A/N: First: Thank you. Again, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the reviews, the PMs, the engagement and encouragement! It's very humbling and keeps me charged to write.
I mentioned previously this was a one-shot built around Aaron and Marta until Nicky got into my brain and wouldn't let go. So the thing is, this story is *completely unplotted*. It's making itself up as I go along. Except for one plot point which became clear to me a few chapters ago, I actually have no idea what's happening to Nicky or Marta at any given time until I sit down and start typing. This means that sometimes I make stupid mistakes that have to be rectified after posting. Advance apologies when I have to go back and retcon so it doesn't derail the story or believability!
This brings up the HUGE error I made in the last post. Alexandra's assistant's name is Hélène, not Jeanne; I completely missed it when I posted and didn't notice until I was working on the most recent chapter and it figures significantly in this one. I had to edit it, so apologies for any confusion.
And finally: Regarding some lovely requests I've had for Jason's and Aaron's view points; I seem to only "hear" Nicky's and Marta's voices when I write, and in some ways, finding out second hand through Nicky or Marta what's going on with Jason and Aaron seems to fit the general path of the story. But, if either of them start talking, I'll put it down! I hope you understand.
I didn't expect this story to be so many chapters, so thank you for your patience as I work on building out this fanfic world without violating canon (too much).
Byer is not done. He steps back, his expression almost menacing. "You'll be hearing from me," he tells Heidi as security arrives. "So will Mrs. Seward."
Nicky observes that her mother does not flinch or pull back. Heidi nods curtly, watching as he and his colleagues are escorted out. Once they are out of her view, Heidi takes a seat at the conference table, and looks directly at the camera. She leans forward in her seat, presses the button on the phone.
"Have Mrs. Seward meet me in my office. Alone."
"Yes, madam," comes the response.
Heidi gets up, walks to the adjoining door.
Nicky unlocks the door, and Heidi steps into her private office. For a moment, mother and daughter simply stare at one another, cataloging the ravages of the year. The powerful, fearsome woman who gave Eric Byer a beat down is gone; in her place, a plaintive mother, whose eyes spring with tears when she sees her child, a weary woman whose pale features are lined with worry and relief.
Nicky moves swiftly into her mother's arms. They hold one another tightly. It is the first loving touch Nicky's felt in over a year. Heidi is shaking, weeping silently.
Heidi's whisper is broken, but fervent. "Nicolette. Nicky."
"Show no fear, Mummy. Soldier on," answers Nicky in return, her throat aching with unshed tears even though her eyes are wet.
It's Mummy's mantra, her edict, the decree she instilled in Nicky early on.
"Show no fear," Heidi said when frightened young Nicky was dropped off at boarding school.
"Soldier on," Heidi whispered when teenage Nicky's father was tried and convicted.
"Show no fear. Stand your ground," Heidi told Nicky on a phone call after the bullying got intense.
"Show no fear," Heidi instructed, when the photographers got in their faces, reporters howling questions when the government and Heidi locked horns over her control of Parish Worldwide, as they left their home, as Nicky went back to school, as they tried to resume their daily lives.
"Soldier on," Heidi murmured when Nicholas Parish's body was identified in the wake of a murder/suicide in his mistress' home less than a year after his release from prison.
Nicky inhales deeply, taking in a lungful of the Chanel No. 5 that is her mother's signature scent, holding on.
"What can I do, Nicky?" begs Heidi. "What do you need from me?"
There are two sure things Nicky Parsons knows in life; and one of those things is that Heidi Parish would burn the world for her. But the other sure thing she knows is the reason she can't allow Heidi to do such a thing.
She pulls away, finds Heidi still holding on, not yet ready to release her. She places her hands on her mother's shoulders, pushes her back gently, looks into those identical brown eyes. "You've already done it."
"That's not the answer, Nicky. I have …" Heidi protests.
"I know what you have. I know what you can do. But there's nothing more you can do for me right now," Nicky interrupts gently. "Mummy. You can't get more involved. This was a one time bail out. Too many people are already involved now. You're not just risking you. You're risking Alex and your people –"
"People who are loyal to me, to us," Heidi says firmly.
Nicky shakes her head. "No more. You don't know Byer, you don't know what he's capable of."
Heidi waves a dismissive hand. "I know how to manage people like him."
Nicky is more adamant. "No, Mummy, you don't. He's here because he's trying to get a handle on some things at the CIA that impacted what he's really protecting. He is dangerous. The people on your dial list? They can't help you because they want what he has. I can't tell you about those things, I can't risk you knowing or perjuring yourself if it comes to it. But don't underestimate him, Mummy. He didn't give up in there; he's just regrouping because he's on your turf and he's going to come for you, and for Alex. It has to stop here."
At that moment, a soft knock on the door, followed by a clear voice: "It's Alex, darling."
They walk to the door together, Nicky stepping behind the door as Heidi opens it. They don't know who might be walking by; but it's only Alexandra on the other side. She sweeps in dramatically, lanky, lovely.
"Heidi, you've got to see the sculptures in the library. They're amazing, darling, amazing." Her voice carries, the Sloaney accent pronounced. When Heidi closes and locks the door behind her, Alexandra turns toward her cousin, and her voice drops, the weariness and worry that marks Heidi's tone as evident in Alex's. "Hallo, cuz. It's so damn good to see you again."
For Nicky, it's another warm hug, another benediction of the familial ties she's had to sever since going on the run. Alex is older by five years but the cousins have always been close. Their mothers were sisters; Alex's mother died when she was young, and Heidi's held that honorary role ever since. Nicky and Alex are of similar height and coloring, though Alex is leggier, her features leaner, her hair much blonder, but they have the same brown eyes. Dressed in couture or high end prêt à porter, big glasses and floppy hats, and moving with Alexandra's swagger, it's easy to pull off the pretense if someone isn't looking too closely.
Shortly after she went on the run, Nicky, Heidi and Alex all agreed on a protocol for masking Nicky's movements.
When Nicky needs to travel, Heidi arranges for chartered planes to take Alexandra to wherever Nicky is; Nicky adopts Alex's identity and uses a fraud of Alex's passport. Alex remains in situ until Nicky's return. Wherever she goes, Nicky is Alexandra Seward – to staff, to strangers, to everyone she meets. Anyone queried can legitimately and truthfully say that it was Mrs. Seward they encountered.
This was the plan.
But in the year since they hatched this plan, Nicky has never invoked it, until three nights ago.
In the months after Nicky went underground, Heidi was followed, harassed, scrutinized. From afar, Nicky watched her mother undergo the hellish pressure from law enforcement agencies interrogating her, serving her with subpoenas and the like; and the press asking for comment about her daughter. She doesn't want to think about how many chits Heidi doled out to quell the furor.
She also realized that their plan required Alex to be at Nicky's beck and call; required Heidi to use her vast wealth and resources to cover for Nicky. And she loves them too much to ask them to sacrifice their freedom for her. She knows they'd do it willingly, are in fact hoping to be of service to her. But it's not feasible.
Eventually she'll be caught. She knows it's a certainty. If not Byer or Vosen or Cramer, someone is going to catch her. And when that happens, she wants Mummy and Alex absolutely clear, unimpeachable. So she cut all ties with the only family she has.
"How's the house?" Alex asks.
"Lovely thanks. When do your friends return?"
"Not for two weeks. I told them 'I'd' leave with my friend before they returned."
This is why the butler calls Nicky "Mrs. Seward." He doesn't know her as anything else other than his employers' friend who is staying at the hotel particulier for a few days with a companion.
"Thanks for the last minute scramble, cuz."
Alex nods, yawns tiredly. "Next time, give us more than six hours to pull off something like that. At least I was still Ho Chi Minh City."
This was both providence and coincidence. Alex does live in Ho Chi Minh City most of the year; it's the main reason Nicky moved there. There was comfort in the proximity to her cousin even if they could not meet.
"Mummy, Byer is right. It does look suspicious when a plane leaves with Alex the day after they photograph me."
"The passenger manifest says Alexandra Seward and Hélène Montrose."
"If they dig hard, they'll find two manifests with those names."
And that's how the shell game is played.
Two flights departed Ho Chi Minh City and landed in Paris within minutes of each other. On one flight are Alexandra Seward and Hélène Montrose. On the other flight, the company's General Declaration has two dead-heading attendants on an "empty leg" back to Paris to pick up a charter client at Charles de Gaulle. Empty legs are the unsold segments of a one-way private charter; the plane lands, and returns empty to its home base.
If they had landed in Paris and all had gone according to plan, Nicky and Marta would have cleared Customs and Immigration aboard, then gone on their way. Because things did not go according to plan, they switched: Alexandra Seward, aboard the jet carrying the two dead-heading attendants, disembarked with Hélène Montrose and went to the terminal to meet French and American authorities. Nicky and Marta adopted the identities of the PAA "attendants" and cleared at the FBO with Sophie.
"There's only one manifest with those names. An earlier duplicate entry manifest was corrected before take off in Ho Chi Minh City," Heidi declares.
"What about the General Declaration with the fake names?" Nicky reminds them.
Heidi shrugs. "It's not our fault if it got lost."
"Besides which, two more charter flights left that day and three more left the following day," Alex notes.
"There are too many people in on this. Too many potential loose threads." Nicky feels so tired. She takes a seat in front of the desk. "You two, Hélène, Sophie. The crews."
"The crews know nothing. And I can cut loose threads," Heidi says simply. Nicky stares at her mom. She's been entirely too long in a world where death and killing are the norm. It takes her a moment to understand Heidi isn't threatening murder.
"They're going to ask Alex if she's seen me in Ho Chi Minh City, if she helped me. You don't think someone's gonna say, 'Her cousin lived there and they never met up?'"
"And I'm going to pass any polygraph test they give me because we never did, you stupid twit," Alex says fiercely.
Nicky sighs, dropping her head in her hands. It's so hard to argue with two women who are exactly like her.
Heidi, worriedly: "Nicky, is what he said true? About the woman you're with?"
Nicky shakes her head. "She's a victim in this." Nicky gives her mother and cousin an abbreviated version of Marta and Sterisyn-Morlanta.
"What now?" Alex asks.
From Nicky's lowered head comes a sniff. "Now you hug me and say good-bye."
"Bugger that!" Alex objects.
"Nicky!" Heidi cries, grabbing her daughter's shoulders. Desperately, she asks: "Nicky, what do you need to come in?"
Nicky lifts her head, looks up at her mother, her face drawn. "Mummy. No one you know, not even the President, can help me as long as Byer's got what…he has."
Tears are streaming down Heidi's face as she holds her daughter's face in her hands. Nicky is resolute. Her hands are curled gently around her mother's wrists. "I won't be in Paris long. There's a possibility…a long shot that we – I – might be able to put Byer in a vise. If I can do it…I'll come back to you."
"Bollocks, Nicky," Alex protests, her voice cracking. "This is it? After a year, we get thirty minutes?"
Nicky doesn't answer; she's slid her arms around her mother's waist and is pressing her cheek against the soft fabric of Heidi's dress. Heidi is bent slightly over her daughter, one hand on the back of Nicky's neck, the other stroking Nicky's hair. She is visibly distraught; but her hands are gentle, soothing as she comforts her child.
"If I can't…if I can't bring down Byer," Nicky whispers, "I promise I'll try to let you know where I go." Nicky stands up, hugs her mother. "I love you, Mummy."
When they separate, Heidi is more herself; and Nicky nods when her mother instructs: "Show no fear. Soldier on."
Nicky steps away from Heidi, who wraps her arms around her midriff as if injured. Heidi walks to the still darkened windows, looking away from Nicky. Heidi's head is bent, her posture fragile.
At the door, Nicky embraces a distressed Alex. "Take care of Mummy for me, cuz."
"Stupid, stupid twit," Alex grouses. In Nicky's ear she whispers: "Don't emulate your mom and me when it comes to bad choices over men." The cousins share a meaningful look; and Alex tells Nicky very softly, very gently so Heidi cannot hear: "Whatever penance you're doing Nicky, consider if you really deserve it."
Nicky looks at her bleakly. "I do."
With that, Nicky pulls on her scarf and Ray Bans and opens the door. She does not look behind her, just as she knows that Heidi and Alex do not watch her go. Behind her, the door closes quietly.