Note: Thank you to all the kind souls who have left encouraging words on this story. I'm thinking of leaving this as the final chapter (as these vignettes could probably be spun in a never-ending fashion) - I wouldn't have been able to imagine that a little scene that popped into my head one day would have turned into this. Enjoy!
She knows he doesn't have a birthday, but she wonders if it bothers him. Most likely not, she thinks. But still…
There is this nagging urge for her to give him some part of childhood that he missed, if not only for Leo to be able to share in something with his father. But really it is because of the way he looks at her sometime, with wonder, at the simplest of things.
So she decides to give him something else to celebrate instead.
He's on another mission, and even though every time he leaves, she feels the clenching of her gut stay until the moment he arrives home, he's assured her this one should be short and easy, and she trusts him. She fills her days caring for Leo and planning a surprise to keep her worried thoughts from dominating her days.
When he returns, well past midnight – she's still up, reading in bed. He comes in so quietly every time, she never expects him. This time, he has splotches of dark red all over his shirt, and her heart drops like a stone.
"Are you hurt?" she asks.
He shakes his head. He methodically removes his shirt, careful not to smear anything with blood. He drapes it over one arm and heads into the bathroom, calm and steady as ever.
Nika, however, is shaken. She doesn't know how he can be so nonchalant, covered in blood, having been close to death and brought others to their death tonight.
He stays in the bathroom longer than usual, and she pictures him ridding himself of any trace of tonight's events.
"Are you okay?"
"Let's go to sleep, Nika."
Nobody else would know the difference, but Nika knows. She can hear the strain and fatigue in his voice. Where she might have pushed him a lifetime ago, she senses what he needs this time.
She pulls back the covers and takes his hand, pulling his heavy body towards the bed.
"Come on, I've been warming the sheets for you."
And she thinks she sees something in his eyes, something akin to relief, gratefulness maybe, as he nods tersely and climbs in under the covers with her. It takes a moment before she realizes it is the look of a lost child who's just made his way home.
The next morning, he's up before her as usual. She's just opened her eyes when she hears him getting dressed.
"What is this?"
He's standing over the dresser holding a black box, long and flat, in his palm.
Of course he can't go along with a surprise. Of course. She thinks about lying, but knows that wouldn't work for even a second, so she does what she always does with him – she tells him the truth.
"It's your anniversary present."
She knows he's surprised, but he does not show it.
"One year. Paper. They say. Well, I'm a little late so I've upgraded."
He opens the box. There's a slip of paper along with a tie – it's red, but skinnier than the ties he usually wears. Her husband unfolds the paper and smiles.
"Good for anything?"
"Yes, unless it's about Leo's future."
He smiles, a shy smile this time.
"Thank you."
He sets the paper down on the dresser and walks towards her.
"Happy anniversary," she whispers as she rises to kiss him, "it doesn't have to be a big deal or anything but I thought it would be nice, you know, to celebrate once in a while."
"It's nice. We can go into town for dinner tonight if you'd like."
"Did you like your gift?"
"Yes. I plan on saving it."
She laughs, looking towards the open tie box with a slip of paper resting on top.
Win one argument against Nika Sampson.
"Will you teach me to drive?"
"Yes."
He doesn't ask why, doesn't ask stupid questions about why not, doesn't really ask anything, just says yes.
He pulls the car off of the back country road and onto a flat piece of overgrown farmland. He gets out of the passenger seat calmly and opens her side of the door for her. As she slides into the driver's seat, she is bewildered by his lack of instruction. She was expecting a lecture, some sort of stern warning, anything really. But instead he reclines in the passenger seat and looks at her expectantly.
She has so many questions, so many things that she needs to know before driving this car, before putting both of their lives in danger. She has so many questions - so she asks them.
"What do I do before I put the key in?"
He tells her all the steps slowly, asking her if it was clear at the end of his list of instructions. She realizes what she once thought of as demanding and condescending in him is the non-judging instruction manual version of himself that objectively instructs, getting rid of any potential insecurity that would typically arise for Nika in this situation. It's freeing, his bland objectivity, and it allows Nika to ask all the things she's always wanted to know.
She asks him everything, from what the different gears mean to the difference between automatic and manual. He answers, patiently and with a seemingly endless knowledge. And then, after she's finished her initial barrage of questions, they drive. It's exhilarating, she thinks as she navigates the small sports car through the country back roads, taking a few of the turns too quickly and giving them both a scare.
After driving, she asks him to teach her how to pick a lock, just because she thinks it would be a useful skill. And that leads to her asking about forgery, which leads to a discussion on how to trace a paper trail. She learns that he was trained how to waltz, as any gentleman assassin would be, and she shyly asks him to teach her a few dance steps, which he does in the same non-intimidating fashion in which he teaches her all of these things. Anything she's curious about, she feels as though she can ask him, and he'll respond dryly if he either has the knowledge or does not.
He tells her one day, though, that it may be good for her to learn how to shoot. She doesn't bother to ask why; she knows he's preparing her for a day when she needs to defend herself, a day when he's unable to be at her side.
"Alright, I'll learn how to defend myself, for Leo's sake, but you better not plan on dying anytime soon or I'll go into the afterworld and bring you back myself."
She says this jokingly, but there's a sense of truth throughout her words.
"I'm not planning on it," he responds, very seriously and earnestly.
They've never really talked about the rest of their lives, about what their plan is, and if they want to grow old together. There were usually more pressing things at hand. But now she wonders if they've just decided to spend the rest of their lives together
She thinks, suddenly, about what they would each do if they were not married. She doesn't think any other man has the patience or the decency to understand her emotional scars. And she's certain no other man has his sense of loyalty, his sense of honor.
She wonders if he'd be happy with anyone else.
That thought has never crossed her mind before, and it jolts her mind into a thousand different thoughts. She talks a lot. Too much? She talks enough for the both of them, and he always listens to her no matter how inane the subject matter. And when he does talk, his words are never wasted. She thinks, sometimes, that he likes that she doesn't mind his silence and fills it with her chatter and words – and she thinks, in an even rarer sometimes, that he likes that the chatter and the words that she fills the space with.
And he loves her, she knows that. But given the chance, would he love someone else? The thought is unsettling for her, enough to ask the first question on her mind.
"Do you plan on us being married for the rest of our lives?" she blurts out.
He is still. Very still. Does he even blink?
"Yes. It's okay if that's not your plan, though."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'll still protect you and Leo, even if you decided you don't want to be married anymore."
Her heart drops. He would look after her and Leo without asking anything of her – how many men would even say that, let alone mean it? He wants to give her what she wants, she realizes, when nobody in her life has even thought to ask her what she wants.
And now, she lets herself ask the question that she always ignored and blocked out before. What does she want?
"I can't imagine my life without you as my husband," she answers slowly, deliberately.
Her husband blinks, as if she's just told him that it's raining outside or Leo needs a new diaper.
"Okay," he says, without embellishment or emotion.
But she knows him better now, she sees the smile rising through his eyes, the way he is breathing quicker than he normally would. The excitement in him is there, she knows it because of the way his lips turn at the corners, at how he sits there across from her and takes the time to look at her, staring into her as if to make sure this is what she does indeed want.
"Okay," she repeats after him, and then she throws her arms around him, kissing him hard as if to tattoo that promise into their souls. She breaks, gasping for air, smiling like a fool at him.
"Let's take a trip. I want to celebrate – it can be our honeymoon."
"Okay. Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere in the world. I have a list! Let's get in the yacht. My yacht," she gleefully says, "and sail around the world."
She decides she wants to sail to Greece. There are plenty of islands to dock around the way, plenty of places to pick up things for Leo along the way. Her husband has proven himself a fine captain and mechanic and nautical expert the last time (the only time) they were on board, and she has no qualms about her safety in his hands.
They set off the next week, after getting Leo's shots in order from the doctor and giving old Alexei and his wife Olga plenty of notice, leaving them in complete control of the vineyard. There's a number to reach their ship if necessary, but they've been told to use it only when necessary.
Nika has never felt this free before, her hair blowing in the wind, her husband at the helm of the ship. A few days before they leave, Nika takes her husband shopping – she forces him to try on shorts and swim trunks and bright colored cloth shirts. He's a good sport about it, for the most part, but she smirks a little remembering how he drew the line at the speedos she tossed his way. Not that he'll need him when they're sunbathing nude –
"Nika?"
His voice snaps her out of her fantasy-soon-to-be-reality, her husband has docked the ship, and is holding Leo who is trying to wriggle out of his grasp and into the ocean. She chuckles, holding out her arms to take her son so that her husband can jump down to the docks and tie down their ship. He makes quick work of tying up the boat, and before she realizes it he has the stairs to the dock lowered and is coming up to help her and Leo down.
Greece is phenomenal, ethereal. During the day, they walk the streets and see the sights, stopping to eat frequently. Nika wants to try everything, see everything. They even manage to get Leo to try some calamari at one point, both of them amused at the way his eyebrows wrinkle in confusion at the taste. At night, they sleep on the boat. Despite forty-seven's offer of lavish hotels rooms, Nika prefers the lull of the water to soothe her to sleep, being alone in the middle of the ocean, only not so alone among the vast darkness and incredible brightness of stars above her.
Nika has a list of things she wants to do, famous sites she wants to see, streets she wants to walk down. They try listening to a tour guide the first day, but Nika discovers – to her glee – that her husband seems to know everything the short little man is jabbering on about, so for the rest of the trip she makes him tell her and Leo everything he knows.
There are moments when Nika feels like she is in one of her daydreams, the ones she used to lose herself in to get herself to fall asleep at night. Strolling down the coast of Santorini, among the colorful roofs of walled houses, she wonders if she is indeed lost in a girlish dream of hers miraculously. Then, she feels the press of his hand against her waist and turns to see his other hand occupied with keeping Leo against his chest, and she is reminded that this is indeed reality.
Yes, it's all real, Nika muses, but no less miraculous.