Work Text:
Last year, one of the other agents had asked Whiptail if she ever wished she had a normal life, could have normal relationships. The answer had been an easy ‘no.’ She’d never been any good at a normal life and normal relationships, Before.
But sitting behind the driver’s seat, watching the woman she picked up on the side of the road walk into her house, she feels a flicker of that longing her colleague must have been talking about. It might be nice, to be friends with someone like her.
And then the other woman is turning, walking back towards the car and asking “Do you wanna come inside?”
That answer comes easily, too. “Yeah.”
A week later, she comes home to a message on the answering machine. Whiptail presses play automatically, expecting nothing more than a too-late hangup or a message from the gas company about an upcoming shutoff, her finger already poised over the ‘erase’ button. The only people who use this number are her utility companies and telemarketers. She almost deletes the message by accident in shock when she hears the voice playing over the tape.
“Hi, Judith, it’s Debbie. Listen, it’s short notice, but I’m hosting a book-club next week, if you want to join. You said you were a fast reader. The book’s about an Amish girl who probably murdered her baby. Anyways, give me a call if you want to come. Our number’s …”
Whiptail rewinds the message and plays it again. A book club. How wonderfully normal. It’s exactly the kind of thing a boring, run-of-the-mill forensic accountant would do. A good cover, she tells herself. Besides, she’s already read Plain Truth. She picks up the receiver, and starts to dial.
“Anyone mind helping a pregnant lady clean up?” Debbie asks it on a laugh, like she can see coming the flurry of ‘sorry, must get back to the baby,’ and ‘Michael’s waiting for me,’ and ‘got to walk the dog,’ as the other women don hats and coats and avoid looking their host in the eye.
Whiptail glances at the clock on the mantlepiece. It’s only just gone nine - wildly early by her usual standards - and Debbie’s pregnant, for fuck’s sake. Where are these people’s manners? “I can,” she announces, a little awkwardly.
Debbie flashes her a warm smile as she starts gathering empty wineglasses and balled-up napkins. “Thanks, Judith”
Debbie hits play on a boombox on the sideboard on her way to the sink with an armful of tiny plates, and before long the two of them are signing along to Just a Girl, and bumping hips while Judith bends over the sink washing dishes and Debbie dries them. When she’s coming back from the cupboard, Debbie whips her on the ass with the tea-towel, and Whiptail can’t remember the last time she laughed so hard.
She lingers at the kitchen island when the washing up is done, unsure what comes next. She’s opening her mouth to say goodbye when Debbie holds up a nearly-empty wine bottle and a glass. “Do me a favour and finish this off before you go?”
Judith nods, and snatches the bottle out of the other woman’s hand and takes an enormous swig, wiping her mouth dramatically. She’s rewarded with Debbie’s laughter filling the room like light. “You’re something else, Judith!” She wipes a tear from her eye with one hand, and grips Judith’s arm for support with the other. “I really needed a friend like you.”
Whiptail swallows. A friend like you. Those words don’t fit, not in her life. Before she can dwell, Debbie continues. “There’s an estate sale in Surrey next weekend I’m dying to see, but David doesn’t like me driving that far alone. Any chance you want to come with me?”
Judith doesn’t hesitate. “I’d like that.”
The light on the answering machine is flashing again when she gets in, but Judith heads upstairs first. Shower, before anything else. She went straight to the airport from her last assignment, never liking to linger in a city after the job’s done, if she can help it. This time, though, she started to regret it somewhere over Kazakhstan, her side aching and her skin itchy with dried sweat.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she lets the hot water sluice away the last two days, and surveys the bruises mottling her left side from knee to waist with a clinical air. She’d managed to avoid engaging the enemy directly, but had had to throw herself off a low balcony to avoid being seen. Not bad, all told. Didn’t even break a rib.
The phone rings just as she gets back downstairs. “Judith Burton,”
“Hi, Judith! You’re home! How was the business trip?”
She bites back a smile at Debbie’s effusiveness. “Fine. Just got in - haven’t had a chance to check my messages yet,” she mentions, just in case. “How are you?”
“Bored out of my skull! David’s away for a few days and the doctor’s put me on house rest until the baby comes. Do you have to work today?”
“No, no I’ve got a few days off.”
There’s a beat before Debbie asks, sounding hopeful. “Want to come over?”
Judith glances at her watch. 2 pm, and the rest of the day yawning empty. The job went as planned, so she doesn’t have to go in to report. “Sure.”
Debbie’s got a pot of tea ready when she arrives, and pulls Judith into a pillowy hug, smelling of lavender and cocoa butter. The tea is perfect, and Debbie immediately pulls her into a conversation about the book she’s been reading. After a few minutes, she starts to realize how cold it is, and Debbie must catch her eye flicking to the open window. “I’m sorry! I swear I’m running about ten degrees hotter these days,” she waves a hand over her round belly. “But here, there’s a blanket behind you-“ She gets up, and Judith shifts automatically to let her grab the throw, forgetting she’s injured. She doesn’t wince, she’s got far too much control for that, but Debbie catches something in her face anyways. “Are you okay, hon?”
“Yes, fine. Just pulled a muscle running to catch my flight.” as if, but she’d overheard someone on the plane complaining of that injury.
“Oh you poor thing! Can I get you something, maybe tylenol? Wait, no, you call it paracetamol. Can I get you some of that?”
She smiles, grateful that Debbie just chalked her momentary pause up to British-American language differences. In her world, any pain minor enough for paracetamol to make a difference doesn’t even warrant remarking on, let alone treating. But, Judith Burton, accountant who pulls a muscle in the airport, would probably take it, so she accepts, downing the tablets with a mouthful of tea.
She hasn’t noticed the afternoon has slipped by until Debbie is saying “You want to stay for dinner? I’m going to order in. Maybe Indian?” Startled, Judith nods and glances at her watch - half six. It’s easy for the hours to slip by, in this cozy little sitting room, with Debbie who never seems to run out of things to chat about. She gets up to clear the tea-things, waving away Debbie’s offer to help. It’s only when she gets to the kitchen that she realizes the ache that’s been with her since Beijing is nearly imperceptible. Huh. Maybe Judith Burton, unremarkable accountant, is right about some things.
It’s two days later when Judith lets the machine get the ringing phone during her morning workout. Debbie’s voice echoes down the hallway. “Hi Judith, are you around today? I’ve just started going into labour and I need a ride-“
She sprints down the hallway and yanks the receiver from the cradle. “I’ll be right there.” Hanging up the phone without waiting for a reply, she stops only to grab her keys before she’s out the door.
It takes an age for her knock to be answered, and she’s just contemplating trying a window when Debbie pulls the door open, then starts waddling back into the house. “Where are you going? I’ll grab your bag, just get in the car!” She spots the overnight bag waiting at the foot of the stairs and throws it over her shoulder then looks around. “Debbie? Where the hell are you?”
“In here!” Baffled, Judith looks into the living room to find Debbie on the sofa, feet propped up in front of her. She just stares until Debbie says “It’s not time to go to the hospital yet. My contractions aren’t close-” her words are cut off as her body goes tense, hands gripping the sofa cushions. “-enough yet. Could be hours.” She looks at Judith, half apologetic, half amused. “Which I would’ve told you if you’d stayed on the phone.”
“Sorry. Should I leave?”
“No, no, keep me company.” She pats the couch beside her, and Judith sits, awkward and completely at sea as to what to do until Debbie elbows her. “Hey, relax. I’m not dying or anything.” She picks up the remote and clicks the TV on with a grin. “I’ve been taping Survivor for an emergency.”
Judith lets in the breath she’s been holding and relaxes back against the couch cushions. “Right on.”
Four episodes in and Debbie’s periods of pain are getting longer and closer together. After the next one ends, Judith looks at her watch till Debbie’s next sharp intake of breath. Five minutes, seventeen seconds. “When did you say you’re supposed to go in?”
“When they’re-“ she gasps. “Less than five minutes.”
“Okay, time to go.” Gently, she grips the other woman’s elbow and helps haul her to her feet.
She’s white-knuckled on the wheel the whole way to the hospital, fighting every impulse that’s screaming at her to floor it. She forces herself to breathe. She shouldn’t be this anxious - God knows she’s not squeamish, and she’s excellent in a crisis. But she feels hopelessly out of her depth. She knows all about ending lives, but nothing about helping them start.
Debbie gives her breathless directions to the maternity ward entrance, and she deftly cuts in front of another driver to park as close to the building as possible.
She waits, foot tapping against the scuffed linoleum as a nurse checks Debbie in and asks her questions, takes her blood pressure. While the nurse is leading them down the hall, Debbie stops and grips Judith’s arm as another spasm takes her. The nurse ushers them into a waiting area filled with straight-backed plastic chairs and a handful of anxious husbands and round wives. She’s gone before Judith can protest. “Shouldn’t they be putting you in a room?”
Debbie shakes her head. “They said they would as soon as they could. It’s fine.”
The next time someone in scrubs passes, Judith grabs their arm. “Excuse me. My friend needs a room.”
“We’ll get to her soon, ma’am.”
“She’s in labour.”
“Everyone here is in labour.” The doctor rolls his eyes. “There will be a room soon.”
Judith looks him in the eyes, and imagines she’s holding a knife to his jugular. “Put her in a room. Now.” Two minutes later, an orderly comes and leads them to a private room.
“That was fast!” Debbie sighs, dropping gratefully onto the bed. “What did you say to him?”
Judith shrugs. “I just used my work voice. Sometimes men need to be spoken to firmly.”
The next few hours tick slowly by. Debbie rests, and paces, and Judith tries not to act like she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing. The list of people who would be better equipped for this could fill several books.
All at once, it seems as though a switch flips. Debbie’s contractions are coming thick and fast. Judith gets on her knees beside the bed and puts her hand over Debbie’s. The other woman grips it like a lifeline as pain overtakes her face again. “That’s good! Show me how much it hurts!”
She might not know anything about childbirth, or babies, or friendship, but she does know pain, and how to get through it. For the next hour, she keeps up a steady stream of encouragement, al the things she tells herself when she’s bleeding from a stab wound but she can’t stop, when it feels like her lungs are on fire but she has to keep running. Good girl, and you’re strong, you can do this and just a little longer. You’re almost there.
When the doctor is coming into the room every couple of minutes saying alarming things like “almost fully dilated”, David arrives. He goes to Debbie’s other side, and she makes to leave, but Debbie grips her hand and says “Don’t go. Please,” so she squeezes back, and stays.
Finally, when it’s all over, and the nurse has placed the squalling baby in Debbie’s arms and she and David are gazing at its wrinkled face, enraptured, Judith eases to her feet, muscles stiff from holding her position for hours, and slips out the door.
Two days later, David calls while she’s out and leaves a message saying they’re home from the hospital, and both Debbie and little Davey are doing fine. Judith makes a face at the fact that Debbie let David name the baby after himself, then gets on a plane to New York the next day.
When she gets back a week later from dispatching the leaders of a drug cartel, the light on the answering machine is dark. A couple days pass, and it’s the longest she’s gone without hearing from Debbie since they met. Which is only reasonable. The woman just had a baby. If they were really friends, it would be Judith’s turn to reach out. Bring her a casserole or something - that’s what people do when someone has a baby, isn’t?
But they’re not real friends, because Whiptail doesn’t have real friends. Isn’t allowed to have real friends. It’s good, she tells herself, that this is a natural stopping point to something that could have gotten dangerous.
A day later, she finds herself in the supermarket, staring at the boxes of pasta.
The problem (aside from all the reasons that this is a terrible idea), is that she doesn’t know how to cook. The closest she came to learning was when, at the training academy, she would sometimes slip down to the kitchen during a free hour, sit in the warmth and the fragrant, humid air. Ernie, the grizzled old chef, would ask her to taste-test, and tell her stories.
There was one dish she always loved - nothing special, really, just chicken and pasta and vegetables, smothered in sauce and topped with melted cheese, golden-brown and bubbly on top. To this day, it’s what she thinks of as a sort of platonic ideal of comfort food, even though she hasn’t tasted it in years. She watched Ernie make it once, though. It can’t be that hard.
Three hours, a sliced finger, and a lot of swearing later, she pulls the foil pan from the oven, smelling just like she remembers.
She busies herself for another half-hour cleaning up the chaos of pots and pans that she’s created, then finds herself braced against the counter, staring at the dish of food.
It’s a tipping point, she can’t get around that. Up until now, she’s skirted the line of plausible deniability. Accepting Debbie’s invitations was one thing. Could be explained away as maintaining ties to a cover that could come in handy. The hospital, helping her through the birth of her child - well - that happened so fast, Judith didn’t have time to think.
But this. There’s not a single person at the agency, not even Judith herself, who would believe that delivering a home-cooked meal is a reasonable and necessary part of maintaining a cover. No. That’s something you do because you care about someone. That’s something you do because the friendship, up until now, has been a little one-sided, always her reaching out, and you don’t want it to continue that way. This is the line between bending the rules, and breaking them.
Judith picks up the pan, and heads out the door.
Debbie greets her with a smile that’s weary but genuine. “Judith!” Then she sees the tray in Judith’s arms, and visibly sags with relief and gratitude. “You brought food! You’re an angel! Come in, come in. Quiet, he’s sleeping.”
She follows Debbie to the kitchen, and opens the fridge to put the food away, then freezes in shock. “It’s empty.”
“Well, David keeps having to work late - you know he’s trying to make partner - and I don’t want to go to the store with a newborn. He promised he’d have time tomorrow.” Seeing Judith’s horrified face, she goes on. “It’s fine, there’s still cereal, and now I’ve got this!” She gestures at Judith’s pasta-bake like it’s a minor miracle.
Judith turns around and grabs a pad of paper and a pen and thrusts them into Debbie’s hands. “Make a list.”
“No, Judith, it’s fine.”
“Make a list. I’ll pop out and be back in an hour.” She puts a hand over Debbie’s and squeezes. “Please.”
It’s all the encouragement she needs and she writes quickly, tearing off the page and handing it to Judith, her face full of gratitude. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Well. Isn’t that what friends are for?”