Chapter Text
Iso
Yesterday had been a good day, he got to hear her voice again, for the first time in five weeks. Granted it was through her automated voicemail message but the sound eased him in a way nothing had in the past five weeks. Maybe it was foolish to receive comfort for getting to leave a voicemail but he didn’t care. When he first heard the beep after her simple “I can’t be bothered, leave a message” he sat silent and with nothing more important to say, said: “Fadime, I’m sorry, I love you”. He knows her, knows she wouldn’t listen to a long message anyways, would roll her eyes and delete it, so he hangs up in peace and that night he finally sleeps through the night.
That’s not to say he sleeps peacefully, no, he has the same nightmare again. And he loves her, loves her eyes and how expressive they can be, but he thinks he’ll always be haunted by that look, that look that keeps him away. Because he wants to approach and wants to mend things, he just can’t right now, not without starting a war and perhaps more important to him, without her looking at him with the same look in her eyes. That look that haunts his nights, makes him feel disgust. That look was accompanied by her shedding himself of him, of the henna dress he complimented and the beads he gifted, of the soft look of love he believed was reserved for him. He knows she’s expressive, knew it in the hospital when they made the plan to defeat his uncle and at his wedding, but to see first hand her emotions filter and change so quickly it was debilitating. The look she landed on, hate filled, enmity filled, broken trust and no repair insight filled, that, that was the worse part. So he woke up not with a scream but with quiet acknowledgement that hurt every morning the same cause he would always wake up knowing she would not be next to him and would be miles away somewhere he was forbidden to go.
His eyes open and even though he knows like every morning he turns to her side, he doesn’t know why, the outcome is the same but the repetition anchors him in reality in a less harsher way than he probably deserves. He reaches for her pillow, the one that may still hold her scent, or maybe it's a placebo and it doesn't, he touches it lightly and his ring contrasts against the white pillow case. He couldn’t remove it, needed to feel its familiar weight.
When he looks at it he remembers the voicemail, not that he forgot but now in the light of morning he can confirm it happened, that for one small moment he was unblocked. He scrolls on his phone and looks at their picture, the day when she put on the beads: one for her mother, one for her father, one for her brother, one for herself and one for him. He wonders not for the first time how he can gain that level of trust with her again. He doesn’t know what to do but he knows his road has begun now that she has unblocked him, because even if for one moment she thought of him and that means he has not been erased.
He gets out of bed and out of his room and faces Oruc’s kitchen. The house is quiet, too quiet, lately it’s been screaming Fadime’s absence, if she were here, it wouldn't be quiet. He begins to make breakfast, trying to ignore it. If she were here she would be judging his cooking, not that she knew anything about cooking, but she would say it wasn't “the Kocari way”. She would eat the food either way and enjoy it, this he knows because she would leave nothing in her plate not because she complimented it, lest he think she’d enjoyed Furtuna food even half as much as Kocari’s. He eats in silence and not with her scrapings on his side, because she was a careless eater and would sooner scratch the fine dishes than slow down. He makes a cup of tea and doesn't make a cup of coffee for Fadime. He gets ready and doesn't have to secretly look at her outfit to match her inconspicuously. All this to say that he goes through his routine in spite of her absence.
He leaves the house and doesn't have to open the car door for her, gets into the factory and doesn't walk with her hand in his. His day passes, missing her. So he gets back home, if one could call it that, and he eats, this time with Oruc but again in silence. He retires to his room, after some light conversation with Oruc, and lays on the bed. He looked at her side again, and would have remained doing so for a few minutes more had he not been disturbed.
His phone rings, and it’s not who he would have hoped but the name on the screen still stops his heart for a second, because this call cannot be about anything good. “Abi?” he answers the phone, it had become a habit but it took him by surprise to say it again directed at him after six weeks.
“Have you seen Fadime?” Adil asked quickly, anxiously even.
“No?” he said with concern. “What’s wrong ab- Kocari”. Adil hesitated on the other end of the line.
“Nothing” he answered gruffly and hung up.
That didn’t ease Iso, he knows Adil wouldn’t have called if it hadn’t been an alarming amount of time since he’d seen Fadime, so she was likely missing. Missing and her brother had no clue where she was.
He calls back and goes straight to voicemail, considers calling Esme, Ilve or Eleni but knows they might also be reluctant to tell him anything.
He thinks for just a minute that he should let Kocari find her, not interfere, not be mixed up where he has not been called. Except he was called and although he knows that if Adil didn't tell him anything is because he doesn't want him involved past answering his question, now he is in this. And if his Fadime is missing he will look for her until he knows she is safe, fears be damned. So he gets out of the house, pajamas still on, and gets in his car. He doesn’t need to drive around aimlessly, he thinks he knows where she would go, or at least it’s where he would go if it had anything to do with her. And it may be presumptuous to believe it has anything to do with him, but yesterday was an anomaly and the call from Adil thinking she might have come to him makes him think this could be related to him, though he doesn’t know why. So he approaches the bridge, war be damned.
He’s gambling on the fact that since Fadime is missing Adil would’ve called all of his men, even the ones on the bridge. Doesn’t mean he is not cautious, he turns off his headlights and enters Kocari territory, enemy territory, cautiously. He takes the familiar road, and can't help but hear banging in his trunk, he laughs to himself. He makes sure to park the car before fully getting there and makes the last of the way on foot. He’s careful, he’s quiet and he’s in the dark, maybe that’s why he sees her before she sees him. He takes a moment to watch her pacing and to prepare himself before he fully enters.
“Fadime” he calls. In no less than two seconds he’s facing the barrel of one of her guns but as he looks into her eyes he’s not afraid.
Not because he thinks she won’t shoot, he wouldn’t care if she did, but because her eyes, her beautiful, expressive eyes don’t hold that look. If he were to be killed now by her, he would die in peace.