Chapter Text
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On a lazy spring day, Sylvia finds him at the bench of their usual dog park. She asks him for updates on Operation Strix and he, in not many code words, assures her of its progress.
“Family has taken your edge off” she observes, “it suits you more than I imagined.” More than WISE would like.
She was fishing to see if he had forgotten his true purpose. Perhaps the higher ups were getting agitated with the pace of the mission. Or they thought this whole setup was proving to be rather distracting for their very best agent.
Twilight chuckles at their dogs playfighting in the distance. “What a surprise that my immersion into this role has ended up fooling even you, my friend”
It is a cunning addition, calling her his friend. But it works.
Sylvia withdraws quickly, biting the inside of her cheek. “So long as we both understand what comes at the end of this mission, I will overlook your transgressions,”
Twilight tips his hat, smiling to himself.
She takes a long hard look at him; a man who for the better part of his life has been pretending to be someone else—been exceptionally good at it—and she still decides to speak her mind.
“Pretence is a healthy mix of outright lying and genuine sincerity, remember that” and you had better catch yourself before taking it a step too far “Friend” she tacks on belatedly. Something about the way the foundation for this mission—the family, had come together rather conveniently seemed foul to her.
She whistles for her dog and retreats after handing him a short mission that requires immediate attention, reminding him to check-in more often.
But taking it a step too far?
He is the picture of an amiable man with a respectable day job. He is an indulgent father and caring husband. He is approachable, friendly and rather harmless (so long as his family isn’t in danger). He is an upstanding member of society.
Dr. Loid Forger is a meticulously crafted active disguise. Every detail is fabricated with the utmost care for the outward appearance of normalcy.
If his heart soars at Anya’s slowly improving exam results (more than it did when she got her fourth Stella), or if Yor placing a light kiss to his cheek sets alight a blush on his neck, they very much align with his role as the perfect father and husband. As his disguise, Dr. Loid Forger.
Genuine reactions invite less scrutiny. This family made him happy. It made Dr. Forger happy. And he would defend the disguise’s emotional availability to his family against every WISE audit till it was time to wrap up the mission.
He certainly enjoys humouring Anya’s whims, and he has gotten so familiar with Yor’s habits. And the sound of Bond’s deep barks and genuine affection. But he allows himself this gift. Deep cover is rewarding in its own ways.
Playing family with civilians for an indefinite amount of time in the first place, was already taking it a step too far.
1.
His brief side quest is to neutralize a extremist group leader. A cipher confirms his shoot on sight orders. The matter was a delicate one and time limited. There was a cult of misled people between him and the target. And WISE had no agents to spare as the SSS was rumoured to be picking civilians off the streets and raiding the homes of suspected moles.
He could easily slip amongst the radicals and find the man alone but initial reconnaissance showed that he was never without company except when he addressed his followers. He was a short man, vindictive and prideful, who refused to let taller men overshadow him in places that were meant to display his authority.
Twilight knew then, that he would have to snipe him from afar. Slipping away in the panicking crowd afterwards would be easy.
“Officer?!”
It was a boy left alone with the comms, startled by the sudden appearance of his own supervising officer. Twilight scowls at him.
“You dislike field work do you, greenie?” he barks mercilessly.
“Yes? n-no! I-I mean—"
“Then scram!”
Putting them on the spot almost always made them react before they could think.
Twilight hops onto the surveillance truck, taking note of the venue swimming with SSS agents.
As a precaution, he had driven around the perimeter a few times, noting possible obstacles and escape routes around the old repurposed theatre. The event was disguised as an alumni reunion and there weren’t many hanging around the place except a few back-alley thugs dressed like organisers.
Soon enough, a nondescript truck had driven past him and taken an urgent turn into the compound, spitting out a dozen policemen. As they scattered, Twilight snuck in, changed into the negligent officer left behind and drove away the other.
From the looks of it, it was a bunch of rookies on a practice drill.
Inside the van, he found himself tapped into the security system. Yuri Briar was nowhere to be seen, nor were the other Lieutenants. On another screen, were files on ex-convicts and recently released prisoners. It seemed as if the SSS had followed an entirely different thread of clues to this place.
For two very slow minutes, Twilight watched the policemen fumble as one of the fake organizers deflected them with barefaced lies. The event itself was tomorrow but Twilight still needed to find the perfect spot. And he was losing daylight. The less he attracted attention inside, the better.
It was annoying enough that the fresh recruits were sending his thoughts spiraling with hundreds of ways this day could end. He chooses the path of least resistance and huffs impatiently into the comms.
“That’s enough. Bag him.”
He picks up his rifle case as he watches them struggle. As they drag him away, they clear his way in. He hops off the truck, catches sight of the driver snoring and takes the long away around.
He hears some yelling as he slips in via the back door and takes the staircase. Their prisoner will have to go along quietly if he doesn’t want to attract attention to the main event.
With majority of the people on site trying to bargain with the police, Twilight moves around freely. He checks the stage area first. The fly system didn't make for much of a hiding place. He circles around to the balcony on level 1, which is also not ideal. Then he spots the acoustics on the ceiling, which look deep enough to have crawl space, or at least to kneel and work on maintenance.
If the frames were sturdy, he will have no problem setting up his rifle there. He could also hide in there overnight just in case the policemen decided to circle back.
He could see the beginnings of a crude security setup for the event itself. Bypassing those tomorrow will be a pain and Twilight severely dislikes improvising. So, he grabs a bottle of water from one of the tables and makes his way upstairs. No dinner tonight, just the paltry snacks Franky had stuffed into his backpack assuming this was to be recon at most.
He guesses the entrance from a pre-renovation map. The door opens to an obsolete electrical bay marked for lighting. Beyond it, he descends four metal steps onto a network of walk bridges, with only enough space to crouch and traverse, specifically for maintenance.
It’s well hidden. And from the looks of it, no one has been here in ages.
He settles in a sweet spot after a little survey. He makes note of the banquet setting below. It’s extravagance and excess leave little to the imagination. Setting this up well in the suburbs in a building outwardly dilapidated, with the event itself being invite-only? It reeks of a wealth this group of upstarts could never manage to raise.
He’ll have to tip off Sylvia later. A simple assassination may not be the end of this web.
“Centre, take note” he radios in.
“Patching. Line secure. Request?” an operator responds.
“Send backup if I don’t check in by 2 pm tomorrow. And send a message of delay to the Forger home. Work trip”
“Centre accepts”
“And keep an eye on my family in case this operation goes sideways”. Not that it will. But he's never been away from home overnight.
He receives a confirmation of request and with that, Twilight disables all communications. The sun had set. The workers left behind cleaned up and assigned night patrols. Then Twilight was left alone in the darkness.
Now it was just a matter of waiting – on these narrow, suspended steel traps.
It was much too silent except for the occasional scurrying of rats, and the flutter of wings from birds returning home to their cleverly hidden nests in the panels. He was too used to hearing the laughter of his family as they recollected their day around the dinner table. He was too used to being – not alone.
The silence was unsettling.
Ideally, he would be on the way home by now. He’d pick up the new volume of Spy Wars comic book, for Anya (for himself really), and buy a small bouquet of roses for their home (for Yor).
He lies back and dreams about it.
The scent of roses. Yor’s freshly brewed tea. Anya clinging to his leg as soon as he steps into their home. Bond settling by his feet after dinner. The new flower pots in the living room. The stickers Anya left on the fridge and oven. Yor’s frayed little book of recipes.
At the rate she was learning, he would soon be left to do the menial tasks. The new set of knives made her ever so happy.
He has never been away from home, not for a single day. Do they miss him?
He would know soon enough. It was only till midday tomorrow.
Twilight waits patiently. Pretending to be different people was all fun and games till he has to do all the grunt work himself, in claustrophobic spaces.
As per WISE’s cover, Dr. Forger was away on a medical conference, sleeping soundly in a warm bed. Agent Twilight slept fitfully with a cramping back. He ate dried fruit and roasted peanuts, often thinking of his daughter and wife.
-
The event itself was, cosmetically, a luncheon. Twilight spots a few big names, some infamous ones and most with their own skeletons in the closet. But no matter. All he had to do was headshot the leader and the rest would scatter, never to trust a flimsy outfit such as this to keep their secrets, or their safety.
The security has increased today, with some bringing in their own private bodyguards. The doors are closed and the event officially commences.
Twilight yawns through it, taking his time to set up the tripod and assemble the rifle. He adjusts the scope and waits, tracking Hawthorne across the room, socializing and laughing ostensibly along to sentiments that would make a patriot’s ear bleed.
His moment comes not much after, when the Hawthorne takes the stage, waving to cheers and applause. Twilight waits for him to take the standing mic, when his position will no doubt be still for Twilight to do his job. His crosshair settles on a wide forehead. He takes a deep, centering breath, finger on the trigger—
A door in the back of the hall opens slowly, with a disturbing noise. A hush falls over the crowd and the mic makes a sound of protest as the leader stops abruptly. A woman stands at the door.
Hawthorne steps out of his range, anger flaring at the attention being snatched away instantly. His assistant runs to his side, the only person standing in between Hawthorne’s souring mood and the success of this event; the only person standing in between a bullet and Hawthorne’s massive forehead—
A murmur of speculation runs through the hall. Twilight bemoans the loss of his target, but shuffles around to get a better look at the late entry; the offender.
“What’s this?” she walks in with a deliberate pace, clearly not dressed for the occasion. “A party without entertainment?”
Twilight feels a chill of familiarity go down his spine as he hears her speak. But he can’t make much sense of the alarm bells going off in his head when all he can see is the top of her head. His target becomes shifty with nerves, and a rising anxiety that only serves to magnify his oncoming temper.
But the men in the crowd laugh. She seems harmless, and tempting enough for their half drunk, ill-mannered humour.
“Are you sure you're at the right party?” They snicker.
“You alone will be just fine miss”. One leans across the table towards her. “Come sit on my lap”
She slams a knife into the back of his hand.
Twilight flinches at the sound. The table leg breaks and sends the screaming man crashing into the ground, with all manner of cheap porcelain and wine shattering around him.
“Entertainment enough for you?”
Several guests stand, outraged, with only gasps to express their fear as several guns click in place – aimed at her head. But she still has her back to them as she gingerly pulls off her knife – is that a stiletto? – and wipes it down with a kerchief.
A fresh scream pierces the air, pointing at the aisle.
Drops of blood line the way and lead up to their latest guest.
“Can we please not yell? It’s only natural to get some blood on yourself when two dozen men can’t agree to cooperate in exchange for their lives—"
She swings her arm viciously. A blade sinks into a man at the exit, trying to escape.
“I was still speaking. Focus everyone, please” The man wobbles, swinging the door open only to reveal a pile of bodies bleeding out. In the shocked stillness, the door closes and the man sinks against it, effectively trapping everyone in the room.
A tremor of fear passes in the tense silence.
“What are you doing?! Shoot her!” Hawthorne screams.
The hall erupts into a mad frenzy.
Twilight’s heart races. More armed men crowd the stage, ushering the leader away. If making a shot in the silence with his target in full view was a danger to him, given the wildcard entry, then making a shot in the clamour with a small window was the best chance he had.
The moment two of his guards stepped away to fight the woman, he pulls the trigger.
Try as he did, the lady had sent the men flying back at the group almost immediately and sent them all tumbling to the ground like a set of bowling pins. Twilight’s bullet had wedged itself into the wall.
He stiffens. It was a good time to play dead. It was a good time to exit. His mission may have failed, but something tells him the assassin was after the same man. Sitting back and letting someone else do the job was smart. But leaving the premises? That was another story.
Could he escape safely if he shot her first? That seems impossible, even by his standards when she was avoiding bullets point blank. And he was not yet certain she hadn’t registered his interruption.
With the way this party was turning into a bloodbath, Twilight knew that if he so much as moved a single muscle, she would know. And with her generous use of force and zero hesitation with a blade, the last thing he wanted to do was run into her, an actual assassin.
But he had it get away quickly. He crawls, making himself as small as possible and shuffles along the bridge as discreetly as he could. The sound would be concealed by all the guns below, but he had to account for the any dust that could give off his position. And he had to keep an eye on her.
She seemed to have her own set of targets. And he deduced, as sweat beaded his forehead, that she might’ve crashed the gathering because they were all in the same place at the same time. Every other casualty was either the guns for hire or the unfortunate victim of their bullets as they tried to kill her.
The one-sided decimation was short lived. For all of Twilight’s planning and waiting and patience had come down to this moment. A woman had sauntered in, in a dress and a mask, jumped into a gathering dormant and ready for violence with zero plans and had the leader of said group on his knees, begging for his life in under ten minutes.
Twilight hadn’t gotten very far with his escaping. His thighs shudder with cramps as the last of the civilians flees out of the door, leaving the hall with only Hawthorne and the manic sound of his pleas.
“I have money—"
“Listen Mr. Hawthorne”
“Join me—"
“I don’t have time for this”
“Who do you work for? I’ll pay you ten times more—with you, it will be a piece of cake” He grabs her dress. “You could kill anyone you want right? How about stabbing Minister Brantz in the throat? It’s all for the greater good. Don’t you want to be part of something big? Join me—"
She slaps his face. So hard that it echoes in the silence of the hall. Twilight hears a crack and feels his skin prickle. Hawthorne’s face is unnaturally twisted to the side.
“Listen to people when they talk. I have to pick up my daughter from school—hey, are you listening?” She nudges him with her heel. He rolls back and falls limp.
Dead.
“This is disappointing”, she steps back. “You should’ve struggled a little more, parasite that you are”
“There is no honour in killing you” she sighs, scanning the room for movement as tension leaves her body. As she wipes her weapons clean, a pair of guests burst back into the room. Twilight hears the protests, the complaints and the sirens come through the open doors. They seem take in the scene in front of them before deciding that it was better to get mixed up with the police than mess with the personification of death herself.
When they backpedal, the woman turns to leave as well. Twilight sighs in relief, tension leaving his body after the longest ten minutes of his life –
The woman stilled.
Suddenly she looks up in his direction as if she could sense his presence.
Yor?
She stood with her weapons in one hand, and her bloodied mask in another, staring pointedly at the ceiling as if she had sensed a movement within. He really shouldn’t have fired that shot.
She takes a single step ahead, surveying in his direction as Twilight’s heartbeat goes out of control. He is a professional. A whole platoon sent to track him down all those years ago hadn’t unnerved him as much as the thought of his own wife finding him hidden like a rodent in the ceiling.
His wife, who had just killed a roomful of people. Those crimson eyes were unmistakably hers.
Once that thought caught a hold of him, he could see why the voice felt familiar. Why he could never mistake her silhouette. It is Yor. His wife. His wife, who was twirling a blade in her hand and launching it towards him—
Twilight moved his head to the side just in time. She could not see him in the shadows but the blade had barely missed him, going past him through the gap between his face and shoulder. Blood rushed to his face as he stiffened, holding his breath.
One blade had come up. Two blades had gone down. She had thrown two in quick succession with such accuracy that the second one had dislodged the first one, sending both of them back into her hands. The blades returned clean.
She looked on, narrow eyed, focusing. Twilight held his breath. When nothing moved, she sheathed her blades. Satisfied with the outcome, she escaped into the shadows just as the police burst in.
That’s an SSS uniform.
Twilight needed to get out of here. Good thing he had one on hand. His own shirt is torn and the scratch underneath begins to bead with blood.
It’s a shallow wound but hurt like a papercut. The real wound however, is to his pride and to his reality. It makes him dizzy.
What is this? Have I been played for a fool the entire time?
There was no questioning what he saw. He saw his wife, with his own eyes. And once the memories of her easily humiliating men twice her size resurface, Twilight tries not to waste any more time second guessing it. Whatever it was, Twilight felt like he had lost something. His mind raced with terrible thoughts.
Never have I been blindsided so badly. Best spy of Westalis? What a joke. How could I let an assassin thrive under my own nose? In my own home?
No, no, no, there must be some sort of mistake. There has to be. It’s the only explanation. It was someone wearing a disguise. Using Yor’s identity. Yor. Sweet Yor, can’t possibly hurt a person. Think about it Twilight. She is clumsy and endearing. It’s part of her charm. All of those lovely words she has said to me couldn’t possibly be an act? She’s honest—she doesn’t weigh her words carefully for ulterior motives, like you do—
Wait.
Am I really in any position to be questioning her motives with what I’ve been doing this entire time? Fine, call me a hypocrite, but was she using me as a cover this whole time? Why does it bother him so, when he’s been doing the same to her.
It’s only till he remembers his own mistake.
I was the one who cornered her by accidentally calling myself her husband. In front of her colleagues. He can’t imagine that left a woman her age, being suspected of espionage, with much choice. At least she was forthcoming with her reasons. She does have a real job at the City Hall, I made sure of that. But moonlighting as an assassin? He shuddered at what he had seen at the banquet. I would hide that from my family too, that’s reasonable.
Meanwhile, I did tell her why Anya needed a mother. But not that Anya wasn’t my real daughter. I was the one who effectively trapped her in this family.
And if one day she were ever the find out what he is, what he’s been using her for, what he’s been using Anya for, that is the day she’ll break his neck, and hang out his corpse to dry. Or not. But she would kill him all the same. Just away from Anya’s eyes so the poor girl may be spared more lies.
How long has she been doing this? Before she met us? She seemed quite skilled if she could be at ease amidst a dozen semi-automatic rifles and dance her way out of the trajectories of flying bullets. and the way she zeroed in on me? A spy with gadgets couldn’t do what she does.
He hardly remembers getting past the entire SSS unit, into his car. He would reach home and find his family and he would know that he saw wrong, even if he had to jump a few red lights to do so.
It can’t be true. I saw wrong. Yor must be filing documents in the City Hall at this hour. She can’t possibly have time to come all the way to the suburbs and make it back to the city after the leaving the banquet hall in a carnage. She still had to pick Anya from school—
Did that woman say she had a daughter? Get it together Twilight!
“Franky” he barks into the radio and finds that he doesn’t care for their usual pleasantries. “Find Anya. Now!”
He hears some urgent shuffling and a grunt of affirmation, the jingle of keys and a door being slammed shut. “Got it” he hears back. Franky is quick on the uptake that way.
No matter how impossible the chance, Twilight did not want to regret his choices later. He was still willing to ignore what he’d seen.
Did I even see right? There’s no way Yor bypassed our initial investigation. My personal doubts. There is no way the woman I saw today is her.
He had the feeling that if he accepted what he saw to be true, then it would be at great loss to his ego and competence. And to his steady and stable, albeit perfectly fake family.
But his chest tightens with a slow growing fear. He knew this woman. He did. No matter how his heart denied it.
I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this. Despite how well versed she was in the art of extermination and how well it suited her. Yor, no – the assassin, seemed clinical her actions and unsympathetic in the way she treated her targets.
My wife? She is affectionate towards animals, she treats children’s hysterics with generous amounts of optimism and immense grace; she tolerates that overly attached brother of hers. She stands up for her colleagues and forgives those who bully her.
There is a stark dissonance between Yor’s sunny smiles and her – the assassin’s unflinching ways; her disdain for the corrupt. She was fiercely nimble with unmatched dexterity; qualities Yor doesn’t display often in our home.
Could my wife have slid a blade into someone’s throat? Not even at gunpoint. But if she has, but if she does – occasionally – does that change who she is at her core?
Or does it mean she had no choice to begin with?
Getting out of the City Hall for such long periods of time must mean she either lies like I do, or that she has reliable backer to keep her excuses fresh each time she has to leave. Like I do.
Alternatively, her orders come from within the building and she has no choice but to comply with the demands of someone she has no way of escaping. What could they have against her? Yuri Briar? I am not convinced he isn’t a part of this shtick. I have to know. There’s no way he doesn’t know with how resourceful and meticulous he is.
But he also just believes everything Yor says. He is partial to her kindness; to her resolve and strength and that makes him biased to her and her words.
What compelled her to take these jobs? From how natural she is at it, it was well before Anya and I came into her life. I can’t dismiss the possibility that she’s doing this for her brother’s sake. Or that she sought us for a good cover story.
Which certainly explains how easily she had gone along with his farce.
Despite his best efforts to deny what he saw, the image of his wife settles into the montage of his speculations.
Hastily he reaches for the radio again.
“Franky –“
“Before you start—"
“Do you have my Anya?”
“Your Anya?” He snickers, “well no. But she is safe. I’m keeping an eye on her”
“Franky, I told you to find her precisely because she wasn’t safe—"
“The school won’t let kids go with anyone but the parents after the bus hijacking incident. With the exception of personal butlers. I’m not your butler. Nor her uncle. Nor—"
“Where is she?” Twilight demands.
“Playing with Bond in the garden”
“What garden?”
“The one near your home” Franky huffs irritably, “Did you hit your head somewhere? Are you finally going senile? She’s perfectly fine. She’s with Yor”
“With—"
Twilight goes completely still. She could never make it back there in time. Isn’t this a good sign? That I may be wrong?
He was still forty minutes away from town. Granted that he had a delay playing an SSS agent to escape the premises but he was driving down the highway well over the speed limit. She wouldn’t have made it home unless she dived into the river and let the current carry her downstream. Which is a ridiculous thought.
“Are you quite sure that’s Yor?”
“She has a bag full of ingredients for a southern stew. And another one with dog food” Franky observes.
Picking up Anya from school and grocery shopping? Impressive. “That’s not difficult information to imitate—"
“What is this new suspicion towards your wife? I thought we cleared that up? Or do you fear that she may be in some sort of danger?”
Twilight goes silent again.
“You know what? I’ll keep an eye on her till you return. Then it’s on you, my friend. Now, what is this actually about?”
Twilight chews his lip bloody. He needs an explanation that doesn’t make him sound completely insane and he didn’t have one to say over the radio. He didn't have any explanation, period.
“Doc?”
“I need you to pull out files on every City Hall employee”
“You want me to go in there again? Personnel files are now heavily guarded in state-of-the-art safes!” Franky practically wails.
“No, personnel records won’t have the names of the higher ups. Break into Chief Barnes’ office. Get the financial records. Every person who’s being paid anything should have a page in those files” Twilight’s grip on the steering wheel tightens.
He knows what a government employee's income looks like. If Yor or her helpers are being paid anything for this clandestine work, it would all be in there.
“When do you want this?”
“In the morning”
Frankly bristles, “You're crazy”
“Stay with my family” Twilight says, “please”
As for Yor, finding out if she’s the real one shouldn’t be difficult. I can just try to initiate a kiss. If she’s what Franky says she is, I’ll get punched in the face. If nothing, she’ll turn lobster red. That will be more than enough.
But the more Twilight nears his home, the more his resolve shakes. He had discarded the uniform. His shoulder aches with an emergency patch, under a torn sleeve. He hadn’t thought to replace it with all the insurmountable problems in front of him.
And it’s fine because he remembers showing up to their first date half torn to shreds, with blood dripping down his face. He has 192 excuses planned if Yor asks about it. That last time, she hadn’t needed much convincing at all.
He braces himself as he approaches their door.
Yor swings the door open just before he rings the bell. She smiles at him with ease, ladle in hand; no doubt working on her best stew. The scent of tempered spice and broth dulls both his approach and determination.
“I thought I heard you in the hallway”. She steps aside after he returns her smile with practiced ease. “You're early Loid. Come. Let me pour you some tea”
“Where is Anya?”
Yor sniffs the air as if something odd diffused in with the aroma from her boiling pot. She gets distracted by Loid’s question instead.
“Oh, we ran into Franky on the way home—" she turns around and the ladle falls from her hand when her eyes fall to his sleeve— “oh! Oh my, Loid! What- What’s happened to you?”
Her hand reaches for his shoulder and he grabs it midway, only for her other hand to grab the spot instinctively. He flinches, a hiss of pain leaving his lips. Yor’s eyes widen.
“Are you hurt?! Show me. Show me, please”
All his excuses crumble in front of her earnest demands. He had never factored in how their own relationship had grown over the months. They were still strangers when Loid had shown up to her event injured. And even then, she had offered him a handkerchief, among two dozen other guests who remained unmoved. And later that evening, she had saved his life from a so-called vengeful patient.
So why had he thought that she would turn a blind eye to this so long as he came up with an appropriate reason? They were co-parenting a child with, dare he say, decent communication between them and they might even call each other a confidante.
Which, suffice to say after the events today, was a questionable label to hold on to.
He holds her hand.
“I am perfectly fine Yor—"
“Blood” She frowns.
Loid’s head snaps to the side. He hasn’t bled through. But from how Yor’s nose is scrunched, he knows she has found the tape he had smacked on.
“It’s just a scratch” he explains.
“Let me see”, her stubborn hands manage to wrestle him out half out of his suit. Loid gives up and watches her undo his buttons deftly. She looks hurt to find his wound. The patch was peeling off and she glances at him, as if to search his face for discomfort.
“You have not been to a hospital”
“My co-workers did disinfect it. And it didn’t seem to need a stitch. If it makes you feel any better, I was sent home to rest after all”, he offers an embarrassed smile.
“We should”, she swallows, “we should get you fixed up before Anya finds you like this”
She guides him to their couch and returns to the kitchen, rummaging around for the first aid kit she often uses.
Why does she look so uneasy? Yuri Briar had his face re-arranged in this very room and Yor hadn’t seemed the least bit troubled then. Could she really be an imposter?
She turns off the simmering broth, returns with a small kit and fusses around him, smacking his arms away. She speaks only to distract him.
“We met Franky on the way home and Anya saw her chance to rob him of some snacks. You should really tell him to stop spoiling her so,” she begins with a small smile.
Her words sounded so unlike her. Loid hums along quietly. She had never before gone out of her way to comment on anyone indulging Anya. She enjoyed seeing their daughter delight in all small fancies and Loid being her only impulse control.
“And she has a bunch of stories she said she wanted to tell you when you came home. She was such a well-behaved child yesterday. Well, she always is, but especially so yesterday. She did her homework, so she could show it you I suspect. Ate all her greens and even helped me wipe the dishes. She learns so much just from watching you, you know?”
Loid watches her, as she tries her best to keep him distracted from the wound by telling him all sorts of things. He thinks it might be a private thing she shared with her much younger brother. She wasn’t much talkative in the first place, but he can see the effort she puts into keeping a straight face.
It’s not the blood that makes her flinch, but the way his jaw tenses at the pain that blooms around his wound.
“How did this happen?” she asks quietly.
Loid smiles sheepishly. “A patient snuck in a knife”
Yor’s eyes widen in alarm. Loid raises his arms to reassure her. “But we were able to apprehend him pretty fast”
Yor sighs. “In our village, people used to say that if they have a gun, obey; if they have a knife, run”
Loid feels the hair on the back of his neck rise. All his senses prickle, alert. There she is.
“Those who bring guns want to subdue or bully. Those that bring knives, have every intention to kill. That may not be entirely true but I can’t imagine what you must’ve felt trapped inside your office”
Loid swallows, “You seem to know an awful lot about these things Yor”
“Yuri and I were too young when we lost our parents to the war. And that made us easy targets. What’s two children to robbers? It was a rather common occurrence. Most of the times, we hid away as we watched every useful thing in our house being taken away”
Loid held her hands as he often did.
“I couldn’t let them take Yuri away as many of our neighbours had lost their own little boys to thugs and kidnappers. And nobody has time to worry about two kids that, without parents, could soon succumb to either disease or hunger”
Her eyes met his. A pity for the past was slowly replaced the strength that overcame all odds to survive. That’s the Yor he knew now.
“I’ve stood in front of every contrived weapon if it meant I could live, so believe me when I say this Loid, it’s not the weapon. It’s the intention of the person who wields it”. Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. They had both lost enough to the war.
Loid’s trembling hand finds her face, “You’ve been through a lot Yor”
“And so have you”, she swipes her thumb across the new bandage. “Promise me to be careful at work. Please. If only for Anya”
He nods, words catching in his throat. This is my wife.
Whether she was the same person he saw out there in the suburbs today, there was no way to know. But this woman in front of him, she was no imposter. He knew that without having to find out the underhanded way.
“I have nothing to fear when I know how safe she feels with you”, he manages.
“How could you say that?” she smacks him and gasps when he pretends to double over in pain. “Loid!?”
She stiffens suddenly, realizing his state of undress and he knows now, that her vision was fixated on the wound, unbothered that their progress with marital intimacy had skipped a few steps with the way she had handled him.
Loid cupped her face in his hands. She grabbed his wrists, eyes blinking so fast that Loid could hear her trying to banish the thoughts of pushing him away violently because he was hurt.
Now’s my chance. After everything, he couldn’t resist when the chance to test her, to tease her, presented itself.
“Yor, won’t you let me kiss you?” He said that, but every time his mind protested, he chose to cling to what he saw in front of himself. His heart stuttered at the way she turned furiously red, dizzy at how close his face was to hers.
He bit his lip, amused.
“L-Loid?”
All his defences crumbled. She was his Yor. His wife.
Every hair-raising doubt he’d had about her all morning, became a problem for the future Dr. Forger. He was only a man, reduced to a puddle by his wife’s genuine care and worry. It pleased him to see her fuss over him. It stroked the fires of desire in his chest, of a need to hold her hand as they walk in the street and to fill their home with photos of them as they aged together.
He feels fond, and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead.
He was in so much trouble.
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