Rotes Rathaus and other Sightseeing
The itinerary for the next day was packed. Both Julia and Amira were zombies after not sleeping all night, and walking was the farthest thing Julia enjoyed with a sprained ankle and no crutches. Still, they joined the group to the Berliner Fernsehturm, electing to only do a quick tour upstairs and not eat lunch in the restaurant of the dome, but getting something at the base of the tower.
As Julia took her first bite of her Döner, Amira elbowed her in the rips.
"Your criminal is here!"
True enough, Carmen leaned against the tower and looked at her.
"She can wait, I'm having my lunch first."
Amira shrugged, and watched back.
When Julia was done, she looked up again.
Carmen had disappeared again.
"Typical." she muttered.
"Can I steal you for a moment?" Carmen appeared behind them.
Amira jumped, but Julia simply said, "five minutes", and stood up.
Carmen handed her a pair of crutches.
Julia stared at her, sighed, and accepted them.
"What do you want."
"I wanted to apologize. Yesterday, so much went wrong, I'm sorry." Carmen pushed her hands in her bomber jacket.
"This is nothing new. You asked for my help without giving me enough information, and then you abandoned me. Again. You didn't even dignify to tell me if you escaped the cat lady."
Carmen snorted. "Oh, Tigress would hate that name!"
She quickly composed herself again.
"How can I make it up to you?" she asked.
"Let me on your team. Properly. No secrets, no throwing me in situations because you know you can manipulate me into helping you, I want to be a proper member of your team."
Julia stared into Carmen's eyes.
"What?"
Julia scoffed. "Of course not. Fine. Then leave me alone. I can't have you popping up in my life anymore. You see how it ended. Again."
She turned around and went back to Amira, who looked at her expectantly.
"How did it go?" she asked.
Julia just let out a groan.
"That bad?" Amira hugged her with one arm. "It'll be okay, eventually."
Julia just groaned again.
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In the afternoon, in the next museum, they had to work on the next few exercises.
And Amira's phone kept ringing.
The first time she put it on silent.
It rang again. Loudly.
She put it on do not disturb.
It rang again.
She tried airplane mode.
Same thing. It rang even louder than before, she thought.
Then she got a text.
'Take the call! It's for Julia! She lost her phone yesterday!'
Who the fuck was Julia? She didn't know any Julia!
But, that independent agent had called Lisa 'Jules'.
"Hey! Lisa!" Amira whispered. "Was your old name Julia?"
Julia froze.
"Ignore that."
"What if it is your secret admirer?"
"Don't care." She walked into the next room.
Amira sighed, and called the number back.
"Hi, who is this?" she asked.
"You can call me Player!" a voice appeared. "Is Jules with you?"
Amira laughed.
"If I'm right about her old name, she just ran off. She doesn't want to speak with you."
The speaker on the other end sighed.
"Well that's annoying, I don't have any other way to contact her currently."
"Can I tell her something from you? You are with the scary redhead, right?"
Player laughed. "Oh, she'll like that description. Yes, I'm from her team."
A keyboard was clicking.
"Carmen says to trust you and to tell Julia that she has a flight to catch in three hours, if she still wants to join. Just text me and I'll send you the details."
"Oh, okay, I'll tell her. Bye!"
Amira ended the call, and sleepwalked through the museum, looking for Julia.
"They want you! You're leaving now!" she shouted as she saw her. She got shushed immediately.
Under protestations she dragged Julia outside.
"You can be angry and sulking later, you have a flight to catch!"
Julia still huffed, but let herself drag to the metro.
"I'm glad I could be your friend! I'd really like to stay in touch, but that's probably not possible. I'm sure we'll see each other eventually!" Amira hugged Julia one last time.
"Have fun!"
She waved as Julia disappeared down the tunnel.
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A week later, Amira got a text message with a Google drive containing all of Julia's research, and a link to a new Instagram account: @whereintheworldisCarmenSandiego
The last picture was of Julia and Carmen sitting on a plane together, captioned: 'Onto new adventures!'
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