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Both the Redfield siblings had reappeared on the grid.
And thus, they’d gone to the top of her employer’s list of people for her to watch, in her downtime.
On one hand, that wasn’t much of a loss for her - she’d sacrificed much of what she’d had in the way of true downtime long ago. Time between jobs was spent on the honing of skills and acquisition of information - technical or other pointedly-challenging reading; more time invested into exercise; historical research and thorough investigation of world news. Hobbies were hobbies - but a combination of logic and the hyperawareness that came from the business of watching motivated selection of ones that provided practical value, and her free time was meant to be redirected at-will into newly-assigned areas of focus.
On the other hand, she hadn't been able to repress a first instinct to consider this particular directive somewhat petty, at first. The surviving STARS members and, by extension, their surviving friends and family surely had lives to rebuild, within their own time and starting on a level outside of her employer's scope - something that wasn’t soft of her to acknowledge, but simply pragmatic. It was doubtful that any blips they made on the radar would miss notice, once they went back to work, and it wasn’t for her to risk creating any disturbances now.
On yet the first again, her brow had raised once she’d found herself a terribly accessible in on monitoring the siblings, starting straight up close and personal, in the form of sister Claire’s sign-up for a dating service.
And any questioning or resistance had fallen away in favor of the thought that this was an unmissable opportunity.
She thought to herself that making her first move into monitoring the Redfields would be painless, walking to a somewhat chintzy restaurant with both crystal chandeliers and huge cheap plates in tall black heels and a red leather coat over a black dress, her hair teased to soft feathers and bleached reddish to dye jet-black again easily; she’d made some effort to style herself after the girl’s tastes, by certain allies' suggestion (“Color?” “She’s fond of red.” “Convenient. Me, too”), without doing so too-strikingly.
The honeypot strategy had worked for her before - recently, even. And she missed some elements of it - assumption of identities to complete a task was par for her course, but it was enjoyable to have the chance to take on that of an honest-to-god human being, even one who wasn’t necessarily herself, and pretend that the associated attention and life were for her.
So much for giving up her leisure time, she’d thought, initially, with unsmiling wryness.
But then she called lightly on entering the building, getting a jump from the girl with the long brown tied-back hair at the host's desk. The girl looked over her shoulder, and in seconds, her eyes widened and sparkled.
And Ada smiled now, putting on her mask and becoming it, for the time.
“Wow,” Claire laughed - the laugh of someone who tried oh, so hard to pretend that they weren’t harried - as they followed the hos. “You were early, too.”
Ada laughed back, softly; perked up one corner of her lips, just-so, for sweetness. “I wanted to make a good first impression,” she said, over the din of too-many other guests; of families and clinking drink cups and the overhead sound of a boyband tune.
“Me, too,” Claire said, and looked about and winced, with humor, as she fiddled with her hair. “Sorry about the cheesy spot, by the way!” Her volume was twice what Ada’s had been, and Ada did not flinch. “I just thought – nobody doesn’t like it here, right? Unless you don’t, and in that case, ha… sorry about that. Then again, I - already said sorry, didn’t I?”
Ada waved her down, gently. Affirmed her reasoning. Suggested that it’s not the place, anyway, but the company.
“You have a point, there,” Claire said, warmth behind the softness to it. “Hopefully. It’s been a... crazy world we’re living in, the last few months. So I’m hoping that, you know, I can give you a nice night. Guess that’s also why I didn’t wanna get too crazy with the venue.”
Ada laughed politely, as the waitress passed by to give them their drinks: a spicy whiskey cocktail on ice for Claire, and a cosmopolitan for her.
A polite date drink. Sweet and innocuous.
And red.
Truthfully, Ada hadn’t expected all too much to come from the date - a briefing on where Claire currently stood, yes. Information on family and immediate life plans; on Sherry Birkin, possibly. She got those; considered herself to have been out on a successful mission by halfway through the night, as Claire mentioned her brother and his friends, and the kid who she visited - not mine, just to... to clarify! Nah, I don’t have any kids; never… been married, or anything. ...No, the poor kid lost her parents.
Mentioned, through tightness in her chest, that she missed people - needed this. Had someone confess love to her that nothing could come out of, recently. Had made a friend under odd circumstances who’d gotten into some “big stuff” lately, and that she was happy for him. Ada suspected that she knew who that was, but after asking the nature of it and getting "work stuff", she didn’t pry any further in lieu of a subtle way to do so, even with Claire’s growing buzzedness in mind; she’d listen to what she could get.
She hadn’t expected much more than that because she hadn’t expected Claire to be quite so easy to talk to.
Claire was a vivacious person; she had been prepared for that much. Curious and exploratory - Ada couldn’t help that she’d had a few questions for her, conversational and otherwise at once; more attempt to extract use out of leisure. Asked about her combat and survival training, punctuated with the odd well-placed smirk and shadow-flattery - asked about her aptitude for cycling, one skill that Ada herself hadn’t taken the time to pick up as of yet. Ada kept the finer points of her own knowledge on tactical subjects to herself - but when Claire discussed music and still-fresh-in-the-mind college misadventures, Ada could return with her knowledge of world languages and watch Claire’s eyes light up as she went through Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and more, although she consciously withheld Cantonese; “I’ve got an interest in travel,” she said.
And Claire scoffed, and returned, “Yet you’re still… here. Meeting up with a girl at a chain restaurant in Pennsylvania.”
“I also kind of needed this. I’m in a lull between - opportunities to get away. And relationships.”
“Then… well. If you don’t know when you’ll get out of it…”
“Yes?”
“...maybe you’ll need it again?” Claire said, a twitch in her mouth that fell short of another smile, as she scrawled her number down on the napkin that’d come with her now half-eaten steak sandwich, and pushed it Ada’s way.
Ada pursed her lips. Inspected it.
Met Claire’s eyes as she folded it up - smirked at her, wrote down a number as well - along with her false name - and signed it with a lipstick mark.
“You, too,” she said.
It wouldn’t matter much that she hadn’t dug as deeply as she could’ve. Not only had she checked in on the Redfields, as closely as one could hope, but she had a channel open to them.
She had something to pass on, and something which she could keep for herself.
Leisure and utility. Leisure and utility.
Claire wasted little time in ensuring that last night wouldn’t be just a one-off.
Ada received a phone call after 11:00 A.M. - and having already fallen back into last night’s character at recognizing the incoming number, she smiled, chidingly, at imagining the reason for the lateness in the day, thinking of whiskey.
She answered.
And felt her eyes subtly widen at a clippedness to Claire’s words that was too clean to be entirely the fault of a hangover.
She knew hesitance when she heard it. Suspicion.
It was another matter on which she figured that it was best not to press.
She greeted Claire the way the other-her that she’d fashioned for their date would - didn’t go further than asking her if she was all right. Played innocent; told her from a place in her chest that thrummed with the thought that she’d had a great time at dinner. Claire made a breathing sound, and said that she had, too.
Claire then asked when she’d be free again.
They set up another date - coffee, this time, next Sunday.
Ada prepared for it as a trap before she prepared for it as a date, sneaking several little safety items into a red leather purse; sedatives, smoke bombs, a small two-shot pistol and ammunition. Flash drives of false leads and photographs stolen from her employer’s rivals. Rehearsed answers to questions, and noted quick routes out of town, and mapped everything she might need to adjust her angle with the Redfields efficiently.
When Sunday came, she didn’t need any of them, and she did not like that.
She and Claire said their good-mornings, smiles civil; bought their coffees; and sat outside, sipping as their faces held ambivalently stony and their eyes alternatingly locked and drifted after passing pigeons.
Ada broke the ice - imagined that it’d be best if she not come across as waiting for interrogation. Asked Claire how her brother was, a slight sting in her chest out of consciousness of the risk in being the one to broach a potentially-suspect topic, and noted a flicker in Claire's face as she confirmed that he was fine.
When she changed the subject, she let her do so.
Claire didn’t ask her for much.
What questions she did ask were, fortunately, among those that Ada’d practiced answers to, regarding work, and acquaintances, and recent activities. As she gave them, she continued to study Claire’s face like a hawk studied a field, for any points where vagueness may have defeated itself and snagged her attention.
If any of it did, she didn’t press it, and Ada didn’t make any effort to urge her to press it, remaining in a defensive position.
And so they talked about exciting things again.
Ada asked Claire about music and misadventures, and Claire asked her about her travels.
Ada did enjoy it again, she thought - with a dimension to it, this time, of additional challenge. Keeping Claire at arms’ length, waiting for strikes that collapsed her enjoyment into mounting madness with every time that they didn’t come.
Unless the see-off, after their coffee’d gone cold and been hastily drained, counted as a strike.
They stopped on the street outside of the cafe; Claire took her by the wrists and leaned up to her face as the line of her mouth hardened.
She knew Claire wasn’t going to kiss her. Knew that if she took the initiative, instead, that’d be taking another risk.
“I like you. A lot,” Claire said. “Okay? I – I’ve really liked talking to you, the couple of times we’ve met up so far.”
“Same.”
Ada answered honestly - or at least the her for Claire did.
Neither of them could quite decipher the message between the lines of what Claire said. Not on hearing it.
But they’d have plenty more time to try and fail, as Claire called her again the next day, and planned another meeting - late lunch, this time, at an open-air sunny bar; at a festival in a downtown park; at a rock concert that was “Accessible,” Claire said with a laugh. “I’m not making fun of you, or anything - I’m just not sure what you like yet when it comes to this. So how about the first show we go to together is for something fun, and stupid, that we can dance and sing along to if we like it, and both get a kick out of making fun of if it’s not your thing?”
“You’re taking me on so many adventures,” Ada said, laying on the sultry smokiness, “that I really owe it to you to take you on one of mine, when I’m no longer tied to this town.”
As they spoke, their eyes, again, met.
Then followed paper tumbleweeds along the street.
They were both learning about each other, as an inevitability of spending time together.
And yet Ada still didn’t know how much Claire knew. How much of what she was being given about her was bait.
So she passed very, very little on.
It was still useful to spend all this time with her - to keep an eye on her in case she was coming to know too much.
And until she knew for sure whether anything she learned from her was still viable, she would keep it for herself.
When Ada began her adventures again, she didn’t take Claire with her.
Of course she didn’t.
She’d receive a new directive, be gone like a ghost, and then return with a phone call of her own - citing work and nonexistent relatives for her period of absence, her voice cool, before they changed their subjects of conversation back to the enjoyable, the stimulating, the adventurous in a way that they could both share.
That was usually.
Back from Spain, now, she didn’t call - and sat alone with the reasons why she couldn’t.
She’d seen Leon again - the friend Claire had mentioned, years ago. They knew each other, and knew her. It would only be a matter of time before Claire knew that there were two hers - if she didn't already. The thought of Claire playing dumb made her feel dumb.
Even if Claire hadn’t known Leon, it would’ve been enough that he still knew her.
There was a symbolic curse between them - one that burned and told Ada that her continued meetings with Claire would become a weakness, become a liability, in some way or another, if they hadn’t as it was by now.
She contemplated this fact as she stared at Claire’s number like a mailed-in accusation, as one of her calls came in.
She addressed her by the alias she’d set aside for her, with anger of a kind that Ada'd only ever heard used for other people. She demanded to know where she’d been; insisted that she needed to know if she was fine.
“I know,” she said. “Or – I don’t know what it is. But I know there’s something you’ve been hiding from me. Something serious.”
As Ada listened, her blood cooled as it slowed; ice and concrete.
“I know too many people who’ve been screwed over because of what someone they knew was tied up in behind their back. I don’t wanna be one of them. Is it their fault? No - hell, no. But I won't... let someone do that. Including you.”
Her mind wandered; she mapped out her exit plans again, and still, she listened.
“So – that’s why I need to hear it from you. Straight from you. …I can’t work with you,” said Claire, “if I don’t know you.
“That’s not me rejecting you. That’s me… giving you a chance. Please.”
I love you, Claire said, her voice faltering, before the message ended.
And Ada shut her eyes, and felt that resonance in her chest again.
In it, she felt Claire’s Ada desiring to smile like a sunrise tinting a skyline in glowing, growing lily red, and she missed her.
And opened her own ribs to let her out, straining as she did, and dialed Claire.
Claire had already become a weakness.
But she’d succeeded in keeping her her weakness.
And she’d be one that she did well by, for as long as her chance to do so lasted.