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Leo takes a seat on the leather armchair behind his desk – one of the very few pieces of furniture that decorates an otherwise rather bare office that he means to redecorate but will hardly ever have the time to – and takes a deep breath. He's been up since six o'clock this morning, he was already dressed up and ready when the wall around the city came down and disappeared into the ground for the day, and this is the first time in fourteen hours that he can take a moment to rest. This has to mean something, he doesn't know what exactly, but it can't be good.
As the time of the annual government review approaches, obligations seem to multiply overnight. His and Blaine's first hundred days earlier this year went uncharacteristically well for a conjoined term, especially one where the two head of states are married together. Their critics were ready to point out either all their failures or each and every time one of them had played his game for his own ends, but they could do neither of those things. Obviously, not everything had gone smoothly – you can't really run a country without making the wrong move every now and then along the road, and you will always have someone who hates you for some reason or another – but their first one hundred days were nearly spotless as far as scandals, budget and reforms went. They didn't do everything that was needed, but they did something and people were rather satisfied. It was just the beginning tho, and now it's different.
They are supposed to have something to show for these past twelve months of government, and they certainly have good reports and a five-points plan for the next twelve, but annual reviews are a dicey thing. People are often not inclined to patience anymore and every little setback can set them off with disastrous consequences for the next leg of the term. Elections are far away enough not to be cause of concern yet, but still the time of missteps is officially over.
As he rests his head against the back of the armchair and watch the city through the window, still running at full capacity at this time of the day, the door opens breaking the illusion of a peaceful moment before it could even begin. He sits up again, looking towards the door. “Yes?” He asks.
Cody clearly wasn't expecting to find him in here and this was his last resort, the only other place where he hadn't looked for him. In fact, his eyes are hopelessly sweeping over the room when he hears Leo's voice. “Oh, you really are here,” he says, and there's relief in his voice. “I've been looking for you everywhere.”
“Well, it's my office,” Leo points out.
“Yet you're supposed to be downstairs for the meeting.” Over the past few months, not only he went from being a simple valet to become Leo's precious personal assistant – Leo can't really take a step anymore without checking with Cody first – but he and Leo are now on a first name basis too; and their business relationship was thrown out the window somewhere along the way to make room for something that looks a lot more like friendship, also due to the fact that they're almost the same age, given or taken a couple of years.
Leo sighs. “What a guy to do to avoid responsibilities?” He asks, a hand resting dramatically over his forehead.
“Hide better, I imagine,” Cody answers, finally entering the room. He is forced to close the door with his foot since his hands are full.
“I didn't hire you to be a buzzkill.” Leo makes a face, but his brain is already coming out of resting mode. He may be lazy, but he always knows when the party is over, even if said party has been exceptionally brief.
“And yet here I am, killing buzz left and right,” Cody chuckles. “In fact, I think buzzkill is in the actual description of a personal assistant's job. That's literally what we do: organize your agenda and poop your parties.”
Leo laughs and sits up straight, crossing his arms over the desk. “Right. So, what do you have for me?”
“This is your outfit for the meeting with Bronzelock's prime minister,” Cody says, placing a nice suit carrier on the desk. “It's a two-piece suit, I know you don't like them, but she's a conservative woman and she likes her fellow politicians very old fashion.”
“And I like mine tall, dark and tan, with a lot of stamina and a seven inches cock,” Leo snorts. “But here I am stuck with her, who doesn't even remotely fit the description.”
Cody blushes furiously – mention of penises, especially when unseemly, always does that to him – but he soldiers on because he's well aware that Leo is only trying to distract him. “I could send you out in your favorite jeans-and-shirt outfit, but it wouldn't help your negotiations,” he insists. “Besides, the suit is elegant enough that you can keep it for the press conference as well, so you won't have to change twice.”
Leo glares at him, knowing he has just being played. Cody knows how much he hates to change clothes several times a day, according to the people he has to talk with. He won his campaign wearing a hoodie and he expected to keep on governing dressed like that, but apparently that is not possible. The people want you as you really are, other politician not so much. They love their formality and tend to not take seriously who doesn't present himself in a certain way. So, suit it is. “ Fine, let's go with the two-pieces,” he sighs in resignation.
Cody would clap his hands if he had them free, so he simply cheers in that cute way of his. “These you have to sign for me, please,” he goes on, once the suite-issue has been resolved. He place a tablet right in front of him and pushes it gently towards him.
“These are a bunch of permits, some request forms and a few other things. Just swipe right. I gathered them for the past three days, so you could deal with them all together, but we really don't have much time, given that both your name and last names are required.” He nods towards the screen, inviting him to start scrabbling his ridiculously long name – 23 letters! – on every single dotted line now.
“I thought I was supposed to be downstairs for the meeting!” Leo complains, as he grabs the stylus and starts signing away.
“He can wait another ten minutes,” Cody reassures him. “I found you earlier than I thought.”
Leo keeps signing and swiping right. He knows he is supposed to always read what's placed in front of his nose – lest he signs an authorization to nuke some other nation – but he simply doesn't have the time. He needs to trust Cody is not here to destroy him. “Lucky me! What else is there?” He asks. “I sense that it's not over.”
“I brought your dinner,” Cody announces, placing a little lunchbox on the desk. Inside there are two sandwiches, fruit and a tiny dessert. It would be better for Leo to eat properly and, if possible, at a proper table, which surely he would prefer, but this is better than nothing. “All grain bread, lettuce, tuna, tomato and mayonnaise. Slices of apples and a carrot muffin.”
“You're an angel,” Leo looks up smiling, but his smile fades as soon as he sees the little bottle right next to the lunchbox. It contains four different pills, two red and two blue, and Cody always presents it to him without comment because, as considerate as he is, at this point he must have got that they make Leo incredibly unease even if he hasn't been told what they are for.
Leo always loses his cheerfulness when he sees that bottle, to the point that it became awkward for both him and Cody to endure the minutes that precede and follow the reminder of the pills.
Leo can't tell anybody about the fact that he and Blaine are trying to have a baby – let alone that Blaine doesn't seem able to get him pregnant – and in moment like this he is very grateful for that.
Trying for so long and not succeeding is frustrating for every couple, but it is even more so when from this baby depends Blaine's position in the Church of the Unicum, the politics of this city and possibly their marriage. He is tired of trying and failing, and yet he keeps going because Blaine doesn't want to face the truth by means of a faith that can't and is not gonna help them with this. It's already hard as it is, not having to talk about it and receive people's pity is a relief.
“Thanks,” he says dryly. He swallows down the four pills together and takes a sip of water. The quicker he takes his treatment, the sooner they can go on with their day. He's about to tell Cody something to change the subject when the shock wave of the explosion shatters the windows and sends half the the furniture flying to the other side of the room. Everything happens so fast that in the first few seconds of it he doesn't even know what happened. One moment he was sitting at his desk, considering the best way to be done with his medicines, the moment after he and Cody are on the floor and the desk is askew a good ten feet from where it should have been.
Then, two things happen. One, the alarm of the Presidential Palace sets off; a deafening screeching sound, loud enough to pierce even the ringing in his ears. Two, the light goes out, plunging the room in darkness. Leo watches in horror as the whole city turns off, one sector after the other. It's like a big wave of light but in reverse. Possibly, everything happens simultaneously, but his brain seems able to process only one thing at the time. Still confused, he looks around but he can't see anything. He knows Cody is next to him only because he can touch him, but when he calls out to him, no answer comes.
It takes security less than two minutes to bring down the door and storm in, but Leo doesn't know that. When the light of the torches on their head breaks the darkness, the only thing he can make out are silhouettes of armed men screaming and coming towards him, and he thinks the worst. One of the men walks towards him while the others search the room. Crawling away from him, Leo grabs what he hopes is Cody's arm and blindly pulls him with him.
The man is speaking to him, but he can't hear him over the sirens blaring and the ringing in his ears. He can hardly hear his own voice when he screams at him to stay away. But the man keeps getting closer. Only when he's so close that he can see his blue eyes, Leo realizes that is Adam Walker, his head of security, which means the others must be the rest of his team. The feeling of relief is so overwhelming that he chuckles stupidly, clinging to Adam's arm. Finally, what the man has been repeatedly asking him for the past five minutes reaches his ears. “Sir, are you hurt?”
“Uh?”
Adam places himself just a few inches away from him, so that he can see his face and nothing else, then he repeats the question slowly, as if Leo spoke another language entirely and that was the only problem of comprehension between them. “Are you hurt?”
“No!” He screams without knowing how much. He thinks he sees Adam flinch but he's not sure. “I'm not hurt. But I can't find Cody!”
“He's okay, we have him,” Adam says, nodding to be clearer. And Leo realizes that he's not holding Cody's arm anymore, that if Cody was ever next to him, he is not now. “I'm gonna get you up, okay? I need to get you out of here.”
Leo nods, but Adam is already pulling him up. As they somehow manage to get to the door, he throws one last glance through the window and all he can see is smoke and ruins.
*
It takes Blaine more than half an hour to reach the palace. Whatever happened got him in the middle of service and he had his own followers to reassure. Besides, his own security – in the person of his very through and yet sometimes unnecessarily paranoid young head of security – didn't want to let him go because it was not safe, to which he finally responded with a “Fuck security!” that left a lot of old ladies very shocked. When he finally gets to the palace is angry beyond the ever present calming effect of his unshakable faith, and his eyes are so strangely dark that nobody dares to stop him as he enters the room where Leo and Cody are currently in, surrounded by what looks like the entirety of Leo's security.
“Are you alright?” Those are the first words he speaks as he walks towards his husband.
“Yes, don't worry,” Leo stands up from the couch where the paramedics forced him to sit and he's happy to find out that the room has finally stopped spinning. “Just a big scare.”
Blaine wraps him in a big hug and leaves a kiss on his head. He's still wearing his minister robe, so for a moment Leo enjoys being enveloped in the familiar smells of frankincense, honey and burning coals. “What happened?”
“According to the first reports, a bomb or several bombs at the power plant in Prospect Avenue,” Leo explains as they both walk back to the couch. The room is illuminated by twenty camping lights scattered everywhere because the light is still out. “But we don't know for sure yet. I sent people investigating, but it's hard to communicate with the squads on site when the systems are down.”
“Prospect Avenue is inside the security belt,” Blaine says, his voice heavy with worry. The Presidential Palace, the Church and several other central buildings are surrounded by a three miles radius safe zone where no means of transportation is allowed, with very few exceptions. Pedestrians are required to undergo a security check coming in and out of it. It's virtually impossible to introduce anything illegal through the gates.
“I'm aware,” he sighs. “But we don't know anything for sure just yet.”
He's about to explain in details what he sent Adam to do, when his head of security shows up on the door as if summoned. He comes straight to them and salute both. “Sir, we temporarily restored communications with the men on site through shortwave radios,” he announces.
“Do we still have those?” Leo asks, impressed.
Shortwaves radio became obsolete with the coming of the net. With every communication being digitalized, there was no use for them anymore and they became ancient history.
“Not many,” Adam answers. “Just a few dozens, actually. The rest comes from the engineering guild. Those weirdos hoard them or something, and a bunch of other stuff too. The chief of police said they showed up at the precinct with the radios on their own accord, saying we were probably gonna need them. The audio is not ideal, but it will do.”
“And what did you find out?”
Adam looks around and lowers his voice. “The bomb squad said it was at least two bombs, and they exploded exactly at the same time, that's why we only heard one explosion. But they're not excluding a third one, maybe unexploded, so they're still searching.”
“What about the palace?” Blaine asks.
“The Presidential Palace has been secured, Your Holiness. We set up a perimeter. As of now, nobody is allowed to leave or enter the building,” Adam reports, dutifully. “You and your husband have nothing to worry about in here.”
“So it was an attack,” Leo says, sadly. “Like those in Ironlock and Goldenlock.”
“We don't know that, sir” Adam shakes his head. “Nobody claimed it yet.”
Blaine face is darker than usual. “How did they pass the belt?” He asks. “The gates are supposed to be secure.”
Adam nods. “They are, Your Holiness. The chief says it might be an inside job of some sort. Either the bombs were built inside the belt or someone let the bombers pass. But we won't be able to watch the recordings of the past few days until the systems are restored.”
“About that, when are we getting the power back at least?”
“They're working on it,” Adam is experienced enough to know that you want to give the good news first. “But the damage to the cables was extensive. It might take some time. We're re-organizing the palace and, with your permission, your private apartments too. We're going to make it as comfortable as it can be in the current situation.”
“Yes, sure, do whatever you dim necessary to face the situation,” Leo nods. “And makes sure it's not just us who are comfortable. There are at least two hundred people who work here.”
“Yes, sir. Also, one of the engineers want to speak with you,” Adam continues. “He says it's important.”
“Tell him he will have to wait.” Leo stands up from the couch. Now that the ringing in his ears has stopped – also thanks to the fact that the alarm has been turned off – he can think more clearly and he's mentally taking note of all the things he should be doing right now, like writing a thousands messages on paper for example. Given that he still can find paper and a pen somewhere. “Are there any dead? Wounded?”
“The place was still busy at this hour, sir.” Then, as if realizing that this might not be a good enough answer he adds, “They're still counting.”
Leo closes his eyes for a moment. “Do you have any good news, Adam?”
“The night watch is here. They'll help with the vigilance,” Adam says.
The genome soldiers are engineered to have a better night vision. It makes total sense to take advantage of that. It actually is a good news, but not enough for Blaine to be really happy about it. “Much help they were when those terrorists brought the bombs inside the city. What are we modding people for, if they're exactly as careless as the rest of us are?”
Leo sighs and places a hand on his husband's arm. Blaine must be more tired and more scared than he lets on to get so irrationally angry. They all need a bit of rest. “Thank you, Adam,” he says. “Let me know if there are any update.”
“Yes, sir.”
Leo watches him go and he's suggesting Blaine a little walk to calm his nerves and gather their thoughts, when he notices Cody alone in a corner. It turned out that getting stuck behind the overthrown desk spared him half the impact and he was way less stunned than Leo was when the security team arrived. The paramedics didn't find anything wrong with him, still he looks nervous and more than a little bit lost. “Cody, is something wrong?” He asks, drawing Blaine's attention to him too.
“Have you been visited by a doctor?” Blaine asks, always so caring.
“No. I mean, yes, I was visited and they said I'm fine,” Cody mumbles, turning instantly red.
“Are you sure?” Leo insists. “You look confused.”
Cody hesitates for just a fraction of a moment and then takes a few steps forward, looking around like Adam did a few moments before. “I'm just worried for our guest,” he answers, lowering his voice to a whisper. “She was in the building too, but I don't know where she is now and they won't let me look for her.”
“You're right, we need to check on her.”
“Care to fill me in?” Blaine asks.
“I was supposed to meet with Bronzelock's prime minister today. She was waiting for me downstairs when the explosion happened,” Leo explains. “Whatever this is, we can't have a head of state here after a possible bombing and not knowing where she is or working with her to communicate with her country.”
“That's true.”
“I'll take take care of it, Cody. Thank you.”
Leo sighs, looking at the mess of soldiers, guards and paramedics around him. It seems like his nice little walk will have to wait – probably for weeks – because more urgent matters are mercilessly piling up and there's no time to waste. Besides, with security blocking every door, there's nowhere to go, so he might as well stay and do something useful.
*
It's almost dawn when he can finally concede himself some rest.
He spent the night writing messages on scraps of paper. His hand felt weird holding a pen as he hadn't written anything manually in ages. He was actually surprised he still remembered how to do it. Growing up he always wondered why should he learn to write with such basic tools like pens and pencils when he could express his thoughts through keyboards and screens, and tonight he really got the answer he was looking for all those years ago.
Dozens of messengers – with horses loaned to them by the stables of the two racetracks in the city – were sent around to report their situation and ask for help to those city states that were most likely to give it. Leo still has to receive one single answer as he supposes none of the other states are prepared to respond on paper. They might send recorded messages, but those too require to be brought back in order to be seen and the distance is quite big between Silverlock and any other state if the only thing you have to cover it is a horse.
Leo couldn't go to the site of the attack – the area hasn't been cleared yet – but during the night he received a much more precise assessment of the situation. They told him the power plant wasn't just damaged by the two confirmed explosions, it collapsed; and since the facility was at full capacity at that hour of the day, more than four hundreds people were trapped under the wreckage. Around midnight the body count was seventy people. Three hours later there were twenty more and the number is bound to increase because the rescuers are still digging and a lot of people are still missing.
There are dozens of bodies to be identified and no refrigerated place to keep them temporarily. Blaine has offered to keep them in the vault underneath the Church, and he's been there since the first victims arrived. He's also arranging the delivery of food and supplies to the rescuers on site and everybody who might need it through several of the organizations he's chairing. Last time he heard from him, he was having a group of his people setting up a blood tent just outside the main chapel so people can donate blood for the hospital.
The wounded are another problem. More than half the machinery in the hospitals need a lot of power to work and backup generators are not supposed to be running for more than twenty-four hours, which will be over sooner than it seems anyway. Besides, a great number of medical machines need to be on-line to work, but the systems are still down, so they are useless even if the generators are working. Some obsolete technology has been checked out from storage and museums, and some of the oldest practitioners have been called back from retirement, because the younger staff is not equipped to deal with emergencies the old fashion way, but it's not enough. They must find a solution and quickly. Leo is really counting on the other city-states to send the emergency helicarriers that he requested. If they could at least transport the worst cases somewhere else, that would give the doctors and nurses time to treat everybody else.
As if that wasn't enough, the press and the media went berserk on him and Blaine. Journalists were already outside the Presidential Palace when Leo was still being extracted from his own office, and they refused to leave until they both gave a statement, which they couldn't do until several hours later when they actually had something more specific to say. It was a real nightmare.
As he crosses the foyer to get back to the elevators and reach his apartments, he stops by a window and watches the sun rising behind the line of the horizon. It's the first time since he can remember that he witnesses dawn without the familiar outline of the silver barrier breaking his line of sight. He misses now – as he missed them last night – the droning and the gentle shaking of the ground when the wall was moving. Stuck underground since yesterday morning, it can't be raised manually. The city has been left exposed last night, and it probably will be again tonight. The army intervened to protect it, and they were lucky enough that there was not cause for battle, but it won't last. Right now they are weak, and weakness calls the vultures.
The last thing they need is a second threat coming from outside this time.
“Mr. President?”
Leo turns around and comes face to face with a beautiful young woman, with the shiniest red hair he has ever seen on a human being. She's delicate like a princess, and yet there's such determination in her eyes that the first word that comes to his mind is fierce. “Yes?” He asks, carefully.
He doesn't think he has ever seen this woman before and that makes him instantly nervous. But the girl gives him a wide open smile that feels warm and friendly. Leo unconsciously relaxes. “My name is Annie” she says. “I'm one of the engineers.”
Leo looks at her again. Annie wears a black jacket with big, silver buttons, which is the official uniform of the engineers, and she's got the guild's crest pinned on the lapel. He should have known right away. “Nice to meet you, Annie” he says. “And I would love to talk to you, but this is really not the right moment.”
He hopes he doesn't sound too rude, but at this point he's having problems standing straight. He needs to go to bed and rest for a while. Annie doesn't lose her smile, but she doesn't back off either. “I know you're probably very tired but, believe me, you want to hear what I have to say.”
Leo frowns a little bit. “Can't it wait a few hours?”
“I requested to speak with you and I've been told to wait,” Annie says, calmly. She must be one of those people who never fret and yet always get what they want because they simply don't take no for an answer, even if it means to ask a thousand times. “ I've been waiting in the foyer since yesterday evening, sir. I promise you, it is important.”
Suddenly Leo remembers that he was the one telling Adam to make her wait. “Oh, right. You're the engineer,” he repeats, quite stupidly. “I'm sorry if I didn't receive you earlier. The past twelve hours have been very hectic. Come, let's have a seat.”
“I understand.”
A corner of the foyer is arranged like a little waiting room and they sit there because that's the only distance Leo is willing to cover at the moment. “What happened?” Leo asks. “What so important that you stayed here instead of going home?”
“I came here on behalf of the guild. I tried to talk to the police, to your security guards, even to the rescuers that were on site and that have experts of their own,” she explains, “but nobody had the time to listen. We are under the impression that nobody is grasping the real entity of the damage that the bombs have caused.”
“I've been told the power plant has been completely destroyed,” Leo says. “That the cables are ruined and that's why we have no power yet.”
“It's not just the cables, sir. It's everything.”
Leo struggles to understand. Engineering has never been his thing to begin with, it's even more confusing when he's been told a completely different thing. “Everything what?”
“The whole structure,” Annie explains, and like all the engineers, she manages to say exactly nothing. “The delicate mainframe that keeps this city running. The power, the servers, the data, it's basically all gone.”
Leo frowns again. “Wait, I thought the power plant was the only thing that was affected. What does this have to do with the servers?”
She seems to consider her answer for a while, and then she smacks her lips. “The explosions destroyed the power plant, which caused the power outage, that's true. But the heat of it also damaged the cables for miles, all the way back to some of the servers. There are burning marks all over the city where the cables have burned underground. Besides, the main servers were as close to the power plant as the Palace is, and you lost half your windows. How do you think did it go there?”
“Don't we have back up servers?”
“Not if we can't make them run,” Annie points out. “The secondary power plant, which we're going to use as a temporary fix, won't help with the systems. As of now, we have just enough power to serve not more than one third of the city and only if we manage to redirect some cables that have miraculously survived the deep frying. In no cases we could power the servers, if we had servers to power, because half of them got damaged beyond repair and the other half will have to be repaired, which will take time. The back up servers are fine, but they're too far away from the secondary power plant and they can't be moved, which means that they will be just expensive huge boxes until we find a way to access them.”
Leo feels like he's slowly grasping something that he's quite sure he won't like at all. “What are you saying, exactly?”
“Our systems are down and can't be put back up any time soon,” Annie says, simple as that. “We're officially cut out from the rest of the world and plunged back a few centuries.”
For a while Leo doesn't react at all, the weight of Annie's words pinning him down on the chair. He thought this was just a dire situation that they were going to overcome some way or the other. A tragedy, no doubt, for a lot of people lost their lives. And a cause of concern, also, because the attack made clear they probably have an enemy within the walls that needs to be eradicated. But what Annie's saying is way worse than any of this. They can't solve anything if the city falls. “Are you sure about this?” He asks, looking her straight in the eyes.
“Unfortunately yes, sir.”
“Why didn't the guild come to me sooner?” He asks again. There's an angry undertone in his voice, but she shrugs apologetically to it.
“Well, I came here, didn't I?”
“I mean earlier,” Leo clarifies. “You must have been consulted by the rescuers. Why didn't you speak up then!”
Annie takes a deep breath, possibly to keep calm. “Actually, they didn't, sir. As I said, the rescuers have their own experts and rely on them for any evaluation. The police did come to us and ask our opinion, but it was too soon and there wasn't much we could say before accessing the site. We told them what we knew at the time. By the time we found out what had really happened, there was nobody listening anymore. That is why I came here and waited.”
Leo nods. “Alright. You're right. I'm sorry,” he says.
“But it's not all, sir.”
Leo is really starting to hate those three letters put together. They usually announce disaster, because people get deferential only when they know they're going to drop the bomb. “Is that anything worse than what you told me so far?”
“As you you know, the guild is in charge of recording data from the city's mainframe and then do the backup of those data,” she explains slowly. “For security reasons we have an automatic backup and a manual one, which means that data are recorder twice, both on a secondary in-house server and on a portable device that is later brought to the backup servers we were talking about earlier.”
“Yes, in order to have physical copies of the data in case of a hacking.”
“Exactly,” Annie confirms. “We analyze all those data, searching for anomalies, before backing them up. That is what we were doing when the bombs went off yesterday. There was something wrong with some of the data.”
“Something what?”
“We don't know yet. And of course we can't investigate further now,” Annie sighs. “Our machines are burned, because we were close to the site of the attack. Everything that counts hardly isn't, I'm afraid. We have the physical copy, but we can't read it either.”
“Do you think it might have been an hacking attempt?” Leo asks carefully, and the failed attempt to hack the bank-system comes to his mind again.
“That is what we are afraid of,” she nods. “But we can't confirm it.”
“We are going to talk about that again,” Leo says, knowing that if it really was an hacking attempt then the guild needs to know about the bank too. “But first you have to tell me if there's anything we can do to fix something, anything, in Silverlock.”
“We can rely on the secondary power plant to power the citadel inside the belt,” Annie says. “And there are a few very old servers underneath the Church of the Unicum that are close enough to the plant that we could wire them to it relatively easily, but...”
The citadel – which is what the people call the group of buildings inside the belt – is not a residential area. Apart from Leo and Blaine, who live inside the Presidential Palace, only the government officials reside there, and not even all of them. “More than three-quarters of the city would be stuck in the Dark Ages,” Leo whispers. Annie nods, silently.
“How much time are we talking about here?” Leo asks. Thinking about practical things helps him not to freak out .
“To cable back the citadel, a few weeks,” Annie estimates. “To fix the city, a couple of years. If we're lucky.”
“Let's start with what we can first,” Leo says. “We're gonna work miracles later.”
*
It must be three or four hours later when Blaine finally comes back.
Leo hears the door open and close softly, but he doesn't turn around. Lying in bed, he's looking at the curtains, which he had to draw to keep the sunlight away and try to sleep.
Blaine moves around the room for a while, almost perfectly silent. Leo knows he is disrobing and placing every piece of clothing well folded on the armchair; no matter how tired he is, Blaine would never go to bed leaving his clothes around.
“Did I wake you up?” Blaine asks, climbing on the bed and placing a little kiss on his temple. That's when Leo turns around and moves closer to his chest. The pull of Blaine's body on his still as strong as the first time they met.
“No,” he answers. “How did you know I was awake?”
Blaine chuckles. “You're never so still when you sleep, kid.”
Leo mumbles something unintelligible and hides his face in the nook of his husband's neck. “What time is it?”
“Half past eight,” Blaine sighs, closing his eyes. “I'm supposed to be up again in two hours.”
Leo too, but the thought fills him with dread. He doesn't know how Blaine can be so calm and ready to face the day ahead as if nothing had happened, as if tiredness didn't stick to him ever at all. “We need to talk,” he whispers.
Blaine sighs and strokes his hair. “I know, but you need to rest.”
“The city—“
“I said I know,” Blaine repeats, calmly. Leo can't say if he really is aware of what Annie told him just a few hours ago – even if he doesn't know how – or if he's just trying to put him to sleep. “There's going to be time in a few hours.”
Leo would like to insist but Blaine is so warm and he feels like home, safety and very good things, all things he needs to feel right now. He only asks, “Is your faith still there?”
Blaine chuckles again. “You know the answer to that.”
It's okay, because after everything else failed, Leo needs something unchanged to cling to.
And if it's faith instead of science, tonight it'll have to do.