A/N: Thanks to Cophine for being a champ and working overtime.
While I have some time to rest before the meeting with Daniel, my two partners are busy, talking with the people they'll be working directly with. Sarah will lead a team of eight guards and needs to coordinate shifts and their routes immediately. The rest will be done further down the road, but that seems to be the most urgent matter to be taken care of. Felix, on the other hand, is occupied at the gym, taking inventory of what he has and what needs to be acquired in order to train those same men in the arts of physical combat. The way I see it, he got the short end of this mission; he's not completely ignorant about what he has to do - otherwise Ms. S would never put him on it - but he needs to be very careful about what he decides to actively do, mostly he needs to know how to protect himself and I'm not sure he has what it takes.
I go back to the small house where we were settled earlier, eager to get away from them and their predictable questions, as well as to take some time to rest. Daniel might be a snobbish prick, but he had the right thing in mind when he advised me to relax for a while. The long flight and time difference weighs heavily on my eyelids and every part of my body aches. So, I close the blinds on my bedroom and crawl into bed.
It takes a few hours for my mind to shut down, but I am finally able to fall into a deep sleep. It would've been longer, if a knock on the door hadn't woken me up. As it's her habit, Sarah doesn't wait for my answer to enter the room.
"What was that all about?" Her raspy voice asks even before I have the time to blink away the sleep.
"Geez… Sarah!" I complain, my hand blindly reaching for glasses, having a hard time adjusting to the bright light coming through the open door. "What are you talking about?" I ask, groggily.
"Between you and Frenchie!" She clarifies, crossing the room to open the curtains with a swift pull. "I thought you said she wasn't gonna be a problem…"
I groan and pull the pillow to my head. "She's not!" I say loudly.
She huffs. "You're lucky her fiancé is apparently blind to the obvious," Sarah says sarcastically. "Because that's the only reason I find for him not to see that there's more to your history than what she decided to share."
"He didn't see anything because there's nothing to see," I assert as I stomp out of the bedroom.
"Oh my god!" Felix chimes in from the living room. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"What?" I stare sharply at his form casually laid on the couch.
"I swear, for a moment I thought you'd throw a punch at the guy for putting his hands on her." He says, shifting uncomfortably on the couch until his elbows rest on top of his knees and finds my stare piercingly. "You seem to forget she's engaged to him and that you're the third wheel."
My eyes go to Sarah not really expecting to find a different kind of feeling. "If you're gonna have a problem controlling yourself around her, you should let us know now, Cos," she warns in a tone that's not as harsh as Felix's, but she can't hide her concern. "I don't want this mission compromised just because…"
"Stop it! Both of you!" I shout, looking between the two of them. "I don't have a problem controlling myself! I won't compromise a fucking thing!" I continue, stepping close to her. "Do you understand?"
She squints at me. "If this thing goes south because you can't keep it in your pants, Cosima…" Sarah's obviously not intimidated by my tone and lets the threat linger in the air.
I scoff. "Then what?" I walk into dangerous territory, I'm well aware that's ill-advised to antagonize Sarah.
But this time it pays off. She rolls her eyes and steps back. "Just keep your hands off her, got it?"
I hold her gaze for a few seconds, but don't say a word, knowing that if I continue to press my case, it will look like I'm trying too hard. Sarah's the one who breaks the eye contact and turns her back on me. "Good!" She says, as she sits on the couch. "We need to stay focused."
Seeing her calming, my own mind settles. "I know that," I nod, taking one of the armchairs and prompting my feet on top of the low coffee table. "What did you get from the security team?" I ask, eager to divert the attention to a less tense subject and away from me.
"Bunch of twats… all muscle, no brains," Sarah snickers. "However, they're all new. It seems like Mr. Webster wasn't nearly as concerned with security in the big apple."
"And then he moves here and all of the sudden decides to hire a complete security team," Felix comments with a raised brow.
"It was his son's idea," I remind them. "As far as we can tell he's the reason why we're here."
"And you already got a target on his forehead," Sarah scoffs.
"I'm being objective, Sarah," I assert, exasperated. "Alfred said it was Daniel who insisted on hiring us."
"So, it has nothing to do with the fact that he's screwing your high school sweetheart?" She pushes and I can't shake the notion that she's doing it to test my limits, to see how far she can go until I tilt.
"It's a fact!" I state casually. "Who he's screwing is irrelevant."
Sarah has a small smirk and I can see that, at least for now, she'll let this go. "You think he's the one who contacted Ms. S?"
"I can't be sure. He could have asked someone else to do it for him."
"A front man, you mean?" Felix asks, his position slightly more relaxed on the couch, his interest shifting to the conversation. "So his name can't be traced back to Ms. S and to us."
"It's possible," I admit nodding.
"But that doesn't necessarily mean little Dan knows what he hired exactly," Sarah counters. "If he asked someone else to do it for him, then that could be the person interested in having us infiltrated here."
"Okay… lets think," I urge, raising my hands to my head as if that would help me. "Like Fee said, this all thing started after they left New York. I think it would be very helpful if we could figure out why they did that on such sort notice."
"That's not our job, Cos," Felix says, his eyes going from me to Sarah in search of support.
"What is our job?" She responds in an annoyed voice and it seems that at least on this issue, she's with me. "We don't know what we're doing here and I don't know about you, but that bothers me a lot. It's not like S to take this sort of job."
"Well… the way I see it, we've never had a reason not to trust her," Felix says, standing up. "I don't think we should start now. She knows what she's doing."
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't question some things," I go after him and try to convince him, because we need to be on this together.
"We've just arrived, Cosima and you're already jumping to conclusions," he points out, his stare down on mine. "Do you want him to be guilty of something that bad?"
"What the hell, Felix!" I say, startled by his passionate reaction. "I'm just trying to use my head."
"This is the first time Ms. S has included me on a real mission," he snaps at me. "If you throw it all away cause of some piece of French ass, I'll never be able to look you in the face again!" He says testily, stalking to his bedroom and closing the door with a slam.
"He's a drama queen," Sarah says when our eyes meet, "but you know he has a point, right?"
"I understand what's at stake here, Sarah. I'm not about to fuck it up over someone I had a silly crush on years ago, okay?"
She gives a curt nod, her lips thin and straight and at least for now, I think she'll give me the benefit of the doubt, which is good because I'm gonna need an ally to calm brother. Felix may be a drama queen, but he's not entirely wrong. I understand better than anyone how difficult it is to gain Siobhan's trust and how much harder it is to regain it once it's lost. She's not a big fan of giving second chances. More importantly, without her trust, we only get to see the game on the sidelines, which is exactly what happened to Felix all this time. If she had never gave him a main role in a mission, it's because she's doubted his abilities and this is his chance to prove himself worthy.
Also, in the off chance this job doesn't go quite as planned, it won't be only Felix who will suffer the consequences, but Sarah as well. I don't even what to entertain the idea of what will happen to me if I'm the main culprit of a failure.
Felix refuses to join us for lunch, despite our attempts to call him by knocking on his door, and with the third fuck off shouted from inside, we shrug at each other and leave him be. He'll take his time, but I know that eventually Felix will calm down. Even so, the mood remains tense in the house and, while I could easily blame that on the long trip, I know better. But there's not much I can do for now, it will take time for them to realize that I'm not gonna jeopardize everything just because of Delphine. However, I can't help but think that it might've been better if Ms. S had decided to keep me away from this mission the moment she found out Delphine and I shared a past. Or, at the very least, better if Sarah and Felix had never known about it.
When the house phone rings and I pick up to hear Alfred informing that Mr. Webster is waiting for me to join him at the library in ten minutes, I'm actually relieved to have something else to occupy my mind. I'm greeted by low, gray clouds, an almost claustrophobic sky above my head and the air so cold that every breath I take seems capable to freeze my lungs. Still, I take a deep breath, tugging the red coat closer to my chest and start up the path towards the main building.
"Cosima!" I'm almost at the back door when I hear my name being called in a voice that's far too familiar.
I keep walking, ignoring the pull in my gut as I approach the door. But there's no way around it when I feel a hand curling on my upper arm and pushing me away from the door.
"What?" I ask abruptly, turning around to see Delphine taking a surprised step back in response to the harshness of my tone, releasing her grip on my arm.
She's wrapped in a long black coat to ward off the cold, a half smoked cigarette dangling between the fingers of her right hand. Her bright hazel eyes wide, stuck somewhere between confusion and fear as she nervously pulls her lower lip between her teeth. So many years have passed and I can't believe she's still able to plunge my world into havoc, swelling my entire existence.
It was never a silly crush.
I know now as I look at her, the same way I knew when I lied to Sarah with a steady voice.
"Listen, I just wanted…" she starts slowly, her eyes moving to the gravel ground beneath our feet.
"Delphine, you don't need to worry," I interrupt her, my voice losing the roughness but laced with a bitter edge. "I don't plan to… disclose your past to your fiancé."
She raises her head to meet my gaze with a quick snap, her eyes doubling in size. "That's not…" she shakes her head and seems to restart. "Thank you, but…"
"Yeah, I obviously have no intention of interfering with you getting set for life," I add quickly and turn my back on her, wanting to get away as fast as possible before I say even more than I should.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Delphine doesn't quit. She grasps my arm again, tossing her cigarette butt to the ground, and spins me back around, bringing us face to face once more.
I'm surprised by her reaction; this is new. The Delphine I knew always had a strong resolve, but at the same time, she also was quick to retreat in order to prevent unpleasant confrontation. It puts me on edge, more so when I realize that this conflicts with the person I thought she'd become after I first found out where she was, who she was with. I'd assumed she'd become one of the women I remember seeing dropping their daughters at the boarding school: tamed and easily compliant after years of living among the rich and, many times, older husbands. However, looking at the woman standing before me, seeing the obvious defiance in her stare, her head held high, shoulders firmly raised, I realize that she's miles away from those subservient women.
Contrary to what I thought, Delphine has not lost the notion of self. She didn't grow more reserved about the way she expresses herself. Instead she'd thrived, gained a fire that was not present in her younger years. In a way, she has become the person I wished she'd been when we first met.
Maybe it's because I blame her for taking so long for that to happen or perhaps it's because somewhere in the back of my mind, I believe that this is just a fleeting perception, that I'm misjudging her. It happened before and I fear I'm only seeing what I want to be real. For whatever reason, I decide to push her further.
"What it means, Delphine, is that I won't reveal your past transgressions," I say with my gaze glued to hers. "Because I'm sure that your wealthy husband-to-be probably wouldn't be pleased to hear about them."
Delphine releases my arm with a shove and squints her eyes, not ducking away from my gaze. "All I wanted to say is that is nice to see you," she clarifies with a sharp voice, "but evidently I would be speaking out of turn."
Her words are enough to make me realize how wrong I was, but even if she didn't speak them, I could just as easily notice it by the anger burning in her golden eyes; she's not nearly as disturbed as I thought.
"Shit…" I whisper and it's me who lowers my stare in shame. "Sorry… uhmm… it's nice to see…"
"Forget it!" She dryly cuts into my words. "You've obviously have already made up your mind about me, even though you don't know a damn thing about my life," she continues in a heated low voice. "But I guess exchanging three words with me was enough."
"We've exchanged a lot more than three words," I state matter-of-factually, refusing to back down.
"Did we?" Delphine asks in a tone that might be mistaken by amused if it wasn't for the hint of malice in her eyes. "And what makes you think that what happened between us more than ten years ago gives you the right to assume you know me at all?"
I'm struck by the strength behind her words and the ferocity of her voice. I blink a few times and take a few steps back until I'm pressed against the wall by the door, my body sensing the need for distance between us in order to protect myself from her unfamiliar rage. But Delphine doesn't withdraw, and if she senses my bewilderment, she has it in her mind to take advantage of it. She leans her body towards mine, towering over me, with her jaw set and gaze burning, and I know I've made a big mistake by taking her on.
"You know nothing of my...past transgressions," Delphine says in a chilling whisper, that causes an uncomfortable shiver to run down my spine.
After that she turns around and walks away. Flashes of a past life crowd my mind, watching her leave with determined steps is a common sight, but that's where the similarities end. In a way, Delphine hasn't changed much: she continues to rule any place she inhabits, she's the person all eyes are on and still intrigues me with her nature. However, the reasons for that are no longer the same. The way she carries herself is different. There is a certainty in her steps and a confidence in her posture that has me believing that now, more than ever, Delphine is entirely cognizant of the effect she has on people, and, is not shy about making it work in her favor. Utilize some well placed words and gentle stares, and if that doesn't work, Delphine won't be deterred by it and can use that same influence in an intimidating way.
As I walk inside the house, I can't help but wonder if the fiancé is aware of the person he's marrying. Has Delphine shown him this side of herself? Or was it even necessary? Daniel seems infatuated enough to deny her nothing. But, then again, I was only privy to a brief interaction between the two of them and have no idea how they're like in private, in their moments of intimacy.
At that idea, I wince and an uneasy feeling settles in my stomach. I shake my head to myself, approaching the library's door and raising my fist to knock. 'It doesn't concern you', my mind shouts in voice that sounds remarkably like Sarah's.