Carve
Most of the time he is able to breathe. He can move as though the memory of her does not haunt his every step, as though he had not carved her from his chest with the precision of a surgeon and the determination of a toddler in the possession of a marker he knows he is not supposed to have. The body was his, the blood was not, but the remembrance of slick on his skin rarely consumes him. He cannot afford for his hands to shake when they are all that keep his son alive, cannot allow the ache in his belly to make him regret running for Jack's life, and even after the danger has passed and they are offered plane tickets back to the life they'd fled, he is able to push the overwhelming urge to return to her to the farthest recesses of his mind.
Except today. Jack is grown, finding his way in a world that his father no longer knows, following footsteps he wishes he had never set out for him to trail, and it has been years since he has smelled cherry blossoms on the breeze in the way that spring greets Washington. He'd come to share lunch with his boy, had intended to leave immediately afterward, but the temptation of home was no match for the small house he'd be returning to in rural Maine. He'd kept tabs on them, his gaggle of misfit toys that had somehow stitched itself together into something resembling a family, so he knew that he wouldn't find them all here. But, then, he wasn't looking for all of them.
The visitor's badge clipped to his sweater chafes where it wears against his flesh, sharp teeth biting through the knit fibers to rub at his skin, a reminder that he belongs here no longer. The ride in the elevator is achingly familiar, but the music is different and he wonders when they changed it, wonders if it was at her insistence – she'd always hated the tinny tune it had played before, and suddenly the dam breaks and he is flooded with her. Regret sinks in, but before he can hit the button that will take him back into anonymity, the doors open. His mentor is there, and for once, it seems, the younger man has managed to surprise them both, but the second it lasts is fleeting, and then he is pulled into a hug that is too tight and not tight enough. He is led by the grasp on his shoulder through doors that used to bear his handprint into a bullpen that is startlingly the same as it has always been just as she is coming around the corner, JJ faithfully by her side. It is a punch to the gut when he sees her, and she must think so too because she freezes as he does, only startled back to life when the blonde beside her squeals and launches herself at him. The fuss she makes does not go unnoticed in a room of federal agents, and soon he is surrounded by a sea of agents, some he knows, some he doesn't, all pretending to be glad to see him. Not all of them are pretending, of course, but she is. The smile she'd pasted on her face in the nanosecond it took him to blink was the one she'd learned from her mother, but it was convincing enough. Her eyes, though, had always given her away, and the way she studiously refuses to meet his gaze tells him everything and nothing he needs to know.
He supposes this is what Cain must've felt like, both the murderer and the mourner, the keeper of the dead he had himself slain.
The rest of his afternoon is filled with laughter and reminiscence, but she is notably absent, begging off with meetings she must attend. The apology she offers is insincere at best – they both know that she could find her way out of them if she wanted – but her lie and his acceptance of it are the only things they can offer each other now, so they both take them greedily and pretend that they don't recognize the symbolism for what it is.
He had tried to get out of dinner, had cited an early morning and a long drive back north, but he'd underestimated the weight his absence had placed on his friends, and they were loathe to let him go so quickly, so he'd promised to meet them at an old favorite, Jack in tow. He is nearly bowled over by Garcia upon arrival, almost doesn't recognize Henry and is in awe of Michael. He is breathless, though, when she enters on the arm of another. Of course he had wished all good things for her, had hoped she would find happiness and even love again, though he would not, but he had not expected to have to bear witness. Had not expected to see her tangle her fingers in a hand that was not his own, her jagged edges glimmering in the light, looking as though they would still fit in his hollow spaces.
He catches her eye, or she catches his, or they catch each other. It doesn't matter. They don't speak. There is too much hope there, and it tastes like poison. He busies himself with getting to know his friends again, uncomfortably unfamiliar with them after all this time, and each passing second tastes more like bitter regret until he excuses himself to the washroom for the chance at a minute alone. He pauses to watch her as he comes back to the table, feels himself flinch at her laugh. This had been a mistake from the beginning.
He still loves her. She still loves him. It was never going to be enough, and love is now a weapon to be used against them instead of the promise it had started as.
When, mercifully, the evening ends, he finds himself walking with her out of the restaurant, and for a fleeting second, he considers reaching for her hand, if only to remind her that they'd always fitted perfectly together. If remembering had been the problem, then he probably would've done so, and they would've carried on exactly where he'd left them all those years ago. But she'd always had an excellent memory, she didn't need reminding. The burden of guilt sits heavy in his stomach as she walks away. It settles infinitely heavier as he turns and does the same.