Episode 4: More Than You Know, Chapter 2

The trio reached the site of the back door in sullen silence, Cassandra trailing the two men in her wake. She wrenched open the door and stepped forward, then stopped, Ezekiel colliding with her back. He peered over her shoulder and came face to face with a startled and confused looking young chef, her arms full of celery. Her blonde hair bobbed under her hat as she looked from side to side.

"S-sorry," Cassandra stammered, backing away. "Must have taken a wrong turn. My bad."

The two reversed out through the door and slammed it shut behind them, leaning back against it with Cassandra's eyes wide and Ezekiel's narrowed. Stone folded his arms and looked from one to the other of them, then the door. He took a step forward and pulled out his phone. The number dialling, he pressed the speaker button and held it up.

"Hey, Jenkins?" Stone began, keeping his tone level. "Why isn't the door working?"

"One moment," Jenkins replied, as taciturn as ever.

There was silence on the other end and the line went dead. Cassandra's eyes widened further while Ezekiel rolled his. Seconds later, both pairs of eyes were staring up at the library ceiling. A familiar face frowned down at them.

"Why were you leaning against the door?" Flynn asked, mildly puzzled. He reached down to help Cassandra up, while his wife dragged her favourite thief to his feet on the other side.

Stone sauntered through the chaos of his tumbled comrades with a smirk. The grin faltered when a sudden obstruction sent him flying. He landed on the floor with a loud thump and a cry of pain. "Dammit, Jones!"

"What?" Ezekiel shot back, all innocence. "I'm just trying to keep my balance here while Mom checks for damages."

"Still not your mother!" Eve retorted. "And I'm checking for stolen goods, actually."

"Which you will not find," grinned Ezekiel. "I'm a real boy now, Geppetto: I passed my morality test and everything!"

"Sure you did," muttered an unconvinced Colonel, ceasing her search of his pockets and folding her arms.

"What in the name of Pete is all this ruckus?" Charlene yelled, marching through the office door. "You can hear Chuckles all the way to the large collections annex!"

"Charlene?" Flynn's jaw dropped. His brow wrinkled and his face paled. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd retired."

"Ah," Charlene stopped in her tracks and took in the scene, complete with newly arrived newly weds. "Well, here's a funny story..."

"It can wait," Jenkins cut in. He looked at Cassandra. "Where's the armour? What happened?"

"Minor setback," she replied, holding up forefinger and thumb in indication of how minor. "We have a plan. Two plans, actually. We'll be fine."

"Plans for what?" Eve asked suspiciously. "What armour is this?"

"The armour of Poiyaunpe, the hero of Kotan Utannai," replied Jenkins. "We came across a mention of it, and its apparently apotheotic properties, and have been tracking it down. The ladies found an accurate picture of the item and we found a mention of it at an auction house in Philadelphia."

"Of course, when he says 'we'," cut in Ezekiel, "the first time he means da Vinci and the second he means me. But it's a team effort, and we're not in his good books, so hey."

"What the..." Eve began, looking down at the youngest in the room.

"So what happened in Philadelphia?" Flynn demanded, unintentionally interrupting his wife. "Had it been sold already?"

"Yeah, and you'll never guess who too," replied Stone, dusting down his sleeve.

"To whom," corrected Flynn automatically. "And for that matter: to whom?"

Stone flourished a hand in Cassandra's direction. The redhead looked at Flynn sheepishly. "My father."

"For a rather exorbitant sum," added Ezekiel.

"I thought your parents were scientists," frowned Eve.

"They are," nodded Flynn, looking at Cassandra. "So why would your father buy a set of ancient Ainu armour at auction?"

"History's his 'hobby'," spat Stone, leaning back against the central desk with folded arms.

"Okay," said Eve slowly, her narrowed eyes flicking between Stone and Cassandra. "So Cassandra's father has the artefact. What is your plan to get it from him? Jones: do not speak."

Ezekiel shut the mouth he had just opened and tried to stop it curling up at the edges.

"They'll be suspicious if someone they don't know turns up," explained Cassandra, wringing her hands. "They'll be suspicious if I turn up too without a good reason."

"She wants to introduce me to them as her fiancé," Stone interrupted, his eyes on the inlaid wood pattern in the floor. "Then I convince him to 'lend' the armour to our 'collection' for a while."

"You got engaged!" Flynn's eyebrows rose and took the rest of his face with them. "That's wonderful! Congr...!"

Eve clamped her hand firmly over her husband's mouth, watching Cassandra and Stone with the intensity of an FBI profiler. "You didn't get engaged," she said, watching their reactions. Her face fell. "Oh no, don't tell me you broke up? You two?"

"It's complicated," Stone shrugged, looking away.

"Is it?" Cassandra asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Flynn tactfully removed his wife's hand, pausing to brush his lips over her knuckles. "Why don't Eve and I go instead. We can claim UNESCO sent us and the piece is being sent back to Hokkaido as an item of special cultural significance. Eve will be their, uh, their UN representative and I will be their historical expert, there to verify the authenticity of the items."

"He bought it over a year ago," Cassandra shrugged, wincing. "He'll want to know why it took you so long to track it down, where it's going in Japan, how much you're willing to pay for it..."

"We'll go," said Stone quietly. "It's the only option likely to work. If it doesn't, at least we'll still have plan B as backup."

"Which is?" Flynn enquired.

"Jones steals it," Eve sighed. "That's it, isn't it."

"I only use my powers for good now," Ezekiel piped up behind her.

Flynn glanced from Cassandra to Stone and back again. "Okay, well, why don't we give you two some space to figure out the details and Charlene, Ezekiel and Jenkins can fill 'my wife and I' in on everything else that has been happening while we were away."

"Good idea, darling," smiled Eve brightly, grabbing Ezekiel's ear. "I'll meet you in the main Library. I just want a word with Mr Jones here first."

Flynn bowed an acknowledgement to his wife and watched her drag the unfortunate Ezekiel out of the office. He waved a hand toward the office door and looked at the two ex-retirees. "Shall we go?"

Jenkins and Charlene preceded Flynn out of the room in uneasy silence, and Cassandra turned at last to Jacob. "It's complicated?"

"Well, it is, ain't it?" Stone replied, transferring his gaze to the ornate ceiling. "You don't want to get married. I don't want to be just your boyfriend."

"You're not 'just' anything! Don't you know that by now? Jacob look at me!" Cassandra cried, closing the distance between them and turning his face down to meet her gaze. "I love you! I will spend my life loving you! And I do not understand why that isn't enough! I love you. My entire world revolves around you. You are everything to me. And if marriage is what it takes to prove that to you, then fine, let's get married."

Stone took her hands in his and removed them from his face. "No," he said softly. "It doesn't mean anything to you. Not beyond that anyway. And if it doesn't mean anything to you, then it doesn't mean anything at all."

"It's a promise, Jacob," she replied, her voice shaking. "It's a vow. A whole lot of vows. Vows I'd make right here, right now, a hundred times over."

"And they'd mean the same to you whether you made them right here, right now, or whether you made them in a church in front of God and all our friends and family."

"Yes," she nodded.

He smiled sadly. "Not to me," he whispered, shaking his head. "They'd mean a lot, and I'd never break 'em, but they'd mean a thousand times more to me if I said them in a church, in front of God, all our friends, all our family. If at the end of it I get to introduce you to the world as my wife. The one woman I would bind myself to, body and soul, until the end of the world and beyond. And I know you love me. I do. I love you too. I'm just a little lost here, Cassie. You know, you're right: I had us all planned out. Maybe not the white picket fence and all - not in this job - but the home, the family, the future. And all of that started with the wedding. With our wedding. And I just assumed you felt the same about it. You were happy enough to help Eve plan hers. Happy enough to take part. Be her maid of honour."

"But that was her choice," shrugged Cassandra. "Hers and Flynn's. And planning a wedding, being maid of honour, all of that: it was fun, mostly. It was happy. And new. I'd never been part of a wedding party before. It was girl time with the only female friend I've truly had in a very long time. And maybe I don't understand all of it, but, you know, they're back now and they don't seem any different from before."

"You've spent all of five minutes with them," sighed Stone. "Look, Cassandra, I get it, I do: you're new to a lot of things and the idea of marriage, your own marriage, is one of them. Just... Just take a step back, okay. Watch them. Flynn and Eve. See how it will change them. And it will change them. For the better. But until you understand, really understand, what getting married means, we can't get engaged. I'll pretend, for your parents, and we can start getting back to where we were. I can start getting back to where we were. Let's just... Let's just get this over and done with, right. It ain't exactly how I imagined I'd be meeting your folks."

"Okay," she nodded, watching his expression soften as he spoke. "But you need to know something first. It's not Mr Cillian, it's Doctor Cillian."

"Doctor and Mrs Cillian," he nodded, a begrudging smile tugging at his lip. "Got it."

Cassandra shook her head and smiled. "Actually, it's Doctor and Professor. Doctor of Philosophy in Biomechanical Engineering and Professor of Particle Physics."

"Particle physics huh?" Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"I could give you her full title and list of degrees," Cassie shrugged, "but..."

"Nope, particle physics is fine for now," he held up a hand. "And what do we tell them I am?"

"Well, what are you?" Cassie shrugged. "Did you ever actually get any of those degrees the Sorbonne offered you?"

"I have an honorary doctorate from Cambridge," he suggested.

Cassie raised an eyebrow. "In your name or your alter ego's?"

Jacob winced. "Pen name."

"I guess it wouldn't technically be a lie," Cassie mused. "It's still you, after all. Just, if he googles you..."

"Could the thief set up a google search that told him what he needed to know?"

Cassandra pondered this. "Maybe," she decided. "Or maybe set up a web page a google search would take him to. He's always boasting about his hacking skills. He could hack the university's site, and maybe set up a wikipedia page too."

"Then let's go rescue him from Bai... Eve," Stone corrected himself, "and get this done."