Reconnecting Agents, Mark and Eve

Eve steered her way into the Sto landing dock with great difficulty. Something had malfunctioned, smoke was coming from her ships engine and there had been a loud clicking noise coming from somewhere. Eve couldn’t figure out what it was because she had never been the greatest mechanic. She docked finally and grabbed her favorite green jacket. She could tell that this was Sto, she had visited here many times with her partner Mark so that he could pop in for a hello to his family. But Eve had not seen her former partner in a few years. She tucked her hair behind her ears as she closed the door to her ship behind her with a loud bang. The air was brisk so she put on her jacket quickly, pulled her hair out of the collar and pulled it around herself. It was a habit that she had gained in the past few years to look around and see if any one had followed her. Having possession of a stolen ship brought in the trilling sense of adventure in the most mundane things in your life. Eve knew that most likely know one would have followed her here but secretly she wished that someone had. Hiding from the Time Agency wasn’t as thrilling as she had made it out to be in her mind. She had imagined herself in constant and utter danger but to no avail she was followed for the first few months and then nothing.

She headed in the direction of where Mark use to live, praying that he hadn’t moved to a different galaxy. Her partner was someone that she could say she truly cared about. Mark had always looked out for her even when she didn’t want him to. At times Eve thought that she could see something in his eye that told her he had feeling for her. It wouldn’t surprise her if this turned out to be true, it was just that she didn’t know what she could offer him. Mark was use to the family unit even though she didn’t know much about them, the way he always spoke about his siblings made it obvious that they were close. Eve had never had anything like that. The only person that she was close to was her mom before she died. Mark had become the person that she trusted most, of course it was also because if you couldn’t trust your partner you couldn’t trust anyone.

Eve was anxious to see Mark, had to stop herself from running but she wanted to see him so badly. Eve didn’t realize how much she really did miss him until she was so close. She needed to tell him about the signals, that there was something coming through in the 21st century on earth that matched the same signals of an Agency Wristband. She wanted to track it to see if there were others, but more she wanted to see her friend this just gave her a way in that didn’t make her seem as though she had an ulterior motive. Eve was the one that convinced Mark to keep his wristband. She knew that in a crisis he would need it, he protested but anyone could see that he wanted to keep it. Mark was moral and honest and kind and always did the right thing so she wasn’t going to tell him straight off the bat that she had stolen a ship since he sort of looked down on things like stealing, but she needed to tell him sooner or later to see if he could fix it. She didn’t know if it could last all the way to the 21st, they would probably get stuck in the sixties or something.

Getting mixed up on a few turns she final found the place that she was hoping was still where her friend lived. Eve walked up to the familiar door and knocked loudly letting it echo. After so much time she wondered how Mark looked, how he had changed, what he would say about the information that she had found. She wrung her hands together nervously. She wanted to go to earth and find the others because it would have been a fantastic adventure, but she couldn’t go without at least trying to bring or in some cases drag Mark with her. Eve touched her wristband absent-mindedly waiting for the door to open impatiently.

Mark let out a slight groan as he attempted to wipe the oil off of his hands onto his shirt. It was a futile effort, for his shirt, and in fact most of Mark's clothing and hair was already coated with the slick sheen of the oil. He closed the external panel of the small Slade Corporation scout ship, and it let out its own groan in protest, but Mark just chuckled.

"Aw shuddup, you'll be fine," Mark told the ship, and it rumbled as he gave it a hearty slap to make sure the panel was closed. Mark ran a hand through his oil-slicked hair and sighed. He enjoyed the work, he did, there was no denying that, but this job had just been...messy. It wasn't even a particularly important ship either, being a ten year old scouter headed by a second-generation Vinvocci captain. Mark smiled a little as he glanced at the name written in faded paint on the side of the ship: Bannakaffalatta VI. Mark thought the bureaucrats might have done it on purpose, it was always amusing to see a Vinvocci captaining a ship named after a Zocci.

Mark shrugged and paused for a moment. As coated in oil as he was, there was no way the attendants were going to let him into the Slade compound any time tonight. His house was near here, Mark remembered, picking up his toolbox and starting towards it. He had been sleeping there a lot lately, considering that if he slept at the Slade compound there would be a high risk of running into Rickston. Amelia was getting annoyed with him, but Mark would have preferred not getting into an argument with his 'boss.'

Mark frowned at the thought, resisting the urge to scowl--he had just passed by that group of gossipy old women that always seemed to disapprove of anything he did. The last time they had caught him scowling, he couldn't get them to stop talking for hours. He shook his head as he turned a corner onto his street. Anyways, Rickston had been intolerable lately. Okay, so maybe Mark had never liked the man, but recently, almost two months from his last embarkment (and that had only been to repair a ship having trouble heading down from orbit) Rickston seemed to be actively trying to keep Mark from leaving Sto and the Slade Corporation. He had been assigning Mark more and more repairs and putting off any of Mark's requests for leave. While he had considered the option of Rickston just wanting to keep a good mechanic--and a family friend, for that really was what Mark was--close to home, Mark knew the head of the Slade Corporation much better than that. Rickston was keeping Mark from leaving because he knew that Mark wanted, needed to be in the sky. He knew that was the core of the former Time Agent's being, and he hated Mark so much that the idea of keeping him from what he loved obviously appealed. Mark had thought about just leaving, of course, but he couldn't. He owed too much to Slade Corporation, to Amelia, and by proxy to Rickston. There were times when he cursed his honor.

Mark sighed again and searched his pockets for his keys. He wasn't paying much attention to the street, but he had grown up around here, so Mark trusted his subconscious to know where to go. Finally wresting them out, Mark cursed silently as they slipped through his oil-slicked hands and onto the ground. Why did he have to use keys? He had enough money that he could install one of those automatic lock things. And if he didn't, he could always ask Amelia--oh, wait, that was it. It was his honor again. Mark grumbled as he searched the ground for them, praying to Peth that the light of the sun would last long enough. Finally grabbing ahold of them, clutching the ring so as it wouldn't happen again, Mark stood up, a triumphant smirk on his face.

It was then that Mark noticed that there was someone on his doorstep. A very familiar someone. A very familiar someone who he hadn't seen in a rather long time. "Eve?" The surprise and confusion clearly showed itself in Mark's voice, though he had to make an effort to keep his face passive. "Is that you? What are you doing here? Is something wrong? What have you been up to all this time?" Despite this, Mark's restlessness at being stuck here on Sto made itself known in the form of word vomit. Or rather, question vomit. "Uh, sorry," Mark closed his eyes and grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his oil-slicked head. "We can talk inside. Catch up then. Um, can you?" Mark trailed off, glancing from the door to Eve, attempting to make some kind of moving gesture with the his free hand, though he only succeeded in jangling his keys a little. Peth, he needed to get off of Sto.

The one thing that Eve didn’t think she could handle was no one answering the door. She would never know if Mark was still here or not, and that would bother her more. The theory of not knowing something was aggravating to Eve that she could hardly think straight. Eve knocked eagerly again hoping for anyone to answer the door. She half thought about breaking in the window just so she could look around and see if Mark still lived there. She wouldn’t of course though the thought was very tempting to her. Eve sighed to herself, she had the feeling that one would get when you know you have stayed to long. She knew no one was home but she couldn’t help but staying just a few minutes longer. Maybe she would wait a few hours until someone did actually come home, assuming the house wasn’t vacant. That would be just her luck.

Something at the end of the street caught her eye, something covered in grease and what looked like dirt. Eve didn’t recognize the man at this distance but she would ask him if he knew Mark in the very slightest. As the man walked closer and closer Eve saw that it was him, her old partner. She had seen him like this many times, though maybe not this dirty. She would sit next to him as he fixed things that had gone awry in their ship. Eve would hand him tools and the like and he would talk about his life and experiences, swearing every now and again when something wasn’t working according to his plans. Eve wondered why the Agency had put them together so many times. Perhaps it was that they were so opposite that they filled what the other lacked. Mark played by the rules, while Eve was daring and pushed the envelope. Eve was loud and Mark was more reserved. Eve knew nothing about mechanics and how to fix anything and Mark was the best at that.

Mark’s head was down as he stalked toward her and he didn’t look up to see where he was going. Eve’s smile grew as he came closer to where she was standing. This was very much like the man she had said goodbye to many years back. Staying so focused on what he was doing that he never really looked up to see what was in front of his face. When he dropped his keys, Eve had to bite her bottom lip ever so slightly to keep from laughing. She wanted his first view of her to be perfect, as though she had appeared out of thin air. She smiled at him when he finally stood up and their eyes locked. ”Eve?... Is that you? What are you doing here? Is something wrong? What have you been up to all this time?" Eve gave a small chuckle. Mark was usually calm, cool and collected. It was refreshing to see that she had caught him off guard. Though his face was the perfect mask his tone gave him away. ”Uh, sorry, We can talk inside. Catch up then. Um, can you?”

Eve nodded and shrugged her shoulders, “That’s why I’m here… To see you.” Eve took two steps closer to him. She saw the inch thick oil and grime that was on his hands, face and clothes but it could be washed. She very quickly and gently gave him a small hug and then peck on his cheek. “You look fantastic.” she teased him with a sarcastic tone. She stepped back, wiping the oil she had collected off and clearing the way to his door for him to pass. Eve missed her friend terribly. It dawned on her now that the loneliness she felt while in hiding was the direct result of not being with Mark. He was friendly, handsome, caring, and truly compassionate. Mark had been the only person she had told a little about her childhood, a very little since she didn’t want him to judge Eve on her past.

Mark looked good. He was always easy on the eyes but there was something different about him. Maybe Eve had matured more in the past few years that she had not seen her friend but there was some quality that she couldn’t put her finger on now that she had never seen before in him. Eve had always suspected that Mark had feelings for her, but Eve was to sidetracked to let it effect her at all. They were friends and they had always been friends. Eve was to hurt by her own family that love was the one thing she was truly scared of. She knew in the end that if something had started between them that she would have been the cause of its demise, and she didn’t want to hurt Mark that was the last thing that she wanted to do. She had valued Mark’s friendship above any others, though she would never admit that to anyone least of all Mark. She wanted to appear independent and strong.