The Former Mrs. Fletcher

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Now and then, she stops in Danville. She drives by their house in different, unmarked cars. She parks down the block and watches their house. Usually she'll catch sight of two young boys and the OWCA agent. She'd see the tip of her son's hair as they moved about, his glossy image in a shiny window, or sometimes they'd come out the side gate.

Today must be her lucky day. The boys are in the front yard, setting up a lemonade stand. She sits in her rental car and watches them work, watches them expand, watches them as the sun sits low, and she keeps watching long past the moment they go inside. She watches their windows and hopes to catch sight of her son for one more second.

She was recruited into the Secret Intelligence Service straight out of college, during her university years she did projects for MI6 while they paid for her tuition, flat, and all the other meaningless material items she had wanted.

Her last year in uni, her first mission. She went to the library, she searches through books and books to find out the historical significance of some honored relic of the Middle East. She doesn't remember exactly why she wanted to prove herself so badly, but she had wanted to be ready for any and all circumstances. Instead she stumbled into Lawrence Fletcher.

She told him, she'd leave. He told her, he didn't care. One thing lead to another.

Then she left for her mission. She came back three months later, her belly barely starting to extend, and she knew she would have to choose. She took leave with the service and found Lawrence working as a cashier in a little antiques shop.

He was thrilled and she was too, in a way.

It was the hardest decision she ever had to make. She could have quit the service and lead a normal life. But everyone knew, no one ever quit the service. She would never be able disappear completely. She would always be looking over her shoulder, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She hadn't planned for this, she didn't think she'd have a baby this early in her career. When she was little, she had thought of a family in a distant way, where she knew she'd be a mum and there would be a dad and kids, but she got no further than knowing their relative positions. When MI6 recruited her, all thoughts of a future family had gone out the window. Not that she didn't want one, more that she didn't fit the mold anymore. And she still doesn't.

Above all else, she couldn't put them in danger, she wouldn't risk it. So she chose to keep them safe. And in the process, she broke their hearts.

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