Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Chapter Three

Anya hated lying.

But what else was she supposed to do when Papa asked her all these questions?

A few days ago when he had planned to talk to her, he got caught up in work. Then caught up again. Then fell asleep from exhaustion the next. He had been spying on her school for the past few days, but he had been given side missions he was expected to complete.

Now he finally had the chance to have the conversation. He needed to know that she was ok. That any emotional strain or stress she had, was acknowledged and dealt with. In the past, it didn't seem like she dealt with anything greater than the average child, but he's seen signs and signals since then that worried him. At first, it was small things. He tried to address it subtly. To take care to say the right things to gently nudge Anya's mental state in the right direction. It was the right path at the time, he thought. But her strange behaviour had been escalating, making him reexamine things she said in the past. He took it at first as flippant comments she would throw out to be funny. But the more he thought about it, the more he worried.

It was time to have chat.

He got out the paper.

The crayons lay scattered across the short table in the living room as Anya used everything at her disposal. She knelt at one end of the table, focused carefully on rendering Chimera's silenced pistol.

Loid wasn't planning on drawing with her when he brought out the drawing supllies, but she insisted. And he wanted everything to feel as comfortable as possible while they talked. Maybe it would help.

So he did.

The first question was of course, about Anya coming home crying off the bus a few days ago.

Anya chalked it up to being overwhelmed at school. The very thing her Papa had suspected. She didn't do very well in school academically as it was, so it was very believable.

That was her first lie.

Most of the questions were simple and easy to answer. Many she answered honestly. Some of them, Loid already knew from past conversations, but was hoping for more detail.

Do you like it here. Do you feel loved. Was coming to live here jarring for you, were some of the questions Loid asked his daughter when she came home from school. He asked them as casually as possible, a regular conversation.

These were easy. These she could answer.

But then he asked her if she wanted to talk about her biological parents. He thought it might fill some gaps about her for him. Or even just understand her better, which was the whole point.

Anya said no.

If she said yes, he'd ask how well she remembered them. And then he'd want to know what they were like. Then he'd ask about their relationship. What happened to them. She could hear him lining up these questions in his head in preparation. Or maybe as possible questions depending on what Anya said.

Anya coloured in Penguins body as she considered.

She could have lied. But if his next questions were any indication, there would have to be a lot of them. She didn't know if she could keep up with it.

He mentally noted down her refusal to talk about them, making Anya sweat.

He considered that maybe she never knew them in the first place, and that was the reason. But even still, children can have insecurities about their parents they've never met.

His fixation on her emotional well-being made Anya wish he hadn't asked to talk. She would've said no, but thought that would raise more flags. She decided to use this to make him think she was one hundred percent ok, with no issues so he would stop worrying and never ever figure out what was actually going on.