The year 2022 kicked in – by no means a quiet beginning. Sara Tancredi had promised the world change, and change, or so Lincoln was coming to learn, came in the form of snow storms, erupting volcanoes, forces of nature that the right leader might initiate and then merely to do their best to keep under check.

Although Lincoln hadn't seen his brother since last December, when they'd finished their grand "notebook" operation, the massive gathering of information on people in Washington, he still read the news frequently and kept himself informed. The newsfeed that got his cellphone buzzing every half hour, those sensationalist article titles: "The President's Groundbreaking Speech", "It's Time for Reform", "The Tancredi Administration Takes On Gun Control".

"Wow," Lincoln said. Found there was nothing cleverer or more appropriate to say.

The trigger event had been another school shooting in January. Due to her already well-known opposition to the NRA, Lincoln, as all Americans, had expected Sara's response to be tough – but nothing quite like this.

Though her anger was as palpable as her Democrat predecessor when he handled a similar event, Sara made a stronger effort to keep it in, and she didn't cry as, coming from a female figure, those tears could not achieve greatness or sublimity.

"What I want to focus on tonight," she said, after the necessary comment on the massacre itself, "is that the problem beleaguering our country is simple. All schools in every nation have bullies. All schools are unfortunately fertile grounds for cruel behavior and resent. But in no other country does this sort of behavior evolve into mass shootings. And I'm tired of hearing this problem be given ludicrous alternative explanations – I'm tired of hearing the problem is mental illness, or the fact that teachers don't carry enough weapons. The problem is perhaps the simplest one facing our country to this day – and contrary to what we've all been hearing, it isn't anything but guns, and the fact that powerful corporations have everything to gain in keeping them absurdly easy to purchase."

"Now," Sara resumed after a short pause, commanding such respectful attention, Lincoln could almost forget he was watching from the screen of his cell phone. "We've heard the Senate's voice on this not ten years ago. The voice I want to hear, now, is the people's. In the following week, we're going to issue not a poll but another referendum, after which both Houses will work in bipartisan cooperation to create new legislation, for a safer future. It's time America faces itself once and for all."

Lincoln was hardly aware his mouth was hanging open until a playful hand stroked across his cheek, and he started, like a teen caught masturbating.

"Insane, isn't it?" Veronica said, as she wrapped an arm around his bare chest and settled her head against the crook of his neck, watching the rest of the video from behind his shoulder.

They were both currently at her apartment – an impressive loft, whose view through the bedroom window fittingly reminded Lincoln of the Everest, where they'd met many months ago.

"You've watched this?" Lincoln said.

"I caught the replay yesterday night, when you were asleep."

Unfortunately for Lincoln, Veronica was the lightest sleeper he'd ever seen. A mere grunt could wake her – and since Halloween 2020, since the traumatic incident at the motel room, Lincoln had had dreams agitated enough to get him screaming in the middle of the night, as his neighbors had been courteous enough to point out.

But Vee was very understanding, one might even say, political about this. She never asked him to tell him what the dreams were about, didn't try to probe into his past, into the dark recesses of his heart.

Softly tracing her fingers over his chest, she kissed the line of his jaw and said, "How about waffles?"

Lincoln should be smiling by now, but he was still in shock from the video, the enormous implications drawing themselves clear in his mind.

"You don't eat breakfast," he noticed, half-absently.

"I know. I just like the smell of waffles in the morning – we can eat them for lunch."

Lincoln realized he had been silent for a few seconds and forced an appropriate response. "Yeah. Sure, whatever you like."

They didn't serve waffles at the Everest, still Lincoln had picked up a few things about decent cooking since he was hired there, over a year ago. Who would have thought then that making waffles for his girlfriend would feature the list of pros.

His relationship with Veronica was a recent though solid development. In December, after Lincoln stopped hearing from Michael, after he stopped spending so much of his spare time working on gathering as much information as he could get on the most crooked heads in DC, Lincoln realized he was going to need something else to get him caring about life real soon, if he didn't want to go crazy.

The first few days were awful, and even all the extra hours at the restaurant didn't fill enough. With nothing to give meaning to his life, all that was left was the terrible guilt of what he'd done, remorse eating at his heart like a carnivorous infant. And then he'd seen Veronica, at her usual table, and walked up to her with steel determination. Something about him must have given away his distress – he saw it reflected all over her face when she looked up at him.

For a second, he had thought she was going to ask, "Are you okay?" But she held silent, staring still into his eyes, until he asked, "Would you like to go out with me sometime?"

It was a while before the surprise on her face wore off and she answered, half-joking, "Only if you do the cooking."

And so, he figured he could hold up to that deal for as long as she would have him.

Veronica chuckled as he headed for the kitchen. "Aren't you going to dress, first?"

"What, never dreamed of a naked man who'd make waffles in your own apartment? I'm the dream, Vee."

She threw a pillow at him.

He was smiling by the time he reached her kitchen and started breaking eggs into a bowl. Butt-naked indeed, but if you closed your eyes and forgot the snow out the window, inside the heated loft, you could think it was summer.

It was only when Lincoln heard his cell phone ring, all the way from the bedroom, that his skin broke into gooseflesh.

"Someone called Michael," Veronica's casual announcement from the bedroom. "You want to get that?"

"Yeah," Lincoln hurried to wipe his hands on his jeans before he remembered he wasn't wearing any. "Shit. Just –"

He grabbed a couple of kitchen towels then leapt toward the bedroom, where Vee was looking at him from under an arched brow. The cell phone was still ringing.

Lincoln didn't try to restrain the urgency in his gaze, didn't know that it was even possible.

Though he had not yet told Veronica anything about his past, for as long as he had known her, he had not lied to her.

"You go ahead and answer," she smiled, springing to her feet in a nimble motion whose grace he obliviously noted. "I'll just go and shower, okay?"

"Yeah."

The phone had turned silent and still on the bed by the time that Lincoln heard the water running from the bathroom. Only then did he dial back his brother's number, beating his fist against the mattress while he waited for him to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Mike, it's me."

He heard his brother's breathing in his ear. The way he breathed when he wanted the words to come out, but he just couldn't get his brain to wrap itself cleanly around a simple sentence.

That's when Lincoln knew for certain Michael was in a bad place.

"Can you come over today?"

"Yeah."

"I just feel we should talk –"

"Yeah, yes, Michael."

For a second, everything was going so fast Lincoln thought maybe he was in one of those dreams where Michael asked for his help, and he would jump through hoops racing for the fastest way to grant it. These were the good dreams – finally, a chance to redeem himself, a chance to give back, to start paying.

"Are you home?" Lincoln asked. "I'll come over right now if you want."

"All right."

Silence speared between them. Lincoln's lips were burning to ask, Did you see the speech? But he didn't dare, not over the phone.

"I'll see you soon then."

"Thank you."

Michael hung up, and the two words he had spoken hung like dismembered limbs about the room, replaying in Lincoln's brain.

Then, Veronica emerged from the bathroom, deliciously pink and smoldering skin bare but for a towel hooked at the chest.

It all flashed through his head in a beat, the way the morning could have gone, waffles and love-making, the soft feel of Veronica's hands on his cheeks – she liked to hold his face when they were kissing.

"I'm sorry, I gotta –"

Lincoln stammered on his way to get his jeans.

"You're leaving?"

"I just – something came up."

"Work?"

"Yeah. No," he corrected and looked back at her, while still blindly fumbling to button up his shirt.

A veil like a rain-laden cloud fell over her eyes.

She's seen men like you before, men who're hiding something, men whose lives get a great deal darker than homemade waffles on a Sunday morning.

Lincoln moistened his lips, almost said this was a family emergency, but he remembered she didn't even know he had family.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I know this must not make sense to you –"

"It might if you explained."

Though her voice was soft, the look in her eyes was graver than he'd ever seen it.

"But you won't," she said.

And he was unable to contradict her.

Once he was fully dressed, he walked tentatively to meet her and tried to kiss her on the cheek.

She turned away, not with scorn or particular coldness. Her face was still that unreadable surface that had fascinated him at the restaurant.

"You don't have to tell me everything," she said. "But I won't be treated like this, Linc."

"No," he agreed. "You shouldn't be."

Like it'd grown a will of its own, his hand hovered over her hair for a moment. He wanted to embrace her, kiss the top of her head –

The image struck him as ridiculous.

Like I were a soldier leaving for war, while the woman I loved waited for my return.

So Lincoln only headed for the door with one last look of apology. He didn't say, I'll call you, because she knew he would, and the real question was of course whether or not she'd answer.

As the first breath of winter air hit Lincoln's face, outside Veronica's building, Lincoln flexed his fingers into fists and he thought this was a little bit like war, even though he was the last thing like a soldier.

It immediately struck Lincoln how empty Michael's apartment looked, even before his brother fully opened the door. Just as he cracked it open, Lincoln noticed the somewhat absurdly blank wall behind him, wrong, all wrong, like bones that had been picked clean of flesh.

No spider web.

When he let Lincoln in, the shock was all the more complete. The walls still bore the traces of removed pins, dents where Michael had needed a hammer to remove them. Without thinking, Lincoln moved to it and stroke his fingers across the surface, the Braille-like sensation, his mouth open in dismay.

"You've destroyed it?"

"Yes."

The sound of Michael's voice reminded Lincoln he'd come here for more urgent reasons. He turned back, and his brother took the time to explain.

"We didn't need it anymore. Sara has the notebook. That's all this was ever supposed to amount to."

"You could have kept it."

"As a souvenir?"

"No, I mean –" But Lincoln realized he was making excuses. "Maybe."

"Just its being there was an unnecessary risk. Can you imagine if anyone apart from you and me had seen it?"

That was true, naturally. Lincoln had never thought about how his brother had gone about having food delivered or even answering the postman all year, with that thing on his wall.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think to ask if you wanted to say goodbye."

But the teasing was wrong, hollow, like dissonant music.

Before he could help himself, Lincoln drew his brother into a near-hug. His forearm behind Michael's neck, so the two brothers were close enough that he could feel the panic inside his brother's chest, crying for an outlet.

This was how he used to hold him, when they were younger and Michael avoided conversation.

Lincoln hadn't asked if this was okay, and Michael didn't look like it surprised him.

Why shouldn't it be okay? Were they not still brothers?

Right now, as Michael's pain was becoming so tangible, Lincoln could almost see it snaking about his brother's skin, there was no other single truth that seemed to matter.

"I'm afraid," Michael said.

Indeed, it was the first time Lincoln had ever seen his brother like this. Before, he'd treated Sara's achievements with distant approval – if the progresses she made had struck a deeper chord, then he'd kept it to himself, and Lincoln hadn't tried to dig and uncover the secret joy or apprehension.

But this was different.

Michael had put the right word on it.

Fear in its blackest, most unstoppable form. The abyss that pulls you in, whose great gaping maw mocks your absence of control.

"For her?" Lincoln said.

"She'll do it." He said. "Take on the NRA. She won't back down, she won't admit to failure."

"And you're afraid they'll kill her."

Michael took a step back. His fist against his forehead, he turned toward the wall, whose whiteness part of Lincoln still found unthinkable.

"You know who these people are," Michael said. "What do you think they'll do? Send her a couple death threats?"

Amazingly, Michael shrugged. His lips were a white line, the face of a dead man.

"And when she keeps going? Who do they have that they can use as leverage? Not her father. No, Justice Frank's been the NRA's pal for decades. They'll go straight after her, Linc. A sniper from a rooftop, and that's all there is. Simple as that."

Michael chuckled, the most disturbing sound Lincoln ever remembered hearing.

"How can she help people from the grave? Why can't she see that if she pushes too far, they'll end her, they'll –"

"Hey."

Lincoln extended a hand in his brother's direction, unsure what it was aiming for.

"It's gonna be fine."

"Don't tell me that, Linc, when you know there's hell coming her way. It's not right."

"We'll find a way. We'll think of something."

Michael kept his head down. He was silent for such a long time, Lincoln almost didn't hear him when he said, "I need to be there."

"What?"

A shiver ran down his spine at the crossroads of his brother's direct blue eyes. Such fierce determination. Lincoln didn't ever recall seeing him like that.

"I need to be there, in Washington."

Lincoln chuckled – it was ludicrous. "Mike, she's the president of the United States. She has a host of bodyguards, following her wherever she goes. If anyone's going to keep her safe, that's their role."

"Maybe." He answered with an absurd logic. "But it's mine, even more."

Lincoln's lips hung open for a while.

"So, you're just going to go to Washington? Drop all your plans for becoming a lawyer –"

"That's still on its way. I've been passing all the tests for the correspondence courses. And I can find new lawyers to shadow in Washington. I already have contacts."

"Wait, Michael, just wait –"

"Wait? And then what?" His direct blue eyes brimming with anger.

Lincoln realized it had never struck him before, how ruthless this must feel. Being hopelessly in love with the most visible, the single most important woman in the country. A woman who must receive death threats and crazed love letters by the hundred. A woman that billions of people's lives depended upon, that could alter the course of the world with just a phone call.

The very thought of such tremendous power left Lincoln feeling awed.

He hadn't the slightest idea what it must feel like, how humbling it must be, loving such a woman.

And then he thought despite himself of how much Michael had changed, in the past few years.

He didn't mean the growing stubble on his cheeks which used to be neatly shaven.

The muscles beneath his shirt, the very layer of his skin, seemed to have gotten thicker, like water hardening into ice, increasing in volume. Lincoln didn't know if that was just an impression or if his brother had actually saved up time to work out, in between digging up the vilest secrets of public figures and self-teaching himself into a lawyer. In the state Michael was in, he could imagine him filling the lone hours of the night with pushups and weight-lifting, to keep himself awake, aware, ready.

The most baffling change remained the steel determination in his blue eyes. Michael used to have such a gentle look, Lincoln had never thought for the past thirty-some years that these eyes knew how to express anything but kindness.

"Wait for her to be martyred, Lincoln?" Michael said. "I can just see it, can't you? A sniper-execution caught on live TV. Our new Kennedy. Christ, martyrdom might just work, you know. The people might riot enough that they'll root out the NRA – or seem to. Her Vice President will make a paternalistic address at her funeral. A couple of gaudy pieces of legislation will pass, restricting check controls on buying weapons, but people will just turn a blind eye when it comes to their being applied. And people will say, yes, she was a great woman, but deep down – deep down, this will be a warning to all women who think they can reach for the highest seat in the land, and to all people who think they can seriously challenge the status quo."

"Michael, I get you."

"No you don't. Because I've just talked about what will happen to you. You," Michael said, "the people of the United States." He shook his head. The cold gleam of his eyes looked mad, untamable. "I haven't said what will happen to me."

And Lincoln did not need to assess his brother's face any further to know he would not.

"But I won't let it," Michael said. "I won't lose her, Linc."

Lincoln nodded. His tongue felt pasty in his mouth. He struggled to piece together a coherent sentence. "Maybe I could try to strike a deal with Abruzzi."

Michael chuckled. "No."

"He's influential. He could maybe try to protect her –"

"We don't have enough leverage to try and control a man like Abruzzi. Besides, his protection would ultimately turn into domination. Sara would not have his help if she were asked. I won't bring this on her."

"All right."

Lincoln's even tone was helpless to express the panic that had stormed into his brain.

His little brother, moving to Washington. His brother alone now in that great mission he had set up for himself, and in which Lincoln had been so happy to be of help.

Does he know that our work, Lincoln thought, our quest, is the only thing that ties me back to this world?

Veronica flashed into his mind, her milky skin, the commanding strength in her eyes.

He brushed the thought away, burned the traces from his brain.

Right now, it felt selfish – somehow, unforgiveable, that he should have this one thing he cherished all to himself, while Michael had been sentenced to being kept apart from the woman he loved.

Lincoln wanted to pick himself clean of superfluous sentiment, wanted to be nothing in the eyes of Michael but a brother, a man who was still willing to do anything to redeem himself.

So I get to be happy but Michael doesn't? After all I've done, I get to have joy and a wonderful woman and waffles on Sunday?

What does Michael get?

"I'll come with you," he said. "To Washington."

Michael shook his head. "You have your life, here, in Chicago."

"I'll find work in Washington. My résumé's top-notch now, in case you forgot. Heck, I've been employee of the year at the Everest, I might even get a job at the White House."

The look on Michael's face made it clear he was in no state to register this was a joke.

"You know I've always traveled light."

"No, Linc –"

"It's been working well, hasn't it?"

Lincoln hadn't meant to do this, to break the invisible rule between them where most of the important things remained in the realm of the unsaid.

"Our working together. I've missed it, in the past few months – I've missed it so much, Michael. Please, let me be of help."

The silence that sat between them was absolute. Michael had sold the antique clock that used to tick away the time so loudly it'd keep Lincoln from sleep when he stayed at the apartment.

Finally, Michael turned back and headed for the kitchen, where his coat lay atop the small counter that separated both rooms.

"Here." He produced a piece of paper from his coat pocket and handed it to Lincoln.

Lincoln took it without thinking. "What is it?"

The paper only read, scrawled in blue ink, in Michael's minute handwriting: Fernando Sucre. Tuesday 11 p.m. Airport.

"It's someone I've promised to help," Michael answered. "And I can't do it from Washington. He needs assistance – legal assistance."

"What? Wait, but I –"

"Didn't you tell me you knew a lawyer?"

Lincoln's throat felt dry when he swallowed.

"You can call me and write me the details. I'll do what I can as far as the law's concerned. But what he needs foremost is a place to stay, where he and his girl can lie low."

Lincoln nodded. "Of course. Whatever you need."

There was no bitterness in his voice.

He refused to feel bitter, to feel like the lowly squire who asked to follow a knight on his quest to rescue the queen, and who was only asked instead to look after the house and keep it in order.

"This is goodbye, then."

"We didn't say goodbye the last time."

In a natural enough motion, Michael extended his hand.

Lincoln shook it, and thought that this should feel strange, was a little upset to find it didn't.

"Be careful," Lincoln said.

"I'll do my best."

Michael grabbed a small bag from the kitchen floor that had been concealed from Lincoln's eyes till then. He hadn't realized his brother had been packing – thought that, anyway, there was little to pack.

Michael put a set of keys on the counter.

"You can have them stay here. The man Sucre and his girl, I mean. I trust them with the place. We've been getting to know each other through emails for a long time."

"Yeah. Whatever you like."

Lincoln was a little stunned to think his brother was actually going to leave him, here, in his own apartment.

Michael seemed to sense the oddness of it and added, "You know you don't have to do this, right?"

"Hey, helping strangers' my favorite pastime."

"I don't mean Sucre." Michael remained serious. "I mean – this. What we've been doing." His eyes gleamed with dead seriousness. "This doesn't have to be your life. You don't have to enslave yourself trying to pay back some sort of debt to me, Linc. You know that?"

Lincoln didn't answer.

Didn't say that, of course, he did, or that he formally declined his brother's permission that allowed him to have his life.

"Don't worry about me," Lincoln said. "Just do what you have to. I'll keep the city warm for you."

Again, he could sense the joke was lost on Michael.

The door closed shut behind the younger brother and Lincoln felt slightly surreal, for a moment, with his hands in his pockets, alone in the apartment.

I won't be treated like this, Linc.

Veronica's river-like voice in his memory.

"You shouldn't be," he said to himself again. "You shouldn't be."

End Notes: Hope you all had a happy new year! Please share your thoughts on this chapter. Take care!