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The first time she sees him again, he doesn’t notice her presence for a full thirty seconds. Would he have gone on like he was, totally unaware of her, if she hadn’t approached him?
“Hello.” What a simple word, that; who could have guessed that centuries, lifetimes’ worth of turmoil could be conveyed in such a simple word. It weighs it down, makes it heavy. It thuds to the ground between them.
He whips around to face her, hands hesitating in midair for a moment before reaching to his pockets.
She holds her hands up. “I just want to talk. Can we talk?”
He watches her, hard, trying to find the hole, the give, the tell. He could spend eons studying her, learning her, mapping her, since he knows he will never be permitted to touch, will never be allowed inside that head, again. “Why would I want to talk?” he finally asks.
Hm. Somehow, him asking Why had never come up in the hundreds of possible ways this conversation could go she had thought through in her head.
She thinks for a moment, and then says, “I just thought. After everything. You might want someone to talk to.”
He balks. “I don’t , and even if I did, why would I talk to you?”
She watches him steadily, weighing the words, the wisdom in saying them. “Because I know you .”
He lashes out, but she anticipates it, grabs him by the wrist. After a moment though, she frees him. Keeping him caged or tied down has never been her goal.
“I just thought…” She sighs. “I wanted to tell you. I don’t hate you, for what you did. For everything you did. And I should, I should never forgive you.” She raises her eyes to the sky, looking there for answers. Finding nothing, she looks for them instead in his face. “But I do , and I can’t explain it.”
They stare at each other in silence. She sees the gears turning in his mind. Probably planning how best to murder her. How long would it be before she stopped making excuses for him? How long would it be until she no longer felt like she had to?
“What did you have in mind?” he asks finally.
She shrugs. “Lunch?”
He snorts. “How human of you.”
They don’t speak as they walk, out of the dark building and into the street. She watches him from the corner of her eye, a four-beat surging in her veins. She hadn’t noticed it inside, but now that she can see him properly, he looks tired. Exhausted , even. He looks… he looks like her.
They find a tiny cafe on a corner, they figure it’s as good as anything else. She wonders if this was a good idea.
They sit in a secluded booth, menus and glasses of water a line in the sand. He doesn’t look at the menu, instead he runs his finger up and down the side of the glass, flicking the dewdrops away.
“You said you wanted to talk?” he asks without looking up.
She had thought that she did, but now that they’re here, sitting together, and he seems to want to listen, she can’t find the words.
He looks up at her, raising his eyebrows.
She swallows hard. “I was just— I was just thinking. Maybe we could try again?”
“Try again?” he asks. He laughs. “After what I’ve learned? Oh no. There’s no trying again.”
“I thought you were getting better, before you regenerated.”
He leans forward, eyes narrowed. “And do you know what my last thoughts were, before I did? You got me killed. Again .”
She blinks, swallowing. She didn’t know what happened after she had gone away with the other one. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to cut it, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Have you considered that there isn’t anything to say?” He starts up, the cutlery clanking together.
She stares up at him, into his eyes.
A waiter passes their table and he sits again. The rest of the world bleeds into this moment again, just for a second.
“I know you think— you think you’re better than me. That you’re some chosen child who always wins and always beats the bad guys, that there’s good in me . But there isn’t. And it’s time for you to accept that.”
“Why can’t we try?”
“There isn’t a solution here! I’m not a math problem, I’m an integer divided by zero, I’m unknowable, I’m impossible. You can’t solve me .”
“I don’t want to solve you!”
“That’s all you’ve ever wanted to do!”
“I want to know you . Why won’t you let me see you?”
“There isn’t any seeing me.”
Without even realizing she’s doing it, she slides through the booth to his side, catching him by the hands as he shoots up to escape. She holds him fast.
The intensity of her eyes brings him down. She’s pleading, he can practically feel it at this vicinity.
She releases his hands, one by one, and touches the pads of her fingers to his temples. Oh so gently, barely-there, a tender touch he hasn’t felt in years. Not since the Vault.
He watches her, eyes wide in the way a feral animal watches potential predators. Frightened, but hiding it.
Then, as if pulled by magnetism, his hands find her face — almost cupping her cheeks in his hands.
He whimpers, despite himself, at the rawness. They haven’t even made contact, but he can feel her, like she’s inside of him. They both shut their eyes.
The walls come down, and their foreheads touch.