Work Text:
“Let’s be honest,” she says. “We’re not the sort of relationship that gets different iterations. We’re a one tale couple. We meet, you leave, you die, I pine. Same place, same way, same order every time. That’s what we are. We don’t get another story.”
“You’re assuming you’ll pine.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, dryly. “I’ll pine.”
i. road trip
“I’ll pine if I’m left to my own devices for that long, and anyway, there’s nothing left for me here if you’re gone,” says Strangelove, and so she comes with you.
It’s less a road trip and more a road run, out of the sight of forces who know you and want you and wish you ill. Strangelove hunches over under her coat as much as possible, and you think -- not for the first time -- that it’s good that she hates the cold, because it must grow hot underneath all that fabric.
You buy fast food and eat it sitting on top of a picnic table in a rest stop because you hate the smell of it clogging up the car for miles and miles. She eats ravenously and smiles at you after every bite, as if the middle of South Dakota was the place she was born to be.
When it’s her turn to drive she swerves onto the wrong side of the road, tries to pull the British card, and you yell that she hasn’t lived in the UK for over a decade, and she says that honestly, she never learned how to drive in the first place.
Strangelove’s only delegated driving duties when you’re in one of the more deserted states (or when you’re trying to lose a particularly stubborn tail) from then on.
ii. noir
The woman standing in the doorway cuts a dramatic figure in her long red coat, her dark glasses, the starkness of her skin. But she’s slumping more than she realizes, and the night’s dark behind her.
“I’m not actually open right now,” you say. You’d forgot to flip the damn sign to “CLOSED” again.
She ignores you, walks further into the office, and stands in front of your desk. “You’re a detective, right?”
You lean back in your chair. “That’s what it says on the door.”
“This man,” says the woman, tossing a glossy photo on the desk. “Has wronged me.”
“And?” you say, pushing the photo back towards her. It’s of a man. Glasses, suspenders, scruffy. Nothing special. “I’m not in the business of vengeance.”
She sits down in the chair you put on the other side of your desk for clients. “No, but you’re in the business of finding people.”
“I’m also not in the business of leading people to people they intend to kill,” you say, digging around in your desk drawers for a blank copy of your client contract. “You gonna kill ‘em?”
“Nothing so kind as killing him, no,” she says.
“Okay,” you say, throwing a copy of your contract on top of the photo. “I can work with that.”
iii. space
You’d been the last member of the crew to be chosen. It’d taken the higher ups quite a while to decide on who should represent the US on this international juncture. The first manned mission to Mars was not a venture to take likely. Now you’re finally meeting the rest of the crew.
“Strangelove,” says the first woman you meet, holding out her hand. “I’m the brains.”
You shake it. Strangelove. That makes her one of the mission specialists, robotics and artificial intelligence. “And I’m the brawn?”
“No,” she says, “You’re the slightly different brains. I’m no good at leadership, I don’t mind admitting it. Amanda’s the brawn.”
“Hey!” says a darker skinned woman who’s currently lounging across two chairs. You recognize her as Amanda Libre, the pilot. “I resent that.”
A petite blonde woman (who you recognize as Dr. Caminades, the French member of the expedition) enters the room, laughing. “And I’m the beauty.”
“No, you’re the biologist,” says Strangelove.
“Which means I see beauty wherever I go! Even in the simplest microorganisms.”
Strangelove rolls her eyes. “Don’t mind her. The rest of the crew will be here soon.”
You put a hand on her shoulder. “I look forward to working with you,” you say, and for once you mean it.
iv. & time
-- And when you’re about to go and face him, about to go and finish your mission, you round the corner to find a woman you’d never expected to see again.
“Strangelove?” you say (though that’s not her name, not yet). You’re trying to hide how this is the first thing that’s truly surprised you, in these past few weeks. Regime changes, the death of your comrades, Russians with lightning powers, the little spy the Chinese sent -- none of this stuns you the way the small woman standing awkwardly near your horse does.
When you get closer to her (gun drawn, this could be a trap, you’re not a fool) you see she’s aged twenty years since you last saw her, or else they’ve found a lookalike who’s a little too weathered.
“I know you’re wondering if they found a lookalike who’s a little too weathered,” she says to you, and then she tells you something only she could know, and another thing only she could know, but more than that it’s the look on her face when she says “don’t do this, please” that convinces you it’s really her.
"How?” you ask.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she says.
Your horse is growing restless. It’s not getting along well with Strangelove. You pet it, try and soothe it. “The father of my child is a ghost, and sometimes he speaks to me,” you say. “Try me.”
“Future,” she says. “From the future. Twenty years out. I’ve seen what happens when you finish this thing, and I’ve seen what your protegee” (she spits the word) “makes of your legacy. You wouldn’t like it.”
“And what does Jack make of it?” you murmur, still stroking the horse.
“An absolute mess is what he makes of it,” she says, laughing. It’s a bitter laugh, high and and a touch hysterical. “So does your friend Zero. To the tune of, oh I’ve lost track, honestly, several private militaries? A couple of covert CIA units. Multiple devices like your Shagohod there, but with greater potential for destruction. An artificial intelligence complex enough to put a stranglehold on the world’s communication, if it so wished. I won’t lie and say I’m blameless in all of this, but I am trying to fix things.”
You turn to her now, take her hand. It’s more calloused than you remember. “I can’t just abandon my mission.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not listening, I’m telling you that this. . . this monstrous nonsense won’t complete your mission at all.” Strangelove’s furious, pointing out in the direction of the lake. “Going out there to die will not finish the job.”
She kisses you, hands on your shoulders and terribly inelegant, for an angry second. “I have to go,” she says. “Please. Trust me, for once.”
Strangelove leaves you standing there, holding a cassette player she’d pressed into your hands.
You listen to the tape. You don’t go to the lake.
v. modern day
"You’re the dog walker?” says the woman when she opens the door. She’s wearing a hat, angled to block out the sun streaming in past you.
“Yes,” you say.
“You’re older than I expected,” she says. Blunt. Most people think the same thing, if you’d have to guess, but generally don’t say it out loud. You don’t care. After two decades in the military the simplicity of dog walking has its own set of appeals. You like dogs. You can trust them.
“Yes,” you say. “I’m sure I am.”
She catches you eyeing the hat, the gloves. “Albino,” she says. “Can’t risk the exposure to the sun. That’s why I’m particularly frustrated with my damn roommate, she knows this, and she knows she shouldn’t leave Paix around for two weeks while she’s galavanting about because I can’t leave the house during the daytime and Paix doesn’t like nighttime strolls. Thank you very much, Cecile."
“French for peace,” you say. “Interesting name for a dog.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the French recently,” says the woman. “It’s that they’re very eager to remind you of just how French they are.”
She fetches the dog and hands you the leash and if you end up lingering, later that afternoon, in her apartment drinking the coffee she’d offered -- well, what of it?
vi. high school
After you chase off the three older girls harassing the freshman, you walk over to check on her.
You know you likely look odd. A little grubby, dirt on your knees, the cuffs of your shirt, you can fee grass stuck to the back of your cardigan and a few loose blades to the front too. The kind of scruffy you get detention for. But the girl you’d stopped from getting hassled looks even odder -- sunglasses at night, huge coat in September, gloves. You dimly recognize her from the few times you’d seen her in the halls, in the library after school, in the cafeteria.
“I don’t see you outside very much,” you say.
She scrambles to pull the hood of her coat over her head again. “Sun,” she says. “Can’t really.”
Skin condition, then. From her pallor -- albino, you guess? Hair’s a little silver for her age, and you don’t go to the sort of school where you’re allowed to dye your hair unnatural colors. “Mmm. Didn’t think the gloves were in the uniform either.”
“Sun,” she says again, smiling weakly. “Sorry, could you help me up?”
You grab her hand and hoist her to her feet. Her hand seems small in yours. You walk her home, and she squeezes your hand, briefly, when you reach her front door. Her way of saying “thank you,” you think.
You walk her home the next day too.
vii. teacher
“I apologize,” you say, folding one hand over the other, “If my son’s been causing any undue trouble, Ms. —“
“Doctor, actually,” says the woman, but doesn’t tell you her name. You know all the children at school call her Dr. Strangelove, Adam told you that.
“Doctor,” you say. “Adam’s a bit —“ you try to think of the best way to put it “— enthusiastically misguided sometimes, I hope he hasn’t been making too much of a mess of things.”
“He’s been cheating off of three other students,” says Dr. Strangelove. “Albeit, very cleverly. It’s highly unnecessary since I think he’d be able to do the work fine himself. I was hoping you could provide some insight as to why, precisely, he takes the more difficult path here.”
You rub your temples, plonking your elbows on the desk. It’s been a long day. “My son is a little too smart for his own good.”
That, unexpectedly, causes Dr. Strangelove to laugh. “My son’s the same way. Though he hasn’t taken up creative cheating yet, thank goodness. Now, I could simply punish your son -- and I intend to -- but I’d also like to see if we can get him to knock it off in a more permanent way.”
When she says “we,” you smile a little. It’s nice to have a co-conspirator. “Let’s talk strategy.”
viii. parents
The first time you meet Strangelove’s son, he’s building something with some lego-like blocks, an intricate humanoid robot, you think, or a walking tank?
“Hello,” you say to him.
“Hi!” says the little boy. Five years old, but wearing glasses that almost overshadow the rest of his face. Small hands, but they’re very quick.
“May I see what you’re building?”
“Oh, sure!” says the boy, handing over his work to you. “It’s not anything I came up with or anything, I just wanted to see if I could make my own Optimus Prime, and then make him turn into how he looks like when he’s a truck with the same toy. It’s harder to do on your own than if you just buy the toy that’s supposed to do that, though.”
You have no idea what most of that means. “It looks complicated,” you say.
“It is!” he says. He takes the toy back from you and starts trying to explain to you how he wants the toy to work, and things about “alt modes,” and how “every time when I try and make it switch from Optimus to how he looks when he's a truck the eyes are in the wrong place, but that happens on the show all the time so I think that’s alright.”
Strangelove stands off to the side looking incredibly fond. “Why don’t you introduce yourself properly?” she says after a minute.
“Okay!” says the boy. He sets the toy down. “My name’s Hal, what’s yours?”
“My name is Joy,” you say, and shake his hand, ridiculously tiny in yours. “I’m a friend of your mothers.”
“Oh,” he says. “You’re Mom’s girlfriend!” In the background, Strangelove blushes.
ix. parents, redux
“Oh,” says Adam with a sneer. “You’re Mom’s girlfriend.”
You love your son more than life, and he’s clever and strategic and devious in a way that’ll serve him well later in life, but stalking around near the front door so as to be able to answer it under the guise of “politeness” and thus catch a glimpse of your erstwhile mysterious female companion is not his more subtle work.
He’s also incredibly rude.
“Little bit young for you, isn’t she Mom?” he says over his shoulder.
“Hmm,” says Strangelove, tugging off her gloves. “A little old for the cowboy hat, aren’t you?”
You’d bristle at someone insulting your child, usually, but you tend not to when the insults are ones that he deserves. The cowboy hat really does look absurd.
You walk up to the door and kiss him on the head. “Thank you for volunteering for dishes for the next month, Adam, that was very thoughtful of you.”
Strangelove smirks. “Lovely to meet you Adam, I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.” And then as soon as you close the door — “A bit rude, isn’t he? Thank God I don’t have children.”
“That’s my son you’re talking about,” you say. “As if you know nothing of rude people.”
She shrugs. “Takes one to know one.”
x. medieval
The Witch of Maunguid lives in a cave under a lake and she gasps when you take off your helmet.
You’d been talking in circles with her for over half an hour, your Andalusian growing impatient in the musty tunnel leading to her hideout. Water kept dripping at just the right spot to get under your armor. This, you’d thought, might be one of the rare occasions where identifying yourself as a woman might be a help and not a hindrance. You’d promised to secure her help for the battle ahead, and secure her help you would.
“Perhaps we can speak woman to woman,” you say.
“Perhaps,” she says, “We could do just that.”
xi. roommates
“Wanted,” the ad had read, “One female roommate to share two bedroom apartment with female graduate student. Non smoker preferred.”
Most of your initial meeting was spent with her dancing around the question she’d most, you discovered later, wanted to ask — whether “you were one of those straight girls who would find the idea of sharing an apartment with a lesbian distasteful or frightening.” You’d laughed at her, and that’d sealed the deal.
Strangelove’s not the best roommate you’ve ever had, and she’s not the worst. She keeps odd hours, she leaves the door to the balcony open all night so the chill creeps in (and sometimes snow, or leaves, or on one memorable occasion a squirrel). She turns up her nose at half of the things you cook, and cheats very badly at poker.
Everything happens very slowly and all at once. You spend late nights talking, she makes you breakfast in her underwear, you’re sleeping in the same bed. Happiness creeps up on you.
xii. fbi
It’d taken you half an hour to find the tiny basement office Strangelove apparently got shunted into after she stopped teaching at Quantico. When you find her she’s surrounded by towers of files, posters with weird pictures, a couple of tape recorders. She’s less surprised to see you than you’d like.
“I won’t lie to you,” you say to her, “because I don’t believe in unnecessarily lying to my colleagues when the truth will aid us both.” (You don’t mention all the times you are willing to lie to your colleagues. Best to keep that under wraps.) “I’ve been assigned to be your partner mainly so I can report on your activities to my superiors.”
“The bosses are trying to keep me in line,” says your new partner. “Hmm. But I’ve read about you. Not the most traditional recruit the FBI’s ever had. Military background, and a weird one too. Classified shit.”
“Yes,” you say.
“Weird classified shit. So why’d they assign someone who’s probably seen things I can’t even imagine?”
There’s only one chair in the closet sized office, so you lean against the wall. “I’m practical, I’m pragmatic, and not everyone guesses that the classified shit is the weird shit,” you say. More honesty. Good to lead with honesty. “And —“
She leans forward in her chair. “And?”
You smile, and cross your arms. “And I was interested, and I’m very convincing when I need to be.”
“Honestly, they probably want to get rid of you nearly as much as they want to get rid of me."
“Don’t worry,” you say. “They can’t afford to get rid of me.”
“Excellent,” she says. “You know my name, of course, and I know yours — but I understand most people call you The Boss. Most people call me Dr. Strangelove.”
Which means nothing. “What do you want me to call you?” you ask.
“Strangelove grew on me,” she says. “Now! What do you know about cryptids?”
xiii. sburb
>Strangelove: Stop and admire the stars.
It’s a lovely night out tonight. Shame it’s the last one there’ll ever be.
Looks like he’s pestering you again. You better answer.
>Strangelove: Answer OC.
otakuConvention [OC] began pestering strangeLove[SL] at 20:02
OC: hi again, strangelove.
SL: Oh no. Not this nonsense again.
OC: so tonight’s the night you start everything.
SL: :/
OC: is there anything i can do to change your mind?
SL: No. We’ve been over this before. If what you say is true -- and that is a very very large if -- then this really is the only way to save anyone.
OC: to save her?
SL: Yes, if you absolutely must make me be specific.
SL: I don’t know.
SL: Maybe it’s for the best.
SL: What has the world really offered any of us, anyway? Or “my world” I suppose, since you claim to be from an entirely different one.
OC: still earth, just a different session.
SL: Right. Of course. “Session.”
OC: i guess i can’t say i wouldn’t do the same thing, if i were you.
OC: maybe i just thought that if no one started playing, the game would never happen at all?
OC: but once something’s out there, it’s out there.
SL: Like a virus.
OC: haha, or like a really bad joke.
OC: but i guess my existence wouldn’t make a lot of sense if that was true! oh well.
SL: If you’ll excuse me, I have to make sure TB gets into the game before she’s instantly destroyed by a meteor the size of Texas.
OC: i still don’t know how you got her to play, haha. she doesn’t seem like the game playing type.
SL: It was a group effort. Plus, I think she can smell disaster on the wind or something. I really have to go.
OC: ok. i’ll be around.
SL: Yes, thank you, I’m aware.
>Strangelove: Pester your client player.
strangeLove [SL] began pestering theBoss [TB] at 20:10
SL: All set?
TB: Yes, I’m ready to go. I see you’ve already placed some machines around the house -- I’m guessing those are necessary?
SL: Yes. You’ll need those to start the game.
TB: The game hasn’t started yet?
SL: Think of this as the tutorial level.
SL: Also, I may have done a little furniture rearranging in order to make some of the machines fit.
TB: Strangelove.
SL: Yes?
TB: Why is there a bathtub in my living room?
>Boss: Get to the point.
TB: You’ve been lying to me, haven’t you?
SL: About what.
TB: The purpose of the game.
SL: How so.
TB: We’re not saving the world, are we?
TB: We’re destroying it.
xiv. fandom
“Prince of Doom?” asks Strangelove, looking over the character notes you’d made. She shakes her head. “Really? That’s what you think my classpect would be?"
“The pantaloons would suit you,” you say.
“Might as well just make me Knight of Time, I look enough like Dave, apparently. Did you know that at the last meetup at least three people congratulated me on my cosplay?”
“Let me guess,” you say, running a hand through her silver hair. “You weren’t cosplaying."
She huffs, petulant. “I decidedly was not cosplaying. But lots of red and the sunglasses, that’s enough to fool people. I refuse to get a different colored coat. I had it first. But better Knight of Time than Prince of bloody Doom.”
You sweep her bangs to the side. “Hmm. You would look fairly awful in the doom color scheme. But I’m a knight already, you can’t be a knight as well.”
“And the chumhandles,” she mutters. “Not your most creative moment. Stick to writing Scourge Sisters fic, that’s my suggestion.”
“This is the last time I ask you to beta,” you say, and she rolls her eyes, snuggles against your shoulder.
“Please,” she says, “You know you’d be hopeless without me.”
xv. hogwarts
You meet first when she’s a second year and you’re a fifth year. She’s almost swimming in her Ravenclaw robes, obviously hemmed so that when a growth spurt occurs she’ll have room to grow into them.
“Are you lost?” you ask.
She spins around, startled. “No! I’m not a baby, I’m not lost.”
“It’s a big castle, it’s easy to get lost.”
Turns out she’s looking for Professor Sinistra’s office. “Aren’t you a little young for arithmancy?” you ask.
She sniffs, and turns up her nose at you. “I’m probably better at it than you are.”
Turns out she’s right, and you’ve found yourself a tutor for the next two years. In exchange, you teach her how to stay on a broom and how to duel, and then you graduate and you lose track of her, the funny little Ravenclaw who hated heights almost as much as she hated being wrong.
You meet again ten years later by accident, at a bar in America. You’re working on something for the Ministry of Magic that you can’t tell her about and she’s working with one of the American wizarding universities on integrating Muggle technology with arithmancy, “like programming, but with magic, it’s exciting.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” you ask.
She smiles. “I think I’d like that.”
xvi. thieves
“The Boss?” asks the pale woman incredulously. “Amanda, are you out of your mind? No — of course you are. How could I doubt that for even a second. We’re working on the biggest job we’ve ever considered, perhaps the biggest job there hypothetically can be, we’re working to steal the goddamn Legacy from the Philosophers, and you bring in the head of their ‘make problems disappear’ department. She works for them, she is them, she can’t help us plan robbing them blind.”
Amanda grimaces at you, an unspoken apology. It’s alright. You were expecting this reaction.
“Yes, I can,” you say, reaching out to still one of the unknown woman’s gesticulating arms. Probably Strangelove. The hacker. Semi-famous in the sort of circles professional thieves are semi-famous in. Hates the term hacker. Posh accent, but she’s from Manchester.
Strangelove glares at you, pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head with her free arm. “Oh? And why should I trust you?”
“They have my son,” you say.
xvii. college
“Mostly I started watching the stars because there was little opportunity to look at any other aspect of nature,” says Strangelove. Your college astronomy club has gone on an outing to a more rural area, somewhere free of light pollution, to watch the meteor shower. You and Strangelove have, predictably, wandered off a little from the group, sitting on a blanket Strangelove insists on (“I absolutely abhor insects, I won’t sit in the grass”) and Strangelove is monologuing, as she tends to do, while gazing at the sky.
You’ve heard this story before. Not that you mind the repetition too much. “Yes,” you say. “I know.”
She sighs, and shivers a little, despite it being the middle of August. Strangelove gets cold easily, the first time you’d met her she’d been wearing a sweater in May while looking at the Pleiades. “I never was much attached to the Perseids.”
“Is it because the Perseids are the sons of Perseus and not the daughters?” you ask, teasing her a little.
“I don’t like men,” she says. drawing her knees up to her chest. It’s odd seeing her without gloves, without sunglasses, with her coat unbuttoned and her sleeves rolled up and her hood thrown down while sitting outside.
“Yes,” you say. “I know.”
Strangelove’s sitting to your left, you slide your left arm behind her, leaning into it, almost but not quite leaning into her. You don’t want to push this nervous almost-thing you have too far too fast, lest she run, like a skittish colt, away from you forever.
She sighs, and leans into you too, just the slightest amount. “Still, I can’t help but find the Perseids beautiful. Romantic, even, in their burning destruction.”
Strangelove is the most serious girl you’ve ever met. It makes you smile sometimes. “Romantic?” you ask.
She turns her face towards yours. “Quite romantic. You’re staring at me, you know.”
“I know,” you say.
“Can I kiss you?” she asks, her voice very small.
“Isn’t the meteor shower about to start?”
“Well, yes,” she says. “So it’s right now, or you’ll be waiting until it’s over, I’m afraid. Take your pick.”
You pick now.
xviii. superheroes
Strangelove, when she sees your getup, laughs and offers to be your sidekick.
When she hears what your secret alias is, she laughs even more. “You can’t just make your name your superhero name by putting a ‘the’ in front of it, Joy.”
“Why not?” you say.
She shakes her head. “It’s just not done. But I don’t suppose I can convince you otherwise.”
You tell her you want to take her up on the offer, want her to be your sidekick, even as she’s still giggling over your sneaking suit. “What could I possibly do for you, sidekick wise?”
“You could make robots,” you say.
“I do like robots,” she says.
xix. restaurant
You finish wiping down the last table. There’s another four hours till your shift’s over, but there’s nothing left for you to do, you have every excuse to wander over to where Strangelove is sitting (against the rules), pulling money out of the pockets of her apron and sorting her bank.
You’ve worked together a few times, but never just you two alone, never just you both in the middle of the night in a quiet dining room. So now, finally, you can ask her some things.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” you say, “what exactly are you doing with a job like this?”
“I’m an insomniac who’s allergic to the sun,” says Strangelove. She straightens the piles of bills she’s laid out on the table, crumpled ones and crisp twenties. “You’d be surprised how that limits your job opportunities.”
You put the spray bottle of cleaner you’ve been carrying on the table. “And so --”
“And so,” she says, smoothing out a five dollar bill, “I work at a twenty-four hour restaurant and do research, privately, during the day. Which doesn’t explain you. Why are you working at this godforsaken place?”
You can’t tell her this is an undercover gig. You can’t tell her: you’re the reason I’m here. “I get bored.”
“Because this --” she gestures to the empty restaurant. “-- is a thrill a minute.”
“Nevermind me,” you say, leaning closer, because you know she likes it when you do that. “Tell me more about that ‘private research.’”
xx. space opera
As the second in command of one of the finest ships in the intergalactic fleet, you pride yourself on knowing your ship and your crew like the back of your hand. The ins and outs of the entire vessel, the particular skills and quirks of the entire crew.
But you didn’t know the technician knew how to use a blaster.
Lucky for you that she does, as one of the combat droids managed to sneak up on you while you were running to evacuate the rest of the labs. One shot over your shoulder, and it’s down.
She does shriek when she fires, but you’ll let that slide.
“Hello!” she says, after you’ve both checked to make sure the droid is truly out for the count. “Come with me if you want to live!” Her laugh then seems to startle her. “Sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Doctor,” you say, perhaps unfairly. The shock must be getting to her.
She sobers up quickly. “I suppose you’re right,” she says. “But I really would suggest coming with me. I think I’ve figured out what set all our droids against us.”
xxi. oh, you know.
“Of course,” says Strangelove, reading over your orders. She starts smirking before she hits the second page. “Of course. We’re supposed to pretend to be married for an assignment.”
You’d been worried about bringing this one to her, worried about her reaction. Turns out your worry was misplaced. “You’re not . . . surprised by this at all?” you ask, trying to hide the fact that you are. Not that you haven’t done stranger things for your job, but you never really considered this as a potential scenario.
“Honestly, I’ve kind of been waiting for it to happen,” she says.
xxii. character swap
Strangelove shivers in the cold, the tear tracks on her face frozen, her red red coat flowing like blood in the Alaskan wind, Sniper Wolf dead at her feet. She shouldn’t be out here. She’ll slip in those shoes of hers.
You turn away. She shouldn’t be out here because she shouldn’t see any of this. Wasn’t made to withstand any of this, the way you were.
Before you can leave, she shouts at you. “Boss!! What was she fighting for? What am I fighting for!? What are you fighting for!?”
You pause for a moment, turn around to give one last lingering look to the woman standing over the corpse of someone she at least thought she loved. Strangelove needs something to hang onto. “If we make it through this, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay,” says Strangelove. “I’ll be searching too.”
xxiii. canon divergence
It’s 1965, and you’re still alive. It’s 1970, and you’re still alive.
In 1980 you stand with her on top of the same building where you’d first told her about your past and hold her hand and you persist, you are, you will continue to be. Your son is lost but not forgotten, hers (yours, hers & yours) a solemn-faced infant, the world has changed and will continue to change (you’ll make sure of that), will leave you behind (you’ll make doubly sure of that), but you will continue to exist in it. For as long as you can.
“The sky looks different tonight,” you say.
“Don’t be foolish,” she says, and kisses your hand.