A/N: Well. I thought I couldn't possibly be inspired to write anything new so soon and before the new season but it just struck me. This is mostly (totally) about Eyal and his inner musings, right after the finale. So, he's off to somewhere. What's he to do? Let's find out.
Disclaimer: Chris Ord and Matt Corman, I really-really hope that Oded Fehr comes back the next season.
He doesn't go to the Greek isles. Instead, he feels a sort of pull towards the one place he is usually reminded of the least. Home. He doesn't mean the busy streets of Tel Aviv or the golden sands of Eliat or the clear blue of the Mediterranean Sea. Eyal Lavine thinks of the home he grew up in and that is where he is headed.
But first, it's the bustling of Tel Aviv, and a house in the shrouded neighborhood of Ramat Aviv. Hena opens the door at his knock and welcomes him with a raised eyebrow but lets him pass without asking anything, her watchful gaze following his every step.
Avi's face is full of delight and surprise and joy. He rushes to his father with absolute abandonment and for a moment, he is not an ex-Mossad agent, a killer with blood on his hands and a broken heart on his sleeve but abba, someone to be welcomed and loved with every bone in this little boy's body.
He listens to Avi talk about his days and his new room and watches pictures of his friends and all the while he's amazed that at one point in his life he created this person.
The innocence his son brings is wondrous and he finds himself smiling, carefully touching his hair and seemingly for the first time seeing that there is more to his life than the things he's lost.
When Avi runs to his room to get some toy, Hena turns to him. "Are you alright?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
She walks closer and scrutinizes him with her piercing gaze. Eyal absently thinks she's as beautiful as she was during their marriage and for a second he wishes things had worked out. Maybe then he would've had it in him to leave Mossad a long time ago and not let it corrupt him. Maybe she could've given him the reason to do so, she who loved him openly and deliberately but wouldn't compete with the pull of his country. Maybe he could've been a surgeon if his sister hadn't been killed. Too many maybes hang between them in the past.
"You are different somehow. Lighter. There is softness in your eyes. You almost seem kind."
He smirks. "As opposed to seeming cruel?"
"Yes." Hena has never had the gift of bantering or witty retorts. He used to love her honesty which tended to border on crudeness but now it only reminds him of who she is not. She is not vulnerable and soft and she's never been naïve towards anything.
"I quit Mossad."
She hums and nods. "Good." Hena doesn't ask why or what happened or even what he's going to do next. But then again, she's always hated Mossad and probably still does, for the way it took her husband away from him and his leaving that behind doesn't fix any of the cracks between them in their bitter history. But maybe it will prevent new ones from opening.
The headstone at Yarkon cemetery is adorned with pebbles, evidence left behind by people who remember. Eyal knows there has to be a lot of them who still come here but he is one whose feet haven't touched this ground in a while. He touches the headstone gently, reverently, caressing the carved letters with his fingertips.
Sarah Lavine.
He can still feel the pain of that loss acutely but he hides it. He hadn't talked to anyone outside his family about this before that one day in Washington and it set something free in him. He could think about his sister again, could picture what she looked like. Now, in front of her grave, he mourns, allowing himself this minute of silence for the grief and pain to course through him. He's spent years trying to avenge or redeem or fix this, whatever anyone will call it, this situation and it's only now that he gets it.
For someone whose life is about letting the current direct them, Eyal suddenly realizes that he's been doing the exact opposite when it comes to Sarah. He's never thought of her death, not really, never talked about it, just buried it under his work, first under paperwork, then into running around the world. The current has passed by him but he hasn't let it carry him.
There's something akin to moisture in his eyes which he surreptitiously wipes away with his hand, looking into the hot sun. It's a quiet day, not many people in the cemetery at this time, so he feels a sense of calm, a sense of completion.
"Lehitra'ot, Sarah."
He leaves a small gray pebble on the headstone and touches his fingers to the name again.
Eyal's final stop doesn't require him to knock or wait to be let in. He simply takes the spare key from underneath the flower pot, turns it in the lock and walks in.
"Haven't I told you not to keep the key there?"
"And didn't you just let yourself in with that key?"
Shafrira Lavine is unperturbed, only looking up from her preparation of dinner for a second. Eyal fixes her with a stern look but she merely shakes her head.
"Eyal Lavine, I invented that look so don't you dare."
His face breaks into a smile and he crosses the three steps into the kitchen for a welcoming hug and a firmly planted kiss on the cheek. "Hello, mother."
Her eyes soften and though she pretends to feel irritated for being interrupted during making dinner, he knows that she is delighted.
"Well, sit down then and make yourself useful."
He peels the potatoes and they work quietly. Eyal feels his mother's eyes on him from time to time but he's resisted interrogations before and while this silent intimidation is one he learned from her, he won't back down.
"Have you seen Avi?"
He smiles. This is how it starts, with an innocent inquiry.
"Yes, I went to see him and Hena. He's really grown up."
"He looks just like Eli did when he was a child."
Eyal's gaze is sharper, more focused now. "Don't."
Her gaze is even more pointed but she doesn't say anything else. The topic of his father is not appreciated in the house when it comes to Eyal; he has no desire to talk about the man who walked away from them when they needed him the most, who couldn't bear the loss of a child and left his family.
"What is happening, neshema?"
The word strikes him unexpectedly and for a moment, he loses his poker face and he knows that this is the one moment he should've kept it because she takes one look at him and puts the knife down.
"Is it the job?"
There is a certain hesitance to her voice when she says job. She's always told him she doesn't want to know what he does – though she does know – and while he knows she understands his motives for going from surgeon to Mossad, she worries.
"Not exactly. I'm not...I don't work there anymore."
She frowns. "There meaning..?"
"Meaning the Mossad. I'm not an agent anymore."
"Did something happen?"
"I quit, mother. And that is about all I can tell you."
She gives him a long look. There is no hiding from it and while his face betrays no emotion this time, Shafrira Lavine has already seen everything she needed to.
"And what do you do now?"
"Well, I'm here. I think I'll get reacquainted with this beautiful country, visit some sights, spend time with Avi. And you."
"Nonsense."
He gives his mother a confused look. "What is wrong with that? You've always told me to be more with him and you ask me to visit you more often. So now I can."
"I may not know what you did over there but you didn't come back to Israel to retire. That is not you, Eyal, and you can't lie to your mother about it."
He doesn't give a reply, instead focuses on cutting up the potatoes, intent on the task at hand.
"You are sad. I haven't seen you like this since Hena left."
Still, he ignores her line of questioning, meticulously preparing for dinner.
"Who did this to you, Eyal? This is not about your job or your retirement. This is about a woman. So tell me."
"It's nothing."
She sighs audibly but he doesn't budge.
They sit down to eat, still in silence, neither one giving in. They pass the salt, slice the bread, pour the water and eat.
He thinks of all the questions she asked and all the answers he didn't give. He isn't sure he has the answers to give. No, it's not about the job and yes, it is. He doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his life from this moment on. There was no plan aside from go to Israel and see Avi and mother. His life doesn't have direction in the sense that it used to but in a weird way, he likes it.
As for all the rest, Eyal can't bring himself to talk about Annie. Can't, because he doesn't know what to say. That seems to be happening a lot. He doesn't know what he was expecting from her or what he hoped would happen. Did he think she would choose him over Auggie? Did he even give her a choice to be made? It's a mess in his head and he doesn't know how to go about sorting it out.
"You must love her very much."
He startles out of the musings in his head at Shafrira's voice and even more so at her words.
"Why do you think this has anything to do with that?"
He doesn't confirm or deny anything but tries to keep operating in this vagueness.
"Because she is not here with you and that is somehow related to you leaving. So I can only assume that she is very special."
"She is."
It's the only confirmation he can give, the only thing he feels comfortable with saying. Everything else would be too much, would reveal a far greater deal than he wants to. Truthfully, he doesn't know if he loves her. He doesn't think in those terms, doesn't let himself pose that question because it would be too much when he knows the choice she made in that train station and honors that choice.
"Is she worth this all?"
"This...what? I'm not doing anything."
"I see it, Eyal. You're breaking apart. She's hurt you."
"It's not like that."
She pats his cheek affectionately, like she used to when he was just a boy and it feels comforting and safe, even if he's a grown man who doesn't need it, who hasn't needed it in a long time.
"But you do love her."
It's the second time she's said it and he realizes that she doesn't ask. She simply says, like it's a fact, like it's been established and it makes him wonder. If his mother can see it, why couldn't Annie? Or what if she could and refused to acknowledge it because she doesn't want the same things. It tears through him like a terrible heartbreak, this notion that she knows and that everything they've had through the years has been horribly misunderstood on his part.
But he crushes that feeling and tells himself that it's not possible, that Annie's not like that, and that he will give her time.
So for the first time, he nods, ever so slowly. And there is a sense of release in it, a sense of final admittance and maybe a bit of foreboding. And the hope that someday the current will lead him somewhere and somehow she'll be waiting for him.
A/N: Well, obviously, they are speaking Hebrew throughout this whole thing but I couldn't resist adding a few more notable words to my English language text. Abba is Hebrew for father and lehitra'ot is Hebrew for goodbye. And Eyal's background is both pieces of what has been confirmed (his failed marriage and his son, and his dead sister) and my own imagination/interpretation of things. Do let me know what you thought, even if I couldn't bring myself to write a happy ending for Annie/Eyal quite yet.