Chapter Text
She was faster.
It was no surprise, she never denied her feelings to herself so it was easier to reach out. Not exactly easy but easier.
He picked up immediately, very annoyed, thinking it was someone else. When he heard her greet him, he stopped the insults on the tip on his tongue from spilling out.
They were silent. Nothing except their ragged breaths could be heard on either side, as if the world had finally stopped for a second. Then both said the phrase the other hoped they'd say.
After that, they don't talk about the details. While the peace was a lot more permanent than in their childhoods, it did not mean the connection was secure. They were still prominent figures after all. They both understood it. They settled on picking a date and a place and then hung up going back to their separate beds and the same ghost.
They meet in a remote café a few days later. While it was scandalous for two such high profile single people to be seen in public alone they escaped the scrutiny. For all the onlookers they were just two old classmates catching up over some overpriced coffee.
They weren't exactly catching up.
They explained bits and pieces of their current life if it was relevant for the story, but they knew the other wasn't interested.
They weren't friends. Just two people connected by one ghost and one mystery.
She tells him how she only ever recognized her by her eyes. He tries to explain how he could only see the surrounding energy.
They both decided it's not a coincidence that they saw her as the same woman on the same occasion.
So they bring up every sighting of her. What she was wearing, who she was talking to, how she laughed, how her eyes sparkled, how her mouth curled in a sly grin. How she was so beautiful. How she was so alive.
After they finish the fourth cup they part their ways and promise to reach out again.
Both get to work.
Becky looks into the lists of guests from the parties where she saw her. Every time there were some new people so that was a dead end. There was never an Anya on those lists. There was never anyone by the name of Forger on those lists.
So she moves onto the articles. There she finds her under different names.
Maria.
Dorothy.
Barbara.
Susan.
The closest she ever got to the truth was Annabelle and that was the information Becky had to look hardest for.
It looked like she never took on one face for too long, never got too recognizable. Always disappeared before anyone took notice.
Finding any of those and connecting them was a fool’s errand. There was nothing connecting them. However, Becky was already called a wacko, so she connected them anyway.
Damian took more… dirty route. He used father’s old connections. He got his hands on the supposed autopsy. It never actually identified any of the Forgers. He also had a hunch there weren't actual bodies in those graves burned behind his eyes, but he wouldn't stoop so low to even check that.
After that, he looked into the grimmest parts of the country. Spies, assassins, arms dealers, informants, anything really.
It was a dead end after a dead end.
They met week after week to compare their findings. It was frustrating, spending so much time together. They argued more than they talked, yet they came back time and time again.
At first, they met in casual places, to keep up the appearances. Cafés, parks, restaurants.
As the time went on, they stopped caring about it all.
Whole Berlint was abuzz with rumours as Ms. Blackbell was seen once again leaving the Desmond mansion late at night. The rumours were not helped when Damian suddenly left a meeting when a butler told him Becky was calling him and saying it was urgent.
So what if they thought there was some steamy affair going on, let them talk, they said. At least no one will suspect them of digging in the past and dirt.
While they weren't exactly friends, they still had some care for each other as no other person would ever understand them.
She talked him down after he called her in the middle of the night with a panic attack.
He softly touched her shoulder and made her tea after she stared blankly at the wall for 30 minutes.
They weren't friends but they had each other. And their shared ghost.
They knew that if it came down to it, if they had to choose between each other and Anya, they'd both choose Anya without a second thought. They held no resentment over that since it was actually one of the things they agreed on.
After a while, the clues ended. The ghost stopped appearing as if she had sensed they discovered her, only appearances she had made were only delusions and dreams. They simply exhausted all the options.
They should've moved on. They should've packed up their notes and went back to their lives and continued to exist.
They couldn't.
So after making that realisation, Becky and Damian did what rich, responsible adults did.
They got wasted on very expensive liquor and holed themselves up in Becky's house for a week, crying, screaming, laughing, arguing, dancing, reminiscing, and just staring blankly into the distance like two mad fools they were.
The alcohol ran its course, work piled up, some people were concerned, so with that they parted ways once again, to live separately in their daily nightmares alone.
Damian packed up his things and went back to his house alone.
Becky cleaned her living room, she didn't want the maids to see the destruction, so she took care of it alone.
At the same time they both entered their studies. Both found identical cards laying on their decks. They were sealed with blood-red wax, the seal was a single rose.
“What do you know about the Twilight?”
“What do you know about the Thorn Princess?”
They immediately went back to their drawing boards with renewed vigour.
At first the cards left by the mysterious stranger made no sense.
They dug and they had to dig deep. Finding even a mention of those individuals took weeks alone and there was seemingly no correlation between them.
Two individuals regarded as myths to have never existed. A spy and an assassin whose stories were largely regarded as propaganda on both sides to sew discord and fear. Both connected to organisations also regarded as such.
Funnily enough, a piece of information connecting them both and their ghost was a single date they knew from day one.
Universe has hilarious ways of working, does it not?