The world was breaking. There was something in Hera's chest, deeper than her soul, constricting and twisting, stopping her heartbeat dead in it's tracks, making room for an ache. Tom was on his knees, clearing up the remnants of her mug, speaking to her but the world seemed to be devoid of sound. Her sight clouded until all she could see was the outline of the window she was looking into, distant and blurred, figures embraced in another house.
In an instant the world was restored with the bussing of a mobile phone. Sound squelched, unwelcomed, back into her ears and she looked down to the table next to her, her mobile phone had lit up and began rattling against the cold marble.
Daniel
The name on the phone shone through tears of frustration. She couldn't quite believe what had happened. Looking at her other side, Tom stood up next to her. His smile faded as he stood and saw there was something, something that wasn't there before, in her eyes.
"Hera?" He whispered, because he wasn't sure if she was looking at him or through him. The word grabbed her evaporating attention.
"Hey, Tom," she said with a small smile, "do you want some tea?" She asked as she passed him and walked to the kitchen. Tom followed after a moment of hesitation; Hera was acting strange. Her childish-like sweetness had vanished, the way she smiled with her lips and her eyes was no longer there, instead there was coldness and forced politeness. It was almost as though her old self were back.
When Tom had first met Hera, she had an awkwardness about her, like she hadn't known how to act around people that weren't involved in her job. The girl did not know what it was like to hang around "normal" people. In their first meeting she had tried to strangle him without question. As Tom followed her into the kitchen he realised what the strange air about her was; she didn't care about anyone.
"Are you alright?" Tom asked slowly as he watched her put the kettle on. Hera was staring out of the kitchen window, to Tom it must have looked as though she were idly eyeing up the hydrangeas in the garden for he was unable to see the way her eyes were dancing, catching sight of threads of the plan she was trying to weave. Sunshine shone through the window and Hera turned back to him.
"Fine, sorry, fine." She muttered quickly before gesturing to the papers in Tom's hand. "When are you going to show me this car?"
***
Mrs Jones was getting bored. She never let it show, she kept herself professional at all times, trying to show the younger members of the department that a life of hard work and discipline will leave you satisfied. She had reason to believe that her ruse wasn't working; junior staff were becoming complacent and arrogant. It was this ridiculous Swallowtail chase; Blunt had given orders to find them before the Americans and that meant overtime and obnoxious rewards for delivering useful information.
She clicked on her laptop through useless files sent to her by her agents. One after another, after another, after another, had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. Dull, boring, tireless work.
"Mrs Jones?" Her beady eyes flitted up from the screen for a moment to see an intern, scruffy and worn looking from the night shift, stood awkwardly at her office door. She must have been so absorbed in her work that she didn't hear him knock, she nodded to him to enter. Her eyes never left him as he crossed the room to her, he wore a suit that was too big for him, although Mrs Jones speculated it had fit him a few weeks ago and it was being worked ragged like this that had caused him to lose an unhealthy amount of weight in a short time. His chocolate coloured eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, he was nervous to be in front of such an esteemed colleague. Brushing waves of chestnut brown hair from his eyes and placing some files on her desk he stood to attention.
"We have found something, ma'am," Mrs Jones tried not to roll her eyes as she pleaded for him to hurry up. "The leader of Swallowtail has made contact." He said eagerly and Mrs Jones raised an eyebrow, secretly impressed. She didn't like to show her junior staff that she appreciated them or let them in on anything she knew so she kept quiet and gave a gentle nod. She moved forwards to take the top file.
"Thank you...?" She waited for his name.
"Goodchild," he responded happily, "Daniel." She smiled curtly at him before opening the file. In it was a single, creamy-yellow, post-it note with one word written in black, spidery ink: BOO. Mrs Jones dropped the file and looked up, the man was gone.
***
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