Anya knew that Damian liked her. Sort of.

He certainly thought about her a lot, but Damian's mind was a confusing mess at the best of times, and when he was angry, or moody, or every time he was near her, his thoughts spiralled into an uncontrollable storm that was nearly impossible to penetrate. Whenever she was around him, she felt his confusion, his frustration, his fear, and embarrassment, and shining through it all was his feelings of admiration, affection, and…something else, but she wasn't ready to identify what it was.

She was too busy trying to figure out his waterfall of thoughts:

Why is she so cute?

Why is she looking at me like that? She can't know what it does to me…

Is she looking at me? Does she see me?

How did she know to say that?

And then there was the way that he acted towards her. Aloof, and rude, and often disinterested, and completely contradictory to his inner thoughts. Until that point, Anya thought she could easily look past his brash attitude and just focus on his thoughts, but when they got mixed up, she didn't even know what to think anymore.

And suddenly here he was, thinking about how beautiful she was.

Anya's cheeks reddened, and she let her head fall into her hands. "Argh!" she said out loud, hoping to squash the ballooning feeling in her heart. Why was Damian so confusing?

A knock at the door: "Anya? Come on out, dinner's ready!" Loud's voice carried over through the door.

"I'm coming!" she squeaked, then took a deep breath. Damian would have to wait, she decided. She had a mission to do.

Anya joined her parents at the table, and just as they started eating, she gathered her courage, took a deep breath, and made her announcement: "So my new assignment is that I have to do a family tree and get all your stories, so can I interview you both about your lives?"

Loid choked on his drink and spluttered water across the table.

"Oh!" Yor exclaimed. "Honey, here let me get you a towel…"

"No, I'm okay," Loid coughed, and dabbed at himself with the table napkin. "I uh, was just surprised, that's all…"

Anya chewed her vegetables silently. She knew that family history, and personal stories was dangerous territory for her family, but she never had mastered tact. She had spent years holding back from asking them anything - she knew what they would - so if anything, she was actually overdue for this conversation.

She could freeze this moment, and notice how forced their smiles were, how they made themselves fidget and keep their hands busy while their minds scrambled for something, anything to say to cover up their lies and embarrassment.

Anya sipped her water with trepidation as she watched her parent's thoughts swirl and swirl, but before they fobbed her off with another story or an excuse, she brought out her notebook and pen from her pocket and set them both on the table. "I heard that conversing with people while they're eating can be an effective interrog- er, interview strategy," Anya caught herself.

When she was met with silence, Anya played her trump card. "It's in the Society Etiquette class, so if I do well on this assignment we might actually get a Stella for it."

Bravely, it was Loid that went first. "Very well…" Plan A could still happen, don't give up on Anya just because she has a hard time academically!

Anya pretended she didn't hear that.

"Well, you already know that I, er, have served in the army as a soldier. And then I was…" Memories of the war flashed through Loid's mind. Anya had seen it before, but what struck her was her Papa's very early recruitment into being a spy.

She quickly realised that Loid had, in fact, stopped speaking, and that he was currently at war with himself in his own mind. I have been a spy since I was a teenager. I disguised myself so often and told so many backstories that I can't remember what I've already told Anya and Yor! Did I tell her about being in Westalis? Or was I in Munish? I need to keep my story straight but if I misplace even one detail she might get suspicious along with Yor…

Anya's chest tightened, and the silence stretched too thin. Loid seemed too stuck in his own inner monologue to notice.

"What about you, Mama?" she directed her attention to Yor, and hoped that maybe she would be less awkward.

Loud snapped back. "Oh, sorry! I was just-"

Yor leaned back and put a thoughtful finger on her chin. "I've told you both about having to raise Yuri by myself after my parents died in the war, and then after that…" I became an assassin just to support him through school, and I've been killing ever since! But what can I say? How can I tell Anya anything about my history when it's all been soaked in blood? Is any of it even appropriate to say?

Anya's gut twisted, and she suppressed a sigh. Of course they couldn't tell her anything, their lives were far too intertwined with their past and their secrets. Clearly, she expected too much.

Before either of her parents could say anything, Anya pushed her chair back from the table. "Actually, I think I'll be alright. I'm going to do homework in my room, see you later!"

Inside her room, Anya closed the door behind her with a deep sigh. Bond had followed her in and nuzzled the back of her leg with a whine, which got her attention. She smiled and leaned down to pat him. "Good boy," she crooned at him while she scratched behind his ear, exactly where she knew he loved it.

Through the door, Anya tried to eavesdrop on her parents whispering. "Do you think she will be okay?" whispered Yor.

"It must be hard for her," replied Loid. "We both have… memories we would rather not share and it's difficult to communicate that to a child."

"She won't be a child for much longer, love. She's going to turn eighteen soon, now that she knows a bit more about the war, maybe she would be mature enough to understand why it's hard for us to talk about it?"

Anya shook her head. The lies that her parents told just to appear normal was necessary, she knew, but did they still have to lie to each other, too? Operation Strix had been going for more than a decade and they still didn't know about each other. Even worse, they both hid behind "the war", as if that excused everything, but there was still so much more to either of them. Anya wondered how much longer she would have to sacrifice her own curiosity just to know a bit more about the people she called Mama and Papa.

Images of her parents' memories swam through her mind. She really should have known better than to ask them directly while they were sitting at the table. She had seen some of their memories before and knew that they both had extremely tough lives, but if only she was able to get even a little bit of information on their parents - officially, her grandparents. She needed information on a third generation in order to get the higher grade, and at this rate there was just no way that she would get that.

Then: it came to her. If she couldn't get the information she needed, then she would just have to take a different route, and an idea formed in her mind.

Anya sat at her desk, grabbed a pen, and got to work.