Adding Nightfall to the mission thankfully did not introduce many immediate complications. Most of the neighbors didn't notice anything strange, and the few who asked questions readily accepted the explanation that Loid Forger's wife Fiona had been away visiting her family. Anya, strangely, didn't ask any questions at all. She had taken her new mother's introduction into the household in surprisingly good stride, though the way she had tried to hide all her study books behind the refrigerator suggested that there was some turmoil buried beneath the surface.

Twilight counted himself lucky that Nightfall's previous assignment had ended early. Having her was about the only thing so far that made Strix feel like a normal mission. Nightfall could be stubborn and uncommunicative, but she was still a highly competent agent. He trusted Nightfall about as much as someone in the espionage business could trust someone else. Which was why he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on certain tactical disagreements.

"I'm just saying I don't believe it's necessary," he said.

"Loid and Fiona Forger have been married less than a year, Twilight," Nightfall said, not looking up from her work. "Any reasonable person would expect them to still be in their honeymoon phase, lasting anywhere from six to eighteen months in a healthy relationship. Neighbors and visitors will recognize these signals, whether consciously or unconsciously. Therefore we have to abide by societal expectations as much as possible lest we fall victim to an SSS investigation. I can reference you to the relevant sociology texts."

"I already looked over the bibliography you gave me."

"Then you understand." Nightfall smoothed over the red satin sheets she had brought and fluffed one of the matching pillows. "As such, we have no need for me to use the other bedroom. Now put on your pajamas and come to bed."

Twilight shrugged, and opened up the dresser. He was slightly surprised that all the drawers had already been separated into two halves labeled "His" and "Hers", but more surprised that all the I's had been dotted with hearts. Another affectation of "Fiona Forger", he assumed. It was consistent with the image she was attempting to project, at least, which appeared to be that of a slightly loopy, lovestruck young woman who was about as far removed from the actual Nightfall as a fluffy collared thing named "Spot" was from its huge distant cousin that had regular disagreements with bison.

"A couple last things," Twilight said, pulling out a pair of pajama bottoms. "Unless we're on another mission or directly dealing with the agency, I don't think we should use our code names anymore. I don't want to risk one of our neighbors overhearing. Or Anya. She might only be six but she can be very perceptive when she wants to be. Stick with the cover names from here on."

"Duly noted, my darling Loid."

Twilight fumbled with the next drawer and looked behind him, where Nightfall was casually rearranging the pictures on her nightstand. She looked up. "What?"

"Nothing," Twilight said. He turned back to his t-shirt drawer, and decided against taking any of the several new ones that mentioned Fiona by name. "Anyway. None of this should be really new to either of us, but it's a long-term assignment and we've got a civilian living under our roof, so we've got to put that extra bit of effort into our cover. As strange as it might seem, that means the mission depends on us being good parents."

"And good spouses." Nightfall paused, and turned her head slowly towards him with an inexplicable creaking noise. "It would also be a good idea to go on a date every week. For the mission."

She immediately looked back away and went back to focusing on her nightstand. "Socioeconomic expectations are that two people in our wealth bracket would exercise their leisure time at least partially in public. We can use the time for reconnaissance, if you like."

"Sounds like a good idea," Twilight said.

Twilight stepped out to go change in the bathroom, but stopped when he heard a crunching noise behind him. He walked back into the bedroom to find Nightfall rubbing her hand, standing placidly beneath a fist-sized dent in the ceiling.

"Mosquito," she said sharply.

Nightfall lay still in her bed with Twilight. This was not a state she achieved naturally. It was only willpower honed over a decade of constant training that let her climb into that bed with him. It was only constant mental vigilance that kept her lying still instead of vibrating fast enough to burrow through the mattress. She was plenty tired, since Twilight's mission schedule didn't exactly leave a lot of room for rest, but she still knew that she would never fight off the excitement well enough to actually sleep tonight.

Every day. She was going to be able to do this every day. Every day she would go to sleep looking at him, and wake up looking at him.

Twilight frowned at her. "We should both face opposite directions while we sleep. That way I can keep an eye on the door and you can keep an eye on the window."

Nightfall complied without comment. Oh well. Every day she could turn over and look at him.

Now that he wasn't facing her anymore, she couldn't stop herself cracking a tiny smile of excitement into her pillow. Every day they would wake up together and eat breakfast together. Every day they would receive their morning intelligence reports together. Every weekday they would report to the hospital together. Every mission they would discuss together, every report they would write together. Every time somebody sent a message that had to be destroyed after reading, they could split it in half and feed it to each other.

Of course, the mission wouldn't last forever. Operation Strix might be a long-term assignment, but it was still measured in months and scant years. There would come a day when the agency would declare their fake marriage no more, and Fiona knew she could never accept that. She had seen Twilight brushing his teeth in a set of casual pajamas; there was no coming back from that. The only option was to win Twilight as a husband for real.

It was simple: all she had to do was show Twilight what an ideal wife Fiona could be for Loid, and he would realize what an ideal wife Nightfall could be for Twilight. Seek perfection, and all else would follow.

Just like any operation, if you knew your target and the resources you had available, the rest was just a matter of planning. And the planning in this case couldn't be more straightforward: starting tomorrow, Twilight would be in the front row for the grand display of her skills as a perfect domestic wife.

Skill #1: Reconnaissance

"The faculty we'll be meeting for the admissions interview at Eden," Nightfall said, setting a stack of papers on the table in front of Twilight. "Names, ages, personalities. Everything down to the number of gray hairs on their heads."

Twilight started flipping through the stack. "Great work, Fiona. I'll add this to the information I've already collected. You're familiar with the safe in our room?"

"Of course."

"Good. I'll put this in there when I'm done. We don't want Anya stumbling across any of this."

Nightfall stood silently by as Twilight speed-read through her report with his usual busy efficiency. Somehow she didn't think any of this had managed to prove her worth as a wife. More like she had done what she always did, except now wearing a turtleneck sweater.

This was clearly the wrong tack. Come to think of it, there weren't a lot of housewives who had to deal with full-depth reconnaissance at all. Except for those on the local homeowners association, but of course her and Twilight would never retire to a community with one of those. No. No, the best move would be to go back to basics.

Skill #2: Sewing

"Anya," Fiona said. "Come over here for a second. I've finished hemming up one of your dresses and I'd like you to try it on."

Anya hoisted herself up from the ground and trotted over obediently, though Fiona was pretty sure that was only because she had caught her during a commercial break. "Did you make it cool?"

"I put my utmost effort into it," Fiona said, holding out the dress.

Anya looked at it with a deliberative look on her face. "Yeah, but is it Bondman evil countess cool, or just castle princess cool?"

Fiona stared into the demanding gaze of the child, trying to parse her way through her last sentence. Apparently being a mother meant being a guide to bold new expeditions in grammar. As she tried to come up with an answer, Anya just patted her on the hand and said, "I'm sure it's cool, Mama."

"Well, it certainly looks better than it did before," Fiona said, handing the tiny bundle to a pair of tiny hands. It was the dress Anya had apparently brought back from the orphanage, once thin and worn at every edge, now just like new and with bonus stitching on the skirt and cuffs. She had also worked some tasteful ruffles into the sleeves.

"It's pretty now!" Anya said, unfolding it in front of her. Fiona nodded, glad to have her work recognized this time. This was an actual success, and all it took was hours of theory and practice, a thumb full of needle holes, and several abandoned failed attempts that would stay buried under the floorboards until the building was demolished.

And it wasn't just aesthetically pleasing, either. She felt pride in a job well done as she watched Anya holding out her restored dress. It was a perfect tool for the mission, as well. Tracking devices in the collar, ID tags in the back, even a miniature radio in the wrists. The patterns on the cuffs were a secret code that would inform other agents that the child was under WISE's protection, the lining on the torso was even stab-resistant.

It was perfect for a child so vital for the mission. There were any number of terrible things that could happen to her, and Nightfall couldn't help but reflect on them. And it was only then did she notice how Anya's face had changed from delight, to concern, to outright terror.

Anya dropped the dress and sprinted back to her room. "No! It's a scary dress!" Fiona was left alone in the living room, folding the dress back up, wondering where exactly she had gone wrong. Maybe Anya had noticed something wrong with the material?

It was probably for the best that Twilight hadn't been around to see this.

Skill #3: Cooking

Anya poked at the food on her plate, eyes wide and mouth agape, watching it oscillate from side to side at the slightest touch of her fork. The ripples from the mildest tap could travel back and forth across the surface almost three times before finally dissipating. It seemed to have fascinated her from the standpoint of raw engineering, but it didn't seem to have fascinated her appetite in the same way.

Twilight watched Anya play with her food, or possibly fail to recognize it as food. "Fiona, do you believe this recipe is really suitable for a family dinner?"

Nightfall fumed from the counter, as she poured her own serving onto her plate with a familiar schlorp. How could Twilight complain about this recipe? He had taught it to her! It was a perfect blend of nutrients and energy, combining over fifteen different fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats into one easily-digestible meal that could keep an agent going for twenty-four hours straight. It could be eaten hot or cold, and a month after it had been made it would still be as appetizing as ever!

"Look! If you cut it, it starts healing itself!" Anya said, enthralled.

Fiona scowled as she put the girl's glass down in front of her. "Drink your protein shake, Anya."

Twilight watched Anya as she prodded her dinner back and forth for a moment. He stood up with a sigh. "How about I make dinner tonight for you, Anya? You like my spaghetti, right?"

"Yay!" Anya said, picking up her plate and walking away from the table.

"Leave the plate on the counter if you're not going to eat it."

"Aw. I wanted to drop it out the window and see if it bounces."

Fiona sat alone at the table, quietly eating her own food as Twilight put on a pot of water to boil and Anya ran over carrying his apron.

Skill #4. First-Aid

Right. Sutures, needles, staples, coagulants, disinfectants, all ready. First layer of stitching, quick and easy, ready to be redone later. A layer of cotton, tape, and gauze to be later replaced by a more permanent fitted bandage, able to be changed. First week's treatment of antibiotics on standby in case of negative symptoms, but in case of obvious septic shock it would be better to-

"Fiona," Twilight said. He rubbed his finger, pressing down on the band-aid Anya had brought him from the bathroom. "Fiona, is something wrong? You seem distracted."

Skill #5: Finance Management

"No."

Nightfall scowled at Twilight. "What fault do you find?" she said. This was just unfair. She had handed him her proposed family account plan less than five minutes ago.

"Well to start off," Twilight said, dropping the stack of papers onto the table next to him, buckling it instantly. "By the end of next month, you seem to be assuming that we'll have twice as much money as we do now."

"That's assuming the investments pull through. If the tip on BHI proves true by then we'll be able to sell for three times what we put in. If not we'll liquidate our precious metal assets, but only if we don't see a surge in cobalt after trade show season. We can keep both in the game if we move money through one of our shell companies, but we'll have to rethink once we start selling stock, because-"

"Fiona," Twilight said. He turned towards Anya's bedroom door to make sure it was still closed, then leaned forward in his easy chair. "We are Loid and Fiona Forger. A small-minded middle-class couple with one child. Not finance moguls. Not venture capitalists. A budget like this is going to get us investigated by the SSS on the very reasonable suspicion of money laundering before we even get to tax season."

Fiona just sat back in her seat quietly, crossing another item off her mental checklist as Twilight flipped back through the rejected budget.

"Also, you forgot Anya's peanuts on this grocery list."

Skill #6: Laundry & Cleaning

"The whites just came out of the dryer. Colors just went in; it's a small load so they shouldn't take long," Fiona announced, sitting herself down on the chair across from Twilight.

"Good," said Twilight, arms folded on the table in front of him, not looking up from the evening news. "Leave the baskets out, I'll fold everything in the morning."

"I can do that. I insist."

"If you like."

A moment passed, as Twilight watched a man in a suit inform the world that the next week would be very sunny and therefore good for sports.

Nightfall cleared her throat. "I also cleaned the spare bedroom."

This got Twilight's attention. He turned his head. "Why? It was clean last I saw it."

"Not the ceiling."

He gave her a bland look for a moment, then shrugged, and went back to finding out whether the next week would be good for fun in the sun and trips to the beach.

Nightfall guessed that this could be called a success.

Well. So far, she had managed to convince Twilight that she was good at her regular job, and cleaning. That wasn't quite the profile for an ideal wife for the ideal man. That was a profile for someone who wanted to take over bathroom cleaning duties at work. But she had hardly been working at this very long. This was a marathon, not a sprint. If she could figure out how to sew things Anya and Twilight liked, if she could be more proactive about first-aid, maybe if she substituted the sugar and salmon in the survival food recipe for corn syrup and Mahi-mahi-

"We've got a tough week ahead of us," Twilight said abruptly as the television cut to commercial. "Only a few days left to prepare for the interview."

"We'll make do," Nightfall said. The way he took charge of the conversation like that. Oh my.

"I know we will," Twilight said. He turned to her, and gave her a smile. Not one of his warm, winning Loid Forger smiles, but the sort of wry smirk he had given her every so often ever since their training days, the smile that meant I know this is hard, but you're doing well. "We haven't always seen eye to eye, but I'm glad to have you on board. Just three days ago I thought I was going to have to coordinate this whole mission alone, and you just dropped everything to help me out. It's nice to have someone living here I can rely on. And Anya seems happy to have a mother, too. Most of the time."

Nightfall followed most of Twilight's words by reading his lips, as her heartbeat was drowning everything else out. "You'll find that I fit the role more than adequately."

"Well, you're not just here to be Loid Forger's wife. I need a good agent with me, too," Twilight said. He patted her on the hand. Lightning struck, oceans burned, plagues swept across the land. "Come on. Tomorrow's another early day, let's get ready for bed."

They got up from the table together, and Nightfall followed him into the bedroom in a distracted haze, her brain several lightyears away but homing in fast.

A good agent. Of course that's what Twilight really wanted; how could she have thought she could win his heart with domestic skill alone? As long as she could maintain the basic cover of Fiona Forger, she could prove her worth by just playing to her strengths. She just had to catch his attention with her skill at espionage enough, and then it was only a matter of time before he realized how good it would be to have a wife who had those skills. And what luck, she was already there!

Nightfall drifted off to sleep, dreaming of white tuxedos.