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Jean woke up crying, like she usually did. She stretched in her bed, her leg giving her hell, like it usually did. She hobbled from under her sheets, glancing at her alarm clock in passing. 4:30 am. Too early to do anything, too early to be awake. She wasn’t military anymore, the reminder coming to her bitter and biting, yet she still had the habit of waking at ungodly hours burned into her.
She threw herself in the shower, feeling the cold sweat from last night’s nightmare sticking to her skin, shivers coursing through her. The water of the shower ran scalding hot, and the shame she felt was just as burning, just as incandescent. She used to shower in ice-cold water, and not even flinch. Now, she broke down if cold water touched her back.
She was a creature of habit. Waking up, showering, eating scraps for breakfast, and heading to work. It was a cycle that never ended, a cycle that was slowly eating away at her and at her sanity.
She barely believed she used to be a Navy SEAL. When she thought about her old life, about missions and the comforting weight of a rifle against her shoulder, of her and her colleagues— friends, laughing and talking in their dorms, of Beidou—
No. That was not her anymore. Not with her shaking hands, her injuries, the constant tiredness that clung to her like a second skin. The shame that came with it, the shame that followed her around like the ghost of a dead lover, hurt more than whatever scars she had sustained during combat.
She had just gotten out of the shower, her pale skin reddened angrily at the burning water it had been battered with, when her phone rang from her bedside table. She looked at her calendar, the weight of the day settling into her shoulders like lead. Goodness, how was it already the 13th? No wonder her mother was calling her at 4:30 am.
“Hello?” She answered finally, settling on her bed, towel-drying her long blonde hair— too long to be efficient, so long it could be dangerous, but she wasn’t a soldier anymore, was she?
“Hello, darling,” a feminine voice answered her, worry evident in the honeyed tone. Jean would’ve vomited if she had anything in her stomach. “I know that today is hard for you. I just wanted to— call and check in, maybe?”
Jean let out a shuddering breath, softly, hoping her mother hadn’t heard. “I’m fine, mom. Thank you, though.”
She could see her mother frowning, her perfectly symmetrical features scrunching up in worry and displeasure. “Jean, darling, please—“
“I have work to do, mom. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up before she could say anything else. She didn’t want to cry in front of her mother. She didn’t want to show her how badly, terribly, immensely fucked up she was.
She was doing good. Too good. She had an apartment she could call her own— a penthouse, no less. She had a decent, stable job, shaping the minds of future military leaders. She was effectively changing the world, teaching at the National War College— a position both prestigious and sought-after. The president herself knew her, was aware of what Jean had done and been through. Presidential recognition. She was sure she had a medal for that somewhere.
She was doing so well.
She wasn’t homeless, hallucinating IEDs in trash cans and talking with long-gone soldiers. She could have had it so much worse than she did.
Yet, she still woke up at 4:30, drenched in cold sweat, shaking through nightmares that weren’t nightmares— but memories, visions of the past that seized her and didn’t let her go the entire night. It was torture, slow and certain, but she deserved it.
She looked at her meds, sitting on her bedside table, untouched.
She deserved it, and worse.
She had survived, after all. And that was the worst sin of all.
She sat in front of her laptop, and tried to entertain herself with some work, until the wee hours of the morning had passed, and the most presentable hours were upon them— hours that people woke up during, usually. Hours she pretended she followed.
She was dressed, her black turtleneck choking her, almost comforting. She had decided on jeans and a dark coat, left unbuttoned for the D.C winter air to hit her full force. She relished in it, loved the bite of it against her skin.
It was November 13th. She took the day off every year. It was the accursed date she had come back from that mission alive, the date that haunted her every waking moment.
And, like every year, she headed out of her apartment, limping on the sidewalk, trying her best not to let her burning tears of shame spill. She had come back from that mission, yes. But she was anything but complete. Anything but herself. No, that girl had died over there. She had died looking through the scope of a sniper rifle, shooting people in the head, watching them drop like flies.
A sniper is a peculiar thing. A special position. Death followed them like a moth to flame. Every soldier had Death on their heels, but in the heat of battle, when you’re surrounded, and desperately shooting or stabbing to survive, you have a chance to kill. Or you do not.
With snipers, it wasn’t a matter of chance. It was with certainty, when the trigger was pulled and the bullet flew through the air, embedding itself in the target, that Death would come knocking.
And Jean had known, every time she took her rifle in her hands, freshly oiled and cleaned, and positioned it, looking through the scope as if the world was sprawled at her feet, playing God, deciding who lived and who died. She had known where she was heading— the flaming pits of hell, the darkest, deepest parts of it, the places not even Death Himself would venture into. She imagined He would throw her down a ravine and hear her fall, listening to the inevitable crunch of her body when she collided with the bottom. He would wish her good fortune, and let her get on with her infernal, eternal punishment.
One that she utterly deserved.
Her cane clacked against the sidewalk, a scalding reminder of the failure she was. She huffed, the exertion making sweat bead at her forehead. The extensive rehabilitation she had gone through when she came back from there took an immense toll on her body. A toll she was happy to pay, almost relieved, but it didn’t take away the fact that she had become weak— a shadow of the woman she once was. Tireless, top of her class, perfect in every single way.
Now using a cane and panting because she had to walk a couple of steps forward.
She shook her head and walked, knowing where she was going by heart. She had been doing the same routine for three years now. It had all happened three years ago, yet here she was, just as broken as she was back then, if not more. What a shoddy excuse of a SEAL. She couldn’t even face her mother this morning, the woman wanting nothing from her other than to comfort her. Jean cursed her mother, cursed her perceptiveness and her empathy, because she knew what today was, what it meant for Jean, and had called exactly when she knew Jean would wake up. She had gotten up specifically to call her, and Jean had hung up in her face like an ungrateful brat.
She knew she looked every inch the military person she was, on the outside, walking proudly despite the cane, her face set in an indifferent mask, her shoulders square. She knew, because she had practiced— she had wanted to be respected at the College, to be seen as the leader she used to be, not the broken half-human that had returned home that day.
The people on the street avoided her like the plague, and Jean didn’t know what it was that drove them away. Maybe it was the cane, maybe it was her face, maybe it was a mixture of everything— the fact that she didn’t look a day over 25, yet her eyes seemed to have died decades ago.
—
Lisa huffed as she plucked a few flowers out of the bouquet she was painstakingly making for Mr. Anderson. The man was a pain— he would fight with his wife, then call Lisa immediately, asking for the best apology bouquet she could muster.
He paid well, and tipped even better, but Lisa was honestly tired of him and his orders. She wished his wife would just give up and divorce him, but she knew that was a cruel thought.
She sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time, and was fully prepared to scrap the entire thing, when the doorbell jingled, signaling a new customer.
Lisa put on her practiced, charming smile, turning from her worktable to greet the prospective client. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight that was the blonde in front of her.
She looked like she had walked out of a magazine, with her thousand dollar coat, and shoes that Lisa could probably afford if she put her entire shop up for sale.
She was looking around the store, her expression flaccid and unimpressed. The jewelry she wore, most probably diamonds, at her ears and around her neck, glinted as they caught the sunlight.
Lisa felt her heart thud, heat rushing to her cheeks. She saw beautiful women often— she was a florist, after all. But no one had the gravitas the blonde seemed to exude so effortlessly.
The blonde’s gaze finally turned to her, and the blood that had been burning hot in Lisa seconds ago chilled violently. The steel-gray eyes were glazed over— the only emotions pulsing through them were grief and immense, heart-wrenching pain.
The blonde smiled, politely, a small, terrifying thing that didn’t reach her eyes. Nothing could reach them, Lisa thought. They were too far gone to light up.
“Where is Mr. Minci?” She asked in lieu of a greeting, and Lisa raised an eyebrow. A regular. How peculiar.
She smiled nonetheless, leagues warmer than whatever the blonde was doing. “Oh, he retired a few months ago.” The blonde seemed to dim even more, which Lisa didn’t even think was possible. “I’m his granddaughter, though! What can I help you with?” She was quick to explain, afraid that a potential customer was slipping through her fingers, because she wasn’t her grandfather.
The blonde seemed uncomfortable.
Lisa knew that regulars at a flower shop could only be divided into two categories: people who were married, and people who were mourning.
She was sure she knew which category the blonde fell into.
“I-“ The blonde seemed to hesitate, then deflated, her eyes not quite meeting Lisa’s. “I want something that means—“ She took a breath, her voice shaking. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but your grandfather knew exactly what to give me.” The corner of her lip lifted crookedly, probably an attempt at a smile, and Lisa’s heart did cartwheels in her chest.
“I think I know what you need. Where are you headed?” Lisa asked conversationally, as she prepared a few flowers she thought could fit the arrangement.
“Arlington.”
Lisa froze. The flowers in her hands suddenly weighed tons.
She turned to look at the blonde, to make sure she had heard right, but the woman was on her phone, scrolling mindlessly, not even reading or processing the information presented to her.
Arlington. Wasn’t that the military cemetery?
Lisa eyed her, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. She did have a military countenance. It could also explain the limp and the cane.
She, in a rush of inspiration, knew exactly what to put in the bouquet.
She finished it as quickly as she could, presenting it to the blonde, who smiled, distracted, as if she wasn’t entirely there. She paid for it, and turned to head out of the store, when Lisa, despite herself, interrupted.
“Hey— Um, would you like a cup of tea? Or, uh, coffee? Whatever,” she stuttered, not exactly knowing what she was doing. Stupid. Stupid—
The woman blinked, then tried her pitiful smile once more. “I’m afraid not. Thank you, though.”
Lisa watched her walk out of the store, heavily leaning on her cane, its golden eagle pommel glinting in the weak sunlight, and an indescribable loss filled her.
—
Jean knelt with difficulty, and deposited the arrangement of purple hyacinths, baby’s breath, and white lilies on the grave in front of her.
It never got any easier. And it probably never would.
“I-“ Her words caught in her throat, her airways clogged with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Beidou didn’t answer, and never would. Jean had half a mind to call Beidou’s wife, a woman who was once her friend, once dear to her heart. A woman she had cut off, out of shame, out of grief, out of sorrow and hate, because her wife had died because of her.
Because she couldn’t protect her.
But she didn’t. She never would call, and neither would Ningguang.
—
Lisa thought that was it— that the blonde was a once in a lifetime glimpse into pure grief and sorrow, a ghost passing once, never to reappear again.
She never would have expected her to be back, thirty minutes later, her eyes red-rimmed, her hand shaking violently on the pommel of her cane. Her face had a deathly pallor to it, and Lisa vaguely remembered her father, and how pale he turned when his old injuries acted up.
“I’ll take that tea, if you don’t mind.” Her voice was faint, weak, and Lisa nodded wordlessly.
And somehow, throughout drinking the hot tea, and listening to Lisa ramble about everything and nothing, Jean, as she had introduced herself, seemed to lighten ever so slightly, even cracking a few smiles that warmed her features, making her appear human, rather than a sad wax figure.
And it was with a thudding heart that Lisa realized that her eyes weren’t a dull gray, but rather a startling, somewhat subdued blue.
A blue she could very well find herself downing in, if she wasn’t too careful.
She never was.