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Ambrose spots her first, though it's due more to the moonlight glinting off of her wristwatch than any real testament to his sharp eye. Her silhouette blends and blurs, barely more than an out-of-place shadow at the end of a darkened hall. But he's her husband, so of course he could pick out her figure anywhere. That familiar posture, that cadence, that slender wrist reaching out to unlock their apartment door and slip inside. Careful as a thief, quiet as a ghost.
Lateness notwithstanding, it's hardly the first time they've come home to each other like this. Doubtless it won't be the last. More often than not their work remains disconnected these days, their roles and itineraries running on two parallel lines which rarely intersect outside of a signature on a mission report or a fond smile in the break room. Tonight's little coincidence would be laughable if it weren't so frustrating; to think, both of them working so late into the night, confined to separate offices and floors but together under the same cold Aeon architecture. Stressed, isolated, and totally unbeknownst to one another.
He should have checked her office before he'd left. Or earlier, hours ago now, when he'd first resigned to text her Something's come up. Late home. Don't wait up. He definitely shouldn't have turned his phone off. Shouldn't have let her walk home alone in the cold.
"Ambrose?"
He gives her sixty seconds to peel out of her coat and shoes, to set her bag down on the kitchen counter before he unlocks the door for himself, stepping through the threshold into a cold and unlit home.
"I'm here."
From another room she gasps, startled despite his efforts to the contrary. Ambrose follows the noise, passing out of the hall and into the kitchen, where his exhausted wife's face is lit up by the cold light of an open refrigerator.
She blinks slowly at his arrival, speechless as he sets his briefcase down on the marble countertop next to her tote bag. Her expression is, as always, carefully neutral, but her eyes — bloodshot, glassy, weighed down by half circles almost as dark as their current surroundings — remain her biggest tell.
Of course, she'd surely say the same thing about his eyes if she could see them clearly in the dark. Though unspoken, there's a grim and mutual understanding between them as they regard one another in the dimness. It's better the lights stay off tonight.
"If I'd only known you were still at Aeon . . ." Gracie's regret trails off as she purses her lips, musing over some unspoken thing. Then she sighs and forces a small laugh. "We have to stop meeting like this, Instructor."
Ambrose smiles, the first time he's done so all day. "Or not meeting like this," he counters.
"Yes, well, I can certainly appreciate the irony, if nothing else," she says.
"That makes one of us. What time is it?"
"Almost two. We must have left within minutes of one another. It's a wonder we didn't bump in to each other in the lobby, or the damned elevator . . ."
"I took the stairs."
"Of course you did." Gracie shakes her head, but he doesn't miss the way her lips upturn as she presses them soft against his own. "Masochist."
The stilted smile falters as swiftly as it arrived, and she’s quick to turn her attentions back towards the fridge and its interior. Her eyes scan for last night's leftovers (their botched attempt at her grandmother's paella Valenciana recipe), eventually pulling it free from the bottom shelf and offering it to Ambrose with an outstretched hand. In novice Korean, slow and self conscious, she asks, "Did you eat tonight, my love?"
He shakes his head no, both to the question and the offer, and he's grateful when she doesn't press him further. Instead, she pulls a fork from the cutlery drawer and begins to dig into the dish with a palpable lack of enthusiasm.
Ambrose studies her, his frown deepening as his vision grows accustom to the lack of light. Gracie has the refined palette of a spoiled American heiress — in many respects, she's even harder to please than he is. The sight of her slumped over a pot of unheated, poorly executed leftovers in the dark is a contradiction which concerns and thoroughly unnerves him. And while the darkness obfuscates her watch's clock hands, Ambrose counts only a few seconds before something mournful and oppressive settles itself in the shadowy silence between them.
He chooses his words carefully, absently reaching to smooth down the escaped strands of her normally flawless plait. Matrimony has given him a few years to practice tact around her, but his prying still tends to come out blunt and abrasive at the best of times. "Tell me about your day?" he asks her quietly.
Either unphased by or oblivious to his tone, Gracie shrugs dispassionately. She doesn't look at him as she sets her fork down with an over-rehearsed slowness.
"It was fine," she says, "other than the torrent of paperwork, of course."
“Of course.”
Ambrose, having basic observational skills as well as access to a Unity email account, knows she's lying. Word travels fast — words like Key Vengeance Operatives and Unreliable Intel and Failure To Apprehend travel even faster.
No amount of skill, caution, experience or insight can trump simple bad luck. It happens. He just wishes it hadn't happened to her. "Except, you love paperwork," he challenges in lieu of her reply.
"Mm."
"And your AMO? How is Alavidze?"
"Sally's fine as well." Gracie opens her mouth as if to add or admit something, before promptly biting her tongue. "I have a report you'll need to sign off on tomorrow, if you don't mind."
"Leave it on my desk," he says. "And, Gracie, if you ever wished to discuss it further —"
"It's quite alright, Ambrose —"
"— I'm always here for you. Always. Understand?"
She holds his gaze, even as her careful mask of neutrality wavers. Finally, she relents with a stiff nod. "I know. Thank you. It was a bad day, but it could have been . . . significantly worse, all things considered. I managed."
Ambrose presses a kiss to her temple before reaching for the fork and abandoned paella. "You always do."
"And you? Did you manage?"
Did he? Did he adequately manage today's condolence letters, written out to the families of the two fallen NPO agents he'd trained? Yes, in theory. He'd followed procedure to the letter; no indication of fault on Unity's part, no liability, no guilt. Only cold professionalism, single spaced, and the unsaid, gnawing knowledge that they might have lived had Ambrose only pushed them just that little bit harder.
He takes a bite, chewing for longer than necessary before swallowing. "If I hadn't, I'd still be there," he says finally.
"Are you allowed to talk about it?" Gracie asks. "Any of it?"
"No. It's above your brother's clearance level. But . . ." He sighs. But I would tell you in a second if I could. "But I'm tired. Exhausted. I missed you today."
She doesn't return the sentiment, but he feels it clear enough in the way she reaches over to squeeze his hand, thumb sweeping out in comforting strokes against his tensed knuckles. In a way her silence is the kindest thing she could offer him — something about breaking points, about last straws and camels' backs, matches and powder barrels.
He could do with a little borrowed strength right now, and Gracie Wiseman has always come with strength in ample supply.
It makes the minutes go by easier, still anchored to each other like this, sharing a quiet dinner in the dark. The fork passes back and forth between them until it's warm with the memory of each other's fingertips. A small pleasure, enough to make the meal mostly tolerable. Only when the prongs at last scrape the bottom of the iron skillet does Gracie set the utensil down and turn to smile at him, coy and sheepish.
"Remember Seoul?" she says dreamily. "What was it you called those little pancake things we bought from that street vendor with the moustache, that first night we landed?"
"Hotteok," Ambrose says, and the memory makes him laugh, a balm to the soul. "What a mess. I thought you were having a stroke."
He knows she’s blushing by the way her hand darts up to conceal that familiar, bashful smile. "Not a stroke so much as a religious experience. Oh, but I still dream about it. Magnifique."
"We could go back, if you wanted."
"Just like that?"
"We have the vacation time. Say the word and I'll make preparations."
"Hm. You certainly make a compelling offer." Gently, Gracie's manicured nails scale the starched white cotton of his dress shirt, settling just below his collar as she works to undo the topmost button, then the second, and then the third. "Though, alternatively, there's always Europe."
Ambrose raises a brow. "Don't tell me you've changed your mind about Paris . . .?"
"Oh, I absolutely have not," Gracie says indignantly. "Lyon, maybe. Say Marseilles and I'm filing for divorce."
"Fine, forget France. Madrid?"
"Do you really want to face off with my abuela again so soon?"
"I could endure it, if only to figure out what went wrong with our damn paella."
In spite of everything they're laughing again. Small laughter, hardly the type reserved for good days, when Gracie's too happy to worry about covering her smile and Ambrose throws his head back from the force of it in his chest. But it's a nice feeling all the same. Nice to know he still remembers how to laugh after nights like these.
It fades too soon, that same bottomless silence waiting in the wings as Gracie's chuckle begins to trail off into a sigh. He catches her arm thoughtlessly as she moves to discard the empty dish, halting her, keeping her by his side. He feels like he might spin, untethered, out into space if he dares to let her go right now. After a moment's hesitation, her eyes darting from his hand to the pot in her own, she sets the latter aside and turns to regard him curiously. Patient as ever.
"Tuscany," he says. "We should go back to Tuscany."
Muscle memory guides his hand slow and steady down the length of her arm, capturing her fingers with his own. His thumb seeks out the warm, weighted gold of her wedding band, still as exhilarating to touch as it was when he'd first slipped it onto her finger three years ago. Gracie looks down at the ring, too, no doubt thinking the same thing. Not their wedding day but afterwards; sunsets on the white beaches of the Tyrrhenian Sea, sunrises in Florence.
Finally she hums, a pleased a little noise that seems to brighten up the darkness somehow. "You read my mind," she says fondly.
Ambrose nods. "It's decided. All we need to do until then is —"
"Manage." Their hands intertwined, she brings his knuckles to her lips, gracing each one with a kiss. She saves his ring finger for last. "We will. We always do."