Will and Riley visit Kala together, not long after Wolfgang leaves. Kala struggles to contain a wide smile at the sight of Will; he grins and gives her a gentle hug, asks how she is before he takes a quick look around and tells her she doesn't need to answer. "I see your goons are here," he says with a grimace, nodding at her Russian guards.
Kala looks furtively to the corner where Nos and his partner, Vitya, are talking quietly. Vitya had left earlier with Jude, but just now returned alone. Felix is there as well, watching television by her bed, but it's not his presence that worries her. Felix catches her glance at him and tips his head at her odd expression before his face lights up and he wags his eyebrows at her. "Is Wolfie here?" he whispers sotto voce.
"No."
"But someone else?"
"Yes."
Felix's eyes dart quickly around before he gives her a conspiratorial wink. "Hey boys!" Felix stands and interrupts the conversation between the Russians. He says something to them that causes three pairs of eyes to look back at Kala before they all quietly file out of the room.
"He's handy," chuckles Riley.
"Yes." Kala smiles back, feeling a surge of affection for Felix that is wholly independent of Wolfgang's. "Yes," she repeats. She turns her eyes to Will, gives a shrug. "I'm doing much better; I'm being released tomorrow. But you? How are you?"
"Me? Jesus, Kala, you must have hurt like hell." Will gives a faint huff at her dismissive shrug. "How's the pain?"
"It comes and goes." Kala smiles reassuringly. It is much more manageable now than the first night, although she finds it's too draining to visit her cluster. "And you?" she prompts.
Will sits on the edge of her bed, squeezes her hand with the one that isn't holding Riley's. "I'm perfectly fine; 100%. And it's thanks to you. You gave us a chance for a life while we ducked Whispers and BPO." He stops and looks carefully at her: "You know I'm here only because Whispers is dead?" he asks bluntly.
Kala nods, her face taking on a thoughtful expression. She looks at Will steadily as she voices a question she'd been turning in her head since earlier that day: "Did Wolfgang kill him?" Will and Riley exchange glances. Kala looks at them both and adds quietly: "I just want to know. He hasn't told me."
Riley gives a soft sigh. "We all agreed we'd try to stop Whispers if we have an opportunity," she says. "And we did. He and Wolfgang were supposed to be in Moscow within a day or two of each other. Nomi found out Matheson was meeting an investor at the same conference Wolfgang's aunt was at. Wolfgang called Anna for a favor."
Another favor, thinks Kala, catching her lower lip against her teeth.
"Your new med mimics disconnection for 10 minutes," Riley was saying, "maybe longer. We don't really know. Remember how we thought that was a problem? Well we thought we could use that to our advantage; make Matheson think Will is still disconnected while we...," Riley's hand flutters, as if sweeping away the unpleasant reality that they all actually planned a murder. "Will is an excellent shot, and Nomi's friend has a connection in Moscow. For weapons." She looks over to Will.
He gives a slight shake of his head and continues: "I was supposed to share Wolfgang's body and do it. Take the shot. And I did. But instead -," Kala has a sudden shared memory from Will: the firm, cold feel of the rooftop pressed against his/Wolfgang's body, shoulders and neck achy from a position held for too long; heart racing, mindful of time and opportunity slipping as he watches people on a deck several buildings away. She sees Wolfgang's aunt, Matheson, another man; hears a pop against his ear.
Kala's eyes grow wide. Her grip is tight in Will's hand. Anna?
Will frowns slightly. "Yeah...The man that was killed was someone kinda important," he says, "but he had enemies high up; they may look into who's responsible, but they won't look too closely. What they will do is look into his business dealings. He was loaded, and everyone wants a piece of it. Anna is right about that. It certainly brought attention to his connection with Matheson. Nomi agrees it'll bring down BPO faster than a rumor of BPO's involvement with Russian mafia."
Kala nods. She lays back against her pillows as Will recounts events she's missed, but Kala's attention drifts inevitably to Wolfgang.
She knows now why Wolfgang hasn't said anything to her: why there was an added tension about him that she thought was attributable to his debt to Viktor.
She knows him well enough to understand that Wolfgang always believed his mother was above everything: above the Bogdanows' ruthlessness; above the violence and roughness surrounding her; above being part of the Bratva. Despite signs to the contrary, he'd believed it of Anna, too: She is his mother's sister. To see Anna act with such cold deliberation. . . Kala can feel Wolfgang's shock, and her heart aches for his disappointment.
The knock on her door shakes Kala from her thoughts. Doctor Shah returns with a nurse to talk to her about her discharge, and before he arrives at the foot of her bed, Will and Riley are already gone.
...
In the late afternoon, Kala catches fragments of Nos' phone call in Russian. She presumes it's with Vitya. Whispers' men are dead. She thinks about this even as Vitya returns with Jude and Nos leaves with Felix to pick up Wolfgang from the airport.
It takes Kala a moment before she removes her heart monitor and sits up, carefully swings her legs to dangle from the side of the bed. She waits for the pain to subside before she tightens the strap of her hospital gown and reaches for the handles of the walker that Jude brings to her. His hands gently support her as she eases tentatively up and takes a step, then two, then more, her bare feet pattering softly on the cold linoleum floor.
At the foot of the bed, she pauses, turns to look at Jude. "I'm good," she says firmly.
"You're sure?"
Kala nods, smiles. "Jude, you are not coming with me."
He looks puzzled before he realizes she's heading to the washroom. He lets her go with an awkward laugh.
Vitya gets up and opens the door since the washroom is closest to him. "Madam." He waits patiently while Kala edges by and nods her thanks. Vitya closes the door behind her.
Kala locks the door, stares at her reflection in the mirror for a long moment. She had intended to wash up before seeing Wolfgang again: untangle her knotted hair and wash some of the weariness from her face. Lucy had thoughtfully dropped off toiletries the previous day. It matters to Kala that she looks presentable when Wolfgang sees her in real life again.
But instead, Kala thinks of a rooftop in Moscow, and sees Anna pushing Whispers over the ledge. She thinks of Vitya and Nos, and she imagines a messy gunfight killing Whispers' associates. She thinks she should feel something - horror, fear - but all she can feel is ambivalence. Maybe, if she is honest, relief.
Kala rouses herself to brush her teeth and wash her face. She wets a towel to clean her arms: There's glue from tapes where the IVs had been, and she scrubs carefully away at the sticky residue. She pauses before morbid curiosity gets the better of her: She leans back against the sink, lifts the gown over her abdomen to stare at the sutures. She counts almost 24 stitches, closing the opening the surgeon had made to shift aside organs, look for damage. It replaces the neat bullet hole and mars the smooth plane of Kala's belly. She touches around the area gingerly; thinks with a wave of regret of the beautiful red bridal lehenga that sat low to her waist. It would expose the rough line of the scar.
"You survived." Sun sits on her haunches and looks critically at the sutures. She turns Kala's hip, checks the stitches closing the exit wound, nods. "These will heal nicely. The scars won't be so large. Besides," she adds, a martial gleam in her dark eyes, "they suit you. You are a fighter."
Kala gives a shaky laugh. "Thanks." She lowers the gown gently. "But I won't be a perfect bride."
Sun stands up and leans against the washroom door, tilting her head, eyebrows raised. "Won't you?" she asks.
Kala turns her attention back to the mirror. She wets the comb, applies it to the tangles. "I can't hide the scar," she says quietly, focusing her attention on her hair.
When it's clear that no further words are forthcoming, Sun frowns and stares hard, trying to gauge Kala's mood. "There are many things we need to reconcile with ourselves when this is truly over," Sun says bluntly. "We must. We're no longer just...us."
"I know." Kala gives a faint huff, pausing at a particularly difficult knot. "But…" She doesn't finish her thought, frustration and uncertainty underscoring her words. How to explain her sudden moral crisis, because she isn't having a moral crisis? She feels no remorse in knowing Whispers is dead; that his associates were killed, probably by the man currently in her hospital room. Her true fear is in the impact of the last few days on Wolfgang: In the unspoken debt he owes to his family, and what it could mean for them. "I know how I should feel," she says quietly. "But I don't feel that way. At all."
Sun relaxes a little, gives a faint smile. "Don't over- think it," she advises quietly. "You will drive yourself mad going in circles, wondering what should be rather than what is. Be glad that you've survived. Give thanks for that."
Kala works the knot in her hair. She thinks of BPO and Whispers and the research she'd found at Rasal Pharmaceuticals; of data culled from real people. She was almost another name on that list. She doesn't regret Whispers' death. Or of his men.
Kala untangles the knot, turns her head, but Sun is no longer there.
"Thank you," she says anyway.
…
Kala insists that Jude go home; Lucy is there and leery of being alone. She tells Jude that Whispers' men are gone, but doesn't say how she knows this. Neither of the Russians said anything to her about them.
She's alone with just Vitya for company when Wolfgang finally arrives, later than expected, Felix and Nos behind him. Wolfgang's haggard face lights up at the sight of her, and she can feel her own answering smile. She doesn't notice that her hands are outstretched for him until he holds them in his. Their smiles grow wider at the frisson that passes between them.
Wolfgang bends to kiss her forehead gently. Kala releases her hold to curl a hand around his neck and brings his head back down for a proper kiss. She smiles into his mouth at his surprise, licks along his upper lip and tastes a faint sweet mint. He'd been smoking.
"I've missed you so much," she says fiercely, and he laughs at the unexpected greeting, touches his nose to hers.
"I've missed you too," he says. He moves away from her to speak briefly with Vitya and Nos. The Russians take their leave without much discussion, giving polite nods to Kala and Felix as they go.
"Did you send them away for good?" she asks. He pauses, glances quickly at Felix, and she leans back against her pillows. "I know they've already gotten rid of Whispers' men." Wolfgang suddenly stills.
"I told you!" Felix's groan is almost comical. "You can't hide shit with this mind stuff."
"I sent them home." Wolfgang looks at Kala with a wariness that wasn't there before.
"And I know what happened in Moscow," she adds quietly.
Felix looks from one to the other, clearly confused, but feeling the tension that suddenly palls what had been a happy reunion. He murmurs his excuses and exits, barely noticed by either of his friends.
"You know about Anna?" Wolfgang asks cautiously.
Kala nods.
He gives a humorless smirk, shakes his head. "Well, what do you think?" he asks her, folding his arms across his chest, eyes challenging. "Seems all this time, it wasn't just my father and his family who were monsters."
Kala's eyes glide over his face: There's a barrier again between them. She can feel it. Her brows furrow. "They are not you," she says sharply. He gives a shrug, smirks back, and she is suddenly engulfed in a wave of defeat: hers, his, she can't tell. It's as if he feeds her images of every horrible act he's ever committed, beginning with his uncle. "You promised me you wouldn't go," she says accusingly.
His eyebrows lift in genuine surprise. For a moment, he looks confused by her statement.
Wolfgang shifts his stance, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I didn't say I'd go," he answers. He watches, but her expression doesn't change. "I promised I'd be with you as long as you want me. I still mean it."
But she can feel all his old self-doubt bubbling just underneath the surface; a worry that he's born of evil. Why would she want him to stay?
Kala's face softens. All this time together, and he still feels unworthy of not necessarily her, but of a good life.
She pats the space beside her bed, a sad smile ghosting across her lips. He gives a pause before he takes the few steps, and, at her insistence, settles carefully beside her on the bed. She nudges, and he puts his arm around her, lets her lay her head on his shoulder.
"I don't know your family," she says, her hand resting on his chest. "But I know you."
She thinks of their time in Berlin, in Goa, and all the moments in between. There is good in him, and she pushes deliberately back against his darkness. She feels the tension ease slowly from his body. He settles back, holds her carefully. "Do you?" he asks. "Do you know me?"
"Yes, mera Jaan." She hears his heartbeat, firm and steady, beneath her ear. He's tired, and Kala lifts her head slightly to look at him, drags her fingers through his short, dark hair. "I kind of like this look," she says teasingly, watching his face wrinkle in disdain. He captures her hand, kisses it as she sighs and lays her head back on his shoulder.
"Then I'll keep it like this for you," he says, settling fully on the narrow bed, resting his cheek against the top of her head.
Kala gives a light chuckle, and closes her eyes. They lay in silence for several minutes.
She knows the exact moment when he falls asleep and follows soon afterward.
...
Wolfgang is permitted to spend the night in the room. When the nurse leaves after the last check, Kala eases over and they lay together in the hospital bed. He wakes up early in the morning before any of the staff return and settles the hospital bill in cash while Dr. Shah meets with Kala.
She's told that the doctors aren't sure what to make of the aberrations in her vitals and EEG, but they're not convinced of the accuracy of the brain images they'd been given, either. She's admonished to see a specialist, given instructions for follow up care for her wounds, prescribed non-narcotic painkillers and an antibiotic, and is finally released. Felix waits for her and Wolfgang outside and drives them back to Jude's place, where he's also staying.
Lucy and Jude wait with a honey cake to celebrate Kala's return. Lucy herds them into the kitchen where she cuts generous slices and insists that everyone take a piece. They sit or stand with coffees or teas, talking in low voices about the crazy events of the last few days following Kala's shooting: the men that arrive to question Lucy, look for Jude; Lucy's suspicion that she was followed; the ransack of the bedrooms. Lucy gives a shudder. "I thought Jude was crazy when he didn't want me to get help while you're bloody dying in front of me!" she says, eyes wide. Wolfgang squeezes Kala's hand, and she knows he'd feared the same thing. No one asks what happened to the men, or whether Nos and Vitya are still around. Without speaking of it, it's presumed that the problem is fixed.
Felix comments they need better locks and bolts and offers to take care of it with Wolfgang; it's the least they can do for Jude's hospitality.
"Do you think BPO will try again?" Jude asks. He glances beside Felix, and Kala knows his cluster is there, interested in the answer.
Wolfgang shakes his head, and Kala smiles at their own Cluster, settled in the kitchen, various states of clothing, listening: Nomi, Will, Riley, Capheus, Lito, Sun.
"We'll have to wait and see, but I doubt it." Wolfgang looks up at Jude. "They have bigger problems to deal with, now."
...
In the next few days, there's little news by way of conventional outlets outside of Russia: There are blurbs of Anatoly's murder, footnoted references to the man who fell to his death during the assassination. There's bolder news in the Russian papers that identify Anatoly as the head of a Russian drug cartel and confirm that the Kremlin froze his assets pending investigation. There had been speculation as to who was responsible for his death. Then Russian news goes radio silent.
Nomi finds a flurry of activity on the Internet on encrypted network sites that Amanita references as "dark web" or "deep web". All of Anatoly's immediate associates are busy disposing of or disguising incriminating material. It's not difficult to track who's who, once Nomi cracked cross-sites: vor that were openly operating can't bury themselves deep enough.
By the end of the week, reports begin to leak to mainstream media about documents showing Anatoly's involvement with quasi-private drug corporations: that he'd used them to further his illegal drug operations. An anonymous document dump to a western news service implicates BPO as a recipient of Anatoly's investment. It takes no time to link Matheson to BPO, and BPO to several nervous government organizations who'd provided funding and opened their research facilities.
Sun recognizes some of the information in the document dump from the Amsterdam records. She's peering closely at Nomi's computer screen when she finds what she's looking for: her company's name - or rather, its trading symbol - on a ledger, and initials that are more than likely her brother's beside it. The dates overlap transactions she'd questioned, and it's a way to connect her brother to the embezzlement of their company and the growing scandal consuming BPO. It's a project Nomi can sink her considerable hacking skills into.
And then silence in the mainstream news: at least, for those not with a vested interest and diligently scouring social media and other potential sources of information. Like Nomi. And Jude's Cluster-mate.
As predicted, government funding is quietly suspended to BPO pending investigations. Another anonymous document dump, a week after the first, implicates BPO in unethical research practices. Information on BPO becomes still more difficult to find.
But the traffic on the Internet, for those who know how to find it, is frantic: The facility in Iceland is shut down, and a warehouse in Chicago is suddenly descended upon by police and federal agents. Diego messages that the video from outside the abandoned church on the west side - where Will had seen Angelica kill herself - is a hot commodity.
The signs are promising enough that Nomi hires an attorney to feel out the possibility of her and Amanita coming out of hiding.
And Kala expresses a longing to see her family.
She raises the subject one morning, smiles and teases that it's time for Wolfgang to meet them. She invites Felix to come and provide moral support: Her father already likes Felix.
Wolfgang rolls his eyes and acts reluctant, but he's nervous and excited to meet her family. There's been no word from Anna or Viktor: She'd promised he can walk away. She seems to have meant it.
And it is time that he meet Kala's family.
So a little over a month after Kala returns from the hospital, she, Wolfgang and Felix say goodbye to Jude and to Lucy, and take a long drive back to Mumbai.
And head home.
A/N: Thirty eight chapters later and I finally finish what was supposed to have been a brief epilogue to "The End and the Beginning ".
Thanks to everyone for reading and for leaving reviews or messaging me: It gets tough slogging through a story, and your encouragement kept me going! (And really, Yoghurtfordinner and MuskateerAdventure, you guys rock. )
Special thanks to KinoGlowWorm, Foulbearhideout and Scaredofuhlek for translating random dialogue out of context, and Kino in particular for being an awesome beta reader. Thanks also to my sister for reading right before I post.
Here's to the Christmas Special and Season 2! I miss Wolfie and Kala :-)