Chapter Text
Agent Twilight had become rather accustomed to death over the years. From the ashes of his childhood to the battlefields of Westalis, he had seen it in almost every single one of its various forms. Some had been fellow agents who had fallen by his side, some were mysterious informants who were never heard from again. And some were direct casualties taken by his own hand, unsympathetic and cold. Murder was never a crime of passion when he was the one pulling the trigger. Not anymore.
The dark green-tiled floor of the bathroom shines with blood, sticking to the corners of the room with an unbridled luster. Dark spatters of it climb up the sink and spatter the mirrors in an unbreakable pattern. A faucet at the farthest sink to the end is still running with tap water.
The man lying in the middle of it all couldn’t have been dead for more than fifteen minutes. His unseeing eyes stare up at the ceiling above as his body sinks into the pool of crimson surrounding him, and blood seeps out from three large gashes carved into his abdomen. Blooming roses staining every inch of his once-white dress shirt. It’s a gruesome sight to behold, but Twilight only bends over and breathes out a sigh of relief. It’s not Yor. It’s not Yor.
He lowers his gun, stowing it back into the folds of his shoulder holster. Carefully, he treads over the slick tile until he crouches down at the victim’s side to examine the damage. Twilight doesn’t recognize the man’s face—probably slipped into the party when he was upstairs with Gentile—but there’s something odd in the way the man’s features are arranged. Almost as if the very last sight he caught hold of was something truly horrifying.
There’s a sudden crunch underneath his heel, and Twilight looks down to see dozens of pearls radiating around the scene, their glossy pride now coated in the violent mess of it all. He darts his gaze to the skulking shadows of the bathroom, but there’s no one else to be found. Only an open window letting in a gentle draft from the warm, sticky night.
His heart begins to slow in his chest, and Twilight takes a deep breath. There was no sign of Yor other than the scattered pearls across the floor. The most logical explanation pointed to the man ripping the pearls from her neck before she fled the scene entirely. He was well aware of how fast his wife could move when she wanted to.
But that still didn’t answer the question of how her presumed attacker ended up dead on the floor of the women’s bathroom. Twilight didn’t find himself to be particularly remorseful of the man’s fate (especially if he did indeed attempt to harm his wife), however the knowledge that an unknown killer was still roaming the halls of the manor was somewhat concerning.
Twilight takes his black gloves from the front pocket of his suitcoat and slides them on carefully, rummaging through the man’s dress coat for any sign of identification. Finally, he pulls out a thin, blood-soaked wallet and flicks through the contents until he finds the card he’s looking for.
Leon Scholz
Central Westalian Psychiatric Hospital
Ward 329
The card certainly looks authentic, but something feels off just the same. Carefully, Twilight runs a thumb over the ID picture matching the face of the now-dead victim, feeling the slightly raised thickness of the photograph. He chips at the corner until the edges of the picture peel at the seam, revealing an entirely different face underneath. Just as he suspected—a certifiable fake.
But why? There was absolutely no reason a patient from a Westalian psych ward should be anywhere near this politically-charged excuse of an auction. Not only was this supposed patient lying in a pool of his own blood, he was also suspected of attempted strangulation and murder. None of it added up.
An uneasy suspicion bubbles to the surface of Twilight’s chest. The echoes of the conversation he had had with Gentile a mere hour ago is still bouncing around in his skull.
“Are you asking me to fabricate scientific evidence, Mr. Gentile?”
“Of course not. I’m only asking you to find the evidence that doesn’t exist yet.”
There are footsteps coming from just outside the bathroom door, racing towards the scene in rapid succession. A gruff voice is shouting orders, commanding whoever was inside to come out with their hands up. Twilight grits his teeth—the Secret Police really had a knack for showing up right at the worst of times. Replacing the ID card back in its slot, he pockets the entire wallet within his suitcoat and makes it for the open window. By the time the door to the bathroom bangs open with uniformed officers spilling into the crime scene, Agent Twilight is already gone.
-
Twilight finds his wife among the outskirts of the party downstairs, talking to an officer of the Secret Police. He pushes past the remaining number of guests milling around in shock, all either being questioned or huddled around the bar in small groups.
“Yor!”
She turns, her crimson eyes wide as he makes his way through the crowd until he’s right in front of her. She opens her mouth to say something, but her words falter completely as Twilight nearly crushes her against his chest.
It feels as though someone had given him back a piece of himself that he didn’t even know was missing. Yor initially stiffens against his hold, but eventually relaxes and brings her arms up around his back. Twilight resists the urge to bury his face in her hair. She’s warm and vibrant and safe in his arms, out of harm’s way for at least the time being.
Yor lets out a sort of squeak beneath him. “L-loid? Is everything ok?”
She's trembling slightly. It’s enough to bring him back to the present, and he gently untangles himself from her. “I…I’m just glad you’re alright.”
Yor looks up at him, the confusion clearly evident in her eyes. He supposes her reaction is warranted—they had rarely shared a hug even in public settings, lingering only a few seconds to keep up appearances.
But even now, fully aware that it would most certainly be overstepping the boundaries of his mission, Twilight wants nothing more than to wrap his wife in his arms once again, cradling her head against his chest. It dawns on him that if something had happened to Yor, Operation Strix would have suffered a major setback. But that hadn’t even occurred to him as he kicked his way into that blood-stained bathroom, frantically searching for his wife. All that had mattered to him in that moment was her.
Yor reaches out a hand hesitantly, her fingers brushing through his sweaty hair that had completely fallen out of its slicked-back style for the night. She offers him a small smile. “No need to worry, Loid. I’m unharmed.”
She pulls away from him to finish talking to the Secret Police officer, but Twilight keeps a hold of her hand all the same. He looks over her exposed skin for any sign of injury, but she seems to be alright other than a few strands of her updo falling out of place. Twilight breathes a heavy sigh of relief.
The officer finally finishes questioning Yor, concluding that she was very lucky to have gotten out of a dire situation so fast. There are more members of the Secret Police milling about, interviewing each of the guests about their whereabouts and if they saw anything leading up to the incident. The women’s bathroom on the main floor has been blocked off completely as officers continue to swarm the scene.
Yor suddenly leans her head against her husband’s shoulder. She looks utterly exhausted, her face pale and slightly clammy. Twilight pulls her closer to his side.
“Why don’t we head home?” he suggests. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”
Almost instantly, Yor straightens at his side, her hand jumping up to her bare neck. She lets out a small gasp. “Oh, Loid! I’m so sorry! That man must have grabbed my necklace when I…when I was trying to run away. I’m so sorry I lost your gift!”
“Don’t worry about it, Yor.” Twilight says, rubbing circles in the back of her hand assuredly. “They’re just pearls.”
-
After about a dozen apologies from the host and a whole slew of investigative teams running throughout the manor, the announcement was made to postpone the auction until further notice. As by way of compensation, every guest was offered a personal apology from the host and a complimentary drink before heading out for the night. (As to why that mattered, Twilight would never know. Free booze seemed to appeal to every class of society).
Yor continues to slump against Twilight’s shoulder as they both make their way through the entrance hallway. He had offered her a small tonic to get her through the rest of the night, but she had shaken her head, stating she just wanted to get back home to Anya.
The hallway is littered with throngs of guests milling about, taking their time to leave the manor. Twilight and Yor are only a couple yards away from the exit when he hears a set of terribly familiar voices right from behind.
“Do we have to go now, Daddy? There’s this guy over at the bar—”
“No, Karen. I want to get out of here as soon as possible. There’s too many of those damn police dogs crawling around here for my liking.”
Twilight’s heart drops straight into his stomach. No, this couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t be here of all places, on tonight of all nights. But of course they could—a spy had to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, for every twist and turn a mission could bring. He had been so focused on getting Yor home that he didn’t even think about checking his surroundings. Like an amateur, he had trapped them quite literally up against a wall.
Edgar wouldn’t recognize him, but Karen definitely would, even with the absence of his glasses and a new haircut. She had spent enough time in bed with Robert to memorize every muscle in his body, every line of his face.
“Those eyes,” she would say as he stretched her writhing form flat out on the mattress. “I could stare into those eyes for hours.”
Being with Karen was something of a nuisance, if anything. His past partners at least had the decency not to cling to him all twenty-four hours of the day. Leaving the restaurant that night was the easiest breakup he had ever had to endure. She hadn’t even chased after him, only standing at their table in stunned silence before running off to her father. But he knew how infatuated Karen was with Robert. If she found out that her supposed ex-boyfriend was now married to another woman…
It was still too crowded to move anyway quickly, not without drawing attention to themselves. Twilight frantically searches for an opening in the horde of guests surrounding them, but the groups cling together tightly. Edgar’s growl and Karen’s elongated sigh are inching closer than ever toward them.
“Loid? Is something wrong?” Twilight looks down at his wife, the worry clearly evident in her eyes. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”
Shit. Now he had Yor worried as well. Think, Twilight!
He arranges his face into what he hopes to be a passable smile. “It’s nothing, Yor. Just a…an old ex-girlfriend of mine. We had a short fling after my wife died, and I’m afraid it didn’t end too well.”
“Oh.” Her hand tightens around his arm. Then she pauses, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Do we need to move away?”
“I would love to, but there doesn’t seem to be an opening.”
Yor creases her eyebrows even further. “Then, what should we do?”
“I need a distraction, just so they don’t notice us…” he trails off, only half listening to his wife. He had to think of something. Anything. He couldn’t risk losing the family he had worked so hard to create. But now his wife is looking at him very intently, hands clenched into tight fists at her side. Her entire face is burning crimson.
“Yor—?”
“Hey chump, move out the way, would ya?” Edgar calls out behind him. “Or would you rather turn around and face me like a real man?”
The next thing he knows, Yor is grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, almost tripping over her own feet as she pulls him back towards her against the wall. His question of surprise is just on the tip of his tongue when she crashes her lips against his.
Twilight’s only faintly aware of the swell of jazz flowing in the background now. People are pushing into his back from behind, but he hardly notices them. Even the constant flow of thoughts in his head are for once, completely silent. Twilight pauses for a moment against Yor’s mouth, hesitating only briefly before letting his eyelids slide closed.
Karen once accused him of caring too little. Callous and unfeeling, even. No matter what type of lover he was called upon to play, Twilight’s never been particularly fond of being clung to, or having someone’s tongue shoved down his throat. Even cuddling seemed like a necessary afterthought—just another way to get closer to his targets. As a spy, he found that focusing entirely on the other person’s pleasure was the easiest way to loosen the tongue. Countless of hours he would spend over his partners’ bodies, nipping at their earlobe as they spilled the depths of their secrets into the shared space between them.
But this…this was something else entirely. Kissing Yor is strangely pleasant, new and uninhibited. A sort of lightheaded stupor that catches him off-balance, accompanied with the unprecedented understanding that a kiss, above all else, was meant to be enjoyed.
And for the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel in control of it at all.
Heat radiates off of Yor’s cheeks. She’s trembling slightly, and Twilight brings his hands to her shoulders to steady her. Her lips are tight and rigid under his, barely moving at all. The inexperience in the kiss is quite obvious, and he pulls away, resting his forehead against her own.
“Are you alright?” he murmurs.
Yor looks up at him with wide eyes, her breath skating across his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “I really don’t know how to…”
She trails off, still clutching at his collar as her eyes find the floor. Twilight overhears Edgar grumbling just behind them, complaining about the general disrespect of young people these days. For now, it seems, they are being thoroughly ignored as the crowd slowly pushes their way out of the door.
“We can stop,” Twilight says. Memories of that chaotic night with her brother skim through his head—how nervous she was, trembling and shy. The very last thing he wants to do now is to overstep the unspoken boundaries between them. They can stay just like this, close enough to touch while the danger passes behind them.
But Yor clenches her jaw and squares her shoulders. She stares straight up at him, raw determination shining through her eyes. “No. I can do this.”
“Yor, you don’t have to prove anything to me.” says Twilight gently, but she shakes her head.
“If we’re ever going to make this fake marriage work, I have to be comfortable enough to kiss you without…without being me. Yuri was right, we’re not believable enough. I'm not believable enough. What if they ask us to kiss at Camilla's party next month, or what if you end up in the hospital and they ask us to kiss just to prove that we’re married?”
“I highly doubt they’ll ask us to—”
“I have to be prepared, Loid. Please.” She releases her grip from his collar, letting her hands fall to her side. “You’ve been so kind to me all these months. You and Anya have given me more than I deserve. I couldn’t ask for a better family. At least let me do this for you in return.”
A hollow sort of pain pushes into Twilight’s chest. Yor was right, after all. This was all pretend. A game of playing house for the sake of appearances. Besides, Yor had rejected him once before, hadn’t she? Of course, he wasn’t being entirely sincere at the time, and he had passed out after being kicked across the bar on account of his wife downing an entire bottle of scotch.
His usual tactics didn’t work on Yor. Grand displays of affection and passion made her nervous, and he usually risked a broken jaw because of it. But she wasn’t asking for his undying devotion. She was simply asking for a kiss, all so they could keep up the appearance of their fake marriage.
All for the mission.
Twilight brushes back a lock of his wife’s pitch-black hair, tucking it behind her ear. Her gaze flicks back to his, and for a moment, his throat tightens with the bitter taste of sorrow and pity on his tongue. Yor Briar, who had always put everyone else before herself, hiding a near-constant state of insecurity behind her bright smile. She had taken care of her brother ever since her parents died as a child. But who had taken care of her?
“Only if you’re sure,” he finally relents. “You never have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I’m sure,” Yor straightens and steels her expression with determination. “More than I’ve ever been.”
Twilight takes her face in his hands, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. Her heartbeat pulses all the way up to her throat. Her breath hitches, and he hesitates. “It’s alright, Yor. You only have to be yourself, and you’ll do fine.” He brushes his lips against the shell of her ear. “It’s just me.”
She nods, and he brings her to his lips once again, gently. This time, she softens, warm and tender beneath him. He feels dizzy, unsteady on his feet. His hands slide down the bare, exposed expanse of her back, and she shivers beneath his touch. Then she suddenly pulls him flush against her body, and Twilight is lost in the rhythm of it all.
Yor follows him in the intensity he sets, beat by beat as he kisses her repeatedly, his thumb tracing the hollow of her throat. “Don’t stop,” she murmurs lowly, and Twilight runs his tongue along her bottom lip, almost instinctively. He almost breaks the kiss, afraid he went too far, but Yor parts her mouth automatically for him. I trust you. He can hear those unspoken words, just as clearly as if she had said them out loud.
Twilight cups the back of Yor’s head, pressing her closer into him. He ignores the ache starting to form in his chest, trying to drown out the unrelenting betrayal in the warm embrace of his wife. Yor had said those unspoken, trusting words to her husband, Loid Forger. Not to Agent Twilight. He could never be what Yor wanted him to be. Loid was just a placeholder in her life, until someone who actually deserved her came along.
But Yor suddenly moans beneath him, and he loses all sense of self-temperance. The longing to pretend that Yor is his real wife is illogical, serving no purpose. And yet…there’s a part of him that wants to lift her up in his arms, kissing every inch of her body until the dawn peeked through the velvet curtains of her darkened bedroom.
It’s just for the sake of the mission, Twilight. No more than that.
Sylvia was right. He used to be a whole lot better at lying.
Yor’s fingers find their way up the nape of his neck, tugging gently at the shorter hairs at the back, making him groan against her. Theirs is not a hungry kiss—nothing like those ravaging, greedy kisses crammed behind the walls of an office door, nor the obligated ones he placed inbetween a woman’s breasts as she whispered forbidden secrets into his ear. It is careful, yet thoroughly attentive. Yor is soft and supple in his arms, her cheeks brimming with heat and a sense of foreboding loneliness. Twilight wants nothing more than to make her feel good and wanted, and for him to be the reason why. His strong, fearless wife—pouring every ounce of her being into a simple kiss. Yor’s hands rest on his chest, and he wonders if she can feel his heart pounding against her fingertips.
“You can be so cold, Robert.” Karen would say as he rolled over in the bed after yet another one of their entanglements, feeling like he would suffocate if she clung to him for even just a moment longer. “It’s like you don’t feel anything at all.”
Twilight pauses briefly at the memory, but Yor whines softly at the loss of contact. Her lips form his name, and all at once he’s kissing her again—his lips trailing down her perfect face until he reaches the soft angle of her jaw.
“Oh…” she gasps, and it sends a flood of warmth down his entire body. She blooms before him, and Twilight buries his face further into her neck, finding a sensitive spot just below her ear. He’s almost desperate, urgently trying to communicate what he could never, ever say out loud to her. He catches the scent of roses on her hair, dark and fragrant. But there’s another scent lingering just beneath, almost metallic. One he’s all too familiar with.
Blood.
She smells like blood.
Twilight pulls away, breathing hard. Yor stares up at him with half-lidded eyes, pupils blown out of proportion. Her lips are slightly swollen.
“Loid? Are you alright?” she says, panting and out of breath. “Did…did I do something wrong?”
There’s something nagging at the back of Twilight's mind—an instinctive sixth sense he’s learned to pay attention to. As a spy, he was trained to suspect everything, to trust no one but himself. Intuition alone was no substitute for the truth. But the thought of investigating his wife yet again makes him feel sick to his stomach. The week after he had planted that listening device underneath her collar had been unpleasant at best, his sleep wracked with surmounting levels of guilt.
Gentile’s wretched words run through his mind with a start. “She may act like the perfect wife, but how can you be sure? How can you know she isn’t living an entirely different life behind your back?”
No, there was a logical explanation behind this. Perhaps she had gotten a cut earlier that week that wasn’t quite healed. Maybe that horrid man in the bathroom had left the stench of blood on her as he ripped the pearls off her neck. But he wasn’t going to doubt his wife again. Not this time.
Twilight brushes back Yor’s dark bangs away from her eyes, sticky with perspiration. He presses a kiss to her forehead before slipping his hand into hers to lead her out of the now-empty hallway. “No, Yor. Nothing’s the matter. Nothing at all.”
-
Anya is fast asleep on the couch when Twilight and Yor walk through the door of their apartment, her small fingers clutching her stuffed chimera as Frankie snores relentlessly beside her. The television set is still blaring some rerun of Spy Wars.
Twilight jabs his informant in the ribs until he wakes with a start. “Is this what you call a reasonable bedtime? It’s one in the morning!”
Frankie rubs his eyes irritably. “Wha—? Oh, it’s just you two.” He stretches his arms high above his head, pointedly ignoring Twilight’s glare. “Oh, relax. She talked me into a couple more episodes, and she fell asleep soon afterward. No harm done.”
“Get out of my apartment.”
“Fine, fine.” Frankie stands and allows Yor to scoop Anya up in her arms, her head lolling heavily against her mother’s chest.
“Mama…” she murmurs in her sleep. “You gotta keep Papa safe…”
Yor presses a kiss to the top of her pink hair. “Sweet dreams, Miss Anya.” Twilight watches his wife as she cradles their daughter further into her embrace, carrying her across the hall and into Anya’s bedroom.
“You’ve got it bad, Loidman.” Frankie mutters from behind, already sliding on his coat.
Twilight scowls at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. See you on Monday.” Frankie throws a distracted wave over his shoulder as he opens the front door. But then he pauses, looking back with the nastiest grin Twilight had ever seen him wear.
“Might want to wash that lipstick off your face, though. Could give people the wrong idea, if you know what I mean.”
-
Monday morning blooms clear and sunny, bluebirds twittering overhead the café as every tree on the block bursts full of bright green leaves. A gentle breeze blows from the north, bringing the briny scent of the sea just beyond the city limits.
Agent Twilight sets down his coffee mug abruptly on the table, all sense of preparedness gone from his mind at his handler’s single declaration at the start of their briefing. “What? Gentile’s dead?”
Sylvia sits across from him, sipping calmly from her teacup. She’s back to her usual self; her broad-rimmed hat over a set of perfect curls, lipstick red as a rose.
“Found just this morning in his study.” She says it so casually, like she was reading off the daily weather report instead of announcing a gruesome murder. “Shot in the back by his own wife. The neighbors heard the commotion, and the police were at his house before Mrs. Gentile could even get over her shock.”
Twilight narrows his eyes. He remembers her now, the most unhappy woman at the party, dressed in a beautiful midnight-blue gown. “His wife…”
“Oh, you know the story by now.” Sylvia sighs. She stares at her freshly painted fingernails rather indifferently. “Evidently Mrs. Gentile was having an affair, and her husband found out last night. Had an argument that ended in murder. Simple as that.”
“I’m not so sure I would call that simple.”
“Perhaps not.” Sylvia hums. “But it’s not altogether unfamiliar.”
Twilight crosses his arms across his chest, staring at his half-drunken cup of coffee like it held all the answers he required. “And the man in the bathroom?”
“Ah,” Sylvia leans forward in her chair. “That one’s not so simple. We did a little bit more digging into this Leon Scholz, however that’s not his real name. A man matching his same description was reported missing from the Westalian City Prison only a few weeks ago. High profile too, he was in there for everything from arson to rape to murder. But one morning the guards went to make their rounds and found his cell completely empty, with no sign of a break-in or escape. It was like he had just disappeared into thin air.”
“He could have had help from the inside,” Twilight speculates, but Sylvia shrugs.
“Perhaps.” she says. “But what we are certain of is that Gregory Gentile had made a political appearance near the Westalis Psychiatric Hospital the very same weekend as the prison breakout. Hospital records show that Gentile checked out Leon Scholz to take him back home to Ostania, claiming that he was his wife’s nephew. But when the press caught his appearance coming off the train to Ostania a couple of days later, Scholz was nowhere to be found.”
There was a bad feeling starting to grow in the pit of Twilight’s stomach. “So he was set up by Gentile?”
Sylvia chews on her bottom lip. “It’s very likely, but we can’t know for sure, as both Gentile and Scholz are now dead. However, I find it very hard to believe that a supposed patient from a Westalian psychiatric hospital suddenly showing up to target your wife specifically is mere coincidence. I have no doubt that Gentile would have wanted Dr. Forger to use the evidence to further generate hate towards Westalis. Nothing stirs up contention more than fear of the unknown.”
A headache is now forming at the back of Twilight’s head. Information was a powerful weapon, and the wrong information could be lethal. The indication that the citizens of Westalis were a dangerous, unstable people would only worsen relationships between the two countries. They weren’t just dealing with uniformed college students who strapped bombs to the undersides of wild dogs anymore. Very real political powers were at work on both sides of the conflict, Westalis and Ostania alike.
Twilight rubs at his temples. “So who killed Scholz? Gentile couldn’t have, I saw him and his wife leaving right after I went downstairs to find Yor.”
“We don’t know.” Sylvia frowns. She clasps her hands in front of her, deep in thought. “The killer left absolutely no traces of DNA at the scene, nor footsteps. Even with our best forensics at work, we still can’t pinpoint the exact weapon used to kill the victim either.”
“They probably escaped out the open window right as I was coming in,” muses Twilight.
“It’s likely,” Sylvia says. “But what we do know is that the wounds found on the victim were extremely precise and lethal. Scholz would have been dead in an instant. No amateur could have done that.” She grips her teacup so hard Twilight’s afraid the handle might snap. “We’re dealing with a very experienced killer. Most likely professional.”
Twilight slumps back in his chair, heaving out a long sigh. “A hitman, then.” he pauses. “So whose side are they on?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Sylvia’s blue eyes are as sharp as ice. “A hit ordered by Gentile would be the easiest way to pin your wife’s murder on Westalis. But Scholtz was also a very capable killer, and Gentile would run the risk of the hit backfiring on him. We may never know what really happened that night.”
A heavy silence passes between them. Sunlight beams in through the trees in a crisp, refreshing warmth as the city went on with its day. Vendors sold flowers in a dozen different colors. Restaurants set out tables with freshly-baked bread in the center. Hoards of children laughed with their friends on the way to school without a care in the world.
Peace was a very fragile thing indeed.
Sylvia sighs after draining the last of her tea. “Our best bet as of now is to continue with Operation Strix like before. Thanks to your interference, the police weren’t able to identify the man as a Westalian citizen. Your top priority is the Forger family, and getting Anya to be an imperial scholar as soon as possible. I assume your wife is doing alright after what happened at the party?”
The memory of a heated kiss flashes through Twilight’s mind, and his elbow slips off the table in a panic. “Huh? What do you mean?”
Sylvia gives him an odd look. “She was attacked and almost killed by a murderer, Twilight. Wouldn’t that typically shake a person up?”
“Oh. Right. I…I suppose so.”
As far as he was aware, Yor was doing just fine. She had been so proud of herself that morning for finally being able to fry an egg on the stove without starting a fire that she had packed his lunch full with half a dozen soggy egg sandwiches. She had chirped away at her little family happily all weekend, her normal, bright smiling self.
And as for the relationship between him and his wife…not much had changed either. Except for the addition of a small kiss he had placed on her lips before heading out the door that morning, making Anya stare as Yor turned as red as a tomato.
Twilight didn’t know why he wasn’t telling his handler about the kiss. Sylvia had trained him from the very beginning, and he would follow her orders without a moment’s hesitation. He had never withheld information from her before.
But what had happened that night—his wife pressed up against him, trusting him so openly with everything she had as he lost himself completely against her lips—seemed almost too dangerous to reveal. Attachment increased the chances of liabilities, and nothing could ever be more important than the mission. As much as he may want to, falling in love with his own wife would compromise the mission.
For if he did, there was no telling what he would be willing to sacrifice for her sake.
“Well,” Sylvia stands, throwing on a pair of sunglasses as she hoists her purse over her shoulder. “That should be all for today, Agent Twilight. I’m afraid our workload just increased, seeing as we now have to look for threats coming from both countries…but so is the life we’ve chosen. I expect your full report on my desk by the end of today.”
Twilight watches her leave, that broad-rimmed hat of hers standing out amongst the crowd until she slips around a street bend and disappears completely. He’s got another mission starting in half an hour across town, but he can’t bring himself to hurry over there this time. Instead, his mind wanders to what his family would like for dinner that night. They still have some chicken left over from yesterday. Perhaps a simple curry would do, if he can get Anya to stop picking off all the roasted peanuts. And maybe he could stop by the small pastry shop Yor liked—she was ever so fond of their apple tarts.
And maybe, when Anya was curled up with Bond in front of the television after dinner, he would offer to help Yor with the dishes, and he could spend a few precious minutes with his wife, talking about absolutely nothing at all.
Twilight reaches into his suitcoat and pulls out a crumpled white rose—the same one Yor had given to him that night in the garden. It was a silly little keepsake, the petals already beginning to shrivel towards the edges. But he just can’t bring himself to throw it away. It was almost like bringing a part of Yor’s smile around with him.
“You’re getting soft, Twilight.” he says with a dark chuckle. And after pocketing the flower once again in the folds of his suitcoat right next to his heart, he puts on his hat and makes his way for the train station.
Everyone had a secret side to them—Twilight was no exception to that rule. What he wanted and yearned for was no longer important in a world barely holding itself together under the threat of war. So he’ll keep his words locked up tight. He’ll play the role of the perfect husband. The perfect father. The perfect doctor. The perfect spy. He would create a world where Anya and Yor could always be happy, even if that world didn’t include him in their lives. Because in the end, he would choose them over himself every time.
And that was perhaps the most dangerous secret of all.