Tenley excused herself before the interrogation began. Her mind continued to wander back to Charlotte and she worried about the woman's health. It was clear to anyone who looked upon the frail woman that her time was nigh. The doctor still had questions that needed to be answered but her priority would be to make sure the old woman survived the night.
As Tenley rounded the corner, nearing the door to the infirmary, she heard footsteps behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted Rowan and paused at the door to the infirmary to give him a chance to catch up. "How are you feeling?" she asked, motioning vaguely toward his head before entering the infirmary.
Rowan followed her. "It hurts but I'll be fine."
She furrowed her brow at him. "Do you want something for the pain?" He shook his head. She paused mid-step, watching him for a moment. "What's going on, Rowan?"
His eyes darted about the empty infirmary. "I wanted to ask ye something."
Tenley stepped closer, crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay..."
He licked his lips before retrieving a folded piece of paper from his pocket. As he opened it, he asked, "Do ye recognize these two?"
Tenley's eyes dropped to the paper outstretched towards her. Grabbing it, she examined the drawing on the page. The ink strokes were deliberate and rushed but the image showed a woman looking out of the time machine into a dark ocean cove with two men in suits, carrying guns running in.
"Where did you get this?" Tenley asked, lifting her surprised gaze to meet him.
"Ye recognize it?"
"Uh, yeah," she confessed, dropping her gaze back to the drawing. "This was the last thing I saw before we returned from our mission in 1781."
"Did ye recognize the men?" he asked, studying her face carefully.
She thought back over the encounter, blinking back to the present. "They seemed familiar but..." she shook her head, "I couldn't tell you why - "
He stood straighter, glancing behind her before suggesting, "Think back to when ye were Amy." Tenley's brows drew together, head cocking to the side as she tried to remember those days. He saw she wasn't reaching the memory quickly enough for his preference, so he asked, "Do ye remember our mission to 1931?"
Tenley blinked at him. "1931?" her face contorted for a moment as she strained to recall the specifics, "the one with the horse?"
Rowan nodded. "Do ye remember the two we worked with on that mission?" Tenley's eyes darted back and forth in thought before they widened and her mouth fell agape. Her eyes dropped to the page in her hand as he asked, "Are they the same?"
"Yeah," she said, scoffing, "How did I miss that?"
"Well," Rowan began, "Ye had a lot on yer plate lately..."
She shook her head, holding the drawing up. "I didn't tell the others that I sort of recognized them..." she sighed asking, "Is that why they didn't shoot at me when they came into the cove that night?"
He studied her face, a seriousness washing over his features. "They didn't?" She shook her head and he blew a short laugh from his lips, running the tip of his thumb across his brow. "Of course not..."
"What's going on?" she asked. "What is it?"
"They must have merged," he simply said with a small disbelieving chuckle.
Tenley blinked at him. "Who merged?" she shook her head confused, "What are you talking about?"
Rowan didn't explain right away as he ran a hand across his jaw in thought. "We always knew that was a possibility," he muttered, "We just didn't think it would have happened this soon - "
"Rowan."
"Sorry, yeah," he paused, turning to gaze at her, "Reynolds managed to merge both Rittenhouse and Bloodstone into one."
"What?"
He nodded. "It explains a lot - "
She shook her head, eyes wide. "Does it? Because I'm sort of at a loss here - "
"Haven't ye noticed that both groups have changed their approach lately?" he questioned. "Haven't ye noticed we've stopped running into Bloodstone agents nearly all together? Now there are more traps..." She nodded along as he spoke. He licked his lips timidly as he added, "We're reaching the end of the line..."
"Meaning what?"
Rowan got a distant look behind his stormy blue eyes, one that made Tenley worry about him. He seemed to be looking right through her - at something that wasn't there.
"Rowan?" she called out to him. He didn't blink. "Rowan?" Panic rose in her chest as he stared off into the distance. "Rowan!?"
Rowan's eyelids grew heavy as his knees buckled out from under him. Tenley rushed forward, wrapping her arms around his tall frame in an attempt to keep him from hurting himself as he fell. The pair sunk to the cold tiled floor of the infirmary, his head against her chest, eyes closed.
Rolling him onto his back, Tenley immediately assessed his needs. He was still breathing and didn't seem to be injured in any way she could find. She kept her hand on his chest, feeling his heart beating and the rise and fall of his chest - both normal. The sound of the infirmary opening behind her startled her, causing her to glance over her shoulder to the door.
Tenley's eyes landed on the frail form of Charlotte who clutched the doorknob, leaning against the door for support. As her dark eyes scanned the old woman, she noticed the stream of dark crimson running out of the woman's nose.
Tenley rushed to the woman's side, holding her arms for support. "Charlotte - "
"Don't ye worry about me, dear," Charlotte groaned.
"You're bleeding..." Tenley told her. Now that she was closer, she could see the trail of blood seeping from the woman's ears as well. "What happened?"
After reaching the exam table, Charlotte sat on the edge, sighing heavily. "I found... this for ye..."
Tenley glanced down at the woman's wrinkled shaky hands to see her journal that had gone missing. "Where...where did you find that?"
Charlotte's voice was raspy as she admitted, "I took it back - " she coughed hard, traces of blood lined her paling lips.
"From who?" Tenley asked, her heart hammering behind her ribs. "Who did you take it back from?"
Another cough came from Charlotte and Tenley noticed the pigment draining from the frail woman. Charlotte's tongue darted out to moisten her dried lips, causing the blood to spread across the lower lip like a stain. "Poppy..."
"Poppy?"
"She's..." another violent cough erupted from the woman. She groaned, shaking her head. "There's not enough time..."
"Let me - "
Charlotte held Tenley's hand as tightly as she could muster, keeping the doctor where she was. "I don't have time..." her tired eyes lowered to Rowan who was splayed out across the floor, "Take care of him...don't let him do what he's about to...he's too important..." her eyes misted over with tears and a mixture of love and fear settled on her expression.
"What are you talking about?" Tenley asked, studying the woman carefully as Charlotte lowered herself onto the exam table. "What's he going to do?"
Charlotte's breathing grew ragged as her eyes drifted away. Her grip loosened on Tenley's hand. "I'll... see ye... again...in...14...04..."
The moment the words escaped from behind Charlotte's blood-stained lips, her hand went limp in Tenley's grasp, and her final breath released from her frail form. Tenley blinked at her for a moment before attempting to stir her. "Charlotte?" she pressed her finger against the woman's neck to search for a pulse, finding none. Tenley's head hung to her chest as she sighed.
"Did she suffer?" Rowan asked groggily over her shoulder.
Glancing over her shoulder, Tenley spotted Rowan standing directly behind her, looking down at his mother's lifeless form. She shook her head. "No...I don't think so..."
A moment of silence fell over the room before Tenley pulled her hand away from Charlotte's, laying it gently over the woman's chest. She turned to face Rowan. "What happened to you?"
Rowan's eyes lingered on his mother's lifeless form, tears slowly building behind them. "I know what I have to do..."
Tenley's brows knitted together. "Which is?"
He blinked the heavy daze away from his expression, eyes still looming on his mother. "Die."
Back in the observation room, Lucy excused herself after a couple of hours while Quinn and Wyatt tried to get Poppy to speak. It had been unsuccessful, much like Quinn expected, and the man finally lost his calm.
Both Lucy and Jiya slipped out, no longer able to watch the violent interrogation unfold - even Rufus shifted uncomfortably as he tried to remain in the room.
The moment they were outside of the observation room, the two women released a heavy sigh of relief, allowing their shoulders to relax. Lucy shook her head. "This is wrong." Jiya nodded, offering a small smile as Lucy mused out loud, "What if she's telling the truth? What if she doesn't know anything?" She started pacing in the hall.
"Do you really believe that?" Jiya questioned.
Lucy chewed on the pad of her thumb just under her nail. She shrugged half-heartedly. "I don't know," she muttered. Dropping her hand to her side, she asked, "Does she seem familiar to you?"
Jiya blinked at her. "Uh..."
"She looks familiar somehow," Lucy mused out loud, stopping for a moment.
"From a mission or - "
Before Jiya could finish her question, Rufus slipped out of the room, eyes bouncing between the two. He blew a hard sigh from his lips. "She's tough as nails, man..."
"Anything?" Lucy asked, resuming her pacing.
He shook his head, running a hand over his head. "Not yet," he admitted. He narrowed his eyes at them as he dropped his hand from his head to slip into his hoodie pocket. "Does she seem familiar to you?"
"Yes!" Lucy blurted out, stopping her pacing to hold her hand out in recognition. "Thank you!"
Jiya shrugged. "Not really."
"I don't know what it is about her but..." Rufus shuddered. "She just seems..."
Connor Mason stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind him. His eyes darted across the gathered group. "I wasn't aware we had a meeting?"
Jiya suppressed a smile as Rufus turned to Mason. "Does she look familiar to you?" he motioned between Lucy and himself, "We think she's familiar somehow..."
Mason's brows drew together. "I don't know...never gave it much thought."
"Man," Rufus muttered, "It's going to drive me nuts until I figure it out..."
"Where did she even come from?" Mason pondered. "Roanoke?"
Lucy nodded. "From that group of people as far as we know," she admitted. "Who knows if she's really from that time..."
"You're suggesting she's a sleeper?" Rufus asked.
Lucy shrugged. "I don't know anything anymore..."
"Well, Scooby Gang," Rufus quipped with a tilt of his head, "there's one thing we can do to solve this mystery."
"And what's that?" Jiya asked, holding in a laugh as she glanced up at him.
He cracked his knuckles. "We go super-sleuthing in the mole's room for Blue's Clues."
"You already did that joke," Jiya muttered to him under her breath.
"You want to ransack her room - " Mason started.
Rufus nodded. "Maybe we can find something to use against her in the interrogation."
Mason held up a hand to protest but never got the chance as the three marched toward the living quarters with a mission on their minds. Mason shook his head and watched them disappear down the halls.
As the three navigated through the living quarters' hallways, they finally arrived at room 45. Jiya stared at the door for a moment as Rufus and Lucy pushed the door open to enter the room. Jiya slowly followed behind them, blinking at the number.
Rufus and Lucy opened the drawers to the desk and side tables within the room, shuffling the items around as they scoured for clues. Rufus glanced up to see Jiya lingering by the door. "You going to give us a hand?"
Jiya blinked out of her daze, glancing over at him. "What?"
Lucy stopped to look up at Jiya. "Are you okay?"
Before Jiya could answer, Rufus shouted, holding up a stack of papers. "Ah-ha!" His declaration startled both women, who turned to look at him. He waved the papers around in the air. "Check this out!"
Lucy approached him, glancing over his shoulder as he thumbed through the pages. In his hands were a series of numerous drawings - much like the ones from the book The Lost Colony Lucy had been studying.
"Do you think she drew these?" Lucy asked, eyeing the images as Rufus flipped through.
"I don't think so," Rufus admitted, scanning the room. "She doesn't seem to have any paper or drawing supplies in here."
Jiya's eyes turned back to the door. "What if she stole them from someone else?"
"Wow, look at this one!" Rufus gasped out loud. It was a drawing of the three time machines sitting on the landing pad together. He asked in passing as he continued looking through the images, "Who would she have stolen them from?"
Jiya shook her head. "I don't know but..."
Lucy stopped Rufus and motioned in Jiya's direction. The two watched her for a second before Lucy repeated her question, "Are you okay?"
With a furrowed brow, Jiya turned her gaze back to the team, muttering, "45."
Lucy and Rufus exchanged glances before turning back to her. "What?" Rufus asked, confused. "45 what?"
Jiya pointed to the door as she said, "The room number..." she saw their confusion and twisted her lips, "What if it's a clue? 45? Break it down, what is it?"
"A book, a gun, a song - " Lucy started to list.
"It's a triangular number," Rufus began his own list, "the sixth positive integer, the atomic number for rhodium - "
Jiya shook her head, waving her hands to stop both of them. "Think simpler." The moment she saw that she lost both of them, she sighed in desperation. "4 and 5... " her eyes widened at them, "wow...okay... try this: April 5th?"
The two blinked at her, stunned. Lucy asked, "Is it possible it's just a coincidence?"
Jiya raised an eyebrow at them. "Since when has anything been a coincidence?"
Rufus's mouth fell agape. "Holy guacamole Batman! It never occurred to me to think... you're a genius!"
Jiya shook her head slightly. "I appreciate that but that brings up a whole new problem."
"What's that?" Lucy asked.
"Why would Bloodstone...Rittenhouse - whoever - give us a clue that would lead us straight to their mole?" she asked. "Why would they expose her like that?"
A heaviness fell over the room as the three stared at one another. Rufus sighed, shaking his head. "Because they wanted her to be found," Rufus muttered. "We've been played... again."
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