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You’ll be ok?
I’m always ok.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being ultra super competitive.
Yes, there is; people don’t like you very much.
I like you! Well… I don’t mind you.
Still partners? Compañeros?
Sure.
Let me in, Miranda.
I don’t want to let anyone in, especially you.
Max, are you by any chance a wine snob?
You’ve got to twist it.
You sound like my mother. And actually right now, you even look like her.
Isn’t that the song…?
That we danced to.
Just until you get seen?
Really, I’m fine on my own.
Compañeros, right?
Yeah, compañeros.
No, I’m still not hugging you.
One… gentle… push.
You not retiring back to Germany?
When I have everything I need here?
England?!
It’s near Wales.
How do you see us?
I dunno… a pair of geese?
Ugh, don’t say chafing. Even the word hurts.
… chafing.
I enjoy the chase more than the catch.
We’re just like a real married couple.
I think you need to kiss me.
So you were listening.
I always listen to you, Miranda.
Too much of a lone wolf, huh? Just like Miranda when she first arrived.
I wasn’t a lone wolf.
Sure you weren’t! But now, though… look at us.
If I was going on holiday with my new spouse, I’d probably want them spending time with me in this reality, not a virtual one.
I just need to love myself a little more.
That's cool. What about other people?
If you’re asking, did I realise what was important to me… I think I did.
I think I did too.
So many memories, shattered, shuffled. Two minds, whirling, confused. Two bodies, both broken — beyond repair?
A woman in animal print barking out orders, slumping in shock, shaking in an ambulance.
Inés had had one of the worst days of her life, and the night that followed seemed to stretch on and on, each interminable minute a nightmare of worry and guilt. She waited on an uncomfortable plastic chair that smelt of disinfectant for news of both her forasters as the hospital staff worked into the small hours in the operating theatres.
Miranda was out first — a badly broken leg and a spinal injury with an uncertain prognosis. Max followed a couple of hours later, the bullet removed, his body stitched, and his depleted blood supplemented by the humanity of unknown donors. Neither conscious, they lay pale against white sheets in their adjacent rooms, wired and monitored, machines beeping and clocks slowly ticking their lives away.
Inés stretched herself thin until Max’s friend Christian arrived to share the load. She lingered with Miranda, the difficult, brilliant woman she had grown to care for. Dawn was breaking when Roberto took her by the shoulders and led her into the back of a squad car, too exhausted to resist his insistence. Miranda would be in good hands with him taking up the watching baton, but still she felt she shouldn't be leaving. She was their boss, so this was her fault.
Every part of her body told her to sleep, but she couldn’t; this was all on her and she had to face up to her responsibilities. There was still a chance she might lose one or even both her officers. Questions would be asked, an account called for, competencies doubted. There was a reckoning to be had, not just with her superiors, but also with herself.
Christian had informed Max’s father, he said, and he would be flying out later that day or tomorrow. Poor Miranda had no-one: both parents dead and her next of kin listed as Max. If ever she needed a mother figure it was now.