The Clocks

Fortunately the twins, having fainted, were unaware of the messy conclusion of the affair. Immediately afterwards Jason had rushed to their room, followed more sedately by Akane who, after Miranda left with Eugenia, secured the connecting door behind her. By then Blair had arranged the twins on their backs on the floor, and Jason was between them holding their hands and looking anxious.

Akane knelt down in front of Jason. "Jason dear, there's something I need you to help me with, please?"

"I don't have to leave them alone, do I Mother?"

"No dear, you can stay right where you are. I just need you to answer a few questions, all right?"

"Sure. OK. As long as I can stay here till they wake up. They'll get better faster if I do. I can feel it."

Blair and Akane exchanged a meaningful glance then snickered slightly. If they kept doing that they were going to look like the cliched protagonists in a cheesy light novel. Then again so much had happened in the past day that it had probably been warranted.

Akane found herself a chair. "Do you have an idea why the girls fainted?"

"Oh. That. Of course I do."

Akane smiled at him with a touch of exasperation. "Jason. A question like that needs details, not just confirmation or denial."

He wanted to bonk himself on the head but he was loath to let go of either girl's hand. He'd try hard to remember what his mother had just said. "Yes Mother. Genie just learned today how to speak to us in our minds. She's having trouble not sending her emotions over the link. I did too for a while at the beginning. Right there at the end I could feel it, and I know that Yoko and Hibiki could too."

Akane looked at him expectantly.

"Oh yes, details. Sorry. Anyway she was feeling angry, and scared. She was also, I'm not completely sure what the right word is, but maybe 'determined'? Maybe sorta like if you saw a kitten had fallen into a fountain and you knew it couldn't get out and would drown if you didn't help it? And you hated cats 'cause you had an awful allergy, but there wasn't anyone else around to save it so you had to do it anyway 'cause you didn't want to have bad dreams about it if you didn't."

He shook his head, and thought about his example for a bit. "No, that's not quite right. It was more like she knew it was the right thing to do if she wanted to protect the people she loved, and if she didn't then a lot of people were going to be hurt. She hated doing it, like I said, but she knew it had to be her because there wasn't any time.

"It felt awful. I can see why the girls fainted. I guess I didn't because I think I understand how she thinks better than they do, so it didn't hurt me as much. It's probably cause I've always had to do things I didn't want to, and didn't understand all that well, but I knew that it was the right thing -- at least after someone explained it to me."

He smiled down at the twins, who were beginning to stir. "That's part of why I love them so much I guess. When they make me do something, it doesn't hurt nearly so bad, because I can feel that they do it because they love me and want to help me."

There were tears in his eyes. "I didn't understand that kind of love before you know. I do understand what it's like to love someone in your family, even Kaho when she's not very nice to me. It used to make me mad, but then I saw other people's older brothers and sisters treating them the same way, and I eventually realized that they're like that cause it's embarrassing for them to say they love you.

"Now I also know what it's like to love someone who isn't family. At first I wanted to be with them because they helped me understand things, but that was all. I maybe even liked them a little bit. It's different now. I can't imagine living without them, and I think that if we're separated far enough that I can't feel them, I'll get sick."

He put on his clinical, analytical face. "As a matter of fact, if it were for very long, I might even die."

This time, even though Akane had chided Miranda about the exact same thing, her eyebrow rose toward the ceiling. Unknowingly Jason might just have hit upon the reason why twins born in The City would die if they were separated by too great a distance or for a long time. They'd lose their emotional support and wouldn't be able to find a reason to continue to live. She'd have to investigate further, and consult with certain people, but she was positive that Jason had hit that nail squarely on the head.

When she published the results of her research it was going to.... Wait a minute. She couldn't publish it. If she did it would be handing their enemies an exact "how to" recipe for torturing any twin that they wanted to extract information from, and there were a lot of them serving in sensitive positions.

No matter. She was going to write it up anyway. A few, select people would need to know, if only to protect themselves from security breaches resulting from a twin trying to save the life of their counterpart who had been captured or kidnapped.

Not for the first time she wished that she lived in a world where important new advances could be safely disseminated to anyone who could make use of them. However she didn't live in such a world. Until the dream of worldwide peace came to fruition, there would always have to be secrets, and that was that.

"You're making progress little one."

She looked around the room to see where the oddly familiar voice had come from. She saw no one. Maybe she was imagining it. She knew that she had an overactive imagination and almost convinced herself that that's what it was.

Her reverie was interrupted by Blair. "Let's get them home, soaked, and into bed."

She turned to Jason. "I think I'll need your help with them again. They're too weak to manage it by themselves. Hmmm."

She turned her head toward Akane and added, "Akane, will you help this time while I get things set up in their room? Since Genie won't be there it might be a good idea."

Akane nodded her understanding. The three of them were entering prime hormone territory and, especially because of what Jason had just said about the twins, the likelihood of them being safe alone in the bath would be vanishingly small.

--------------------

When her eyes first opened, Eugenia found herself looking at nothing in particular, just the familiar interplay of light and shadow from the sun reflected off the floor tiles onto the ceiling of her room. The second thing she noticed was that something definitely didn't smell very good. Lifting her sleeve to her face she sniffed. Unfortunately her first guess was right. What smelled was her.

Wait a minute? Sleeve? She always slept in a sleeveless shirt this time of year. What was going on? That was when it hit her. What she was seeing on the ceiling was familiar, yes, but it was something you only saw in the middle of the day. Why was she still in bed?

She sat bolt upright as her memory caught up with her. Oh... Briefly she considered vomiting but decided that the protracted episode the day before had been more than enough for the rest of her life, so that was out of the question. She fought down the queasiness, threw back the covers, and swung herself into a sitting position on the side of the bed.

OK. Not dizzy. Disgusted, sickened, ashamed, and humiliated, yes, but not dizzy. As she cautiously probed her feelings, she realized that "determined" and "assured" were somewhere in the mix as well. She was still a bit too muzzy to try to sort everything out, so she stood and began a kata she'd learned from Master Hiroshi that would help her loosen up both her mind and body.

As she was about to finish, there was a confident knock on her door. She continued the kata but said, "Enter."

The family's senior maid Mimi McPhee entered. "Madame wanted the bath ready when you awakened. All is in readiness Miss."

Genie wrapped up her kata then headed for the door. "Thanks Mimi, I appreciate it."

Mimi bobbed her head then whisked herself away. She had a number of other tasks to complete and wanted to finish them in time to take a break before sunset.

When Genie reached the bathing room she stripped off her clothes and threw them in the hamper reserved for donations to the poor. She was certain that she wouldn't want to wear them, or even see them, ever again. It was already likely that she was going to have nightmares about the previous night. She didn't need something in her wardrobe to remind her of it.

A few minutes after she had lowered herself into the soaking tub, she was surprised by her mother entering the room.

Uncharacteristically she also removed her clothes, washed, then joined Genie.

Miranda stretched and sighed. "This feels marvelous. I really should make time to relax like this more often. Did you know that in most parts of the world families never bathe together? I talked to Akane about it the other day, and she said that it seems to be directly related to whether or not there are natural hot springs. Where there are, like here and in Japan, it's quite common.

"I suspect that, in other areas that get very cold, houses are smaller so as to make heating them easier in winter, and there isn't room for a large bath. I imagine that there likely isn't enough fuel available for heating the water either. In the tropics people probably just bathe in the nearest stream or river, or maybe in the ocean. I'm not sure about that but it seems reasonable, don't you think?"

With that last, Miranda turned to Genie with a question in her gaze that had nothing to do with what she'd been saying.

"I'm OK mother. At least I think I will be. What Mrs. Fukui said felt like it would if you were on the ground and a friend offered you a hand up, then kicked your legs out from under you when you were almost standing. I know she meant well. Heck, now that my head is working again, I'm positive I know why she did it. I just don't think that she needed to say anything at all. I'd already thought about all of that before I killed him."

When she finished, she looked directly at her mother and held her gaze. What she'd said had been in a calm and measured tone, but her eyes showed a hint of uncertainty and question of her own. She was only 16 years old and in desperate need of reassurance from an adult that she trusted.

Miranda quickly revised what she'd planned to say. While this kind of response had occupied the back of her mind as a possibility, she'd been better prepared for hysterics. She snorted inwardly. Just goes to show you that no matter how well you know them, you can't always predict what even those closest to you will do. She made a mental note to remember that the next time she needed to figure out what someone she was investigating, and therefore didn't know nearly as well, was likely to do.

"Genie dear, this is difficult, for me as well as for you. I'm your superior in the intelligence community, but also your mother. As the former I'm responsible for training you and honing your skills -- and judgement. As the latter, I want to protect you and keep you from ever again being in a situation like last night where you have to make a life or death decision.

"I guess every good parent wants to protect their children as long as possible. The hard part is figuring out when to stop protecting and when to start supporting your child as they begin making decisions for themselves. Right now both my jobs are telling me that you're right on the border between the two, which makes things even more difficult.

"Does that make sense?"

Genie nodded, with some evident relief. "So what do we do now?"

Miranda's eyes lost focus as she thought, so she didn't notice the change in Genie's expression as she said, "The first thing I do is talk to Akane. She's newer to this than any of us. Last night proved that Lady Blue was right when she said that Akane should be our strategist, but Akane's tactical skills are woefully lacking. But then, that's why Blair and I are there, right?"

She looked back at Eugenia and saw astonishment and disbelief. "What did you just say? Mrs. Fukui is a strategist? Since when? I thought she was just some stuck-up biddy who was there last night because of Jason. And who in blue blazes is 'Lady Blue'?"

Miranda facepalmed. She'd been so worried about Genie that she'd blurted out things that were, at best, premature. Now what was she going to do? Hearing peals of high pitched laughter in her mind didn't help the situation either. Sometimes that one was much more childish than her children. Seeing an image of Lady Blue sticking out her tongue and then rolling on the floor while she continued laughing confirmed her assessment.

"OK. We'll do this. We'll discuss them separately, starting with Mrs. Fukui. I don't EVER want to hear you speak so disrespectfully of an elder again, do you understand me Eugenia Catarina?"

Uh-oh. Miranda never spoke to Genie like that unless she was in deep doo-doo. She leapt to her feet, bowed, and stammered, "Yes Ma'am. No Ma'am. I won't Mother. Not ever!"

Miranda gestured for Eugenia to sit again. "Not that I disagree with you, she was a stuck-up biddy. However, she isn't any more. She's now working with Hiroshi, Blair, and I as our strategist. You don't have a need to know why or how it happened. You just have to accept that what is, is. Am I understood."

Genie responded with a subdued, "Yes Ma'am."

Miranda laced her fingers before her and stretched. "Now, as for Lady Blue. She's more need-to-know than all the rest of our work combined, and you do not as yet need to know. You're not to bring her up unless one of your superiors chooses to tell you about her."

She continued in a soft but penetrating voice, "And I don't want to ever hear of you asking anyone questions about her. If I do, you're going to be spending the rest of your life in a cloister where they have a vow of silence. Capice?"

Eugenia's eyes went wide. Her mother was totally serious. She nodded frantic compliance.

"Yoroshi. Gods but I love that word. We don't have anything in Italian that compresses so much meaning into a single word and sounds so good when you say it. Just one more useful thing we've learned from the Japanese."

She looked over Eugenia apraisingly. "You still don't look all that good. Get your shoulder under water, count to 100, slowly, then get yourself dressed and get something to eat. After that it's nap time again."

Miranda followed her own advice and silence descended. There was a great deal of work yet to do. There always was, but there wasn't anything that absolutely needed attending to at that particular moment. The world could be allowed to intrude again tomorrow or, even better, the following day. Lord alone knew when they'd next have the opportunity. Today's only task would be to rest and catch up on sleep while Robert bamboozled, er...negotiated with the others at the Baron's birthday party.