Kala sits in silence in the taxi that takes her back to the hotel. She regrets she chose not to drive to the restaurant; she wishes she had the freedom to simply drive around, settle herself before facing the Cluster. Facing Wolfgang.

She is deeply ashamed. And furious. So furious.

She huffs her frustration, stares blindly out the window.

She feels the hum of energy that flows through the psycellium, keenly aware of the others and what they do: Sun, with Nomi and Bug, combing through illicitly-obtained financial statements and shipping records and invoices. Riley, with Lito and Capheus, explaining everything that's happened to Bodhi and Mr. Hoy, detailing the plan to gain control over the sensate research and the outcome of Kala's meeting. There is less contact from Will as he gets ready to go to work; a gentle tug from Wolfgang as he waits for her return. But there is a collective weight at the thought that Rajan could publicly expose their identities, undo the normalcy that they'd returned to, make them - and their families- vulnerable to the next threat.

And she is responsible for this.

Kala catches her bottom lip, brows furrowed. She relives the conversation with Rajan, loops the moment he admits it was his idea to forge expiration dates, and she feels sick with guilt and worry. Rather than trying to work through the revelation, she'd lost her temper and issued Rajan an ultimatum, blinded by hurt surprise. And she'd done it in part because of something that she'd suddenly suspected; something that had teetered at the edge of her consciousness until now.

Kala fidgets restlessly with the bracelet on her wrist as the cab slows for traffic.

And for the first time in ages, she is somewhere she hasn't actively tried to be.

It is daytime and bright in the kitchen in Chicago. Will glances at her in surprise as he pours a pot of coffee into a stainless steel thermos. He's already in uniform, a piece of toast in his mouth: Kala can taste the grape jelly that he prefers instead of butter. She smiles a little at the unfamiliar flavor and he smiles back, seals the thermos, takes a bite of the toast before taking it out of his mouth long enough to give a friendly: "Hey."

"Hey," she says back, suddenly self-conscious. Although Will must have been up early to visit in Mumbai, he doesn't look particularly tired. Her eyes drift to look around. "Where is everyone?"

She steps aside to let Will pass into the next room, where the rest of his things lie on top of a desk. He eats the last bit of bread as he puts on his Kevlar vest, adjusts it so his uniform isn't twisted underneath.

"Riles is in the bedroom...but not in the bedroom," he says meaningfully. "Gunnar is still asleep in his room." Kala watches as Will grabs his duty belt and checks his gear before tucking them in place: pepper spray, handcuffs, flashlight. Gun. He finishes and she looks up at him, meets his curious stare. "What's wrong?" he asks kindly. "Besides what went down at dinner with Rajan? You're not here on a social visit."

She hesitates, but he shakes his head, sits down on the edge of his desk. "I've got time," he assures her. "I've got court at 10: I just figured I'm already up, might as well go to the station first."

"Why didn't you go with Riley?" she asks.

Will shrugs. "Riles will let me know if there's anything more to think about, but seriously, despite what happened, I think we're still good."

"You do?" Kala's eyes widen in surprise. She sits down on the other side of the desk to face him, fingers lacing and unlacing. "How? We have nothing on Manendra: Rajan won't admit what he did to his father. Plus," she wilts a little, "Rajan knows who we are. He can identify us. Who knows what will happen then."

Will shakes his head. "Rajan won't do that," he says. "You were right about his company having more at stake. Regardless of who gave the order, the company deliberately sold expired drugs. Let's ignore whether what they did was criminal: If this gets out, who's ever going to trust buying from Rasal Pharma again? Rajan's going to have to tell his father; they're going to give in. Manendra isn't sacrificing everything for the rights to your work."

She nods, slightly reassured. "Yes."

"Besides, I don't think Rajan will reveal who we are." Will watches her kindly. "I don't think he'll ever do anything to hurt you." Kala involuntarily stiffens under his gaze, and Will lets out a breath. "Yikes. Is that why you're here?" he asks.

Kala stares back, eyes dark. She shakes her head slowly, exhales. "No, not really," she demurs: "I'm not sure why. I don't even wish to talk about it." Will's expression grows gentle, and her shoulders sag. "I feel foolish."

"Nah, don't." He puts his hand over hers, squeezes lightly. It feels warm and reassuring and Kala finds herself inexplicably tearing.

She swipes impatiently across her eyes with her other hand: "Have I been manipulated this entire time?" she asks baldly. Will stares back, surprised, and Kala finds herself tripping over thoughts that had rushed back once she'd left the restaurant: "He was wearing his ring," she says, "and he told me it was to stop the gossip when I know Rajan doesn't care what other people say. And he looked at me, and I couldfeel myself feeling bad for him. And then I felt upset because I realized it's like that. It's always like that. And then I thought, what if he knows? What if he does that on purpose, and all this time, it wasn't just me, but him?"

Will shakes his head, bemused by the unexpected rant. "Kala," he says carefully. "I'm not sure I follow. You think Rajan wore his ring to manipulate you?"

"Yes... No?" Kala frowns sharply, her earlier thoughts rushing back in a singular wave. "Because what if it wasn't just this time, but from the beginning?"

She gives a huff, aware that she's speaking a stream-of-conscious normally reserved for Wolfgang. "When we met," she says evenly, "Rajan was interested in me. Of all the women at work that wanted his attention, he pursued me. Except I wasn't interested, and so he sent all of those flowers - covered the lab in them - in a public gesture that everyone thought was so romantic. And what could I do? I couldn't say no; I would look ungrateful, and he was my employer's son, and he would be embarrassed."

She shuts her eyes briefly and misses the sharp frown that crosses Will's face. "And do you know, he brought his proposal to my parents? He understood how traditional they are - he didn't even mind that Auntie Ina accompanied us on some of our dates. But Rajan and I never even discussed getting married. And my parents were more happy receiving his proposal than they were about my graduation from university."

Kala is silent, mouth ticking into a humorless smile as she recalls her father dancing around the house: "When Rajan wants something, he is single-minded, and he wanted me. And the thing is," she continues, "he wanted me despite his father's disapproval, maybe a little even because of it. But by the time Rajan admitted that, I knew he loved me, and he'd defied his father to marry me, and I couldn't end the engagement without hurting him. His father was in the hospital, and I thought Rajan had been through enough. And I had doubts, but no logical reason to end the engagement: Everyone was so happy. I kept telling myself that Rajan is a good man. He'll be a good husband."

She pauses and looks at Will, his expression attentive.

"When Manendra was in the hospital, Rajan's mother and I prayed for his recovery, even though we knew Manendra didn't believe in Ganesha or any of the gods; that he was attacked because he tried to shut down the temple, even though his own wife is a believer. And do you know what Rajan's mother told me, as we prayed together in the hospital?"

Will shakes his head.

Kala exhales, stares at Will's hand, covering her own. "She told me… 'He's a good man.' "

Will stills for the merest moment; says nothing although Kala can sense his dawning understanding.

Had Rajan known she couldn't bring herself to hurt him, or disappoint her parents? She'd felt pressured to date him; pressured to accept his marriage proposal. And while she'd railed at him on their honeymoon for calling her mother to discuss her virginity, she was horrified when she'd come back to the villa and found their bags packed. Rajan made it clear he was ready to end their marriage if she still had doubts; he had somehow made it seem like her choice. But the truth was that she couldn't return as a virgin, not after he'd aired that particular grievance, because everyone would know she had failed him, that something was wrong with her. And so she'd soothed him, told him they shouldn't make any hasty decisions, and to let her decide what happened that night. And she'd slept with.

Had Rajan worn his ring tonight to convince her to change her mind about the divorce? to make her feel sorry for leaving him?

"For what it's worth," says Will quietly, "Rajan shouldn't have pursued you the way he did, especially since you were an employee. But," he adds, "I'm not sure that any of his actions were done deliberately to guilt you into being with him. That doesn't sound like Rajan."

"No?" Kala muses. "There is a side to Rajan that I've not seen: the side that decided selling expired drugs to poorer places is a good idea, that justifies it as somehow helpful because they couldn't otherwise afford them."

She thinks of the night she overheard him shouting on the phone. She'd never heard him speak so roughly, or be so angry. She thinks about the time he'd come home hurt, and Lito had casually stated that Rajan was lying to her about how he got injured. She'd wondered about Rajan's connection to Ajay, and the reason why she was to go to Paris in the first place: things that Rajan never bothered to explain even after she confessed being a sensate, even after the madness of BPO.

Rajan deflected her questions by telling her she didn't need to concern herself. "Did I just make excuses for Rajan, even when there were things in front of me that I should have seen? Things that I ignored?" she asks quietly. "A good man wouldn't have allowed, let alone ordered, the sale of expired drugs. A good man wouldn't have needed someone else to point out how wrong it is. And Rajan must have known this or surely he would have told his father how he managed to increase profits with no quantifiable changes on the books."

Will nods slightly, unsure what to say. "That doesn't mean Rajan isn't good at all. He still stopped when you asked him, still helped us in Paris," he says. He pauses, adds: "Wolfgang isn't exactly a saint, and we all see that there's good in him, too."

Kala stares wide-eyed at Will. "Oh no," she says emphatically, shaking her head. "It's not the same. It's not. Wolfgang was raised in violence, he's acted to survive, to protect the ones he loves." She gets up, paces, agitated: "And despite his upbringing, he's not motivated by greed or power. If he was, he wouldn't be giving up Berlin. Wolfgang doesn't need me to tell him the right thing to do."

In the cab in Mumbai, she nears the hotel, and Kala sighs deeply.

"I don't know why I think of these things now, except talking to Rajan tonight made me remember the doubts I had, even before Wolfgang. I resented so many things and didn't admit it, even to myself, because I believed he is a good man, and he deserved a good wife. Every decision I've made until Paris was made so I wouldn't hurt him, or disappoint my parents. It didn't matter that ultimately it hurt me ."

In an apartment in Chicago, Will gets up from the desk, walks to face Kala. "It can be pretty damn exhausting living a life trying to meet other people's expectations, make them happy." He studies her face, smiles gently. "But eventually you did the right thing: you chose what makes you happy."

…

Wolfgang stands uncertainly at the door, watches carefully as Kala approaches.

She looks up at him with silent, tired eyes, and he draws her inside, holds her tightly in wordless comfort, and for once there's no awkwardness in the gesture, as unused as he is to moments like this, when all she wants is the assurance of his steadfast presence.

"Come on," he murmurs, drawing away enough to steer her further into the room. "We can talk about this tomorrow. You should get some sleep."

"I'm not sure I can sleep," she says quietly. Wolfgang's eyes narrow, and in a single, fluid motion, he lifts her into his arms and moves purposefully towards the bed. Kala gives a startled gasp but doesn't protest, her hands sliding around his neck. She melts into his chest, suddenly exhausted. She lets him remove her shoes and socks; lifts her hips and shrugs her arms so he can take off her skirt, then blouse. He pauses and strips away her undergarments after her faint, small nod. He even unclasps her bracelet, releases her hair from the ponytail and combs his fingers through the thick waves before he settles her beneath the sheets. Wolfgang takes off his own clothes before he joins her in bed, gathers her to him so her back is against his chest, plants a soft kiss on her shoulder.

She knows he wants to ask why she shied away from his visit earlier, but he doesn't, sure that she'll tell him - or maybe not - when she's ready. She's grateful they respect each other's space.

"I can't believe everything that's happened today," she says softly. Kala pauses to reflect exactly how much: That this morning started off with welcome news that the penthouse has finally sold, and this evening with the bitter revelation that her husband may not be the good man she'd always believed him to be. She stares unseeing at the framed photo of the "Queen's Necklace" hanging on the wall that she faces. It is a view from the hotel, in this room, outside of their window.

"I really thought his father was to blame," she says sleepily, apropos of nothing. Wolfgang kisses the top of Kala's head; his hand coasts along her side, soothing and undemanding. He is silent, waiting for her to sort her conflicting emotions.

"When I think of the people he may have harmed, I'm horrified and ashamed for us - myself and the company and Rajan. What if people have died because of our medicine? How is that not murder?"

Wolfgang tenses slightly. "It's not," he says. He pauses as if to add something, but changes his mind: "It's not the same thing."

"No," she agrees. Kala closes her eyes briefly, the intensity of her anger dissipated, but the sting of Rajan's betrayal burning still: "It's worse," she says, "because it was a deliberate decision to harm countless suffering people to make money."

Wolfgang is silent. If he disagrees he doesn't articulate it; instead, he hugs her gently, watches as she shifts around to look up at him, her eyes dark, troubled. "And I excused it because I thought it hadn't been his decision; because I believed he told me the truth that it was standard procedure, and I was only making him see that it wasn't fair." Kala makes a scoffing sound, brows drawn.

Wolfgang's hand moves down her spine, fingers press firmly to ease her tense posture. "You didn't know," he says, his voice certain. "And now you do. Now we all do. We'll deal with it."

Kala catches her bottom lip, huffs softly. "I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm so disappointed in him, in what our relationship was. I'm doubting so much about..."

She stops suddenly, eyes large as she meets Wolfgang's steady blue gaze.

She had felt shaken, upset to think she'd been so mistaken about the man she'd married. But what does it matter? What difference does it make to her now to wonder whether Rajan had manipulated her or not?

In the end, she'd found the courage to follow her heart, to find her way, and it led to this man.

And Kala lets go. Thoughts about Rajan and whatever their relationship had been melt away.

She sighs softly, presses her forehead against Wolfgang's lips for a kiss which he gives with a quizzical expression. Kala smiles. "Never mind," she says. "Let's get back to doing things just for us tomorrow." Her hand slides to wrap around Wolfgang's waist. "A picnic? Or dinner? Somewhere lovely and romantic."

"Scheiße." Wolfgang shifts a little beside her. "With everything that's happened, I forgot to tell you that I met with your father today. We are having dinner with your family tomorrow."

Kala's eyes grow larger. "You what?" she asks. "When did you talk to him? About what? What did you say?"

"While you went out to get the documents from Ambra this morning." He pauses, suddenly recalls: "And to sign a lease for an apartment. Did you do it?"

Kala stills, then nods, her face beaming. "I have keys for the both of us," she says, her excitement returning. Wolfgang moves forward to kiss her but her hand covers his mouth before he can do so. "Tell me first about my father!" she says, trying to focus even as he kisses her fingers, eyes mischievous.

Wolfgang gives an exaggerated sigh, but he smiles, and Kala's heart races.

Wolfgang tells her about meeting with Sanyam in the park: how they talked for maybe an hour about Wolfgang's family; who they were, and Wolfgang's disavowal of that life. She listens, mesmerized, to the way Wolfgang describes Sanyam's response; smiles softly when Wolfgang tells her - surprised and grateful - that somehow, Sanyam, like she, had concluded that despite everything, there's something good inside of Wolfgang.

He is silent for a moment, as if still in disbelief.

Kala stares back, eyes bright.

"And then he suggested we have dinner tomorrow; try again," Wolfgang finishes, smiling faintly. "I can't believe, after everything I told him, he still wants to -"

He gives a startled grunt of surprise at Kala's sudden kiss, fierce and possessive and gentling just as suddenly before she pulls away.

"I love you," she tells him quietly, giving an inelegant yawn before he can return her kiss.

Wolfgang smiles ruefully. "I love you too," he says, settling for a kiss to her brow. "Go to sleep, Sueße."

Kala sighs, tucks her head under his chin, closes her eyes.

She is asleep almost immediately.

A/N: I don't think I've ever gone this long between updates, so apologies for that: RL (and tediously locating scenes to script-read) has a way of taking up time. Thank you so much for your patience and for continuing to read. As always, reviews are appreciated :-)