Chapter Text
Irene’s heart catches in her throat when she hears a knock on the door. Ever the police arrived three weeks ago telling her Standard was dead, (Standard had robbed a pawn shop, her husband was shot, did she know why he had done it, by the way he was dead, was she an accessory to a crime, Benicio’s father was never coming home again) everything had made her jump. Watching a man get stomped to death in her elevator only hours later certainly hadn’t helped.
What she sees through the peephole doesn’t help either. If anything it makes her heart, which had jumped in her throat, feel lodged there, blocking all sound, blocking her breath, stopping her from even moving. Because on the other side her front door, staring down at his shoes is…
Him. Murderer. (Savior.) Criminal. (Friend.) He’s hidden in the shadow of evening, but there’s enough light coming from the hall lamps to give a shine to his silver jacket, a radiance to his dull blonde hair. She would recognize his profile anywhere, could never forget it even if she tried. He came back.
Breathe in… Breathe out... She tells herself, not for the first time even that day. Irene blinks back tears she hadn’t even realized had formed, and reaches for the latch on the door. Light from behind her spills into the dark hallway, casting a warm glow onto the man’s pale skin.
And it is pale. That’s the first thing she really notices once the door is open, once he’s looking at her. He’s pale and has dark circles under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept in a long time. There’s a week’s worth of growth on his face, darker than his blond hair. It makes him look older she thinks distantly. Breathe in… Breathe out…
“Hey” he says. His voice is tight and weak, like he hasn’t used it in a few days, and it was sapping all of his energy. “I didn’t know if I would find you here.”
“I’m here.” She says softly, talking around the heart still lodged in her throat. Where else would I be? “I thought you were gone.” She’s looking at him, still standing in the hallway, and feels her lips start to tingle with memory. She refuses to look at his mouth.
“I was. I was going to leave, let you and Benicio be safe. Away from me.” He looks down at his feet at that, tone quiet. “But I heard…”
She waits for him to continue, listening to sound of both of their breathes while he finds the words. Silently she steps back into the apartment, towards the light, and as though tethered on a string he follows her. Closing the door quietly behind him.
“I heard that some people might still be looking for you. It might not be over. “ A pause. “You might not be safe.”
Her heart drops out of her throat then, falls straight to the pit of her stomach. Someone might come for Benicio. For her. The waking nightmare of three weeks ago might not be over. Irene doesn’t know if she could handle that again. Breathe in… Breathe out…
“And I couldn’t leave if… if that might be true.” He’s still standing there, looking at her with the bluest of eyes. They look so sad, so full of regret. She remembers how his eyes had been full of regret the last time she had seen them. When his face had been splattered with a stranger’s blood, before an elevator door closed the world between them forever.
But maybe not forever. “Is it true?” she asks, both about what he just said, and also the regret in his eyes.
He shifts on his feet then, and a grimace of pain shoots across his face. Irene doesn’t have a chance to register what that means before he takes two steps to the side and slowly lowers himself onto one of her dining room chairs. She wordlessly sits in the one opposite the table from him. Once more she lets him breathe in silence.
“Yes,” he whispers. She doesn’t think he meant it be a whisper. “It’s true. Some people,” here one of his hands comes out of the pocket and gives a vague gesture. “from out east, they know about what happened. They know your name. I don’t know if they’ll do anything. If they’ll come out here. But…”
They could. They both know it could happen, in a number of days, or weeks, or months. Someone could come for her or her child, for a crime that she still doesn’t understand the details of. But she knows that her innocence won’t be a saving grace if anyone actually gets desperate to recover any money.
“What should we do?” she asks. She means her and Benicio, but once the words are out of her mouth she realizes that actually she means the three of them. How did that happen? Not even five minutes, and he’s already slipped into her thinking, the way his fingers slipped between hers over his car’s consol.
He seems to realize it too, as his face transforms from guilt and regret to hope and longing. It makes Irene a little sick in the stomach, a little light in the head to think she’s giving someone hope. She just has enough for Benicio, barely any to spare for herself. She thinks that might be why she slapped him last time they had this conversation. She wasn’t ready to be the subject of anyone’s longing. Was she? (He’s already slipped into her thinking, the way his fingers slipped between hers over his car’s consol.)
“We should leave. Leave LA for sure, probably leave the state. I don’t, I can’t know if they’ll come, but if they did try and find you, we’d need to be farther away.” He swallows heavily. “And never come back.”
She closes her eyes and lets his words settle over her. Leave. Leave LA, leave her job, leave Benicio’s school. She searches for heartache at the loss, but nothing comes up. It could be because she’s too emotionally numb for any more loss to register, but she doesn’t think its that. She thinks it that now that Standard is gone, now that her neighbor down the hall is gone, life in LA feels empty. No loss of home could feel like a loss now. Because her home already left her three weeks ago.
Irene blinks and feels tears trace down her cheeks. She raises a shaky hand and wipes them away, looking at the man in front of her as sadness swims in his own eyes. He must be hurt she thinks, finally connecting the dots of his pale skin and weakened demeanor, the way he is hunched to the side.
“Are you hurt?” She asks anyway. “We can’t leave until you’re able to come with us.”
For the first time a ghost of a smile crosses his face. It’s fleeting, but it transforms him for a moment, making him younger, more like a young boy. It makes him handsome she thinks, before dismissing the thought. “I’m fine.” He lies, and they both know it’s a lie, but she’ll take it. “We can leave when you’re ready.”
“Tonight?” she asks. “Benicio is sleeping.”
“Whenever you want. It’s okay if he’s asleep.” He pauses. “You can sleep too. I’ll drive.”