Chapter 16 - Fire

The quiet of the empty house made the thoughts rattling around in my head louder and louder. What did mum mean when she said it was a piece of the puzzle? Is there more that we have missed? The thoughts screamed louder and louder in my head until I could no longer stand it. I tried tidying the house to distract myself.

Unfortunately with only the two of us here now there is only so much cleaning you can do before there is nothing else to clean. In attempt to get away and distract myself I grabbed the keys and headed over to Plum and Blaze's new place.

It was the girls first day in their new school and I figured they'd have loads to tell me. I was right.

They were so cute and excited and I even sat down and helped them with their homework while Blaze was cooking dinner.

It was good to be around them again. I never really realised it but with Cheri, Meloire, Peach and Pear always around I have never not been in a house without kids. I never figured myself for the maternal type. If fact until Blue came along I never even figured myself for the marrying type either. But now, well, the idea of a little piece of Blue and me to cuddle and hold was more than growing in the back of my mind.

I went home, babies on the brain, thinking maybe it would be a good time for Blue and I to talk about the whole kids thing. But he wasn't there. Odd. No car, no note, no texts, emails, tweets. Nothing. At first I was annoyed. I mean in this day and age it hard NOT to stay in contact with people. As the time past my annoyance melted into concern and then to worry.

To take my mind off it, and because I really couldn't think of anything else, I headed in to the agency. Although it was getting late the office was still a hive of activity.

As I headed through the lobby I caught sight of Devon talking to Blue. Naturally I headed straight towards them.

Devon turned as I approached. "Rosé, glad you could make it in. Sorry to interrupt your time off but we've had a substantial break." Am I missing something here,  I had know idea what he was talking about. Oh well in these situations sometimes it's better to just go along with it.

"Not a problem sir. Some things are more important than time off."

"I like your attitude Rosé. Now come with me to the briefing room."

I tried to catch Blue's eye as we headed into the room but Devon had grabbed him and was deep in conversation the entire way. Once we were all settled in our seats Devon started off.

"Ok people we have hit the jackpot thanks to this man here." He was pounding Blue so hard on the shoulder that he was nearly knocking him over and the look on Blue's face, halfway between pleasure and pain, had me holding in laughter. "During the recent failure in Egypt Blue had an altercation with Water. Our boy here had the brilliant plan to place a bug on Water while they were fighting. As she ran off with the second piece of the stone we were able to record some of the conversation she had with her organization. I can't stress enough big this is people."

He went over the the computer and started a recording.

Water: "We've got the piece and we are heading in."
Voice1: "Copy. Any touble?"
Water: "Nothing we couldn't handle. I want to get started on deciphering the message right away. Transmitting the pictures now."

Devon switched off the recorded and looked back up at us a gleam in his eye. "This is where we hit the jackpot. Because of the nature of the transmitter the Blue placed on Water we were able to see the data that was transmitting over the uplink. We now have pictures of the second half of the Simsetta Stone! Even better, although it was a short lifetime transmitter, it remained active for 12 hours. We didn't get anymore audio, but we were able to triangulate the signal. According to our sources the location matches up to a know location for the group calling themselves the Robbery Assault and Tactical Society or RATS. So for the first time in our investigation we now have a name a location and we have a real shot at figure out what they are actually after."

Devon was right, this was huge. I glanced at Blue to see him giving me a nervous glance.

"So while the tech team work on decrypting the image I need you all to get prepped and be ready to roll out."

Blue came up to me as soon as Devon had finished. "I'm sorry Rosé I should have told you about placing that device on your mum. It all happened so fast and I know you are still conflicted about the situation between your mum and I. I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I know I promised never to lie to you again and I should have told you right away. I..."

I cut him off with a kiss.

"Blue, stop. You did the absolute right thing in placing that device. And we have hardly seen each other since we got home. Yeah I do wish I would have known about it before coming into this meeting but I'm not mad at you for not telling me." And as I said the words I realised that they were true. I wasn't mad at him. It was as if that moment in Egypt when I ran to his side after mum's attack all my indecision had left me. I had made a choice. With that realisation warmth flooded through me. 

It was late by the time we left the agency. I wanted nothing more than to talk to him about all of these feelings that had been welling up inside me, about him, my mum and most pressingly about starting a family. But when we got home all we could do was crawl into bed and we feel instantly asleep.

The next morning dawned with a whirlwind. An early morning phone call woke us and we were told to report in immediately. The image taken by my mother's accomplice turned out to be quite blurred (I guess she wasn't a very skilled photographer) and it was impossible to decipher. If we were going to get anything out of it to try and stop their next move we needed a usable picture of that stone. That's where Blue and I came in. Our assignment was to sneak into the RATS' base of operations and take a picture of the second half of the stone. It wasn't going to be easy.

With Blue on lookout I snuck in to get the picture. 

Picture taking successful I began to sneak out of the base. Just as I reached the edge I heard the tell-tale crack of a stick breaking under my foot. 

Blue and I didn't wait to see if we wear heard we just ran. With extraction hours away we had to find a place to hide until we could get out of there. A small clearing provided the perfect hiding place but no comfort. It was cold. Colder than I had thought and with the possibility of the members of RATS searching for us a fire was out of the question. Seeing me shiver Blue pulled me close. 

The heat of his body made the shivers more noticeable. He pulled me into our tent and the heat between us intensified. In the enclosed space of our tent we started our own fire.