days?"
"Double sections of Carmen Sandiego 101."
"Touché," the thief said, eyes glittering. She reached into her reticule to pull out a small gadget similar in shape and size to ACME's Chronoskimmer. "If that is all.."
"Wait," Ivy's hand shot out almost of its own accord and grabbed Carmen's wrist. The thief recoiled and her expression sharpened. For a moment the air between them shimmered with tension, tight as a bow string.
"I came here as a courtesy to you, detective. And now you want to play cops and robbers? I suggest you unhand me," Carmen said icily.
Ivy tightened her grip on her adversary's slender wrist, but Carmen didn't struggle. "Just listen to me for a second, okay? If you were…or are…unhappy, Carmen, there are people who are willing to help you. My dad, for one…he would help you," she said softly.
Carmen's laugh was the sound of something delicate breaking. "My, my, you are your father's daughter. Catching me will never be enough for you, will it? You won't be satisfied until I'm rehabilitated." She wrenched her hand away, sending Ivy off balance, staggering to the floor. But the ridicule in her voice wounded deeper than any blow ever could. "I'm just an unrepentant sinner, Ivy. Spare me the dime store psychology."
"Is it that you think you're too clever for it? Or are you afraid you are beyond help?" Ivy shot back; she would not let the thief mock her father's kind nature.
The thief turned her eyes on her and they burned ultramarine, the same color as the center of a candle's flame. "Both, actually," Carmen answered far too casually. She glanced at her time machine and frowned. A yellow light blinked on the console. "It seems I won't be making it back for the third act after all tonight."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Don't be. I know how it ends," she pronounced in a strange voice.
Ivy took a step closer toward her, venturing dangerously inside the thief's personal space. "How does it end, Carmen?"
Her fallen hero spoke softly, "Violetta, the courtesan, sacrifices herself to ensure the happiness of the young person she loves. She dies of a broken heart."
The way she said it made Ivy feel melancholy and not just for Violetta. "That's very sad."
Carmen parried her concern with a volley of sarcasm. "Oh, don't look so alarmed. It's a nineteenth century opera. They all die of broken hearts."
"Good to know. I suppose I should brush up on my opera for next crime," the detective found herself saying playfully.
"And your poetry," the thief admonished. "And I should make an effort to get more in touch with the current cultural zeitgeist."
"I can't picture you watching Jersey Shore, Carmen."
"Honestly, I'm more of a Real Housewives person myself," she said with a wink.
"You've got to be kidding me," Ivy laughed. The sound of keys jangling and a door opening downstairs drew her attention away; mom and dad home from their night out. Suddenly, a bright flash erupted in her peripheral vision, temporarily blinding her. When her sight returned the thief had disappeared. And the old photograph of them along with her.
A few days later, Ivy came home from work to discover a mysterious parcel sitting on her bed. She tore off its thick white paper wrapping to find a volume of poetry, bound in tooled red leather. It was a beautiful book with gilt-edged pages, an anthology of poems from all over the world. Inside the front cover, there was a message inscribed in a broad, bold hand.
"My dearest detective,
Per our conversation the other night, I made the mistake of using prose to express what only poetry can.
With affection,
C
P.S. I hope this gift remedies some of the alarming deficiencies in your education
Toward the back of the volume, the stolen photograph marked a poem by W.B. Yates. Recognizing a hint from Carmen when she saw one, the girl smoothed down the pages and read.
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
T hat nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
Ivy closed the book and knew it was the only explanation she was ever likely to receive from Carmen Sandiego. And still it would never be enough.