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M. Large and In Charge
Helena bounced her leg up and down as the plane taxied to the gate, trying (and failing) to calm her nerves.
"I'm telling you, you should've just had a drink," her seatmate declared, shaking her head. "It really would've helped."
"Not. Interested," Helena grit out. After spending nearly eight hours trapped next to her, she was getting more than a little antsy.
Not taking the hint, the woman kept on talking as the plane stopped. "So was this your first time flying? It looks like your first time flying. I would know; I've seen them all. My husband's in Paris half the time for work, so I thought I'd surprise him, you know? And we could go out and have dinner and-"
"Your husband's screwing his secretary," Helena declared coldly, right as the fasten seatbelt light turned off. She grabbed her bag and jumped into the aisle, marching up it with a look on her face that threatened to push anyone in her way. She could still hear the woman's outraged remarks a dozen rows down, and Helena sure as hell didn't want to be there when she realized it was true.
She got out of the gate and down to customs before she dared to stop. Waiting in line, she put a hand over her heart, feeling it race beneath her chest. This would end badly, she knew. Like that time in third grade when she-
"Madame?"
Helena jerked her head up, realizing the line had moved forward substantially while she hadn't, leaving a gap between her and the DGAC agent. She walked up to the counter, passport in hand. "Sorry," she muttered. "Distracted."
"That's perfectly fine," the agent replied. "Do you have anything to declare?"
"No," Helena said with a shake of her head. "Just me and my clothes."
"Alright." The agent nodded and took her passport, looking it over. After a moment, her customer service smile faded into a frown, her forehead scrunching up and her eyebrows furrowing together. "Mme. Oxley, I'm going to need you to step aside please."
Helena's expression instantly mimicked the agent's. "What? Why?"
"Please, just step aside, madame."
Reluctantly, Helena did as told while the agent spoke into her radio, turning her head so Helena couldn't hear her through the glass. Soon, a security guard approached the counter, spoke with the agent for a moment, then headed over to Helena.
"Mme. Oxley?"
"Yes." Helena eyed him with suspicion, wondering where this was going. There couldn't be anything wrong with her passport, right? She'd gotten it checked before she left the States.
"I need you to come with me."
Helena's jaw dropped as the security guard gently took her arm and started leading her away. "What's going on?" she demanded. "I haven't done anything wrong!" She got no response. "Seriously?"
The guard led her to a grey-walled room and gently pushed her inside, but Helena was already beyond pissed. "What is happening?" she demanded. "If I'm being held, I deserve to know why."
"Someone will be with you shortly," the guard declared. He yanked Helena's bag out of her hand, ignoring her indignant shout, and walked out of the room, locking the door behind him.
"Hey!" Helena yelled through the door. "That's mine!
Helena let out a frustrated groan and pulled her wallet and keys out of her pocket, slamming them down on the table. No need for her to do that, really, but damn if it didn't feel good. She reached into her pocket to remove her phone as well, but felt only the flat fabric. "You've gotta be kidding me," she grumbled, bracing her head in her hand for a moment as she began pacing the length of the small room.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She'd barely been able to pull together enough vacation time to leave, spend a day in Paris, and get back, and that was after working there for… what? A year? So she'd be fired, if not for missing work, then for getting arrested, and it would be next to impossible to find a new job. Getting even the job she had was hard enough; no one wanted to hire her because-
"What the hell do you mean by that!?"
A voice from beyond the door caught Helena's attention, and she turned to it, trying to hear what was going on outside. She could see it in her mind, the rude security guard talking with some crochety old guy in a suit about why she was there.
"I mean the DGAC agent recognized her," the guard explained calmly. "She didn't say how or who she was, though. Just told me to get her in holding and call you."
The older man scoffed, ready to lay out a condescending remark. "When I find out just who you two thought was so important that I had to be called, you're both fired." He walked over to the door, and Helena backed up, not wanting to be caught listening in. The door unlocked and opened, and sure enough, it was a man in his mid-sixties in a navy-blue suit, a sour look on his face.
"So am I free to go or what?" Helena asked. "Like, I gotta job to do back stateside, and I want to make the most of my tourist time."
The grumpy look on the man's face fell to one of shock and awe as she spoke. For a moment, he was silent.
Helena waved her hand in his face. "Hello? M. Large and In Charge? Can I go?"
Slowly, the man shook his head and closed the door, pivoting to look at the security guard again. His brusque tone from early was gone, replaced by solemnity. "Carver? Call Paris police," he said calmly. "Let Detective Mallory know her case from last year just got a new lead."
The door locked again, and Helena groaned in frustration. She was never getting out of there. And now she had to wait for some cop to boot.
Reluctantly, Helena sat down in the chair and leaned back, closing her eyes. At the very least, she could get some sleep she missed out on during the plane ride.
"I hate having to do this."
Helena blinked a few times, seeing an image of herself with a taller man, a boy of only two or three in his arms. She wore a long, sapphire-blue dress, and the other two wore adorably matching tuxedos. It was the man who had spoken.
"He shouldn't be out in the world like this. It's too much exposure."
"I'm more afraid of what would happen if we left him with someone we don't know," her doppelgänger replied. She straightened the man's tie, then the boy's. "Besides, maybe Adrien will get the chance to meet someone his own age." She smiled, tilting her head. "Would you like that, Adrien?"
The boy nodded excitedly, then reached out for the woman.
The man chuckled and passed the boy over to her. "Aren't you just the little mama's boy?" he joked as the woman accepted him and let him sit on her hip. "That's good. She has a lot to teach you."
The blonde woman smiled and brushed a strand of hair away from the boy's face. "But not tonight, my little kitten," she added in. "Tonight, we're going to meet Mayor Bourgeois for the city dinner."
The boy perked up. "Dinner?"
"Not just yet," the man replied with a laugh. "But soon, I promise."
Thud.
Helena woke with a gasp, jerking back and tipping her chair over in the process. She hit the floor before she could comprehend what was happening, and she found herself staring at the ceiling. All thoughts of her dream vanished from her mind.
A second later, a woman in a suit walked over, peering down at Helena with a concerned look on her face. "Are you alright, Mme. Oxley?"
Helena nodded slowly, squinting her eyes and putting the heel of her hand on her forehead. Whether it was because it hurt from the fall or the bright lights, she wasn't entirely sure. "You must be Detective Mallory," she said. Helena turned to get up off the floor, then righted her chair. "So am I getting out of here or what?"
The detective kept a straight face, but Helena could feel her discomfort; it hung in the air like a weight ready to pull her underwater. Instead of answering Helena's question, she gestured to the chair. "Why don't you have a seat, Mme. Oxley?"
Quickly, Helena went over her options in her mind. She didn't hear the door lock after it was closed again, so she could always run out, but she'd surely be caught within seconds if the detective didn't lay her out the moment she tried. No, violence wasn't the answer this time, so she'd have to go to her other favorite conflict resolution tactic. Snark. "Like I'm in tenth grade going to the principal again." She sat down, staring up at Detective Mallory. "So what did I do? Write 'for a good time, call Amy Mathison' in the boys' bathroom?"
Hey, she never said it was a good tactic.
"Your name is Helena Oxley?" Detective Mallory asked.
Helena looked around the room, wondering if the security camera was hooked up to a full-on camera crew in the next room. This had to be a reality show or something. Finally, her eyes settled back on Detective Mallory. "Yeah, that's what it says on my passport."
Detective Mallory tilted her head, her stoic face revealing nothing. "Has it always been Helena Oxley?"
"What else would it be?"
For a moment, Detective Mallory looked her over before deeming that to be a suitable answer. "What brings you to Paris, Mme. Oxley?"
Helena shrugged. "I dunno," she replied nonchalantly. "Thought I'd check out the city. See if the rumors about Mothman were true."
"It's Hawkmoth, not Mothman."
"Hawkmoth, Mothman, same difference," Helena dismissed with a wave of her hand. "They've both never been seen and make crazy people sound even crazier."
"And you wanted to see that?"
"And the superheroes. Victory kind of lost her appeal when she outed herself as Camilla Hombee. Now she can't even do her thing cause of the press and the secret service."
Detective Mallory raised an eyebrow. "You sure do know a lot about your local superheroes."
Helena scoffed. "I work in D.C. Of course I know about her. She lives in the big, white house a block over from northwest H Street."
Again, Detective Mallory gave her a suspicious, almost concerned look. "And you said your name is Helena Oxley."
"Of course it is."
Apparently, that was the wrong answer. A chain of events had been set off. Over and over again, Detective Mallory got Helena on one line of questioning, only to come back around to the same thing every. Damn. Time.
What is your name?
Eventually, she couldn't help it. She snapped.
"My name is Helena. Oxley. It's always been. Helena. Oxley. Now please, let me go!" Helena glared at the woman in front of her, her blood pressure rising. They'd been at this for, what, an hour now?
Detective Mallory tilted her head, doubt obvious on her face. "You're telling me you've never heard of Emilie Agreste?" she asked.
"No," Helena replied shortly. "Who is she?"
"She went missing over a year ago," Detective Mallory explained. "I'm the lead detective in her case."
Oh. Oh this was bad. Helena had seen enough cop shows to know where this was going. "What? And you think I had something to do with it? I've never even been to France, much less Paris!"
"That's not what I'm saying at all." Detective Mallory's tone never wavered, remaining calm even when faced with her interviewee's frustration. "I want you to look at a couple of pictures, see if you recognize them."
Helena hesitated, then her curiosity got the better of her. "…Fine," she agreed. Detective Mallory pulled a couple of photos out of a file and placed them in front of Helena. In the first was a man in a business suit, a frankly sour look on his face. The second held a boy smiling at the camera, the definition of picture perfect. Helena shook her head. "I've never seen them before in my life." She looked to Detective Mallory. "Who are they?"
"They're Gabriel and Adrien Agreste, Mrs. Agreste's husband and son."
Helena let out a half laugh. "Why would you show me their pictures after I told you I've never been to Paris?" She flopped back in her chair and braced her elbow on the back of it.
Someone knocked on the door at that, and Detective Mallory walked over, opening the door ajar. Helena could just barely see a man in a lab coat outside, and behind him, a teenage boy sat; the lab tech blocked his face. "The prints match," he said quietly, barely more than a whisper.
Helena raised an eyebrow. Whose prints matched what? Probably hers, but what could she have left them on that would warrant police action?
Detective Mallory nodded. "Thank you," she said, then closed the door again. She walked over to the table Helena sat at and pulled the chair across from her out, sitting down in it. She dropped her file folder onto the table and leaned against it. "Miss Oxley, this is a photograph of Emilie Agreste the day she went missing," she declared, opening the file as she did.
Helena looked to the photo, her blood running cold. Slowly, she sat up, unable to take her eyes off it. She knew the woman in the photo, of course; it was hard not to when she saw her in the mirror every day. "This is a joke, right?" she asked quietly, eyes darting between the photo and Detective Mallory. "I've never been to Paris, I don't have a husband or kid, and before today, I didn't even know Emilie Agreste existed. You can't just show me a photo of myself and say I'm her!"
There was no response for a second, so she scoffed and got up out of her chair, snatching up her wallet and keys before walking towards the door. Detective Mallory obviously wasn't going to give her any answers. She slammed the door open, then turned back to glare at the detective. "This is bullshit!" she snapped. "If I'm not under arrest, I'm leaving." She turned, only to run right into Gabriel and Adrien.
"Mom?"