Chapter title is from Tom O'Brien's The Things They Carried.
Chapter 2: A Lot Like Yesterday (a Lot Like Never)
They do not all go to Hope and Arthur's house together; all (well, considering the Battleship Texas incident, three out of the four) of them are too smart for that. Irina arrives from the west at precisely ten o'clock, the time Isabel had specified, to find her branch leader and Cora Wizard (who, at least, had the sense to leave her son with Broderick for the duration of this trip) at an uneasy peace. Ten minutes later, Alistair arrives from the east with a twirl of his cane; he's slightly favoring his right leg, but it's the smoothest Irina's seen him walk in five, maybe seven years.
"Michael and Ellen send their regrets," Alistair says. "Sinead and her brothers were conducting chemistry experiments, and an… incident occurred. The children will be fine, but the Starlings wanted to make sure there was no repeat emergency room trip."
"Understood," Isabel says with an expression of supreme annoyance and distaste. Irina hopes the Starlings are very sure none of their doctors (or nurses, or anyone else in the vicinity) are active Lucians. "Where are the Holts?"
"Why should I know?" Alistair asks perfectly innocently, as if he and Irina and the Holts haven't spent three and a half hours planning this night to ensure everyone comes out alive.
"They're late," Isabel hisses. "Someone should know where they are." A purple SUV races towards them, swerving between lanes and ignoring stop signs. Before Mary-Todd has finished haphazardly parking the SUV across the street from the Trent house, Eisenhower jumps out of the front passenger seat.
"Sorry we're late!" Eisenhower shouts. "The kids didn't want to go to sleep." In truth, if he's kept his word from earlier, Eisenhower has taken them to some Holt relative or another to keep them out of harm's way. Isabel rolls her eyes but, unusually for her, says nothing as Mary-Todd jogs to join them.
"Now that everyone's deigned to arrive," Isabel says, and there's the dig Irina was expecting (though it - really, anything not involving someone on the ground unconscious or vomiting or bleeding from the ears at the very least - seems unusually nice by Isabel's standards), "let's go in."
To her credit, Hope doesn't react when she opens the door to face a group of her greatest enemies. Irina hadn't been able to warn her about this - she and Alistair both thought the risk that someone had it under surveillance was too high - but the only sign that Hope hadn't been expecting them is a slight twitch of her lips, a minute tightening of her fingers on the door as if she's wondering if they'll leave if she slams it in their faces. That kind mask is a hard one to pull off - Irina's seen maybe twenty people pull it off, and (at least) four of them are dead - and it almost makes Irina wonder if Hope knew they were coming. (It's a stupid thought - if Hope had known they were coming that long, dark night seven summers ago, she and Arthur would have had a plan to get out of the house alive - but plans go awry, and Irina still wonders.)
"Kabra," Hopes says by way of greeting, "you've brought friends this time." The words are sharp enough to bite even as Irina tries to figure out what other incident Hope is implying. (Is she referring to the incident in Monte Verde, where Hope almost joined the ancient remains she was studying? The one in Prague, where Hope and Arthur's honeymoon was cut short by half an army of "unidentified agents"? Some other incident Isabel hasn't deigned to inform the branch of?)
"I can assure you, Hope," Alistair says, "that we are united only by concern over your recent actions."
"As opposed to yours?" Arthur, appearing behind Hope, says. "As far as I know, we haven't killed anyone." Isabel doesn't noticeably bristle - for better and (mostly) worse, she has one of the best masks Irina's ever seen.
"Yet," Isabel says, "but, with your recklessness, you will, and you will do it soon. May we come in?" Hope and Arthur share a wary look before stepping back to allow the group on their front porch into their house, and Irina wants to scream at them; you never let people you distrust into your home.
"So," Hope says as Arthur pours (possibly poisoned) coffee, "what exactly about our recent excursions makes it so much more dangerous than yours?"
"We don't know who you're working for," Mary-Todd says as if that means anything.
"My wife and I are not the only people in this room with questionable allegiances," Arthur says, and Eisenhower bristles; he's always been sensitive to that sort of accusation. Something about his father, Irina knows, and something that would make him a rabidly devoted Tomas agent with three equally fervent Tomas children at the time of Grace's funeral. "You all support your branches, of course," Alistair's hand wraps around his cane, and Irina wonders if Arthur is pushing people's buttons on purpose or if he is actually that tactless, "but at least one of you gives all your information to an organization that isn't even Cahill." The expressions of irritation are replaced with ones of shock. (Definitely on purpose, then.)
"Madrigals?" Cora asks in a hushed voice as if the Man in Black will appear if she says the name loud enough. Hope and Arthur say nothing, a targeted move to imply Cora's right without saying anything. It's probably not actually the Madrigals, then, but that only makes Irina wonder who it is.
"Hope," Isabel says in the exact same tone of voice she uses with her children, "your actions have consequences. Your little clue hunt has consequences."
"We never went on a clue hunt," Hope says.
"Why else would you travel the world years after your honeymoon?" Cora asks. "England, Jamaica, South Africa, China, Japan… the list goes on, end every single one has locations connected to the hunt."
"The only place in the world without connections to the hunt is Antarctica," Hope says.
"Scott expedition," Arthur, slightly behind and to the left of her, says.
"No place in the world is unconnected to the hunt," Hope says. "Besides, why is when and where we choose to travel any business of yours?" Hope is being more aggressive than she was last time. Maybe it's how Alistair and the Holts (and, of course, Irina herself, though Irina rarely spoke the first time around) are nearly silent. Maybe Alistair gave her and Arthur a quick warning and a few hours to plan. Maybe it's because they veered off-script with Mary-Todd's first statement of their purpose here. No matter the cause, it's certainly unsettling, if only because it means Irina has no idea what's happening.
"You're making a dangerous mistake," Isabel warns as she takes out a cigarette lighter and a small jug of something - probably an accelerant - out of her snakeskin purse. Arthur's eyes widen, and Alistair takes a step back. They both have a history with fire, with matches and gasoline and the Cahill inclination towards flames; they both know how this will end.
This is happening far too quickly. It's been less than half an hour since the Holts arrived and they all went in; they should still be talking in circles around Hope's latest excursions until Amy comes to ask what's going on and things escalate wildly out of control. Irina hadn't even stuck her knife into the table and walked out at this point the first time. What has she - have they - done to change the course of events so drastically?
"You wouldn't," Hope says.
"She most definitely would," Cora says, and there's a hint of fear in her voice. Irina wonders if she and Alistair could have recruited her after all.
"Are you really willing to risk your children's lives over your silly little hunt?" Isabel asks. Hope's mouth sets in a firm line, and Irina makes eye contact with Alistair. Things are about to go down, and they are about to go down quickly. Alistair switches the grip on his cane to one useless for walking but excellent for swinging it, and Irina looks at the matchbox carefully, wondering if she can move fast enough to grab it.
It's at this moment that Amy wakes up and decides to find out why strange voices are coming from the living room. Everyone's eyes flicker to her for a split second, and that's more than enough time for Isabel to smash the jug of accelerant and flick the lighter.
.oOo.
Fire. Fire is everywhere. Irina's out - she was nearest the door before everything went up in flames absurdly quickly - but it still feels like there's no way out of the burning house, like she can't breathe through the thick smoke surrounding her, like she's dying from Cahill's best friend for the second time in two days. One of the next door neighbors is screaming, sirens are wailing in the distance, but all Irina can think about are the burns along her left arm and the stars in the sky. They're different stars than the ones in Indonesia, masked with smoke and blurred by heat waves, last night.
Arthur is trying to go back inside the house, which is filled with flames and looks minutes from collapsing. She should probably help Eisenhower keep him from doing so; Eisenhower is strong enough to easily lift Arthur off the ground, but Arthur's fighting, and a little prick from her right pinky will make him stop.
Just as the tranquilizer kicks in, Arthur mutters something about a clue, and Irina struggles not to roll her eyes; Hope somehow managed to find the most Cahillian non-Cahill Irina has ever met, and that list includes fourteen spies, three "diplomatic attaches", two Nobel Prize winners, and one man whose solution to any given problem was to throw it or himself through a wall. Irina looks around to make sure everyone got out of the house. Cora's car is gone, as is Isabel's - no surprise there - Hope is coughing heavily, and Alistair, visibly alright but looking very concerned, is at her side. Dan and Amy are-
Dan and Amy are gone. They're not in the house - Irina saw Mary-Todd and Arthur carry them out, and, since they didn't know of the clues until Grace's funeral, they aren't incentivized to follow in their father's incredibly stupid footsteps - but they're nowhere in sight. Irina looks all around her just to be sure, but she can't find any sign of them. She also has a sinking idea where they've been taken.
The confrontation is over - the fire has been set, and its lighter has fled the scene - and everyone's alive, but in averting that tragedy, Irina's somehow caused another one in the making. Dan and Amy, the children she died for and was fully ready to do so again, are missing, and exactly one person Isabel has made disappear has ever come back alive. (At least, she assumes Beckmann's still alive somewhere; it's been fifteen - eight - years since she'd heard from her.) She'd thought this would be over - sans a confrontation with Isabel, an occurrence so common it hardly bears mentioning - but it looks like her mission's only started.
The Starling parents are named after Michael Faraday, father of E&M, and Eileen Hutchins, the famous Irish botanist, because I'm that much of a nerd.
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