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It begins on the train.
(To be fair, it begins before the train. It begins in Poitiers, when she watches from the ground as a woman in red glides off of the rooftop and into the night. It begins when she walks into what seems to be a museum of stolen goods; art and artifacts considered lost by the collectors and archeologists of the world. She finds the diamond, and more things besides, and La Femme Rouge escapes with something. Devineaux is spitting fire, but Julia is intrigued.)
(She also, of course, must hear all about how Ms. Sandiego is a master thief who must be stopped, do you hear me, Ms. Argent? She must be stopped! Julia is not entirely convinced that Ms. Sandiego must be stopped, but she can’t argue with master thief.)
(She also, of course, practices critical thinking when it comes to Ms. Sandiego, and comes to all sorts of logical conclusions that are dismissed by Devineaux off-hand. Later, Chief is a little better, but no one understands that Ms. Sandiego has a pattern of work, a modus operandi, as she so often reminds the Inspector, and that Carmen does not seem to ever stray from it.)
(But the train is the first time they meet face-to-face, albeit unknowingly, so that is what Julia truly considers the beginning.)
She is waiting for Devineaux to return, and considering ordering a small cake to go with her tea; the kind with thick, gooey chocolate in the center and confectioner’s sugar on top, possibly with some raspberries as well—
“This seat taken?” Julia looks up. Wow. She’s pretty.
“Yes, actually,” Julia says, thinks oh no, and adds, “but feel free to use it until my partner returns.” Maybe Carmen Sandiego has captured him and he won’t return for a long time.
“Partner?” says the woman, glancing at the Inspector’s briefcase with a raised eyebrow and downturned lips. Shit. Also, those eyes.
“Travel partner.” Also, that smile.
In the space of the next three minutes, the woman mentions the stolen Magna Carta, she called me Jules, checks her pocket mirror twice, I am an agent of Interpol (Julia is not yet an agent of ACME) and I should not be this easily taken in with strange and beautiful women, shares Julia’s excitement over what Devineaux calls “dull facts and boring things,” and doesn’t give her name. It is only as she walks away, a walk that Julia has seen before, that Julia connects the dots, and she spends the next half-hour mentally berating herself along the lines of you are not allowed to feel any sort of bonding with, let alone attraction to, the woman who has terrorized the theft department of Interpol for the last three and a half months.
Until, of course, Julia (Jules) returns to her seat from rescuing Devineaux (which, she senses, is going to become an unfortunately frequent experience) to find the missing Magna Carta pages nestled gently beside the briefcase. For her.
***
Devineaux goes on and on about how the fabled Carmen Sandiego had been within their grasp, but Julia spends the next month turning it over and over in her mind. Why her? Was it simply because of their conversation over history? Was it simply because they talked at all? Was it simply because Devineaux was unavailable, and Julia (Jules) was the next-best option?
(Devineaux also goes on and on about how she should have recognized Ms. Sandiego, incessantly; eventually she snaps out “hindsight is 20-20” and he leaves her alone. As much as he can grate on Julia’s nerves, they know each other quite well by now, and she does not feel the need to get angry at him. Julia does not feel the need to remind him that before the train, she had never seen Carmen Sandiego closer than thirty feet above her head or running away across a rooftop. She does not feel the need to remind him that maybe, if he had been successful in capturing her in the past, she would know by now what Ms. Sandiego looked like. She definitely does not feel slightly, secretly pleased that Ms. Sandiego has not yet been captured. Not at all.)
(Julia also spends the next month trying to convince Devineaux that Ms. Sandiego would be a better ally than rival, considering what she seems to know about VILE, and how she seems to only steal from other thieves; Devineaux remains unconvinced that VILE exists at all, and convinced that La Femme Rouge is behind every petty theft or act of violence that crosses his path.)
(Julia also spends the next month seeing Ms. Sandiego’s smile behind her closed eyelids, and Ms. Sandiego’s eyes when she stares at her hands in the middle of the night, but there is only so much she can do about that.)
***
Julia starts the day with a morning off, wandering around downtown Poitiers, relieved to be back in her hometown. (She does not visit her mother. She has plans to meet up with her younger brother for lunch tomorrow.) A small part of her mind constructs a vivid picture of visiting the historic Cathedral Saint-Pierre with Ms. Sandiego, talking about the history and the architecture. She tried to mention it to Devineaux, but he rolled his eyes, as usual. How nice it would be to visit landmarks with someone who not only knows, but appreciates the history behind them!
When everything is over, and Devineaux is safe in ACME’s hospital, Julia (Jules) thinks back to her quiet certainty that Carmen was not what she seemed. Her small belief that possibly, Ms. Sandiego was actually doing good, under the guise of lawlessness; her hope. The hope is not gone, but the certainty is. Devineaux remains unconscious, and Julia waits.
***
When he wakes up— when he wakes up.
She is choked with guilt: for thinking about exploring Poitiers with Carmen hours before Devineaux almost died; for not being there, both to protect Devineaux and to have the confirmation, which her mind screams is right around the corner, that Carmen was not responsible; for her continued defense of Carmen in betrayal to Devineaux, her first ally at Interpol and with whom she has been through so much; and for the fact that she has yet to convince Chief that Ms. Sandiego is innocent, in betrayal to a woman whom she hardly knows and has spent the last year and a half of her life attempting to capture and subdue. (For the fact that she still sees Carmen’s smile behind her eyes, and Carmen’s eyes in the dark loneliness of her small apartment.)
Julia does not want to believe that Carmen Sandiego is even capable of this. Julia wants so badly for her to be trustworthy. Despite the evidence (what is being presented as evidence, but what seems to Julia as jumping to conclusions), what happened to Devineaux is simply not Ms. Sandiego’s M.O.
(Julia can’t help hearing Ms. Sandiego’s voice talking about whatever historical significance her current location has. She is reluctant to call it a fantasy, because that makes her feel like a middle schooler with a crush; if she has to concentrate on not blushing, not letting more emotion into her voice than is professional when talking about—defending— Carmen, no one needs to know.)
(If she is honest with herself, she’s been very interested, even slightly enamored, ever since the prospect of Carmen’s returning stolen artifacts first came up.) (She is not honest with herself.) (When did Julia start calling Ms. Sandiego Carmen in her head? It must have been at some point while Devineaux was in his coma, but she doesn’t know exactly when she woke up and her mental label had changed.) (She called me “Jules,” so she probably would not be offended that when I think of her at all hours, even though she quite possibly left Devineaux to die, we are on a first-name basis.)
Speaking of Devineaux, he is on leave; Agent Zari is professional, but lacks the history with Carmen that Devineaux and Julia both have, and the begrudging camaraderie that has come of it. (Julia’s first loyalty is to doing the right thing, and Zari’s is to Chief, or to what she believes Chief would want.)
Julia tries very hard to like her, and does not succeed.
***
When it comes to fashion, Julia does not have the best history. She’s always been a little bit clueless about what was cool; her grandfather’s impressive sweater-vest collection, which he freely lent out to young Julia, probably did not help her much. It’s not that young Julia couldn’t tell what looked good, just that more often than not, what she thought looked good was either way too formal for everyday wear or fifty years out of style. As you can imagine, this made for some unsavory incidents in school, and when combined with a few other things about her, the “style advice” her wardrobe garnered was often more along the lines of bullying.
Fortunately for her, Julia is required to wear her ACME uniform to the fashion show. (Suits never go out of style.) After a bit of practice in the mirror, she is ready to apprehend Carmen Sandiego— though she would much rather talk with her about the stunning Medici gowns, rich with history and far more interesting to Julia than fighting someone whom she does not wish to fight.
(Julia is also worried that the Carmen she has built up in her head is an unrealistic expectation for one woman to fulfill, and that when she eventually comes face-to-face with Carmen again, she will be disappointed. She is wrong, of course; Carmen is every bit of what Julia has imagined, and more.)
Julia manages to get out “Carmen Sandiego, you are under arrest!” without too much trouble. It’s what happens next that she’s unprepared for.
“Jules, right?” Carmen says, and swipes the gas gun. She is stunning. She gently tucks the gun back into Julia’s jacket and she can’t breath. Carmen’s thumb lightly, accidentally, brushes her abdomen, and also this is going to be a problem, isn’t it.
But it isn’t; Carmen is beautiful, and she commands the runway, and Julia manages to not die of nerves, and why does she look so good in that dress and oh my goodness I am wearing her hat!
There are two teenagers also involved, somehow, and when Carmen says “Jules is in charge,” a small part of her panics. But the teenagers seem to know what to do, and Carmen is fighting the runway models (?), and eventually, miraculously, the Medici gowns are saved. Carmen, of course, gets away.
Julia, of course, spends the weeks afterward replaying the night again and again in her mind. Carmen’s confidence radiated out of her; confidence in herself, in her team, even in Julia, whom she hardly knows and seems to trust. (Added, now, to Carmen’s eyes and Carmen’s smile, are Carmen’s hands: the way they went from precise and dangerous to delicately returning Julia’s gas gun, the way she pulled the blazer open. Long fingers, carefully manicured nails. Beautiful.)
Some time later, Julia (Jules!) somehow manages to convince Chief that Carmen should be recruited to ACME. After Chief agrees, however, she says bluntly, “But you need to get over your childish crush on Sandiego,” and Julia blushes scarlet.
“What are you talking about?” she manages. Fuck.
“Believe me, Argent, I’ve been there; it’s something about the heat of the chase, the adrenaline, the repeated contact with someone you know almost nothing about.” Chief’s eyes are so guarded they appear almost blank. “You need to let it go before it interferes with your ability to do your job.” She looks tired.
The hologram closes, and Julia is left on her own, flustered. She misses Devineaux, who, to her knowledge, was not even perceptive enough to know she was gay. (Here, she is doing him a disservice; a doorknob is perceptive enough to know Julia is gay. He simply thought it unworthy of mentioning. A point in his direction, one should think.)
(Later, thinking back on this conversation from the comfort of her own home, she is struck by a sudden and extreme curiosity that her embarrassment hadn’t allowed earlier. Chief had said, “believe me, Argent, I’ve been there,” and actually given enough information for Julia to suspect she had been. Besides, why would she lie about something like having a crush on a criminal whom she was chasing? But whom? When? Another part of Julia’s brain is desperately attempting to figure out whether this chased crush would have been a man or a woman. Though she knows it’s none of her business, she simply can’t help it. Yet another part of her brain is trying and failing to think of a better word than “crush.” She knows that’s what it is, though, no matter how much it makes her feel like a teenager.)
Julia knew that it was unwise for her to continue in this fashion when she was trying to capture Carmen, but now that she’s trying to recruit her? If she is able, they would be on the same side, officially. All of the things that make Carmen a dangerous enemy would make her a wonderful ally: she’s courageous, she’s self-assured, she’s inspiring, she’s confident, she’s intelligent, she’s physically capable, she’s absolutely gorgeous— Julia says to her self, in the tone of a children’s cartoon narrator, Uh oh! Julia’s list of things that would make Carmen a valuable agent of ACME has turned into a list of things that Julia is attracted to! She laughs to herself, and finally falls asleep.
***
After Stockholm, Julia considers leaving ACME.
The day started wonderfully. She was stopped on the street by Carmen (!), they were alone, Julia was going to get somewhere with recruiting her, and Carmen essentially confirmed that she was on the side of justice, and simply had a roundabout way of going about it.
The day ended with Carmen almost dead, all of her trust lost, and Julia shouting at Chief while Agent Zari didn’t even have the good grace to look ashamed. If Julia wasn’t with ACME, perhaps she could somehow get back into Carmen’s good graces. But this wasn’t just about her and Carmen; it was also about bringing Carmen to ACME, and taking down VILE. And Julia is absolutely positive that ACME needs her for that.
So, she stays. But she makes it clear to Chief, and Zari, that she is still angry. Carmen has fled, which Julia understands, as much as she also wants to find her and make amends. Now, when she closes her eyes, she sees Carmen’s betrayed expression from the gurney. She feels both horribly guilty and full to the brim with rage. She doesn’t sleep. Chief gave her a few weeks off, apologizing in the only way she can, but it feels more like a punishment than a respite. During the day she walks around Poitiers and talks to no one (she sees her mother once at the grocery store— she leaves without her food and comes back the next day when her mother is attending church), and at night she either lies awake or dreams of Carmen, reliving that day over and over again. Carmen’s face at the fashion show in Milan, Carmen’s finding a place to talk alone with her, Carmen being lifted half-dead out of a dip in the Stockholm hills, all flashing in sequence, one after the other, forever. She is being eaten alive.
Julia wakes up from another fitful night, two and a half weeks after Stockholm, and finds an envelope on the table in her entryway. The door is locked from the inside, and it certainly wasn’t there the night before, so naturally she’s a little worried.
Inside the envelope are three things: a plane ticket, an address in San Diego, and a note that says, simply, We need to talk.
***
Julia gets off the plane at San Diego International Airport, stretches her legs a bit, and sets off to find her luggage and a taxi. Her ticket put her in first class, so she assumes that Carmen is not too angry at her for Stockholm, but Julia is still nervous. It wasn’t really her fault, what happened, but Carmen doesn’t know that yet, and Julia still feels at least partly responsible, no matter how angry she is at Chief.
Her taxi takes her to a hotel, and the next day she takes another to a large warehouse on the edge of the city. Julia almost laughs out loud when she sees the sign on it: Carmen Brand Outerwear, San Diego. Of course that’s where her headquarters is. Feeling underdressed and so nervous she feels faint, Julia walks up to the warehouse and knocks on the only visible door. It’s answered by a redheaded teenage girl whom Julia recognizes from Milan, but she’s blocking the door with her body so Julia can’t see in. She clearly recognizes Julia, too, because when she sees her she calls backwards to someone with a thick Boston accent, “Jules is here!” and moves out of the way so she can come in. Inside, the warehouse is beautiful. It has polished wood floors and a high ceiling, and Julia can tell there’s another floor above them.
“I’m Ivy,” says the girl, then claps Julia on the shoulder with a chuckle. “Be careful, J. She’s real mad at ya.” (What is it with people she doesn’t know shortening her name?) She’s mad?
“If she’s mad, why did she send me a first-class ticket?” Julia asks, confused and even more nervous. Ivy laughs.
“If she weren’t mad, you woulda been on a private jet. Now get in there!” She gestures to a door in front of them. Julia is a little bit shocked at what Ivy just said, but she shoves it out of her mind and heads for the door.
She’s in what must be a living room, because there are armchairs and a sofa around a coffee table, and large windows; but on the sofa is Carmen, looking up at the ceiling. Julia gasps softly. From the note, she thought Carmen would be up and about again, but she looks, frankly, terrible. (Julia also doesn’t know quite what to do with this sight, as the only Carmen she’s interacted with before has been confident, in-control, and perfectly capable of doing anything she wanted. This Carmen is definitely not the same.)
At Julia’s gasp, Carmen turns her head. She has large bags under her eyes, but they don’t stop her from fixing Julia with a reproachful glare. Julia is still standing by the door, but she walks forward at this and perches on one of the armchairs. Carmen sighs, gives up on the glare, and says, “You have ten minutes to explain what happened from your point of view.” She pointedly looks at the large clock over the opposite wall, and makes a face that clearly means, Well? Start talking! Julia takes a deep breath.
“I work for ACME, an organization dedicated to stopping criminals that are beyond the forces of regular law enforcement. ACME is run by a woman named Chief, who for the last twenty years has dedicated her life to proving the existence of a criminal organization called VILE.” Carmen looks shocked for a moment, but quickly returns to suspicion. Julia continues, “Though these last almost two years I have tried to defend you, Chief remained convinced that you were working for or with VILE. That is, until Milan, after which I was finally able to convince her that you would make a better ally, and she agreed to allow me to meet with you to try and recruit you to ACME.” Carmen makes a small noise of protest, and looks like she’s about to say something, but Julia doesn’t let her. “Ten minutes, remember? Let me finish. In Sweden, when you stopped me, I was looking for you. I had been promised that we could talk without other agents of ACME interrupting and compromising everything; for some reason, they did so anyway. I do not know why, as no one has seen fit to tell me. I believe it is possible that the other agents simply did not know I was talking to you with permission from Chief, but it could be that Chief lied to me and told them to attack anyway. I don’t have an answer. I’m sorry. I truly did not think that we would be ambushed, and I am very, very angry that we were.”
Julia finishes and Carmen looks less angry than she did before. Her ten minutes aren’t quite up yet, though, and Julia has some questions for Carmen, as well, so she adds, “Part of the reason Chief was so convinced you were working with VILE was because of what happened in Poitiers to Inspector Devineaux; you wouldn’t be willing to explain that, would you?” At this, Carmen groans.
“That was a misunderstanding,” she says. “It’s a long, and painful, story.”
“I have nowhere to be, and you certainly aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Carmen groans again, and says. “Fine. But I’m shortening it as much as possible.” She throws another glare at Julia, just for good measure, but there’s no real heat in it and Julia is looking at her expectantly. She sighs.
“I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but something happened to my parents. Shadow-san, who worked for VILE, found me and brought me to VILE Island, somewhere near the Canary Islands, where I was raised. VILE Island also houses VILE Academy, where the faculty train students to become thieves. I entered the Academy younger than was normal, I didn’t graduate, and I figured out that VILE was not what I thought it was.” Carmen looks exceedingly bitter for a moment, then she continues. “On my way out, I grabbed a hard drive that had VILE’s upcoming schemes on it, and I ran. For a year, we— me and my team— stopped VILE from carrying out those schemes. At the end of that year, VILE sent two members of the faculty, Coach Brunt and Shadow-san, to get rid of me. Instead, they found the Inspector. I did my best to protect him, but against Coach Brunt I stood no chance.” Carmen makes a face and Julia thinks, fleetingly, she’s adorable. “Shadow-san got me out, revealed that he had been secretly on my side the whole time, left me another year’s worth of schemes, and vanished. Earlier this year he showed up again, and he’s been part of my crew ever since.”
Julia’s brain is trying very hard to compute what she has just heard. Carmen was raised by VILE? VILE exists? Carmen had tried to protect Devineaux and been overpowered? Julia has a million questions, but instead of asking them, she simply says, “Okay.” Carmen seems to have a lot of mixed feelings about VILE, which is understandable, so Julia is going to leave the topic alone for now. She also looks like she’s about to fall asleep, so Julia quietly gets up and leaves the room.
She opens the door and runs right into Ivy and another redheaded teenager, who have clearly been eavesdropping. The boy, who introduces himself as Zack, says sorry, but Ivy just says, “Hey, we’re thieves! What did you expect?” They escort her down the hall and into a nice kitchen, where they make no attempt to hide the fact that they were listening in on Carmen and Julia’s conversation.
“Hey,” says Zack in an equally thick Boston accent, “at least now Carm might feel a little better. For days, all we’ve been hearing about is how ‘Jules wouldn’t do that! There must be some explanation!’ As soon as she could, she made Shadow-san leave you than note.”
“Yeah, J. She wouldn’t shut up about ya,” says Ivy, smirking. “It’s like she has a crush on you or something.”
Ivy and Zack move on to talk about how calling Carmen’s hat a fedora reminds Zack of his middle school days, but Julia is motionless. She can feel herself going as red as Carmen’s coat. It’s like she has a crush on you or something. Julia thinks back to Milan, the tilt of Carmen’s lips and her quirked eyebrow, her take my hand, I need your help. Is that not how Carmen is with everyone? Was that… flirting? All the way back to the train, her little frown on partner? and her immediate nickname, which is the only name she calls Julia.
Zack and Ivy go quiet as Carmen walks into the kitchen. She’s rubbing her eyes. “Ivy, can you make some coffee?” she says, then stops short when she sees Julia still there. She looks a little embarrassed (it’s cute). “Sorry, Jules, but I have to work for the rest of the day. Come back tomorrow, okay? We can walk around town, if you want.” (Ivy winks at her and it’s not Julia’s imagination, Carmen definitely blushes a little. Oh my god.)
“I would love to,” Julia says, and allows Zack to show her out.
***
When Julia returns to France, she calls Chief. In San Diego, she had asked Carmen for permission to share her story with ACME, and Carmen had said yes. (At the time, they were walking around the Old Town Market; Carmen was looking much better than she had the day before, and she seemed to know everything about the city. It was a dream come true.)
When Julia finishes the story, Chief says, “She said she was found as a baby in Buenos Aires? By an agent of VILE, and he took her back to VILE Island?” She looks incredibly disturbed. She sounds incredulous, and, Julia thinks, frightened. “And she has no idea what happened to her parents.” Julia nods her head yes. “I’m not going to ask you how you got this information. Thank you for telling me this, Argent,” Chief says, her face carefully composed back to neutral. “This is valuable information for all of ACME.” As the hologram closes, Julia can see again, for an instant, that horrified expression. What does she not want me to know?
***
Time passes (no word from Carmen) and Julia gets her first undercover assignment. She buys a new dress, one that she likes, and she knows it looks good on her. The hotel looks just like the set of Rebecca. She’s supposed to be keeping an eye on some suspected VILE operatives at the gala, but ACME paid her entrance fee and she’s not the only agent there. Free champagne is provided. (She’s pretty sure that Agent Zari and their other field agent, Clem, have disappeared somewhere to make out. She doesn’t blame them. The champagne is quite good and Clem is very attractive, dark skin and velvety voice topped with blonde dreadlocks). The lights are low and Julia isn’t quite surprised to see Carmen Sandiego on the dance floor, looking as if she’d been there the whole time although Julia knows she hasn’t (she’s begun to look for Carmen everywhere. She would have noticed). She surprises herself by approaching Carmen first (this is a break in their usual routine. For a few reasons.) Julia has unwavering confidence in Carmen. But something seems off. Julia is a little drunk; she knows she shouldn’t be, this is a work event, but if Carmen is here it’s practically taken care of. Until Carmen calls out to her.
“Jules,” (Jules!) she says, “I am the operative sent by VILE. You just have to trust me.” And Julia, Jules, finds once again that she does.
The rest of the gala passes uneventfully, other than a quick shout of “Mademoiselle! Stop!” that Julia assumes, correctly, means Carmen is getting away. She collects Clem and Zari (lipstick uncharacteristically smudged) and they head to their rooms (the entrance fee for the gala included a room for each of them in the hotel) (one of them will go unused, Julia thinks). She sleeps well, and she dreams of dancing with Carmen Sandiego.
Two days later, days Julia has spent getting reprimanded for losing focus by Chief (nothing compared to what Zari and Clem had to deal with) and sniffing out Carmen’s next appearance, she hears, “Jules. I could really use your help.” Which is how a completely sober and slightly disbelieving Julia (Jules) finds herself on a ferry in France wearing Carmen’s signature colors— or rather, color. Three hours later she opens the door to a terra-cotta warrior holding a bouquet of red roses, and she knows for certain Carmen has stolen something that is hers.
***
Julia learns a week later that Carmen has infiltrated ACME. She sees Chief in person for the first time (it’s very weird). Something has happened, or something happened a long time ago, and Chief won’t tell anyone what it is. So Julia does what she thinks of next, without thinking about it that much: she still has the address of her San Diego home, so she writes Carmen Sandiego a letter.
It reads:
Dear Ms. Sandiego, (Julia still can’t bring herself to call her Carmen to her face)
I hope this letter finds you in good health. (Julia is very polite. To a fault, some would say.)
It has come to my attention that you and your team have infiltrated ACME. (Julia’s mother always told her to get to the point when writing a letter, and it is one of the few things Julia keeps about her.) I hope you know that my loyalty lies with what I feel is morally right. If there is anything you can tell me about what is going on, I would appreciate it. Nothing you share with me in confidentiality will be reported back to ACME. You know where to find me. (This strikes Julia as incredibly forward; she includes it anyway.)
Sincerely,
Jules Argent
Julia (Jules) does not expect a response. She wants to write more in her letter. She wants to write, I can’t stop thinking about you. She wants to write, I see your face when I close my eyes, staring at me from the dark of my own consciousness. She wants to write, I know you had a good reason for doing this. I hope you had a good reason. I don’t think you fully understand the repercussions. I want an explanation. I want you to show up at my apartment and have tea with me. I want you to kiss me until my knees give out and I fall to pieces, and then I want you to pick me back up, reassemble me, and take me apart all over again.
She gets one of these desires granted. (Not the last one.) Nine days after she posts her letter, Julia comes home from work to find Carmen Sandiego sitting on her brown couch in her Poitiers apartment.
“I’m going away,” Carmen says. She’s looking at her hands folded in her lap. Julia is standing in the doorway, so she comes fully into the room, puts down her bag, locks the door. Carmen continues. “I’ve been given some new information about my past, and this is my chance to follow up on it.” Here, Carmen finally looks up; there’s something new in her expression. Trust, Julia thinks. She’s trusting me with something. And, she’s hurting. “Shadow-san— you remember Shadow-san?— will get in touch with you if needed. But please,” and here is what is truly off-putting: Carmen looks scared. “Don’t try to follow me, Jules.”
Julia (Jules) takes a deep breath and crosses to Carmen. She sits down across from her (the good armchair, the green one). “Carmen, you know that I respect your privacy.” She sighs. “Be careful.”
“Oh. I’m Carmen now, huh? No more ‘Ms. Sandiego’?” Carmen is smiling again. The wetness is gone from her eyes in an instant, but Julia knows it was real. “And don’t worry. I’m always careful.” She stands and walks to the window (which is open, Julia notices. That explains how she got in). “I should be going.” Julia follows her.
Julia pretty much thinks she has Carmen Sandiego figured out. A mistake, by anyone’s calculation. Carmen is always capable of surprising her. She does so now, by pulling Julia into a firm hug. She whispers into Julia’s hair, “You be careful, too. Chief isn’t what she says she is.” And then she’s gone.
***
Time— time passes, as time does. First a few months, then a bit more. Julia gets an email from an old friend about a teaching position at the local university. To be honest, she’s been thinking about leaving ACME for well over a year (ever since Stockholm), but Carmen’s warning has made it a more real possibility. (Needless to say, Julia is still thinking about that hug. Carmen was warm and strong and she smelled good. Considering that that was almost a year ago and she’s not seen Carmen since, Julia is well and truly fucked.) (She hasn’t seen Carmen, but she has heard from her. Once in a while Julia comes home to find a bouquet of flowers waiting outside her door. Accompanying them could be a card; maybe it says miss you or wish you were here in Carmen’s delicate handwriting. It’s never signed. Sometimes there’s an artifact, or just a souvenir. Carmen isn’t exactly in touch, but she’s not completely absent, either— and she knows that Julia will be able to tell where her gifts originate, and she trusts that Julia will not do anything about it. She’s right.)
Julia leaves ACME and takes up teaching. She likes it alright— she loves her students, loves seeing young minds blossom with curiosity for history and art. She tells herself she doesn’t miss the action. She loses touch with Devineaux. She teaches, she reads, she buys a nice vase for her flowers at a street market not at all reminiscent of the one she walked through with Carmen just over a year ago. Time passes, as time does.
And then, one day, Julia looks up from her lecture to see a familiar face sitting in the back row. To be fair, she doesn’t really see his face, considering the book held in front of it, but she did work with him for over three years. After the lecture she speaks to him briefly and ushers him out. It’s nice that he’s finally come around to her side of things, but she’s disappointed nonetheless. Devinaux wasn’t able to tell her what she wanted to hear, which she’s barely able to admit to herself: Carmen is at ACME, she’s asking for you. Or, Carmen is back on the loose! We must team up again to catch the Scarlet Ghost. You're the only one who can do it, Detective Argent. But Chase was simply having the same crisis she had, coming to a realization that ACME is not what it seems and Carmen is not either.
Two days later her lecture hall is infiltrated once again. Julia is sure she goes as red as Carmen’s hoodie, pulled carefully over her eyes in her alluring manner. Embarrassed, Julia dismisses her class; whatever she was talking about can wait. It’s fled her mind anyway. Julia closes the shades in her office, minutes later, and is reminded suddenly of standing beside Carmen’s sofa in her house in San Diego. Then, she had been an outsider in Carmen’s space; now, Carmen should be an outsider in Julia’s. But Carmen seems to fit in wherever she goes, even in Julia’s dim office. Perhaps it is because being with her feels so natural. Carmen hands her an artifact.
“I know that you left ACME to get away from all this. I won’t be offended if you refuse,” Carmen says, smiling. A soft smile. Understanding. At this point, Julia thinks, Carmen should know that Julia is incapable of refusing her. And, simply, I don’t want to refuse. I’ve missed you.
“Who knew that my two areas of interest would ever intersect,” says Julia, and starts her examination. Carmen leans over her chair, her breath on Julia’s neck. I’ve missed you.
***
Later, Julia lies in bed and thinks. This… this reunion, this classic Carmen Sandiego bit of turning up unexpected, of asking for something, it’s familiar. It’s welcome. And it brings back feelings and thoughts she’s been trying not to dwell on. Julia thinks back to the boy who, at age sixteen, showed up to her mother’s house with flowers. Her first kiss, and then, months later, lying underneath him staring at the ceiling and thinking, this is not what I want. What is it that she wants? She’s known she wants women for a long time, at this point. She’s acted on it before, in college and after. She’s 26. She met the Scarlet Ghost for the first time at 23. Carmen. You want Carmen, her brain supplies.
In her mind, Julia carefully arranges them. She watches it unfold, her apartment as the backdrop. Eventually it’s too much, and she covers her hot, blushing face with a pillow and goes to sleep.
***
A few days later Julia gets a call from another of Carmen’s friends. He calls her Jules, and Carmen “Red.” Player, his name is. She thinks of her brother. Player doesn’t look like him (white, not Chinese, rounder face, no glasses) but they feel similar, especially when her brother was his age. She thinks she knows why: same voice, slightly too high for a sixteen-year-old boy, same bright eyes and intelligent look. She hopes his family is better than her own. (Julia’s mother still calls her brother “my daughter.” At least, she did last Julia spoke to her, which was something like eight years ago at this point.) She and Player get along. He has an easy camaraderie with Carmen, a clear shared history. Her best friend, he calls himself. When he mentions Carmen, she can feel a wink in his voice.
Julia and Carmen are in regular contact again. Part of her mind says, why didn’t she talk to you when she didn’t need anything from you? Julia files it away for later. For now, what matters is helping Carmen. The truth is, she’s tired of reviewing things she already knows for the benefit of her students, as much as she loves teaching. She wants to learn, and Carmen always gives her that opportunity.
Her train of thought is interrupted by a knock on her office door.
Time moves agonizingly slowly, and then, suddenly, incredibly fast. Countess Cleo makes her blush uncomfortably, over and over. She tells Cleo and the blonde woman, Tigera or something, what she can about her research. She’s dragged around (not literally— they let her walk). Then, in what seems like an instant, Carmen is there. Julia feels as though she watches through a layer of gauze as the two men tase Carmen and she falls to the ground. There’s a room filled with gold, there’s Carmen sword-fighting one of the men, Devinaux is there somehow. It feels like a bad dream. But she’s safe. She’s safe, and Carmen is gone, and it’s so familiar. Devinaux gives her credit, “fascinating facts and interesting things.” She’s missed him.
Chief shows up in her office, in person (!), two days later. She wants contact with Carmen. She looks around Julia’s office a moment; her eyes land on a framed photograph. “Your mother?” Chief asks, tilting her head towards the woman in the Hawaiian shirt.
“No. An aunt.” Julia replies stiffly. Chief nods. She understands, Julia thinks, and then she isn’t what she says she is. But that can wait. Julia is sure she will hear about their meeting from Carmen, sooner or later.
***
Time passes, as time does. Julia works on finding Carmen’s mother. She reads Dexter Wolf’s file and suddenly understands what Carmen meant by those parting words in her apartment all those days ago. Julia turns 27. Devinaux gets her a cake. Carmen seems to have disappeared, until she shows up at crime scenes in her usual manner. Except, those stolen artifacts aren’t returned. Julia lies in bed at night and tries to think of how this could be possible. She’s back at ACME, who finally believe that Carmen is on their side. She’s learning about Carmen’s past through her parents. She’s back into the swing with Devinaux, better even, as he now listens with interest when she talks about history. Julia closes her eyes and sees Carmen falling down across the pit in Egypt. Julia closes her eyes and sees Carmen’s eyes and her smile and her hands. Julia closes her eyes and imagines Carmen in her apartment when she comes home from work, making tea, greeting her with a kiss. She does her work, she throws herself into it, and she tries to believe that Chief is right about Carmen, that she’s been playing them this whole time. She can’t do it. She’s found Carmen’s mother.
Graham Calloway turns himself in and tells Chief what Julia has been desperately wanting to hear: this isn’t Carmen. Though relieved, Julia is incandescently angry. How dare VILE take away what makes Carmen… Carmen. Her kindness, her empathy, her righteousness. Julia thinks about Carmen living inside her own head, watching herself. Julia (is she still Jules?) needs to put on a brave face at work, but here, in her own bed, she cries angry tears and vows, no matter what, she will get Carmen back.
Three days later she’s sitting in a car with Chase, waiting for Carmen to show up. The fight, when it happens, passes in a blur; she remembers tackling Carmen, poised over her in a way she’s imagined in a different context. Carmen is so different. Cruel, emotionless, violent. In her battle-hazed mind Julia thinks, this is not the Carmen Sandiego I fell in love with, and then she’s knocked out.
She wakes to Carmen sitting next to her in the backseat of an ACME van. Carmen is holding her hand. When she sees Julia’s awake she lets go, but Julia (Jules) can still feel it.
They take down VILE. Julia has the satisfaction of bringing in Cleo. Carmen doesn’t come; too many memories, she says.
Carmen finds her mother. Zack and Ivy join ACME. Julia takes them under her wing and quickly grows to understand why Carmen loves them so much. She does her job. She and Carmen are out of touch again and it aches. She still sees Carmen at night when she closes her eyes; she still hears Carmen in every crowd in every city. When she returns to her Poitiers apartment she hopes, every time, just for a moment, to see Carmen there.
***
Four months after their last conversation, Julia comes home at 10 pm to find the door of her apartment already unlocked. She opens the door. Carmen is there, standing in the kitchenette, looking out the open window. She turns when she hears Julia, and smiles. “Hey, Jules.”
“Carmen. It- it’s been a while,” Julia says, taking off her coat. She knows better than to act surprised; Carmen wouldn’t fall for it. She isn’t surprised. She’s relieved, and apprehensive, and ready to hear what Carmen has to say.
“I know. I’m sorry, I— ” Carmen is stuttering. She’s red. Julia wants to laugh; she’s never seen Carmen so nervous.
“Ms. Sandiego,” Julia says, walking over to her, “for someone so intelligent, you can be quite the idiot.” Julia places her hand on Carmen’s chest, over her heart, pushes her gently back against the wall, and kisses her. Carmen’s eyes go wide for a moment, and then she kisses back. Her hand comes up to rest against the back of Julia’s neck, pulling her closer. Her mouth is soft, and warm, and kissing is wetter than Julia remembers, but it’s so nice. She pulls away and looks at Carmen, flushed and happy. Carmen looks bewildered.
“I— I thought—” she starts, but Julia cuts her off. She doesn’t quite know where this confidence is coming from. Perhaps, she thinks, she just can’t wait any longer.
“Carmen Sandiego, I have been in love with you for three years.” She’s been living with it for so long. How have I been waiting this long? It feels such a natural part of her at this point, loving this woman.
Carmen’s confusion falls away. “Thank god,” she says, and kisses Julia. Finally. This is where I belong. Carmen’s mouth opens under Julia’s, and the kiss deepens. Finally. Carmen pushes Julia backward, toward the bedroom. Finally. She can’t stop smiling. Carmen picks her up, fully, and she gasps a little; Carmen smiles up at her. “I’m in love with you too, Jules,” she says. Her smirk is back. She drops Julia on her bed, follows, and kisses her again. This is what she has imagined, night after night. Finally.
***
Time passes, as time does. Now, when Julia spots Carmen at an ACME job, she knows that sometime later she’ll see her again, in her hotel or her apartment. Ivy knocks on Julia’s hotel room door one evening and is answered by Carmen— she whoops and wraps her in a hug, then calls for Zack. Carmen still disappears, but Julia knows she’ll be back, to spend the night together and wake up in the morning for tea and breakfast.
It begins on the train, but it doesn’t end there. It never ends.