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Carmen hasn’t seen Gray in four years.
Four years ago, on this day, she shot him with his crackle rod, effectively convincing her once she got her memories back that she had killed him. Well, until the Chief told her otherwise.
She was sitting at a cafe in Sydney, Their cafe, with a pen, a piece of paper, and a cinnamon latte in front of her. She had flown out from Argentina just to write this letter here, where she had met him again.
She missed him. So much. She cried for nights after hearing he was in the hospital, begging the gods for forgiveness. She wanted to see him, to beg him herself for his forgiveness, but she couldn’t bring herself to step near the hospital.
So instead, she was going to write a letter to him. No, she didn’t know where he was (though she was hoping that he would show up to the cafe, after all, it is 8pm on a Friday night), but she was going to write it anyway, at least for a hint of closure.
She had asked her mother what to write, how to write asking for forgiveness, and Carmen will never forget the words she said.
“Write what you would want to say to him about how you feel, but may be too afraid to. Is there anything you think you could have done differently in this situation? Do you think it is hurting him too much to the point where he would not be able to forgive this? This is your letter of forgiveness, mija. Write out your feelings towards him and don’t look back.”
And now here she was, sitting with a now-cold coffee with an empty sheet of paper and an unused pen.
“Ugh!” She groaned in frustration, slamming her fist down onto the table.
She couldn’t do this. What was she thinking? A letter? Really Carmen?
She stood, taking her unused pen and now crumpled piece of paper and threw them into the garbage beside her, leaving her coffee on the table. She threw her hood up onto her head, put her hands in her pockets and started walking away, towards a bus station.
She could hear other footsteps behind her abruptly stop, and a quiet gasp and a sharp inhale after, as if they had seen something unbelievable.
It’s probably just another tourist, she thought.
“Carmen?” A familiar australian voice said, making her stop walking immediately and whip her head around.
There he stood, albeit a bit different then when she last saw him. His hair was the same, if not a tiny bit longer and curled around the ends. A short stubble dusted his jawline and chin, creating a dark outline around his jaw. His eyes looked more weathered, more experienced than they had when she first met him. He was wearing his coveralls with a jacket overtop. His hand was stretched out towards her, as if he was reaching towards her.
“Gray?” She whispered quietly, blinking rapidly as if he would disappear from her vision. He didn’t though, his hand fell back to his side. Carmen's own hands went up to her mouth, covering it as she whispered “Oh my god” over and over again, as if she were in a trance.
“Carmen, is it really you?” Gray asked, his accent thick with emotion. He took a step towards her, before breaking out into a run and enveloping her in his arms. Carmen gasped loudly, her own arms quickly wrapping around him as he squeezed her in a hug.
He let her down his arms finally unwrapping around her before motioning towards the cafe, to the exact seat she was sitting at.
“Care to sit?” He asked, looking into her eyes. Carmen nodded, almost imperceptibly, taking a seat back into the chair where her untouched coffee still sat.
A few quiet moments passed. She didn’t realize how long she had been staring until Gray tilted his head to the side. “Is something wrong, Carmen?”
“Um.” She shook her head, as if ridding the stray thoughts. “I guess I was just noticing how different you are.”
“Different?”
Carmen smiled at him. “You just look different is all, nothing bad.”
“Oh?” He questioned smirking slightly.
Carmen smiled at him, shaking her head slightly at him.
He leaned back against the chair with a worn out sigh, grimacing slightly at the pain in his back from the work day.
Gray smiled at Carmen’s worried expression at his grimace, soothing her slightly. “How are you doing, Carmen? Really, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
Carmen winced at his comment, now remembering the dark bags under her eyes. “I’m fine, I just haven’t been sleeping well.” Gray was quiet for a moment before outright asking the question he had been wanting to ask since he saw her again.
“… Do you remember?” In all honesty, he didn’t really understand how the entire mind-wipe thing worked. Sure, when he gained back his memories, he got most of them back, but he could only remember the important details, and even some memories were still fuzzy.
Judging from Gray’s words, that wasn’t the case. And he lightly shook his head. “Everything from the museum I remember, everything else though,” She paused, “It's pretty hazy. But I do recall a few missions,” she paused, smiling. “The Koh-i-Noor Diamond.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him, making him laugh.
The memories she made only just before her heart was shattered.
Gray couldn’t read Carmen’s thoughts as they all washed over her, and therefore didn’t immediately understand when Carmen managed to force words through the sudden tightness in her chest. “I’m sorry.”
Again, Gray’s head tilted. “… Why?”
Apologizing without preamble was a rather clumsy segue into the topic, but it was too late to start over now. Her fingers gripped the table. “You obviously needed time alone, time away from me, and here I am, fully disrupting that.” Full of shame, she glanced away. “I was the one who caused ACME and VILE to find you. I tried, so hard to stop myself from seeing you, I said it was all for the sake of protecting you, but… I just couldn’t stay away.”
As she spoke, Carmen glimpsed back and could tell in Gray’s expressions that he was recalling everything mentioned. The feeling of disappointment, sorrow, regret… What was he experiencing at that moment?
Carmen wasn’t sure what to make of Gray’s silence. Unnerved, she went on. “… I’ve gone against your wishes for all these years, trying to find you.” Somehow admitting it out loud was worse than when it was internal. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, even though the words were true. Would she ever have even come to regret his actions if Gray hadn’t managed to save her?
His thoughts were interrupted when Gray finally responded. “Carmen,” he paused, moving his hand over hers, slowly pulling at the fingers so they weren’t gripping the table anymore, and they were instead now intertwined with his. ”That is not what I wished for.”
Carmen looked at him, her eyes wide. “But, you said to Chief that you didn’t want me to have your contact information. You obviously didn’t want to see me, and after what I did to you? I don’t blame you at all.”
“Carmen, I didn’t want you to have my contact information because I didn’t want to complicate your life anymore.” He whispered, his hand now gripping hers tightly.
“What?”
It was then when Carmen finally looked back at Gray and met his eyes. They had a look in them she couldn’t decipher, reminding her yet how surreal it was to see Gray again. He smiled at her, before continuing.
“I had sat and watched you for six months, go against your whole purpose, your goal in life. You were stealing for VILE, not against it, and I watched and sat there for 6 months because I liked being your partner.” But it was Gray’s next words that surprised Carmen most of all. “I loved being by your side, if it was for doing the wrong thing. And I would love, if we could maybe stay friends, now that you’ve found me?”
Carmen was immediately bewildered. “Are you sure? Even after everything I did to you?”
Gray nodded. “I am. And though I am confused, we will need to talk, we can finally just be friends, together,” He paused, and whispered the next part so quietly that even Carmen almost didn’t hear it. “And maybe even something more than that?”
Carmen could hear the curiosity, the anxiety in his voice. Releasing a long breath, she leaned back against the chairs and closed her eyes. “… Yeah.”
Gray smiled. Gray was actually here, with her, talking about their future together as friends, and potentially something more. And didn’t Carmen already vow to herself that she would get his forgiveness? Even if she was still frightened of how this could go, how she could hurt him, Carmen eventually accepted that she couldn’t control the story anymore. Carmen knew she wasn't forcing Gray to stay, he had a will of his own, and if he requested Carmen stay as his friend, and potentially something more, then she could definitely do that.
“Yeah. I can do that.”
The corner of Gray’s lips spread into a small smile, an expression he seemed to favor lately. “Then… once we figure out what this,” he waved his hands around, “is, we can think about that something more.”
And in the future, Carmen vowed to herself that she would definitely explore this ‘something more’.