Hannah comes over the night before they go, brings shepherd's pie and apple turnover ("honestly, how would you two without me?"), criticizes the disarray in the apartment before straightening the sofa cushions herself. And in their turn, Matt and Mello respond the way they always had, guilty smiles clashing with eye-rolling indifference – the way they always had, the way things always had been.
Once in a while, though, the facade breaks, false cheer cracks: during dinner, there is a moment when Matt pauses, seems on the verge of saying something to Hannah – but then he stops, lifts fork to mouth and continues eating.
Hannah, for her part, seems not to notice too much, but then again, her cheer was just as forced as theirs. Near-suicide attempts were always that much harder to deal with when you were on the sidelines, and her words to Mello were careful, preordered – as though he were some inordinately delicate piece of glassware she could break with a glance, shatter to piece with a word.
Mello wished they weren't. But he understood, and he supposed it better, after all, that she think their awkward silences and slipped smiles nothing more than residual tension, lingering fear of what could be.
An outdated fear, of course, especially when what will be was so much more terrifying.
Hannah leaves a little after nine, after helping put the dishes away and scolding Matt for his attempts to use the dishwasher ("honestly, for someone who cracks codes daily, this shouldn't be that hard –") before kissing him and grabbing her bag.
And then the apartment is empty, empty, and for a long time, the only sound is the whirling of the dishwasher.
Eventually, though, Matt flops down on the couch, flips on the television. Late-night news: Jackie Williams, one of the rising reporters. Lipstick, as always, immaculate as she talks about rising robbery rates, the national debt, Parliament, new developments and 0speculations in the Zodiac case –
Matt turned the TV off.
"Idiots," he says, voice too loud as he reaches for a controller with shaking hands¸ "going around and coming up with bullshit when they have no clue what's going on. Not helping anyone, the fuckers. C'mon, get over here," he said, turning to Mello, "let's play Halo or something. Good practice, right? For tomorrow–"
"Matt," Mello says, "you don't have to –"
"Oh, don't give that bullshit about don't have to go," Matt snaps, whirling around to glare at Mello with wild eyes. "Because guess the fuck what, Mels? This isn't your fight; this was never just your fight, not even from the start. It's beenmy fight the moment you latched onto this case and decided you had to be the one to solve it, and I'm damned if I'll see my best friend with any more bullet holes in him."
Turning back to his Xbox, Matt turns it on with more force than was necessary, and begins playing.
And after several moments, Mello leaves the room, the rat-tat-tat of digitized gunfire echoing behind him.
The thing was –
The thing was –
Ah, but that was the thing, wasn't it? The thing was that there was even a thing at all – because he shouldn't have been confused; he should have been agitated and worried and scared shitless that he could (probably would) die within the next twenty-four hours, because when you're about to face down the leader of four serial killers, you don't have time to be conflicted, don't have time for worry, should only be scared and shaking and terrified of death –
– and yet. And yet he was not. There was no fear as he thought about the possibility of his death, contemplated his body broken and slowly bleeding out, no fright, no terror, nothing. He did not want to kill himself – not now, at least, when he was so close to winning – but besides the frustration of losing to Near, he felt no emotion towards the thought of his death. It had been a risk from the beginning; he had accepted it then, and he accepted it now.
But. Butbutbut but. But the thing was –
– the thing was Matt.
Matt: his accomplice since they were young, his best friend since they had met. Matt, who could hack into any bank system in the world and yet took classes on C+; Matt who was barely twenty and who, with his goggles and consoles, looked even younger; Matt, who had a girlfriend, had an apartment, had a life; Matt, who still insisted that this was his fight –
In the end, it was not his death that Mello feared, but Matt's.
(Matt had been the one who had insisted on telling Hannah nothing – would be better for her, he had insisted, stop her from worrying. "Besides," he had said, "we'll be back in no time at all, she'll hardly have time to notice –")
Well. Mello hoped so. He had already taken all the precautions, adjusted and accessorized the Makarov pistols as best as he could, bought the best bulletproof jackets the blackmarket could offer, but still. Still.
There was still, after all that, one more thing he could do.
And so Mello went to the room Matt had let him store his things in, paused a moment, and then reached into the drawer and pulled it out.
Red and silver, carnelian beads dusty and silver tarnished from long disuse – but still, familiar as ever. Somewhere, between the tests and rankings, he had stopped using it; after Near had been chosen, he had stopped wearing it, but even now, months later, his hands found their place, the old, familiar Latin found its way to his lips –
"Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei –"
And there, as he knelt on the yellowed linoleum and for the first time in months, Mello prayed.
The next day, they wake up early, eat breakfast in the dim sunlight. Matt says nothing, does not look at Mello as he chews his toast. Mello, for his part, is silent as well, eyes far away and fingers mechanically moving the beads of the rosary around his neck.
And then Mello packs the equipment into the car, and then Matt finishes his coffee, and then they leave.
