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There was nothing he could have done. Nothing he could have changed. He did what he had to do, what he believed in, to protect the people he loved no matter how much it hurt. Even if they didn't understand, even if she didn't understand.
But now Spy held Scout, his son, dead in his arms, and he wondered if any of it was ever worth it.
Spy remembered when he first met her. A small diner in the city of Boston, and under most circumstances he may have forgotten about it, unremarkable compared to the wondrous sights he'd seen during his line of work; but then, he saw her.
She was a waitress—did she have a different job now? It'd been years since he'd seen her, since they talked last—and had been giving him his food. Spy nearly choked on his coffee, and she laughed aloud, stopped herself, and then asked him if he was okay.
If it were anyone else who had done that, Spy would have begun yelling and ranting about how rude she was—especially back then, when his ego was still young and any perceived slight against him was cause for rage. But he couldn't help but laugh as well, accepting a napkin she gave him. They talked, for a little while; her name was Olivia. A beautiful name, befitting of her. Spy gave her his alias, Pierre.
Prickling, stabbing guilt ran up his spine. Spy's grip on Scout tightened, throat running dry. He'd lied to her then, the first of many, not the last. Always growing. Never ending.
Spy wasn't sure why he had come back to the diner that second time. He'd ordered the same thing again, talked to her again. Then came the third time, and the fourth, and the fifth—and Spy found himself ordering less and less food, talking to her longer and longer, staying later and later.
He had begun walking her out to her car at night when her shift ended after he'd spotted a dark van parked down the street. They were shrouded by their tinted windows, but Spy's eyes were sharp; and he saw the two men inside, watching Olivia intently, like cats watching a bird.
Then, one night, Olivia asked him if he wanted to come home with her. Spy considered it for a moment, a part of him wanting to decline, but he accepted anyway. Would things have ended better if he had rejected the advance? Said he was busy, another lie? He didn't know. He'd never know.
Spy heard Olivia's sons before he saw them, roughhousing and shouting at one another in front of the apartment complex. Seven boys, all of them young, the eldest being only 8 years old, watched over by a kindly old woman. They piled on Olivia once they saw her, but regarded him with suspicion. Olivia seemed embarrassed, quietly mumbling something about being left, before ushering them inside.
Spy helped her cook that night, although the sparse food that Olivia had proved a challenge. It ended up being a strange mix of a traditional French cuisine that Spy had tried to make and leftovers Olivia had taken from the diner. The boys ate it heartily, even when the meal had been interrupted by a cockroach that Spy had to kill. Spy didn't know cockroaches could fly back then.
When the boys went to sleep, Spy and Olivia talked long into the night. Olivia explained why her sons acted so coldly, that there were other men before Spy, and that all of them had left after she got pregnant. She had begun to cry then, and asked Spy to not leave her, not like all the others, and he found himself holding her close to his chest before he could think against it.
He had stayed. For a good couple of years, anyway. Spy picked up odd jobs here and there alongside his usual work, keeping the boys busy when he could, and even went down to the mechanics when Olivia's car broke down—ven though he grew to loathe doing that, given that the main mechanic was a rude son of a bitch who belittled him when he didn't know what a crankshaft or camshaft or sparkplug was. Something-or-other Conagher.
When Olivia had told him she was pregnant, Spy was overjoyed. Things seemed well; until he began to receive strange phone calls, when dark figures began roaming around outside of the complex, when cars followed him nearly all the way home from his different jobs.
Of course they had found him. They had been the entire reason he bounced around so much; mercenary work wasn't one that went unnoticed, and no matter how stealthy Spy prided himself as being, higher powers figured out what he had done, what he was still doing. It'd been the entire reason he had left France, left Europe as a whole. He'd thought America would be better, and it turned out he was wrong.
It had been only for the best. He had to leave. Spy couldn't bear telling Olivia to her face, confrontation was never his forte, so all he did was leave a note and a sizable amount of money for her. He fled in the night, with only the stars and moon to judge him for what he had done. He'd become just like all the other men in her life.
Spy looked down at Scout again, his son's face pale as a sheet, body cold as ice. This was his fault. If he had stayed, then Scout wouldn't have had to turn to mercenary work, never dragged into the Gravel War, never gotten hurt. Never died because of him. He'd been living a good life, with a loving mother and father who were there for him no matter what.
Spy looked away, squeezing his eyes shut. Scout deserved a better father. Hell, Scout did deserve Tom Jones as his father, nevermind how Tom Jones couldn't have been older than 6 when Scout was born. He deserved that much, needed that much. He could die happy, and Spy would live with this regret.
Should he have stayed? Spy ran through it in his head. If he had, they would have killed him. Or worse, killed his family. Should he have stayed, even when it put the ones in danger? When he had tried to come back once, years later, it had been Scout's 12th birthday. They had been celebrating it in the park. A cloudless afternoon with a crisp blue sky, a cool wind to match with the warm sun.
A bouquet of flowers—roses—gripped tightly in his hand. It felt like his cigarette smoke was smothering him as he watched them from afar. Happy. Scout looked healthy, the same thinly-limbed and gangly frame as his father, spry and energetic. The same blue eyes.
“Jeremy,” Olivia had said, gently wiping frosting off of his theirs her son's chin, “you need to be more careful. You got frosting all over you!” Scout Jeremy pouted, sticking his tongue out in annoyance. “Ach- Ma, c'mon! I can clean myself! Stop it!” One of Jeremy's brothers laughed, and called him something like 'Cakeface', to which Jeremy pouted again.
Spy had left then, taking the bouquet with him. They didn't need him. To reinsert himself into their lives would be more a curse than a blessing.
Spy forced himself to look down at Scout? Jeremy? Jeremy. His son His little baby son The little boy in his arms, his son. Spy's throat burned, face scrunching up as his heart twisted. 'Look at him,' something heavy pressed down on him, squeezing his chest as his eyes stung, 'look at your son. Look at what you've done. Olivia will never see him again.'
He should have stayed.