Sleeping Beauties
Title: Sleeping Beauties
Rating: Teen
Fandoms- St. Trinian's, The Avengers, Bourne Legacy, Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Dis: Not mine!
France - 2013
“I’m sorry, Aaron,” Doctor Marta Shearing sobbed, clutching at her leg.
“Not your fault, Doc,” Aaron Cross insisted. “Sometimes crap like this happens, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” He wasn’t trying to make her feel better, well, he was, but he was also being honest. It wasn’t like she had injured herself on purpose, it was simply a risk that they’d had to take when they’d slid down a steep hill to get to a car Aaron could hotwire. They’d managed to lose their pursuers, and that was what was important.
“It’s not a bad sprain, Aaron. It’s broken,” Marta said, doing her best to control her tears of pain. Crying wouldn’t help the situation, and Aaron would need clear instructions if they were going to deal with her leg by themselves. A hospital report of a woman with a broken leg being brought into a local hospital by a man, no matter what relationship they claimed, would only raise a red flag that they couldn’t afford.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Aaron insisted.
“Actually, yes, I can. I’ve broken my leg before, besides, the pain isn’t localized at a joint. We need to find an urgent care clinic, somewhere that’ll be closed by now. I’ll need to get this x-rayed so we know how bad it is and so I can tell you how to cast it.” Marta concentrated on each step that had to be taken.
“Um, doc, you do remember you’re a PhD, not an MD, right?” Aaron asked, worried. He was taking care with the way he was driving, but he knew that the road wasn’t smooth enough not to cause her further pain. Plus, even he knew that a broken bone was nothing to fool around with. She was going to need a real doctor.
“Actually, I am an MD,” Marta said, with a bit of a smirk. “I got a double doctorate because it was the only way my parents would pay for my education. Personally, I think that my dad just didn’t want me to have time to date. I haven’t set a leg since my ER rotation, but I remember how. I keep… kept my license up.”
“Well, that’s going to come in handy,” Aaron said, as a plan formed in his mind. “Let’s get your leg fixed.”
Twelve hours later they were crossing into England on the Eurostar train in a new car. Aaron could have gotten them tickets to ride the train as passengers, but Marta’s cast was too noticeable. It was far easier for them to simply cross in a rented car with a blanket thrown over Marta’s legs and a pillow behind her head. Pretending to be asleep, she didn’t have to deal with customs as the customs officer checking their papers was very sympathetic to the lateness of the hour and let Aaron handle their paperwork. It also helped that car passengers were not allowed to leave their vehicle once the train was in motion.
From there, it was ridiculously easy for him to drive to the one place on the planet where he was sure that no one would ever think of him or Marta going, or even being connected to - St. Trinian’s school for Young Ladies. It had been William who had arranged for the three of them to meet for the first time - Aaron, William and Kelly - in London, nearly four years ago now. It had taken time for the William to track him down, and even longer to find him again after he’d been recruited into Outcome, because he had known Kenny hadn’t been killed. As far as Outcome was concerned, the mission contact he’d met that day had been named Jason Wilmington. Will had taken his place as a favor, or so Wilmington thought. Kelly had been dressed as what Aaron had later learned was called a Posh Totty, girls who had learned to get ahead in life using their bodies, as well as knowing how to set off bombs, pick locks, and other such life necessary skills. A lot of British women in the intelligence community were St. Trinian’s alumni, although not as many as people would expect had taken that educational route.
“St. Trinian’s school for Young Ladies, Aaron, I’m not comfortable involving young girls,” Marta began, as they approached the school grounds. “Is that a shrunken head….with a machete through it?!?!?!?”
Aaron snickered. “Yeah it is. The First Years put it up, and if I were to ever consider any St. Trinian’s girl as just another little girl, my baby sister would lock me in a room with them for an hour to teach me a lesson.” Aaron paused to pull into the drive for the school. “I would rather face a room full of agents in the nude, with no weapons, than spend half an hour with every weapon I can carry in a room alone with a bunch of First Years. There is no way that any agent who knows anything about St. Trinian’s is going to go after us while we’re here, or even come near this place if they can help it. Those who went to school here would rather join us than turn us in, school loyalty being what it is here, and we can barter your medical degree into a safe place for us to stay while your leg heals. Besides, this way I can spend Christmas with Kelly. I’ve only been able to do that once.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister too,” Marta said, referring to her own sister who Aaron had known about.
“Well, technically only her mother, my brothers and I know that the four of us are related. I haven’t told you this, but the real reason that I didn’t mind being recruited into Outcome was because they wanted to do science stuff to me. For a kid who knew that the sole reason he had been born in the first place was as a science experiment and that he was rejected from that program because he was too stupid, the fact that they wanted me was great,” Aaron said.
“What do you mean?” Marta wanted to know.
“My brothers and I are triplets, that’s what the record shows anyway, but in reality we’re all clones of the same guy, not that the whole clone thing really made sense to me until after you fixed me. My sister is a clone too, but she wasn’t supposed to be born because the head scientist hated women. Her mom stole her test tube and had her implanted in a surrogate. So Kelly is eight years younger than we are. She’s eighteen and head girl here at St. Trinian’s. My brothers are William and Clint, and the three of us are the only clones left alive. There were more, but they didn’t survive. I’m not sure if it was the men on the project that killed them or if they were damaged somehow first by the cloning process, but now there’s just the three of us left. Will was accepted into the project. Never, ever ask him about it. From what I’ve seen of the files that Clint managed to get his hands on, what Outcome did to me was mild by comparison, up to and including trying to kill us both.” Aaron shot her a serious look and Marta nodded, mind spinning with this new information.
“Clint and I actually are twins, in that the original cell we were created from split into two separate embryos, but we were born early and there were complications from that for both of us that disqualified us from the program. Clint had to have oxygen given to him and it damaged the nerves in his ears. He’s mostly deaf. My umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and I suffered brain damage as a result. It wasn’t really bad, as you know I could function perfectly fine even if I was as thick as two bricks, but they dumped me in a state home and put Clint up for adoption. Clint doesn’t mind that because he thinks being damaged was what saved our lives.”
“Did they keep the program going?” Marta asked, wondering if Aaron had younger brothers that he didn’t know about.
“Nope, they ran out of biological samples to use and couldn’t get any more. Cloning is actually really, really hard so they were only using samples that had already worked once before. The Army wasn’t too happy about not getting the results they wanted either, so they shut that part of the project down,” Aaron explained.
They drove past a car that, when lit up with the headlights of their car, appeared to be smoking. “You wouldn’t want to be alone with a bunch of First Years?” she asked, returning the subject to the school they were about to enter.
Aaron laughed and began singing. In a few moments, once she’d gotten over the fact that he had a wonderful singing voice, she realized that it was the school song, and it wasn’t the usual sort.
Make us worthy/Make us proud/Teach us not to be too loud
We’ll try to fit in with the crowd/But we are St. Trinian’s
We can’t fake the way we feel/We were born to keep it real
Hockey sticks and balls of steel/We are St. Trinian’s
You bite us/We’ll bite you back
Better be scared when we attack
Feel the fear/we’re maniacs/St. Trinian’s
Check out our battle cry/A song to terrify
No one can stand in our way
We are the best/So screw the rest
We do as we damn well please
Until the end/St. Trinian’s
Defenders of Anarchy
So scam all the toffs/the neats and the freaks
Blackmail the goths/the slappers and the geeks
And if they complain/we’ll do it all again
We do as we damn well please
The ASBOs, the Chavs/the Emos and their mates
To torment the slags/we offer special rates
And if they complain/we’ll do it all again
Defenders of Anarchy
We are the best/So screw the rest
We do as we damn well please
Until the end/St. Trinian’s
Defenders of Anarchy
By the time he finished the school song Marta was both horrified and laughing her head off. “Damned straight I’m scared to be alone in a room with them. They’ve got ten year olds handling high explosives in the chemistry class! Not to mention the anger management class with guns, the Emos who would be absolutely delighted to slice pieces off of people, and the rest of the girls, trust me the only reason that I’m sure we’ll be safe here is because I’m family. I don’t think that just because they’re my sister’s friends they’ll be ours too. I’m not regressing,” Aaron said firmly. “The school does need a doctor though to tend to the injuries they regularly inflict on themselves and any visitors.”
“Well, hopefully between that and my broken leg I’ll be off limits,” Marta said.
“Hopefully,” Aaron agreed.
Marta had expected that the school would be dark with everyone sleeping. What she wasn’t expecting when Aaron carried her into the entrance hall was a well-armed army of girls. Yes, their weapons were the sort that a school girl could get her hands on - bows and arrows, sling shots, blow guns and the like, but Aaron certainly wasn’t taking any chances and since he was the one who had been keeping her alive for the last five months, she didn’t think she should take them anything less than absolutely serious either. Fortunately, Aaron wasn’t moving and the entrance hall was well lit, more than enough for a certain head girl to identify him.
Kelly sighed and shook her head. “Alright everyone, back to bed. It’s just my brother.”
“Aw!” “No Fair!” “But I wanted to get invaded!” “Can’t we shoot them anyway, Kelly?” came at her from all sides.
“No, you all have to go back to bed. The building inspectors will be here in the morning and you have to be ready for them. It won’t be any fun to attack them if you’re too tired,” Kelly pointed out. Grumbling the girls headed back to their dorms under protest, led by their clique heads. “That’s who they thought you were,” she said to Aaron as she came the rest of the way down the stairs.
“You’re having trouble with building inspectors?” Aaron asked. He had noticed that all of the girls were wearing warm pajamas and nightgowns, but thought that was due to the weather, not problems with heating their dorms.
“It’s more like the building inspectors are the next volley in the war with the education ministry,” Kelly said. She gestured for him to follow her.
Annabelle fell in beside Aaron. “I’m Annabelle.”
“Aaron Cross, and this is Doctor Marta Shearing,” Aaron introduced them.
“Hello,” Annabelle greeted the doctor. “The answer to your question is that the ministry tries to shut down St. Trinian’s every so often. It’s an election year so they’re trying harder than usual. This time they’ve got the idea that they can use the conditions of the East wing to do it, regardless of the fact that we don’t use the East wing.”
“At least not officially at any rate,” Kelly said, throwing a wink over her shoulder. “It does need some work, but Miss Fritton’s tapped out at the moment. We just paid the back taxes a month ago.”
“So while the older girls try to figure out how to raise the money needed for the renovations, the younger ones are running interference,” Annabelle finished the explanation.
Kelly led them into the school infirmary, down the length of the room and into a small suite of rooms. “Matron would be here, but she’s too busy boffing Bursar to use her rooms. The two of you can stay here.”
“Thanks Kelly,” Aaron said, as he carried Marta into the bedroom. A few minutes later he came out and Kelly tried to grab his ear. He evaded her easily.
“Five months Aaron! No letters, email, nothing! Are you trying to kill us with worry?” Kelly yelled in a harsh whisper. “Will is so frantic to find you that he volunteered his team to watch Byer!”
“Why would the IMF be watching Byer?” Aaron wanted to know.
“Someone accused him of being a Nazi or something. Will couldn’t give me any details, and you didn’t explain yourself,” Kelly prodded.
“They burned Outcome.” Aaron jerked his thumb back at the bedroom door. “Doc and I are the only survivors.”
“Your meds!” Kelly panicked.
“I don’t need them anymore,” Aaron said with a grin. “Doc came up with a permanent solution. The ride sucked, but I don’t have to worry about needing program chems anymore. It was a good thing too. I only had two days worth when everything went up in smoke.”
“Byer wants her dead too?” Kelly checked. Aaron nodded. “Well then, get some sleep, we’ll see you in the morning.”
Aaron really couldn’t feel sorry for Byer. He and Marta had spent the last five months running for their lives. He hadn’t been able to contact his family, even in the completely roundabout way that they used to keep people from knowing that they knew each other, which as Kelly had pointed out, made sure that his brothers and sister were worried sick about him. No, whatever Kelly had in mind, Byer had coming to him.
Rating: Teen
Fandoms- St. Trinian's, The Avengers, Bourne Legacy, Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Dis: Not mine!
France - 2013
“I’m sorry, Aaron,” Doctor Marta Shearing sobbed, clutching at her leg.
“Not your fault, Doc,” Aaron Cross insisted. “Sometimes crap like this happens, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” He wasn’t trying to make her feel better, well, he was, but he was also being honest. It wasn’t like she had injured herself on purpose, it was simply a risk that they’d had to take when they’d slid down a steep hill to get to a car Aaron could hotwire. They’d managed to lose their pursuers, and that was what was important.
“It’s not a bad sprain, Aaron. It’s broken,” Marta said, doing her best to control her tears of pain. Crying wouldn’t help the situation, and Aaron would need clear instructions if they were going to deal with her leg by themselves. A hospital report of a woman with a broken leg being brought into a local hospital by a man, no matter what relationship they claimed, would only raise a red flag that they couldn’t afford.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Aaron insisted.
“Actually, yes, I can. I’ve broken my leg before, besides, the pain isn’t localized at a joint. We need to find an urgent care clinic, somewhere that’ll be closed by now. I’ll need to get this x-rayed so we know how bad it is and so I can tell you how to cast it.” Marta concentrated on each step that had to be taken.
“Um, doc, you do remember you’re a PhD, not an MD, right?” Aaron asked, worried. He was taking care with the way he was driving, but he knew that the road wasn’t smooth enough not to cause her further pain. Plus, even he knew that a broken bone was nothing to fool around with. She was going to need a real doctor.
“Actually, I am an MD,” Marta said, with a bit of a smirk. “I got a double doctorate because it was the only way my parents would pay for my education. Personally, I think that my dad just didn’t want me to have time to date. I haven’t set a leg since my ER rotation, but I remember how. I keep… kept my license up.”
“Well, that’s going to come in handy,” Aaron said, as a plan formed in his mind. “Let’s get your leg fixed.”
Twelve hours later they were crossing into England on the Eurostar train in a new car. Aaron could have gotten them tickets to ride the train as passengers, but Marta’s cast was too noticeable. It was far easier for them to simply cross in a rented car with a blanket thrown over Marta’s legs and a pillow behind her head. Pretending to be asleep, she didn’t have to deal with customs as the customs officer checking their papers was very sympathetic to the lateness of the hour and let Aaron handle their paperwork. It also helped that car passengers were not allowed to leave their vehicle once the train was in motion.
From there, it was ridiculously easy for him to drive to the one place on the planet where he was sure that no one would ever think of him or Marta going, or even being connected to - St. Trinian’s school for Young Ladies. It had been William who had arranged for the three of them to meet for the first time - Aaron, William and Kelly - in London, nearly four years ago now. It had taken time for the William to track him down, and even longer to find him again after he’d been recruited into Outcome, because he had known Kenny hadn’t been killed. As far as Outcome was concerned, the mission contact he’d met that day had been named Jason Wilmington. Will had taken his place as a favor, or so Wilmington thought. Kelly had been dressed as what Aaron had later learned was called a Posh Totty, girls who had learned to get ahead in life using their bodies, as well as knowing how to set off bombs, pick locks, and other such life necessary skills. A lot of British women in the intelligence community were St. Trinian’s alumni, although not as many as people would expect had taken that educational route.
“St. Trinian’s school for Young Ladies, Aaron, I’m not comfortable involving young girls,” Marta began, as they approached the school grounds. “Is that a shrunken head….with a machete through it?!?!?!?”
Aaron snickered. “Yeah it is. The First Years put it up, and if I were to ever consider any St. Trinian’s girl as just another little girl, my baby sister would lock me in a room with them for an hour to teach me a lesson.” Aaron paused to pull into the drive for the school. “I would rather face a room full of agents in the nude, with no weapons, than spend half an hour with every weapon I can carry in a room alone with a bunch of First Years. There is no way that any agent who knows anything about St. Trinian’s is going to go after us while we’re here, or even come near this place if they can help it. Those who went to school here would rather join us than turn us in, school loyalty being what it is here, and we can barter your medical degree into a safe place for us to stay while your leg heals. Besides, this way I can spend Christmas with Kelly. I’ve only been able to do that once.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister too,” Marta said, referring to her own sister who Aaron had known about.
“Well, technically only her mother, my brothers and I know that the four of us are related. I haven’t told you this, but the real reason that I didn’t mind being recruited into Outcome was because they wanted to do science stuff to me. For a kid who knew that the sole reason he had been born in the first place was as a science experiment and that he was rejected from that program because he was too stupid, the fact that they wanted me was great,” Aaron said.
“What do you mean?” Marta wanted to know.
“My brothers and I are triplets, that’s what the record shows anyway, but in reality we’re all clones of the same guy, not that the whole clone thing really made sense to me until after you fixed me. My sister is a clone too, but she wasn’t supposed to be born because the head scientist hated women. Her mom stole her test tube and had her implanted in a surrogate. So Kelly is eight years younger than we are. She’s eighteen and head girl here at St. Trinian’s. My brothers are William and Clint, and the three of us are the only clones left alive. There were more, but they didn’t survive. I’m not sure if it was the men on the project that killed them or if they were damaged somehow first by the cloning process, but now there’s just the three of us left. Will was accepted into the project. Never, ever ask him about it. From what I’ve seen of the files that Clint managed to get his hands on, what Outcome did to me was mild by comparison, up to and including trying to kill us both.” Aaron shot her a serious look and Marta nodded, mind spinning with this new information.
“Clint and I actually are twins, in that the original cell we were created from split into two separate embryos, but we were born early and there were complications from that for both of us that disqualified us from the program. Clint had to have oxygen given to him and it damaged the nerves in his ears. He’s mostly deaf. My umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and I suffered brain damage as a result. It wasn’t really bad, as you know I could function perfectly fine even if I was as thick as two bricks, but they dumped me in a state home and put Clint up for adoption. Clint doesn’t mind that because he thinks being damaged was what saved our lives.”
“Did they keep the program going?” Marta asked, wondering if Aaron had younger brothers that he didn’t know about.
“Nope, they ran out of biological samples to use and couldn’t get any more. Cloning is actually really, really hard so they were only using samples that had already worked once before. The Army wasn’t too happy about not getting the results they wanted either, so they shut that part of the project down,” Aaron explained.
They drove past a car that, when lit up with the headlights of their car, appeared to be smoking. “You wouldn’t want to be alone with a bunch of First Years?” she asked, returning the subject to the school they were about to enter.
Aaron laughed and began singing. In a few moments, once she’d gotten over the fact that he had a wonderful singing voice, she realized that it was the school song, and it wasn’t the usual sort.
Make us worthy/Make us proud/Teach us not to be too loud
We’ll try to fit in with the crowd/But we are St. Trinian’s
We can’t fake the way we feel/We were born to keep it real
Hockey sticks and balls of steel/We are St. Trinian’s
You bite us/We’ll bite you back
Better be scared when we attack
Feel the fear/we’re maniacs/St. Trinian’s
Check out our battle cry/A song to terrify
No one can stand in our way
We are the best/So screw the rest
We do as we damn well please
Until the end/St. Trinian’s
Defenders of Anarchy
So scam all the toffs/the neats and the freaks
Blackmail the goths/the slappers and the geeks
And if they complain/we’ll do it all again
We do as we damn well please
The ASBOs, the Chavs/the Emos and their mates
To torment the slags/we offer special rates
And if they complain/we’ll do it all again
Defenders of Anarchy
We are the best/So screw the rest
We do as we damn well please
Until the end/St. Trinian’s
Defenders of Anarchy
By the time he finished the school song Marta was both horrified and laughing her head off. “Damned straight I’m scared to be alone in a room with them. They’ve got ten year olds handling high explosives in the chemistry class! Not to mention the anger management class with guns, the Emos who would be absolutely delighted to slice pieces off of people, and the rest of the girls, trust me the only reason that I’m sure we’ll be safe here is because I’m family. I don’t think that just because they’re my sister’s friends they’ll be ours too. I’m not regressing,” Aaron said firmly. “The school does need a doctor though to tend to the injuries they regularly inflict on themselves and any visitors.”
“Well, hopefully between that and my broken leg I’ll be off limits,” Marta said.
“Hopefully,” Aaron agreed.
Marta had expected that the school would be dark with everyone sleeping. What she wasn’t expecting when Aaron carried her into the entrance hall was a well-armed army of girls. Yes, their weapons were the sort that a school girl could get her hands on - bows and arrows, sling shots, blow guns and the like, but Aaron certainly wasn’t taking any chances and since he was the one who had been keeping her alive for the last five months, she didn’t think she should take them anything less than absolutely serious either. Fortunately, Aaron wasn’t moving and the entrance hall was well lit, more than enough for a certain head girl to identify him.
Kelly sighed and shook her head. “Alright everyone, back to bed. It’s just my brother.”
“Aw!” “No Fair!” “But I wanted to get invaded!” “Can’t we shoot them anyway, Kelly?” came at her from all sides.
“No, you all have to go back to bed. The building inspectors will be here in the morning and you have to be ready for them. It won’t be any fun to attack them if you’re too tired,” Kelly pointed out. Grumbling the girls headed back to their dorms under protest, led by their clique heads. “That’s who they thought you were,” she said to Aaron as she came the rest of the way down the stairs.
“You’re having trouble with building inspectors?” Aaron asked. He had noticed that all of the girls were wearing warm pajamas and nightgowns, but thought that was due to the weather, not problems with heating their dorms.
“It’s more like the building inspectors are the next volley in the war with the education ministry,” Kelly said. She gestured for him to follow her.
Annabelle fell in beside Aaron. “I’m Annabelle.”
“Aaron Cross, and this is Doctor Marta Shearing,” Aaron introduced them.
“Hello,” Annabelle greeted the doctor. “The answer to your question is that the ministry tries to shut down St. Trinian’s every so often. It’s an election year so they’re trying harder than usual. This time they’ve got the idea that they can use the conditions of the East wing to do it, regardless of the fact that we don’t use the East wing.”
“At least not officially at any rate,” Kelly said, throwing a wink over her shoulder. “It does need some work, but Miss Fritton’s tapped out at the moment. We just paid the back taxes a month ago.”
“So while the older girls try to figure out how to raise the money needed for the renovations, the younger ones are running interference,” Annabelle finished the explanation.
Kelly led them into the school infirmary, down the length of the room and into a small suite of rooms. “Matron would be here, but she’s too busy boffing Bursar to use her rooms. The two of you can stay here.”
“Thanks Kelly,” Aaron said, as he carried Marta into the bedroom. A few minutes later he came out and Kelly tried to grab his ear. He evaded her easily.
“Five months Aaron! No letters, email, nothing! Are you trying to kill us with worry?” Kelly yelled in a harsh whisper. “Will is so frantic to find you that he volunteered his team to watch Byer!”
“Why would the IMF be watching Byer?” Aaron wanted to know.
“Someone accused him of being a Nazi or something. Will couldn’t give me any details, and you didn’t explain yourself,” Kelly prodded.
“They burned Outcome.” Aaron jerked his thumb back at the bedroom door. “Doc and I are the only survivors.”
“Your meds!” Kelly panicked.
“I don’t need them anymore,” Aaron said with a grin. “Doc came up with a permanent solution. The ride sucked, but I don’t have to worry about needing program chems anymore. It was a good thing too. I only had two days worth when everything went up in smoke.”
“Byer wants her dead too?” Kelly checked. Aaron nodded. “Well then, get some sleep, we’ll see you in the morning.”
Aaron really couldn’t feel sorry for Byer. He and Marta had spent the last five months running for their lives. He hadn’t been able to contact his family, even in the completely roundabout way that they used to keep people from knowing that they knew each other, which as Kelly had pointed out, made sure that his brothers and sister were worried sick about him. No, whatever Kelly had in mind, Byer had coming to him.