Chapter Text
Dawn. Just as the chariot of the sun begins its ride across the everlasting sky. Dew condenses and collects on fresh-cut grass. Nocturnal fauna hide in fox-holes and trees for their deserved respite. Thousands of miles away from your little home, inside a decaying prison, it’s dawn.
It’s day break as insurrectionists, funded by god-knows-which government, place well-crafted explosives in the cracks and corners of the old, Soviet-era prison.
Their boots are caked with freezing mud, ice chunks filling the treads and water seeping into their cotton socks, as they move silently into the nearby forest. By the time they’ve reached their hiding place, the sun is nestled comfortably in the sky. Ribbons of fire and smoke shoot high into the pale air as the devices are detonated, gray concrete and sharp metal flying high enough to touch the sky. Dark clouds gather overhead as the insurrectionists begin their search of the prison, delicate snowflakes falling and dissolving on top of the muzzles of hot rifles. Rain and snowfall heavily inside the crumbling prison as the insurrectionists find their leader.
It’s not until noon that military intelligence receives the news. Troops are mobilized, men and women are ripped from leave with their families, and plans are made. More hours pass as Laswell and her merry band of CIA and global agents track down not only the world’s most infamous terrorist, but also their greatest asset. Both have hidden themselves, one to continue his crimes, the other to escape them. It doesn’t take long for her to find either of them.
It's dusk when John gets the call and the birds stop singing.
✵ ✵ ✵
Standard butter–that is butter made of heavy cream and not of oils like margarine–begins to soften at sixty-five degrees fahrenheit. By the time dinner rolls around, a stick of butter on a butter dish will be nice and soft, pliable and ready to be spread on rolls. Or buns, even. The stick of unsalted butter, (unsalted, as you were watching John’s sodium levels), you had set out thirty or so minutes ago was beautifully soft in its tin. It was a miracle, frankly, that you had timed it so perfectly. And if he hadn’t taken that phone call, you may have laughed about it together. But you wouldn’t be laughing about it today.
He takes the call in your bedroom, door shut. Maybe it's to keep the world–to keep you –out, or maybe it is to keep that part of his life out. He takes it on the landline your old house came with, not his cellphone. Somehow, that makes it scarier. The call lasts only five minutes and fourteen seconds, each word careful and calculated.
It takes another four minutes for him to leave the bedroom. And with him comes a cloud of something grim. As he walks back into the kitchen, you take a moment to look at him–to study the face you’ve spent so many years with once again. His cheeks are rosier than when you first met, but maybe you only notice it because his beard has started to thin. Years of stress (both in and out of combat) has gifted him dozens of tiny gray hairs.
It was one of his birthdays, (maybe his forty-first? Thirty-ninth? Who knows, truly), when he almost broke out into tears from the thought of losing his hair. Everything else–the new, larger layer of fat on his stomach, the wrinkles on his forehead, the crows feet at the corner of his eyes–he could accept and deal with, sometimes he even welcomed them. But balding was the thing that terrified him the most. And so, each month a little box of ~$100 worth of supplements arrived and was whisked off and stored in his side of the bathroom.
Sometimes, in the early mornings before either of you went to work, you’d caught him lying awake and just adoring your every feature. In silent whispers, he told you he was terrified. Terrified of being too old, too weak, too human to protect and love you. And each time, you’d wake up, press a kiss onto the bridge of his nose, and tell him he was enough. Tell him that his wrinkled, calloused, scarred hands were the ones you’d chosen to grow old with. And it was those same hands that rested anxiously on the dinner table as he sat down. It was those lips which had spoken so many kind words to you that asked, “what smells so good?”
You say it's a recipe you learned from a friend, but it's really one you learned from the internet. Chicken, pan-fried in a spiced flour mix, combined with a cheesy, tomato-y, rich sauce. The first couple of times you’d cooked it for him, John had nearly died from the spice. It took several months, and several glasses of milk and complaints, for him to adjust to your spice tolerance. And of course, bread buns staying warm in the oven–you thought yourself especially clever for that little joke.
It was a bad phone call, and you know it. But that doesn’t stop you from pouring him a glass of wine–Chardonnay, full-bodied and oak-aged–and setting it down in front of him, your free hand resting softly on his broad shoulder. One, two, three pats and you keep your hand and just stand to his left, your other hand resting flat on your stomach.
“I have news,” you say, almost childishly, voice brimming with excitement.
“Yeah, I do too,” his voice is soft, but not like in your shared tender moments. No, this is the softness which comes with pain.
“Go first, I don’t think you can top my surprise.” For the last ten or so months remaining of your life, you found yourself thinking back on this moment often–with both a fondness and anger. Fondness for the moment, the last moment like that you had. The anger came from your naiveté.
“Kate called.”
“Laswell? She has our number?”
“No, I didn’t… I didn’t want her to have it.”
“So she tracked us down? Hopefully it was to send a super-late wedding gift.” You smile and laugh, he doesn’t.
“No she…” stop. The only sound in the air is that of the oven fan, buzzing softly. In another world, he doesn’t say anything. In another world, he picks you over everything else. In another world, he gets to hold his daughter. But he doesn’t.
“Makarov escaped. Took out Mactavish and Garrison. She asked me to come back, they need everyone they can.” His cornflower blue eyes don't meet yours. Instead, they point at the table, at his hands as if they were stained with the blood of his comrades–no, his brothers.
It hits you in the chest as you remember them, though you only saw them when their faces were twisted in pain or still as they were unconscious. But dead? No, they couldn’t be. They were both good, better than good, soldiers and leaders. Surely this was all a lie, right?
“Darling, you know I have to go. I have to finish what I started, I can’t just let him go-” his blabbering stops as you tighten your grip on his shoulder. Nails dig into his tender flesh–devoid of muscle to protest.
“No.”
“Listen, please, I know it’ll be hard for the both of us, but I have to-”
“I said no. You made a promise to me, John.”
“I did, but I can’t just let him hurt more innocent people. I can’t let their deaths be in vain!”
“Then stay. Stay here with me. You want to avenge your friends? Make sure their memory lives on? Then stay. Stay and live , John,” against his shoulder, your hand trembled uncontrollably, “you have a life here, you have me, you have-”
“I know!” In so many years of marriage, he had only raised his voice at you two times. Tonight was the third, tomorrow the fourth, the next day the fifth, and on and on. He stood up, eyes still not meeting yours, and puffed his chest subconsciously–like he did to his subordinates for so many years. “I know! And I’m happy here, and I’m happy with you, but I can’t live knowing he’s out there!” he gestured widely towards your creaky front door.
“John, the whole world is looking for him. Someone will make him pay, I know it. There are hundreds of other people like you who want him dead too, let them kill him,” like an olive branch, you reach an arm out to him. He doesn’t accept.
“You don’t get it. You don’t know what it's like,” heavy footsteps announce his pacing. Back-and-forth, back-and-forth, back-and-forth he goes. “If I don't do something, if I don’t end him, I’ll never sleep again. I’ll never be able to know that you and everyone else in the whole world is safe. I can’t live with myself if he causes more people to lose their lives. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you .” It's only now, when tears are streaming down your cheeks, does he hold your hand and look into your eyes.
“John, please,” your voice is hoarse as you try to keep the brunt of your tears in, “don’t do this. Don’t go. Please, I need you here.”
“I’ll be home as fast as it’s done,” he smiles–he smiles –the crinkles around his eyes softening his demeanor, “you’ll be okay without me for a little, I promise. Everything will be okay, my love-”
“I'm pregnant.”