˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ CHAPTER THREE:
AN INNOCENT SMILE.

Stella practically sprinted out of the car; the second Five parked it outside of Griddy's Doughnuts. She was certain, despite him insisting otherwise, his feet could not reach the pedals.

It had been so long since Stella had seen the little donut shop but not long enough to erase the dingy — years worth of dust along the top, unreachable shelves and decades old nicotine soaked seats masked by the sweetness of sugary treats and warm, extra milky, drinks — smell from her memory.

It smelt like her childhood, so much so that if Stella closed her eyes long enough she could picture it. It would be a Saturday morning, Stella with her brother on one side of the booth and their mothers sat opposite. Estelle would have a coffee, two sugars and a dash of milk and Marnie would have the bitterest hot chocolate Stella had ever tasted. Jacob would spend twenty minutes choosing a milkshake and always, without fail, settled with his usual; the unbeatable chocolate milkshake that gave him the worst stomach ache and Stella... Stella was picky, she had tried Griddy's coffee once and the face she pulled made her mother laugh so loud the elderly couple across the donut shop shushed her. Marnie's hot chocolate was, as Stella had once muttered under her breath, like sewage and yet with a spoonful (or two) of sugar and half a cow of milk, the young red head would quietly and happily sip Griddy's wastewater hot chocolate.

Stella stilled at the door, glancing over at the booth by the window. Jacob would be eighteen now, older than Stella had been when she last saw him. She wondered, her feet moving on their own to the counter, what Jacob looked like and if he ever shook his fear of the dark and then as she sat beside her husband, looking over her shoulder at the booth again, clinging to the memory of her youth, if he ever climbed into her empty bed and curled up under her covers when he had a nightmare or if by his fifth birthday he had stopped chewing the Klaus Hargreeves figurine Stella had given to him. She'd let her in-laws believe they had met a fiery death in the landfill's incinerator.

Five dinged the call bell on the counter and Stella flinched, snapped back to reality. Five sat his hand upon hers in her lap and lightly squeezed her fingers, grounding her with a gentle reminder that she was not alone.

The bell above Griddy's door rang as the door was pushed open. A man, in his fifties at least, entered the donut shop and sat at the counter two seats across from Five. He took his hat off his head, exhaling deeply with a sag of his shoulders. From inside his warm vest he pulled out a folded newspaper and a pen and began completing a crossword, sparing only a glance at the two apparent teens beside him.

A greying haired waitress in an icing pink uniform and matching hat emerged out of the kitchen. "Sorry, sink was clogged," she said with a chuckle that died in her throat when she fixed her gaze upon Stella. The waitress stared at her for a moment, her mouth parted as if she had something to say but with a shake of her head, her mouth closed and she pulled a pencil and pad from her pocket, "So, what'll it be?" The waitress asked.

"Uh, give me a chocolate eclair," The man said.

The woman hummed and jotted down his order, "Sure. Can I get your kids a glass of milk or something?" she asked.

Stella looked over her shoulder, searching for the man's kids. Besides the three of them and the waitress Griddy's was empty.

"The kid wants coffee," Five said, "Black".

The waitress looked at him like he had two heads but scribbled his order down nonetheless.

"And you, dear?" The waitress looked at Stella again.

Stella ordered her usual, well what she used to get. Hot chocolate with an extra spoonful of sugar and half a cow of milk. The waitress stilled her pen on her pad, she looked at Stella then let her gaze wander over to the booth that had been occupied the previous morning by a woman with red hair and a boy just shy of his eighteenth birthday.

She shook her head again, as if what she was thinking was completely impossible. That the girl before her couldn't possibly be the missing girl who disappeared forteen years ago without a single lead.

The waitress tucked her pad and pen away and turned to start their orders, glancing up at the clock. It was almost closing time. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes and mumbled something that sounded awfully like 'Poor Estelle' under her breath.

There were hundreds of thousands of Estelle's across the world. Stella's father's elderly neighbour was called Estelle and the woman who worked at the art supply store across the road from Griddy's was called Estelle but Poor Estelle, the woman the waitress's heart ached for, was without a doubt Stella's mother.

Stella's heartbeat quickened and her palms became slick with sweat. She pushed Five's hand away and wiped her hands against her thighs. Five glanced at her, his brows furrowing with concern. Stella forced a smile on her face and twirled out of the seat.

"I'll be back in a moment," Stella whispered.

Five glanced over his shoulder and Stella exited Griddy's, the bell chiming above her head as she left. He turned back, resting his arms on the counter.

Stella untucked her hair from the back of her suit jacket as she paced in front of Griddy's. She inhaled the cold air, her waterline like a dam, holding back the flood that threatened to spill with each shaky breath pulled into her lungs.

She rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart, trying and failing to stop the hammering in her chest. Her walls were high and even tougher, a fortress forged long ago to shield herself but at the mention of her mother they crumbled and Stella, hardened by the years alone and the commission's ruthless training, was nothing but a lost child, pacing in front of a doughnut shop.

Stella peered through the window at Five and squinted under the fluorescent lights. He had warned her, his words as soft as the eclair the waitress handed the man, that a reunion with her family could be catastrophic and until they knew the doomsday trigger it would be best to leave them be.

The man exited the donut shop, the eclair — a bite taken out of one end — in his hand. He smiled warmly at Stella and pointed his thumb over his shoulder, "Your drink is going cold".

Stella nodded, "I'll be right in," she told him. The man bid her a good evening and she said the same back as he got in his truck to journey home.

Truthfully she was not right in and Five had begun to worry. Though he drank his coffee, which in his opinion tasted like dirty dishwater, and occasionally glanced over his shoulder, clocking the streaks of red under the street light. It was best, Five had learnt the hard way, to let Stella have her space especially when her eyes became vacant blue globes and her bottom lip trembled, fighting a false smile.

Another few minutes passed and when Stella could finally hear the buzz of the late city life over the drumming of her heart, she reentered the donut shop. Five slid her hot chocolate across the counter to her as Stella sat in the empty seat on his right instead of his left.

"All good?" Five asked, his voice no higher than a whisper, even with the waitress out of ear shot, messing with the kitchen's unclogged sink.

Stella nodded, warming her hands on the hot chocolate mug. Five was right, Stella knew that. She could not jeopardise their mission because she missed her family and if — only if — they were successful, she'd see them again.

A blue light lit up Griddy's, stilling Stella as she lifted the mug to her lips and a blink of an eye later, the donut shop's bell chimed again. Their footsteps were quiet as they filed into Griddy's one by one, Five watching them through the reflection of the call bell.

"That was fast," Five said. One of the commission agents, Bruet — a skilled agent Stella had spent two nights with in New Orleans tracking down a woman through the French Quarter only to find said woman murdered — pointed his gun at Five's head, another pointed theirs at Stella's. "I thought we'd have more time before they found us," Five said.

"Okay," Agent Bruet said, his gun trained on Five, "So let's all be professional about this, yeah?" Stella glanced at the agent beside her. He was young, no older than twenty-five, his hands shook slightly. She wouldn't be surprised if it was his first week on the job — at least the commission hadn't bloodied his hands too much. "On your feet and come with us. They want to talk".

"I've got nothing to say," Five said. Stella made no move to sit her mug down, her eyes never trailing away from the young agent as she let her husband do the talking. Something, she realised, he was much better at than her.

Agent Bruet spared a glance at Stella. If he could reason with her, find the right words to convince her to give herself and her husband up without a fight, he would. Those two days in New Orleans, Bruet had come to respect Agent Windsor and, even if it was like pulling teeth, he had managed to paint a clearer picture of the 'Time Traveller's wife'.

"It doesn't have to go this way," Bruet said. He was looking at Five again. "You think I want to shoot a kid? Go home with that on my conscience?" Agent Bruet shifted his gaze back to Stella for a fleeting second, hoping that the mention of 'home', his home where his wife and three young children lived, would stir something inside her.

Stella was still. She knew Bruet's tactic and if Stella had cared enough those nights in New Orleans to remember Bruet's children's names then maybe she could have been swayed to go quietly.

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that," Five looked over his shoulder at Agent Bruet, "You won't be going home".

With a subtle tap to Stella's thigh, Five picked up the blunt knife off the counter, leaving a fork and spoon on the counter beside his mug. He blinked, disappearing from his wife's side and as he reappeared behind Bruet, plunging the knife into the agent's skull, Stella threw the contents of her drink at the young agent. The hot drink scolded his face, blinded him and with a shriek of pain silenced by the firing of bullets from Bruet's gun as Agent Bruet fell to the ground with the knife lodged in his brain, Stella twisted on the stool, her hands planted on the counter behind her to stabilise herself, and kicked the gun out of the young agent's hands.

The gun clattered to the floor and as the young agent scurried to grab it, Stella snatched her knife from her pocket and drove the reflective blade into the side of his neck. She glanced at Five, long enough to see another two agents fall at her husband's hands as he blinked between them, missing their bullets and running circles around them. Stella ripped the knife from the agent's neck and he fell to the floor, clutching his throat as red pooled between his fingers.

Stella stood, the knife in her hand dripping blood onto the donut shop's floor. The agents that were still breathing turned their guns on her, their heads on a swivel as they searched for Five.

"Hey, assholes," Five called.

Stella's gaze drifted across Griddy's to one of the tables closest to the kitchen door, Five lounged across the top of it, a cocky smile firm on his face as he waved. The agents spun, their attention and guns fixed upon Five. Bullets flew across the shop and Stella wondered if the waitress had made a run for her life through the back door or if she was so engrossed by her broken sink that the chaos unfolding in Griddy's had gone unnoticed, Stella highly doubted it was the latter.

Five blinked outside of the shop, standing in front of the glass door. He pulled the sleeve of his blazer up and pointed at his watch, feigning a bored expression. Stella held up her hand and looked at her nails, mimicking her husband's manner. It had been no more than forty five seconds, four agents lay dead on the floor and the other five seemed to have one brain cell split between them as they continued to waste their bullets.

When the gunfire stopped, the agents looked around the donut shop and Stella raised her hands, the knife still clutched in her palm, above her head with an innocent smile — it would be more convincing if she wasn't splattered with blood — curving the corners of her lips.

Five knocked on the glass and the agents turned, the hairs on the back of their necks standing up. Five's head cocked to the side with a wave of his hand, the agent closest to him shot a round of bullets through the door, shattering the glass with the first and piercing thin air as Five blinked back inside the donut shop. He snapped the head off a mop that was propped up against the far end of the counter and stabbed the splintered wood into the agent's sides, blinking away just as quickly. The agent fell to the floor, blood beginning to pool around him. Five reappeared behind another agent, his tie held in his hand. He wrapped his tie around the agent's neck and yanked him backwards onto a table. The agent scratched at the tie, trying and failing to loosen it as Five pulled against it and as Stella plunged her knife into another agent's thigh she heard the crack of the other agent's neck. Stella dragged her knife down, tearing flesh and muscle. The agent let out a yelp of pain and instinctively swung the butt of his gun at Stella's head. Five swiped the fork off the counter top and blinked beside Stella, he pushed the gun into the agent's chest and stabbed the fork into his left eye.

"I had him," Stella took Five's hand and he pulled her up from her knees, the blood on her hands seeping into the fine lines of his skin.

"You're welcome".

The two remaining agents, one standing either side of the married couple, narrowed their gazes, guns aimed at their heads. Five looked between them and after a tick of two seconds on the clock he squeezed Stella's hand. Gunfire rang out in the small donut shop and when it stopped, the two agents were dead.

Five blinked him and Stella back inside Griddy's. Stella cleaned her bloodied knife on one of the dead agent's legs before slipping it back into her pocket. Five loosened his tie from the agent's neck and looped it over his head. He stepped over an agent and avoided a puddle of blood as he walked over to his wife. Stella re-tied his black tie and tucked it under the chequered sweater vest before smoothing down the collar of his white shirt.

Five caught her wrist, smoothing his thumb over her scarred skin. Stella nodded her head, she had suggested getting rid of the chips back in the 60s but she wouldn't remind Five of that.

Stella turned away from him and took her seat at the counter. The young agent that Stella attacked lifted his head, his hand still clutched around his throat as he gurgled on his blood. Five stood over him and quickly put him out of his misery by snapping his neck.

Five sat beside Stella and she passed him her knife. He made short work of removing the tracker planted in his forearm before he passed the knife back to Stella. Stella dragged the tip of the blade along the thin scar and settled the handle of her knife between her teeth as she dug out the beeping tracker and placed it in Five's palm.

He closed his fist and pulled his blazer sleeve over the open wound, "One less thing to worry about," Stella muttered.

Author's note!
Chapter three and we are finally onto episode 2... I apologise for how long it has taken me to update. It was my birthday last week and I had hardly anytime to write so instead of rushing it, I left it until this morning.
Anyway, I'm now going to run to write my Harry Potter fic.