It had been a long time since any of them had a few hours of real rest. Mission after mission for so long had made the years feel short, and the hours feel long. Right now the boys were sleeping as Lisa passing by the time working through the footage from their latest job. She had been working on it for the last three hours, giving her only two more to either finish the job or get some shut eye.
"Come on Lisa. You can get it done. There's no point in sleeping now."
"You keep doin' that and you'll fall asleep during a job." How had she not heard him get up.
"Is Bart awake too?" Lisa asks spinning around in her chair to see Nelson Muntz holding a beer in his hands.
"No. Him, and Milhouse are still asleep. Maggie is gone though." He points out and Lisa shrugs.
"I heard her leave right after Bart started to snore. She is beginning to get restless."
"Sounds like you when you were first brought on." Nelson points out crossing the tiny room over to her.
"That was when I was a beginner. Maggie is a natural. She'll come back before the others are awake. She always does. Now if you will excuse me I have to finish this." She swerves back to her computer.
"What are you doing this time?" Nelson asks leaning over the back of her chair. She needed to get a taller one. That way none of the boys could see her work. That was the reason she had taken the smallest room. Less room for others to come crowding in. Sadly it means it only take two or three people to crowd it.
"Going over the unedited footage. Somehow we were detected early on. Sooner then we had planned for. Milhouse was lucky to only get that one scratch going across his nose." Lisa stops herself from commenting on the fact that last time he got shot in the ass. It was no fun having to cut that out of him. Next time she was leaving the removal process to Maggie.
"What were you doing there?" Nelson ask pointing at her shape crossing over the railings above them. She wasn't supposed to be there, but in the moment the diversion had been completely necessary.
"While you lot were below taking your sweet time to egg on security I was keeping the other nice men from shooting you all. Maggie took their weapons as I disarmed them." Lisa explains rewinding and showing the barely visible image of Maggie right behind her as the men before them all fell off the railing.
"Remind me not to piss you two off." Nelson mutters with a grim look.
"Will do." Lisa promises with a sweet smile.
Nelson's expression changes, and Lisa wonders why. In one moment his grim look was gone, and instead he was smiling back at her. His eyes held a sad, hollow feeling to them as he brings his head down closer to her. His wife-beater shirt hangs a little loose from his chest and Lisa is reminded of the tattoo on his chest with a small glimpse of her name.
"Nelson, what are you doing?" Lisa manages the question right before he wraps his arms around her tightly. In a flash his arms were gone and he was almost back to her door.
"Nelson?" Why did her voice sound so small?
"Get some rest Lisa. If you don't then you'll start to imagine things." Nelson warns her before shutting her door behind himself.
Lisa ignores the illogical feeling that was growing in her chest. They weren't kids anymore. Life was serious, and if she didn't take care of herself any one of them could be killed. He was warning her for the safety of the group, not because he cared. Lisa shuts her laptop with a sigh of relunctantance. Once the screen was off she felt a wave of wariness hit her that she had managed to ignore before. Lisa stands and stumbles over to the small mattress that made her bed in the corner of the room. Right beside her desk. She feels for the handle of her knife, finding it right under the mattress. She clenches it tightly and tries to forget the hug. It wasn't important, the fact that he smiled wasn't important. Nor were the facts that she could hear the door to the boy's room open and close shortly after, or the fact she could hear every step Nelson took. Nelson was the loudest of the three. His bed was also the closest to her's. Resting just on the other side of the wall. Lisa sometimes wonders if that was intentional on his part, or if it was just another small detail she was reading into more then she should.
She fell asleep before she heard Maggie come home, or Nelson's snores could be the makeshift lullaby they had become for her. Her last thought before allowing her eyes to close was if their parents would be happy with what they were doing now? A life as spies, and mercenaries was not easy, or safe. Marge probably would not care for it, and would want her babies home doing something, anything else, but Homer, well Homer had done more dangerous things on accident before. Neither of them were here. They couldn't say anything about the paths their children had taken.
"Goodnight mom, and dad."
As her body loses consciousness Lisa faintly heard the words, "Night Lisa." In reply. She slept her remaining two available hours without a problem.