I.

In the end, it starts like this: Hermès, him, and a patrol car. Armored, this time, because the sum of their actions is still dead bodies, eviscerated in such a way that even a weighty name like the Speedwagon Foundation cannot explain away easily. Narciso doesn't ask-Hermès doesn't offer, and he picks up snippets of conversation and weighty words like murdered while in prison and a name that doesn't sound familiar-and they sit opposite one another in silence.

Her resting face is something like contentment, even if there's bags under her eyes big enough that Narciso knows he'd get shit for if mentioned. She did not protest when they cuffed her, only cursed under her breath when they looked down at her.

He wants to believe he was much the same, but there are words still at the tip of his tongue and two pairs of eyes, Jolyne's and Emporio's, still burning into his skull every time he feels as though he might slip into something resembling sleep.

I'll wait for you is what he meant to say. He thinks he said her name instead.

(He was screaming. He was screaming and it was her name and if Weather- if Wes Bluemarine, that's his name, wasn't it. His real name- fuck it, if Weather was here he'd speak low, tell him not to make a fool of himself with breath still tickling the back of his neck like he kind of hates, kind of misses.)

If they really wanted to, they could escape. It would be so, so simple; conveyed as such from the brief moment they make eye contact. But it's unspoken, as well, the faith they have in Jolyne Cujoh that something- that someone will be back for them.

It's the first time he's ever had that thought, and it's lost to a dreamless not-quite sleep in understood silence.

II.

He's never been good with strangers; Irene has told him time and again his resting face tends to scare people off. She always punctuates it with gentle prodding at his cheeks, not enough for her nails to dig into the meat of them but enough that when his lips quirk up in a half-smile, staring down at her when she says it's a pretty nice smile when he's not glaring daggers at people.

The world feels so right for those precious few seconds, and when he closes his eyes he can imagine phantom fingers against his face, a needed reprieve from three strangers on the way to meet his (possible , maybe) future father-in-law with his shitty car's air conditioner trying to die.

The heat's getting to everyone. Irene's asleep in the passenger seat, face cradled in a hand, elbow propped against the glass, as is the other woman, eyes closed and headphones in her ears. The man they'd picked up right before the thunder rolled in has yet to say another word to anyone, not even his name.

The boy- the boy is staring at him, sitting square in the middle between their two hitchhikers. Through his reflection his eyes are wide and cheeks still damp. He'd had another name with his own and looked up at Irene as though she were his savior.

He can't find fault in that. The boy called Emporio finally breaks their mirror staredown and brings the brim of his cap over his eyes.

(Somehow, miraculously, the weather clears and cold air chases down Annakiss's spine from the air conditioner, as though it were never broken at all.)

III.

Before his mind catches up with his body, every single penny he has to his name is dropped right there on the wooden counter. It's sudden enough to scare the man inside the booth and shake him from the newspaper, emblazoned with the very same venture he supposes he's stepping up to.

"Name," the man drones, rude enough that on any other day he'd think of showing him the business end of his knife.

"Narc Anastasia," he replies back without hesitation, hands flat on the counter. "What was the name of the competitor you just served?"

"And your horse's name?" he snaps back, more than happy to slide paperwork that needs to be filled towards him in lieu of an answer.

"The competitor's name. Now ."

"Is this the exact amount for the entry fee?" is the snide response.

More pushing, and nothing comes of it but a man taking Pretty Woman's reins to have her nose prints made. Nothing at all, but he knows what he saw.

Their eyes were the same. The very same fire to them as the woman he saw last night. A drifter with no family to her name but one man, and a burning desire to pull him back into her life, if only to say she had the last word in their final argument.

Fists clench at his side, and he feels like there's loyalty bubbling in his stomach, something he hasn't felt for a long time.

He knows it's a fool's errand, but he has to know her name.

IV.

It's over and they've done it and it's kind of poetic, the priest spread across the asphalt, heart pierced clean through by his own blood. A parting gift from his own blood.

The man named Wes Bluemarine has a hatred so deep burning holes through his corpse it takes Narciso by surprise, because he's not used to such ferocity across his otherwise mild face. It looks wrong, and in the pain-haze he imagines going through his face (down, down past his skin, epidermis-dermis-hypodermis until he's hit muscle then bones) and rearranging it so Wes Bluemarine is Weather and the light shining in his eyes doesn't make the world look like a smattering of refracted light and snails.

Kill me, he mouths, with the last of his strength.

He can barely feel his body and his thoughts are incoherent at best, and when a car screeches to a halt next to them it sounds a thousand miles away. Footsteps become Jolyne, Hermès, Emporio and thoughts become muddled aside from those solid few facts.

Diver Down separates from the rest of him and does what it knows: a swift, punishing kick to knock Wes-Weather down. Not enough to kill, but enough to ground, and he can read you bastard on his friend's tongue before he goes down, too.

V.

There is only salt water, blood, and Stone Free's fist through his chest, and he chokes on his luck and for the briefest moment, before it all goes searing white, he thinks he understands what Plankton (what Foo) had died for.

VI.

(And it all ends like this, the beginning of the finale: Emporio's babbling so fast that his words are tripping over one another, awe and admiration apparent in every single sentence. He hasn't come to life like this in years, and Narciso Anasui looks up from browsing books he's bored holes into hundreds of times to listen.

And slowly, he feels himself come to life, too.)