Anna slumped back into her car seat. Sheen of perspiration coated her head. DC was sweltering this time of the year. Worse still was that lump in her throat that wouldn't go away as she stared down her old nemesis. The red brick townhouse that represented a vacant hole of a childhood. Nausea tended to creep on her head the more she thought about her past. Early years of kindergarten where nothing made sense and other kids teased her for red hair and talking funny. Her parents' routine indifference. Stay out of our hair. Homework and Danish lessons and endless books to occupy her. The Army is a great career choice. College admissions she breezed through despite her spotty disciplinary records. 25 years of a one-track life designed to fulfil one purpose that ended with a dossier of documents falling from her grasp upon Hans's feet.

I told you not to look.

You are more than the convenience of two centuries. Or the long shot people have pinned their last hopes on.

You are the bridge that separates a world that ends in 2050, in a second ice-age. And a world that endures past 30,000 AD.

Her head crumpled in on itself. A tin can at the bottom of the ocean. Tears welled against her eyelids again, but there weren't any more to shed. She hadn't even resisted when NSA officers came to arrest her for assaulting Hans. She couldn't even breathe in the cop car, hands cuffed behind her back like a trussed chicken. No sharpmouthed cry of protest as she's thrown into a common jail cell where she met Marie of all people. Insults and verbal abuse and the subsequent shouting match resulted in a cell-clearing brawl which vented the last hangups either had over their all-too-short relationship. It was supposed to be cathartic. Yet what liberation she felt quickly clouded into misery when the NSA came for her. Charges mysteriously evaporated. Chevy Tahoes. Night extraction. Shoved back into the same house where she was once again, reminded of all the ways Elsa filled her life with joy.

One night in the empty house tore open a fresh wound all over again. Instead, she drove half a day to another house. Hoping to close an old scar she'd given up trying to stitch. Dialing a number she'd appended "ZZZ" in the address book just so she wouldn't scroll past it by accident.

She'd nearly hung up after three rings. Knot in her chest tightening further when she heard mother's voice on the line. Somehow always starting with a sigh.

"Anna-"

Anna pinched her forehead, "All I want to do is talk, that's all. You won't hear from me again after today-"

"I'm not at home, I'm in-"

"Your car's parked outside and the lights are on, so don't give me that crap."

"You're outside?" Susanne's voice rose. A head peeked out the window, grimacing at Anna's sullen face behind the wheel of a Ford Focus. Anna counted off ten seconds before her mother opened the front door. Not hiding anything? She wore the same black dress that made her look like a widow at a funeral. Brown hair with the first silvery strands peeking through. Susanne bore a permanent tilt in her head and a frown. The look that said stop wasting my time and get on with it.

The air between them cooled as Anna stepped into her childhood home for the first time in ten years. Nothing changed. Or so she thought. She couldn't even remember. Susanne brought out a porcelain teapot painted with colourful Matryoshaka dolls. A Bach symphony wafted through the hollow, wooden house. It burned Anna with shame that she could still remember the movements.

"You still drink tea, right?"

"Has it been that long?" Anna flicked her head over.

Susanne sighed. Shoulders slouching in one of her signature looks of exasperation. Anna sat stock still with a glare burned into Susanne's face. Deliberate. Goading. Years of HUMINT training hadn't been lost on her mother's nerves. She allowed the gradual realization to sink into her expression. An eternity passed between them, no less painful than the childhood Anna languished in.

"You know, then?" Susanne broke the silence.

Anna pressed her knees together. Nails dug into her skinny jeans. She frowned. The urge to cry again hit her but she looked up to her mother. Biting her lip and flashing her a look of indignation.

"Oh, god - sweetie."

"I just want to hear your side of things," Anna said, fighting off the clench in her chest, "twenty five years. At least give me something else beyond piano lessons and a high school diploma."

"This isn't something we're particularly proud of, alright?"

"Way to go, mom-"

"I meant," Susanne seethed, "the circumstances behind you coming here. What dad and I did to get cornered into this mess-"

"A mess," Anna narrowed her eyes, "is that what you see me as?"

"Would you just take a step back for once?" Susanne demanded, "And see how big this whole thing really is? You were their last chance at getting things right-"

"Oh, so you had the luxury of knowing everything firsthand. While all I had were shadows to chase. Cruising through fuck-up after fuck-up not knowing it was meant to get me into one job."

"How would you have reacted?" Susanne flopped around in her seat, holding up air quotes, "oh, hello - you're a 19th century princess and we dragged you here for nefarious reasons. Oh, and I'm not actually your mom. Some long-dead queen is."

Anna snivelled. All she got was a box of tissues slid across a teak coffee table.

"How do you think that makes us feel?" Susanne folded her arms, "I robbed you from another woman, Anna. You're somebody else's daughter."

"Not yours?" Anna whimpered. Afraid of the answer waiting for her.

"That's what we thought, but-" Susanne looked away, moments passing in wound-up silence before she finally cracked. Pressing a palm to her eyes. The tissues slid back.

"Mom-"

"Stop calling me that," Susanne broke, eyes reddened, "I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you."

"Is this why you've been treating me like crap?"

"I don't even know how you can look at me!" Susanne raised her voice, "and see anything but a horrid excuse of a woman who made one mistake which led to another and another and-"

Anna waited, heart in throat.

"-led to the best thing that's ever happened to me," Susanne looked away, "and now I've pissed her all away."

"Mom, don't," Anna stumbled over, kneeling by her mother's side. Fumbling fingers caught hers. She still smelled like pencil shavings. Strong black tea and leather. Like home. Susanne's hands were wet with tears. "I'm still here."

"No-"

"I'm still here," Anna growled, trying to meet her eyes, "and you're still my mother."

"God, Anna," Susanne broke down and started sobbing into her daughter's hair. Through the shuddering, Anna heard jerky, stuttery pleas for forgiveness. I never thought we'd find it in ourselves to love you, but we did. What messed up creatures we are, finding love in a secret government project.

"Tell me about it," Anna cried into her mother's shoulder, "because I did, too."

Susanne pulled back, just so she could look into Anna's eyes. Years of intelligence work etched into each wrinkle on her face. Still she looked beautiful. Ripe with wisdom. The woman Anna looked up to so much, but couldn't get near. She pressed a palm to Anna's face. Shaking with the trepidation of finding a daughter she'd lost. The ring on her finger grazed her cheekbone.

"You're still wearing your ring?" Anna asked. She looked around the living room. Dad's golf clubs still parked by the mantel. That old picture of him in a flight suit next to an F-18 Fighter Jet looking like Tom Cruise. "Didn't you get divorced or something?"

"Listen, Anna," Susanne grasped her hands, "a long time ago - I married your dad because we wanted to give you a family. At least if this was going to be a farce, we didn't want you to come from a broken home-"

"I think that would've been the least of my problems-"

"After you left for college and the NSA paid us our bonuses," Susanne sighed, "we looked at each other and figured: what's the point? There was nothing holding us together anymore. They took us on a long journey and now you were free to explore the rest of this fucked up train track that only had one destination."

"Sure sounds like it-"

"But he'd keep coming up in my life. I'd find myself making excuses to see him. We'd stalk your Instagram just to know how you're coming along. You brought us together in a way we'd never thought possible. No matter how high our careers flew or who we met, we'd always find a way back to each other. And it's because of you."

"Oh my god."

"So we got married. For real this time. At least if we didn't have you in our lives, I could mourn your loss in the embrace of someone I loved and loved me back."

"Mom, you didn't lose me - I was always right here," Anna's expression cracked, "didn't you keep turning me down for Christmas? I was right around the corner in Maryland."

Susanne kept silent.

"Don't do this to yourself, please," Anna pleaded, "as fucked up as things were, it wouldn't help if you just abandoned me."

"Y-you don't hate us?" Susanne's voice faltered, "Even after knowing we led you on, even after all the years of separation-"

"You're my mother. There's always going to be a part that resents you for what you did. But it's not going to stop me from loving what you did for me."

"Right - I wasn't exactly cut out to be the best mother-"

"That didn't stop you from trying. You taught me the piano. Took us skiing and to Disneyland. Dad led me to the Army which gave me a sense of purpose. You can't discount all of that away."

"We were just playing a part-" Susanne wiped her eyes

"How much of that was playing, seriously?"

Susanne pulled her closer, "N-none of it. I loved you in a way I never thought I could."

"That's enough for me."

"I don't remember raising you to be the forgiving type," Susanne forced a laugh.

Anna swiped a thumb against the salt-tracked wrinkles on her mother's face.

"No, you didn't," Anna smiled, "I learned it on the long road back here."