Watchlist

ACT VI

Nervously tapping his foot, he put his bag down on the ground of the arrivals terminal, where he was told his parents would pick him up. Tina had accompanied him, and she reached up to lay her hand on his shoulder. He resisted the urge to roll up the long sleeves that he had worn to cover his tattoos. It was too damn hot.

"It 'll be OK," she told him. "Seriously, Ben. They're your parents."

They hadn't spoken at all during the flight, but she had supplied him with an updated American passport. It was strange, the feeling of loss seeing his actual birthday on the blue pages. 16 June. He was almost 18 months younger than he thought.

"Why did you join me?" He asked, trying to mimic her accent. Tina grinned at his attempt, relaxing slightly in her shoulders.

"We knew each other."

"What?" She pulled out her phone, swiping through her apps and then scrolling back over fifteen years in her photos. Tina hummed to herself as she searched for something. Eventually, she let loose an excited snort, pressing on a photo. She passed the phone to him. Babyfaced with the beginnings of acne, he estimated the boy in the photo must have been 11-12. It was him. He'd never seen a photo himself so young. He'd never seen a photo of himself prior to age 16- well, he guessed he was actually 14 at the time.

"Holy shit," Ben swore, staring down at the selfie. "I'm tiny. Smaller than you." Tina cackled, swiping to the next photo, which displayed a teen Tina in a hallway with various labelled doors.

"We went to the same school," she explained. "I was your RA your first year."

"That's why you were so familiar," he murmured, swiping on another photo, which was a picture of a green lawn and a brown bricked building captioned, "first day of senior year!" A car pulled up near them, which wouldn't have been significant considering the hubbub of the terminal, but Ben paused, taking in a breath as he saw the old model black suburban. He shouldn't be so nervous, for chrissake.

Two people left the car, standing and staring at them. No, just him. Tina had relayed to him that his parents had been briefed, in a way. Not, of course, where he had been or what he had been doing, but where he had been found. In a relative sense. And though he didn't know their names, there was that innate sense of familiarity, like a bell ringing in his head, that made him step forward. The woman, her brown hair- so similar to his in a way he couldn't remember seeing before- now streaked with grey, choked up, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she ran forward.

"Benji," she gasped as she reached him, stopping just a foot away as she stared up at him. "You're alive." His mother cradled his face with his hands, and he leaned into it. His father stood there, staring at the two of them like he couldn't believe the scene in front of him.

"Hey, kid," Ben nearly broke down in sobs, but he retained his training, a singular tear tracking down his cheek as he reached out to his father with his right hand. Soon, he was cocooned between both of his parents.

____

"No, Erica," Zoe said as they walked through the cloud of smoke by the car park of Langley. "We're not letting you see the body."

"But-" she tried to speak up. Zoe raised her hand to stop her. With a sigh, Zoe turned around to face Erica, rubbing her temples with her hand, her engagement ring glinting in the sunlight that escaped through the clouds. Erica raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this," Zoe glanced back at the office building. "But, I guess you're going to find out anyways."

Closing her green eyes and looking up at the sky like she was summoning strength, she finally looked back at Erica, who resisted the urge to worry her hands together by sticking them into the pockets of her trousers.

"Ben's alive."

"What?" It was barely even a whisper. Zoe inhaled again, rocking back on her heels.

"We found him because of your op."

A breath. A beat. A pause.

"What?" Had Ben somehow been trafficked or connected to La Manche? How had he been found? Why had he not contacted them? Surely he hadn't blamed the CIA. "The skeleton wasn't him? I thought they said they had DNA?"

Zoe shook her head.

"He would have known to make contact," Erica murmured, and then, pinching her lips together, "unless he didn't. How could he not have known? Amnesia?"

Amnesia from the explosion. She'd hit her head hard enough that she didn't fully remember what happened that night either. It was like piecing together a horribly complicated puzzle with only a shade of what the end result should look like. But they had been looking for him for weeks, in hospitals in Monaco, in France, in Italy, before they were made to go home. The CIA had said they would continue to look for him. What had happened?

"Erica," Zoe moved closer, her hand up like she was going to offer some semblance of comfort to her shell-shocked friend. The colour drained from Erica's face. This only matched one person in Audrey's circle.

"Augustine," she whispered. That's why his background didn't make sense. Not that he had much of one anyway. He didn't just remind her of Ben. He was Ben. "Fuck."

"Yeah," Zoe said. "You did do that."

Erica hit her arm. Zoe rubbed it, pouting and raised her arms in mock surrender.

"Hey. I'm just saying. It did happen. I don't blame you. I've seen the photos." Erica glared at her. Augustine was Ben. She released the breath she didn't know she was holding. OK. She could handle this. The man she had romantic feelings for was her formerly thought-dead nerdy best friend. A hysterical giggle poured out of her.

"What?" Zoe's apprehensive face bordered on concern as Erica leaned over to put her hands on her knees.

"He's still a fucking fleming," she wheezed. "You can take the boy out of espionage, but you can't take the espionage out of the boy."

"Yeah, he was on a Watchlist. I'm surprised they didn't flag him from prints alone when he was arrested. CIA decided that he was a little bit of a threat, I guess." Zoe shrugged as Erica straightened up. Why hadn't she been notified of this? "But his return is the hottest gossip at school, according to Mike. One of the kids took a self-defence class with him in Alexandria when he got back. Surprised the news outlets hadn't caught on yet, honestly."

____

"And here is a picture of you and Mikey from the 4th grade musical," his Mother cooed. Ben smiled tightly, searching in his head for any memory. But, as there was with the other photos, there was nothing but a warm familiarity- the same kind he had gotten with Elise and Tina. Though, as he looked at the two giggling boys, frozen in time with silver circles of facepaint on their cheeks, there was nothing missing in his heart. They flipped to the next page of the photo album.

"Oh!" his mother said, pointing to a photograph on the top right corner of the right page, labelled "Mexico". "That was a field trip your school took to down south," she smiled sadly. "About a year before y'all went to Monaco."

She continued, but Ben couldn't hear much over the rushing of blood in his ears. He reached over, easing the album out of her hands to place it in his lap. Running his hand down the photo that had captured his attention, he inhaled sharply as he saw his laughing face on the back of a girl grinning brightly at the camera.

"Mom," he said. The memory of the familiar scent of lilac and gunpowder surfaced, but it wasn't only from Elise.

"Yeah?"

"Who's this?" She peered closer, a small smile spreading over her face.

"That's Erica," his mother informed him, running her own fingers over their faces. "She comes to visit us when she can. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her in a while. Maybe I should give her a call. Zoe got engaged, you know. I heard it from Erica's father."

He blinked away the tears, but he could not dismiss the certainty that the girl in the photo was none other than a young Elise Evans. Face turning to stone, all he could do was keep his gaze stuck to the photograph.

"Erica," Ben whispered to himself. "I know your name now."