What is “Truth”, Anyways?

This all started as just a job for her, get close to the son, watch the mother, report their progress with the patient… but then everything changed.

Cheyenne rarely lets herself think about how it all started, sure she tells the approved stories of how they met and how they fell in love, and all of that is true… ish. She does love him and the family they have built together, her kids mean everything to her, but if she’s being honest with herself does the time line of how events occurred for her emotionally line up exactly with the stories she tells… probably not. That shouldn’t matter though… right? She is where she is now and her feelings are real, aren’t they? So why should it matter if she hasn’t been completely honest with them, she hasn’t ever really been with herself either, and what’s it matter now anyways, that organization that raised her is defunct now anyways, her secrets are safely buried with them… she hopes.

Still, it nags at her, like a not quite healed sore that you itch all around the scab but what it wants is for you to rip it off and you fight with everything you have to avoid doing that. They accepted her, took her in, gave her family, meaning, and purpose. She spends her days helping mothers and fathers get used to being parents, spending time with them, teaching them the ropes as it were. It’s a good life. No, fuck that, its perfect. So why can’t she escape this need to blow it all up now? Maybe they will understand and everything will be fine, they love her, surely they will know she had a life before they met her, but she knows she’s fooling herself. What they don’t know is how and where she was raised, and for what purpose.

The organization was that purpose, now to be clear, the organization doesn’t recruit, it steals and programs and the ones that can’t get right with it don’t stick around for very long and never, ever get talked about. Cheyenne found that tiniest of gaps where her talent made her mouth worth tolerating… up to a point, of course. She never broke the rules, but she sure learned all of the pressure points. She also (when she let herself) found that she actually liked the structure, discipline, and controlled violence. The ability to bring someone down no matter the size and strength was intoxicating for her. It gave her control over life and death in a world that had control of her.

That control had limits though, she would discover as she got older. Limits she would prod as carefully as she could, she didn’t hate her life (she was a spy after all) so much as she felt incomplete or more to the point robotic. Emotions were only things to be faked and utilized to achieve whatever goal the organization had for her. Then they gave her what turned out to be her last assignment, Colt.

By this time the forces of capital were beaten and bloodied but not quite stomped out completely, and the organization was its last real attempt at turning the tide. They had agents positioned in key scientific areas they believed they could steal and wield for their glorious return. They failed. Their agents, almost to a person, ended up seeing through their programming and turning on their ‘employers’.

For Cheyenne this meant falling in love.

The assignment was easy enough, get close to the son, watch the mother, report back any change with the patient, but the thing about kindness is that when you hang out with it in human form long enough, well it wears you down. Colt was that. She had never met anyone in her life like him, kind for kindness sake, never working an angle, never trying to manipulate, never caring about ‘whats in it for him’. Just… nice. A little too attached to his mom maybe, but it turns out that was for her, not him. She needed him and he had learned to anticipate those needs and keep her on task. Not because he needed it, but because she did. Danny was Corinne’s whole world.

Well, him and the moss. Colt was beyond ok with all of this in a way that was kind of creepy. Cheyenne would later learn that Colt had an amazingly full childhood and got the attention that he needed from mom as a youth, and the collective did the rest. It turned out that growing up in the collective was nothing like growing up in an assassin factory… who knew.

So, from birth kids in the collective are socialized with the other kids born around the same time, every new mother is given an assistant to show them how to do everything that comes with being a new mother. The fathers as well are asked very sternly to stay home as well and bond with the child. Now Colt didn’t have that, but he did have strong male role models all around him. Making sure that these children grew up surrounded by continuity didn’t turn them all into saints, but it did give them both a sense of responsibility to each other, and a desire to make things easier for each other.

Colt excelled at everything he even thought about, because of his nature he dove in head first and wouldn’t leave it alone till he felt he had mastered it (gee wonder where he got that). When Cheyenne met him he was 20 and just starting to officially do the job he’d basically done his whole life... Assist his mom. Now he was technically a Doctor in his own right, so he could have gone anywhere, but he was never going to do that. 

The Organization had set her up in the hospital as a nurse (so she would have plenty of opportunities to ‘meet’ Colt), even though she had no idea how to care for other people. She winged it, thinking she wouldn’t be here for long anyways, no job has ever lasted more than six months anyways. She met him in the break room day one, she ‘spilled’ her coffee on him by ‘accident’ and they were off. What she hadn’t realized at the time, but should have, was that her real feelings and her purpose were overlapping in ways that would later become very dangerous for them both.

The next year saw these two rarely separated for longer than 6 hours. They even synched up their work schedules to go in at the same times. The longest they were apart was the times he spent with his mom helping her with research or looking out for Danny. Cheyenne spent these times snooping and reporting back to The Organization. She was never really sure what they wanted here with these people, but found herself grateful nonetheless.

Then it all stopped. The Organization stopped responding to her messages and her contacts were MIA. She made up a story about sick parents and left to go find out what was going on. Colt tried everything to get her to let him come, but she couldn’t risk it. She hopped the next train to the coast and rented a boat. The Organization had its compound on a remote island (I know right?) and when she reached the shores and went on land… nothing.

Not ‘left in a hurry’ nothing, but ‘nobody had ever existed within the walls’ nothing. Cheyenne spent the day searching for anything or anybody to give her any clue as to what happened here, but nothing. The rooms were all empty, not a shelf or computer in sight. Not even dust, whomever cleaned it out waxed the floors on the way out, and that level of detail is somehow the most terrifying part of all of this. It was easily the weirdest thing thats ever happened to her, and she knew she did not want to be caught here if whatever was responsible came back, so she left. She spent the next month tryin to track down anyone form The Organization, but the whole thing went poof. There were a couple of promising leads, but to chase them would have meant giving up all that she had built over the last year.

She had told Colt that her parents had died during this excursion, the illness overwhelmed them (her parents were code for The Organization anyways). He tried a hundred different ways to get her to tell him where she was so he could come be with her, but she couldn’t allow that. She thought about just bailing, running, going anywhere but back to the assignment she no longer had any responsibility towards, but every time she did, Colt’s face overwhelmed all other thoughts, thats when she realized that her feelings were real. She didn’t want to run, she didn’t want to do anything but be with him. She also realized in this moment she would do anything to protect what she has with him. Anything. 

So she went back, back to Colt. Back to a reality she never thought would be hers, one she’s still after all these years, not sure she deserves. When she got there Colt had a surprise for her. He asked her to marry him. She said yes.

Cheyenne decided then and there that Colt never needed to know what brought her into his life, because ultimately the relationship built on it became real. Lately though, watching the family with Danny and knowing what she knows about Corinne, watching her reckoning with her own past. Cheyenne now wonders if it isn’t better for the truth, such as it is, come from the source, and not some other more combustable means. Not that she would ever give up Corinne’s secret, shes held on to it this long and giving it up asks more questions of her than she’s ready to answer, but maybe thats the point. Shouldn’t love be honest, savage and empathetic? Shouldn’t we be able to reveal the full scope of who we are to those closest to us without fear of rejection? Should we open ourselves to the pain when we can live on the edges of truth and know that its only us who suffers?

As Cheyenne contemplates these things on her trip down memory lane, she is interrupted mid thought by Danny

“Hey, Cheyenne” Danny mumbles as he stands in the center of the living room looking completely lost.

“Hey Danny, are you ok?” she asks

“What, oh, yea, no, I mean, yes sorry, Im good… have you ever had one of those dreams where everything you thought you knew about the world flipped on its head, but you can’t figure out exactly how?” he says to her.

“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll grab us some tea” Cheyenne says and lifts herself out of her seat while motioning for Danny to take the seat next to the one she just vacated.

“No, tha-… you know what, thank you I’d love some.” Danny says while flopping into the chair like he was shoved from his standing position and his whole body shut down on the dissent.

She returns with two cups and hands him one, “Splash of oat milk right?”

“Nailed it” he says accepting his cup and holding it in both hands like it was a present from Santa.

“So… tell me about this dream” Cheyenne says staring straight into Dannys eyes

“Well, umm, yeah, ok so you know about my spells with the moss right?” she shakes her head in the affirmative

“Yea, of course you do, anyways this last one felt like I was back at the night of ‘The Incident’ but it was different, I could have sworn that I heard my sister and my dad arguing and then I heard a gunshot then I woke up.” He says in a way that makes him look so much younger than his face actually is.

Cheyenne remains stoic and just nods in understanding, she has no intention of engaging with this and is hoping he will come to whatever conclusion he needs to all on his own.

“Thats impossible though right? I mean Corinne wasn’t even there, and why did some one bring a gun to a birthday party?” he asks in a sad, resigned way that almost breaks her heart

“So… how do you know it was your sister?” she tries, because she can tell he’s not letting this go, and it would be weird if she didn’t say anything. 

“I know what my sister sounds like...” he begins frustratedly.”...sorry that was rude, what I meant was I’m sure as I can be.”

“Ok, well do you think maybe its like a memory jumble situation?” She asks, trying to steer him away from the obvious conclusion

“Memory Jumble situation?” He says with a half laugh

“Yea, you know, when you mash up a bunch of different situations in your dreams to help make sense of them all at the same time” she wants to chuckle at the ridiculousness herself but she is quite committed at this point

“Yea, maybe… is that a real thing?” he asks

“Oh yeah, I can’t remember where I read about it offhand, but it’s quite common from what I understand.” She lies through her teeth

“Well that makes as much sense as anything I could come up with.” Danny says shaking his head sadly, because he knows the truth but wants it to be anything but what it is.

Cheyenne stares at him with a mix of grief, anxiety, and genuine concern. She can see he has clearly worked it out and all that is left for him is acceptance. Still, for the most selfish of reasons she feels compelled to keep him off of that path.

“Well is there anything else you can remember?” she probes desperate to keep him talking

“No thats the weirdest part, it feels like my mind is fighting with me to keep all of this hidden and the harder I push to remember the farther the memory gets”

Cheyenne is getting ready to pounce on this when the door flies open and the twins come storming in.

Mom, Unc!” they shout in unison, as they throw down their bags and rush the room, jumping over the couch to land on it as if they were brought there by a tractor beam. This activates the pugs who up till now had been out back as they bust through the flop in the wall and grumble their way to the twins laps. Tongues flapping in the wind the whole way.

“Wait, why do you both look so serious?” Meredith asks

They look at each other with almost twin ‘who us’ looks then shoot their gaze back at the girls and say “we don’t” then they both start saying what they were talking about but it is very different from each other and they realize it as they’re talking. Now its the twins turn to stare at each other and look back at the adults, eyes bugged out.

“Okay….?” they say in perfect unison.

“Where have you both been?” Cheyenne says switching gears quickly

“The library” says Molly

“Yea, there was a wilderness meeting today, we took a bunch of littles out into the wilderness and had them identify foods from poisons. This was a Mushroom edition so thats whats in our bags, wild mushrooms!” says Meredith

“Yea we were hopping to make them for supper tonight!” Molly adds excitedly

“I think that sounds delicious.” says Cheyenne while looking over to see Danny making a face that she couldn’t read, but looked suspiciously like feigned disgust of a child who doesn’t want to like the thing they’ve been given. She can’t help but chuckle to herself. 

“How long are you going to put on this performance?” she asks looking directly into Danny’s eyes in a “Playfully combative” sort of way

“I have know Idea what your talking about” Danny says then sips his tea

“Keep your secrets then.” She shoots back

The Twins have no idea what to make of this unfolding dialogue so they make a show of telling the pugs how much they love them, and how happy they are that the pugs can’t be this embarrassingly cringe. The pugs have no idea what they are saying, but love the attention and wag their tails (And, in turn, their butts) appreciatively to show that to the twins. As their tongues hung from their mouths like a slowly unrolling toilet paper roll.