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The scene before her isn’t an unfamiliar one. Bodies scattered across the floor, some posed in odd forms from their last ditch, but ultimately pointless, efforts to flee from her. Their innards and life decorate the space in such a way she almost finds beautiful, in its own strange, sick little way. One of her needles is still held loosely in her grip but the other has created two neat entry and exit wounds through a fraudulent accountant’s lung, and her backup has been flung into the side of a sofa after being thrown like a dart across a woman’s throat.
There is the possibility that she may have let it get out of hand tonight— the sprays of blood are a little lengthier and might indicate she was taking out some personal anger on these targets. It’s a mess, but it’s her mess, her beautiful little mess that she would normally take a second to admire as the adrenaline winds down before starting cleanup and disposal.
However, it is not the extra viscera spilled over the room that has her heart pounding in her throat now, or even the adrenaline spike. Those are inconsequential in comparison to what she is actually confronted with.
Her husband, in the midst of it all. Standing behind her at the doorway, a witness to this horror. Looking far too out of place in his kindness among all the horrible imagery.
This is not beautiful.
No.
A dozen questions flit through her mind when she recognizes him. Why is he here? How did he get here? Was he following her? Did she do something to make him suspicious? What if, in her blindness, she had hurt him? Did he want to turn her in? How was she meant to explain this to the rest of Garden?
None of those matter now, because they all fall to the same, terrible truth. He is here. He’s seen her; he’s seen her work. He knows everything she has worked so very hard to hide for the past few years. In the span of less than an hour, it has all unraveled. Her carefully maintained threads and facades that hung in such a delicate balance have snapped, laying in blood-soaked piles at her feet.
It’s over.
When her persona finally breaks, her controlled demeanor goes with it.
“So this is how it ends, is it?” Yor asks, a wavering voice echoing across the tile to him. Not much point in hiding it. She doesn’t make up excuses, can’t come up with any excuses that could possibly get her out of this. How the hell do you explain away half a dozen dismembered bodies and enough blood soaking your clothes to keep a hospital going for a week?
Hospital. She had always found that part of her life to be a little humorous. Married to a man trying to save lives, when she was the one snuffing them out. A funny yin and yang between them. Not that she would have that to share for much longer.
“Hardly something as noble as your doctor's work, but it’s what I do. It’s all I can do,” she says bitterly. “This is who I am, Loid. I haven’t got anything else.”
She can feel hot prickles along the inner corners of her eyes, how they trace little lines over the apples of her cheeks. Their paths veer when they reach the droplets of blood and find new ways down to her jawbone before hitting the ground.
Where is this sadness even coming from? She should have known this would happen sooner or later. Some people were just destined to be alone. Being in her field of work put you in the express line for such a fate, that was for certain. Her job was designed to protect people like Loid and Anya, not get them tangled into it. Really, she ought to consider herself fortunate to even have had the short time she had with them.
Loid begins to walk forward between the carnage, looking with wide eyes from body to body, the methods with how they’d been taken out. Yes, she’d definitely gone too far this evening.
“You probably want to end our arrangement, I’m sure. Anya’s school doesn’t seem like the type to want an assassin as a mother figure,” she continued as his steps brought him closer and closer to her. There isn’t a hostility or defensiveness radiating from him, so at least that’s something. Because of course Loid isn’t that kind of man. Even standing next to a monster like her, he can’t work up any sort of hatred. He’s just too good for that.
And Anya, oh, Anya. What was she going to make of all of this? Her mama she’d been more loving and wonderful to than Yor ever deserved is going to suddenly up and leave without a trace. All those times she had asked Yor to help fix her hair just how she liked it, the little songs they had been able to teach each other, drawings they had made together. Those moments in the night she had taken on more than a few occasions to just watch the girl sleeping soundly next to Bond, and find tangible proof that at least something in the world was alright.
From Anya’s memory sparks other moments she’s had with them, in this little family life. Walks in the park together, on a search to find the perfect leaf Anya will bring home on some given day. Little brunch dates with Loid where they had decided to be “adventurous” and select menu items they would never try normally, laughing at the faces the other would make if the mystery order turned out unappetizing. The overwhelming joy that filled the house when another Stella was earned, however rare.
It would all fade away into nothing. She would have to leave and be off on her own. Alone, again.
She finds Loid standing right in front of her now, watching her with some look– fear or hatred or shock, it doesn’t really register with her. She can’t find it in herself to look him in the eyes.
“Can I ask one thing of you?” she says, softer now that he is close to her. She tries to hold herself together, but the tears are falling too quickly to maintain composure. The voice cracks follow soon after. “It’ll be my last one, and– and I’ll pack up quickly and get out of your way. It’s much more than I deserve. But, please… can I have a moment to say goodbye to Anya?” Her cheeks are hot and damp now, her throat constricting under a painful aching. “I don’t– don’t want to leave her so suddenly. It’ll hurt her, but I’d be quick about it. So, please?”
He doesn’t respond. Yor dares a peek upwards to find he is still watching her. The look isn’t as malicious as she had expected, but still not something she can understand. “Loid?”
Nothing. No yelling, no frustration, nothing. He just keeps looking at her in that… way. Her sadness gives way to unfounded upset quickly.
“Say something,” she commands. Some kind of negative response, anything, has to be better than what he’s giving her right now. She could take being yelled at. Screaming. Even being slapped or attacked. This unreadable silence is just…
“Say something, dammit!” she cries. Her needle clatters to the ground as she shoves him in the chest. It’s weak; she doesn’t have the strength remaining to put up any more fight.
She’s done.
His stance falters slightly, but he holds his ground, his silence, and her gaze. And keeps holding her gaze as he falls to his knees in front of her. She blinks in confusion, the tears forming a blurred cloud of blonde and green at her feet. Had she actually hurt him…
“Will you marry me?”
…huh?
“What?” she demands, certain she had misheard him. No one could be in such a lost state, even someone who had just witnessed a massacre, to say something out of place as–
“I said, will you marry me?” She didn’t hear it wrong, he really did say the most idiotic thing one could come up with right now.
Loid asks again, his hands coming up to take her, the slick blood intermingling between their palm lines. “Will you marry me?” He’s pleading now, a firm squeeze to accompany his words like some sort of reinforcement.
Yor falls down next to him, either willingly or her legs just gave out, she can’t quite tell. She peers through the salt water to see if he may be delirious, because what other explanation is there for such stupidity?
“You don’t want that,” she says firmly. “You’re mistaken. You don’t want this,” she adds, gesturing between herself and the mess of a crime scene.
He still hasn’t taken his eyes off of her, but draws her hands closer to his core and squeezes again. “Will you marry me?”
“Loid, come on, you’re just being cruel.” She tries to shake him away, but the tears well up all over again every time she thinks about what else that entails losing.
“Will you,” he gently brings her hands back to him, “marry me?”
She’s able to bite down on her lips for about three seconds before the first sob wracks her, ugly and loud as it echoes over the room. He’s quick to move and muffle the next one in his chest as he draws the rest of her into him, tucking his face into the top of her hair, allowing her to release all the anguish she's feeling in that moment. Yor hates it. She hates how his arms are so warm and solid around her. She hates how she’s smearing blood and snot all over his vest. She hates how easily he takes her off the floor, how he’s able to carry her so carefully to the adjoining bathroom.
She hates being given this solace she doesn’t deserve.
She doesn’t speak as the damp towel is wiped across the bloody parts of her exposed skin, cool and warm sensations mixing from the water and the heat of Loid’s palm. When he moves to clean her face, she locks her neck muscles at first. He can’t treat her if she won’t comply. But then, after a moment of hesitation, he shifts his hand to cup the side of her head ever so gently, thumb swiping at the tears that form under the reddened eyes, and she slumps again.
When he’s finished, and steps back, she takes the briefest moment to look him over. A weariness to his face and appearance, but some underlying relief as well, relief she shouldn’t warrant. There’s dark blood on the knees of his pants and his hands and his lapels, a stark, ghastly contrast to all the good things she knows about him.
And then she shuts her eyes again, because not only are the tears threatening to boil over, but she can’t bear to look at this worried thing she’s made of her husband. He only looks so worn because he got involved with her.
She doesn’t want to hurt him anymore.
All the same, a soft, familiar green jacket lining is draped over her shoulders, and she is once again picked up with ease and held close as they leave the bathroom. She is so tenderly shifted to one arm as Loid moves around the room collecting her weapons, benevolently keeping them in a grasp that is out of her sight.
It is only when they make it to the descending elevator that she says something. When she knows they have an undisturbed moment, she can voice the questions that sit at the forefront of her mind.
“Why do you want a murderer to stay in your life?” she asks him with a low numbness. “Why do you want a murderer to stay in your daughter’s life?”
“Our daughter, my dear,” he corrects her gently. “She’s always been our daughter. There’s never been a ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ in this.”
Poetic as ever, but to her current state, that’s evading the question, and she presses on. “Why, Loid?”
He needs a second to consider his answer, but the words come out just as sincerely as if he had answered immediately. “The part of you that is a murderer is infinitesimal compared to the part of you that is a mother, Yor. An incredible mother. To keep something so valuable as that in my life, in Anya’s life, I would accept that tiny piece of you again and again and again.”
She turns towards him as he lowers her feet to the ground. Her needles are lifted from his back pocket, the blood still fresh against the shining brass. They feel so much heavier in her hands than they did when she left for the evening, a weight she no longer wants to be laden with.
“Living with a killer just to have a mother and a wife,” she says, voice starting to crack again. “Not exactly a fair trade for you.”
She doesn’t notice how quickly his arms have encircled her. His hands find the small of her back. When she tilts her head up, their foreheads touch, a mutual breath passing between them as an uncertain red meets unwavering blue.
“It’s a trade I would take every time, Yor. In my experience, sacrifices of that magnitude are needed for love.”
After requiring the last twenty minutes to settle to a normal rate, he has once again sent her heart into a frenzy, but for a different reason this time. Her head tilts further to allow their noses to touch, as well. She thinks she knows the answer, but won’t be satisfied until the answer comes from him.
“Are you saying that you love me?” she whispers, voice catching ever so slightly on that word.
Large, warm hands, hands that feel like affection, and peace of mind, and a place to call home, are brought to her face to trace away the tears clinging to her lashes, before drawing out an anticipatory shiver as they slide down her arms and take up her hands. It's a bit of an odd comfort that his voice also begins to break like hers.
“I’ll ask you again: will you marry me?”