The Ties that Bind..."

                         Part Four:  Unexpected Events



      Three months had passed since Ivy and Carmen both had escaped them in
Fairview.  Ivy had disappeared again, completely;  two postcards meant she 
was still alive, but they said nothing more than 'Love, Ivy'.  Carmen 
had nearly pulled off two spectacular heists, one of the Eiffel Tower 
and the other of Lincoln's Tomb.  Zack and Derry had just managed to 
stop her and recover the loot. 

      "We could have been there twenty minutes earlier and not had to chase
her halfway across Illinois if you'd figured that out faster," Zack
complained, filling out the paperwork.  He hadn't been sleeping well 
lately, and had lost a few pounds;  there were dark circles under his eyes.

      "Zack, I'm not Ivy!" Derry snapped.   It was becoming a familiar
complaint.  "I'm not as smart as she was, and I didn't see you solving it any
faster!"

      "I had my hands full with Al Loy!" Zack protested angrily.

      "Yeah, and that's what you said that last time too!" Derry shouted. 
"Ivy's not coming back!  I, for one, don't care if she does!  Deal with it."

      "Don't start in on Ivy again!" Zack yelled back, scrambling to his feet
with his fists clenched.

      "Enough!  If you didn't spend all your time fighting, you'd have been
there even faster," the Chief spoke over both of them.  "Both of you, get 
out of here until you calm down."

      Derry and Zack stomped out.  The Chief groaned.  The last month had 
been filled with bickering, fighting, and sullen truces.  Derry had given 
up on Ivy completely, and was starting to make disparaging comments.  
Zack hadn't, though even his hopes were tattered, along with his temper.  
The Chief spent most of his time refereeing when they weren't on an actual 
case, and some when they were as well;  Carmen had used it to her 
advantage on this last assignment, driving the wedge deeper between them.  
Maybe he should reassign Derry and get Zack a different partner.  
Wherever Ivy had gone, she had hidden well;  nothing he could do or 
any of the field agents could do could find her.  There was no trace of 
her from either of the places her postcards had been sent.


      Ivy had never made it to New Mexico.  Her money, even augmented by
fortune-telling, was running out by the time she hit Arizona, and she'd
stopped in Kingman.  There was a martial arts school there, run by a man 
named Adam Hilliard, that was in need of a new teacher.  After a 
demonstration to show her skills, and a bout with him, he had gladly 
taken her on as a teacher, under the name Trisha Godey.  The nearest 
Acme office was in Phoenix, and there was nothing interesting to 
Carmen closer than Lake Havasu City.

      She bowed to her students.  "Excellent work, class.  Thomas, Jason, 
can I speak to you a moment?"

      The two teenagers came up and sullenly stood in front of her;  they 
had some sort of personal grudge or problem, and it was getting 
disruptive.  "Sensei?"

      "Martial arts is not about competition," she said firmly.  "The only
person you are competing with is yourself, to better your own skills and
abilities.  If you waste your energy trying to beat each other, you will get
nowhere."

      They glared at each other.

      "Sensei, you don't - " Thomas started.

      "I don't understand?" she finished.  "No.  You don't.  This is not a
competitive sport, and I want no more of this in class."

      "Yes, Sensei," they said grudgingly.  She dismissed them.

      Ivy did her own cool-down stretches;  her next class wasn't for three
hours, so she had time to relax.  She changed out of her gi into short denim
shorts and a cropped green top before retreating into the office.  She 
drank a tall glass of water and picked up her astrology book.  She 
still occasionally picked up money casting horoscopes and reading the 
Tarot, as well as tutoring students in history.  It had been difficult, 
at first;  teaching had not come naturally to her, but she was doing 
well enough at it now.  The nightmares had dropped back to only three 
or four times a week, instead of every night, and the painful dreams 
only ached, instead of cutting.  She had never even come close to losing 
her temper and hurting someone, even when most frustrated; that eased her 
nerves more than anything else.  She peered at her hair;  it wasn't time 
to renew the dark auburn dye yet.  She'd let her hair grow out for the 
last several months, and it currently looked rather ragged.  Maybe she
should get it cut, which she'd been meaning to do since before the 
entire mess had started.

      "Good afternoon, Trisha," Adam said, coming into the small office they
shared.  He was in his late forties or early fifties, with graying black hair
and bright black eyes;  he'd retired from something to start the school.  She
thought it had been some branch of law enforcement.  "I see your class went
well today."

      "Yes, it did," she said.   "Thanks for your suggestion, it really did
help them grasp the idea."

      "Are you ready for the trip to Lake Havasu?"  he asked, referring to a
trip to work with another school next weekend, the weekend before
Thanksgiving.  Ivy was looking forward to it, but was also nervous;  there 
was too much chance that Acme agents or VILE agents might be there.

      "Oh, I think so," she said.

      "The omens are favorable?" he joked.

      She laughed.


      Carmen sighed.  She was so bored;  Zack and Derry had succeeded almost
in spite of themselves on the last heist.  She missed Ivy, missed the
challenge of working against someone smart and determined, able to (mostly)
keep her mind on the job.  She'd have to find Ivy and convince her that she
could and should go back to Acme;  she had a good idea where Ivy was hiding
out now, from a few hints that her henchmen had picked up.  Or get Ivy to 
join her ... that idea amused her no end, Ivy working for her, but she 
reluctantly dismissed it.  It wouldn't solve the problem of it being 
so ... easy... if that was really the problem.  It was about 3 AM 
California time.

      "Chief?" she said, hissing to wake him up.

      "I'm not speaking to you, Carmen," the Chief replied sleepily, then
shrieked as he realized who was talking to him.  

      "You just did," Carmen retorted.  "And please don't yell.  I just want
to talk."

      "Go away, do you know what time it is?"

      "What are you doing for Thanksgiving?"

      "I'm sitting here alone and unloved because everyone else has families
to go to," he grumped.  "Just like I have every holiday since you left.  And
are you going to keep Ivy's communicator and badge forever?"

      Carmen winced.  "Chief, I don't have a family either, and I've spent 
all those holidays alone too," she said softly.  "And no, I'm hoping I 
can find Ivy and make her take them back."

      "Oh, sure, like the last time when you tried to ruin her good name and
make us think she'd turned into a thief in the night like you."

      "I had to do something outrageous to annoy her enough to do something,"
she replied.  It had not been one of her better plans, she reluctantly
admitted;  Ivy hadn't acted the way Carmen had expected.  "I have a plan."

      "Now I'm scared," he snapped.  "What's this brilliant plan you couldn't
wait for a reasonable hour to tell me about?"

      "Chief, if I'd waited for a reasonable hour, we'd be having this
conversation in front of Zack.  I'm not exactly Zack's favorite person right
now."  Zack was still furious about the imposture;  actually, furious was an
understatement.  It had, Carmen thought with the clarity of hindsight, been a
cruel thing to do to him, on top of Ivy's vanishing act.

      "All right, all right, so what's this brilliant plan?"

      Carmen outlined her scheme.

      "That's crazy!"

      "Do you have any better ideas?"  She thought it was a little mad too,
but considering that Ivy wasn't exactly what Carmen would call sane right now,
maybe a little madness was needed.

      "Why don't you come back to Acme?"

      She sighed;  she should have expected that.  "Chief, I can't," she 
said.  "I can't.  Now are you going to go along with me or not?"

      "If I don't, you're just going to steal me again, aren't you?"

      She chuckled.  "The thought crossed my mind."

      "Oh, all right," he said.  "On one condition."

      "If it's that I come back to Acme, the answer is no."

      "Darn," the Chief said.  "Thought I had you.  All right, you apologize
to Ivy for stealing her identity and Zack for making his life even more
difficult."

      "All right, Chief.  I'll see you for Thanksgiving," she said, and
clicked off.  He never changed;  she hadn't quite realized how lonely he 
must have been.  Maybe as lonely as she was;  she sent all her henchmen 
home for these big holidays.  Then again, she'd never really been with 
anyone for the holidays except the Chief, either.  She thought to herself, 
how was she going to explain to Zack, much less Ivy?


      Ivy picked up some groceries on her way home several days later, trying
to ignore all the signs proclaiming Thanksgiving.   She'd almost always made
it home when she was with Acme, and the one year she hadn't, she'd spent it
with about a dozen other stranded detectives.  The cafeteria had cooked up a
feast for them, and even without family, it had been a great time;  she 
hadn't even had to fight for the turkey.  This was the first time she'd 
ever spent Thanksgiving alone, and it wasn't a pleasant thought;  none of 
Mom's pumpkin pie, she thought wistfully, none of Aunt Mary's special 
stuffing, no cousins to fight for turkey and chairs and pie, no rehashing 
of the same worn-out stories about her babyhood that she never wanted to 
hear again, no snide comments from the cousins about her lack of a social 
life ... maybe it wasn't all bad.


      Adam was going away after the trip to spend the holiday with his family;
she had the impression they lived in San Francisco.  She was taking over all
his classes for that week, in addition to her own;  the extra work would at
least keep her too busy to brood much.  Sometimes she wondered if Adam had
guessed her secret, or even part of it;  she'd caught him watching her class
with an odd, sad look.  If he had, he wasn't telling, and she wasn't going to
ask.  After the Oregon disaster, she'd just gotten back on her feet, and she
didn't want to lose anything now.

      She was renting yet another tiny studio, and was lucky to have that; 
rental units were hard to come by.  She'd spent weeks sleeping at the school
until this had opened up.  There were messages on the answering machine;  the
dried flower arrangement next to it was the only decoration in the apartment. 
The only furnishings were the small table the answering machine sat on, a
beat-up chair and a tv-tray, and a sofa-bed.

      "Hey, Trisha, this is Maria.  You sure you don't want to come over for
Thanksgiving?  Be nice to have one sane person in this mass of insanity.  
I'll take care of C.S. for you this weekend;  just remember to give me a 
key tomorrow."  Maria was one of her better students, and they'd struck 
up a good friendship;  that Maria was in her late thirties, with a 
daughter close to Zack's age and another Ivy's age, didn't seem to matter.

      "Sensei, this is Chris. I am sorry I missed class today, my brother 
fell sick again."  She'd wondered where he was;  he had a huge family and 
various parts of it were always getting sick, leaving him to pick up their 
work. She'd done more special sessions to make up for missed classes with 
Chris than anyone.

      Her cat meowed, demanding dinner.  Chris's cat had had a litter not 
long before she came to town, and he'd given her one of the kittens just a 
month ago.  "All right, C.S., all right!  Let me get it out of the bag!"

      The tabby kitten rubbed against her legs as she scooped some moist food
to add to the dry, then attacked it with gusto as soon as she put the dish
down.  Ivy changed the water in her bowl and picked up the letter she'd 
trying to write for days now.

      "I'm all right, Zack.  Tell Mom and Dad I can't make it for
Thanksgiving.  I'm sorry."  She couldn't face it.  Her parents were probably
still furious with her for letting Zack get hurt at all;  she remembered the
painful, vicious arguments they'd had in the hospital, and the one, 
shattering argument about what she'd done to Lee.  Gia and Armando, of 
all people, had come in on the tail end of that one, and practically 
thrown her parents bodily out of the room.  Zack was probably angry that 
she'd abandoned him.  And then there were the cousins ... 

      "Zack, try to understand.  I can't come back after what I did. 
Didn't the Chief tell you?  I should have found a better way to leave, Zack,
but I had to leave.  There's no excuses or reparation for what I did.  It
wouldn't be good for Acme for me to have stayed."  It was a miracle it had
been kept out of the papers as much as it had.  "Oh - here's a belated
birthday present, since I can't teach you the driving tricks like I said I
would.  I'm sorry I wasn't there.  Tell the Chief ... tell him I'm sorry if I
hurt him leaving like that.  Love, Ivy."

      It wouldn't get any better or any easier.  She put the envelope in the
package, sealed it, and planned to drive to Flagstaff tomorrow to mail it,
since she only had afternoon classes.


      Three days later, about the time Ivy was driving down to Lake Havasu,
Zack collected his mail and found the package.  

      "Chief!  It's from Ivy!" he shouted, recognizing the handwriting.

      "Well, what is it?  Where was it mailed?  Where is she?"

      "Flagstaff, Arizona, a letter and my birthday present," he said.  "Cool!
Where did she find this game, I've been looking for it for months!"  He read
the letter and his face fell.  "She's not even coming home for Thanksgiving. 
It's all because of Lee, again.  She doesn't say where exactly she is, big
surprise."   The letdown hurt worse every time this happened;  he was torn
between wishing she'd write more often and not at all.  Ivy, he thought, 
there wasn't any good way to leave!  "She says she's sorry she hurt you 
leaving the way she did."

      "Oooh, I wish I'd never heard of Lee Jordan!" the Chief growled.  "I'll
put in a call to the nearby Acme agents to keep an eye out for her."

      Zack nodded, and locked everything in his desk with all the rest of
Ivy's letters and postcards.  He didn't know whether he was furious with her,
scared for her, or just hurt;  everything was turning into a twisted, tangled
knot of pain.  He wished she'd have come for Thanksgiving;  he wanted to know
what was going on, why she'd left, why she wouldn't believe she could come
back.  Didn't she care about him at all?


      Finding Ivy proved easier than the Chief thought;  Detective Armando,
tracking a criminal to Arizona, had spotted her already.  She was in a
demonstration bout with an older man, blows, blocks and counterblows flying
thick and fast to the awe of the crowd.  His quarry was in the crowd to his
left, and he moved carefully through toward him.  He spotted a couple of
Carmen's henchmen in the crowd, and wondered what they were doing there, in
between trying not to lose his quarry and staring at Ivy.  She had changed, a
lot, lost some weight (which was bad, she hadn't need to lose any), dyed her
hair (which seriously needed cut), but still recognizable if you knew her 
well enough.  The clothes, though ... the clothes made him doubt it for a 
minute. Since when did Ivy wear shorts that short, or mid-riff baring 
halter-tops?  He had to admit, though, it looked quite good on her;  
green and gold was a good color combination, and Ivy had acquired a 
nice tan.  If she'd gain back a few pounds, she'd look even better.

      Ivy won the bout with a daring and unexpected maneuver that Armando
would not have thought possible.  There was hearty applause from the crowd,
and they both bowed, then left the stage.  Their students came on stage to
demonstrate specific skills next, the older man staying to take the mike and
explain.

      His quarry spotted him and started to run through the crowd, shoving 
his way through.  "Acme detective!  Step aside, please!"

      The commotion was drawing attention, and Carmen's henchmen took off. 
Where was his backup?  His quarry was free of the crowd, running for the
parking lot;  Armando put on a sudden burst of speed.  Ivy was walking back
from her car with a fresh water bottle and a towel, looking toward.

      "Acme!" Armando yelled.  "Stop that man!"

      Ivy reacted without thinking, grabbed the suspect and threw him to the
ground, pinning his arms behind him.

      Armando came flying up and handcuffed him.  "Thanks, I-"

      "Trisha," Ivy interrupted, a flash of near-panic in her eyes.  "Trisha
Godey.  You're quite welcome, Detective."

      The crowd started to disperse back to watching the students.

      "Detective Armando," he said, introducing himself for the benefit of
anyone listening.  "Trisha, we'll need you to make a statement at the station.
It'd be easiest if you just came directly with me."

      Adam had come over as soon as he could, and heard the last part.  "Go
ahead, Trisha," he said.  "I'll cover for you."

      Ivy's look could not be described as grateful, but she went.

      Once the prisoner was behind the soundproof barrier in the back of the
car, Armando spoke, really worried.  "Ivy, what's going on?  Do you have
any idea of the rumors that are going around about you?"

      "What rumors?"  Ivy asked, bewildered.  Just what had the Chief come up
with to explain her absence?  She wished she'd remembered to throw her gi in
the wash last week;  running into Armando like this was rather embarrassing,
even if the expression on his face had been amusing.

      "Well, most of the male detectives think you secretly eloped," he said. 
"Errr, I like the clothes."  If they'd seen that outfit, the rumors would get
much more voluble.

      "Uh, thanks," she said, and then the sense of what else he'd said hit. 
Ivy choked and turned scarlet.  "What?!?"

      "I think it's wishful thinking, myself, but that's the story.  The most
recent version says you eloped and moved to Jamaica."

      Ivy was still having some trouble breathing.  "Who do they think I
eloped with?" she asked in exasperation.  "The Chief!?"

      "Um, no," Armando replied.  "It's a wide-open field, pretty much anyone
but him, Zack, Derry, or Josha;  well ... not me either. Are you all right?" 
He didn't think he was going to have anything reassuring to tell Zack.  He
wondered just what the arguments Ivy had had in the hospital with her parents
had been about;  he wasn't quite brave enough to ask, but they had clearly
been awful.  He should have started out differently, asked some other 
question... but he didn't think Ivy wanted to answer the one everyone 
wanted answered.

      Ivy managed to start breathing normally and her face started to return
to its normal color.  Apparently the Chief hadn't seen fit to tell anyone who
didn't already know what had happened.  "Where do they come up with these
ideas?  Isn't there any work at Acme?"

      "As I said, I think it's wishful thinking.  That's only one rumor.  The
other really popular one is that you got recruited by the FBI and are on a 
top secret mission somewhere, probably involving aliens."  Armando shook 
his head; now there was an agent with too much time on his hands.

      Ivy shook her head in disbelief.  "You guys don't have enough to do, 
do you?  Look, I didn't elope with anyone, I'm not working for the FBI, 
aliens or anyone else.  I'm just teaching in a martial arts school."

      "Under a false name.  Why, Ivy?"  Armando asked.  "What happened?  Do
you have any idea how upset Zack's been?"

      "I quit.  I don't know what the Chief said, I don't care, but I
resigned," Ivy said explosively, turning away from him.  Her shoulders were
set and stiff, and she rubbed hard at her eyes.  "How - how is Zack?" she
asked.  "Furious?"

      "Recovered from Lee," Armando said.  It was something of a miracle,
seeing as Zack had ignored his doctor's advice when they thought Ivy had gone
bad.  "He's furious, hurt and confused.  He doesn't understand why you left
and he hasn't been himself since.  Actually, I don't understand either, Ivy. 
What happened?  Why are you using a false name?  Where have you been?"

      "Mind your own business," Ivy snapped.  She hadn't realized how
much it would hurt, seeing an Acme detective, someone she'd known, working a
case, and being on the outside.  It sounded like Zack was taking this badly. 
Everything was tangled up;  she'd been trying not to hurt him again, and it
wasn't working.  What was she going to do now?  She didn't want to have to
move again, leave the school and start over yet again.  "Armando, ask the
Chief.  He can tell you what happened," she said bitterly.  "And if I used my
name, I'd never get any peace between Acme and Carmen."  She didn't expect
happiness, or even contentness, but a tolerable peace she was almost on the
way to, and she didn't want to risk it.  They pulled up in front of the local
station; Armando blackmailed Ivy into at least writing Zack and telling him
what happened in return for not pressing charges of carrying false 
identification.


      Carmen chuckled;  the last elements of her plan were in place, now that
she knew exactly where Ivy was.  One of her henchmen had just reported in
after doing some checking and seeing her in Arizona, even having the presence
of mind to find out what name she was using.  A search of the phone books had
reported Ivy's alias, Trisha Godey, as having a phone and address in Kingman,
Arizona.  She was teaching at a martial arts school, run by Adam Hilliard. 
Now that was a surprise;  she hadn't thought about him in years.  He'd 
retired from Acme before she'd left, and she doubted Ivy knew about him 
at all, or she'd never had worked for him.  Teaching martial arts was a 
good sign, for Ivy;  much more like her than running a 
fortune-telling shop.


      The Chief sent Zack home, beginning to have serious doubts about
Carmen's plan, particularly since Armando had reported that very unsuccessful
conversation with Ivy.  If Ivy ever found out where some of those rumors had
come from ... Zack was moody and even more unhappy after hearing about that; 
jealous of Armando, of all things, despite Armando's attempts to cheer him up.

      Ivy dismissed her last class on Wednesday and spent a while practicing
some of the forms she didn't get to use very often before locking up and
heading home.  She wasn't looking forward to tonight or the long weekend; 
with only C.S. for company, it promised to be boring, even with writing the
letter Armando had made her promise to write.  How was she going to tell Zack?

      She opened the door to darkness;  she'd thought she left the curtains
open this morning, and the street lights were actually working for a change. 
C.S. was purring, loudly, not demanding dinner, from somewhere nearby.

      She waited for her eyes to adjust.

      "Hello, Ivy," Carmen said, reaching over to shove the door closed 
behind her.

      "What are you doing here?" Ivy demanded, shifting into a defensive
stance, fighting down sheer panic.

      "What kind of a greeting is that?  You could try to catch me, you could
say hello ... but what are you doing here is rather rude," Carmen said
lightly.  She wondered what Ivy thought she was going to do.

      C.S. ran over to rub against Ivy's legs, and Ivy picked her up, then
turned on the lights.  Carmen was wearing the safari-style clothes she'd worn
as a detective, leaning against the wall catty-corner to the door.  In the
light, Carmen saw the dried flowers on the one small table;  she'd sent Ivy
the arrangement when the detective was in the hospital.  It was freeze-dried
and perfectly preserved, if a little dusty.  She wondered why Ivy had kept it.

      Ivy sat heavily down on her sofa-bed, absently petting C.S.  "Look, I've
been teaching four classes and a half-dozen special tutorials every day this
week, I'm tired, it's a holiday and my family is several hundred miles away,
and the last time I saw you, you were doing a really good job of blackening my
name on top of what I did to it already."  C.S. suddenly leaped from Ivy's 
lap to viciously assault her shoelaces.  "C.S., stop that!"

      "C.S.?" Carmen asked, a trill of laughter in her voice.

      "She steals everything not nailed down," Ivy replied, with a grudging
smile.

      "I think I should feel insulted," Carmen said dryly.  "Nice outfit. 
Suits you much better than the other did."

      "You, on the other hand, prefer stealing things that are nailed down,"
Ivy replied, getting up to look in her refrigerator, trying to restore some
semblance of normalcy to the room.  "I'd offer you tea, but I don't have any."
C.S. followed her hopefully to the kitchenette.   She ignored Carmen's comment
about her clothes;  the short blue halter and cutoff denim shorts were
comfortable.  Maybe she shouldn't have gone with that idea ... but the clothes
had been on sale, cheap, and no one would have expected her to dress like
that.

      "That's quite all right," Carmen said, following.  "Actually, I stopped
by to invite you to spend Thanksgiving with me."  She hadn't intended to say
it like that, but the sheer idea made even her nerves quake.

      Ivy dropped a plastic container on the floor;  it bounced, skidded, and
rolled to a halt at Carmen's feet.  "What?"  Ivy asked, staring blankly at
Carmen.  She could not have heard what she'd heard.  Carmen inviting her for
Thanksgiving?  It had to be a trick, a trap, something.  She'd believe Carmen
had rejoined Acme first.  She'd believe Zack had joined Carmen first.

      Carmen retrieved the container.  "Clumsiness is usually Zack's
department, Ivy.  I don't particularly care to spend Thanksgiving alone," she
said simply;  now that she was acting on the plan, her nerves calmed down. 
The container appeared to be full of mold.  "What was this?"

      "Ummmm ... potatoes," Ivy said, peering at it carefully.  "Why me,
Carmen?  Why not invite Suhara?"

      "Suhara has family," she replied.  "Besides, he's never forgiven me for
leaving.  And I gave all my henchmen the week off."

      "So go get Zack, getting him out of being tormented by the cousins would
probably make him your friend for life."  Ivy pulled another mold-filled
container out of the fridge.  She still didn't believe a word of this ... but
she looked at the dried flowers, and wondered.

      "I'm hardly Zack's favorite person," she said.  "And your relatives
can't be that bad."  Carmen was rapidly coming to share the Chief's doubts. 
This had been a completely insane idea, Ivy wasn't going to go along with it,
and her escape plan had better work.  What was wrong with her?  She should
have been able to come up with a better plan than this.

      "You've never met the cousins," Ivy said darkly.

      Carmen laughed, her eyebrow going up as Ivy finally pulled something
that wasn't molding out.  

      "I'd offer you a PBJ," she said, tossing the bread on the counter, "but
I don't think it's exactly your idea of haute cuisine."

      "I've got a better idea.  I have some excellent Chinese in my
refrigerator.  Why don't you just come with me, spend the night, and stay for
Thanksgiving tomorrow?" Carmen asked.

      "Were you planning on just dragging me along if I didn't agree?"  Ivy
replied.  "Like you were planning on blackmailing me into VILE with that
masquerade?"

      Carmen winced.  That really had not been one of her better plans.  "Ivy,
I wouldn't.  I don't suppose there's really a reason for you to believe me,
but I wasn't intending to make you join me.  I was hoping it would flush you
out of hiding, so Zack could talk some sense into you."

      "You're right," Ivy said flatly, trying to find the jelly in the fridge.
"I don't believe you.  What do you really want, Carmen?  I'm not going to join
VILE.  I'm surprised you'd even want me, after what happened."

      "Ivy, don't you understand?  You don't have to cut yourself off from
everything because of that," Carmen said gently.   "There's no reason for you
to have hidden like this."

      "No reason?" Ivy said bitterly.  "No reason.  Just that if I didn't, I'd
never have gotten away.  it would have been a constant 'we need a consultant
on this' or 'can you teach this batch of trainees'.  It never ends;  no matter
how often I said no they'd keep calling, never mind that it wasn't the right
thing.  And you."

      She slammed the jelly jar down on the counter.  All the pain and the
fear and the anger of the last several months was boiling, and she turned on
Carmen.   "What do you want from me, Carmen?" she demanded angrily.  "Why
won't you leave me alone?  Am I just another challenge now?  Just another
game?"

      Carmen felt like she'd been hit;  she couldn't speak for a minute.  Was
that what she'd become?  Someone who played with people like dice?  "Is that
what you see when you look at me?"

      "I don't know what you are, Carmen," Ivy said bitterly, pulling the
peanut butter from the cabinet.  "You've been playing with me for how long
now?  Maybe this is all a better game."

      Was that it?  Was that the only reason she was here?  "No, Ivy," Carmen
said, feeling the pain choke her voice.  She hadn't felt this awful in a long
time.  The Chief had been right, she should have left Ivy alone; just told
Zack where she was, something other than this.  "No.  That's not it.  Please
believe me, I'm not playing games with you now."

      Ivy tossed bread onto a plate and started the sandwich.  "Why?  Why
should I believe anything you tell me?" she asked.  "I don't understand,
Carmen.  Why did you stop me?  Why did you risk capture to stay with me?  Why
are you hunting me?"  She was beginning to feel like Javert, after Valjean had
saved his life.

      Carmen heard the confusion under the anger this time.  She wasn't all
that sure of her own motives then.  "Ivy, I ... I couldn't let you do that to
yourself."

      Ivy laughed, uncertainly.  Carmen couldn't really mean it;  the thief
couldn't really care that much about her.  Sure, she'd never wanted to hurt
her, but Carmen just deplored violence on general principles.  "Yeah. 
Sure, Carmen."  She slapped together the sandwich, splattering jelly and
peanut butter on the counter.

      "I mean it, Ivy," Carmen replied, past her own pain.  "I couldn't let
you do it.  It didn't work, though," she said softly.  "Look at yourself. 
Look at what you're doing to yourself."

      Ivy flinched.  "Low blow, Carmen," she whispered.  "I've only done what
I had to do."

      Carmen shook her head.  "Do you really think you can run forever?"

      "Can you?"  Ivy replied, munching on her sandwich.  C.S. meowed and
jumped onto the counter.  "I can't be like you, Carmen.  I can't go back.
What do you want from me?"  She didn't believe this entire conversation.  She
could never be like Carmen;  the thief had more self-control than she did,
more brains.

      What did she want from Ivy?  "I don't want to see you like this," Carmen
said.  "Ivy, look at yourself.  Everything you ever worked for, you threw
away.  For what?  I don't understand, Ivy.  Didn't Acme mean anything to you?
Doesn't Zack?"

      Ivy turned away and swiped at her eyes.  "Damn you, Carmen.  Don't you
see that's why I left?"  she whispered, her voice low, hoarse, on the edge of
breaking.  She remembered the sheer startling shock and pain of seeing
Armando, of being on the outside again.  C.S. meowed, nosing the sandwich. 
Acme had meant everything to her; she remembered being enthralled by every
news report about the agency and the exploits of its detectives as a kid. 
Especially one detective.  At least Zack was back in action;  Lee hadn't
permanently damaged him.  "That's why I left."

      "Ivy, do you have any idea what this is doing to Zack?" she asked.  "You
were always the short-tempered one, but Zack spends most of his time fighting
with his partner.  You're hurting him worse than Lee did."

      Ivy stiffened, her breath caught in something suspiciously close to a
sob.  "Zack will do fine without me," she said, her voice breaking.  "He
needed to learn how to work with other people anyway."

      "He's not doing fine," Carmen said.  "I should know, since I've seen him
more than you have in the last months."

      Ivy finally turned around, her face set, hiding whatever she was
feeling.  "Yeah?"

      "Yes," Carmen said, and decided to start turning back to her original
question.  "Will you come?  For Thanksgiving, I mean."  This had been insane,
even if Ivy hadn't immediately yelled for the police.  "I can tell you what
I've seen of him lately.  Go ahead and bring the kitten, too.  I don't like
spending the holidays alone, Ivy."  That was true enough;  the holidays were
always the worst.

      "All right," Ivy said, suddenly capitulating.  "All right."  She wasn't
sure why she was doing this, why she'd agreed ... except she missed Zack, and 
Acme, and didn't want to spend Thanksgiving alone and eating peanut butter; 
most of her friends were still at Acme.  Carmen might understand how alone she
felt, how much she missed everything.   She still had to write that awful
letter to Zack.

      They didn't talk much on the trip back to California;  Ivy dozed off
several times, exhausted from the day and the discussion.  Zack was
short-tempered, and irritable, and didn't seem to be enjoying himself like he
used to, and he was still furious with Carmen for posing as Ivy.  She gathered
that Zack's new partner was not up to Carmen's standards, that Carmen was
finding them very dull.  They flew to a small airstrip and drove from there.

      "Is that why you do it, Carmen?  The thrill of the chase?"

      Carmen sighed, as they drove up a hill.  "In part, I suppose.  After a
while, it became more of a challenge to figure out how to steal the treasures
than protect them, and the other thieves were incompetent ..."

      "And you just had to show them how to do it right," Ivy said, with a
half-smile.  "Carmen, you just hate not being the best."

      "And you're different?"  she retorted with a laugh.  "Ivy, when you were
with Acme, you spent most of your time trying to be the best detective
possible.  You hate losing."

      Ivy shrugged.  "Well ..."  C.S. meowed.  She wanted out of the carrier.

      "It's true," Carmen said.  "And you were the best.  Nobody ever even
came close."

      "Not even you?" Ivy asked.

      "I wouldn't go that far," Carmen replied.

      "Still have to be the best, Carmen?"

      She laughed.  "And then you just walked away from it all," Carmen said. 
"Just ... left."

      Ivy stiffened, eyes turning dark with pain.  "You, of all people, should
know why, Carmen."  The nightmare intruded again, Lee's battered, bruised,
body, the bloody film over her eyes ... that it had been Carmen who had had to
stop her.  She really wished she could go back;  the pain had settled into a
weary pall over the last several months, until Carmen showed up.  It had gone
away when she was working out with Adam, once in a great while when she was
practicing alone.  "You walked away from it all too."

      "I never thought you were the type to run away from your problems,"
Carmen replied, parking the car in the garage, ignoring the jab.

      "I didn't," Ivy said.  "I took them away from other people."

      Carmen's house was surprisingly bright and comfortable, eclectically
furnished with valuable antiques from all over the world.  The kitchen table
was nearly the size of Ivy's apartment;  it was solid oak, from a French
monastery.  "There's kung pao chicken and some fragrant beef," she said.

      Ivy had the fragrant beef (having to fight C.S. for it, who had a
mysterious preference for beef), and the conversation turned back to less
personal matters.  Carmen showed her to a bedroom, and she sacked out; out
like a light in less than a minute, she was so deeply asleep she didn't even
notice Carmen taking her bag and leaving a set of clothes on the chair.

      "Hello, Chief," Carmen said, walking into her study.  She dropped the
bag on the floor.  "Ivy's asleep.  She seemed exhausted."

      "Do you think this is really going to work?" he said.  "Carmen, maybe we
should have just left her alone."

      Carmen shook her head, sitting down at her desk and propping her feet
up.  Ivy was in terrible pain;  she'd never lashed out at Carmen like that
before, no matter how angry she was.  "Chief, I think she really wants to
go back, but she can't get past what she did to Lee."

      "But she wasn't herself then!"

      "She doesn't believe that, Chief," Carmen said.  "It's poisoning her."


      C.S.'s insistent meowing in Ivy's ear finally woke her up late the next
morning.  She struggled up from a confused dream about talking rabbits.

      "All right, all right, C.S.," she said groggily, filling the kitten's
dish with dry food.  She kicked off her clothes, pulled on a robe, and peered
blearily at the clothes on the chair.  They weren't the ones she'd left there;
these were her old Acme working clothes.

      She closed the bathroom door, took off the robe, and turned the shower
on ice-cold, standing under it as long as she could tolerate before turning
the hot water on and washing.  It was getting close to time to dye her hair
again;  it was fading and growing out at the roots.  She hadn't remembered to
bring any dye with her, though.  She turned the hot water off again and stood
shivering under the cold spray for a few minutes before shutting that off.

      The clothes she'd brought with her had disappeared completely, and she
had to either put on her old Acme gear or wander around in a bathrobe.  She
opted for the Acme gear;  it fit a bit loosely, surprisingly.

      "Very nice.  I can't do anything about the hair, though," Carmen said
approvingly when she reached the kitchen.  "There's some cinnamon buns on the
table.  The local bakery does very good ones."

      "You're losing your sense of subtlety," Ivy said, looking at the
snowfall through the window.

      "I resent that," Carmen said.  "You've merely lost your ability to sense
subtlety, requiring me to resort to blatant methods."

      Ivy snorted and took a cinnamon bun.  "These are good," she said,
helping herself to some orange juice.  She had to admit, the old duds were
comfortable, even if the memories they were bringing up weren't.  "Do I want
to know how you got my clothes?"

      Carmen was wearing jeans and a blouse, and had pulled her hair back in a
braid, incongruous with the Carmen Ivy knew.  She was reading a cookbook.  "I
think you can guess, Ivy," she said, laughing.

      "At least you're not wearing them," Ivy sighed, testing the waters. 
"You look better in them than I do, it's terrible."

      "Now, I wouldn't say that," Carmen said cheerfully.

      Ivy finished her bun and took another.  "Uh-huh.  You do."

      Carmen chuckled and set down her cookbook.  "Do you cook?"

      "Minimally," Ivy said, remembering day after day of minimally edible
meals.  "Mom wouldn't let me or Zack in the kitchen."

      Carmen pulled the turkey out of the refrigerator.  "Why not?  Did you
nearly burn the house down?"

      She laughed.  "Not in the kitchen.  No, see, if you let Zack in the
kitchen, there wouldn't be enough left for anyone else to eat.  And I had
these mold cultures in the back of the fridge once ..."

      "You must have been a terror as a child," Carmen said, struggling to
detach the turkey from its plastic wrap.  Ivy gave her a hand and they got it
into the roasting pan.

      "I refuse to answer that," Ivy said, smiling faintly.

      "Your mother undoubtedly has a lot of stories to tell," Carmen said,
arching an eyebrow.

      Ivy shuddered.  "You wouldn't ... Ah, Carmen, I don't think she'd tell
you anyway.  After all, Zack and I see much more of you than her, and she's a
little jealous."  She thought about it, and wondered whether her mother was
even speaking to her.

      "Jealous?  Of me?  I'd think you'd spend as much time with her as you
can," Carmen said, something a little strange in her voice.

      "We get on each other's nerves.  Besides, between you and their work,
we're never in the same place at the same time," Ivy replied, finishing her
second bun and the orange juice.  "Last year they were in the Philippines and
Japan from January through October."  Carmen's never had a family except Acme,
Ivy remembered.  Maybe she just wants to know what it's like.  She felt sorry
for Carmen, suddenly;  her family spent most of its time driving her up the
wall, but it was still family.  Even when she didn't want to admit to it.

      "That's an unusual arrangement," she replied, pulling the neck and
giblets from the turkey.

      Ivy shrugged.  "Dad's a telecommunications expert;  he designs satellite
systems.  Mom's an interpreter.  They used to stay in the states when we
were little, but these days they go out of country whenever they need to."

      Carmen started stuffing the turkey.  "And they just let you and Zack run
around the world chasing me?"

      Ivy laughed.  "They're not thrilled about it," she said, wincing at the
understatement.  She'd done high school by fourteen ... and her sensei at her
old dojo had said words to the effect of Acme or Carmen.  She wondered what he
thought of this entire mess;  she'd kept in touch with him before everything
fell apart.  "They weren't happy that we joined Acme, anyway," she said, in
another understatement.  They'd only let Zack join because she was there to
keep him out of trouble ... which she had failed spectacularly at.

      "I'd think they'd be proud of you," Carmen said.  "You're both
very good at it."

      Ivy sighed, got up, and stood looking out the window, her back to
Carmen.  "It's not what they had in mind."  The fights with her mother had
been the worst;  her mother had never quite reconciled herself to Ivy's
preference for martial arts and crime-fighting.  Her father ... her father had
always been more interested in Zack, but still hadn't approved of his daughter
chasing criminals.

      "Why did you join?" Carmen asked.  "I got adopted into it, but you
already had a family."

      Ivy sighed.  "You."

      "Me?"  Carmen asked dryly.  "You joined Acme just to catch me?  What
were you going to do if you did?"

      Ivy shrugged.  "I don't know."  Carmen was the last person Ivy would
ever tell about the rest of her reasons.  She'd decided she wanted to be an
Acme Detective when she was only five.  Somewhere in her parents' attic there
was a scrapbook she'd kept until she was eight. It was full of yellowing,
probably fragile by now newspaper clippings, about Acme detectives, especially
one detective and her partner.  Every case that had hit the papers had been in
there, and a long time ago she'd known every detail about Carmen and Suhara's
work.  Then Carmen had turned thief, and the scrapbook had vanished into the
attic.  Zack had only been four;  he never knew about it.  "I'd have thought
of something."

      Someone shouted and protested in the distance;  a cat meowed excitedly
and could be heard running toward the kitchen.

      "Carmen, is there something you didn't tell me?"

      The Chief's hologram came flying into the room, eagerly pursued by the
kitten, who jumped through it, to the Chief's dismay.  He hid behind Ivy.

      "Make it stop!" he begged.  "Make it stop!"

      "Never mind, Carmen," Ivy said.  "Chief, meet my cat, C.S.  C.S., the
Chief."  C.S. leaped through the Chief's hologram again, meowing joyfully.

                To be continued...