The remainder of July was spent in the confines of 2Fort, much to Spy's dismay. The fort only burnt down once, and it caused a delay of about a week. Strangely, there hadn't been any fallout from his little visit to the enemy side. The REDs captured the BLU intelligence about 10 times, and the BLUs probably had the same amount of luck. If there was one thing that bothered Spy, as well as many on the team, it was capturing Intels. The Scout would zoom on over to the opposing side, and sometimes bring it back and secure it in the home Intel base. That was fine and dandy, but could anyone take a look inside the briefcase? No.
"It's not under our jurisdiction!" Soldier would bark, "Orders from the top tell us strictly NOT to tamper. With. The. Intel." Each word by the end of his sentence would be emphasized with a poke in the chest. A rather hard, uncomfortable poke. It didn't matter what Mann Co. said, Spy figured he was good enough to crack the briefcase code and take a little peek.
Well, he figured he could, but in the end, the BLU intel won. It seemed no manner of combination worked. Was the damn thing super glued shut? Until that time, RED Spy never specifically thought about searching through his own Intel briefcase. It was the stuff he needed to protect, and who cared, as long as he was protecting it, right? It dawned on him that he didn't even know the code for his own intel. "Stop prying into other people's business, Frenchie!" Was Soldier's remark to when Spy casually inquired about the briefcase code, "If I knew I still wouldn't tell you." A salute signaled that Soldier would say no more.
Prying the case open by force wouldn't do. There wasn't time for that. It seemed every time the intel was secure, it would be a matter of time before the BLUs found a loophole in the defense and grabbed the RED intel (as well as their own). RED Spy couldn't say for sure, but knowing the BLU Spy (or what little he did know), he had probably tried opening the intels as well. The success rate was undoubtedly the same. After all, Spy knew that he was the best spy around, and no lowly BLU would ever best him.
Not one.
Well, what did it matter now? August was upon them and intels were to be forgotten in favor of one lone plot of land in the middle of the alpine. Viaduct. Going from an uncomfortable heat to a bitter cold climate was not something that Spy desperately wanted to do at the moment. Not only that, but beating the crap out of each other over ten square feet of land was outright asinine. There was little he could do about it.
The train rides were always long and boring. Sometimes something would catch fire, or an arm wrestling match would get out of control and seats would be pried from their fastenings and thrown violently. Today though, everything was calm. The Heavy was dozing as he cuddled his gun. Once in a while the train would jostle and he would wake up with a snort, only to fall back asleep seconds later. The Scout was tossing his baseball up and catching it, which was the least hyper thing he had done all week. The Pyro was lighting matches and watching them burn, but he often did that. Engineer was reading a book. Sniper was asleep—when he wasn't getting up to pee. Spy had counted about five times since they started, and they'd hardly been traveling 40 minutes. The Medic was absentmindedly staring out the window at the scenery. Too bad for him, there wasn't much to see. The Demoman had a case of explosives at his feet. He was looking at plans for the casings. Once in a while a few bombs would drop from the precariously high piled box and roll around. Spy had gotten used to expecting death at any moment and it hardly bothered him anymore. The Soldier was sitting quietly, staring straight forward at nothing, while holding his shovel at the ready.
With nothing else to observe, Spy sighed inwardly and turned to his notebook. He skipped the doodles, the notes on teammates, the ramblings and grocery lists. He was looking for specific entries. Entries about her. He could still see her, fresh in his mind, from the unplanned encounter. Expression full of curiosity and confusion. Possibly anger that someone would singlehandedly wipe out an entire plate of baked goods without a second thought to their dinner.
Enjoys cheap milk chocolate with almonds. Eats entire bar. Still beautiful.
As he read the line he could still see her sitting down in front of the television, watching her favorite soap opera, Guiding Light, and chewing on the half opened bar. She never missed that show, it was always at 12:45 and ran for 15 minutes.
Spends two hours on hair, make-up, and nails each morning. Sometimes falls asleep with make-up on.
Indeed, her pillows were covered in stains from mascara and blush and whatever else women slapped on their faces. In Spy's humble opinion, she didn't need make-up. To him, she was naturally beautiful…though the make-up did accentuate her delicate features.
Walks everywhere. Hips sway beautifully as she parades down the street in her prettiest heels. Suffers from gigantic bunions.
Perhaps heels were not the best choice of footwear to be wearing on a daily basis. Sure, Spy could see they made her look drop dead gorgeous, but sometimes it was obvious they were killing her. Nonetheless, she could wear heels with ten times the grace of that big fat cow the RED Scout called a mother.
Thinking of the RED Scout's cow-mother put a bad taste in Spy's mouth. It would only be a matter of months before she reared her ugly head again. Emphasis on ugly. He figured he would rather be backstabbed a hundred times rather than see that woman.
Likes dogs, despises semi-auto weapons.
Her gun cabinet had a shockingly high amount of pump, break, and lever action rifles and shotguns. At first Spy assumed they belonged to her ex husband (or, late husband? He never did find out much about him. He didn't look very hard for information of that nature though.) Upon further examination, and witnessing her practice on her make-shift shooting range in her basement, the answer was clear. She knew about guns, and she knew how to shoot them. She didn't have the deadly accuracy of a sniper, and she wasn't fast at reloading like a scout. She could shoot though, and that by itself was an interesting quality Spy did not intend to find in a modern housewife living in Boston.
Hates shaving, loves pantyhose.
It was almost darling how she sometimes just outright refused to shave her legs, and instead tossed on a pair of dark pantyhose to cover the stubble. He wasn't sure if it was laziness or unwillingness to conform. The U.S. certainly had a way with pushing the removal of body hair. It made for lovely complaint fodder when she called up a friend.
Though an hour on the subject of shaving was one that bored him to tears.
Despairs about her figure. Often complains audibly to her friends about everything.
Perhaps baseball was one of her only other hobbies aside from, well, shopping, guns, and complaining. She often searched for ticket prices among the daily paper, and being the frugal type, just shook her head at the steep .75 cent price for bleachers. Unless she was really looking at the box seats. Even Spy wouldn't pay $10 for a seat up there, but what did he know? Baseball really wasn't his thing. Complaining wasn't, either. Not to other people, anyway.
He paused to look out the window to get an idea of where the train was. The snow was starting to show on trees in the distance, so it would only be a matter of time. Spy would only have the day to get unpacked and situated in his bunk. The cold, dreary, icicle-spiked bunk. It was places like this that the Pyro's unrivaled love for fire was actually quite welcome. It was the only way to thaw the blankets.
He decided to just relax until the train pulled into the station, and with a suppressed yawn, stretched out and relaxed into the hard cased cushion.
/
"According to zis memo, ve haff ein break in a veek." The Medic announced in a very non committal manner once everyone had slunk into the cramped cafeteria for a hot drink.
"How long's it gunna last?" The Engineer asked as he fiddled with a broken coffee pot. For the time, hot chocolate or tea had to suffice.
"It seems to be about…" Medic trailed off as he counted the days in his head. Little did others know, but he was actually awful with numbers. Or perhaps he overdosed Spy's sleep medication that one time just to see what would happen. Medic seemed harmless, but he was just another kook. Another crazy. Another weirdo. "Ah. Fife days. Starting next Monday."
Five days. Five days Spy definitely didn't want to spend trapped here in the cold. It was August for crying out loud! Perhaps Mann Co. thought they were doing their mercenaries a favor by transporting them somewhere far away from the ungodly heat of mid-summer, but this was just awful.
"Oy, y'got th' coffee pot fixed yet?" Sniper, as usual, caught up in his own little world, disregarded the break and bothered the Engineer instead.
"Well, not yet." Engineer scratched his helmetless head with the end of his wrench. "Perhaps a coupla whacks'll straighten 'er out." And thus, the earsplitting whacking began, over which you could barely hear Sniper mumble something about "bloody hot chocolate."
Spy couldn't say the rest of the day was all that uneventful, since he was stuck on kitchen duty for about 172 more days according to Soldier. Pans and plates, cutlery and food, all had to be double defrosted, and it took a whole lot more than a warm hug to get rid of all that ice. Mann Co. was cheap in that they left off any heating devices when the bases weren't used, and starting them up again was no easy task. Someone always had to fix the burst pipes as well, so it was a wonder they were actually saving money this way.
The thought of possibly traveling back to Boston kept Spy going. He figured taking another trip wasn't out of the question. He had the means to travel. He found something that caught his full attention, and he wanted to know more about it. He wondered, perhaps, if he should introduce himself sometime. Well, maybe talk to her in person, but anonymously. Take on a disguise. Like a spy would do. Thankfully, he was a spy. If he wasn't, it would be so much more complicated.
As the day was winding down to a close, sugar rushes were wearing off and energy was depleting. All nine of them gathered around the fire, fueled by a number of defrosted crates, broken chairs, and much to Spy's confusion, empty plastic water jugs. The food was hot, and the drinks could burn the teeth right out of your mouth. Just how everyone liked it. Dinner was coupled with stories of Scotland, downtown Boston, and 'the old country.' Laughs were had, of course, since all nine mercenaries shared a good sense of humor that kept them in good spirits during the roughest times. For the time being, it seemed differences were put aside, if only for the night. Scout had probably forgotten Spy's ill-meaning retorts to his beloved mother, and even joked and laughed with him. The Engineer played a soft tune on his guitar that eventually broke down into a rousing dance number.
In the back of his head, Spy still felt detached from it all. It wasn't that he was trying to be anti social for once, or that he was the most hated on the team. They all tolerated each other in a more or less equal fashion. Even the Sniper, who was the most silent, was blabbering on about the wild outback and a kangaroo that once stole his shades. The Pyro hudda-hudda'd and roared with muffled laughter the entire time. But Spy was relatively quiet for such a time as this. Usually he would be cracking jokes and throwing sarcastic comments, as was his nature. It was that BLU babe he just couldn't get off his mind.
She was like a sickness. A disease. She infected him and he either needed to give in or get rid of her. What bothered him most was that there wasn't a speck of hatred for her. Not one bit. He'd seen her shooting range, and the targets were all covered in the glorious color RED. He'd seen her turn her nose to perfectly polite people because they wore red. Her loyalty to BLU was definitely deep. The only red thing she seemed to stand was Boston's baseball team. And even then, she had commented once about how the color just didn't fit the spirit of Boston at all. Whatever that meant.
There were many reasons he should have hated her, or disliked her at the very least, and forgotten about her. As beautiful as she was, as graceful and deadly, she was still just another woman. A mother, in fact. A single mother with baggage and a bit of cellulite on her thighs.
There was something about her. Something intriguing and different. He often thought it was the boredom that made him think about her, but that couldn't be it. And how would she react if she ever met him in real life? Would she turn away, attack, ignore? The thought made his heart sink a little, which was something he hadn't felt in a very long time. The last time he had felt it was after rejection. But he knew that this wasn't love. This was different. So why was his heart sinking at these thoughts?
It was just morbid curiosity. That was all. He sipped his tea quietly as he mulled over it in his head. Just curiosity. Besides, she was still in contact with the enemy. She even made trips to visit them. Now he she really was more of an interest to track. She could be conspiring with them! And then he would have more information on the rest of the team! Yes! So it was settled, he'd follow her just in case she was meeting with any BLU bastards and he'd get the low-down on them too. Perfect.
It was a little silly to use it as an excuse, even he knew. But he needed one. If not for himself, then for his credibility. Who would believe he was spying on a single housewife for BLU team information? Who would believe it was merely…curiosity?
Few people. Spy figured not one person. Not even he believed it.
That night he dreamt of ships, lobster, and the color blue.
/
A.N: I was so excited about the comments I received that I started working on another part right away. A thing about Medic's accent. I've been trying to avoid it because, even though I grew up among a German accent for nearly my entire life, I just couldn't seem to grasp it in text. My Oma sometimes made her 'v's sound like 'f's, but I worry it doesn't seem right in text.