This one's been haunting me since I heard The National's "Weird Goodbyes" last spring, and while it has taken me almost a year to work it out (a year where I have grown in new ways myself, but a year too where I have thought this to be a doomed project, or a great one, my last fic or a new direction for them all at once) in the end I am glad to finally release it regardless of what happens next. Be sure to give the song a listen alongside the story!

Enjoy ~

"Memorize the bathwater, memorize the air

There will come a time I'll wanna know I was here

Names on the doorframes, inches and ages

Handprints in concrete at the softest stages"

- "Weird Goodbyes", The National (feat. Bon Iver)

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!...How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"

("The Crucible", Arthur Miller)

Driving just past sundown, when quiet rain clouds had already snuffed out the blazing ember of the sky, Twilight was struck with the realization that he'd misspelled a word in his goodbye letter. The whole of the letter flashed before his eyes on the road with such clarity that he had to look past it through the windshield. There, paragraph 2: recieved - he'd switched the i and the e, a child's mistake, unacceptable. He slammed his hand against the horn, without thinking; it was the only target available. The blaring horn made him jump, and then he slammed his palm into the soft mottled leather of the steering wheel again in revenge. A car beside him honked back. The driver flipped him off, sped away. Twilight beeped once more for good measure.

Misspelled. A mistake. Behind the anger at himself, he felt a kind of falling feeling, as though his car was careening off a cliff. His one concession to the former Forger family was that letter, and the knowledge that he wasn't dead - a bastard yes, a deadbeat father, but alive, somewhere, in the world. It took him a month to write the single page. He'd sweat so much while writing it that his damp hands ruined the first few drafts. Stained them transparent, crinkled the edges like homework that water was spilled on. Yor, Anya...they hadn't suspected anything. He looked at them with dread the whole month, as though he could read in their future the signs of eventual and unavoidable disaster.

In reality, he had been their disaster the whole time. They'd be better with him gone.

He kept driving. The clouds above took on darker shades, autumn clothes. They weren't the flat bottomed portents of a thunderstorm, but promised rain nonetheless. As the city fell away further behind him the roadside gave way first to suburbs, and then to the farms which fed Berlint. Cornstalks stretched to the sky like pencils stuck into the ground. Rows of leafy green vegetables flourished, leaves open for the coming rain. The scent of earth and ozone sank in through cracked windows, mud and muck and and the smell of wet animal. He'd grown up in a small town, playing at the borders of local farms. Friends had pulled harmless pranks like teasing cows with wheatstraw, or chasing pigs. Twilight couldn't remember when they'd stopped. Sometime before the war, yes, but not long. After the war began, farms were simply parts of patrols; temporary bunkers, occasional battlefields. His was the only car on this stretch of road, but, as was his training, he glanced through the rear-view for possible enemies tailing him. The lack of anything suspicious was suspicious enough. He couldn't get rid of the sense that he was being followed by dangerous actors, by things dark and predatory. Guilt, too. Guilt always.

Perhaps only guilt.

Guilt was an incessant gnawing, and it seemed to grind the memory of the first time Anya had gotten sick enough to worry into his skull - why that memory in particular, he could only guess. It was during their first year together. She hadn't woken up that morning for school.

"Come on Anya, or you'll miss the bus." he'd called outside of her closed door. Yor readied herself in their shared bathroom, and in the hall he could hear the rushing water of the sink. Normally she would handle Anya in the morning, but Yor had come home late the evening before, staggering just a little, and had woken up late in turn. He knocked again on Anya's door. No response. Only a little bitterly Loid opened the door. At first, the stagnant heat of the room assaulted him, and then the faint smell of sweat and sick. He found Anya curled in on herself, shivering, sweating, green.

"Anya," he called, "Are you up?"

Only a groan in response. His daughter tightened her hold on the stuffed chimera toy in her hands, and shivered again. For the first time in many years Loid felt unsure of himself, almost helpless.

He'd never had to deal with a sick child on any of his missions.

For a moment he considered turning on his heel, closing the door, and leaving home. He could tell Yor that he was late for a meeting, could dash out and leave it up to his dear, (fake), wife. Anya wasn't really his daughter.

But if she was sick, Operation Strix couldn't go on.

But if she was sick...his heart ached. He didn't want her to be in pain. Twilight didn't want that, and Loid didn't want it even more. He thought again of turning on his heel, this time heading to the bathroom door, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Is she up yet?"

"She's ill," he said.

"Oh goodness! Does she have a fever?" She'd begun to walk into the room, then stopped, eyes questioning. After all. Anya wasn't really her daughter. There were...boundaries.

Anya wasn't Loid's daughter either, but she didn't know that.

Placing a hand on Yor's back, he walked her into the room. His movements were slow, awkward, but his acting was as sharp as ever. All the rest was out of his out of his comfort zone, his area of expertise. He scooped the girl into his arms and his heart made a funny kind of jolt he couldn't recognize. She was so small. Had she always been? And she was too warm when he felt her damp, sticky forehead with his own.

"She has a fever," he said to Yor. Then, he was the one pleading with his eyes. This was her specialty - care, motherly instinct. Anya felt like a bundle of broken toy parts in his arms but he trusted that Yor could put the girl back together. She'd already raised her brother, and all things considered, Yuri had turned out healthy...at least in body, if not in mind.

With a kiss to their daughter's forehead, Yor confirmed. "A fever. Oh, poor Anya, Do you...would you like me to call the doctor?"

"You'd stay with her today?" he asked. In the back of his mind, a mission he had lined up for that afternoon was falling lower and lower in importance. He'd never felt this concerned about anyone involved in his missions, and so suddenly too. It was as if the aim of Strix was no longer getting close to Desmond, but instead was about treating Anya above all else.

"Of course! If, um, you'd be okay with me taking care of her?"

Of course he would, Loid wanted to say, Yor was more of a real mother to Anya than he would ever be to her as a father.

But the words which instead passed through his lips were, "How about we both stay home?"

There was a pause - he paused, as did she - and Loid was not sure exactly when his tongue had taken on the task of betrayal.

But he didn't take it back either. Perhaps his heart was a traitor too. Yor nodded, and she smiled, and worries about world peace fell away quietly for a little while.

They took care of Anya together for two days. Delirious days. Days filled with warm compresses, with chicken soup and bedtime stories at noon and 3. Bondman marathons for the sick little one, card games and a glass of wine for he and Yor while Anya slept. Bond, the dog, didn't leave her side the entire time. In moments where he dozed on the couch - Yor on his shoulder, Anya's head on his lap - Loid thought of his mother. He hadn't thought of her in ages. In his childhood eyes she herself was the cure when he was sick. But maybe it was more like this; care itself was not the cure - how could it be? - it was the salve, it was the crutch, it was the cast. Would Anya remember him the same way, he wondered? Should she?

He rubbed her head with his hand and tried to stop his thoughts. There was an episode of Bondman on in which Loid tried to lose himself.

!

Twilight stomped his foot on the brake inches before slamming into one of the only other vehicles on the road. Thankfully, the car behind him was quite far back. His breath was ragged, his chest tight as though he were tied to a chair. Compressed. Crushed. He remained stopped in place in the middle of the lane, the car in front of him growing into a distant star the color of a brake light. He was all out of sorts, inattentive and hyperactive like a child who stayed up all night. There had been days-long missions where he'd had less sleep than his tossing and turning the night before, his last night as Loid Forger, and yet never before had he felt so drained, so unfocused. Maybe it was age, he thought, or the toll of his years of turbulence. Maybe it was the dying of the man he became. As he slowly accelerated again he couldn't say.

Recieved. Twilight thought again of the misspelled word. Then, the rest of the sentence reappeared in his head. "I've recieved so much undo love and kindness from you both". It was his concession to them. A confession, almost. He felt the desire to write a dozen letters to Yor and Anya, to explain how three years of their lives together were fake, but better than anything real he'd ever had, and at the same time he was totally bereft of words, like a man who was hungry but grew sick before even a bite of offered bread. The letter had been all that he could bleed out of himself. Still, he thought it better than letting them think he died, as Sherwood initially ordered. Strix had taken three years, and quite a bit more money than planned, but it was a success. He'd gotten close to - and neutralized (politically, economically) - Desmond a month before, having him ruined and torn from the power and influence he once held while destroying his political party in the process. Twilight should've written it all off after that, let the persona drop, like usual. But it had been too late for that. In the end, a criminal who returned nightly to rob the same place was bound to be caught, and there was little distance between 'spy' and 'criminal'.

But only a letter, and only a month, to wrap up three years of life? To tie up loose ends? Dead was wrong. Deadbeat a little better. A part of Twilight wanted to race back home so that he could pull the letter from where he'd placed it, on top of the record player they'd danced around so often. As the mile markers passed, he felt the possibility of returning to the apartment before they found the message grow smaller and smaller, and with it, that sinking feeling in his gut once more became a free fall into a churning abyss.

Through the leather of his driving gloves slipped the ghost of Yor's hair. It came to him just as suddenly as the letter had, and the memory of Anya's cold - the physical sensation more clear and immanent than the crinkle of the leather steering wheel, or the tightness of the new shoes he wore. Possibly it was because he'd finally seen, there, in the back of his car, Yor's heavy, red, winter coat. He cursed. He hadn't cursed so often since Strix began, but who, now, was he censoring himself for? She must've left it the last time he picked her up from work, or after a date night. She loved that coat. There, near the collar, stuck an errant strand of Yor's hair and with it, the memories it'd formed in him. The lock was a color blacker than the night was promising to be, and truer besides.

Three years was a long time to pretend to love someone.

In the end a lie, extended long enough, becomes truth. But just when everything had changed, he puzzled? Was it one day, one definitive date that, if he were to write up the full report of the Forger operation, he could point out with the objectivity of that day's weather (at risk of a painful bout of 'decommissioning')? Or had it been a gradual process: every day, a meter or scale measuring the immeasurable, objectifying the subjective, ticking towards a new reality where, on one end, he did not love Yor, and on the other, felt total devotion? There was one date, he supposed, cursing at himself once again even as he willingly traversed the roads of these particular memories. Ignoring the road signs in his mind yelling 'detour', he hoped that if he toured Loid's life like this, allowing these memories to overwhelm him, maybe they'd lose their power too.

But there was one day - one date, really. A quick one, just another outing to prove to Berlint society that yes, Loid Forger loved his wife. Dinner first, and then a walk around town. From across the restaurant table, Loid found himself constantly losing the thread of the conversation, so taken in by her beautiful dark eyes; her rosy cheeks were alcohol-flushed and under the table her feet kept knocking against his shin with every movement. There was a wine stain on her white shirt, deep purple-red like a fresh bruise. Animal desire filled Loid, but so did a feeling he wouldn't put a name to.

"A walk?" she asked, "O-of course, that sounds wonderful."

When had he even spoken? She had been caught off guard, her eyes widened and hand paused mid-air. Had he interrupted her speaking? They could hardly keep their eyes off one another those days, unless Anya was the focus. Loid knew why. He figured she did to. They were two years in by then. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of love coming after marriage but it would've been lost in his throat.

Dinner over, he had grabbed her hand and lead her on an aimless, endless walk (Scruffy could watch Anya for a little longer). The streets were car-lined. Buses passed in the road, and the sky threatened a snow that, when he thought about it, never did come that evening. It was three days after their date that it snowed - a blizzard they'd had a snowball fight in that almost ended in an assassination. But that was a story for another time.

Berlint at night was something he'd rarely even dreamed of growing up - it was golden and warm, globe streetlights ornamental above the wealthy and well-dressed, storefront windows story-book perfect, crowds of upstanding men and women talking in low voices. He wasn't from the boonies, no. But where he came from was not much better. Admittedly he was distracted. In the moments when he did not have to be hyper vigilant - in the moments when he was truly Loid, and not Twilight-with-a-mask - he could be flighty, loose. The feelings he so often quelled would take the reins and pull him in this direction and that, following fleetfooted emotions.

Yor tightened her grip on his hand. "I think...our anniversary is coming up soon."

"It is." he agreed, "Hard to believe we've kept it up so long. That people believe it."

He laughed, and she laughed, but their eyes didn't meet.

"Yes, strange to believe in this," she answered quietly, pulling closer. Loid didn't mind. He slowed their walk as they reached the park, and the carousel it housed. It was night, and the sculpted horses of the ride slept.

"Do you think Anya would like to ride that?" he asked and found himself to be speaking from some real place of care. He'd ridden a carousel once, when a fair had come to his hometown in the days before the war. Just from looking at it, he could smell the scent of food and dirt, hear the music playing just as it had when he was a child.

There'd also been a time he'd used one for cover in a gunfight. The music then, too, was welcome.

"I think so. Although you know, I've never ridden one myself." her voice trailed off towards the end of the admission. "A bit too busy with Yuri."

Loid looked back to the carousel. Even in the dark of the night the white stallions, frozen there mid-gallop, seemed to whinny to him exactly what he ought to do.

"Would you like to go on the ride?" he asked.

She looked around; the park was closed. Had been for hours. "Tonight?"

"Here, come on. Let's go."

Maybe it was the alcohol in his own system. Maybe it was the word he'd barred from his brain, from his heart. It didn't much matter in those days - he'd stopped trying to discern these feelings long before. Instead he pulled her, almost childlike, from the edge of the park to the carousel. It felt like he was floating, like he was charged with electricity, and strangely nervous all the same. She seemed just as nervous - almost giddy - as he hoped over the small gate before the machine and extended his hand out to help her. Dainty hand in his, he walked Yor over to one of the horses and helped raise her up to the top. They both knew he didn't need to - she was a tall woman, and capable of quite athletic feats - but she allowed it, fingers ghosting against his, and as she took a cautious seat upon the horse. Loid thought her adorable. He longed to see her so excited, so trusting. More than that he wanted to deserve the look in her eyes, if he could. Even if just for a bit.

The plan only began to falter when he approached the control panel and realized, finally, that he didn't have a key. Regardless of pressing the start button, the machine was inoperable until a key turned the motor on. Briefly he wondered if this was a sign that he should stop, end the night.

"L-loid?" Yor called, Maybe she couldn't see well in the dark. "Are you still there?"

He debated for a moment longer before breaking his way in - after all, an everyday ignition was simple for a master spy. A few twists of a lock-pick he always carried in his suit sleeve, a few false starts, and then the golden lights of the carousel popped to life. A vaudeville tune began to play, bouncy and jangly and bright, and the carousel gradually began its spin, the horses moving up and down in their place.

"Loid!" she squeaked, and he ran to her, hoping behind her on the same horse.

It was a tight fit. He was pressed full against Yor, and while she initially stiffened, soon enough she settled backwards. It wasn't the first time they'd been close, but the proximity never seemed to grow stale or usual.

"Oh," she laughed as the ride began to spin faster. Loid wrapped his arms around her waist. The red coat she wore, soft and warm, was too much of a barrier between them, and only a higher impulse kept him from tearing it off, or from snaking his hands beneath the coat - beneath her shirt - to a place of softness and warmth he could (and did) only dream of. He leaned his face into the nape of her neck, breathed in the sweet rose scent of her, his nose brushing against her hair. He thought he could hear, just below the music, a breathy sigh, but didn't believe it. All too soon the carousel began to slow.

"More?" he whispered into her hair.

"Mmm, that'd be nice," she admitted.

With practical inattention Loid tossed a pen from his pocket directly onto the start button. The ride continued on. The world of dark trees and open fields, stationary benches, the glow of Berlint behind the borders of the park, all of it revolved in the inebriated turn of the carousel. It seemed like the whole world was spinning only as fast as the little ride could take them, and Loid wished it might continue to forever.

"Are you having fun?" he asked. His lips brushed the nape of her neck again and he felt her shiver against him. This was no longer for "Berlint Society."

It never really had been.

"Yes, a ton. I, uh, I've never had this." she said, and if she were talking about the ride or love, he wasn't sure, and it didn't matter.

They'd been so tense around one another in those days. There were too many glances, too much accidental brushing. It'd driven him mad.

Her hair - Loid felt it before, yes, but he'd never reveled in its softness until he moved it away from the side of her face - her ear, her cheek, her throat - and began to kiss all of those precious places. The sounds she made were worth it all. Lightness filled his chest. He hadn't ever known a lightness like this, underlined by a lead-heavy, fire-hot need.

And then - sirens, authoritative bull-horned voices. Like a bubble the dream of an evening popped; their makeshift carnival must've attracted the police.

All it took was a quick look at her and they both dismounted wordlessly. What a stupid idea, he thought, reckless and stupid and bound to ruin the whole operation -

But what a joy it was, grabbing Yor's hand, fleeing, laughing, and free as they escaped the park!

!

That same coat was there in the back seat. Twilight wondered if she would miss it, or if he was taking away another source of comfort that Yor had relied on. No matter, he left them a large sum of cash he'd put away under the nose of WISE for just this occasion. She could afford college for Anya, and the apartment for years to come, and Yor could buy herself as many coats as she'd like. Yes, that was enough. Money could be more supportive than he could ever be.

Twilight told himself his vision was blurry from the rain that had finally begun landing on the windshield. Heavy drops spread themselves into thick trails like glaciers tearing through mountain valleys; destruction, like his own actions, carving up what was beautiful and leaving in its place gouges and gashes - unhealed wounds.

For some time he was once again the only car on the road. Others had exited off ramps, and few had come on. This far into the country, there were hardly any places worth driving to. Night darkened like it'd been shrouded. It wasn't until the rain began that a car had pulled onto the highway and stayed for a while, behind him at a safe distance, traveling at a leisurely pace. Deer passed on the side of the road, and Loid tensed to react in the case that any might jump out at him.

Loid denied his tears even as he angrily wiped them from his face. Through slow-falling rain he took note of the road signs he passed. He was headed to a WISE safe house, and from there, the next assignment, whatever it might be. He never knew who he'd have to become before a mission was given, and it never mattered; Twilight was no one, so he could become anyone. But he was curious this time. Who would put the final nail in Loid Forger's coffin? Who would be the following act? Politician, electrician, mob man, bumbling idiot?

It didn't matter. He'd begun to feel like he was trapped in that coffin too, alive. Banging on the lid and hoping that the pallbearers might hear him.

He thought about quitting. Just driving, driving until the car broke down and sent smoke signals into the open, empty air. He could be anyone, do anything. He would never be found, not by WISE, not by the remaining Forgers, not by the ghosts who chased his old, forgotten name. To continue with WISE suddenly felt absurd. The idea of doing anything at all, impossible. He smothered more unbidden tears and tried to steel his face, burn down the emotions building inside of him. The last time he'd ever cried he was barely older than Anya.

The road continued in its unbroken straight line. He continued to scan the woods, to watch the exits and on-ramps passing by. Behind him he could make out the taller of two passengers in the car striking a cigarette, passing it to the driver, and then striking a second. He wasn't even aware that he was aware of these passengers - awareness of his surroundings was simply a built-in trait. Twilight turned the knob on the radio wishing for the blessing of a distraction. First there was only static, and he moved through the channels listening, dowsing, trying to decipher any message or music or voices that he could from the fuzz and crackling like a medium searching for ghostly moans. Ignoring the car behind him, it felt to Twilight like he was approaching the end of the world; isolation, free of all life but his, the fading, scratchy echo of life over the radio all that was left of other people. Even the other drivers on the road were faceless and fake, the cars seeming to continue only because they themselves were made to drive by a memory of what their purpose once was.

Through the radio static he caught a few struggling bars of a jazzy tune he recognized. Then, their home - he could see it as though he were a phantom looking in on himself with detached clarity. The apartment, cozy and clean, a safe house in the truest sense of the term. It was a warm night and rain drizzled outside the window. He clapped along to the beat while Yor danced with Anya, both shaking in rhythm, in laughter. Yor spun the girl around and Loid caught her in the air, then danced with her too. Those small, trusting hands gripped his with abandon. Those bright teal eyes shined. Light, bubbling laughter filled the room. They bowed at one another in mock seriousness, but Loid couldn't wipe the smile from his face. Then, Loid took Yor into his arms, a hand at her waist, the other out before them, and they danced around the room like it was a ball. Her flushed face, chest - he buried his face in her throat for just a moment, came up for cooling air like an animal. He was full, invincible, elated. They both grabbed for Anya's hand and spun and spun and spun.

Twilight clicked off the radio so fast his fingers nearly smoked. No more of that. Outside the car, the rain began to fall hard, more insistently. The road out this far was surprisingly smooth - unused, perhaps, in contrast to those in Berlint, and his car felt as though it were almost floating above the ground. It was better this way, Twilight kept telling himself, better that he was moving on to another mission. His life was WISE's to use. He was a weapon for peace and the last defense before all-out war.

He was a weapon that needed repair. When his breath began to go ragged, when his chest began to shudder, Twilight didn't know. He breathed out hard. Control, disguise, distance - these were useful tools, marking off the pieces of himself he needed that night.

Instead he thought of marking off Anya's height on the living room wall. She'd grown so big, so bright and beautiful in only three years and he couldn't bear to imagine what she would be like as she continued to grow. Would she always be a handful? Surely. But he knew that the pride and joy he felt for her would never go away. Would Anya forgive him, he wondered? Would she even remember him? The thought was bitter, sickening. He wondered if Yor would continue to mark off those changes in Anya's life for him. He didn't doubt it; she'd raised Yuri, who was a good man despite it all, and Twilight knew that his (fake) wife would raise their (fake) daughter just as well, if not better, with the wisdom that came from age and experience. But still he wished he'd written it in his note:

"Please," he should've begged, "raise our daughter for me."

Twilight gripped the place his heart should've been. It felt like it had stopped, and he didn't know when. Maybe it had. Grief could kill. Grief was a worse poison than anything WISE could supply. He couldn't do this, he began then to worry. Every mile away from Berlint tore at his chest; never in his life had Twilight felt this kind of pain. Bullets had hurt less, burned less. He pressed harder on the pedal and tried to drown out the roaring of blood in his ears with the roar of the engine.

Curiously, the car behind him sped up to match his pace.

The faster Twilight sped, the more the memories flashed through him as though he were empty, simply a lens for the images to pass underneath. Like he was was a collection of these fleeting phantasms of the past, moving images and crackling sound. A medium for the man who was Loid Forger. There was the heavy scent of bath water, the fluffy lightness of soapsuds, humidity clinging to his skin as he'd helped bathe Anya before Yor joined the family. There was Yor herself, curled into his side and breathing softly after their first night truly together. He'd been so scared then - did he jeopardize the mission? Had he hurt her? What was this - this complication he was admitting in the mission in a way he never would've before? And then she'd laid her head on his chest and it was all he could do not to kiss her awake.

He drove even faster. Fences blurred from segments to spectrums, and the roar of the engine took on more frantic tones, like an injured animal. Rain dashed itself against the windshield. His eyes stung. If he drove fast enough, far enough, he could tear himself entirely in two. Loid could live on, in some way, a ghost on the highway always on his way back but never making it. Loid could die for all he cared.

Memories continued to drown out his thoughts, to paint them in the dye of ages; amber in color and material, golden and stone hard. It was such a joy to see Anya move from one grade to the next. They celebrated the first time with a picnic in the park. The second and third time, parties. He was never happier to spend WISE's money than on his daughter.

Yor came home once half-dead. There had been no questions then, no interrogation. Seeing her like that, Loid was overcome in a way that made him feel broken and full all at once. He let her grip his shoulder - even with her monstrous strength - as he stitched up a hole in her side. He let her cry into his hands while he wrapped up broken fingers. He kissed the bruises on her face between every application of ice. No questions. He wouldn't ask, didn't care. The only one he allowed himself: "Are they dead?" he asked the next morning. She nodded. That was all there was to it. Another wall had fallen. He'd patch her up again months after that, and after that time too - cleaning blood from her skin and beneath her nails, rubbing salves into wounds, and feeling like it was his calling in life.

Once again Twilight tried to regain control of himself. He stopped up the flow of memories for long enough to see the glint of steel sneak from the dark cabin of the car behind him, and then the flash of bullets, all happening in muted space and slowed time. The first bullet missed completely. Faceless beneath large-brimmed hats, he could swear he still saw their steely eyes, their clenched jaws. Someone knew who he was. Someone sent assassins - for Loid, for Twilight, it didn't much matter then. The taller one, the passenger, leaned out the side of the window and took a few more shots. In the night and the rain the sparks were dull, the sound not the usual clear ringing of handguns - but the ricochet as the bullets bounced off the hood and the trunk were loud, immediate. Another shot rang out, shattering the passenger side-view mirror.

Pedal hit metal but it was no use - the men followed just as fast. Faster, faster even, gaining and nudging his car. He was an antelope, and the lion's jaws were already encircling his neck. Twilight analyzed his surrounds: thick fencing, heavy forests and few open fields now that the farms were mostly behind them. Hemmed in. He slid to the right, the rain almost causing his car to fishtail, and cut his speed in one smooth movement, until he was behind the assassins and tailing them, nosing their bumper like a rabid dog. He hit hard and the cars both shuddered. He bashed again - now both the driver and the passenger turned back to fire fire fire, the bullets dinging off the hood and the roof. An errant shot cracked the windshield. A second bullet tore through the crater of the first, and then rain, cold, shattered glass. It was a miracle the shards missed his eyes. Twilight slowed once more, then revved up and smashed his car again into the back driver's side corner of the assassins'. The pit maneuver succeeded - the assassins, followed by Loid himself, fishtailed and slid, tires screeching, rolling and skidding over a patch of grass into a meadow, crashing finally into a stone wall at the border of a large field, and against a lemon tree. To his right, another lemon tree, sun-yellow fruit like nearby stars shaking in the gust of the storm. His throat and eyes burned from the wind which had ran through the windshieldless car. The leather of the steering wheel was cool against his forehead. Below him the car rumbled, shivering as the engine waned. He'd managed to stop before crashing into the car or the tree. Now he could hear the rain loudly drumming against the window, the steel body of the car.

Methodically, the spy in him taking over, Twilight readied his weapon and slammed the driver door open, crouching behind it. The two men crawled out of their own car - smoking, wrecked there, almost embedded in the lemon tree. They fired in tandem and the bullets dented and cratered the car door with pockmarks and scored steel. Twilight peeked out - a shot, missing the taller one - and then a pain he knew very well exploded in his right shoulder. He took cover again to try and catch his breath.

"Shit," he said, watching as the blood began spreading a pattern into his suit. He peeked back up and fired despite the pain. There - a lucky shot into the chest of the driver just as a bullet barely skimmed his own cheek. The driver went down with a choked scream and a loud thump. Adrenaline wasn't enough to overcome the pain in his shoulder; his right arm, his shooting arm, was useless now. Switching to his left Twilight twisted around the side of the car door and fired off a couple more shots, and only after taking another shot in his side, beneath his ribs, does he put the taller man down. It was suddenly quiet, where firework pops and gunpowder thunder sent their songs back up into the clouds only seconds before. He pulled his shirt up - the wound in his side was a cleaner hit, the bullet having passed fully through his flesh. His shoulder throbbed. His body burned and his chest heaved and a darkness spreading in him, which had nothing to do with his wounds, felt like it was eroding his bones.

Slowly, cautiously, he approached his assailants. He held the gun at the ready but there was no use; they were as still and silent as the stones surrounding the base of the tree they'd crashed into. Their car engine choked, then stopped. It was quiet otherwise. Even the rain muffled itself where it pattered against the ground, the cars, his bloody suit.

Was this emptiness? The great Twilight thought he had been emptiness itself - how else could he be anyone, do anything? But this was different. This was not emptiness as opportunity. It was lack, loss - not a vase to be filled but some broken pottery with a crack. Water passed right through. It was useless. He would be useless now, he knew. Twilight was suddenly sure that he would die if he returned to WISE - his next mission, or maybe ten from then - it didn't matter, he would surely die, alone, unknown, forgotten, and for a peace that would mean nothing until agents like him - on both sides of the divide - were dead anyway - unneeded and unable to meddle any longer. He would die because being Twilight meant being dead, and occasional taking on the masks of the living. He would die because he had finally lived and now knew the fear of death like any living man.

The letter - it was a weird goodbye for a life he'd lived for three beautiful years. He remembered the whole thing, word for word, his single spelling mistake. Yor and Anya - they deserved more, a proper send off. He had bid them farewell that morning at the door and the words felt like battery acid on his tongue. Yor seemed to catch it, the hitch in his voice. Anya looked horrified before she was shuffled out the door, her hands clenching like she was trying to grab at his shirt. Even Bond seemed to look at him sadly. He must've lost his edge.

It didn't matter. He was God knows how many miles from Berlint. Hours away. They'd probably wake up before he returned and find the letter. He was a dead man, breathing only by habit.

The rain continued to fall. Exhaust floated between the drops, disappearing and pierced. His car shuddered again, and suddenly, he wondered if it was even in a condition to drive back - not that he was going to, but if...if not, if he was stuck in the pouring rain unable to move forward, unable to go back, what would become of him? He'd haunt the place, he thought, his soul tied to this one spot forever. It didn't seem to matter to him anymore that he was known for his quick wit, the calculating mind trained and honed over years like a forged dagger. In that instant he felt animal - numb, the way prey knows, only seconds after a bite at the throat, that they were too late to escape.

He hoped for a sign. For the first time in his life, Twilight opened himself up to fate and signs, the whim of a God he hadn't believed in after the first bombs dropped. The rain seemed to fall harder as he trudged towards the lemon tree. Wind aggravated the rustling leaves. lemons fell, pelting the ground and his car. He didn't know what he was doing when he placed a palm onto the rough, wet tree bark, but he waited for a sign nonetheless: maybe lighting striking the tree, where it would burst into flames. Revolution comes, he thought, through bright burning. Or perhaps the tree would fall, there and then, crushing himself and his car, taking the decision away in one fell swoop. That was the thing he wanted most - for his decision to be made for him. Loid was still too loud in his head, his heart.

What would they be thinking tonight, he thought, as Yor and Anya laid in their beds - or maybe in one, together, mother and daughter - both aware in their own ways that he was gone from their lives. Hatred was what he would prefer. If they hated Loid they could grow in spite of him.

But love didn't work like that, he knew now as painfully as he knew the gunshot in his shoulder. Love was infinite and infinitely open. There was no limit on love, or on forgiveness. Twilight thought back to countless missions where he played at Casanova. All of that was fake. Love both given and taken, fake. The Forgers were the most real thing to fly past his fingertips since he'd given up his name and his soul with it.

In the end there was no flashy sign. No thunderclouds, no voice from the flames. Just a lemon, falling onto his head and rolling through the mud beside the hand of a dead man. He would make the wrong decision that night, throw away more than a decade of spying, throw away the country, discard world peace itself; he would be selfish and damn everything that ever mattered to him. Twilight was a dead man. The man he was before that was laid to rest too. He did not need them any longer.

Loid swallowed hard. His throat burned. His eyes burned. A small part of him urged a tourniquet, urged to stem the loss of his lifeblood. He wandered, dreamlike, into his car. The inside was stifling warm, but drenched in rain and he was cold, he shivered and sweat at once as though sick. He was feverish, and felt truly as though he was dying. Maybe he had died. Maybe he was. The blood was still freely flowing out of his shoulder, the wound in his side throbbing, itching, leaking.

What if they already found the letter?

What if they didn't want him anymore? Hated him like a dog, like the killer he was? The rain still pounded at the car's metal frame. He could see even less now, the wind and the raindrops splashing through the hole where the windshield used to be. Loid navigated through sense alone. A burning in his heart, a battle against time and space. Berlint called. Home called. He drove slowly, but sure of the direction, watching the white dashes on the highway blend into a single line leading him away.

He could see himself enter their home, muddy footsteps and leaking blood dirtying a floor Yor would clean later, after the tears. He could see himself tear up the envelope, the letter, burn it all away to ash in their hearth. He would find his girls curled up on his and Yor's bed, mother and daughter and beautiful beautiful beautiful, and on the threshold of the bedroom Twilight then, finally, would die. And maybe in his place could be born a new man. He would cut WISE off, he would get a real job, he would watch with the bitter joy of a parent as Anya became a complete person more and more every day. What she could accomplish, what she could be, he could see all the roads stretching out before him like the one he sped back towards Berlint on.

He could see himself walking into that room - Loid Forger - sitting down on the bed, and lying down beside his girls, and if he woke up to the same sight then, perhaps, he could continue on living.

"What was I even leaving for?

I keep going back and forth

I think now I'm about to see

Didn't know how sad it'd be"

- "Weird Goodbyes", The National (feat. Bon Iver)

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