Chapter Text
Eve volunteers to drive the final stretch which affords you an excellent opportunity to work out how exactly you are going to somehow save the both of you and live happily ever after.
You told her about the change in setting for The Twelve’s meeting tonight, said that Gunn had told you, and then watched her brain tick away at the new information whilst you sat next to her and stared at the bones in her wrist and thinking about nothing else at all.
For a woman that you have never thought of as delicate, the bones in her wrist are just so dainty and you know from enough versions of her how easily your fingers can loop circles around them. So you don’t know why they hold your attention so easily now, particularly when you really ought to be using this time to resolve the whole imminent death issue but here you are— watching the miles count down, soaking up delicate wrist bones and wondering if any ending that awaits you is really so bad if you are going to face it with her.
Well. You skirt over the whole drowning thing. And the gunshot in the alley. And the cheese knife to the neck— ok. So maybe you’re letting the last few hours dull the sharp edges of reality. But— it's all too easy to think about the feel of her wrists, the press of her mouth, the flashes of her oh so reluctant joy. All of it so much better than tactics and plans and death so even if you know that the only chance you have at this life is if you force yourself to focus now so—
Come on.
You pass a sign— 240 miles to London.
Perfect.
An excellent amount of time to plan.
You’ll be fine.
You’ll have it all settled and sorted by the time you hit Watford.
Here you go— any minute now— focus—
“What are we doing tomorrow?” You ask instead.
She shoots you a bemused expression. “Tomorrow?”
You raise your eyebrows encouragingly.
“If we don’t die you mean?”
“Urgh. Don’t be dramatic— come on, play with me.”
She scoffs and keeps her eyes on the road.
You pinch her thigh and she bats you away.
You chuckle and she sides eyes you. You watch as, despite herself, the reluctant joy you’re always so charmed by pulls at her cheeks.
She turns briefly to watch you, your chin resting on your propped up arm and she must see it all right there on your face so she turns away again with a roll of her eyes.
“E–eve—“ You sing song it, knowing already that you’ve won.
She sighs before—“Breakfast.” She eventually says.
“Breakfast?” You ask, and try your best to sound underwhelmed.
“Breakfast.” She repeats and your smile pinches at your cheek at the myriad possibilities contained in that one word.
Plans, death and boats resolutely forgotten. Meh. You’re more of a think on your feet person anyway.
————————————
The easy atmosphere that you’ve been soaking in evaporates the closer you get to London, all of it lost to the rigid set of her shoulders and the gradual slow of the laughter. The loss of it makes your chest ache.
“Reality bites, huh?” You ask her and she slumps slightly with a huff.
“Was it ever really gone?” She asks sullenly.
“Sure.” You shrug. “I mean— I don’t—“ You pause with a frown, not knowing quite how to express how little revenge against The Twelve means to you now without pissing her off.
You feel her eyes settle on your skin in the silence and sigh, “You know that I’m here-- that I’m doing this for you Eve, don’t pretend that you don’t.”
She bristles and says nothing so you turn to look out the window.
The silence stretches and you can feel the annoyance brewing in her and you resign yourself for the kick back you know is coming.
“Don’t– It’s not– Look I’m not making you be here.” She says eventually.
You shrug lightly.
“Sure. I know.”
“So don’t– don’t make it sound like this is all because of me. You want this too.” She refuses to look at you.
You’re reminded of the Her from Rome, of those early days when she wouldn’t even let you get her a cup of tea without making it an existential crisis about the power dynamics in your relationship. Then the weeks and months that followed all spent slowly trying to convince her that allowing you to do things for her, allowing you to become someone she relied on was not a plot to force some kind of weakness you were trying to exploit. You thought you had time to gradually convince her then, now you know that you really don’t.
You hum low in your throat, deliberately relax your shoulders but keep your gaze fixed on her as you let yourself be much more direct than you ever were in the time after Rome. “Maybe. But would it be so bad if, mostly, I just wanted to do this for you?”
She stares straight ahead, swallows down what you imagine to be a caustic instinctive response before her shoulders slump slightly.
“Yes.” She concedes somewhat grumpily.
It breaks whatever tension had coiled between you as you laugh lightly in response. “Yeah I know.”
She looks over at you briefly, a frown creasing slightly between her eyes. “You’re so different–”
“You keep saying that.”
She turns back to the traffic on the road ahead. “You’re being– “, she pauses, creases her brow as she searches for the word, “patient with me, or something–”
The irony of finding that patience in a moment when you know precisely how little time you really have together is not lost on you.
“Yeah, well, rushing you has never really worked out that well for me before so– I’m trying something new, I guess.”
She glances over at you again and whatever she finds in your expression softens something in her own.
She turns back to the road, pauses briefly, then says, “We might die.”
You open your mouth to start with the same platitudes from before and she waves you off and interrupts, “No. Listen. Ok. We might die. You might die. Ok? And I know I might die and that's– well, I don't know what I think about that, but if you die– I don’t want– I don’t want it to be for me. Or because of me– or whatever. So if we’re– if you are doing this– I don't want you to do it for– It has to be for you, ok? Not me.”
Stupid of her really, there is no version of any of this where you would not do every possible thing to give her something that she needed. It's the only way that you’ve ever known how to love. And yeah ok, in the past there might have been a few wires crossed about what exactly it was exactly that she needed, but after all these different realities that you’ve lived through during these last few days together, you get it now– she needs this and you want to be the one to give it to her.
She allows herself a hurried and anxious glance in your direction and you try to pick through your language carefully, suddenly feeling that whatever you are trying to stitch together here is important.
“I’m not here to die, Eve. But I am here for you. That's my choice, ok?”
“No– its–” She tries to interrupt you but you don’t let her.
“Eve. Just– you told me you need this– so just–” You run a frustrated hand through your hair and shift your feet, suddenly restless in the footwell. All of it makes your voice harden slightly as you remember all the different versions of her that you desperately wished would have just once let you love her like this, “You said you need to do this, I want to give it to you– just– please, just once, I need you to let me.”
She looks at you but says nothing, her brow creases slightly and you can feel her brain picking at your skin. It's so sharp that you have to force yourself to hold her gaze. After an impossibly long moment she blinks, exhales and turns back to the road.
“Ok.” She says eventually, and nods her head slightly as she speaks as if something had been finally settled.
“Good.”
Your voice sounds off, and your stomach knits in something that feels like embarrassment at giving voice to what had previously been just a persistent thought that she could never truly accept the only way you know how to love someone.
The air still hangs thick around you and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do now. She glances over at you briefly and the sharpness of her gaze forces you to look away. Your hands twitch in your lap as you try to work out whether you’re allowed to reach across and touch her in the way that you suddenly feel so desperate for.
“Pass me another sweet?” She says suddenly.
“Oh–erm– yes, sure ok.”
You dig around in the pocket of the door and pull out a part melted Revel, you hesitate slightly before holding it out in the palm of your hand for her to take. She reaches for it and brushes her fingers across your hand as she takes it and pops it into her mouth. She glances over to you with a light smile before turning back to the road. You find yourself smiling too, and feel as the tension in the air loosens its grip on you.
The barely there touch of her hand was brief and gentle and exactly what you needed; just enough to remind you that if you are different, then you need to remember that she is too. This isn’t the Her from Rome, or the Her from any other moment if your joint past. This is something entirely new and the thought of that reminds you of exactly why you haven’t given up and begged for the end of everything yet– this time, this ending, really could be different.
“I had an idea–” She says, interrupting your thoughts, “--about tonight I mean.”
A grin splits your face and you reach out to put a hand on her thigh without any of the hesitation that you had felt mired in minutes earlier, but then this had always been the easy part.
“Oh yeah?” You ask, pitching your voice deliberately low.
She snorts and brushes you off, “Do you ever stop?” She sounds impossibly fond.
“No.” You say with a light shrug.
She snorts but doesn’t continue speaking.
“Urgh, fine.” You say in faux annoyance as you take your hand away. “Go on. Tell me–”
—------------------------------------------------------------------
Suffice it to say that several hours later when you find yourself sitting on the bed of Eve’s– whatever he is– was not what you had in mind when she said she had an idea for tonight.
The worst part of it all is that– urgh– and it pains you to even allow this thought room to breathe but– Eve’s whatever the label is – is actually very acceptable.
Yuk.
And by acceptable you mean that you don’t hate the way he treats her, how he listens and defers in all the same ways you know you would too. Or at least in the ways you know you would if you weren’t trying to piss her off. But deliberately trying to annoy her and until she snaps, in that oh so excellent way that she does, seemingly doesn’t occur to him as he nods and acquiesces and– urgh– so yeah he really really is not the worst.
And yeah ok, maybe the tight shirt, and the even tighter trousers are a little much but even you are big enough to accept that quite apart from the respect he shows her, he really is an upgrade on the moustache. And really if she wasn’t fucking you, then its mildly less insulting when the alternative is at least several rungs up from the husband she barely had the patience to feign interest in.
Your hand smooths along the bed sheet beside you and wonder how many times she fucked him right here where you lean against the headboard of his bed, your legs outstretched and relaxed. Then more keenly you wonder whether he knows that she was absolutely thinking about you whilst she did. You force your face out of the smirk that naturally pulls at your features at just the thought of asking him because– urgh, maybe it's not worth antagonising the man who may well be your best chance at the future that feels so possible now you can almost touch it.
Urgh.
So instead of that entertaining little diversion, you turn your attention back to the scene in front of you– Eve and her toy soldier. Her hair pulled up and out of her face, arms crossed over her chest and gaze keenly focused on the plan of the boat on the laptop screen, and all the while she’s dishing out questions and instructions for this man who nods and engages with it all.
It strikes you then that this is the version of herself that she always wanted to be, and you think of what she said to you the last time you tried to fix what happened on the boat– she was completely right, now that she has become this person you would never want her to be anything else.
“--Vil?” You refocus back on the scene in front of you and find her looking at you entirely pissed off at your lack of engagement. Your heart flutters in your chest.
“Hmm?” You ask sweetly, as if oblivious to her irritation.
“Have you been listening at all?”
“Yes!” You say as if insulted by the mere insinuation that you hadn’t. You shuffle down the bed, bouncing completely unnecessarily as you put your feet down on the floor at the end.
“Great bed Yusuf,” You say in a deliberately earnest voice whilst starting straight at Eve.
“Err–yeah–sure.” He says uncertainly.
You look at Eve as if he hadn’t spoken. “Great lumbar support, right?”
She scoffs and turns back to him, “Ignore her, she does this–”
You laugh, “What? I'm just trying to compliment your boyfriend–”
“Alright–” She cuts you off waving a hand in dismissal, then she turns back to him, “Call me once it's all arranged?”
He looks back and forth between you for a moment before turning back to her, “And you’re– ok?”
The tone of his voice is enough to force you to wonder just how much of herself, of the two of you, she has given this man and for the first time you feel a bite of jealousy.
She glances at you briefly before turning her attention back to him, “I’m fine.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.” You sharpen your expression and grin at him, “But when has she not been safe with me?”
He doesn’t even glance in your direction, “Walk me out, Eve?”
She looks at you again for a long moment before she walks into the hallway toward the door.
You pull out your best faux smile as he meets your eyes briefly turning to walking away, then roll your eyes at his back as he follows after her.
Urgh.
Maybe he is awful after all.
You decide to sit down on the chair in front of the computer, ignoring the bed for reasons you choose not to examine too closely.
This is stupid. You know it's stupid. The clock on all this is relentlessly counting down and you should be thinking about tactics and sight lines. Instead you picture them laying in bed, you think about Eve casually giving this man parts of herself that you spent years after Rome trying to prise out of the vice-like grip that you grew to know all too well.
It is stupid, of course it is, but you feel the sting of it anyway.
Then you picture Bill watching you on that shitty sofa as you sit here stewing in your own jealousy and can't help but feel that little bit more pathetic.
Urgh.
When you look up you find her watching you from the door frame, and you slump in the seat before turning to look at the laptop. She doesn't say anything and you flick up and down the screen, forcing yourself to remember the layout of the boat and everything that awaits you tonight.
You don’t hear her approach you but suddenly feel her fingers lightly playing with your hair as it hangs down your back. It makes you swallow down whatever snipe you might have originally wanted to level at her.
“Time to meet Carolyn soon–” You say instead and force your voice into nonchalance.
She murmurs something in response but removes her fingers from your hair. “Do you want to talk about Yusuf?”
“No.” You answer honestly.
She sits down on the chair next to yours, and just like you she resolutely keeps her eyes on the laptop screen.
“You’re jealous.”
The simple statement pulls a twitch from the corner of your mouth. “Yes.”
You force yourself to turn and look at her but she keeps her eyes on the screen.
“You told him about us?” You ask and hate yourself for how stupid it sounds.
She swallows and turns to you briefly, an indulgent smile flickers on her face before she looks away again. “Only the bad stuff.”
You pause for a second, imagining how insane Eve must look to someone who knows what you did in Rome, what she did in Paris, but without knowing all the layers that sit beneath it and everything that has come after. It's a balm to your earlier jealousy knowing that part of your shared history remains yours and hers alone. The you from before would have wanted the fact of Eve's affection broadcast for the world to see, but after everything now you see it as a truth that you want to keep as entirely yours.
You huff out a laugh. “That's—” You break off, unsure how to express it.
She shuffles around on her chair to face you, and you find her sitting close enough that she presses one of her knees against the side of one of yours.
“I thought you might think so.” She responds as if you found the words, and you press your leg back into the answering pressure from hers for a moment before turning your attention back to the laptop and start scrolling down the screen.
“We’d better head out soon if you still want to meet Carolyn before tonight” You remind her again as you flick onto the screen from Google maps showing the view from Tower Bridge out onto the Thames.
“Urgh.” She slumps back in her seat and runs an irritated hand through her hair.
“You don’t want to?”
“No, I mean, I do– she’s so smug and knowing she has no idea where the actual meeting is going to be would be– urgh– I don’t know–”
You tilt your head to the side and try to decipher her hesitation, she’s made the all-importance of beating Carolyn at whatever game it is that they play very clear. So whilst the idea of idling away these last few hours together is your preference, you know that in any reality this show of reluctance is really just that, a show.
It’s ok really.
Even if tonight ends up the same as all the rest, you know that this will be the version that you end with. These past few hours already being more than you managed to claw out of years with the Her after Rome, that and every other version of her that you’ve known.
She makes another disgruntled sound and it pulls you from the slight melancholy that your mind had wandered into. It doesn’t really matter now, this is more than you ever really thought you’d have. You head over to your bag placed in the corner, and pull out a different pair of boots, should you change your socks too? If this is the end then it might be nice to be wearing your favourite socks, and if not? Well, wearing cute socks is hardly going to hurt.
You spend a few minutes hunting through your bag to find the socks you like which have the sparkly weave stitched into them, then look up to find her now sitting barefoot on the bed and prodding away at her phone. Any kind of preparation to meet Carolyn yet to actually materialise. Then without looking up, she continues to scroll her phone and asks, “Maybe we just order lunch instead?”
“Lunch?” You ask confused
“Yeah? Or dinner? I don’t even know what time it is”
She turns back to her phone seemingly oblivious to your confusion.
“You want to have dinner with me?” You ask again.
“Yeah–”
“Oh.”
“You’re not hungry?” She looks up to ask.
“No I mean, I could eat--I just thought you wanted to– you know– do whatever you were going to do with Carolyn?”
She shrugs like it's nothing, “Yeah, I don’t know. We’ve not got much more time really– I just think I'd rather us get dinner instead?”
You’ve never known her to be able to resist an opportunity to gleefully remind everyone how clever she is, that definitely counts double if that person is Carolyn.
“Oh. Ok.” You can feel the confusion pull a frown across your brow. This wasn't what you were expecting. Not from any version of her. Not even this Eve with everything that has fallen between you. It all leaves you entirely unsure what you are supposed to take away from it.
“Ok– so– pizza?" She breezes past what is apparently an inconsequential brush off of her usual single focus on The Twelve, Carolyn, proving to everyone that she isn’t boring, all of the rest of it, as if it's nothing.
And yeah, ok, it's dinner. It's probably an undercooked deep dish pizza with too much dough and too little topping. It's definitely not enough to warrant the churn of emotions and confusion that sit too high in your chest.
But then again, what if it isn't. What if opting to eat bad pizza with you, instead of succumbing to a previously irresistible urge to prove just how clever she is, is exactly what you begged her to do on the quayside the last time you tried to salvage something from another of these realities?
Maybe, this is being chosen.
Huh.
It's not what you pictured. But really isn't that so often the case with her-- you get what you wanted but not in quite the shape you were expecting. Because being chosen means what exactly? Maybe it's just a simple show of shifted priorities? A pizza with you picked above an excuse to revel in her own vanity? Perhaps not what you'd find in a Valentines Day card, what between you has been?
“Vil?” She says slightly louder and with a bite of impatience to get your attention. “Pizza? Yes?”
“Yeah.” Your voice sounds tight and you push it down before she has an opportunity to pick it apart, “Sounds perfect.”