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Two weeks after he shot his uncle, Wolfgang heard the song again.
He hadn’t allowed anyone into his headspace. He just needed to be alone, like before. He didn’t need Riley’s kind eyes, or Will’s steady gaze, or Capheus’s jokes and smiles, or Nomi’s advice, or Sun’s understanding, or Lito’s dramatic retellings of his actions that paint him as hero.
And Wolfgang certainly didn’t need Kala’s tears and disappointment.
So he closed his mind off, he didn’t think about them or anything, for that matter. He worked on autopilot.
Get up, eat, see Felix, drink.
*
He heard that damn song at his bar of the night. A group of drunk assholes next to him started yelling out the lyrics.
Twenty-five years and my life is still, trying to get up that great big hill of hope, for a destination
His hand tighten on his pint and he felt his mental walls slip down.
“We’ve been worried,” a voice said to his right. Wolfgang glanced over, Nomi leaned against the bar and stared him down.
“I’m fine” he mumbled, “Just needed to be alone.” She didn’t look like she believed him, of course she didn’t. She could feel what he was feeling.
“I thought that maybe Whispers got to you, and we didn’t even know,” Nomi said, her eyebrows coming together.
Wolfgang was silent for a moment, he forgot about Whispers and Will. He had been too caught up in his own head to realize that one of his people, one of his selves, wasn’t ok.
“How’s Will?” he asked slowly, already fearing the answer.
“He’s good. Alive, no longer unconscious,” she replied, as she reached for his beer.
“How is that possible? I thought he looked at Whispers?” he asked incredulously.
Nomi shrugged, “Riley’s sorta friend from Iceland. She taught Riley how to break the connection. It wasn’t pretty and Will is still pretty weak but he’s alive and safe.”
Wolfgang nodded but didn’t say anything.
“And you would know that if you weren’t trying to hide from us,” Nomi added.
Wolfgang took his beer back from her and took a rather large sip instead of answering.
“Wolfgang,” Nomi said softly, “You can’t hide from us forever, we are you. And, like it or not, we’ll always be here. So come back soon, ok? I miss you,” she paused for a moment before she added, “We all miss you.”
She rested her hand on his shoulder for a minute and then she was gone.
*
The next time he heard the song, it was raining just like the day Kala appeared in the outdoor café.
He whispered the lyrics as they floated through the air, “And I pray, oh my god do I pray, I pray every single day.”
“You have a nice voice,” Riley said as she walked up to him.
“Thanks,” he said somewhat gruffly.
“Does it always rain like this?” she asked as she cupped her hands to collect the rain water.
Wolfgang shrugged, “It comes and it goes. You get used to it after a while. It’s like Iceland and the cold.”
She gave him a small smile, “I guess it is.”
He blinked rainwater out of his eyes and then he was standing in a pub in London.
“You’re in London? I thought you would be with Will?” he asked confused.
Riley looked down at the floor, “I needed some time away, some time to think.”
He nodded, “I understand. It can be overwhelming to have seven other people be in your head.”
“Before I could barely stand to be in my own head, now I’m in other people’s,” she said softly, “It’s hard. I understand why you blocked us out.”
“Doesn’t mean it was the right decision.”
“It doesn’t,” she agreed, “But I understand the need to be alone, even if the others don’t.”
Riley sighed, “I wish I could be like Capheus, he’s much more optimistic about this whole thing than I could ever be.”
“Because you think you’ll die?” he asked.
“Because I think you’ll die. Or Will or Nomi or Sun or Lito or Kala or Capheus. And then I’ll go through all of that again. It would be easier if I was alone, then I wouldn’t have to worry about going through that pain again,” she explained.
“That’s why you aren’t in Chicago? Because you don’t want to get close to someone you could lose?” he asked, “That’s a shit move, Riley.”
“It’s what you did,” she responded evenly, “It’s what you did with Kala, the only difference is that I still see Will in my head.”
“That’s not what I did,” Wolfgang said irritated, “You don’t understand, you weren’t there.”
“I wasn’t but Kala was,” she shot back.
He looked at the floor at the mention of Kala.
“I should go,” he finally said, “I need to go see Felix.”
Riley nodded, “Bye Wolfgang.”
He blinked again and he was back in the rain.
*
Wolfgang wished he didn’t miss them. It would be easier if he didn’t feel so empty without the others’ thoughts and emotions and visits.
One night after he left the hospital from visiting Felix, he decided to let his mental walls drop. It was tiring to keep them up all the time and he just needed a break. As soon as he did, he was dropped into Sun’s mind.
Her fists were still healing from when she hit her brother but her face was clean and her prison uniform was freshly washed, he could tell.
“I am not going to tell you what you did was wrong,” she said as a greeting, her face blank, “I am not going to tell you it was right either.”
He folded his arms over his chest and waited for her to continue.
“I want to kill my brother, not because he killed our father but because he killed my freedom, my possibility of freedom,” she said as she flexed her hand, “But I never lived what you lived. And I would want to kill whoever hurt me like that.”
Wolfgang sank to the floor opposite to where Sun sat. He sighed and ran his hands over his face.
“The past is done, we cannot change it. You’ve had your vengeance now be done, move away, move on,” she said firmly, “The fight is over.”
“The fight is never over,” he snapped, “You know that better than anyone, Sun.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, “Now go, I need to sleep.”
Wolfgang closed his eyes and let his mental walls go back up.
He never felt as alone as he did on that walk home.
*
And the weeks blurred into months and Wolfgang finally let all of his walls down. He took to walking during the night. It was one of those nights where Will appeared next to him.
“You finally stopped trying to block us?” Will asked.
“You’re here aren’t you?” he muttered. Will chuckled at him and then said, “Berlin is nothing like I thought it would be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kala described it differently, she talked about it in such longingly way. I thought it would be magical,” Will explained as he looked all around.
Wolfgang didn’t respond.
“Have you seen her?”
“No,” he said shortly.
Will is quiet as they walk through the neighborhood. Occasionally, Will commented on the city or told him something Lito or Riley did the other day, or talked about Nomi and how she is trying to get Sun out of prison. They don’t talk about Kala or the events with Whispers. Wolfgang added a comment or two about his latest visit with Sun or how Felix is doing.
As they approached Wolfgang’s apartment, Will stopped a couple buildings down.
“You aren’t a monster, Wolfgang. I know you think you are but you aren’t,” Will said, “I know what a monster is, I’ve seen one and you aren’t anything like that.”
“Sure, Will, whatever,” he scoffed.
“Nobody thinks you’re a monster, nobody,” Will insisted, “And that includes Kala.”
He wait a minute before he opened his mouth again. “You should go, Will,” Wolfgang said as he started walking again.
Will ran in front of him, looking so incredibly sad and tired, “Wolfgang, we love you, we do. We’re your family and I won’t let you destroy yourself over this,” he said, his brown eyes mournful.
And then Will was gone.
*
Wolfgang sat in the back of the Van Damme and waited as Capheus put the van into park.
It was warm in Kenya, much warmer than Berlin or Chicago, which is where Wolfgang was finding himself go to more and more. Riley was there now with Will and he felt better being with them after having shut himself out for so long.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t?” Capheus said as he dropped into the seat next to him, “The Van Damme never fails to put a smile on my face.”
Wolfgang tried to smile at that, he really did, but he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled.
(That was a lie, he knew exactly the last time he smiled.)
“One day,” Capheus continued to say, “You will know the true beauty that is the Van Damme. And you’ll understand.”
“You know, Wolfgang, that she misses you too,” Capheus said.
His head snapped up at that sentence, “What?” he said, sure he heard Capheus wrong.
“Kala,” he clarified, “You aren’t the only one who lost part of themselves, she lost you.”
Wolfgang stood up, “Don’t talk about things you don’t know, Capheus.”
He started to make his way toward the front of the bus when Capheus yelled after him, “But I do know! I know her and I know you.”
*
Mexico City was loud, louder than he would have expected.
He sat in Lito’s trailer listening to the actor do his vocal exercises.
“Will wants me to talk to you about Kala,” Lito said, his voice slightly gruff from the strain of his weird yelling practicing, “I told him I would but I don’t see anything I say changing your mind.”
“Then why bother talking about it?” Wolfgang said, as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Because I need you to be happy, then Kala will be happy and then all of us will be happy,” Lito explained, “And being happy is a good thing.”
Lito continued, “Besides, talking Kala won’t work. Will, Nomi and I have spent weeks trying to get her to visit you when you aren’t passed out and well, you know how well that worked.”
Wolfgang frowned, “What?” he questioned.
“Oh you know, she knows when you drink so much you pass out and then she comes and strokes your hair and it’s all terrible tragic, Wolfgang. It would be a great scene to act out, a women believes her lover doesn’t love her and she’s forced to love him only in the dark,” Lito began to babble on about how great a scene like that would be but Wolfgang was already gone.
*
Wolfgang knows where he wants to be, possible for the first time in his life he knows.
He watched as his world shifted away from Mexico City and Berlin to India.
And he’s in Kala’s bedroom.
“What ae you doing here?” her voice is quiet but strong and god, he missed her so much.
She’s sitting on her bed, her eyes on him as he moved closer to her. She was just as beautiful, possibly more than, as he remembered
“I know you’ve been coming to see me after I’ve been drinking,” he didn’t mean to open with that, it just slipped out.
She stiffened, “Who told you that?”
“Lito.”
“That bastard, he promised he wouldn’t tell,” she muttered. And Wolfgang felt a smile creep up on his face.
“I didn’t marry Rajan,” she said suddenly, “I called off the wedding. And I wish I could tell you it wasn’t for you but it was, I thought you would come back to me if I did. But you didn’t.”
Wolfgang looked down at the bed, “I’m sorry, I thought it would be best if I disappeared from your head.”
“Well you were wrong, I missed you so much,” then she hastily added, “All of us.”
“I missed you too,” he said softly, he almost reached for her but then thought better of it.
“I don’t think you’re a monster, I could never think that,” she said, her eyes wide, “I cried then, because, because, I felt everything you were feeling, all those emotions and memories, that was the reason for my tears.”
Wolfgang nodded, “I understand, Kala.”
“Please promise me you’ll never block your mind off again, please don’t ever do that again,” she said, “I felt so alone.”
“I won’t,” he said, “I promise, Kala.”
She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight hug, “I’ll hold you to that promise,” she mumbled against his neck. He held her for a minute before he pulled back slightly.
“Kala, I lov-“ he started to say but she cut him off.
“You don’t need to say it now,” she said, “Everything is a lot right now, don’t say it now, please.”
He nodded, “Later,” he promised as he lowered his head down toward hers.
“Later,” she agreed as her lips touched his.
*
And I scream from the top of my lungs. What's going on?