Operation: Square Dance Tango
Or, The Lady Wore Black and the Farmer Wore Plaid
Mimi Clark came to Jericho on a mission.
Her cover was perfect. IRS agent from DC. No one questioned the IRS part. It was boring but vaguely threatening. The DC part was plausible, and so obvious, no one ever made the connection she dreaded them making.
She'd had years of training and experience, and she expected this mission to be like any other. Two things happened to throw her off completely. The second was the fact that the bombs went off the day after she arrived in Jericho, but the first occurred on her arrival.
Stanley Richmond was unlike any mark she'd ever been sent to investigate. She wasn't sure why. There seemed, on the surface, to be nothing remarkable about him at all. She could hardly believe he was the dangerous force she'd been anticipating as she went over the briefs she'd been given in the plane's bathroom. His laid back, fun-loving persona threw her off. It was surprising how well he had constructed his cover. Most surprising to her, she was forced to admit as she lay awake in her room at the bed and breakfast, was how she didn't want to believe it was a cover.
His effect on her was something she'd never experienced before. Never, in all her years on the job, had she ever found herself reacting with so little of her trademark calm collectedness. Sure, she was still a woman, but she was a professional, first and foremost. Something about this seemingly simple, good natured farmer made her want to throw it all away and give in to desires she'd buried for so long she barely recognized them. And strangest of all, something about him made her want to believe he was what he seemed, despite everything she knew from her training and her information.
Still, the bombs had gone off on her second day in Jericho. Her mission was more imperative now than ever, and had to come first and foremost. She continued to play her part convincingly, publicly clinging to her role and principles as a government employee, pretending grief, horror, and shock at the destruction of her hometown, and most importantly, continuing to get closer to Stanley Richmond with dogged determination.
She couldn't tell if he was catching on to her or not, he played his part with such equal ease. He continued to send her irritated glares when she showed up on his property, agreed grudgingly to host her when she claimed to have been evicted from the bed and breakfast, and found ways to subvert her investigation with seemingly innocent obstacles and objections. This was as she expected. She'd dealt with more formidable foes in the past. The part that was unexpected was the look he'd get on his face sometimes, or the way he'd accidentally brush against her as they navigated the small house that contained them. She wondered if it was all for an effect, if he somehow caught onto those tiny weaknesses that were surfacing from within her, or if he was merely experiencing some weakness of his own.
As she kept up her cover by day and performed her tasks by night, she felt that they were joined together in some bizarre dance, testing and provoking each other silently while teasing and disparaging each other out loud. One night she searched the entire kitchen, certain the clues she needed to find would be hidden amidst the silverware, pots and pans, and stale crackers. Her exhaustive search turned up nothing, and the next morning, when he questioned her, she was almost certain that under the joking response he gave to her quick story about reorganizing the 'triangle', he knew exactly the game they were both playing.
Most frustrating of all, she was certain the barn held the key to her mission, but she couldn't get near it. He was always hovering around there during the day, and when he wasn't, his sister was there to suggest disgusting chores for their guest to perform. By night, the few times she skulked her way out of the house and across the yard, she'd find the barn empty, and her searches only turned up dead mice and rotting pig slop. As she lay in her bed for a few hours at the end of each unproductive night, she would despair at the failure her life had become, but sometimes, she'd also catch herself anticipating sitting across from the farmer at the breakfast table. Each time, supremely annoyed with herself, she would roll over and begin to go through the facts of the case for the millionth time.
Stanley Richmond had been entrusted with a mission.
His parents had left him their legacy when they died, one they had been preparing him for his entire life.
His earliest memories involved watching his parents in the lab, his father working out complicated problems on the chalkboard that folded into the wall, his mother mixing chemical compounds on the table that collapsed easily under the trapdoor. He'd learned early on how to distinguish the strange visitors his parents sometimes received from the well meaning small town friends and neighbours who would invite his father to go hunting or plead with his mother to enter one of her delicious recipes in the fundraising bake-off. Usually the strange visitors had funny accents, business suits, or small cars, but the most common trait they seemed to share was an invisible quality - they seemed like they could be anybody. His parents would meet with them, in the house or in the barn, and Stanley would play the dutiful son and occupy himself with the tire swing or his bicycle.
As he got older, he managed to eavesdrop on the meetings a few times, and what he heard assuaged a deep seated fear he'd held for a long time. He'd worried that his parents might be working for the bad guys, but one day, as they rapidly debated something with an old colleague, he could hear the truth in their passionate words: they truly wanted to invent things that would help to better their world.
At eight years old, he confronted them with what he had heard. They were only mildly surprised; they had truthfully expected him to catch on quickly, he was such a smart child. He sat up late with his parents that night, discussing the family business. He learned it went back many generations, and that it would one day be his responsibility to take over the lab, inventing and creating things most ordinary people would never dream of, all with the purpose of helping their society. His parents promised him it would all be his, and encouraged him to make them proud, but most of all, they warned him of the need for secrecy. There were others out there who would like nothing more to get their hands on the Richmond creations and use them to do harm to others. Stanley nodded solemnly at all of this, and gave his parents his word that he would protect the secret always.
He learned quickly, and did his part to fit into the image his parents had created, that was so vital to the survival of their work. He continued to work on the farm, play with his friends, and even learned to limit himself in science class, getting C's, so that no one would ever become suspicious of the vastly superior intellect he had inherited.
When he was eighteen, he kept up the facade, going along with the story that his parents were killed in a car accident, though he privately mourned their death at the hands of an enemy he knew was lurking in the shadows. Though he wished he could just take off and travel the country, seeking out vengeance for his parents' deaths, he kept his vow to them. He inherited two legacies.
Besides their secret lab in the barn, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond left behind an adored daughter. Stanley had held her when she was born and his parents had explained to him that they hoped he would understand the sacrifice they were asking of him. He was the first born, and would have to carry on with the family business, but Bonnie was so much younger, innocent, and could be raised in blissful ignorance. While it wasn't fair to their first born child, they couldn't resist the opportunity to protect at least one child from the life they had been forced into long ago. Stanley had insisted that he wouldn't have it any other way. He adored his baby sister as much as they did.
His resolve, both to carry on in their name and continue protecting Bonnie, was only strengthened in the aftermath of their deaths. He knew how close Bonnie had come to being killed by the world they'd all been protecting her from, and he made a silent vow, as he stood over her hospital bed, that he would never again let her get hurt by their family legacy. So it was that Bonnie Richmond grew up a healthy, well adjusted and reasonably happy farm girl, knowing everything about animals and small town life, and nothing about the greater picture that her parents had contributed to and died serving.
When Mimi Clark first arrived on the farm, Stanley knew to be suspicious. Bonnie instinctively loathed her, but Stanley's apprehension ran much deeper. He knew he had no choice but to play along with her games, despite the way she kept getting ever closer to the truth he'd worked so hard to hide. It was his only chance to protect both legacies. At least, that was how he rationalized it to himself as he lay awake at night, trying to get her out of his head.
If he had really been smart, a genius as his parents had put it, he would have found a way to get rid of her right away. She was dangerous, and getting even more dangerous the more time she spent near him. He should have taken her out, quickly and quietly. It wasn't as if he didn't have the resources. But, he would tell himself again as he lay in the dark, she probably had the resources too. If she got to him first, there would be no one between her and the people she worked for, and Bonnie and the legacy. He had no choice but to keep up the charade, pretending to be annoyed when she bumped into him in the hallway or raided his laundry basket when her clothes began to run out. No choice.
He considered it once. Cutting her off at the pass, before she could do his family any harm. He contemplated the shelf of bottles, hidden behind the cow's trough, one morning during his chores. His hand closed over a small red bottle. Jerichonium Number Twelve, his mother's special invention. A poison that would affect the drinker instantly, unless the drinker had been immunized with a small amount prior to the exposure. His mother had immunized him when he was nine. Thinking of her, of his father, of the daughter they had so loved and the burden they had entrusted him with, he poured a few drops from the bottle into the pail of milk.
She had been seated at the table, eating from a box of dry cereal, when he had first gone out, and she hadn't seen him looking at her. Now, she was eating the cereal in a bowl. It was too easy. He played the usual game, trading insults and pretending to flirt, and she played along. Before he knew it, he had poured the milk into her bowl. Keeping his face perfectly blank, he watched her put her spoon back into the bowl.
She was not to be trusted, and could destroy everything, but he felt an overwhelming desire to dash over and knock the bowl out of her hands. He felt two sides at war within him. He nearly screamed out loud as she put the spoon to her lips, but just as he was about to make a move, she spat it out.
They were back to their game in the next moment, her exclaiming her disgust and him pretending to be slightly amused as he took the bowl himself, and he was glad that his many years of hiding helped him, in this moment, to hide the relief he felt.
The morning that changed everything began as most mornings did. He sleepily went about his chores, having forced himself to stay awake through much of the night, straining to hear the extremely faint sounds of her night time searching. He milked the cows, fed the chickens, and swept up before turning to his most important task of each morning. He pulled the third rope against the south wall, and watched the trap door open and the metal platform began rising from underneath the floor.
Before he knew what was happening, she was swooping down from her hiding place in the hayloft. Her face was triumphant as she stepped forward, staring at the rising box. He stepped forward quickly, trying to get in between them.
"You!" was all he could manage, but he held his ground, drawing himself up as tall as he could in front of her.
"I knew the only way to find it was to wait for you to show me," she said, smiling covertly, It infuriated him, but also stirred another emotion in him, one that he pushed away as quickly as he could.
"You're from the East, aren't you?" he asked.
"What if I am?" she asked, raising one eyebrow.
"I knew it!" he said, his expression a mixture of fury and disgust.
"Well, look who you're working for!" she countered. "It wasn't our side that nuked the country."
"I'm not working for anyone," he said. "And how do I know that?"
"I was sent here to find the other bomb. The missing bomb," she said, glancing pointedly over his shoulder.
"Why, so you could deliver it to its rightful owners?" he asked. "Last person who came here for that purpose was disposed of."
"So I could get it away from the West," she said, her eyes aglow with indignation. "I've been trying to stop them for months."
"Yeah? How's that going?" he asked, almost pleased that he could make her eyes flash so angrily.
"Until now, not good!" she said.
"So what, you're going to kill me?" he asked. "You don't know what I've done. I've been protecting this forever. When they came to get it, to collect the order, I kept them away."
"Why should I believe you?" she asked. "I've heard stories like that before."
"Fine. Then kill me instead," he said. "I bet you can't do it."
If possible, she looked even more angered. "I've taken down bigger and stronger players with just a sharpie pen and my own wits. I could kill you this second and walk away."
"Yeah, I'd like to see that," he sputtered. "Why don't you get out your sharpie now and teach me a -"
"Shut up!" she said then, grabbing his face and pulling him towards her. The rest of his words died on his lips as they connected with hers. They kissed, hungrily and passionately. Her training and experience flew out of her mind as she desperately ran her hands up his shirt and deepened the kiss. Worries about his legacies flitted from his head as he leaned into her, breathing her in holding her tighter.
Bonnie Richmond had been annoyed with the intrusive IRS agent, ever since she had first met her, and even more when she was informed that she would be expected to share a living space with her.
Her irritation grew the day she came home to find the annoying house guest's laundry strewn around the kitchen, along with her brother's. Mimi couldn't be trusted to get any chore, even putting away clothes, right. The fury she felt towards the DC refugee reached a fever pitch in the next moment, as Bonnie opened the door and caught sight of Mimi, under the sheets and on top of her brother. She ran from the house, retreating as fast as she could from the shattering world her home was becoming.
"She doesn't know anything?" whispered Mimi a few minutes later, as Stanley climbed back in beside her.
Stanley shook his head, turning on his side to look at her. "My parents thought they could raise one normal, happy kid, away from it all."
She sighed and leaned her head against his chest. "Do you ever wish you didn't know?"
He thought silently, wrapping his arm around her, before answering, "No. I'm glad I could take over for my parents. They were good people. Geniuses, and they wanted to share their gifts, for the good of humanity." His brow was furrowed, and she listened silently. "Getting involved with the top secret government organization was a mistake. And the bomb was the biggest mistake of all. They knew they couldn't go back in time and stop themselves from making it, but they thought we could keep it out of the wrong hands."
She shifted over and placed a kiss on his shoulder. "It's tiring after a while, isn't it? Always having to hide who you are?"
He turned and brushed his mouth against hers in a soft kiss. "It is. But I think it'll be better now."
She raised an eyebrow at him, an inviting grin on her face.
With a grin of his own, he rolled over her and pressed his mouth down on hers.