A special thanks goes out to FiveBucksWorthy, who's been acting as a sort of unofficial beta reader for me, helping me maintain my sanity as I fuss over every sentence in this fic. Her input is much appreciated.

The cover can be viewed in detail on AO3 and DeviantArt.

CHAPTER I: ASTRONOMY

2 AM.

2 AM, and he had smoked the last cigarette in the box.

Time to get another.

Spy slowly rose out of his armchair, and walked his way through the velvety darkness to his dresser, his slippered feet padding over the carpet. He opened a drawer, found another pack just where he expected it to be, and pulled it open. His gloved fingers pulled out a slim cigarette, and he carefully held it between two fingers and lifted it into the corner of his mouth. His other hand pulled out a lighter. With a graceful flick of the wrist it opened, and a tiny flame pierced the darkness, casting a warm, orange glow onto Spy's balaclava'd face, as well as the white robe he was wearing. He lifted the flame to his cigarette and was rewarded with a curl of smoke, which shifted in the air like an ethereal veil, neither here nor there.

He closed the lighter with another flick, and the room was only lit by a single ember and the small, faintly glowing numbers of the alarm clock.

Many people might think that sitting up in one's room late at night without any lights on was strange. Eccentric. Something that a man as dignified as Spy wouldn't do.

Spy didn't care. He couldn't sleep, and he found the darkness comforting. He did this about every night, anyway.

Spy slowly breathed in the nicotine-laced smoke, and blew it out.

Standing up felt nice.

Soldier was going to bellow and wake the team at 4, per his usual custom.

Perhaps it was time to go for a walk.

Spy walked over to his bed, its covers and pillows ever tidy and neat, his suit and shirt folded up on top of the comforter. He put them on, slipped into his shoes, opened the door, and walked into the dark, empty hallways of the base.

As Spy walked past the room of his teammates, he heard three things: Soldier's snoring, the nonsensical German mutterings of Medic in his sleep, and the rustle of blankets in Pyro's room. Typical noises heard late at night in the base, besides the hum of the refrigerator and the whirr of the fans that served as their air conditioning. Spy silently walked forward across the wooden floor at his usual pace, his feet unconsciously avoiding boards that creaked. He had discovered those long ago.

Spy did not bother to cloak himself, for he knew that no one was awake. Not even Engineer, who often made a game of seeing how long his coffee could keep back the lulling waves of slumber that pulled at him as he worked on his machines. Today (or rather, yesterday), Spy had seen Heavy carry a sleepy Engineer over his shoulder when seven of the nine mercenaries had come home from a night of drinking. Even if Engineer had been awake, he wouldn't have seen the Frenchman on his nightly prowl. Spy slinked in the shadows and let the dim moonlight soaking through the windows reveal only dust motes drifting in the air.

He stopped by the stairwell. It was small. Cramped. You had to put your feet close to the walls, where the boards better supported your weight and didn't groan like Demoman with a hangover. It was difficult to avoid the four that slept up there if anyone decided to leave their room while Spy was looking around.

And there was one whom the Frenchman did not want to chance seeing tonight.

Spy absently touched the bruise on his cheek as he passed by the stairwell.

On some occasions, Spy saw his coworkers try to navigate the dark interiors of their base when they were too lazy to turn the lights on, or preferred to keep said lights from searing into their eyes. They bumped into walls. Stubbed their toes on corners. Cursed as they knocked into a chair or smashed into a table.

But not Spy. He had memorized where everything was, unlike his teammates, and thus he gracefully, noiselessly moved through the base like some silent spectre. No one would ever know he had been around. It was their loss. It was his gain. He had the whole base to himself, although with the caveat that he had to be quiet. Something like that was negligible for him, however. Spy could do anything he pleased and the other mercenaries would be none the wiser, as long as he was careful about it.

Spy was very careful. He had hidden Demoman's haggis recipe in a dusty out-of-the-way corner so the Scotsman would forget about it, he had sampled some of Sniper's family moonshine, which he spat out and then almost poured the whole bottle down the sink, and he had found Engineer's secret stash of Jane Austen novels. Spy had even stolen a slice of one of Heavy's jealously guarded specialty sandwiches. It tasted exquisite, and he wondered if that taste was somehow related to the sandwich's healing properties. Of course, Spy didn't stop at just touching personal belongings. He also replaced Soldier's coffee with the Mann Co. Extreme blend once. The American had rattled all over the base like a patriotic jackhammer. Simply incredible. Oh, and how could he forget that time he swapped out the salt with the sugar? Medic was infamous for dumping excessive amounts of sugar into his tea to test how much his body could take, and the way he looked when he finally sipped it that morning was priceless. Spy would have never guessed that a human face could rearrange itself to look like a Kicasso painting.

And despite the pranks, the thievery, the snooping, no one ever caught Spy in the act or guessed he was guilty. Not a soul.

He wondered if they found any of it as funny as he did. Or maybe they were just too dimwitted to guess.

Spy smirked and shook his head as he neared the back entrance of the base.

Now, there was only so much you could do during the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes poking through his teammates' belongings turned up nothing. Sometimes he didn't feel like nibbling on leftovers. Sometimes he couldn't think of a new way to prank his teammates. Sometimes he was very tired, and his back ached, and he needed to sleep. He couldn't, though, no matter how much he tossed and turned beneath his silk sheets, no matter how long he let his eyes run over the minuscule cracks in the ceiling's paint, no matter how much he tried to stop thinking and just lay there.

The Frenchman came to a dark, unassuming door, the only barrier between him and the empty, open desert of Teufort, New Mexico. He lowered his hand to the cold, brassy knob.

Medic knew that Spy was an insomniac and had offered his assistance, but Spy had turned down the offer. His body had a habit of growing accustomed to sleeping pills, and eventually they stopped having any effect. He also didn't want to let Medic get "experimental," despite the doctor's skill. He was not so desperate as to trust that deranged surgeon.

Spy knew there was only one cure for his insomnia. And that was sleeping in Christine's embrace.

Before he had met her, he was a light sleeper. He usually got in a full, uninterrupted seven hours. However, ever since he fell in love with her, he could not rest unless he was with her. There was something about an empty bed that was so cold and uninviting. There was something about her that was so comforting and warm. He could believe her when she said she loved him. He could believe that she held no grudge against him for leaving her alone with her sons in her Boston apartment over and over. There was genuine love in her little smiles, her stolen kisses, her impassioned whispers. She remembered his favorite wines, she scrubbed out any bloodstain in his suit, and she was ever so patient when he got into a fuss over the various skin creams he liked using. It was as if she had some infinite reservoir of love and forgiveness that never ran out for him, despite his errors. Despite the things he had done during the war.

He had slipped a few times. He had slipped, in his weakest moments, when Christine had found him staring into the distance, his face a blank mask of neutrality, and yet tears sliding in burning trails down his cheeks and soaking into the fabric of his balaclava. Those were the times Spy had admitted what he had done. The people he had killed slowly. The people he had shot "mercifully". The blackmail, the bombings, the assassinations…

And she made him tea. Wiped the tears away. Talked with him about it. Sometimes Christine looked on him with disappointment, yes, but it always gave way to her telling him that he could be better. He could change. He wasn't stuck in the grave he had dug himself.

He tended to prove her wrong, as he inevitably left her side whenever he visited her. But when he came back, she always welcomed him home with that smile. That warm, gentle smile that made him fall in love with her moreso than before, every time he saw it.

Why?

Why did she put up with him? Why did she forgive him?

Spy opened the door and stepped into the night air, and the light breeze on his face almost felt like her caress.

His leather shoes brushed softly across the dirt as he silently shut the door behind him, thanking himself for oiling the hinges. The various empty supply crates that littered the backyard lay in a random jumble of blocky, dark shapes, hidden in the shadow of the building. The rough edges of mountains and hoodoos on the horizon were lit by the blue light of the moon and stood out from the darkness, making it appear as if someone had scribbled with a drafting pencil on the sky. There was a serene, quiet stillness to the scene, and Spy heard no noise besides the whisper of the breeze, his hushed breath, and the thud of his heart, which was more a feeling than a sound.

As he walked forward, absentmindedly weaving around the crates, Spy craned his head to look up at the sprawling myriad of stars above him. The silver pinpricks of light moved with an imperceptible slowness in their nightly procession across the sky. They were his only companions at hours like these, when all the world was asleep, and their familiar, unchanging patterns gave him some comfort. He learned their places and the names of the constellations long ago in order to navigate in the darkness, to know where to go no matter where he was. They had saved his life several times, either when he had gotten himself lost, when he had escaped from the Nazi's clutches during the war, or when he was required to flee into hiding yet again. The only time he could not rely on them was on cloudy nights.

Les étoiles were old friends that he was always glad to see. And at least he knew when they wouldn't be there for him.

Above his head was the constellation Cygnus, flying across the heavens on glimmering, lustrous wings. Cygnus was always easy to spot because of the cross formation that formed his body. In the south, amidst the shining stardust of the Milky Way, Scorpio waited to strike. Spy could see the fishhook shape of his tail poking just past the edge of the RED base. In the east, Aquarius poured endlessly from his pitcher. He was stationed just above the horizon, and tonight he was joined by the steady, bright gleam of Jupiter.

To the north, the queen Cassiopeia sat in her chair, staring into her mirror, consumed by her vanity. Below her lay Andromeda, sacrificed to pay for her mother's sin, abandoned and alone.

To the north, the bear Ursa Minor held in its tail the unmoving Polaris, the guiding North Star around which the heavens turned, the most important star in the sky. Around Ursa Minor, Ursa Major circled protectively, guarding its child amidst the darkness of the night.

The loving Ursa Major. The selfish Cassiopeia. And Spy was…

No.

Spy refused to end that line of thought. He wasn't going to think about it.

Not… that.

Nothing good would come of getting angry again. And he needed more time. He already knew what he'd say to his teammates about it anyway.

Spy looked away to the east, and continued to walk through the backyard. But as he walked, Spy tripped over a stray rock, and as he caught himself, his side bumped against the hard edge of a crate. On any other night, he would have merely grumbled. Tonight, he swore as it dug into a part of his body that still ached from the fight earlier that day. The fight that had torn his left sleeve, scraped his elbows, bruised his cheek, the fight that Christine would give him an earful over if she found out.

Christine had given Spy three things: love, insomnia, and Scout.

Scout, who was the spawn he had sired.

Scout, who was an annoying, uncultured, irresponsible, prideful, stupid little brat.

Scout, who ran around willy nilly on the battlefield, getting nothing important done, contributing nothing and yet acting like he the only important member of the team when really, he was only a worthless piece of sh*t.

Scout.