Hugh, Damian's chauffeur, had a lot of requests, but this was probably the strangest one. He sat back in his seat, relaxed, and read the newspaper. It was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere around the trees, but Master Damian hadn't exactly given him any instructions on what to do while they were out there, or how long he would be.

He liked his job, and he was good at it. He liked being a driver. He often had moments of peace throughout the day where he had time to think to himself.

Birds chirped. The rasp of wind blowing through the trees, and then…

The sound of sirens split the sky, and Hugh jumped out of his skin.

The newspaper shook as he dropped it over the driving wheel to look out to the forest.

Alarms blared from the white building in front of him, while dishevelled, people in soaking white lab coats ran out of it screaming, some tripping over themselves to get out and away as fast as possible.

He spotted two running figures coming towards the car, and he carefully rolled down the window of the tinted car.

And then he saw it.

The young master ran toward the car with the girl - it must have been Anya - in his arms. She looked like a poor bedraggled thing, with wet pink hair, covered by Damian's Eden Academy jacket.

"Start the car!" Damian ordered, and Hugh jolted into life. He turned the ignition just as Damian and Yor threw themselves into the backseat.

"Hurry! We need to get out of here!"

The chauffeur set the car into reverse and floored it back to the main road, skidded, and set off again towards Berlint.

His eyes flicked to the back of the car - what the hell had happened in that building?

Well. That was the end of the quiet day then.

"Is she breathing?" Damian cried out. "She's so cold…"

"It'll be okay, Damian," Yor said, and then she burst into tears. "But I can't thank you enough. You got my daughter back!"

Even from the driver's seat, the chauffeur could see the red of Damian's face. "It w-was nothing…"

The girl in the backseat stirred once again and both Yor and Damian sprang up at once.

"Come here Anya, come here," Yor said, in the gentle voice only a mother could have.

Hugh averted his eyes from the touching reunion in the backseat, and focused on getting them all home. They must have had one hell of a day.

Damian felt like he couldn't breathe as he stared at the near-lifeless form of Anya Forger. She had her eyes closed, and although she had dried off a little bit, her skin was cold to the touch. Her lips and fingertips even started to look a little blue…

"We need to take her to a hospital," said Damian.

Yor noticed it at the same time that he did. "Damian, Do you have any clothes in this car? Blankets, or anything?"

"Er," said Damian and he scrambled at the drawers underneath the seats, but both came out empty. "No, I'm sorry, we don't have…"

An idea sparked. He rummaged around in his school bag, and pulled out a perfectly folded Imperial Scholar's cloak, and draped it over Anya's unconscious body.

He watched, speechless, as Yor manoeuvred herself to keep Anya on her lap, and she took off her own coat and draped it over the both of them, trying to keep as much heat in as possible.

"I'll keep my daughter warm," she said, and looked at Damian with tears in her eyes. "You just focus on telling the driver where to go."

"Uh," said Damian. "Sure." And he swallowed. He felt as though something had gotten stuck in his throat.

They drove on in silence, and Damian didn't dare tear his eyes away from the steady rise and fall of Anya's breathing. He couldn't believe that she was actually there and in front of him, but the adrenaline still coursed through his body. His entire body was tense, on edge.

"Damian," Yor said softly. "You did everything you could. You can relax now."

Damian shook his head. "No I can't! What if she gets taken again? What if she disappears forever next time?"

Yor stared at him in surprise. "Damian…"

"And we still need to figure out what the hell that place even was, how they managed to get Anya in the first place, and why they wanted her of all people?"

"I think we already know," said Yor gently. "Since Adrian told us…"

Yor clutched the sleeping Anya tighter to her. "I wonder if she's okay…"

During the search for Anya, Damian had conveniently managed to forget what Adrian had told them. A part of Damian still wondered if any of it was true.

Telepathy? A human experimentation? Subject 007?

He didn't want to believe it, but he had seen evidence with his own eyes, and he couldn't ignore it any longer. Even thinking about the fact that she had been there before was too much for him. How could someone survive such a horrific place twice?

He glanced at her reflection in the window. He didn't want to look like he was staring, but he couldn't help that he was drawn back to her..

So, he was right, in a sense. Even though she wasn't a spy, she was something.

He had always thought of Anya as special, but knowing her secret made him realise that she was far more than he thought. Her past haunted her, but in the face of it all, she was just a girl doing her best to live.

A small voice in the back of his mind wondered: What do I do now?

When WISE arrived at the scene, several cars turned up outside of the building, and seemed surprised to see Twilight standing outside. He looked peaceful, even though towers of smoke pierced the skyline behind him.

Alarms fired all around them, but Sylvia Sherwood herself stepped out of the car, with her long leather boot meeting the twisted mulch of the forest floor. She moved the wide brim of her hat to look up.

"What a beautiful day to be rescued, " she said to no one in particular.

As agents buzzed around the building, seizing documents, arresting scientists and presumably other members of staff, and shutting the whole operation down, Sylvia strolled over to where Twilight stood. Her best agent.

He had seen her approaching, but he didn't raise his eyes to meet hers until she was only a few steps away from him.

She raised an eyebrow at him. What happened?

Twilight sighed, and ran his hands through his hair. He didn't even know where to begin.

"Well," he sighed again. "We found Anya."

Sylvia resisted the urge to move a single facial muscle. "We?"

"Yes." He resigned himself to the thought that she would find out eventually, and this kind of disaster was bound to happen at some point. "Myself, Yor, and Damian Desmond."

Sylvia's eyebrows disappeared under the wide brim of her hat. "Oh?"

And Twilight told her everything that he could. "I didn't even realise that they followed me," he finished. "But they didn't know who I really was, since I was disguised as one of the scientists. As far as I'm aware, they've left with Damian's chauffeur, and I hope that they're taking her to hospital right now."

Sylvia nodded carefully. "We followed up on the lead you sent us - Erik Zacharis?"

Twilight's attention snapped to her. "He's still my patient. Please tell you me you didn't hurt him, or torture him or -"

"Relax," Sylvia held up a hand in signal for him to stop. "We managed to follow up on his intelligence agency based on the Eastern side, and we found a few things relating to his past missions."

It turned out that the intel from Erik Zacharis was exactly the missing piece that Sylvia had been looking for when it came to Operation Bellator - although that was a conversation that she would save for Twilight after he had reunited with Anya.

She handed Twilight a piece of paper in a beige file. Stained from over a decade of storage, it held the key to Anya that Sylvia had been looking for all along.

Twilight raised his eyebrows at her. "What's this? Isn't the mission over?"

Sylvia pursed her lips. "You might want to take a look at this."

Twilight flipped the first page open, and saw immediately why Sylvia wanted to give it to him. The face of a little girl with pink hair stared at him from a tiny photograph. She must have been around three years old in the photo.

Twilight's stomach dropped, and as he read more and more into the file, his gut twisted further and further, until he genuinely thought he was going to be sick.

When he finished, he held the paper stiffly in his hands, and gritted his teeth.

Someone was going to pay for what they did to her.

"And," said Sylvia, breaking the silence once again. "I've been meaning to speak to you about something else as well."

She passed him a camcorder.

"This is evidence of Damian's kidnapping. It's the recording of the ransom video the kidnappers got Damian to film."

Twilight passed his hand over his face and groaned. "Honestly Handler, I'm not sure if I can take any more surprises-"

Sylvia shrugged. "It could be worse. But I hear you. Go get your rest, and you can come back to this. Later."

She pressed the camcorder firmly in his hands, and patted his hand closed over it. "For now, go to your daughter. She needs you right now."

Damian watched Yor carry Anya into the hospital, watched the staff envelop them with warmth and concern, and sagged back into the seat of the car, sighing with relief. The only thing he wanted to do, now that he made sure Anya was in the care of medical professionals, was to sleep for a thousand years.

He had tried to go into the hospital with Yor, but she had insisted that he go home to rest.

"You've done so much for Anya already, and it's getting late," Yor had said in such a gentle way, that Damian wondered if that was what mothers were supposed to sound like. "Go, get your rest. You can always come back to visit Anya tomorrow."

Damian held his face in his hands. "Take me back to Eden," he mumbled to his chauffeur.

He was so fucking tired.

It had been an extremely long day, and he had only just at that moment stopped feeling so wired that his eyes had been kept wide open, and his muscles were rigid with adrenaline.

He watched the familiar Berlint buildings float by. He had seen them before, but for some reason, it really felt like everything had changed.

Absolutely everything.

He had so many questions, too.

How long had Anya been hiding this? Did anybody know? If somebody did know - did they send her there?

He thought back to the times in school when she had seemed so attuned to him, and he had really thought that they must fit so well together. She made him feel so special, so understood, but was she reading his mind the entire time?

If she had been hearing his thoughts the entire time, then she would have known about how he felt about her since he was six years old, surely?

Damian reddened.

But if she knew about how I felt, then why didn't she say anything? Is it because…

The world stopped moving.

… she doesn't feel the same?

Damian gulped as he realised that the only thing worse than Anya knowing about his crush on her, was if she didn't like him back.

Oh my god. He started to panic. What if she was making fun of him the whole time and she really was just laughing behind his back with Becky?

Damian wanted to slap himself. How could he even think those things about her? It wasn't her fault that she could read minds (he imagined, based on what Adrian had told him). And if he knew anything about Anya over the last twelve years, was that even though she carried a lot on her shoulders, she still tried really hard, and wanted to make friends with him and Becky. She was genuine in all the ways that she tried to befriend him.

And, they had been getting closer recently. She went with him to the cinema. He walked with her from the bus stop, sometimes holding hands.

She even rescued him from kidnappers… That had to count for something, right?

The slow drive back from the hospital had helped to wind him down, but since he knew that Anya was safe with her mother in hospital, and hopefully being seen to, his body started to shut down. He had just been running on adrenaline, energy and stress, but now he was ready to collapse.

Once back at Eden, he did his best to hold himself together as he walked through the darkened corridors. Damian didn't notice the voices as he turned the corner on the way to Cecile Hall.

"I'm telling you, Damian still hasn't responded to any of my texts!"

"It's only been a day, Blackbell! You can't think that he's also been -"

The sound of someone being shoved aside. "Damian-sama! You're here!"

"Huh?" Damian lifted his head at the sound of his own name, to be greeted by the surprised faces of his friends Emile and Ewen, and even Becky, even though it was well after dinner time.

They approached him quickly, and Damian suddenly had the distinct and powerful feeling that they had just been talking about him.

"What's up?" said Damian, nonchalant.

Becky baulked, her eyes almost popped out of her face. "What's up? What's up? You disappeared after lunch, and you show up looking like that and you don't even answer any of my texts and all you have to say is what's up?"

As Damian stared at the faces of the three of his friends, he had the distinct feeling like he was watching a movie, and all of this was happening to somebody else.

And what did Becky mean by 'looking like that'? What was wrong with-

Oh.

Oh right.

Dirt and the occasional spot of blood crusted his uniform, and the salted water from the tank had left his almost-dry clothes sticking uncomfortably to his body. Damian reached for his phone in his pocket, about to check the texts that Becky had supposedly sent him, and he stared at the black screen. He pressed the power button. Nothing.

"Ah, shit," Damian said out loud. "It was in my pocket when I dived into the water."

Immediately, Becky picked up on Damian's words. "Dived in, where? Where have you been? Is it to do with Anya? Have you found her yet?"

"Hey, stop crowding him!" Ewen stood protectively between them. "Can't you see he's exhausted!"

"I would," Becky huffed, "but he's holding back on me, I can tell! If he wont tell me what's going on, then I'll-"

"We found Anya," Damian mumbled. He could feel that if he didn't get into bed right that second then his limbs were about to give way on him. He let out a huge yawn. "I have to go to bed."

Damian pushed past an incredulous Becky, while Ewen and Emile shrugged at her apologetically, and followed Damian into the boys' dorm.

"Hey boss," it was Ewen that spoke up first. "Everything okay? You look terrible."

"Thanks," sighed Damian, and gave a weak laugh. "I'm just… I need to go to sleep."

At the silence, Damian guessed that Ewen and Emile were exchanging a secret, questioning stare. He imagined they were thinking something along the lines of: What's wrong with him?

As they walked into the boys dorm, and past some of the rooms, Damian saw something out of the corner of his eye and stopped at one of the doorways. He turned to face inside.

Their room was a mess. It looked as though clothes and books had exploded everywhere, which made sense when Damian noticed that Adrian was packing up his bags. He walked up to Adrian's door, and knocked.

Adrian jolted up in surprise, and nearly tripped over a stray shirt on the ground. "Desmond!" said Adrian in surprise. He glanced warily at Ewen and Emile. "Er, can I help you?"

Damian looked behind him to see a very confused Ewen and Emile, and he whispered in a hoarse voice: "Could you guys give us a minute?"

Damian waited for Ewen and Emile to back away, before he jutted his chin out at Adrian, slowly removed his hand from his pocket, and held it in front of Adrian, who gawked at Damian's open offer.

"I owe you one," said Damian calmly. "We wouldn't have been able to get Anya back without your help, so if you ever need anything, you can always count on the word of a Desmond to help you out."

"R-right," Adrian stamered, and very hesitantly, he took Damian's hand and shook it.

Damian shifted on his feet, suddenly feeling awkward. He hadn't planned to come out and say any of this.

"And… Desmond," said Adrian tentatively. "I think you should know something else as well," and it was Adrian's turn to shift on his feet. "She… thinks about you, a lot."

Damian felt his ears burning slightly, but he didn't want to acknowledge it. He had completely forgotten that Adrian could read minds, too. Suddenly, all the questions that had come to him before came back a thousand fold, all at the same time.

Does she know I like her?

Does she hate me?

Is she trying to get close to me for my father?

Does she like me back?

Is she using me after all?

Adrian grimaced and started to massage his temples. "Damn, how does Anya tolerate all of this?"

Damian stepped back sheepishly. "Sorry, it's not like I can control it."

"No it's okay, I know." Adrian exhaled deeply. "In the… In the lab, they release a constant soundwave that blocks us from using our power. I just haven't had a lot of practice."

That gave Damian a thought: Did that mean that Anya was more powerful than Adrian?

"Uh, kind of," Adrian responded, and Damian jolted in surprise. "She's had literally years of practice, so she might be able to do things that I can't. I can't turn it off, and I can't tune in and out of people's thoughts. From what I can tell, she has managed to block it out sometimes."

Damian lifted his head in hope. "Does that mean that she-"

"-doesn't know how you feel?" finished Adrian.

Damian flushed again, to his embarrassment. "I wasn't gonna say that."

Adrian rolled his eyes, but a shy smile played on his lips.

Damian couldn't help it. He laughed. "I can't believe I'm talking to you about the girl I have a crush on. We're not even friends."

But he stopped laughing as soon as he saw a flicker of hurt pass across Adrian's face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like…" he didn't know how to finish his own sentence.

Adrian turned away, and continued to pack up his belongings. "Nah, it's cool. It is weird. You don't know me very well, but I can't help but know a lot about you. I bet that's uncomfortable."

Damian didn't know what to say. He felt the words get stuck in his throat.

After a few beats, Damian took another long look around him. "Where are you going, anyway? Why are you packing up?"

Adrian shrugged, but with his back to Damian, he couldn't be sure what Adrian was feeling. "My mission is finished, and now so is Project Apple. Now that the lab is disbanded, I don't have the funding to keep me in school anymore. Simple as that."

"Oh," said Damian, who had never really considered that funding for school could 'run out'. "So where are you gonna go instead?"

He almost missed it, but he saw Adrian tense up, saw him ball hup his hands into fists. "I'll figure it out," was all that Adrian managed to say in the end.

With nothing much left to say, Damian made his way to leave, but turned to take one last look at Adrian.

"I meant what I said earlier. Anything you need, you can ask. I swear on my name as a Desmond that I'll do what I can."

Finally, when Damian made it to his room, he peeled off his dirty uniform, and stepped straight into the ensuite shower. As hot water ran down his shoulders and back, Damian felt his muscles relax and all the tension melt away.

He would face Becky's wrath later. For that moment, now that he knew that the love of his life was safe, all he needed was sleep.