When they take René and Samuel, Aurora almost gives up.
It's bad - she doesn't realize how bad until one day she realizes that she's sold off most of what she owns as a trade-off for more gin (or whiskey, or rum - it doesn't matter, as long as she can pass out in bed and forget, just for a moment, what the shaking in her hands is from). She realizes, but she doesn't care. She's not sure she can care about anything, now.
She misses the days when she'd been working. When she had Samuel and René to come home to, when she had something to live for. And when she had money. She's barely scraping by - and she's in no shape to work right now. (At least, not the kind of work she's done in the past. She's not sure if they would ever take her back, after the way she left.)
So when a man comes to her (not a friend, she doesn't have those anymore), asking to please, just get back a family trinket that the Nazis had taken, it starts her thinking.
One thing she's learned about herself is that when she starts on an idea, it doesn't stop. And this one follows suit, turning and roiling in her gut until she can't ignore it.
So she begins her homework.
She knows the basic construct of a team - she had one, more or less, when she was working with the Allies. (She doesn't think about that. She can't think about that.)
She starts with a hitman.
There are a lot of men in this age willing to get their hands bloody for money, but Aurora needs a special kind. She needs someone loyal, someone good - which is a tricky combination with this line of work. Everyone she comes across is a little too unstable, a little too vicious. Until Neil Mackay.
From the instant she sees his file (ex-cop, served in the military, lost his family in the blitz) she has a gut feeling. So she researches, and she watches, and then on a cold rainy day she follows him into a pub and takes the seat next to him.
"Some weather." She comments offhandly, after ordering a drink. Mackay only grunts offhandly. She downs the rum that she's handed. (She'd made the decision not to drink when on a job, but she's in a pub. She can be forgiven for one exception.) "I'm sure Shanghai was better, though."
It's only a second before she's pinned against the bar, arm twisted behind her back. She doesn't cry out - to show weakness now would be very, very dangerous.
"Who are you?" Mackay demands, applying pressure to her arm.
"I'm interested in acquiring your talents." She replies, trying as hard as she can not to make it sound like a gasp. It comes out flawless - she didn't spend 14 months as a spy for nothing. "You come highly recommended by Dedrick."
The pressure on her arm is released, and she eases her way back to standing. Mackay is looking at her with a wary look now, and thinly veiled disgust.
"I don't do that kind of work anymore." Is all he says, then turns back to the bar. She expected this. She'd brought leverage.
Leverage, in this case, comes in the form of a picture of a woman, of a few whispered words in Mandarin. He tenses, and she can see the pain and rage reflected in his irises.
"Alright." He says. "But just one job."
She gulps down another drink, and if he accepts that as an answer, well, that's his own fault.
She tells him that she'll contact him once the job is set up, and she leaves him. She's already had one too many to drink, but that doesn't stop her from cracking open a bottle when she gets back to her flat, or from drowning in the emptiness that never seems to end.
She's having trouble finding a suitable grifter, so she moves that to the back burner. An informant (not a friend, never a friend) gave her lists of all the highest-intelligence students in the schools he has access to. The first name she spots - Harry James - is on multiples. Top marks in radio operating, engineering, mechanics - the list goes on. If there's anything involving wires or explosives, he excels in it. The only downside is that he's from Ontario - but when she looks more thoroughly, there are notes about him attending a technical recruiting workshop in Birmingham with his family. So she writes down the address, and she contacts the people who can get her to England.
Once she's there, it takes a while to convince the boy's parents that she means well. She doesn't tell them what her team is (of course not, they would never send their seventeen year old son off to live a life of crime), instead weaving a tale of a training site with special focus on mechanics and radio operation.
She finally is allowed to talk to the boy, and as soon as she lays eyes on him she almost throws it all away. It hadn't really hit her, how young he would be. And yet here he is, with puppy-dog eyes and a smile of untainted idealism. I can't ask him to do this, she thinks, before she straightens up and throws any doubts out of her head. Of course she can. He'll be faced with these kinds of decisions soon, anyway. He can decide what to do with his life.
She explains the real idea to him once she's certain his parents are out of earshot.
"That's - that's crazy." He replies instantly. "I'm still in school, I don't even know how to do any of this stuff -"
"You'll figure it out." She soothes. "You'll be safe, and you'll have money to send to your parents - and you'll learn all sorts of things when you're in France."
She thinks that's what hooks him in the end, the idea of adventure in an unknown setting - that, and the pile of equipment she brought with her. He looks at it like it's a gold mine, instead of a pile of rusty machinery.
"Think you can do something with this?" She asks, and he nods without taking his gaze from the equipment. A triumphant smile touches her features. "Then let's get you to Paris."
She sets Harry up on the couch in her flat, because she can't afford another place and besides, he's too young to live on his own anyway. She's not used to living with other people (not since them), and he's not used to living away from home, so it takes some adjusting for both of them. She wakes up one night to hear a soft sniffling sound coming from the other room, and one part of her wants to go comfort him - but the stronger part stops her. The stronger part says, let him learn. She goes back to sleep, and dreams of lost faces and waves that sound like too familiar screams.
The solution to her grifter problem ends up landing right in her lap after only a week of being back in France. She's on her way back from the bar late at night, when she overhears a scuffle - boots dragging across gravel, fists connecting with soft flesh. "Give me your wallet." A gruff voice says from an alley over, and she stops. She steps softly over to the corner, where she peers around. Two men are standing in the alley; a short, broad one with a gun pressed to the tall, slim one's head.
"Listen." The tall one says. "I don't have any money. Please. I'm a reporter - I don't get paid until Friday, and that's only if my story sold well."
She doesn't intervene. She isn't going to throw her life on the line for a stranger. But she hears something in the man's voice - something that makes her listen.
"I don't care." The short one grunts, pressing the gun harder into the other man's head. "Give me what you have, or I swear to god I'll shoot you now."
"Ex-cop, huh?" The tall one says, and the short one's eyes widen. "No, I just - I recognize your form." He continues. "My dad, he was one for thirty years. Since before I was born. Up until some Nazi bastard shot him in the back for sympathizing, that is. At least that's what they called it." He laughs, bitterly. "All he did was help an old man up when he fell. And since that man was a prisoner, a yellow star - they slapped on a couple labels to make it seem justified."
The short man is looking less and less sure of himself, now. "I said I don't care."
"I don't have anything!" The tall one cries. "Listen, if you need money - I can help you. My dad set aside some money for me, for college - but that doesn't matter now, with the war. I can't leave my mother and my sisters." He takes a shaky breath, one that Aurora would bet her life on that it's a fake. "Please, they can't - they can't lose me too."
There's a long pause. The crucial moment. Even Aurora isn't entirely sure what will happen - and then, the man lowers the gun.
"They took someone from you, didn't they?" The tall one asks in a low voice.
"My wife." The short one responds, staring adamantly at the ground.
"We'll make them pay." The tall one replies, clasping a hand on the other man's shoulder. "Free France, oui?"
"Oui." The short one claps him on the back. "Free France."
Aurora waits until the would-be assaulter is gone before she approaches the tall one. He jerks up when he sees her standing there, arms crossed, unruffled.
"Was your father really an ex-cop?" She asks, and for some reason he grins.
"My father was a drunk. And, on the occasional day, a butcher."
She takes a step towards him. "Then I have an employment opportunity for you." She states coolly. He doesn't bat an eyelash.
"I'm listening."
So, she's found them. Hitman, technician, grifter - now all she needs is a thief.
When she contacts them to meet her at the circus, there are varying reactions. Harry's eyes light up like it's christmas. "Are you kidding?" He asks, and she tries her very best not to laugh at the astonishment on his face. His is the happiest response.
Cummings (the man from the alley), looks at her for a long moment before agreeing, and Mackay slams a fist down on the table in front of him and informs her that "I didn't bloody sign up for sightseeing and play-along". She settles him with a glare, and he finally agrees to go. "I did some research on you." He calls out, as she's turned to leave. "You're a wanted woman, Aurora Luft."
She turns back slowly, fixes him with a cold gaze. "If you know what I'm wanted for, then you'll know not to question me." She says, and after a second his eyes flicker away. "I'll see you at the circus at seven, sharp."
They have terrible seats, but the only reason they're here at all is because Aurora called in a favor, so no one complains. There are different acts - a sword-eater, a contortionist, and so on - there are no animals, though, much to Harry's disappointment. Finally, the last act.
Alfred Graves steps onstage amidst whirling lights and heavy applause. He looks pale - he's never been one for crowds or for noise, so Aurora can't imagine what it must be like to have both flung at him. Nevertheless, his memory is - as always - stunning. Even if his voice is shaking and his hands are clasped too tightly.
(His hands stop shaking only once, during the final applause, when he goes around shaking hands and slipping wallets and watches into his pocket. No one notices - except Aurora.)
After, she leads them out to behind the tent where the dark wraps around them like a blanket spotted with holes, and they wait.
"You still haven't explained what we're doing here." Cummings asks testily. He's not pushing his limits - he knows what those are, and he's smart enough to stay well away from them - but he is verging on irritated.
At that moment, a figure steps out from inside the tent. Aurora smiles, and begins to clap.
He looks up at her, and it takes a second for his face to light up, for the shadows give away her features.
"My only fan." He says with a tone of unconditional familiarity as he walks over to her.
"How is the circus?" She asks, and he winces. It's enough of an answer.
He agrees to join them. He trusts her, even after everything. She's not sure she deserves it.
"Alright," she says, once they're all back at her flat. Alfred and Mackay are listening intently, while Harry is drifting off on the couch, and Cummings is busy flicking at his ear to keep him awake. She sighs. "This is how it's going to work . . ."
It goes terribly. It gets worse. And then . . . it works.
They get the heirloom back, and Aurora isn't entirely sure it was worth it until she sees the stack of money that Alfred found in a safe under an officer's desk.
And when they hand it back to the man who hired them, and watch him break down into grateful tears - well, that doesn't hurt either.
"Is this still your last job?" She asks Mackay, and for a moment he looks like he might actually smile.
"One more." He mutters.
"Maybe two." Harry grins up at them, and it still hurts her chest to see the innocence reflected in his face. (She thinks of a three-year-old's smile, of small hands in hers. She downs another glass before the falling can start.)
It becomes routine, faster than she imagined - faster than she's comfortable with, if she's being honest. Soon not only is Harry camped out on her couch, but Tom has a stack of blankets on the floor, Alfred has a pillow stashed in the closet - even Neil has an extra pair of clothes stuffed in a drawer. It's cheaper than paying rent, is Tom's excuse - and for the others, it's just an extra place to rest; a safehouse, if they ever need to stay. Not home, but close.
She doesn't think about what they're becoming, until a night when she wakes up to Harry's soft sobs. She doesn't even think this time, about throwing off the covers and heading into the other room, but she stops when she hears a soft murmuring. Tom had stayed the night, and she can make out his voice forming scattered reassurances. It's okay, he whispers, it'll be alright. We're your family now.
She goes back to bed, and for the first time in a year, the nightmares leave her be.
(Instead, she dreams of dark hair and a smile like sunlight, and the sweetness of a child's eyes. She dreams she never lost them.)