Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein do not belong to me. This story is purely for entertainment purposes. No infringement is intended.
Minor references to "Deliverance," "Personal," "Familia," "The Debt," "Neighborhood Watch" and "Wanted." (aka the greatest hits.)
Author's Notes: What's this? A non-episode tag? Believe me, I'm shocked too. This is just something that popped into my head and refused to leave. I'm not really sure what it is, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless, and as always, I'd love to hear what you think.
It's the quietest moments that speak the loudest; the frames that click by at half-speed that best imprint a memory never to be forgotten. It is the words left unspoken that echo reverberations across time and space, and it is the actions that countermand the best laid plans that take us most in the direction in which we should be going.
It is the definitions that aren't etched in stone but are instead prompted by erasures, by edits – by evolution – that are the bricks in a slow building but steady foundation and compound the impetus that keeps them moving ever forward.
The detail of their partnership is no longer found in an allegedly arbitrary assignment. They're no longer forging their way down a road probably not taken; instead, they're walking on muscle memory, and it's no longer about where they're going, but where they have already been together – between the battle lines drawn and barely won as the war rages just beyond their door. It's found in the fact that they will cross that threshold whenever they hear the call, and when they do, that they will have each other's back even – especially – when the wolves are circling and tomorrow is nowhere in sight.
It's rooted in the fact that their exploration of each other changed long ago from reconnaissance to a kind of remembering, to a certainty once only otherwise found in their vows against all enemies foreign and domestic. It's deepened in the knowledge that those vows extend now beyond the nameless and faceless – persons unknown – to the person most known, most believed in, most trusted, and they are promises kept equally in light and dark, in good times and in bad, and believed with as much devotion and faith as the promise they both made before being handed their shields.
The depth of their relationship is underlined in the answers changed with time gone by; the realizations that even given their pasts, they needn't leave the future behind. It is cemented in the fact that though they'd been trained to withstand anything, everything didn't include each other, but that doesn't make them the walking wounded. They are not injured or undercut by the strength of their bond; they are instead closer to actual infallibility instead of self-protection masquerading as faltering strength. It is answered in the amending of a question asked between barriers that would never stand up to their own: the answer had been no to are you sure, where as now the only thing left unanswered is what took us so long?
The maturation of their connection is found in checking not for the safety of a Sig Sauer at their back but each other's hands, feeling that security even when they withhold touch. It's extended into how their burdens have become each other's; where once they had been shackled by the failures that still occasionally darken their eyes in the violet hours, they've both bent and started carrying the mistakes that clang in reverberating and eternal disapproval, the weight evenly distributed and easing them back into forward motion. It's felt in that movement, that terminal velocity, that builds first with him walking out on the one thing on which he had always counted – the one thing he said defined him – that then accelerates in almost losing each other, first by a gun and then by governance, that soon hastens in a cover that extended under some into moments in the middle of the night that got them through the following days, and eventually that falling turns into their freedom.
The profundity of their love is felt with hands that move them from saints to sinners and back again; heaven sent but simultaneously hell bent on driving each other wild, preoccupied with begging each other's names in the night rather than the forgiveness they seek during daylight, but it's even more understood in those sunlit hours, with a mere look or a gesture that was once simple but now holds as much depth as their respect for each other. It's located in the understanding that the world seldom makes sense, but somehow they are perfect for each other; in how together they are an answer, a truth, rather than a question or consequences.
It's cemented in just how seriously they take their promises to each other, to not only be there until the road runs out, but to navigate it together; to speak when there are no words, to bind when there is too much blood, to believe when the faith fades from view.
I love you is heard in a thousand different variations: a wink across a bullpen that sometimes says more than they could ever utter; simultaneous shots in the armory where they stand side-by-side as the casings and the world fall away; a well-rehearsed dance at breakfast where coffee and toast and jam are exchanged as easily as their seasoned barbs; the double-checking of the security of their vests, knowing one armor-piercing round would fell two. It resounds in the way they hear only each other above the sounds of madness; how their fingers brush in cementing a victory and hold on in the waves of defeat. It's recorded in sleepless nights when the shadows encroach too closely, and salvation comes from a thankful smile instead of the sunrise. It's repeated in a thousand small sparks that light a fire that lights the way back to the little bit of safe haven they've been able to carve out, and that's in each other's arms.
Their future is laid out in the knowledge that above all, they will rise, and they will do so together. It's emphasized in the fact that the best of what they've done is still yet to come.
It's in the journey to find the words, make the memories, and walk the path.
It is in them, and for the first time, it is enough.
fin