"You're gonna crush it, no worries," I encouraged as I looked back at the two girls in the back of my car. "Isn't that right, darling?"
Anna perked up in her giant toddler car seat and did the thing we practiced: she pumped both fists up and cutely shouted, "Crush!"
"Thank you, Emilia, Anna," the other girl, Zofia, bashfully mumbled.
Oh, how I loved the girl and her genuine affection for my daughter. Just by the look in her eyes, I knew the Polish girl would jump in front of a bulletstorm for little Anna without any regrets.
Ben really knew how to pick 'em.
I quickly shook that unbecoming thought out of my mind and followed Zofia's form as she walked into the school building for the first of her tests with my eyes. Ben had offered to take the young blonde, but he didn't know I had long made arrangements with the young babysitter slash adoptive sister before him.
And he had that thing to go to that his former training officer invited him to. Ben desperately needed to check with reality on how to handle a hostage situation. Jessica Russo did seem like an expert from my brief investigation into her.
"What do you say, my little sunshine? Farmer's market or the mall?"
I studied my girl's serious expression in the rearview mirror. It looked like she wouldn't find an answer soon.
"How about we try and find you the sweetest peach there ever was at the market?" I asked with an enticing grin and little Anna immediately perked up with an eager nod.
Laughing, I put on some kid music that she recently took a liking to and put the car in drive, merging with the traffic.
Personally, I thought the songs were vulgar and I heavily disliked the fact that Ben's colleague Luca bought her that Charlie Waffles' CD… but in a weird sense these songs like 'I Drink from a Sippy Cup' and 'Who Cut the Cheese?' were absolutely catchy. And they made Anna smile.
That was the most important.
And apparently Mister Waffles, real name Harper died in a train station in France? That, too, seemed to have been a good thing. From the footage I found, I was positive every concert he ever held was done coked up to his gills or just straight up hammered out of his mind. I was sure of it.
I shook my head and concentrated on the traffic.
Two hours later, Anna and I were once more in the car.
I had seen the uncles of Ben's ex and left the market before I was forced to make awkward smalltalk with them. It was time for Anna's pediatric appointment anyway.
"Doctor Melnick will be with you shortly," a kindly smiling receptionist told me when I announced myself at the front desk and I was made to sit in a room full of sick children and the most gouge-your-eyes-out decor I had ever seen. The life of a single mother was really draining. Even if I technically wasn't doing it all alone anymore.
I really craved that adrenaline rush from undercover work and I hoped dealing with the Brayden problem would do that.
Thankfully, Anna stayed quiet in my lap, though it was likely because she was playing around with the photo albums on my phone like she usually did.
After what felt like an eternity, Anna and I were moved into a patient room, but the doctor didn't come in immediately.
Anna now had an eye-exam book for children to play with, while I browsed my phone. I would get a call later in the night about a potential job. Plus, Ben had alerted me to stay out of Burbank and do what I could to bring Anna home to safety.
A prison transfer had crashed some time before noon and now an hour later, five more criminals were still on the loose.
'Three more escaped convicts caught in Cherry Canyon Transfer Crash,' I read with some relief after hitting refresh on the news ticker in an app. Any number of escaped hardcore felons was worrying, but with just two more on the run and Ben on the case, my worry was greatly alleviated.
"Hellooo~" a tall blonde man with a friendly smile and a white doctor's coat greeted us as he stepped into the room. "I am Doctor Herb Melnick - and you must be Anna Caster?"
The giant squatted down to meet Anna's eye level and she just tilted her head in curiosity.
She didn't answer him and the silent seconds were drawn out more and more awkwardly. Eventually the doctor turned to me and waddled over still crouching down and offered me a hand.
It looked ridiculous. I hoped it was to make Anna think he was funny and not because was actually stupid.
"Hi, Emilia Caster, the mother," I greeted.
"Ah! British," he guessed with a knowing smile.
I fought rolling my eyes with my entire being. I didn't exactly hide the accent.
"I've read the case files you sent over, quite a complicated history for a girl her size," Doctor Melnick said and finally straightened out before sitting on a stool that would allow him to examine Anna on the patient table without towering over the patient while standing.
"Yep, but we aren't here for a follow-up. According to Doctor Montgomery, Anna's Severe Aplastic Anemia was fixed with the bone marrow transplant from her father. All tests and blood samples since then have shown everything to be as great as they could possibly be. And no indications for any rejection, either," I calmly answered.
"Then what can I do for you?" Doctor Melnick asked with a raised brow.
It seemed he, too, knew about Doctor Addison Montgomery's reputation. It made sense, she sent me here, after all.
"Well, Doctor Montgomery is an OB/GYN, a neonatal surgeon and expert in genetics. She thankfully assisted in the transplant because of Anna's small age, but she advised me to look for another doctor going forward. She is not a pediatrician, and you were on her list of recommendations," I calmly answered.
"If you can afford Montgomery, you can afford Freedman," Melnick pointed out with a weirded out frown. The two doctors that the tall goofy-looking pediatrician named both worked in the same private practice and were well known around town. A doctor like Melnick would have obviously heard about them, I mused.
"Doctor Freedman and I did not like each other," I revealed with a small shrug. "And, no offense, I am here to have you give Anna some shots and maybe treat a sore nose, not diagnose a rare disease."
"None taken," the pediatrician immediately waved off. "Can't believe some medical rockstar like Addison Montgomery would recommend little old me. You think I had a chance to, you know, boink her?"
My eyes widened.
The man whispered the last part so Anna wouldn't hear - but what a ridiculous question to ask a patient's mother. I was about to stand up and bring my child to a different doctor, but the man slapped his own forehead and swiveled on his chair to look at Anna.
"On a scale from one to five, how brave are you, Anna? You can show me with your hands - this is one," the pediatrician showed with his index finger, "and it's not very brave," the now held his hand up for a high-five, "this is five, meaning very brave."
Anna's eyes lit up and held up her hand for a high-five that Doctor Melnick completed for her - which caught my daughter off-guard and made her giggle.
"We high-fived on it, so it must be true. I always like the brave patients. They get to take home two whole lollipops and they get to decide which color!"
Okay, so the man was a weirdo and potentially a pervert - but at least he seemed to be great with kids.
As I watched him distract Anna with examinations that doubled as playing around, Doctor Melnick checked her eyes, her reflexes and many other things one would normally do seeing a patient for the first time. Even his questions seemed to gauge the depths of her vocabulary and how developed she was for her age.
Montgomery hadn't lied, the man actually knew what he was doing.
As he was clowning around with her, he even managed to give her a shot without her noticing anything. She only looked mildly inconvenienced as he pressed a piece of gauze on the puncture wound from the needle but she also barely paid any attention because of the weird faces the doctor made.
Impressive.
Watching him hold up a bunch of lollipops and hoping that even that was a test to see if she had any color blindness, Anna decided on two green lollipops, ignoring the purple one and obviously any other color.
"I thought you said purple was your new favorite color now?" I coaxed gently with my daughter on my arms as she enjoyed her first sugary treat as we walked back to the car.
"No, green," she reaffirmed before tilting her head. "Why ask purpo?"
"I don't know, darling. Your daddy said you like the necklace from Aunt Annie?"
She nodded in reply.
"And that necklace was purple?"
She happily nodded again.
"But you still like green better?"
"Hmm, yes," she answered after a little bit of contemplation.
"Was your short dislike for the color green because of Sara?"
"No!" Anna firmly denied.
The answer came too quickly. I almost had to laugh myself. Her jealousy was too cute. And it showed how much she loved her father.
"You don't need to worry, I don't think we will see her again," I whispered into Anna's ears and she giggled because my breath tickled her.
But inwardly I sighed. Sara was a great match for Ben.
I had no clue how their envious chemistry ended up fizzling out so quickly. It seemed Ben didn't either. He was quite gloomy when he came down into the kitchen this morning.
After picking up a joyful Zofia from her first exams, the three of us made our way back home.
Well, Ben's home.
It was empty, Ben was still out.
"He better not do something dangerous again," Zofia muttered almost angrily as she came outside to the pool with drinks for everyone and a tight frown on her gorgeous face.
With a raised brow I looked at her in askance.
"News say Ben is in house with fugitive."
A groan escaped my lips. Of course he was.
"I thought he was still on mandatory leave," I whispered to myself in anger.
My eyes narrowed as I looked at Anna sitting at a table for a girl her size, coloring without a care in the world. She hadn't heard Zofia's outburst.
She wanted to make another 'thank you'-card for Auntie Juju because the last one made the seamstress so happy.
Just as I fought the urge to actually curse the man, my phone buzzed, Zofia's did, too.
"'Noticed the camera van parked outside. No worries, I'm not even the one negotiating with the hostage taker. Nolan is. I'm just keeping him company cause he had someone die in his arms earlier. Plus, we have the escaped convict surrounded and his only gun is taped to an old woman. No bombs. I'm perfectly safe,'" I read out loud and sighed in relief.
"He does better, good," Zofia whispered to herself with a wide grin.
Another few hours later, Anna was dozing off in my arms. She had wanted to stay awake until her daddy came home, but it seemed it was another late day for the workaholic who was technically not even allowed to work for a few more days.
Sitting in the main house with High School Musical on the TV, muted because I could sing along inside my head and my daughter was asleep, I heard a car park outside - Ben's charger.
"Hello ladies," the father of my child greeted us in a small voice but with a wide grin and leaned over the back of the couch to kiss Anna's temple. "How was your day?"
"Once more not as eventful as yours. I told you about her vaccinations and the doctor via text? Everything else was fine. Anna wanted to wait until you came home to go to bed, so we're here."
"Sorry," Ben excused with a disarming smile and an adoring look for Anna as she scrunched her face up mid sleep. "Hicks was there when we got the last felon and he brought his daughter."
"And you're so happily grinning… why? Got a date?"
"Hmm, I kind of do and kind of don't," he answered with a thoughtful but happy look.
"Sounds complicated. I thought you didn't want to do 'complicated'?"
"Molly is smart, witty, caring and gorgeous. Since Hicks seems to be insisting, I should at least give it a try. I'm simply not sure if it's a date because we're going to 3C in the hopes of laying the groundwork for a service for women living in abusive homes. That's close to the least romantic thing I can think of for a first date," the man answered with a shrug and sat down on the lone chair to look at his daughter cradled in my arms. As much as I loved the adoring look in Zofia's eyes reserved for our daughter, nothing truly beat how happy I was with the way her father looked at her pretty much every time he entered a room and thought nobody was looking.
"You could do a date where you're joking about how easy women have it if they're pretty and feed her gas station sushi before insisting on a 50:50 split on the check," I proposed.
He nodded in deep contemplation and continued, "Maybe I don't shower and show up without deodorant on and a stained shirt, then comment about her makeup and skin routine."
"Catcall other women, we love that, especially while out on a date."
He looked surprised, but I could see the mocking in his eyes.
"Don't want her to think she has any worth as a person, maybe I could talk about how she wouldn't need to continue her job as my girl because I'm all she ever needs," he pondered out loud and I finally had to laugh.
"Looks like you got it covered," I mused with a grin and began to stand up.
Anna was still fast asleep, she didn't even notice as her father gave her another loving kiss on her head as I moved past him.
"Tomorrow is your turn to put her to bed, don't forget if you're going on another misadventure," I softly warned as I stepped outside - and heard the bell ring.
Leaving Ben to tend to any guest alone this late into the night, I brought Anna into the guest house I made my residence and put her to sleep in my bed.
Getting ready for bed in the adjacent bathroom, I peaked out of the window and saw - to my surprise - Sara Ellis.
She had dragged Ben outside as the two were hungrily making out. Sara's dress became undone with three opened buttons and a short zipper. She had nice, matching wine red underwear on.
Maybe I should buy some new lingerie and pick up a one-night stand in a bar or something…
Just as I remembered how nice and attentive he was as a lover because I saw the evidence right before me, Ben and Sara - now both fully naked - moved their activity into the pool.
It made me contemplate that I should probably call the cleaning service Ben paid for tomorrow, especially for the pool.
It had been much, much too long since I had gotten laid myself. So I knew exactly why I did it and enjoyed myself doing so, but watching them hungrily devour each other still made me feel a little guilty.
And despite him having that not-date-date tomorrow, I couldn't really fault Ben for his actions.
That redhead was a smokeshow despite how hard-to-get she tried to play it before.
Ready for bed, I did not go to sleep just yet. Instead, I sat down next to the open door facing the pool area downstairs. The acoustics of the place allowed me to easily hear what the two were doing and talking about.
Without someone to scratch my itch and my natural curiosity, as well as my vested interest in who the father of my child would end up with if it wasn't me, I decided to listen in and enjoy the show.
Half an hour later, the two were awfully quiet, but I knew they were still there even if I didn't peek around the corner to take a look.
"That was nice," Ben said quietly and I heard Sara chuckle.
"It seems I need to up my game then, huh?"
No, she really didn't. At least that was my opinion.
"Not sure I can handle an upped game from you," Ben countered with a small chuckle.
So it was Ben's opinion, too.
"I must admit, I had kind of lost hope," Ben eventually said, yet again in a quiet voice.
As if he knew I could listen in but thought I couldn't if he was as quiet as the white-noise gurgling of the pool pump.
Though, in all fairness, I couldn't hear a thing from my own bedroom and Ben probably only tested that. Thankfully, I cheated by sitting near the open door on the other side of the guest house.
"I'm so sorry, Ben, I… I don't know," Sara answered, losing all of her earlier bravado.
"I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, but I was kind of worried, you know. Mostly for you and your well-being," Ben continued on with a sigh.
Oh no, that was his 'I'm just a little bit disappointed voice' that he used on me once he got past that I lied to him about how we met.
"What else were you worried about?"
Uuuhhh, wrong question Sara! Was she trying to push him away? What other answer could it be but that guy in the picture on the news!? What an own-goal!
"I mean, that's going to sound ridiculous since we aren't really dating yet… but that guy holding you? I respect your privacy, but your long silence left a lot of room for imagination," Ben revealed and I heard the rustling and splashing of someone sitting up. It sounded like Sara.
And by Ben's groan, I knew exactly where she sat down again. So she decided to play unfair! But, I didn't really think that was going to work out as well as she hoped. Ben wasn't a horndog, else I would have just slept with him again to make him forget that I lied about needing his money and to make him forget that I worked for that psycho Dutch drug lord.
"Is that really so important?"
"Sara, I," Ben stopped mid-sentence. That seductress didn't even let him talk properly!
"Sara, it's important," the father of my child suddenly said a little more forcefully.
Wow, it didn't sound like he liked that… at least not fully. I knew Ben had it in him, but he still probably should have waited until after…
"You're obviously someone I could see myself getting very close to. We had an instant connection, or so I thought. We, I, no, yes, I don't want to start this as some kind of afterthought, or a test or something. I really like you, and I'd loath for this to be some kind of one and done. We clicked too much for that."
How mature… and how very 'Ben' of him.
"You don't want this to just be physical?" Sara asked, and I had to admit. The way she said it, it sounded enticing even to my heterosexual ears.
But she didn't know Ben as well as she thought she did. I could already see him getting angry in my mind's eye. He heavily disliked getting played. When people thought he was stupid or that his words meant nothing.
His words were worth their weight in gold. He was usually quiet because he was very conscious of what he said and promised. It was as reassuring as it was infuriating. His style of communication was something you definitely needed to get used to since he played everything close to his chest.
"I said no tests," Ben mumbled defeatedly. I almost didn't hear him this time because of how quiet he had gotten.
Okay, not angry. Sad? That was new, but maybe Ben and I just never shared the same deep connection as he did with Sara.
"You're serious?" Now it seemed to have become Sara's turn to be emotional.
That would have been my cue to say something sarcastic, but Ben kept it in.
And it seemed he kept 'it' inside of her, too. Go get it, Ben!
"Well, if you're up for it, I'd like to see where this goes?"
Poor daughter of his boss. Missed her chance by one night. If she ever even thought about their upcoming appointment as a date.
Just as it got juicy again, my phone started to vibrate.
With a silent groan, I retreated back into the house and accepted the call.
"*Miss Sun,*" a robotic voice greeted me on the other end of the line.
"A ribbon at a time," I replied with my safety phrase. A single-line quote from an Emily Dickinson poem about the sun. It was so sad that I didn't get to choose my identity at the agency. The codename and the phrases to answer them all sucked.
"*A client has requested our assistance in the retrieval of a certain precious item. You will need to infiltrate a US congressman's home, should you choose to accept. The agency chose you as the first contractor because of your proximity and your skillset,*" the voice offered once the other side accepted my identity.
I stayed silent for a long time.
In real life, you very rarely ever got lucky - least of all when it came to spy work. I refused to believe - should this mission be for Senator Brayden's home - that this was a coincidence. It could very well be a trap.
I had an inkling about who ran the agency, but I had no idea whatsoever if they were working together with the people behind Brayden. I knew outwardly that they didn't. But the thing about people powerful enough to run such an organization is that they hardly show all their cards.
Finishing that thought, I steeled my will and answered, "I refuse the mission."
"*That is your hard-earned right,*" the robotic voice answered, but the call didn't drop like it usually would.
"*Stay safe, Miss Sun.*"
And then the line finally dropped.
"Weird," I whispered to myself. This had never happened.
The last line felt oddly supportive, but I didn't really care about that. They seemed to know what Ben and I were up to in regards to Brayden.
They knew.
And that wasn't good news at all.
Hurrying to the cabinet where I kept my guns and other tools for my work hidden, I operated the hidden levers and got the gun out. Next, I checked the whole house for bugs.
Bugs other than the ones Ben and I put inside to monitor anyone entering the premises.
They were how I knew Ben and that extra-large muscleman killed Jeffrey Baptiste because he dared to rig explosives inside the main house despite Ben not outwardly telling me.
They were how I knew I could trust Ben to go through with killing any threat to our daughter despite working for the police. Despite telling me we couldn't just kill Senator Brayden.
I knew that Ben would be the first to take the shot once we confirmed that it was okay to end his life.
Nobody could harm a single hair on my daughter's head and get away with it. Nobody could threaten me with Anna and live to enjoy their life.
Done with the checks, I found no extra bugs. So I messaged Ben to check his systems for intruders.
He was very meticulous, extra pedantic about his protocols going as far using a four-step authentication process with algorithms and logging enabled, so I doubted someone got access that he didn't know about. The man was so paranoid, he went as far as tracking all traffic to his servers to the level of being able to account for every hop the encrypted packages went through and checking the physical nodes remotely and manually. And other steps even I didn't really understand.
If he wasn't such a nerd about it, I had to admit it was hot to watch him go through his network safety protocols that made him look like a deranged doomsday prepper who watched too many conspiracy videos on youtube.
Unless the NSA or a similar institution was behind the Agency and used their latest tool, nothing would escape Ben's notice.
I was sure of it.
Which meant they had other ways to monitor us. But to my knowledge, even stealth drone technology was not advanced enough to record audio yet, let alone allow someone to read lips from footage recorded through a window inside a house.
Taking several kinds of cameras that would allow me to see infrared, heat, and other visual spectrums, I checked if Ben and Sara were still outside by the pool, saw that they had moved into the house, and began checking the property.
The infrared camera allowed me to quickly find a camera that didn't come from Ben. It reflected from inside the landscaper's water supply. But I watched the gardener, a reformed felon that Ben hired specifically. He didn't install it.
The man was devoted to Ben for giving him and his nephew the lucrative business of tending to the large greenery of the luxurious mansion. And, not that he knew for sure, but Ben told me he had given the man the loan to buy his equipment to get started.
The father of my child knew how to instill loyalty into people. He was a natural born leader, a shining role model. Someone the crowd would ask to lead because he would never take the position himself.
"I don't know who you are, but you better not have left any clues behind," I mumbled to myself after disconnecting the camera.
It was battery powered and extremely high-tech. Despite all of that, I doubted that the battery life was more than a week.
Someone had to come regularly to maintain it.
Finding no other spy gear with my own equipment, I got out the frequency scanner that Ben had made himself. Something he learned how to put together while undercover. Nothing that sent out any kind of signal would escape its notice.
I found nothing, but that didn't surprise me.
If whoever was behind the first camera saw me take out one, they could have disabled the others remotely until a later time, lulling me, us, into a false sense of safety.
Ben would need to rework the security of this place.
And I left three of the signal sniffers out and running, which would allow me to triangulate all the devices once they were turned back on.
To think that life at MI6 was turbulent… having the child of a selfless 'hero' seemed to be much worse in that regard.
"Sorry Anna," I whispered to my sleeping daughter once I joined her in bed. "Maybe I was too hasty in promising that you won't need to see Sara again."