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“I’m sorry,” Ethan says again, for what seems like the millionth time. Julia wishes the overexposure would make hearing it any easier; it isn’t.
He’s dressed in the running clothes Julia had bought for him. The slightly oversized black tracksuit that she thought looked cute on him, now just makes him look like a slightly pitiful cat—if Julia were to see him at the side of the road, she would take him to a local shelter.
“I love you.” He cups her head between his hands, gently wiping away something wet under one of her eyes with his thumb. “I love you.”
It’s sweet, he’s always so sweet. “I love you too,” she manages to whisper. The words feel like they want to strangle her as she forces them to move past her throat.
Ethan brings her face close to his, slowly. Julia meets him halfway and leans forward so their lips meet. One last kiss.
He'll never talk to her again.
The taste of him lingers on her lips as he opens the door. The two guards standing by the door greet her kindly, she feels slightly bad.
Ethan pauses in the doorway. She hopes he looks back one last time, to get to see those kind eyes one last time.
She doesn't manage to meet his eyes when the door falls shut behind him. Separating her from her husband forever.
When she turns on the TV, it’s tuned into a radio station. The kind that tells you on which road speed cameras are located, the kind that warns you about high traffic areas. She can’t believe he’s actually interested in this stuff, especially after he revealed his job to be a cover story.
At this time the news will be on. Ethan isn't home; she switches channels.
It’s just as bad as the last time Ethan wasn’t home. Some kind of terrorist cell got caught right before they would have hit Amsterdam. They managed to prevent a disaster just in time.
‘Just in time’ is a scary phrase. It can either mean the task was difficult enough that all the time that was available had to be optimally utilized, or it means that the people performing the task weren’t that good at their job and required more time.
The first option is the scarier one. The second option scares her the most.
She might be putting the world in danger by simply existing. She has almost permanently put the world in danger by existing.
Ethan’s lifeless eyes still look at her at night, even when she can feel his warm breath tickle her neck.
She had brought him back to life. He is still not back to saving the world; just back to saving her.
“Jules,” a small voice from the doorway.
“Baby.” Julia turns off the TV as if she has something to hide. She supposes she does.
Ethan is looking at her with a pained expression. He doesn’t want the argument. She doesn’t like the argument either.
She stands up from the couch, she’s not sure why.
Ethan drops the bags – he was going on a grocery run, right – and walks towards her. His embrace is as nice as she remembers. “They know what they’re doing,” he whispers, burying his face in her hair.
Julia can still feel Ethan’s ribs crack underneath her palms and wishes she could believe him.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Ethan says in a broken–sounding voice. “I got you back, I don’t want to lose you.”
“I know!” Julia isn’t faring much better, her throat hurts and she can’t see clearly anymore. “I can’t have you be my bodyguard when there’s something more important that you should be protecting; the world needs you!”
“I am protecting my world!” Ethan doesn’t tend to raise his voice at her. She hates that he cares as much about her as she cares about him, it would have been easier if he didn’t. This conversation wouldn’t be happening if he didn’t.
“I’m not comparable to the world, you know that,” she croaks.
Ethan doesn’t respond, he just looks at her with those expressive eyes of his.
The silence is not exactly unexpected, as she’s not sure he does know, actually. She hopes he does, but realistically… the things that man was talking about, the lengths Ethan went to in order to rescue her. She’s not sure he knows there’s a difference between individual people and the entire world. Perhaps there isn’t one, perhaps they truly are one and the same to him.
“I just want you to be realistic, do you think we can be happy knowing you could be out there making a real difference?”
He still doesn’t respond, but his eyes have become vacant. He’s thinking about it at least.
It looks scarily similar to the eyes from her nightmares. Julia strides past him, he doesn’t react. She softly walks up the stairs to the bedroom and starts doing her night routine. There are no other noises in the house.
Only much later, when she’s almost asleep, do footsteps finally make their way up the stairs. Softer than hers were.
She listens to him doing his own night routine, closes her eyes in pretend sleep when the bed dips behind her. Holds her breath when she feels him settle down, a small but significant gap between them.
“I just love you so much,” he whispers.
Julia turns around and buries her face in his chest, his arms immediately envelop her. Of course he loves her; she loves him too. She just wishes that was enough.
She has been meaning to ask what they are doing. She has seen helicopters move to the snowy hills with people loaded onboard, but they always return pretty much empty. She doubts the New Zealand government would overlook a mass murder operation, so they must be dropping off the people somewhere in the hills.
On the other hand, it is her first day here. No need to ask questions when observation could answer them for her.
A brief stint of applause rises from the crowd as someone snowboards down into sight from the hills.
Oh. They’re doing winter sports up there. See, her curiosity has been sated, now she can relax by the waterside and enjoy her well deserved vacation.
Almost.
She stares at the hills, but other than the snowboarder, nobody else has appeared yet. No other snowboarders, no skiers, not even any langlaufers. Just the sole person at the bottom of the hill.
They’re separating their snowboard from their shoes. They probably want to go again soon, and Julia would probably just bother them. And yet…
She’s up and briskly walking before she knows it.
The person’s just standing upright when Julia halts in front of them, suddenly feeling slightly nervous.
“Hey,” she starts. Which is a terrible start—who does that?
“Hey,” the man parrots as he buries his snowboard in the sand and turns his attention to her. It’s a nice voice.
“You’re the first one down, did a bear get everyone else, or—?”
The man thankfully laughs, it’s a nice laugh. “God, I hope not. We’d have to call the nearest zoo and break the news that one of their bears has escaped.”
“That would be an awkward conversation, I reckon.” She isn’t actually sure where she’s going with this. “So it’s just pure skill then?”
The man doesn’t respond, he just smiles at her as he undoes his helmet. It’s like a movie as he shakes his head to fix his hair, it’s like time starts moving in slow motion. He has a nice face.
“Do you snowboard?” he asks her. She appreciates that he doesn’t even entertain the thought that she might be a skier instead.
“I try to go every year, but you know, no time for vacations when working in healthcare.”
“Are you any good?” He looks at her hopefully.
“I like the East Wall at the Arapahoe Basin.”
The man does a double take. “That’s next level.”
Julia nods. “My friends call me insane.”
The man smiles at her conspiratorially, as if he’s overjoyed that he has just found something in common with a total stranger. That’s how Julia feels, at least.
“I’m going back up there when the next helicopter leaves, wanna come?”
She glances up to the snowy hills; it does look interesting. She is already sick of doing nothing, despite how much her friends insist she needs it. “I don’t have any gear with me.”
“I can get you a full set, snowboard included,” he immediately counters. She won’t ask.
“I don’t know, it might be too difficult,” she’s pretty much already convinced.
“You just told me you do a double black slope easily,” he laughs, not even taking it seriously. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. I’ll be by your side the whole way.”
“I love snowboarding,” she says, as much as a general statement as a confirmation. She is rewarded with another beautiful smile.
He holds out his hand. “I’m Ethan, by the way.”
She responds, “Julia,” and grabs his hand, giving him her total and complete trust.
She watches in fascination as Ethan seems to silently sound out her name in his mouth. Concentrated, as if pronouncing her pretty-common name is the most important thing in the world.
“Well Julia,” – and he truly does say her name like it’s the only word in the world worth something – “let’s have some fun.”