Dan, Aneisha, Stella and Frank were escorted into a spacious MI9 van to be taken back to St Heart's.
In the van with three rows of seats, the driver and another MI9 agents sat at the front, which was divided from the back by small screen. In the second row, Dan and Aneisha were jubilant, making jokes about Byron's music. Eventually, their creativity exhausted, Aneisha ended up patiently listening to Dan as he talked about Zoe's excellent performance on the mission.
In the spacious back row, Frank sat next to Stella, rather concerned that she was looking rather downcast. She fiddled with her fingers in her lap, her eyes fixated on the back of Dan's seat.
"Stella, are you okay?," Frank asked gently.
Stella remained silent, but switched her gaze down to her hands, as if examining them. Frank followed her gaze, and found angry red marks across her wrists. Rope burns were painful, Frank knew, and he was shocked that Stella hadn't said anything. But then he realised that this was Stella, and Stella never paid any attention to herself.
Frank's hands darted out to grasp Stella's forearms, bringing her wrists closer for inspection. To his surprise, he met no resistance and Stella did not try to pull her arms out of his grasp.
"Dan, pass me the first aid kit," Frank said. Aneisha and Dan turned around, concerned.
"What's wrong?" Aneisha asked as Dan fumbled for the first aid kit.
"Are you hurt?" Dan added, passing Frank the first aid kit.
"Rope burns," Frank answered, tilting his head towards Stella, who was still looking down at her hands. "Nothing I can't fix though," he added reassuringly, as much for Stella's benefit as for Aneisha's.
The teenagers nodded, and their heads disappeared from between their seats.
"Now, this will sting," Frank warned, carefully dabbing antibacterial wipes over the harsh red lines on Stella's wrists. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Stella when the alcohol-drenched cotton came in contact with her skin, and immediately felt guilty for causing her more pain.
"Sorry about that," Frank said, and received a weak smile in return.
There was silence as Frank continued to work on Stella's wrists, broken only by the sound of traffic outside the van. Once he had finished with the antibacterial wipes, Frank found some gauze bandage to tie around the wounds.
"Change that once a day," he instructed, even though Stella knew the protocol for treating every wound in the textbook. He looked up, making sure that Stella understood, and only moved to pack up the first aid kit when she nodded.
"Thank you," Stella said quietly, making Frank all the more concerned. Not only had she let him take care of her wounds, she had thanked him humbly, and had barely spoken during the entire trip.
They were approaching MI9 HQ to drop Stella off, and Frank suddenly realised what was bothering her. Once the Minister for Security had sufficiently recovered from his face-changing adventure, he and the Prime Minister would be involved in a debrief with Stella, which, Frank knew, would involve nothing more than blaming her for everything that wasn't her fault. And worst of all, knowing Stella, she would believe them and sink into another spiral of self-doubt and unjustified guilt.
Frank found that this fact thoroughly annoyed him.
"Stella, everything worked out in the end," Frank said, "and none of this was your fault. Just believe me for once."
But the van pulled up at MI9 HQ and Stella retrieved her usual brisk manner.
"Agents, excellent work today. Frank will debrief you when you return to base." Stella waved briefly as the van took Frank, Dan and Aneisha back to the school, then straightened her jacket and strode into the dreaded debrief with the Prime Minister and Minister for Security.
The debrief had taken well over two hours, in which Stella simply answered "yes, sir" or "no, sir" to every question that attacked her. By the end, she was nearly in tears as she walked back to her office, blinking fast and putting on false smiles whenever she met someone in the corridor.
Worst of all, as far as Stella was concerned, her superiors were completely right. She had allowed the MI9 research facility to be infiltrated right under her nose, and millions of people had been transmorphed. If not for Zoe, Byron and an unlikely pop star, the country would be in ruins.
By the time she reached her office, Stella's vision was all a blur. She found the slot for her card purely out of muscle memory, for she couldn't make it out through the tears. Pushing open the door, Stella eagerly escaped into her office, desperate for a moment alone.
Stella, of course, was expecting a mass of complaints and paperwork in her in-tray, courtesy of the recent Peabody disaster. She wasn't wrong, and there were many letters and forms in a stack, but she definitely wasn't expecting to receive a large envelope decorated with a moon and stars.
Furthermore, whilst most papers were addressed to "Chief Agent Knight", this astronomy-style envelope was addressed to "Stella". Her name was written in beautifully lettered cursive, which looked suspiciously like Aneisha's handiwork.
Stella's curiosity quickly overcame her upset and she opened with envelope, finding a card and a framed photograph inside. She examined the photograph first, and realised that this was the test picture of Tom's new image capture program. Dan, Zoe, Aneisha, Tom, Frank and herself were standing around the round table at the M.I. High base, smiling at Tom's spypod camera.
Stella carefully stood the photograph on her desk, moving pens and papers aside to give it a central position. She wanted to be able to see this photo every day.
Opening the card, Stella recognised Zoe's handwriting.
Dear Stella,
Thanks for being a great Chief Agent to work under. More than that, thanks for being our friend. We know that you're only super serious and strict because you don't want anyone to get hurt.
Please come and see us at St Heart's soon. You have to some and see Flopsy's latest trick. Frank worked it out when he was distracted by something while feeding carrots to Flopsy, and it's completely hilarious.
Love you heaps,
Dan, Zoe, Aneisha and Tom
Stella smiled, glancing back down at the photograph on her desk. They really were an extraordinary group of kids. She turned the card over, and realised that Frank had scribbled a brief message at the back.
Dear Stella,
Listen to me for once this time, okay? Today was not your fault. The PM and Minister for Security are only doing their jobs, we don't take it to heart what they said. They need someone to blame, and you're the highest ranked. That's all there is to it.
Do not blame yourself, because if you do, I'll find out, and get Flopsy to mistake your fingers for carrots.
Anyway, I figured the debrief took forever and you haven't had dinner yet, so I'm going to turn up at your office in a bit and you are going to eat what I give you. Yes, I know you outrank me.
Don't forget to change your bandages.
Frank
Stella's smile grew wider. In ten years, Frank hadn't changed a bit. She was slightly annoyed to realise that this meant she still loved him just as much as before. But Frank would have moved on now, and surely he treated everyone this way, with utmost care to every little detail.
Still, Frank was coming over to her office, and that gave her something to look forward to.
Which was exactly what she needed to get through the many complaints in her in-tray.
