Silver ||Joel Miller||

I'll protect you

LAURA

2009

"Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?" Laura asked the second she laid eyes on Marlene. This had been an extremely last minute call for her to come here, and Laura didn't have anything to give. Not yet, at least. Her leads were starting to dry up, the people she was used to draining information from had begun to tighten their lips, and that meant her usefulness was running out.

"Do you remember Anna?" Marlene asked, and Laura shrugged her shoulders in response.

"I think I only met her once, why? Did something happen?" She asked. That was when she noticed the baby crying in the background. "She had her baby? Is that all you called me here for?" The solemn look on Marlene's face told her otherwise.

"She did, but she was being chased by an infected while she was in labour. We found her with the infected dead at her feet and her baby in her arms. She'd been bitten, but she told me she cut the umbilical cord before then. I..." It was the first time Laura had seen the leader of the Fireflies flustered. It was almost too hard for her to believe she was seeing it. "We kept the baby outside of Boston for a few days to make sure, but she's fine. A little unhappy, but fine." The baby's crying had turned into screams, the sounds both worried her and made her feel something heavier.

Something she didn't want to admit to.

"What does this have to do with me?" Laura asked as she looked past Marlene. The baby was in the arms of another Firefly, wrapped up in an old blanket that was no doubt scratching the child's skin and making her cry that loudly.

"She doesn't have a mother anymore, and we need her kept safe here in Boston. I think she'll be well off in the school, but we have to get her in there and I want to have eyes on her at all times." Laura still didn't understand what any of this had to do with her. "We need someone inside that we can trust to look after her, and that can help sway her back to our side when the time is right. The amount of information she could find out from FEDRA..."

Could Marlene think of anything other than the destruction of FEDRA right now? This wasn't some light-hearted plan she was talking about, this was planting a child inside and hoping they would still help the Fireflies in the years to come. This wasn't just a long-form plan. This was using a kid. Using someone even more than Marlene had used her.

"I still don't see what this has to do with me." That was a lie. Laura saw exactly what it had to do with her, she just wanted to hear Marlene say it.

"We need you to get her in, and we need you to get a job in the school so you can keep an eye on her. We need you to be her guardian." Marlene said, and all it made Laura want to do was throw up.

"No-"

"Laura, there's no one else that can do this. We're not asking you to take her in or be her mother, we're just asking you to keep an eye on her." Marlene cut her off. "Please."

"I can't-"

"Just hold her, just look into her eyes first and then give me your answer." Marlene had already turned away from her before she could argue. God, she couldn't refuse. If she did then Marlene would follow through on her threat. She'd be ratted out as a Firefly informant and hung, a sacrifice of one to save the many.

It was the same threat she had from FEDRA, that if she ever stopped sharing information with them that she would be hung for aiding the Fireflies. Why the fuck had she decided to play both sides at once? It both made her safer and so much more vulnerable at the same time. There wasn't anything left in her to take care of a child, it would only make everything twenty times more complicated, at the very least.