WHAT A PAIR THEY WERE

"WIFE, can you now tell me why you suddenly told me earlier not to go back home?" Gage asked.

He and Emmy were currently riding a flying car back to their house. After that last call, Gage really did go and had dinner at the Smiths' house. He was even planning to sleep there if his wife wouldn't message him to go back. But who would have thought that after dinner, Emmy would suddenly appear to fetch him?

He just told the Smiths jokingly then that his wife had kicked him out of the house. So, when Emmy appeared, he was bombarded by countless teasing. Telling him that certainly didn't look like he was kicked out of the house.

And now, he and his wife were here, travelling back to their house.

"Two people arrived at our house earlier with the twins," Emmy answered his question.

Gage frowned a bit. Because he could feel that the problem stemmed with these two individuals. But he became worried hearing that these people arrived at their house with the twins. 

"Did they cause trouble? Did they hurt our sons?"

"Not exactly. But it's almost the same. The 'trouble' part, I mean," his wife said vaguely. Then she let out a deep breathe before continuing, "It's the prince and one of his subordinates."

If the flying car was not on auto-pilot, Gage might have stepped on the brake because of what he heard. He even thought that Emmy was just joking with him. But seeing his wife's grim expression, he knew it was not a joke. The prince of the Empire and one of his subordinates was really in their house just now. 

The fact that they were now going back to their house meant that those people were already gone. But didn't lessen the worry that assaulted his whole being. In fact, it just intensified. He calmed himself to think more clearly. That's what he needed most now.

"How did they appear in this planet? And you say they were with Reas and Aster?"

"Apparently the shuttle they were on crash landed on the mountain near our family's land. Then, Astrid and Reas found them near the lake. In which they forced the twins to take them back to our house," Emmy answered. She gathered all of these from chatting with that bald captain and also from what Reas said to her. "Another captain arrived 30 minutes ago and took the two back."

Gage already had a feeling that they were already gone from their house. But that still didn't lessen his worried. "Did they leave peacefully?"

His wife seemed to hesitate but still said at the end, "Ahm, almost?"

Gage suddenly had a bad feeling. "What does this 'almost' mean?"

"Well…"

Then Emmy proceeded on telling her husband about how they drugged the prince using the sleeping drug made by Leighton. The more she said, the blacker Gage's face became. Until she finished and ink could almost seep out from her husband's face.

"You drugged the prince?" Gage almost wanted to shout when he saw his wife nod. Although he knew how magical the drugs made by Leighton were, this thing might still be connected to them. "Have you ever thought that this might just make him more suspicious of us?"

"Of course, I did. But what else could we do? You haven't seen how he was looking at Astrid then. He was looking at our son as if he's a tasty morsel! If we didn't do that, I'm sure that he would not leave. He might stay at our home for a couple of days or worse, he might even directly take our son away! Do you want that to happen?"

"Of course not!" Gage quickly said. When Emmy mentioned that the prince was looking at Astrid like a tasty morsel, he seriously wanted to pull back the prince from wherever he was at now and beat the shit out of him. How dare he looked at his son like that? But there was an even more pressing issue. "He might be gone now. But what if he returned? If he's really interested in Aster, he would certainly do that."

This time Emmy smiled. "You don't have to worry about that. You know how military personnel always have some kind of secret camera attached to them to record everything in case they were thrown in a situation where it's important to have a record of what was happening around them – like a war for example. I'm pretty sure that captain who came with the prince also had that. Then the prince would see the way Astrid acted. Once he did, I guarantee you, he would lose interest in our son."

Gage was confused hearing that. "The way Aster acted?"

Emmy chuckled. "Oh, you wouldn't believe it. He was so brilliant! He acted like some scared weakling, afraid that the prince would try to kill us because he suddenly fell asleep at our house. I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it."

Gage had a hard time imagining that. 

"Trust me, for someone like the prince who enjoyed the battlefield so much, the type he hated the most was cowardly people who would cry at every turn. He wouldn't want someone who showed constant fear of him. And with our son's extraordinary acting, he wouldn't even think that it wasn't real," Emmy added.

Gage somehow finally let down his hanging heart. Then he asked another important question, "Did they recognize you?"

His wife shook her head. "I don't think so."

The prince certainly didn't look like he did. And she would immediately see if that Captain Barton recognized her. Because he's the type to show whatever he was thinking on his face. The other captain who arrived later also didn't show any strange reaction towards her.

"Besides, you know how my family removed all information about me after my supposed 'death'. Even a single picture of me from that time couldn't even be found at the StarNet." She was still a bit bitter about that. As if her family just wanted to erase her existence. "Only those older people from other noble houses that I interacted would recognize me now." 

This time, Gage completely let out a sigh of relief. He reached out to his wife and hugged her tightly. "You did well."

Emmy hugged him back.

Gage now thought that it was a good thing that he didn't come back home and followed his wife's order obediently. Because if he did, then it would not just be his wife who would be worrying if her identity might be exposed. He would too.

A woman from a powerful noble family who was supposed to be dead and a man who's one of the Empire's most wanted. Really, what a pair they were.

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At a certain ship flying in the vast darkness of space, a certain white-haired man finally opened his golden eyes.