Choice: A Carmen Sandiego AU

Part 3: Escape

"You ready?"

Player's voice sparked through her comm. Carmen sighed.

"Yeah."

"Be careful, Red." Player warned. She made a little hushing noise.

Carmen rounded the corner. He was there, looking as he always did, sipping coffee.

Her mind was ever-whirling with thoughts of finding her mother.

She and Player had been working late nights searching for any clues, but they'd found nothing yet.

I must look tired.

She sat down at his table, forcing a little smile onto her face, shoving away the thoughts that had clouded her brain endlessly the past few weeks. "Third times a charm, huh? How can I help you, Gray- Grayahm." She corrected herself with a little laugh before he could.

She studied him, trying to guess the reason he'd invited her here.

"Look, Carmen. That night. I know you told me to forget about it, but I just can't seem to." Gray started. Carmen sighed inwardly, but kept listening. Of course, the night of the New Zealand Caper. She needed to start thinking of a cover story.

"I need to know more. I've heard...things. I need answers. Who are you, really?" He finished.

Despite herself, shock managed to flit over her face. That was the same line he's used on that fateful train ride so many months ago, when she'd sought to recruit him but had ended up, eventually, getting his memories erased.

Did he remember? One look into his eyes said he didn't. Still, there was something there....something new.

Things? What things had he possibly heard? From who?

She made her face drop back into the same relaxed smile she always had.

Be careful, Red. Player had warned her. Crackle had been dangerous. Graham? Not so much. But...but. What if? She'd seen him unflinchingly turn to kill a harmless old man. What about the times she hadn't been there to stop him? No training gave someone the guts to murder. It was something you were either born with, or you weren't.

She sighed. You're being paranoid, she chastened herself. VILE erased all his memories of me and his time on the isle.

He wanted to know who she was.

Who am I?

I 'm a superthief.

I'm a friend of many, enemy of more.

I thought I was a forgotten baby until a little while ago.

Truth? Lies? What do I tell him, him who I had told more than most people will ever know about me, though those stories lay in the vault of his mind that even he can't access?

"Well, I don't really know much about myself. My father died in a fire when I was a toddler, and my mother died of illness a couple weeks before that." Carmen started slowly. She glanced away. It was partially true. At least, it was what most thought about her mother. And, a fire had burned down her family home...that just wasn't the real cause of her father's death.

"I went to...boarding school. For about a year." She hated lying- especially about this. Lying was such a huge part of her job, but lying about her own past, something that had been twisted beyond recognition already? It hurt her to twist it more.

It's for his safety. The less he knows about me, the better. "Then, one day, I, uh..."

She stared at him. How could she describe that night? The night she'd prevented him from murdering someone? The night she'd irreversibly decided that she would never, ever steal for the organization that harmed for a living? She blinked, realizing she'd been staring off for a solid fifteen seconds.