Kay
I could not be more thankful for Mia and everything she had done for me. Just being out of that apartment made me feel better. Spending time with little Dietrich sure helped as well. She took so much of her own time to be there for me, to basically do my moving for me, I had no idea how I'd ever repay her. She would just say, 'what is family for?' and move on. Once I was over all of the shit that had happened I would have to repay her big time for everything from covering for me when I left home until now.
She was gone for a lot longer than I would have expected and I started to worry. As I was about to go looking for her, she walked into the room, the final paperwork for my apartment in her hand and the baby in his sling on her front.
She handed me the papers without a word, sitting on the bed next to me. I looked at the paper and paused for a moment. It stated that I would not be getting my security deposit back due to severe damage to my door. 'Did you break into my apartment?'
She looked back at me with her usual quiet calm. 'I didn't do it. She sighed. 'Sometime between the movers getting to the apartment, me coming back here to get Dietrich, and getting back to the apartment, someone broke in.'
I felt like there was more to the story that she wasn't telling me, but I had neither the energy nor motivation to ask- especially seeing that both Mia and Dietrich were unharmed. I didn't want to deal with filing a report, all of the questions that would come with that, and the people I used to work with. No, if the movers wanted to, they could. I was staying out of it. It was highly unlikely that anyone would have gotten anything valuable. Anything of value that hadn't been left with Mia when I heft had already been taken by the movers to be shipped back to Ulm.
More than ready to leave all of the drama and pain behind me, I looked to Mia. 'I was foolish to even come here. It was a risky move, and I'm sorry I put you in the position I did. Especially with Dietrich coming and…'
Mia cut me off. 'No. You took a chance on something that meant the world to you. Everyone deserves that chance. I was only glad that I could help you take that leap. And now I'm here, helping you get back up. Take as much time as you need to get yourself together. We are set up well enough that you have quite a while before you have to worry about finalizing your transfer.'
She was right. Maybe it would take time, a lot of time, and the comfort of the two people next to me would make the world a little brighter each day.
Marc
Frank approached me a few days later, asking if I was ready to go back to work. After the conversation with the strangest woman I had ever met, I felt more myself again, and definitely more certain of what I wanted. The shift was an easy one, nothing crazy or out of the ordinary. There was a distance between the other guys and me, a fog hanging around me that just wouldn't lift. I moved slowly, taking my time to change back into my normal clothes. Limpinsky must have been held back because he finally came in as I was getting ready to put my shoes on. I could hear him muttering about Kay, about him "making a run for it".
I wanted to protest, to say it wasn't true. It was all my fault, but I couldn't. That same fear paralyzed me. He continued on with speculating why Kay was here and what else he may have been hiding. I wanted to punch him then for that, on top of wanting to beat him for how he beat Kay. No remorse. Instead, I looked at him and told him to shut it.
He made his way toward me, still in uniform, and pulling out his nightstick. As he began to make lewd gestures with it, asking if I wanted a suck, I had had enough.
'You'd like that' I said to him with a smirk. The lights seemed to click on for him then and he got a disgusted look on his face as he asked if something was going on between us.
'That's disgusting!'
He grew more and more belligerent and insulting before I finally rose to my feet, following the suggestion of my not so rational brain, doing something he would least expect- I kissed him full on the mouth. That did not make him happy. Rather, it incited his anger further and he punched me. I wanted to laugh. Nothing he could do would hurt me more than I was already hurting on the inside. I glanced around, the locker rooms were empty aside from the two of us, no sign of Frank or the other officers.
I continued to egg him on and he began getting more violent, to the point of using his polezei issued nightstick to hit me. While I was on the ground, I couldn't help but wonder if this was how Kay felt when Limpinsky beat him. Did he use his nightstick then, too? I felt that the beating was something I deserved. For all of the pain I had caused those around me, I deserved to feel at least this.
The noise must have reached Frank as he came running in, pulling Limpinsky away from me, shouting 'You've had it now' at him and pushing him away. Frank came over to me then, checking if I was alright. I pushed him away from me, grabbed my bag and walked to my car, not once looking back. There was no need to. I knew what would happen. Frank would get Limpinsky suspended for assaulting a fellow officer, with polezei equipment no less, and Limpinsky would either be transferred or I would. There was no way they would keep us together after that. Hate crimes weren't categorized here as they were in other nations, and were mainly ignored. If I did report him for more than what Frank would write him up for, and he was transferred, it would endanger Kay as I didn't know where Kay had gone and Limpinsky could very easily end up in the same area. For all I knew, I could put Kay in danger again. No, I had to leave.
I climbed into my car and drove toward home. Or, what used to be home. It all hit me at once. I couldn't go back, I couldn't get anything back. It was a brave new world and I was as lost and afraid as a child who didn't know where their parent had gone in a crowd. Alone, lost, and afraid- and it was entirely my fault.
Bettina
Something had happened to Marc at work, but Marc being himself didn't want to talk. I had felt something changed when he came in, and the new bruising on his face only confirming my suspicions. Despite the injuries, he seemed more at peace with himself than I had ever seen him. More decided with things as well, certainly more confident than he had been in a while.
After putting Benno down for a nap, I went out back to sit, giving Marc the chance to come to me when he was ready- a lesson I had learned through all of this. I felt much more comfortable and peaceful as well, more ready to take on whatever the future would throw our way.
After a time, he came and sat, admitting that things couldn't keep going as they were. That he couldn't keep going. I agreed. Something was different between us then. I felt it and so did he. We no longer depended on each other as we had, but we knew that we could be unified for Benno, even if in a different way than we had originally planned.
I saw the pain in his face, how crushed he was when he and… Kay split. He was upset when I left, yes, but he was in utter anguish when Kay was gone. I looked at the man next to me, the father of our son, a strong man- a very different man from the one I had loved with my whole heart- and said 'Go get him'.
Notes:
I apologize for the long wait- my family was thrown a pretty big curveball (multiple, actually) and we have had to make a lot of changes. The world kind of froze for the last couple of weeks, but we are all slowly getting back to 'normal'. Thank you all!
