Archive of Our Own ^beta

If E had known what plans VFD had for her family, she would have run away as soon as she possibly could, and never looked back. 

We take care of our own. 

She had never thought this could happen. She’d never thought they’d lie to her. She’d never expected that they weren’t the great and noble people she’d served for so long… 

She’d been about nine or ten when recruited, and she’d immediately given her life to the organization without question. Anything to get her out of her home, away from her parents and her relatives who never cared, and the neighbors who hated them, yet still turned a blind eye to anything that happened to her. VFD wouldn’t be like that. They were all about truth. Truth and justice and knowledge and everything she loved and had wanted for her entire life. 

So she’d taken her lessons without fighting or complaining. She’d studied and practiced and crawled her way to the top of the class. She barely saw her family after that, which should have bothered her. Whenever she’d gotten into trouble before, her mother or sister or even occasionally her father would drag her out of it, and remind her that “We Snickets take care of our own.” But she’d always felt that was more of an obligation than something she actually would want to follow. They took care of her just to keep her alive. It wasn’t as if they gave a shit about her otherwise. 

We take care of our own. 

E was apprenticed early, called a “prodigy” and “a very loyal one.” She studied under two detectives in the city, and she loved it. She loved the mysteries they unraveled, she loved seeing everyone’s eyes brighten when she told them she’d solved their problem. She was in charge of answering the telegraph and checking the phones and filing paperwork at first, but before long she was tagging along on missions, and sent to sneak through windows and steal evidence or rescue hostages. 

And she loved every second of it. 

She grew up in the city, eventually joining her chaperones after graduating her apprenticeship. They loved her, she thought. Nobody loved her. 

We take care of our own. 

She had met Jacob in training- same lessons, same exams, sent off too apprenticeships at the same time. But they hadn’t given each other much thought back then; just another classmate, occasionally someone to have a study session with late at night if anything. But then she had a mission with him. He was a musician, and he was working as an organist at a College that had a thievery. Jacob insisted on helping, which drove her insane. She was the detective here! Sure, they were all Volunteers, but she had been trained for this, while he studied instruments and music (and secret messages to hide in them). But her superiors told her to work with him; he knew the territory, he knew the people living there, and he knew where the secret passages and hidden compartments were located. It’d be easier to let him tag along. 

It only took a few weeks for them to solve the mystery. But she… enjoyed it. She liked the jokes he’d make when she was stressed, she liked the way he talked to the students and helped them prank the teachers, and the way he seemed to find music in everything. He could name the exact note that the car horn beeped, and sometimes would tell her to stop talking so he could listen to the fountain or the river or the wind. And he thought in a way that was helpful; he could look at a puzzle and see all the individual parts somehow, taking note of little details that even E looked over sometimes. 

“You know,” Jacob said to her once, when she asked why he’d remembered what the physics major said about her homework, which helped them find the hidden attic room, “It just pays to listen. To let people talk to you, to pay attention to their lives.” 

She realized, then, that she’d never really felt listened to. Even in the investigative business, her partners still seemed to see her as a child. But Jacob listened. 

We take care of our own. 

She was away a lot, but she kept visiting him. At first she had excuses- checking up on the aftereffects of the case, visiting that student who wanted help with her paper, heard there was something wrong with the tunnel. But she stopped getting ideas after a while, and Jacob stopped asking. She’d sit in his room and listen to his music, or watch him rant about some book or another- or rant back, excited that he actually was paying attention, though it took her a while to notice that soft look in his eyes as he did. 

She kissed him first. She was going away for a long time to investigate something important for their organization- one of their volunteers may have cause the death of another, and she was told to find out if that was true, and if it was, if it was intentional, and what to do. She’d be gone for so long, and Jacob could be reassigned at any time, she knew. 

They were outside at the fountain, at night, and he was telling her about the constellations that his mother had been so interested in. They were both sad, knowing that it may be a while before they saw each other again, but they were avoiding the topic. It was all part of their job. They should have guessed this would come. 

He turned to look at her, talking about Orion’s Belt, and she’d just grabbed his face and kissed him. 

Three months later, Jacob was transferred to a music academy in the city, and three months after that, E finished her assignment and went to meet him. He already had a ring, and she already had a place; her parents had finally contacted her, to let her know she could move into the mansion near the lake. The wedding was fast- their organization didn’t encourage expensive spending on personal matters or extravagant displays that could draw unwanted attention, and they didn’t have a lot of people to invite. So they married, and moved into the mansion, where E could continue her work and Jacob could go to different music schools and they were available the second VFD needed them. 

We take care of our own. 

And then a very unexpected thing happened. About a year or so after the wedding, while Jacob was away to help another volunteer decode sheet music, her pregnancy test came out positive. 

She had been under a lot of stress already- one of her former chaperones had been killed on a mission, so it was just her and one other person investigating now. So when her period was late, she didn’t think much of it. But the morning sickness and swelling started to clue her in, and sure enough, she had to immediately call her superiors and request some substitute detectives for the city so she could go on maternity leave. 

Jacob was thrilled. She wasn’t sure how she felt. She didn’t know if it was a bad sign that she was almost ambivalent- when she’d gotten married, she’d expected children would happen, but she’d never really thought about it much. She expected she’d raise them for a while, and then when they were ready, she’d give the Volunteers permission to train them, like permission had been given by her parents to take her. Did that make her a bad person? That she wasn’t as overjoyed as her husband, or her friends who kept congratulating her and dropping off gifts and sharing tips? That she saw this as just a fact of life rather than a miracle? 

Part of it, mainly, was that she wasn’t too thrilled about the months she had to spend out of work, just answering calls again and putting together boards, instead of going on missions with the other Volunteers. 

“You know,” she’d said to Jacob somewhere towards the end of her first pregnancy, as she was filing notecards and he was making sure she had enough pillows, “Our organization won’t care if I go into work. Plenty of Volunteers in my condition have done more dangerous things than traveling to the office, or climbing through a window.” 

He’d given her a soft kiss, and then said, “Just rest a while, love. We have to think about them now.” 

We take care of our own. 

It had hit her when she held her children for the first time. 

Labor took a very long time, much longer than she would have liked, thank you very much. Jacob was with her, and several doctors that were trusted by their organization, and her son was born first, screaming and kicking and trying to bite the doctor who held him. Her daughter was born mere minutes later, and while she cried, she didn’t fight as much, and seemed content the second Jacob picked her up. 

Jacques was handed to her first, and then Kit. She held both her newborns in her arms until they fell asleep, and that’s when she realized she was a parent. 

These were her children. 

She’d cried for a while, hugging them. She hadn’t realized how small they’d be, or how much she’d immediately love them. She wanted to never put them down, she wanted to hold them forever at this age, in this moment. 

The feeling only grew as her children did. When Jacques started smiling, she felt like the sunshine would never go away. When Kit laughed and tried to chase the stray cat in the garden, instead falling on her stomach and getting a faceful of dirt- which she promptly ate- E felt light enough to fly. When Jacques pulled on her hair, or when Kit grabbed on her father’s arm and screamed when he tried to leave to take the trash out, or when the twins shoved their hands in their first birthday cake to see what the frosting felt like- and Jacques immediately cried upon realizing his hands were dirty- she felt like she never wanted to let them go. 

She wondered how her parents had ever let her go. 

She paid more attention than they ever did. When she returned from work, and Jacob announced that mother was home, she’d hear her children squeal with delight. Kit eventually started babbling about her day, in her little baby language that E could understand a little of, while Jacques remained silent and crawled on her lap to take a nap. 

Jacques’s first steps were in the garden, as he tried to follow his father to the shed, while Kit’s were in the library, when she realized her favorite picture book had slid out of her reach. Jacques’s first word- aside from “mama”, of course- was “read”, and Kit’s was “bubbles.” 

Jacob always said that it paid to listen to everyone, pay attention to the little things. For E, that was all she wanted. To come home and see that Kit had learned how to escape her crib and was now asleep on the carpet, and find out that Jacques had taken his pajamas and given them to his stuffed lion in fears she’d get cold. 

Her second pregnancy wasn’t until Kit and Jacques had just grown past the toddler stage, old enough to talk and chat and figure out that their parents leaving the room didn’t mean they’d ceased to exist. And it took them a long while to understand the idea of a new sibling in the house, one that would look like their baby dolls but would be alive and probably cry a bit and require some attention. Kit especially didn’t like that she had to give up the crib, which she’d repurposed as a jail for the “bad guys” (old toys) she caught, “just like Mommy.” 

Lemony came home soon after the twins had turned four. And E felt that rush of love again, that rush telling her to protect him, to hold him, to never let go. 

Granted, this birth was a little different. She and Jacob had gone to the nearby dairy farm to buy butter at the wrong time, and by the time she realized she was in labor, it was a bit late to go anywhere else. So Jacob called the twins’ babysitter to explain the situation, and the cheesemakers rushed her into the house, and soon- much faster than the twins’ labor, thank God- she had her third child in her arms. 

And she only had him for a few months. 

We take care of our own. 

VFD kept mentioning her children to her, but she just figured it was curiosity, or a healthy interest in future recruits. She never thought they’d take them. They’d always said they got permission first. They always said that. Jacob never had a clue, either. 

But E had an investigation one day, and Jacob was able to stay and watch the children while she went to the lumbermill for the morning. 

When she returned, her children were gone. 

“What happened?” she’d asked, staring at the kitchen. Jacob was in shock, leaning against the wall, unable to balance himself. On the table were two half-finished cups of tea, for the twins, and several droplets of baby food, which Lemony had squashed onto the table because he didn’t want to eat. He never liked that food. If she’d known how little time she had with her picky little baby, she would’ve gone out of her way to find something he’d like, just so she could see him smile some more. 

“I went into the bathroom.” Jacob said. “And then they were gone.” 

“What happened?” her stomach had dropped, her hands were shaking, and the room was spinning. Her head was empty, and her stomach was about to be, and all she could see was the empty table, and the half-finished tea, and the splatters of food. She could see the coffee stain, too, from recently- Lemony had woken up on his father’s lap and started screaming for no reason, startling him into spilling. They hadn’t had time to clean it. 

Jacob, still unable to move, pointed to the open window. 

“I saw the car.” he said, and she understood. “It left before I could-” 

She immediately called their superiors. “There’s been a mistake. I did not give permission for my children to be recruited. They’re too young.” 

They didn’t listen. 

“It’s time for them to be apprenticed, E. Do you want to stand in the way of their education? Do you want the world to remain loud? We have many enemies, E. We need to prepare.” 

She had her eyes shut. She’d been on the phone for hours, hearing the same shit over and over and over. 

“I want my children.” she said. 

Not once did they listen. And not once did they answer a single question. 

And not once did they say when she could see her babies again. 

Her and Jacob stayed up for two nights straight, trying to figure out what was happening, to contact someone who would say, “We’re sorry, we mistook your children for some others we had permission to recruit, we’ll return them within the hour.” It never happened. 

They were sitting on the living room floor, taking turns crying and taking charge. And then E said, “Jacob… if they won’t give us our children back…” 

He met her eyes, and she knew he was thinking the same. 

We take care of our own. 

It took them five years. 

They pretended to still be loyal. E still solved cases in the city, but her smiles were more forced, and the joy faded away, and all the mysteries seemed too simple, and yet too frustrating. Jacob’s music grew more slow and sad, if he played at all. It took months before he even started working on his sheet music again. 

But they were still working, all that while. E would stop by headquarters to drop off reports, and when nobody was looking, she’d dig through files. Looking. Jacob would stop by homes of higher-level volunteers to re-tune the piano or explain how the accordion was used to hide important objects, and when they allowed him to duck out to use the bathroom or “take a smoke break”, he’d search through closets, for anything they could use. 

It took five years, five years of E looking into the rooms she kept exactly the same. Kit left behind her dolls, with some of them still in the chest she used as a replacement jail- she’d dragged Jacques into playing with her, and he had started to get more into it than her, telling his Mother all about how he’d arrested Beary while Kit was busy flipping through her picture books to yell out the colors. There were still crayon drawings on the wall beside Jacques’s bed, which she’d yelled at him for. God, she wished she’d never yelled at him. And Lemony’s crib was still where it was, with his mobile of cats and taxis and music notes softly turning in the breeze, and the painting of the ocean on the walls. She’d never gotten to take him to the beach. 

We take care of our own. 

Then Jacob came home early, throwing open the door and rushing into the living room, where E was putting together a board for her recent case, some arson or another that probably wasn’t important. He slammed his commonplace book on top. 

“Jacob!” she’d groaned. “I’ve almost got it-” 

“I found the files.” 

And then she’d thrown the board away and never looked at it again. 

He’d managed to find files on the location of young recruits, and all their children were at the same headquarters, with other children the same age. E wondered how many small kids they’d taken, how many infants whose parents would never see their first steps or hear their first words. How many children would never get to tell their father their favorite color or recount to their mother a long, barely-understandable story about their day. She’d never thought the Volunteers would take children without permission, would take infants to raise as spies. 

That’s what they were. Spies and weapons and objects. It had taken her so long to realize that she and Jacob and all the kids they’d been raised with were objects. 

They left town without a word, hoping to God they weren’t being tracked. They made it to the Headquarters, and broke in at midnight. They had to open a locked office to dig through and find a map of the place, and then they found the dorms. 

They wanted to save all the children. But they knew that, at least for now, they should only take theirs. They didn’t want too many kids running around, running off or being loud or otherwise drawing attention. 

E wanted to cry when she saw Kit. She saw her first, in the girls’ room, snoring with her blanket kicked off and one leg hanging off the bed. Her hair was messy and lighter than she remembered, and she had a pair of glasses on the table and a pillow under her arm. She was nine. She was nine years old now. 

E knelt beside her while Jacob checked the hall; he would run in, too, in just a few seconds, also amazed at the sight of their daughter. She shook her daughter’s shoulders until she stirred, and then she said, “Kitty? Kit, it’s me. It’s Mama.” 

Kit’s eyes blinked open, bleary and confused. “Mother?” 

God, she was about to sob. “Yes. It’s me, it’s Mama.” 

“Really? It’s you?” 

Oh, Lord. “Yes. And Daddy’s here, too. See?” 

Kit sat up slightly, grabbing her glasses and then looking at her parents with wide eyes as Jacob said, “Hey, Kitty.” 

“What are you doing here? Are we in trouble?” 

E took a breath. Her and Jacob had discussed this earlier; at this point, their babies had spent five years with VFD, and they’d be loyal by now, loyal like they’d been as children. They couldn’t just say “we’re here to break you out.” 

“We have permission to take a family field trip. But you have to be quiet. We want to see how well you can sneak.” 

Kit looked ecstatic, and she nodded. “I’m real good at sneaking! Ms P says I’m the best in class!” 

E was going to strangle Ms P. 

“Okay.” she nodded. “Come on. Can you show us where your brothers are?” 

Kit nodded, and then she leaned forward and gave her parents a hug. “I missed you. Why didn’t you visit?” 

E shut her eyes tight, as Jacob said, very slowly, “They wouldn’t let us. But I promise, we won’t leave you again.” 

“Ok-ee!” Kit said, in the exact way E remembered. She slid to her feet and threw on a jacket and a pair of shoes, and then showed her parents the way to the boys’ dorm, where she slid open the door and ran to Jacques, whose hair was longer and whose eyes were darker. 

Jacob and E told him the same things they told Kit, and he seemed a bit more concerned, or maybe just confused, but he also smiled upon seeing them, and also hugged them, and also immediately jumped up to throw on his shoes. Then the twins took them to Lemony, who was asleep in the corner. 

E finally started crying when she saw her youngest son. 

He looked so much like Jacob, with the same nose and the same shape of his eyes, and when he sat up and yawned, before frowning over at Jacques for kicking him, he had the same frown as his father. But he had E’s hair, except a bit messier, and when he said, “Whazzit, Jacques? I was sleepin,” he had the same annoyed tone she used when someone interrupted her. 

“It’s Mother and Father!” Jacques whispered. “They have permission to visit us! We’re gonna go on a hike, but you gotta shh!” 

Lemony blinked up at E and Jacob, confused. “Tha’s them?” 

E was going to burn this entire place to the ground. 

“Hello, Lemony.” Jacob moved first, kneeling in front of the bed. “I’m your father, Jacob. I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner.” 

“I’s okay. I was trainin’.” He was so small, but already seemed to be quite the talker. He slid off the bed, taking Kit by the hands. “Can you tie my shoes?” 

“Course, L.” 

“Don’t call me that, Kit.” 

E finally raced forwards, and threw her arms around her children, hugging them all close. 

“Ow! Mother, let go!” Lemony said. 

“Shh, L! We gotta be quiet!” 

After Lemony got his shoes on, despite his protests, Jacob picked him up and carried him out, and they snuck through the halls, with Kit and Jacques trying not to giggle, though they also occasionally glanced back at their parents to make sure they were real. E and Jacob could barely take their eyes off of them. 

By the time they got out, the sun was rising. Jacques shivered as Jacob shut the window they’d climbed through, putting a disgruntled Lemony down onto the grass, and he said, “It’s windy. Can we do this later?” 

“Nuh-uh. Mother and Father have a day off! This never happens!” Kit cheered. “Where are we going? Can we go to the lake? I got to learn how to bury messages there! I built a board with a string so you don’t lose it, do you wanna see?” 

“Of course I wanna see.” E assured her. “But we have to get somewhere first. We’re going on a hike, okay? There’s a cabin up at the top of the mountains we’ve rented for the weekend, until the train comes.” 

“Is the train gonna take you away?” Jacques asked. 

E and Jacob shared a look. “Maybe all of us, if we’re lucky.” he said. 

The climb through the mountains was long, even for E and Jacob, who were trained to walk for hours without tiring. But they kept getting nervous that someone would follow them, despite how well they were covering their tracks, or that the children would collapse of exhaustion or get blown away in the fierce wind. Lemony still refused to be held, instead clinging to his siblings’ hands and babbling about some book their group leader had read them and all the new words he’d learned since he figured out how to read. Kit sometimes took up talking, giggling about something or other that she’d learned or built. Jacques mainly kept his focus on watching his parents or holding onto his siblings, but every now and again he said that he was doing very good with problem solving and he hoped they’d be proud of how far he’d come since recruitment. 

E and Jacob desperately wanted to tell them that they didn’t have to study anymore, that they were never going back to those horrible people and that Mother and Father loved them and didn’t want them to leave and would never let them go again, but they knew their children wouldn’t understand- or, worse, would think they were the villains and go running back to VFD. So they just nodded and smiled and told their children about the fun they would have at the cabin. 

They stopped around noon for a lunch that they had packed, and she was upset to see that it turned out Lemony didn’t like peanut butter and jelly, but she was excited at how overjoyed Jacques was, saying that they didn’t cut sandwiches into squares at headquarters and he’d had to settle for triangles and he was so happy Father remembered what he liked. Then they kept walking, still trying to get their children to move faster and not leave a trail. 

E heard the branch breaking before her children and husband did. Kit was going on and on about how she and another young recruit had been playing submarine since they’d been given 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, while Lemony kept defining words she said to himself and to his parents, in case they didn’t know, and Jacques made sure the others made it over roots and twigs. And then there was a snap as the wind hit the branch, and E whipped around to see it, falling through the trees and heading straight for her children. 

Her children. 

She leapt forwards, farther than she thought was possible, and she jumped over her children, shielding them and throwing up her arms to block the branch. It hit hard, and she gritted her teeth as she felt a jolt of pain. The branch rolled off into the underbrush, and Jacob ran over to make sure everyone was okay. 

Jacques, Kit, and Lemony all stared at the branch, wide-eyed. E wondered if they knew how much danger that branch could have posed… or how much danger they were in even without it. 

She shut her eyes, and she repeated the phrase she’d been told as a child. But unlike the people who’d told it to her, she believed what she said, and she meant every word. 

“We take care of our own.” she said, as her babies looked up at her, shocked and amazed. “We Snickets take care of our own.” 

They made it to the cabin, and sat down for tea, and Jacob jokingly asked their children what else they’d learned while they were gone. E brought Kit and Jacques some of their old toys, which they didn’t seem to recognize but were happy to have anyway. The two of them and Lemony played Trial in the living room with the dolls and animals, while E and Jacob hid in the kitchen and sobbed where the children couldn’t see. 

They had a few days, then. Jacob hummed and whistled again, while he did the dishes and while showing Kit and Jacques how to work the laundry. He sang lullabies to the children, all in one room for now, with Kit and Jacques on a bunk bed and Lemony preferring to sleep on a pile of coats and pillows. And he played the piano in the corner, which amazed the children, who danced with their mother. He gave Jacques an old hat, and Kit some pretty gloves, and Lemony a pocketwatch, all gifts he’d wanted to give for five years. 

E, for her part, did all she could. She sat with her children as they read and told them about the places she’d been and she’d take them, and helped them make a blanket fort to hide in, and brushed through Lemony’s hair. “You need a haircut.” she said, pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “I don’t have scissors here, though, so you’ll have to wait a while.” 

“‘S okay.” Lemony shrugged. He smiled at her, and she loved his smile more than anything. “Jacques and Kit say long hair is fun to play with.” 

They had those few days, and those few days were the best days they could ask for. 

They planned to tell the children on the train. Once they couldn’t get back to VFD, they’d explain everything. That the Volunteers had taken them away without permission, that Mother and Father were taking them to a boat that would take them to another country, where they could hide until the Volunteers left them alone and would let them come home and stay home and they would never have to run or hide again. 

It was Monday morning, when their children were still asleep. And all the children would know, when the chaperones knocked on the door, was that Mother and Father had to leave early, and yes, they’re very sorry, but now it’s time to return to headquarters, and maybe they can take another hike sometime. 

They never knew that that morning, as E and Jacob were finishing packing up the kitchen, not speaking for fear that they’d start crying again, someone climbed in through the window. And while E was putting the dishes away, and she closed the cabinet door, she felt a prick in the back of her neck. 

Damn mosquitoes, she thought. Jacob had told her how to make a good bug spray, and she’d thought that would work. She reached back to swat at the bug, only to feel something cold and metallic. 

What the hell? 

She ripped whatever it was out, not realizing how dizzy she was starting to feel. 

Her husband called her name, and she turned, looking down at the item in her hand as she did. 

Poison Dart. 

She collapsed on the ground, and she heard Jacob fall beside her. Everything was blurry and dizzy and she was starting to feel numb. She should probably feel worried or upset or something, but at the moment she was feeling… blank. 

Jacob grabbed her hand, and she grabbed his, and as she shut her eyes, one thing did hit her, one emotion did give her a pang of grief. 

Her children were still upstairs. 

We Snickets take care of our own. 

And it was about eight more years before any of their children- Lemony, on his way through a city after leaving a seaweed forest- found out that E and Jacob were even dead.