Everything is wrong.
Everything is wrong and nothing is going to be alright because they're gone they're all gone and she'll never see them again.
Aurora wipes her face clean of emotion and steps onto the train. She needs to get across the border right now, she needs to get -
Somewhere. Anywhere. As long as it's far away from here.
She settles into a seat, clenching her hands together to stop their shaking and turning her head to look out the window. Paris is beautiful at night, but the only thing she sees in the glass is her face - pale and terrified, with tears brimming behind her eyelids. She turns her eyes to her lap.
"It's a great opportunity," Tom insists. "This job will make us enough money to live comfortably for the rest of our lives; we can go wherever we want, because we'll have enough to buy transport out of the country to somewhere safer. There is no downside to this."
"What about the risk?" Aurora demands. "How much do you really know about this source?"
"Enough." Tom replies shortly, and she runs a hand through her hair.
"Alfred? Neil?" She turns to the others - Harry has already made it clear that he doesn't want any part in their arguments.
"It would be nice to go somewhere safer." Alfred says softly. "Somewhere where we could get out of the game; settle down and live normal lives."
"Neil?" Aurora challenges, and the other man glances down to the ground.
"I wouldn't mind having a spot to settle down for good." He admits, and Aurora swears under her breath.
"Fine." She throws her hands up. "You all want to do this - then do this."
"Really?" Tom asks, clearly surprised.
"But I don't want anything to do with it." Aurora finishes. "There are too many variables, not enough intel. And when you need someone to objectively assess the risk, come to me."
The boys look at each other reluctantly, and Aurora's heart rises in her throat when they nod.
It feels a little bit like something's breaking.
Maybe if she'd been there. Maybe if she hadn't been angry at Alfred for nothing at all, maybe if she'd have gotten over her fucking pride and actually done her job. Maybe then none of this would have happened.
"I just don't see why you won't join us for this one job." Alfred says, and his voice is that terrifying calm that she's only seen once - Alfred's anger is the opposite of her white-hot rage. "The team needs you - I need you."
"And I need you all to be alive!" She snaps back, clenching her fists. "Do you know what happens when people do something stupid and risky and don't think of the consequences? Do you?"
"Aurora." Alfred sounds exhasperated. "Everything's going to be fine - we've done extra work on this job to make sure we know every angle. We're being careful -"
"I lost my husband and my son!" Aurora shouts, and she's never said it out loud but her blood is pumping in her ears and her hands are shaking and she needs to tell him, she needs to make him understand. Alfred is frozen, dawning horror seeping into his expression. But she keeps going. "I was so careful, I was - I was always so careful." She laughs, a little hysterically. "But it wasn't enough.
"They took them. They took Rene, and they - they took Samuel." She can barely breathe through the lump in her throat, and she has the inexplicable urge to break down in tears. She needs oxygen. She needs a drink. "He was three years old, and they took him. They threw them in a camp, but they kept me - because I was useful. Because I had information."
She can't talk anymore. Can't breathe, can't - exist.
"I'm so sorry." Alfred says, lifting a hand as if to comfort her, before dropping it again.
"Please." She says, and it's the last time she's going to ask. "Please, don't take the job."
When he leaves, it's enough of an answer.
A policeman captures her eye, slowly moving down the train. She clenches her bag tightly, calming her breathing to a regular pace.
"Papers?" He asks when he reaches her, and Aurora hands them over quickly. It feels like forever, his eyes scanning over the writing. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're all going to get caught. She almost laughs - at least that way she'd see them again; albeit through prison bars, and to the regular sound of their screams.
The officer hands the papers back with a smile. "Enjoy your trip." He says, and moves forward.
The flat is too empty, with everyone gone on their job. Aurora finds herself actually being comforted by the amount of animals, instead of annoyed by them. It's only for a few days, she tells herself, but something still feels off. There's still a pit in her stomach that won't go away, a hesitance like if she takes a wrong step, everything around her is going to crumble to ashes.
"You can still join us, you know." Alfred says to her one night, when everyone else is asleep. "No one would say a word."
Aurora almost says yes. Almost takes back everything and goes back to the way it was.
But then the box on the corner of her nightstand catches her eye, and it all comes rushing back. Remember what happened last time, a voice whispers in her mind. Remember what happened to them.
So she bites back the desperate part of her that wants too badly to join them, and shakes her head. "If you all want to run around risking your necks for a payout - go ahead. Just don't ask me to be around to see it."
Alfred leaves her then, but she doesn't sleep. She spends the rest of the night perched on the edge of her bed, an empty coffee cup in her hand, the open box sitting in her lap.
She looks down at the box. It was the only thing she'd grabbed on her way out of the flat, except for a few clothes. She doesn't need to open it to see what's there - a necklace, a letter, a yellowed picture that is close to disintegrating. She clutches the box a little tighter. It's all she has left, now.
The last day of the job, everything goes normally. Aurora stands silently in the kitchen as the others file out of the door, deliberately avoiding their eyes.
"We'll be alright." Alfred says to her quietly, before he leaves.
She doesn't believe him.
She paces around the flat for hours, unable to do anything - she sits down with her book, only to realize twenty minutes later that she hasn't gotten past the first sentence. She throws it across the room vehemently, and it hits the wall and lands on the floor with its pages crumpled together.
She goes to look at the other books, but the first one that catches her eye is Brave New World. She turns away from the bookshelf with a curse - she doesn't need more memories, not now. She doesn't need a reminder of the times when Alfred's name didn't stab into her chest with every syllable.
She knows that all her fears were justified when Harry comes bursting into the flat, gasping and clutching his side.
"It was a trap." He chokes out, as Aurora rushes over to him. "It was a trap, and everyone - I couldn't find Alfred, the others are coming - but the Germans will be here soon. They know where we are."
Aurora makes a split second decision.
"You have two minutes to pack." She tells him. "I'll take care of it."
Neil and Tom arrive only moments later, barging in like hell's on their heels.
"Alfred?" Aurora asks them, but they only shake their heads. Not again, she thinks, dread twisting in her chest. Please, not again.
Three minutes later, they all gather in the living room with bundles of their essentials. Aurora grabs the box she'd hidden underneath the couch.
"Here's everything you need." She says, handing them each an envelope. "Don't stick together. Don't contact one another. Maybe, maybe, we'll all make it out of this alive."
"But - these are travel papers." Harry's voice is quiet, hurt. "In false names."
Neil looks up at her. "You don't expect us to -"
"I expect you to follow my orders." Aurora snaps. "Your other option is a Nazi interrogation room; and I promise, you won't enjoy it."
The boys look at each other.
"So we won't see each other again." Tom says, and there's a novel of unspoken words behind the sentence.
"It's the only way." Aurora says, pushing the hitch out of her voice. She doesn't have time for regrets. She doesn't have time for goodbyes.
She shoves them out of the flat, ignoring their blank expressions. "The Germans are going to be here any second." She tells them viciously. "Leave. Now."
Tom surprises her by pulling her into a tight hug. "Thank you." He says, and there's a crack in his determined look. "Thank you for giving us this."
Neil is the next one to pull her into an embrace, but he's at least able to remain stoic. "When this bloody war ends," he murmurs into her shoulder, "find us."
They leave, and Aurora turns away so she doesn't see their goodbye - they need their privacy. She knows how hard it'll be.
And now she's left with Harry, who's trying his best to keep a straight face even though his eyes are tearing up and his lip is quivering.
"There's instructions for you to get back to Canada in there." Aurora says firmly. "If you have any trouble -"
Harry launches himself into her arms.
"I'm going to miss you." He says through sniffles, arms wrapped around her neck and squeezing so hard she can barely breathe.
"I'm going to miss you too." Aurora replies, forcing herself not to cry. "You are - you are so brave, Harry. You're going to be okay, alright? You're going to be amazing."
Harry pulls back, and she almost wishes he hadn't because now she can see his tear-stricken face. "What about the animals?" He asks desperately. "What about Lucille?"
"I'll take care of it." Aurora says, and it's the kind part of her that doesn't tell him how.
"Siobhan won't even know what happened," Harry gasps, verging on hysterical. "We'll just be gone and she won't know -"
"Shhh, shhh." Aurora strokes his hair. "It'll be alright. She'll understand."
"And - and Alfred?" He's crying again, and Aurora grips his shoulders.
"We can't do anything about Alfred." She says fiercely, and when he won't meet her gaze she brings a hand under his chin to force him to look at her. "You did everything you could, alright? You did everything right."
Harry hugs her one more time, and she can feel tears leaking into her shirt before he lets go with a gasp, and gives her a quick, firm nod before walking away.
She closes the door behind them. She's stayed remarkably calm throughout everything, but now she can't help the sob that claws its way out of her throat. She brings a hand to her mouth and swallows the next one down, gasping as she wipes away the tears with the backs of her hands - she doesn't have time to feel this now.
It would be too cruel to leave the animals to starve; she's always known this might happen one day. So she takes out the silencer from underneath her bed and attaches it to the end of her gun, and she goes to where the animals are gathered in the living room.
She doesn't cry until Lucille.
She digs her fingernails into her palms and bites her lip. She wishes, more than anything, that she can know if they got away safely. She's always been ready for everything, but not this - not a lifetime of not knowing.
Maybe she'll find them after, like Neil said. Maybe they'll make it.