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If there’s anything close to a universal truth that Layla el-Faouly is willing to accept, it’s that the hardest part of any fight is what comes after. Adrenaline can take you through the worst of a physical altercation. Anger can push you through an emotional confrontation. Where there is a will to live, there is a way to survive. And as tiring as it is, as exhausting and draining as it is to fight for your life, it never compares to what comes after. The cleanup, the consequences—it never compares.
Her husband—for all his faults, that is still how she sees Marc Spector—sits across the glass coffee table from her, wringing his hands. He sits on the floor. Layla sits on the couch. The fight is over, for now. There’s plenty to clean up across the world now that Harrow’s gone and Ammit’s locked away again, but for now the universe is the size of their London flat, and the only two inhabitants therein—three, if you counted Steven—are all around this coffee table. Marc mutters something to the glass. Layla waits. She’s still angry at him. But she’s willing to wait. This is a conversation that needs to happen, even if it ends with two signatures on the papers between them.
“Layla,” Marc says softly.
“Yeah?” Bitter as she is, she can’t push him. Layla knows that much. It’s not that she’s not capable of putting pressure in the right places, that she can’t force the truth out of him if she really wants. Though unbidden, Harrow’s words echo back to her. Your husband is in agony. More pain than anyone can bear. Sure, that man had been a manipulative liar and zealot, but she’d seen Marc’s face fall all the same at Mogart’s compound. In all their years together, she’d never seen him so resigned, so lackluster, so vulnerable. Harrow had hit a nerve Layla never even knew existed, and she has the right to know why. Especially since she already knows it’s connected with her father’s death. No. His murder. Rage fills her gut just thinking about her father, but she forces it down. If she pushes too far now, she might never get the answers she needs.
“There’s a lot I haven’t told you,” Marc says. He’s looking at the glass of the coffee table like he’s reading a teleprompter. Layla wonders if it’s Steven he sees there, holding cue cards only he can see. “And… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
Layla leans forward, resting her forearms on her knees. She doesn’t give her husband the grace of a softened voice, not yet. She says like a demand, “Then tell me now.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Then I’ll give you someplace.” Layla nods at the divorce papers on the table. “Why a divorce?”
Marc closes his eyes. “Steven told you, didn’t he?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Khonshu.” Marc’s voice cracks ever so slightly on the god’s name. “He threatened to take you as his avatar instead of me. And I—I couldn’t let that happen. I mean, you already know half the shit that happens when I’m in the suit. I didn’t think I could take it if I had to see you go through that.”
“You didn’t think I could have handled myself?”
“No!” Marc’s eyes snap up to her. “No, it was never like that, Layla.”
“Then what?”
“I…” Marc falters. Layla waits. Marc only stares at the coffee table, at the papers he couldn’t even give her face-to-face. His hands go still. If Layla didn’t know better, she’d say Marc’s completely spaced out right now.
Her husband blinks a few times. Looks up at her. His eyes soften. He offers a small, shy wave. “Hi, Layla.”
Layla wants to be angry, but something closer to relief lightens her shoulders. Maybe it’s surprise. “Steven?”
“In the flesh.” Steven glances around. “Er, sort of.”
“Where’s Marc?”
Steven taps the coffee table. “Right here. He’s not completely gone away. It’s just. Er. He’s not really good at this kind of thing.”
“So you just—“ Layla waves her hands. “What, you pop in whenever Marc decides he doesn’t want to talk about things?”
“Bit more complicated than that, it turns out,” Steven admits. “But yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“Okay, Steven.” Layla sits back and crosses her arms. “What are you here to say?”
“Oh, um.” Steven rubs his hands together. His eyes dart to his reflection in the table every few seconds. “I might not get this part completely right. But Marc, he really does care about you. He cares a lot, and he only wants to be at his best around you.”
“Fantastic job of it he’s done so far.”
“Right?” Steven tries for a smile. “He thinks it’s his job to protect you, because he loves you and doesn’t want to lose you. And if he doesn’t have the suit, he can’t do that, right? I mean, the whole time he’s known you, he’s had the suit, pretty much. And Khonshu—wow. Terrible bloke, really. Vindictive, manipulative, abrasive, downright mean sometimes. Not someone I’d recommend having in your head. Marc just doesn’t want you to have to go through that, that’s all.”
“That’s his problem, isn’t it.” Layla shakes her head in resignation. “He has to carry the weight of the world all by himself, or else he can’t live with himself.”
Steven’s quiet for a moment. “He’s living with a lot, Layla. Even I didn’t know about it until recently.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, no of course not. I just mean,” Steven begins, “if he wants to hide that much from a person that lives in his own head, then it sort of makes sense that he’d sort of ghost a person that lives on the outside, even someone as smart and cool as you. I’m not saying he did the right thing, ‘cos he didn’t. I really don’t think he did. But he has to have someone to protect. Me, you. That’s part of who he is.”
Layla knows this. Of course she knows this. That’s what made her fall in love with Marc in the first place, that rugged sort of I’ll-cover-you look that left no room for argument. Arms that would catch her if she fell, a body that would take bullets and knives for her. Hands that would craft splints for fractures and breaks, fingers that would trace the edges of scrapes and bruises, the quiet whispers and guilt-plagued reassurances. I should have been there.
“He doesn’t have to shoulder all this on his own,” Layla says. “Isn’t that what being married is?”
“Wish I knew.” Steven clasps his hands together. “Never been married, now, have I?” He stops abruptly. “Oh. Uh. Okay. Right.” He blinks a few times. “Sorry, I think he’s gonna pop back in, just a moment.”
Steven looks up over Layla’s shoulder and blinks several times more before his posture shifts. He shakes his head, pressing two fingers into his temples. Gives a few hard blinks and exhales loudly. “Jesus.”
“You’re back, then.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Marc holds the side of his head.
“You two can just switch on and off, just like that? Like, what is it, some light-switch thing?”
“Uh, sort of.” Marc grimaces. “We’re working on it, negotiating back and forth. Bit smoother when Khonshu’s in on it, since he can take away the headache. I think the suit helps sometimes, or just being somewhere quiet.”
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m used to it.”
“That’s not the question.”
“Yeah, sometimes.” Marc won’t look at her, so Layla tries to track his eyes, move into his line of vision. “But I’m used to it.”
Layla hums thoughtfully. “How long has this been happening? You and Steven.”
“Since I was twelve.” Marc’s voice is so low Layla almost swears she mishears him. The way he rubs his hands when he’s nervous, Layla realizes suddenly, is the same way Steven rubs his hands when he’s excited. “Some shit happened when I was a kid, and my brain, y’know, it—” Marc circles his temple with his finger, “—that’s how it coped with what happened.”
“Oh.” Layla blinks. “So it’s not anything new, then.”
“Nope.”
“Was Steven already there when—” Layla takes a breath. “—when we got married?”
Marc closes his eyes. Layla can feel him withdraw. “Yeah. Yeah. He was.”
Layla reaches across the table, scooches her seat over and lays her hands over Marc’s. She turns his palms up, traces the lines in his hands. She doesn’t have a magic suit to deal with the blisters and scrapes that come from climbing and fighting, and Marc’s skin is soft between her callouses. Even when the tension leaves his fingers, he doesn’t hold her back when he asks, “Would you still have asked me to marry you? If you knew?”
“It would have been nice to know,” Layla admits, “but it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Steven likes you,” Marc mutters. He sounds like he wants to be bitter but he doesn’t have the energy for it.
“Yeah, well, I like Steven.” Layla tucks a clump of curls behind her ear. “But he’s not you.”
“He’s better than me.” Marc’s hands close into gentle fists around her fingers. “Smarter. Gentler. And he’s better at talking about stuff like this.”
“Maybe it’s easier for him.” Layla gives Marc’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “Seems like he doesn’t exactly have much of the baggage that you and I are carrying around.”
“Layla, about your father—” Layla stiffens immediately, snatching her hands away from Marc’s. Marc makes no move to touch her again. She doesn’t know whether to feel justified or disappointed. Marc’s brow crumples completely. “I should have saved him. I was there, and I should have saved him, and I—God, Layla, I should have told you.”
Layla fights tears. Whether they’re from anger or grief, she can’t tell. She decides it doesn’t matter. “Yeah, you should have.”
“I’m sorry.” Surely Marc must realize how little those words mean. Surely he must know that simply apologizing cannot be enough. Surely he must understand what it means to lose someone who meant everything. Surely he must see that not knowing the truth is what has haunted her for years, that he could have ended that hurt at any moment of their relationship, even before they grew to love one another. Layla wants so badly to lay the blame on her husband (because in spite of everything, that is still how she sees Marc Spector). And she does blame him to a certain point, because he is responsible, to a certain point. But she doesn’t hate him. Oh, how she wants to. Oh, how much easier this would all be if she could find even a shred of hatred for him.
“Layla, I’m so sorry,” Marc repeats. “I… I’m sorry. I should have told you when we met. I wanted to, but—”
Layla silences him with a single raised hand. “You didn’t even say anything when you mailed these papers to me.” Before Marc can reply, she adds, “You just disappear for the last two months and then Steven shows up, and then we’re off to save the world from some crazy cultist who apparently knows more about the two of us than we do each other. When were you going to say something? You know how much my father means to me!”
Marc blinks several times. Layla can see him chew the inside of his lip. He shakes his head once. Twice. Blinks some more.
“Hey,” Layla says, grabbing his shoulder. Marc flinches, but she gives him a firm shake. “Stay with me. Don’t use Steven to cover up what you did.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“You almost went away, though, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t.” Marc rubs his palms on his knees. Annoyance colors his voice. “Still here, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” Layla echoes. Marc’s eyes widen as he realizes what he said, but she plows forward. To hell with it. She’s waited long enough. “Well I’m sorry to keep you here when you clearly don’t want to, all right? Sorry for trying to have a civil conversation about all the secrets you’ve been keeping from me. Sorry for even thinking we had a shot at fixing whatever’s left of what we had. And I’m sorry for getting in between you and your crazy moon god on your own suicide mission to save everyone in the world except yourself.”
Layla stands. Marc jumps up as well. “Layla, wait—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Marc—”
“Layla, please—”
Layla ignores him, stalking this way and that in search of a pen. Fine. If Marc wants a divorce that badly, he can have it. They clearly have nothing left to say to each other, and Layla’s tired of being left in the dark. Marc hadn’t been a former student of her father’s—fine. Whatever. Marc had been a mercenary instead before they met—sure, all right. Marc had been working as the avatar for an ancient Egyptian deity—crazy, but provable. Proven. Marc was cut off from his parents and invited only a former mercenary friend as his best man for their wedding—a girl could live with that. Marc also had an entire other person living inside his body, with his own life and career and memories that don’t include Layla? Marc had been tracking Harrow by himself for two months and gotten his hands on Layla’s father’s scarab without telling her? Marc had been there at the moment her father had been killed, and he’d never said anything?
A small part of her feels a stab of remorse because breaking up with Marc for good also means losing Steven. And even if she’d been confused on whether what she felt about Steven was anything remotely like the sparks that had flared between her and Marc, she knows deep down that Steven would have always been her friend, an intellectual match she hadn’t found anywhere else since her father’s death. Well. Marc can certainly explain to Steven later if he wants, since he’s clearly more willing to talk to him about things that actually concern Layla a lot more.
Layla finds her pen on the dining room table and uncaps it so fiercely the cap goes flying across the room. Marc sees the lethal finality in her eyes as she storms back to the coffee table, and he tries to block her way. She pushes, and he is pushed. But he also pulls, and she is pulled. Marc wrestles with her for the pen as though it’s a knife and they’re fighting to kill each other. His arms settle around her, though, heavy and firm and achingly familiar. Layla only struggles against him for a few seconds. Or maybe it’s a few minutes. Either way, it’s a miniature eternity in their infinitesimally small London-flat universe. Even time slows for them. She beats at his forearms. He holds her like a hug. They sink to the floor. Ink spills on his shirt. The pen falls to the floor. She clutches him all the same. She wants to damage him. He wants to be damaged. She screams into his chest. He cries into her hair.
“I killed the man who did it,” Marc whispers as they rock together in their shared grief. “Khonshu didn’t even ask me to. I tore Bushman apart for what he did to your father, to the whole team. I had him on his knees. I made him beg for his life. And I killed him all the same.”
“Good,” Layla whispers back. The words tear from her throat like starving jackals. “Did he suffer? Did you make him hurt?”
Marc nods against her. “I did. He’s the only one I don’t regret. He deserved what he got.”
Layla’s fists clench even harder against the fabric of Marc’s shirt. “Good.”
“And I got what I deserved, too,” Marc breathes. “Khonshu learned what I was capable of that night. He made sure I didn’t forget. But it was worth it, if it meant giving your father that justice. Layla, I…” He rests his forehead on her shoulder, speaking to her knees. “I’m not proud of everything that comes after. Lots of times, I hate the work I do. But not that. Never that. Khonshu brought me back to life, and the first thing I did was avenge your father. I swear it.”
“Did you know him?” Layla rests her cheek on the crown of Marc’s head, her jaw at his temple. “Did you know my father at all?”
“He knew about my DID,” Marc confesses. “About Steven and—well, I told him about us. My partner—the guy who hired me out for the mission—he told me we were going in to protect your father’s team, like a guard. And it was true until the last day. It wasn’t a guard, Layla, it was a raid. But we spent weeks together in the desert. And your father showed me kindness like no one else ever did. It was the first time anyone made me feel safe enough to talk about myself.”
The floodgates open at that, and Layla can’t help the sobs that wrack her body. One of the greatest pains, back when Marc and Layla were newly dating and figuring out who they were to one another, was that Layla thought she’d never be able to introduce Marc to her father. They’d never go to her parents’ house in Cairo and laugh as Abdullah el-Faouly embarrassed his daughter with the hundreds of photo albums and scrapbooks he’d kept through Layla’s childhood. They’d never go on his curated six-day non-stop tour of every dig site he’d ever uncovered in his vast career searching for lost temples and forgotten tombs. They’d never share Cokes on the rooftop together, making up invisible constellations that were lost to the light pollution that so gently bathed the pyramids at night. Layla had thought then that her father would have loved Marc, and that was what had hurt the most—the fact that the two people she loved most in the world would never be able to meet.
And yet they had. And Layla knows from the way Marc breaks down with her that he truly had known her father. And her father truly had known the man who would have been his son-in-law, even if neither of them knew it at the time.
“I miss him, Marc,” Layla cries. “I want him back.”
Marc flinches and tenses in her arms but only holds her tighter. “I know,” he whispers. “I do, too. It should have been me, not him.”
Layla pulls away just enough to hold the side of Marc’s face. He leans into her hand like a plover leans into a crocodile. She means it when she tells him, “That’s not true.”
Marc’s cheek is wet against her palm. “All I’ve done is cause you pain.”
“Then don’t hurt me anymore.” Layla’s fingers slide into Marc’s hair, and then her mouth is on his, and his lashes fold against her cheek, and his hand presses up against the small of her back, and her arms fall around his neck, and he opens under her, and she is kissing him and he is kissing her and every kiss feels like the first.
They part from each other only so that Marc can rest his forehead against hers. This time, he is the one to hold her hands, slowly dragging his thumbs across her knuckles. “I missed you, Layla.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because…” Marc hesitates. He looks past her to the coffee table again, nods. Exhales. Says in a rush, “Because my mother died and I couldn’t keep Steven separate from me anymore.”
“What?” Confusion and denial hit Layla before realization does. “But I thought Steven said you were talking again.”
“Steven also didn’t know.” Marc’s eyes are hollow, but at least he’s looking at her this time. “I didn’t want him to know, Layla. He really loved her, and I—I couldn’t deal with him going to her shiva and finding out, because then he’d know we were parts of a system and the whole point of him was to not know that. I just wanted him to have a better life than me.”
“Isn’t he part of you?” Layla asks. “Wouldn’t giving him a better life also mean giving yourself one, too?”
Marc’s shoulders lift only slightly before sagging again. “Yes and no? I mean, psychologically speaking, I guess you could say we’re two parts of each other that split off as kids that should have fused back as we grew up, but we didn’t. I mean, that’s what one of my doctors told me after I was discharged, but I don’t know if that really covers it. I can’t say I’m, like, the original or anything because we were all there from the start, you know? I’m just the one that happened to break off with the most stuff and keep answering to Marc.” He stops abruptly, as though he’s listening to something Layla can’t hear. And maybe he is. Marc exhales. “Speaking of, there’s someone else you should meet.”
“Okay.” Layla awkwardly shifts her hands out of Marc’s. “Um. Is there anything I should do?”
“No, no, it’s okay, you can just stay.” Marc pats her forearm, but he’s looking at the coffee table. “All right, Jake. You’re in. Be nice.”
Layla’s husband closes his eyes, lashes fluttering. His jaw relaxes, then clenches. Relaxes, clenches. Layla studies him as he leaves. It’s taking longer than when Steven came in and out, and she’s wondering at what point she should say something, or if she should say anything at all. The seconds trickle into minutes, and Layla waits in the quiet.
She’s almost startled when her husband’s eyes snap open with a different, new vigor. He sweeps one hand through his hair, ruffling it as he glances around. With an almost apologetic look, he dashes into their old bedroom for a quick moment before returning with a white baseball cap on his head.
“Sorry about that,” he says cheerfully. His accent’s definitely some variety of American, but different from Marc’s in a way Layla can’t quite place. She wants to say New York, but she’s not completely sure. He extends a jovial hand. “Jake Lockley, at your service.”
“Layla el-Faouly.” Layla takes his hand, and Jake gives her a firm shake. When he leans back against the couch, his posture’s more open than either Marc or Steven, more casual. He feels like the sort of person you could trust to haggle properly with a street vendor. Marc would ignore the vendor altogether, and Steven would end up completely scammed. “So you’re another one of Marc’s…” She hesitates. Personalities? Identities?
“Alters,” Jake supplies, and Layla repeats the word. Alters. “Me, him, Stevie—we’re the main three.”
“Are there more of you?”
“Oy, rude,” Jake says, eyebrows furrowing, “to ask a system that.”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, just messin’ witcha.” Jake tilts the brim of his cap up. “I mean. We’re the only system I’ve ever met, so I wouldn’t know.” He puts his feet up on the coffee table with a muttered, “Yeah, yeah, I know, chill the fuck out.” Brightly, he tells Layla, “So how’s your day been?”
“Oh. Um.” Layla blinks in surprise. “Well, it’s not over yet, I think.”
Jake nods. “Not over yet. You’re not wrong there. Oh, and to answer your question from earlier, yeeeees, kind of? I mean, there have been others, but they didn’t tend to stick around. So you’re not gonna have to meet, like, seventeen different people, is what I’m sayin’. I think as far as systems go, we’re more on the smaller side, but hey. Haven’t met others. Wouldn’t know.”
Layla has to admit, Jake’s candor and brashness will take some getting used to. But this is someone Marc is trusting her with, and at the very least, she can respect that. She wonders if Steven knows about Jake as well.
Jake anticipates the question before she even asks it. “Yeah, Steven knows about me. Met in the Duat a few days ago when Harrow shot us. We miiiiight have died a little bit. Great time for an identity crisis, yeah?”
Layla closes her eyes at might have died a little bit. She’d been there. She’d seen Marc fall. And even though she’d been absolutely sure she could never forgive him for admitting what he did about her father, she’d still felt her chest split in two when she saw the gunshot wounds blooming across her husband’s shirt. She’d only been able to run then, regroup and regather and figure out her own plan to make Harrow pay for what he’d done.
Jake casually puts an arm over her shoulders, gives her a short squeeze. “We’re okay, though. We’ve been through worse. Not the first time we died, either.”
“Yeah, I know.” Maybe it’s because she knows Jake isn’t Marc that she’s able to lay her head on his shoulder. It’s the same body, smells and feels the same, but Jake makes her feel like a sister instead of a wife. Layla’s not sure how that makes sense. “But you always had the suit before.”
“Eh.” Jake fiddles with his cap. “Touché.”
“Is it okay if I ask how long you’ve been around?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve been here since we were twelve.” Jake scratches his chin. “Well, I’ve been here since Marc and Steven were twelve. They sorta aged together, and I kinda didn’t? Hard to explain, but I’ve always sorta been this, y’know, cool Jewish uncle sort of age. Functionally immortal, me.” He scrunches his nose at the glass. “Hey, never agin’s basically the same thin’ as bein’ immortal.”
When Layla tilts her head, Jake explains, “They live in reflective surfaces, the other two. Mirrors, glass, puddles, shiny windows, the like. Perks of bein’ a god’s avatar, apparently you get upgraded headspace.”
“Headspace?”
Jake taps his temple, much like Marc. “Used to be harder to figure out whose voice was whose when we didn’t have the whole smoke and mirrors act. Like, Steven’s pretty obvious, but me and Marc got all tangled up in each other sometimes.”
“So you knew from the start, then, too,” Layla realizes.
“Sort of. Like I said, Marc and I got tangled up sometimes. Took us a while to realize we were separate people, but we got there eventually. I think that was about the time we ran away from the place we grew up, for good. I mean, someone had to get us out of there, right?”
Get us out of there? Layla can’t quite conceal her surprise when her brow creases. Jake’s eyes widen, and he swears loudly. To the table, he nearly shouts, “How was I supposed to know, man, I thought you said something already!” A pause. “Yeah, no thanks, I’m gonna handle this bit. Take a walk, Spector. Ha. Sure. Fuck you too. Mwah, Steven, you’re a doll.” He spreads his arms with a wide grin at Layla. “Marc loves me, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“There’s more he’s not telling me,” Layla guesses.
Jake nods. “Yeah. Well. Look, it’s not really my place to say. But him and me—we went through some shitty stuff when he was a kid. We both dealt with it in our own ways. Marc can’t stop blaming himself for what happened. I blame everyone else, you know? Makes bearing it a little easier, when it’s someone else’s fault. And Steven, well, he never knew about anything until recently, so he doesn’t exactly get an opinion on this part.”
“I don’t need details,” Layla says softly, “but I do want the truth.”
Jake shakes his head. “I can’t do that for you. All I can say is, if Marc decides he’s ready to tell you what happened, we can talk more about my side of it then. But that’s gonna have to be up to him, y’know? You and me are just gonna have to wait. From what I hear, it was hard enough catching Steven up to speed, and he lives here with us.”
“Right.”
“Hey, for what it’s worth,” Jake says, rubbing her shoulder, “I’m just doing my job out here, protecting my main man, y’know? So it’s nothing personal.” He stiffens suddenly. “Hey, man, I’m talkin’ here.” He rolls his eyes and side-eyes Layla. “Marc’s being a little bitch right now. You care if he comes back?”
“Oh. Uh. Sure. Yeah, if he wants to.”
“’ight then.” Jake slaps his knees, rubs his palms together. “Also, PSA, Spector, but when this is over, can we please have a couple seconds in the suit. I swear, that shit’s like heroin in terms of instant relief, and same color, too—”
He trails off in the middle of too, ending the word on more of a question as he stares at the coffee table. Layla lifts herself from his shoulder, gives him some space. Rapid blinking tells Layla Marc’s grounding himself. She’s seen it before, in small moments of panic and focus. She wonders how many times before Marc has only been blinking to keep Jake or Steven from the front.
“Before I say anything else,” Marc says stiffly, “I would love to apologize for Jake. He’s, uh. He can be a bit much.”
“He’s all right.”
Marc manages a smile. “He says thanks.”
“You’re back, then.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to go away again?”
“Layla, I’ve always been here. Even when I’m not in front.”
“You know what I mean.”
Marc takes Jake’s cap off, folds it in his hands. “Hopefully I can stay in front for now. Told the other two to push me back if I start to dissociate. We’ll see if it works.”
“Marc,” Layla says. He looks at her with a quiet hm. “Thank you for letting me meet them.”
“Didn’t have much of a choice with Steven, but I appreciate that.” Marc sighs and sets the cap on the coffee table as though giving it to his reflection. “Only ever told two people in my life about the DID, and you’re the second. I mean, I guess technically you’re the third to know, but Frenchie’s crazy smart and sort of figured it out on his own. Well, okay, he figured it out when I was in a fugue state, and that was a bit embarrassing for both of us.”
“Yeah?” Layla smiles as she remembers Marc’s best man. It doesn’t faze her at all to know that Frenchie had known about her husband’s disorder. In fact, it’s a little comforting, that Frenchie really had been Marc’s friend and not just a casual business partner.
“Yeah.” The corner of Marc’s mouth lifts slightly. “Jake still owes me for that.”
“Does he?”
“Long story short,” Marc says, fighting laughter, “Jake doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Layla’s jaw drops. “Oh my God. No way.”
Marc winces only slightly. There’s more light in his eyes than pain when he jabs a finger at the coffee table. “Hey, we’re even now, okay? Hey, no, no, that’s fair. That’s fair. No, you can explain to Steven.” He offers Layla an apologetic glance, as though he’s just now remembering she’s there, too. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Layla follows Marc’s eyes to the coffee table, but all she sees is the faint double reflection in the glass there, following his every movement. That must be where Marc sees Jake and Steven. Layla wishes she can see them too, if even to catch a hint of the parts of the conversation that are theirs alone. She’s not exactly jealous, but she does feel a stab of something at knowing that she’s no longer the person who knows most about Marc. Part of it’s a kind of relief. Her husband’s not alone. Part of it’s a kind of disappointment. Her husband’s not alone.
“I really am sorry about your father.” Marc sobers and takes her hands in his. “And I’m sorry I left without saying anything.”
Layla tilts her head. “And I’m sorry about your mom. Whatever you’re going through, you can share it with me. Or with your alters. I just. Don’t push us away, all right?”
“Yeah.” Marc nods, his voice thickening. “She hated me, though.”
“Who, your mother?”
“Mm.” Marc squeezes her fingers. “Couldn’t stand the sight of me after my brother—” He breaks off. Layla doesn’t ask the obvious. You had a brother? He’ll tell her more, she knows. And he says, “My brother died when we were kids. I—Steven says it was an accident, but that’s not how it looked to my mother. She hated me. Couldn’t stand the sight of me after Randall was gone. So I left when I was fifteen, never went back. Tried to go to her shiva, but I just. I couldn’t do it.” He takes a deep breath. “Steven grew up thinking she loved us. Jake and I tried to keep it that way for a long time, and we did. But it was getting harder and harder to hide things from him, especially after we died and became Moon Knight. And then our mom died, and—” Another shuddering breath. “And then it all just came down. I don’t know why. She hated me.”
Layla pries one of her hands from Marc’s and threads her fingers through his hair. “Did you hate her?”
“Jake hates her.”
“I didn’t ask about Jake.”
“I don’t know,” Marc says quietly. “How can I not know?”
Layla cradles Marc’s head against her chest. “She was supposed to love you, Marc. That’s what parents do. That’s what my father did, and it hurt when he died because I won’t find that kind of love from him again. And your mother didn’t, and it hurt because she should have. But that’s not your fault.”
A tear slides from Marc’s face to her shirt. He gives an incredulous sort of chuckle. “God, you and Steven are way too much alike.”
“We can be sister-wives.”
“Ha, yeah.” Marc buries his face into her shoulder. “Gotta say, though, polygamy’s a little outdated by Jewish standards. Just a little.”
“We can have a more Muslim wedding. They don’t care as much.”
“Will your jida make those incredible kebabs again?”
“I can talk to her.”
“Jake wants to be the flower girl.”
“That can be arranged, as long as I’m your best man.”
“Oh.” Marc laughs. He actually laughs. The sound fills Layla’s chest with helium. “Sorry, I thought we were both getting married to you. I’ll have to change the wedding invites, huh?”
“You’re in demand, Marc,” Layla teases, tapping her nose against Marc’s before meeting him in another kiss. She can feel him smiling this time, tired as that smile must be. It’s there. And maybe it’s not happiness, not yet, but it is something lighter. He’s not hiding anything with that smile, and Layla feels yet another weight lifting from her lungs.
When they part this time, Layla clasps Marc’s fingers through her own. “Just promise me something, okay?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t push me away again,” Layla says. The ache from her father’s death is still heavy in her stomach, but it’s soothed at the edges by the fact that now she knows more of the truth. She knows her father got his justice, and that Marc was the one to deliver that vengeance. Marc laid himself bare with the truth that was forced from him, and he’d faced it. And she’d accepted it. She’d rather have his honesty, even if it hurts them both. She doesn’t have to understand all his reasons. That’s what trust is for, and it’s a two-way bridge. That’s what love is for, and it’s a two-way choice, and it’s one that Layla is willing to make. All she wants is for her husband to make the same choice. “Gods or no gods. Danger or no danger. Janazah or shiva. Weren’t those our vows?”
Rough fingers find hard knuckles. Fighters, the two of them, two people beaten and left in ruin by the world that was supposed to protect them. Layla only hopes that there can be at least some peace between the two of them. She likes Marc. She loves him. She wants to keep him. And she knows, deep down, Marc feels the same about her. She can taste as much on his lips.
He nods, takes her in his arms. “Okay. Okay. I can try to do that.”
“If Steven and Jake are listening,” Layla whispers by his ear, “please keep my husband to that promise, all right?”
Marc kisses her cheek. “I’ll try to keep your husband to that promise, too.”
“You’d better.” Layla nudges his shoulder with her own. “You know I’d just come find you again. You’re way too easy to track.”
“I lasted two months, didn’t I?”
“What, you want an award?”
Marc’s brow has smoothed almost completely. “Can I tell you another secret?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“For a long time, I used Steven and Jake like shields,” Marc says. “If something got too heavy for me, I’d go away and let one of them take over and drive my body around for a while. I spent so much of my life sort of absorbing their happiness through osmosis. Like, even if I couldn’t be happy with my life, there was someone out there that was. Some other part of me that could deal with everything better than I ever could, whether that was through ignorance or apathy. Used to think happiness wasn’t in the cards for me, that the best I could do was just watch Steven and Jake live better lives than me. But then you came along and changed that.”
“Did I?”
Marc nods. “You’ve only ever made me happy, Layla. You make all of us happy. And I know that’s asking so much of you, but when we first fell in love, I felt like I was my own person. And I know I don’t deserve you.”
“You don’t.” Layla tilts his chin up so that he knows she’s smiling. “But you have me anyway.”
Marc returns her smile, broken as it is upon the lips she’s kissed so many times. He looks at her like she’s the sun through disbelieving, half-lidded eyes. And Layla touches her forehead to his like he’s the moon, solid and cool and reflective of all the light she can give him. Forget Khonshu. If he ever tries to give Marc a hard time, she’ll fight the god herself.
“Ana bahibik, Layla,” Marc whispers. “Omri.” My life, my lifespan, my time alive.
“Ya ’amar,” she replies. My moon. And in English, she tells him, “I love you, too.”
And Layla takes the papers that stared accusingly at them from across the coffee table and wiggles them, leaving plenty of space for Marc to join her if he wants. “Beginning to feel like maybe this was a bad idea.”
Marc takes one corner, and Layla adjusts her hold on the papers. “You know I’m full of them.”
Layla tears her corner away as Marc rips the divorce papers in the other direction. They take their respective halves and tear and crumple to their hearts’ delight, covering the glass with paper shreds. They’ve got work to do, for sure, but they’re going to do that work together. And maybe they’ll fight again in the future. Maybe it will be a few hardened words, a glare here or there, a swallowed tear or a weary sigh. It will be hard for Marc to open up sometimes. It will be hard for Layla to understand. But at the end of the day, at the end of every day, they are still two people who are willing to try for each other. Isn’t that enough?
Marc curls his arm over her shoulders. Layla snakes her arm around his waist. And they lean into each other, backs against the couch, legs dovetailing together beneath the coffee table. It’s as good a start as any. Actually, it’s the best start of all.
And Layla likes to think that Marc’s reflections are smiling, too.