Rome
A single bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, over the cuts that stretch like canyons in his skin, over the dirt and soot,
Down,
Down,
Down to sting in his eye, and he blinks at the sensation, but does not move to brush it away.
He turns the shower on as hot as it will go.
The water is scalding across his flesh, but does nothing to penetrate the cold he is wrapped in, and he scrubs until his skin is red to match the tint of the water being washed down the drain, blood and tears and soap racing together in holy water towards absolution.
Dozens of images of himself stare back from his shattered mirror. He does not recognize any of them. They hold his same high cheekbones, his same five o'clock shadow, his same strong jaw, but the eyes that look at him are hollow, like cathedrals on Tuesday nights, when not even a whisper of a prayer remains.
He cleans the blood from the porcelain sink before it has time to dry, but leaves the glass for tomorrow.
The scotch does not burn as sweetly tonight.
Tonight it is a reminder of seven, no, not seven. They had been seven, but now they were not, and perhaps not ever again, but maybe, and it is the wondering, the black-tinged limbo in which he now finds himself, that has him paralyzed on his couch, the wondering more than the concussion and stiff muscles and bone-deep weariness from a bomb that killed four agents, not his own, or maybe more, those ones were his.
He downs it like a thirsty man in a desert anyway, and finds he does not mind the burn as long as he drinks quickly enough.
His cell phone rings with a familiar unfamiliar number, but he wants to finish his drink, so he doesn't answer. The hospital will call someone else, and he will be called Schrödinger, as he stays in this place in space and time when he is part of maybe seven and maybe less.
When the amber liquid is drained from his glass, his phone rings again. He sighs in relief when he is told that seven is still his lucky number.
The knock on his door startles him, and doesn't.
He pulls it open and knows by the look of her that they've reached the end of whatever little game they've been playing; she has made a decision, but he doesn't know what it is, and he's made a decision too, but that one is just as much of a mystery to him, and her eyes are warm and sharp and hard and soft, and he doesn't know how she does it, but then she reaches for him.
His step back startles them both.
And then her eyes are only brown, brown and nothing else, and he steps forward again, reclaiming the distance he had introduced, and he reaches to catch her wrist in the air in front of him, brings it to his lips and whispers a kiss to her pulse where it thrums against his fingertips.
He would kill and die for this woman. Has killed and lied for this woman. Stood side-by-side with her today as they were almost blown to smithereens, watched as two of their own were carted away to be tended to and the remnants of four more were draped in white. Trusts her more than anyone else.
He does not answer her when she asks what happened to his hand.
She comes willingly to him when he pulls her against his chest, her head tucking under his chin like it belongs there, like it has always belonged there and nowhere else, and then his lips are on hers, and it is sweet and full of love and desperate and needy, and he thinks that this is what it would be to kiss an angel, because she feels like the deepest of sins.
But he is the autumn to her summer, her death is inevitable in his hands.
He kills her with the softest kiss.
"Emily," he says, but the rest of his words die as she tips her head to look at him. He can read the question in her eyes before she speaks it.
Ten thousand thoughts race in his mind, and he wants to speak all of them. He wants to ask her to come in, wants to know if she always tastes like the faint bit of chocolate on the tip of his tongue, wants to beg "Tell me every hidden piece of yourself. Tell me the name of the monster who lived in your childhood closet. What is your first memory of the color red? In which aisle of your mind does serenity live? Do you love yourself? If I stole you of your breath, would you breathe again? What do you see when you dream? Why do you shower in the dark? How do you break me with such ease? How do you touch my soul so casually?" He is desperate to tell her that he loves her, to whisper "We could be gold, and gold, and gold again", to confess how long he's looked for a place to worship, and Oh, she puts him on his knees.
But glory, glory, glory sounds like a punchline, and he can't say any of that, so instead he sends her a small, sad smile and says "See you tomorrow", but he knows he won't, because she is the goddess of golden sunshine, and he is the god of fallen leaves, and they will not meet again.
It took decades to build Rome and half of one to build them, but in the end both the city and whatever might've been burn in a day.
A single tear rolls down his cheek, over the dimples that have been missing for years, over the lips that will now only smile for his son,
Down,
Down,
Down, to drop on her resignation papers in front of him, and he blinks at the faint plop as it lands next to the line awaiting his signature.
His fingers do not shake as they brush it away.