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“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you.” – The Night We Met (Lord Huron)
The gold spills into the glass windows of the cathedral as though the sun has spilled sunshine to make way for a gaiety that used to seem so far away. She can almost taste it – the sweetness overwhelming the bitterness, the salt of tears with a hint of something saccharine that used to taste so rotten, so, so sharp. Like bile from vomit after knowing that the truth you hold is not the truth at all. It is almost sinful – this joy that is liquid gold in her hands, like something that almost feels as close as treacherous, like she is holding thorns against one’s neck to have it.
Like something stolen, and anytime, anywhere, it can be taken again by the same manner she has taken it.
Yor tucks the feeling, the flutter in her chest, in the deepest parts of her heart – in the corners of her atrium where light does not touch it; a shelf of all doubts, all fears, stored and locked away, tightly, securely, with the key tarnished and burnt. A door closed with no hinge in sight, locks changed and maintained to prevent that acridity from creeping in, and rotting the things she has achieved after life lived in the shadows, after a life dependent on someone else’s happiness, only to leave her despondent, discarded.
She is not like that now. She is chosen. She is loved. She is adored without trepidation, without deception. She is worshipped without lament, without the ask to provide more than what she can. She is bathed in words that are not folly, but are warm, and true, and so, so tender.
There are no bounds, no hidden agendas, no terms and conditions, and no lines she cannot cross. There is simply just this sense of belonging without the fear of someone’s arms giving out, without needing a mask that barely holds all of her together.
Yor has never been so well-versed in lies, deception a language she cannot speak, secrecy something she is barely fluent in; and now – now she gets to discard it; the need to speak lies, the need for fluency. She can abandon it like a skill she no longer wants to peruse. There won’t ever be a need for lessons, for internal monologues that conflict and conflict and conflict, now she can just be, and he can simply accept it. He will drink her in without choosing which part of it he likes better, without chasing it away with water.
The sound of the violin weaves itself through the halls of the cathedral, love melodied and softened through the weeping strings, ebbing and flowing like something warm – a silken touch of a vow that is bones deep. Their song the night where commitments have been said, and touches became fervent – an ode to an eternity that will be spent, a re-telling of all the steps they have taken to erase what bitterness clings in the spaces of their hearts where both of them now lie. Yor can still taste it – his lips that night; wine and something sweet, something cathartic as he stitched himself into her soul. She fights the urge to reach out, to retrace where his lips had been, and focuses on the steps she is taking now.
Dust motes litter the atmosphere, suspended, like golden gleams of confetti to celebrate this union, this becoming that she never expected, never envisioned. Yor had long abandoned the idea, the dream after she had resigned to herself that love is always fleeting, too far away out of reach for people like her – and now, now she is here, walking to a future, to a bind that still feels so surreal.
Time is slowed – like a romantic dance into this final curtain call of the life she has led before, and she basks in it like she would with sunlight, steps short and careful as everyone seated by the pews watch her with bated breath. There are whispers, but the whispers are kind like confection, like cotton candy. They dance around the way she looks, and how everything seems to fall into place, like the earth has finally learned the right way to orbit, and found its way back to its axis.
Yor smiles – the curve of it so wide she thinks it reaches the stars in her eyes, the rubies that only hold love so fervent, and she realizes that she has never smiled so wide before and so sincere it almost tastes like sugar. She has never heard such kind words, and they tug in the strings of her heart that hold the two of the most important people in her world.
Yuri and Anya meet her by the end of the aisle, across another, and Yor has never seen Yuri smile so brightly at her it is almost blinding. Anya gazes up at her with the shiniest of emeralds, and she returns the smile in kind as though she had ever stopped smiling. The bouquet of roses shake in her hands, the tremor riddled by an excitement she can barely contain as she reaches the altar, and faces her new reality after so many years of lonesomeness.
The officiant smiles at her, confection in the corners of his lips as her other half joins her with a kind hand, and small smile that is hers, and hers alone. He tells her she looks beautiful, the tears in the corners of his eyes diamonds that glimmer with a reverence she had never seen anyone have, a fervor that she almost burns for by just being so close to it. Yor loops her arm in his, his warmth bleeding into her as the priest regards them with a nod.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of Miss Briar and…” He begins, narrates the beginning of a life she has never envisioned for herself, and Yor allows herself to glance back one more time towards the life she used to lead.
Sunshine through the mahogany doors greet her, and in between, in the slants of the gold, is a past that now feels oceans away.
Handler slips a paper across the desk, the rustle grating, breaking the clouded whispers in his head that never knew how to remain in silence. They feel like cotton in the cogs of his brain, preventing anything to turn, to allow himself from this misery that is the same sentence over and over and over – she is gone, and they are gone, and you are six feet down. He feels the sentence etch itself in the muscle of his heart, a splinter as much as it is a tattoo, a reminder of what he once had before it became gravel and dirt and a tombstone and a hearse that carried him away in this eternal coffin of a life of espionage.
Sylvia regards him with a pity he always sees, a pity he has come to know after half a decade of his death, and the look tastes acrid as much as it feels like acid against skin. It unnerves him – the looks they give him as though he is a man no longer, as though a part him died, and he has forced himself to live on in this husk that barely provides any warmth. He loathes it – the humanity in it, how they skitter around topics, how they try to remain mindful; words picked so carefully, some flagged and never uttered where he can hear it, where it can etch itself further into his skin, and onto every fiber of his being.
An eternal psych hold lest the best spy in Westalis loses himself again in a trance that once was his waking life when he had a wife and a child, and a reason to live.
“What is this?” He asks as he looks at the beige envelope littered in gold and roses with a look of disdain marbled into his face.
He has an inkling what it is, what it beholds – he had seen her enough to know, had kept himself up to date when the cigarette and alcohol have stopped numbing him, when there is no stick to inhale, and only an ache that needs to soothe. Franky has told him about it, too – he is keeping in touch with Anya after all – how there is another man in the household, green and kind eyes, and a smile that is only reserved for his wife – no, ex-wife – Yor. A man who knows every fiber of her being, has made himself fluent in the language of her; a man that is every bit of a man Twilight used to dream to be.
Envy sits at the pit of his stomach – green and devouring, edging him on towards resentment that he feels through to the tip of his fingers like a burn that never really quiets. The bitterness comes, and it tastes like anti-sceptic and too much salt, almost nauseating. He keeps his gaze trained on the offensive envelope as the tears come like a match being lit, creeping, asking to be let known. He blinks it away, and wishes he has a cigarette in his packet, but he has burned them away just like he burned his family away when he had to pick up the shovel and bury Loid Forger.
Sylvia reaches for the envelope, slides it further to him if only to catch his attention, and it does, and she almost regrets it. Death as it seems can come for the living, and while flesh and bone remain functioning, the rot makes itself known one way or another. Twilight looks as though he has been dead for centuries, and while she does not know if this will be a final nail to the coffin to lay him to rest or electricity to resuscitate him, she still gives him the invitation regardless.
“Take the day off,” she says, her voice lackluster as she tries to meet his eyes – dead ones with bags and unshed tears clinging at the edges like funeral flowers. Sylvia hates it – that unnerving look of the dead. She knows it makes no difference now – trying to repair this with a band aid that he will bleed through, but she takes a chance. “Go to her. She is getting married today.”
Twilight shakes his head, but he takes the envelope in his hands, feels the paper underneath the calluses and tremors of his hands. The color is offensive, but it is every bit of Yor. She once told him about this once, the paper they will use for invitations if they ever decide to make their sham of a marriage real, and he indulged her with a promise that he has broken. He remembers her tears then, her anguish as she threw the death certificate in his face, and called him out on his foolishness, this coldness he decided to offer in turn for her warmth.
“It was never real,” he hears himself say back then, unfurling each stronghold they had for one another in a claim that was not true, but made for the convenience of WISE, and for her and for Anya. At least, that’s what he has told himself back then when he turned on his heel, and left them like the coward that he is.
“I’m not getting her back,” he tells Handler, even if he wants to, even if every fiber of his being is asking him to, begging him to. “She does not deserve it,” because he turned away; he left five years ago, and it will be oh so selfish to demand her to unlove the man that gave her everything that he could not. It is not kindness, and he cannot stab her once again after she has picked herself back up. “I’m just… I’ll go see her one last time.”
A farewell, that is what this is, funeral flowers for a life that is dead, for a love that is dead. Twilight rises from the chair with the envelope in his hands, and the ink of her newfound happiness etched into the roughness of his skin. Handler says something, words to convince perhaps, but they are lost in the confines of his mind as he thrusts himself into the open air, and tastes the morning that solidified his loss.
A last viewing of the dead, that is what this will be, he tells himself even if he wants to object, wants to scream at the world for dealing him with these cards, for teaching him how to love only to take it, pry it from his hands.
The sun is cruel on his skin as most sunshine is nowadays as he crosses the street to wedding bells that are not for him. There is no crowd, only flowers, roses that are as red as her eyes, and carnations that are as pink as his daughter’s hair. There are cars waiting, a limousine that reminds him of the one he rented back when she was his wife, now stained with wedding flowers and script that is mocking. Just married, it states, stares back at him like it is daring him to say something.
He feels a new crack form in his heart as though there is a place left to shatter. He presses the envelope against his chest, feels it thrum weakly in his sternum in the shape of her name. A tear escapes, and he chases it away with the roughness of his hand as he finds his place by the mahogany doors opened by just a fraction.
The cathedral welcomes him like an audience that is not supposed to be there, and the actors stand by the altar to commit to a life that puts him further into the ground – except, they are not actors, and he is not dead. And yet, he thinks, he might as well be. He tries to angle himself better, tries to be selfish only so he can catch a glimpse of her, of her red eyes and her smile that is no longer his.
The priest recites what may very well be his eulogy, and his heart does this funny thing even when it is already dead and battered when he tells them of their union – how sacred it is, how beautiful that two people had managed to come together despite the strife life has to offer. Twilight was Yor’s strife, and now she is free of it.
“If any of you has a reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace,” the statement reverberates through the halls of the cathedral, and it poses itself like a challenge, an opportunity to take what once was his, and love her the way he wanted to – the way he wants to.
The cogs shift in his brain, his heart stuttering awake as the words take shape in his mouth. The resounding objection, the demand for her to choose him, to love him, even if he is half a decade too late. He itches to say them, wants to spout them. His throat constricts, his airways tight, as his lungs remember the shape of her name as its oxygen. He wants to object, wants to advance, but he is rooted into place as he watches the love of his life choose another man who can love her as deeply and dearly as she does him.
It should have been him. He should be the one to stand in front of her. He should be the one to bask in her beauty, to choose the venue, the flowers, the limousine, and the damn paper. He should not have buried Loid Forger. He should not have died. He should have taken her by the hand and ran away with their daughter, and yet, he did not. He stayed rooted. He stayed there at the restaurant while life passed him by, right where she left him – underneath the moonlight, in the thunderstorm with his own death certificate in his hands.
Should he say something? Should he object? Twilight wants to. Loid is begging him to. Would he allow another moment to slip? Would he let her slip through his fingers once again? Why can’t he move? Why can’t he say something? Why does it feel like there is ash and sand on his tongue, and barbwires in his throat?
Twilight advances, the movement meager, too little to be anything, but just enough to catch the attention of his daughter. She stumbles from the pew – a vision in emerald with a sad smile in her face, and tears in the emerald of her eyes. There is no resentment there, only a plea that causes Twilight’s heart to cease beating. Oh.
“Papa,” she whispers, her voice small despite the years as she finds herself into place beside him. She reaches out to him, and meets her halfway. “I missed you,” she adds even though it is prevalent in the way that her eyes soften, her tone measured that tries not to bring in tears.
“I missed you, too.” Twilight finds himself saying as he steals one glance over at Yor that she follows. He sees her shoulders deflate, and sees a certainty he has never seen before and a breaking that is quiet.
Anya shakes her head, and he understands – oh he so understands what she is trying to convey even when the words don’t find her. He nods because of course he does, of course he knows that this is not the right thing to do, and while all he wants to do is dissuade, he settles the way he has settled it in himself to leave her, to leave them.
“Don’t,” Anya says because she sees the conflict – of course, she does. “She is finally happy, Papa,” she adds, and he nods – he nods because what else can he do?
Twilight wakes up with a start – an engine finally starting back alive, sputtering and in panic, noisy in its rouse as he blinks up at the ceiling, the amber luminescence greeting him in a light so blinding. He reaches over to his chest, and presses the heel of his hand on it as though asking it to quiet. The ache is still there, a thrum that is well’s deep as he pushes himself into a sitting position that startles someone awake from beside him with a small yelp and a thud.
Anya flashes him a look, scandalized, and yet, snickering.
“What happened?” He asks as he rubs at his temples, the migraine coming in like a dull ebb that refuses to flow and make itself known. There is a distant memory there, a pain that he does not want to acknowledge as he presses harder where his heart is scampering to find its normal rhythm.
Anya stands up, and fixes her dress, rumpled by the way she had chosen to bide time, and gives him a quizzical look that should have been so obviously feigned if he had not been so intoxicated by the remnants of grief.
“You took a nap,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders before reaching over to pet Bond. “And Mama got married to someone else,” she adds so simply, her tone filled with feigned tears. “Papa you are too late.”
Twilight blinks at her, and he feels he might just lose himself once again as he tries to gather his bearings. “What?” He asks, flummoxed and terrified as the reality of his dream dawns on him like an unwelcome tide meeting a ship. He crashes – and he crashes badly, and he is unsure how to surface, how to breathe –
“Anya, stop torturing your father,” Yor says from the kitchen as she comes into view with a tray of snacks and tea, her smile soft, her smile his, and Loid finds himself drowning again and asking to be swept in the oceans of her.
She brings the tray down onto the coffee table, and he follows the movement in order to ground him. Papers of the same color and print greet him, her name etched in calligraphy right next to his – oh. “You’re not marrying someone else?” He asks as he lifts his gaze to meet hers.
Yor chuckles, and shakes her head as she decides to occupy the vacant seat right next to him. What brought this on? “Do you want me to?” She volleys back, her voice teasing as she reaches for his trembling hand to still it and warm it in hers, soothing each vein, each pulse that skips.
“No,” he says, breathes out as he rests his head in the space where her neck meets her shoulder, and closes his eyes to quiet the way his heart is harrowing in his chest, in his ears, deafening him in that song of sorrow and panic. “No, I don’t want you to. Please don’t.”
“Bad dream?” Yor questions as she takes note of every tremor vibrating in his body, the way he is shaking like a leaf underneath the billows of a hurricane. It tugs at her heart fiercely, and she wants to kiss it away.
“Papa dreamt that you married someone else, Mama.” Anya pipes up in place of her father, eager to retell the nightmare in her own narration. “He was holdin’ the invitation, and being all sobby outside the church like this – “ Anya pauses to demonstrate, and Loid opens one eye to glare at her. She only sticks a tongue out him. “Was thinking if he should object.”
“And did he?” Yor humors as she runs her fingers through his hair. He melts into her, burying his face further into her skin. He feels Yor flush, the warmth of her skin cooling his fears down.
Anya shakes her head, “was a coward,” she says as she points at him, and Loid’s frown deepens.
“You told me not to,” he murmurs against Yor as he brings his free hand around her waist to bring her closer, flush against him. He is not letting go of her, not again, not after that.
“Was dream Anya, not me,” she argues back, and it makes sense, but somehow, Loid still holds it as though his argument is firm. “Also, why are Papa’s dreams so…” she pauses, tries to find the right word for it, then settles with the easiest, “sad? Mama’s dream was about the weddin’. Anya looked really pretty, and mama, too.”
Yor beats him to it as she smoothens her hand against his, ironing out each wrinkle with love, with her warmth. “I guess it’s because your father is just afraid of losing us,” she provides for him, and he returns the gesture in kind by a soft kiss to the slope of her neck – innocent, grounding, something that can convince him that he is not being haunted by the ghost of his family.
“Hm,” Anya hums, makes a face and then smirks. “It was like watching Berlint In Love, but t’was more dramatic – Papa’s dream. Papa’s fighting invisible men.” She says and Loid fully looks at his daughter with the deepest frown that he can muster. She ignores it as she always does, and rises to her feet so she can slot herself in between her parents. She reaches out to Loid, and pats his head affectionately. “There, there,” she smiles, and he finds his frown softening.
Later, when the panic has died, and Loid has followed Yor around the house and outside like a leashed dog, he tells her that he does not want to wait for her at the altar, but wants to cross it with her. He also tells her about getting married three times a year just to ensure that whatever dream he’s had does not come to a reality. Yor, sweet, sweet Yor, just nods and kisses him hard enough he forgets seeing her with someone else.