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It has to happen when he’s out on a mission. It’s never been common protocol between them, but he’s implemented it after Strix, for emergencies. The gadgets Franky supplies him with are, Franky swears, double-proofed that not even him would be able to access the information if Twilight doesn’t allow him to. There were instances when they maintained two-way information even with Franky not assisting him on the field (which is an extraordinary rarity in and of itself) because Twilight deemed it necessary, but most of the time, what he does with his gadgets and missions are up to him. Friendly as they are they both understand there are times where professional lines should be drawn.
But since Strix, with Loid Forger’s responsibility as a father and husband—a responsibility of two people, Twilight has to implement a system where he can be reachable for dire emergencies during missions. More so when one of those responsibilities is a small child of six. It’s why Franky is his go-to babysitter, despite the man’s (sham) reluctance, so if he is out on a side mission he can still be somewhat reachable.
The communication device he always keeps strapped on his left wrist so the vibrations that signals attempt at communication would travel straight through his pulse and he’d know.
Since Franky briefed him on the functionality of the device three months prior, never has it once beeped in alert. After all, he, too, has briefed Franky that, no, his kid having tantrums about not being allowed to eat only peanuts for dinner and having to finish her homework before watching Bondman are not dire emergencies.
Now—a soft, yet still shocking vibration travels up his left pulse and Loid feels it like a jolt.
He’s crawling the vents of a half-finished building when it does, inching closer to the main room of a radical pro-war underground organization HQ secretly sponsored by several high-ranking politicians. He was to extract a dossier consisting of their illicit transactions of supplying other pro-war radicals with resources which also, according to WISE’s informants, lists the illicit firearms import.
Loid turns to his side to pluck the device and replace the one in his left ear, keeping the one in his right—connected to a bug in the room where the dossier is, underneath. “Speak,” he speaks to the receiver, hearing soft static. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t panic, but,” Franky’s voice travels through his ear, “I think your kid’s sick. Won’t eat dinner, kept falling asleep when working on her homework, and she’s now already in bed missing her cartoon. She’s burning up too.”
Loid feels something drop in his chest, but forces himself to stay calm. “There are antipyretics in the bathroom cabinets, the syrup one for kids too,” it was not Anya’s first time being a little sick, “give her one and a half spoon of it. But she has to eat something first, can you bribe her with something…?”
“I’ll try. She did eat half of a bread slice earlier,” Franky sighs, “just, get home as quick as you can? I’m not exactly cut out to care for a sick child, you know.”
“Right,” he says, cogs inside his mind already turning, discarding the current comprehensive plan in favor of one with utmost efficiency in time, even if it will mean he’d accomplish only the barest minimum of this operation. Just get the dossier, slip out, get back home, tend to Anya.
After all, Strix is the mission of the highest priority, and Anya is an incredibly crucial part of it. Saying she’s key to world peace is not exactly a reach.
“In the meantime, put a warm compress on her head, and her armpits if you can manage it. Keep her hydrated, too, make her drink at least two glasses of water,” he instructs, to which Franky mumbles a noise of hesitant assent. Loid hopes Yor would get home even faster than him if possible—then again, they have Franky over because it happens that his extra mission and Yor’s schedule for overtime coincide.
The device beeps into silence and Loid tries to re-focus on the noises in his other ear, which he has completely missed.
+
Franky greets him with an anxious face—which turns worried. “Your shoulder—”
“I’ll live,” he grits his teeth, “wait a moment, would you? Let me clean up and change first so Anya doesn’t get scared when she sees me.”
“Yeah, take your time. She’s asleep, I’ve done all you told me to.”
Loid pauses on his way to his room, fixing the bag containing the dossier—one that cost him a small grazing wound, hastily bandaged, on his left shoulder, as he nearly failed to notice an armed security personnel in his haste. He looks at Franky weakly. “Thanks,” he tells him, “for looking out for Anya.”
Franky blinks. Opens his mouth—and closes it again. “Well, you do pay me good,” he jokes weakly. “And she’s a good kid.”
Loid nods stiffly, and retracts to his room and the adjacent bathroom, making quick work of cleaning up, securing his mission objective, making sure his wound and the bandaging would not be noticeable. Franky offers to walk Bond before going home—and tells him he won’t mind picking the dog up the day after to look after him for the time being; an offer he easily accepts before bidding his friend good night with gratitude and a promise.
He steps into the darkened room of his daughter, finding her curled by her side, pressing herself to the battered penguin he got her; the damp towel on her forehead has slipped down and there’s a wet patch by her side where Franky had probably tried to put the other warm compress on. The mess looks uncomfortable to sleep in, but the child seems to have no qualms. Or, is too tired to care.
Loid takes the wet towels away—they’ve gone lukewarm and he needs to change them. Pressing his hand onto her forehead, he feels that it’s still far too warm.
Anya stirs, and blink up bleary eyes at him. Loid smiles gently at her, pushing back her damp bangs away from her face. “Papa?”
“Hey,” he greets, “how are you feeling?”
“Papa,” Anya simply whispers as she struggles to sit up until he helps her. Her breathing is slightly labored, and soon Loid realizes she’s starting to sniffle. “Papa,” she cries, scrambling for his arms, and Loid lets her, “Papa, Anya’s head hurts.”
“I’m sorry I worked late,” he says, softly rocking her as she sniffles to his clean shirt. “It’s okay. Have you eaten?”
A nod. “Okay, good girl. Uncle Scruffy gave you your medicine?” Another nod, and a small, “The medicine tasted bad. Papa, Anya is cold.”
“Usually they do,” Loid caresses her head, unconsciously holding her tighter in his arms to share his warmth. “I’ll help you change to warmer clothing and then you go to sleep so you can feel better soon, alright?”
To his mild horror, the sniffling continues. “Where’s Mama,” she asks, and it breaks Loid’s heart a little. “Papa, Anya wants Mama.”
He wonders, when she was Anya Williams, when she was Anya Levski, Anya Roche, had she ever been like this? The Mama she shed her tears for, during Eden interview, did she hold Anya like this?
Is she the Mama she’s asking for, now?
“… Yor,” Anya mumbles, “Mama Yor.”
“She’ll be home soon,” he placates, not telling her that he, too, wishes she is here, “let’s get changed before she does, shall we?”
She nods, and the motion drags on the bandage under his shirt, where the wound of bullet grazing was still lying untreated underneath. Loid tries not to wince, but suddenly, Anya pushes herself back, looking up at him with teary, wide eyes. “Papa hurt? Did Anya hurt Papa?”
“I’m not hurt,” he lies easily, pushing back her damp hair. “You didn’t.”
+
Though he has notified Handler as per protocol the night before, he still needs to report for de-briefing in the morning; to dissect the dossier, which he has not touched at all past snatching it and making sure he’s accomplished the objective.
The night he finds mostly awake, too restless to even sleep as he counts hours to re-hydrate and administer Anya’s medicine; down to the minute. Yor slept by Anya’s side—she’d looked worn-down when he greeted her at the front door, coming in not too long after himself, but it was like a switch had turned when he told her of the situation. When they stepped into Anya’s room cautiously, their girl was half-awake, but she immediately reached out for Yor, who gathered her in her arms, humming soft lullabies in Anya’s ear until she stopped sniffling and started to softly snore. The movement seemed like instinct, like second nature, and it had been hard for him to discern what he felt at the sight: there was an overwhelming relief, then amazement, then envy.
Twilight—
—no. Worry was a more accurate term. Anya, by all means, is Loid’s daughter—in this operation—he should’ve been able to provide the comfort of Yor she instead gravitated towards, lest he’s failing as a father and by extension, as a spy. He’s always been able to do everything. He should have been able to comfort his sick child—he was envious how naturally it comes to Yor, that’s what it was.
“The HQ has been wiped out of its security and several key personnels,” is what the Handler tells him the moment he puts the dossier down on the desk between them. When Twilight stares back at her with a stunned silence, she continues. “You look horrible. Didn’t sleep?”
“Anya has a fever and it hasn’t gone down all night,” he replies flatly. “I did not do that.”
“Clearly,” Handler huffs a little, “we suspect it’s an independent underground party. Presumably Ostanian. It was a bloodbath there. An assassination, really,” she flicks open the dossier, “either way, let’s be quick. You should get back home soon. Call the hospital for time off.”
“It’s alright, Yor’s there,” Twilight says, and, flits his eyes away from Handler’s scrutinizing stare, “but thank you. And I will.”
She keeps true to her word—the debrief is quick, concise. The dossier contains many a thing that they can use as leverage for politicians involved illicitly in the organization; and they formulate the next steps to take. Steps that, for the time being, won’t have to be executed by Twilight himself. He barely digests the debrief anyways—storing it in memory, but shoving it aside for the moment.
“I’ll notify immediately when I’m available,” Twilight says, still, at the end of Handler’s dismissal. She waves her hand.
“I’ll put the others to work,” she tells him, getting up from her chair. “Just focus on nursing back your daughter to health. I hope she gets well soon.”
He feels oddly tense at the well wishes.
Loid comes home to a quiet apartment; he figures Franky must’ve already dropped by to pick Bond up. He heads straight for Anya’s room, door slightly ajar, and is only slightly surprised to find Yor slumped on the floor next to Anya’s head, her fingers idly carding the sleeping child’s. When she looks up, Loid finds concern in her watery eyes and steels himself.
“How is she?” He asks, sitting on the foot of the bed. He wants to touch Anya, check on her temperature, but there seems to be a fresh compress on her forehead. “Anything wrong?”
Yor wipes her eyes before answering, and Loid reaches out his hand, one that she accepts with her trembling own. “She had a shivering bout earlier in late morning, but she just fell asleep now,” Yor says, and Loid caresses the back of her hand softly. They’ve acclimated to each another’s touches over the months, chaste touches of the hand to unflinching warm hugs to the shares of sweet pecks and kisses that would convince anyone that they are, indeed, a lovingly married couple. For the mission, yes. But Loid also knows his wife—a heart-breakingly insecure woman, no matter how heart-stoppingly beautiful and gentle and kind and strong she is—finds comfort in these touches, in him. He suspects that she might’ve developed feelings for him—but he’s learned the hard way to not jump to haste conclusions.
(Twilight has yet to acknowledge that he, too, has been subconsciously seeking her touch, her, out for the past few months, on days and nights when tiredness consumes him to his bones.)
Either way.
“Sometimes that happens when the fever breaks,” he tells her gently, “did it?”
“Yes,” Yor says, and Loid breathes a sigh of relief he doesn’t realize he’s been holding. “It’s gone down a little. Oh—and Anya asked to eat my stew, so I haven’t heated your cooking yet, let me—she just fell asleep—”
“No, no, it’s alright,” Loid smiles, tugging on her hand so Yor rises. She does, and he scoots closer to Anya’s face, shifting her hand to his other, while his other reaches to touch Anya’s cheek. He frowns. Though their daughter’s no longer burning up to 40 like she did the night prior, sheʼs yet to go down to a normal temperature. “She’s still rather warm. Did you take her temperature?”
“Just now, it’s 37.6 C,” Yor sighs, cupping her cheek with her free hand, “it’s—I’m sorry, could it be that I put the warm compress wrong? Or perhaps she should’ve eaten clear soup instead of stew? I should’ve made it more appetizing, she only managed to finish half—“
“Yor,” he cuts her off, looking up with a soft smile, “the fact that she wanted your cooking instead of mine spoke volumes already. Thank you for staying by her side. You’ve done this even longer than I have, remember?”
He watches her eyes glimmer; it tugs on something he thought was long dead and gone inside his chest. Finally, Yor returns his smile with a weak one of her own as he squeezes her hand. “Well, any mother would.”
Yes and no, he thinks absently. But the fact that she did is plenty enough.
Loid stands up after making sure the washcloth on Anya’s forehead is sufficiently warm and pulling the blanket further up over the girl, hands moving to envelop Yor in a hug; one she easily accepts. Yor buries her face at the crook of his neck and Loid yields to the instinctive motion of pressing a kiss on top of her head. “Come on, you must’ve barely rested all night and morning,” he says, running his hands up and down her arms, “let’s eat lunch. Hopefully she’ll get better after she wakes up.”
+
Anya doesn’t get better.
After an idyllic late afternoon, when her fever cooled down to 37 C, after a two-hour long meal where they spent more time trying to get her to eat and drink and keeping her from curling back to sleep, her fever slowly rose as night approached, steadily, and she’s burning and shivering through the night. Her breathing grew short, her small hands grew cold and clammy, and it was Yor who found it as she changed her—small, red rashes beginning to form on her chest.
At the break of dawn Twilight finds himself carrying a sick child in his arm to the emergency room of the hospital, thoughts haywire and his wits nowhere to be found. There’s no carefully prepared nor brilliantly improvised plan for this: in theory, he’s always known children are more prone to illnesses and thought he has prepared enough. He has not. He feels like he’s failed.
Taking care of a crying, wailing, screaming, in tantrum Anya—now he can somewhat say he’s able to handle it quite well. Taking care of a limp, quiet, heavily breathing Anya, however—
His fellow colleagues—so to say, the doctors in Berlint General Hospital ER—determine that Anya should be admitted for rehydration and close monitoring. “She’s never been this sick before,” he tells them with all the fake bravado he can muster. Before I took her with me. “What could possibly be the cause…?”
“Seeing the fever, symptoms, especially breathing, and rashes, it could be viral or bacterial at this point,” the ER doctor says, “I’m inclined to consult first, but a suspicion I have is typhus, Dr. Forger.”
Loid blinks, rakes his head for the disease, vaguely familiar. His mind is too much of a jumble—more so when he hears Anya scream at the top of her lungs, shocking him out of his shell. Running to the bed, he sees Anya clinging for dear life to Yor, hiding her face and crying-screaming with a fervor he hasn’t seen for the past 48-hours. “No needles, no, please, it hurts—!”
“Sweetie, sweetie, only a little,” Yor soothes, rocking her, caressing her head. “It’s only so you get enough hydration, sweetheart, it’s alright—“
“No, no! It’ll hurt Anya, it’ll hurt Anya’s head!” She cries, and odd as it is, when he locks eyes with Yor over the sudden breakdown, there’s a part in him that’s relieved to see the strength that his daughter still possess. He’ll take her tantrums any day over the limp and sick child.
“Anya,” he calls, taking seat next to Yor on the hospital bed, “this is so your head don’t hurt. Come on, sweetheart.”
Her sniffles turn into sobs on Yor’s chest, and Loid reaches for her—Yor makes to give her up to him—but Anya instead buries herself deeper to Yor’s bosom. “Anya—Anya thought—Papa is a feeling’s doctor—so Papa won’t hurt people like other doctors do. Why does Papa want Anya to be hurt?”
Something ugly stabs through his chest; he has hurt many people, willingly, in cold blood. But she is the last—the last— “Anya,” Yor whispers, rocking back and forth. “Anya, Papa wants you to get better, so do I. And other doctors never want to hurt people, sweetheart.”
“No, they do. The bad doctors do,” Anya mumbles, “Anya’s scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” Yor says again, kissing the top of Anya’s head, while Loid stares. “But I’m here. Mama will protect you. If the doctors are bad Mama will… kick them! And Anya will be safe. How does that sound?”
Not very good, Twilight thinks, his wife’s kick could very well add onto the list of patients in the ER. He reaches out, and cautiously runs his hand from Anya’s head to her back. “How does that sound, Anya?”
The girl lifts her head a little, watery eyes looking back and forth between Yor and him. “Mama promises to protect Anya?” She asks. “Papa too?”
“Of course,” Yor easily says. It doesn’t come out as easy from him. Does he promise?
I will protect you with my life.
Anya’s head snaps up to look at him, and Loid feels as if she’s reading through her soul. He distracts himself by taking out tissues from Anya’s bag, and wipes on her runny nose. “Okay, then, if Papa and Mama promise,” she mumbles when he cleans her up. “Please don’t leave Anya alone with needles and scary doctors.”
“I’d never,” Yor says in a heartbeat.
Twilight ignores the request and the growing wound in his chest, gaping, bleeding. He opens his arms for Anya to move from Yor’s to his hold, and she does this time. He holds her gently, soothing little praises on top of her head as her blood is drawn and her IV is inserted. The cry she lets out is something small and heartbreaking, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from the pain. Twilight hopes that he’s warm and safe enough and his whispers of, be brave, sweetheart, are the cause of it.
+
Anya gets worse.
Strix at the core of it is his most complicated mission just yet, the most tiring and all-consuming. The one where most lines blur and bleed together—one that sometimes makes him forget where Twilight ends and Loid Forger begins, and vice versa. The one where nearly nothing simply goes to plan, where things go wrong in every corner and turns. The one that, for some reason, hasn’t gone up in flames because it’s strangely laden with miracles everywhere they go.
The one he’s perhaps enjoying the most.
The one that he hates the most—for it exposes to himself how stupidly impossible it would be to try and fix this world on your own—for it has him depending on someone else the most he has ever done, all throughout his career. It has him depending on a child and an innocently loving woman.
Loid runs a hand through his hair and down his face. “Pediatric Intensive Unit?” He’s just seen a patient and half-listened to their complaints while his own head is a complete tangle when the attending pediatrician personally comes up to his office for the news.
It’s Anya’s second day at the hospital and she has yet to show signs of getting better. Yor can’t take a day off every single day, and even if it’s tiring, he’s somewhat thankful that the cover job he has is in the very same place. Neither of them have gone home longer than it is necessary to take a quick shower and prepare food that they both eat at the cafeteria or in his office or at Anya’s bedside. They always come back with clothes to spare for the night and the morning.
They don’t go home to sleep. They sleep on the two chairs by the bed, sometimes Yor sleeps on the bed because Anya asks her to—Loid encourages her to go to his office to rest since she, too, is hell-bent on not going home and away from Anya’s side, but two hours is the most she can manage before trudging back into the ward where he’d stay up by Anya’s bedside and joining him. The entire hospital is buzzing with gossip; but Twilight can’t find it in himself to care.
“I believe it would be best to keep Anya in very close surveillance, Dr. Forger,” Dr. Gunnhildr says kindly. “With typhus, there can be several complications if we’re not careful, and the fourth to fifth day of disease can be a critical period. I advise it because we’ll be able to monitor her fluids better and supply oxygen if necessary should pneumonia develop, in the PICU.”
Twilight is a man of many faces, he can be anyone: Doctor Loid Forger, a mild-mannered, warm, family-oriented psychiatrist is someone he’s been embodying for the better part of eight months, and he likes to think he’s very good at being Loid Forger (or perhaps, it is Loid who is good at becoming him). But at the core, at the heart: he’s a military man. In his long-forgotten childhood he’s always been, always wanted to be.
It’s easy to make mistakes in the military. It’s easy to face the consequences of mistakes in the military: the berating of a superior officer, then perhaps a heavier punishment, court-martial, prison, execution in the extreme—they’re all easy, mostly, because mistakes are made in mostly black and white. You do something you shouldn’t—or you don’t do something you should—most of it has a written protocol, or rooted in common sense for survival. Twilight has had his fair share of getting his ass handed to him for mistakes he made in the force, has had his fair share of shouldering guilts and what-ifs, and, as time passes, has had his fair share of berating others who made mistakes. In the military, and then in espionage, mistake means life or death, and getting angry at a mistake is something common.
It’s different with the field Loid Forger deals in. Medicine deals with life or death and yet—and yet, how is it that he cannot be angry at Dr. Gunnhildr at the moment? That it’s frowned upon, that here, it’s always; we’ve done the best we can do, but how could it be the best when it doesn’t fix things? When it doesn’t save lives? How is it that he can’t ask Dr. Gunnhildr why aren’t the fluids working, why aren’t the antibiotics doing their job, why, why, why isn’t my child getting better?
He takes a deep breath. “I would agree with your advice, Doctor, anything for the best,” he tells her, at last. Jean Gunnhildr is a woman of reputation—and a pristine one at that. One of the most hardworking physicians in the hospital, whose dedication and commitment to her patients’ wellbeing has never been questioned. Who’s looking at him with a form that makes it feel like he’s staring at the mirror: with her crisply-ironed white coat contrasting the dark shadows under her eyes. Jean Gunnhildr is someone a parent would entrust their child’s life to.
But Twilight has never trusted anyone. It is agonizing to have to—again, he is reminded of how much he hates this mission. How helpless he often feels. How incapable, incompetent.
“I promise I will do my very best, Dr. Forger,” Dr. Gunnhildr says. You better, Twilight scathingly thinks.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Loid settles instead.
+
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit is a small ward with two separate cubicles. One is empty, and the other is occupied by Anya. It’s a relatively silent place compared to other wards, and the adult ICU, where noises of beeping machines fill the air, reeking the struggle of life and death, a warzone.
(Perhaps it is quite similar, he idly thinks.)
Per protocol, he can no longer stay by Anya’s side as long as he can; neither can Yor. They’re only allowed in on visiting hours—to be perfectly honest, usually, with Anya at school and both of them at their respective works, all in all they truly only spend time with each other within the short time span of around dinner to Anya’s bedtime. The visiting hours being 6 to 8 PM only cuts down the time around one and a half hours.
Loid wonders why it feels far, far too short.
He expected a strong refusal and a crying bout like the early morning in the ER, but instead of relief it’s dread he feels at the lack of it: Anya spends most of her days sleeping, and though she wakes during the transfer and when they put a small oxygen mask in front of her face she merely squirms in discomfort. She’s pallid, pale. Loid always thinks she’s small for her age but she looks incredibly frail, a small form hugging her Chimera in a too-large bed in a too-small cubicle room.
He wishes she’d cry. Ask and wail for him, for Yor, for Bond, for home. She doesn’t; she only mumbles she misses Bond, once.
Yor looks shattered when he tells her Anya will be moved, and it’s hard to console her tears afterwards; her apologies of not being a better wife, a better mother, a better carer. As he holds her in his arms in a corner of the hospital lobby, Twilight thinks at the back of his mind how heart-rending the scene would be, the natural respect and sympathy that would bloom from witnessing a pair of heartbroken parents. The Forgers, such a loving family, you’d think their child is dead from how broken they look.
It’s an uncomfortable line of thought. Morbid, yes, but Twilight forces himself to face the possibility and think, start thinking, something he hasn’t done in the course of four or five days. As Yor goes home to shower and get them dinner, Twilight sits on the couch of his office and tries to think.
First, he realizes that curiously, the agency has yet to make any contact. Sparing Nightfall, who comes twice to visit. He realizes he has not been making contact or reports either, and concludes Nightfall probably has taken the role instead, to check up on Anya Forger’s condition and report how this impediment in the progress of Strix is progressing.
Secondly, Anya’s studies in Eden Academy. He has notified the school, of course, but there will be consequences, still, some many catching up to do. Again, he realizes he’s made yet another slip-up: since yesterday—the day he decided to just camp in his office—he’s yet to make more calls to Eden to report Anya’s conditions. Her closest upcoming exams are in a month. Twilight doubts that it’ll be enough time to teach her during that time; she’ll need a period to recover first. He ponders if maybe he can negotiate for her academic progress, slow and painstaking as they are.
Thirdly, he hasn’t asked Franky how Bond is doing. How much he owes him for Bond’s food. He didn’t even ask when Franky visited just the day before Anya was transferred.
Fourthly, he realizes that he has neglected nearly every single thing that he should have done in favor of… Nothing. Perhaps not nothing, but, the past four days, it’s like he forgets the world outside this hospital exist, that cold war is raging still, that despite everything time is still relentlessly running, out there. His brother-in-law and the SSS is still out for his head, and he hasn’t done anything other than being Loid Forger to hide. He realizes he’s forgotten he’s not Loid Forger, has never been. He is Twilight, in an operation called Operation Strix, where he has to adopt the identity of Loid Forger, has to secure a wife and a child to infiltrate the elite parental community of Eden Academy, to get close with Donovan Desmond, to gain intel to prevent another full-blown war.
Twilight forces back a bile rising up his throat.
Think, he says to himself, think. How is the operation progressing? In what standards? Anya now has two stellas and two bolts for Plan A, her friendship with Damian—if it can be called that, is shaky at most for Plan B. Surprisingly enough, there is now a Plan C in action: Yor has somehow gained contact, and made friends, even, with Melinda Desmond. It has become one of his best card. It is not his own doing.
(In other standards, he’d say it’s progressing smoothly: Yor and him can share physical touches no problem, chaste as they are, rapport between all three of them are incredibly well, their image as the Forger family and his image as Loid, the head of it, is favorable be it in his sham workplace, their neighborhood, Eden Academy, Yor’s workplace.
This image is the best when they’re inside the four walls of their apartment.)
Anya being sick halts Plan A and Plan B simultaneously. He can still try and catch up to it once she’s discharged, perhaps Damian would even be more amiable considering how she was sick—or, could it be, that he’ll be disgusted at Anya for contracting “a commoner” disease? Plan C… technically speaking, Plan C can still go on. If Yor can play the cards he gives her right, maybe she can even grow closer to Melinda Desmond, gain her sympathy. He doubts Yor could be persuaded to still maintain contact with Melinda in this state, however—she’s obstinately trying to camp in the hospital like… like he has been.
As Twilight tries to build contingency plans in his head, every single one of it leaves something bitter in his mouth. What has he done for the mission?
Every single plan will rely on Anya after she’s well, and then Yor.
But what if Anya doesn’t get well? What if she never gets discharged?
Twilight finds himself drawing a blank.
+
Once the thought takes root, it won’t leave. It eats him constantly from the inside, crawling under his flesh and squeezing breath from his chest. What if, what if, what if. He can never find an answer. How do you find an answer for that question: what if your child dies?
Would his mother know? Did his mother think of it, when the war raged, did his mother… fear it? The way he fears now? Because Twilight realizes, for once, after a long, long time, he has never feared something this much. Has never felt his mind going blank and his heart going haywire everytime he’s reminded of the mere notion and possibility of something this way. Has never dreaded something this much.
Not since that day the man who saved his life by dragging him to the bomb shelter caused him to be separated from his mother.
“Could it—could it be me?” He asked Dr. Gunnhildr this morning. Looking at her no longer felt like looking at the mirror. She still had bags under her eyes, but her shirt and coat were ironed well, her hair in a clean ponytail. His shirt was slightly wrinkled and he hadn't bothered gelling up his hair. “I came from the hospital every day and—“
“Doctor Forger,” she chastised, gently reaching for his shoulder, “don’t think about it as such, please, spare yourself the blame.”
But I can’t, he wants to say, she’s my responsibility, mission or not—if she fails, it is my failure, if she’s sick, it is my fault. Because I brought her here, I took her, it’s me. If someone else took her from the orphanage, she might not be here lying ill, fighting for her life.
I should be the one fighting.
“Papa…” Anya’s soft voice cracks through the silence, “Papa’s thinking very hard.”
Loid blinks and smooths his face, trying to smile. “Did it show on my face?”
“In your head,” she vaguely gestures, holding out her hand. Loid takes it, runs his thumb on the back. Her hand is so small in his, why has he never noticed, even after countless times of holding them? “Papa, don’t think.”
“Okay,” he chuckles, “I’ll sit here not thinking anything at all.”
With her other hand holding her Chimera, Anya shifts and faces him on the chair, and gives him a bright smile despite her sleepy eyes. “Anya’s happy Pa took Anya home with Papa.”
It knocks the air out of his lungs, his windpipe. Snakes vines around every airways and squeezes, preventing him to breathe or let out any words. Loid puts his other hand on Anya’s, clasping her tiny one between his encompassing hands, and brings it to his lips, kissing the knuckles of the small fingers. He can’t look at her when he says it. “If you’re happy,” his voice cracks, and a drop of water stained the sterile-white sheet, “then go home.”
Nobody reminds him of the visiting hours.
He stays there, exhaustion causing him to drift off to sleep with his hands still clasped over Anya’s as she sleeps her sickness away. What wakes Loid is the weight of cloth draped over him in the quiet of the night. He shoots up, and finds Yor standing by his side. “I fell asleep,” he states dumbly at her, and Yor simply smiles, ever-gentle. “What time is it, Yor?”
“Eleven PM,” Yor answers, fixing Anya’s hospital blanket around her shoulders and kissing her forehead, “the nurses say you’ve been here since her dinner.”
“Ah,” he rubs on his face, one hand still holding Anya’s. “I must be more tired than I thought.”
“Maybe you want to go home and rest?” Yor asks in a soft voice. “I’ll stay at the hospital instead, in case of anything. I’ll call home.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” he immediately says, “I’m used to it. You should rest home.”
Yor gives him a small smile of polite refusal and Loid chuckles weakly back. “She’ll be okay, the nurses say she’s been very stable today,” she whispers, “shall we have dinner? I got you some, but they might be a little cold.”
Loid’s eyes flit through the monitors and Anya, before he nods, takes the coat Yor draped over him and stands up, patting Anya’s hand one last time.
He reaches for her hand as they walk through the quiet, dim halls to his office, and she lets him. Her hand is warm, calloused—of course, smaller than his, still, but sturdier to hold him back, unlike Anya’s small fists. They eat their dinners in silence, Yor brought him a more comfortable shirt to sleep in since all he took were his work shirts, he manages to clean up well enough in the bathroom of his office and put it on.
When he returns, Yor is setting up a pillow that he has no idea where she procured from on the three-seater. “Oh!” She exclaims as she feels him approach. “I thought you’d start to develop neck pain if you keep sleeping without a pillow, or sitting up, so I brought one from home. I’ll take it back in the morning to not make your office untidy.”
“Thank you,” he tells her, “but if you’re not going home, you should take the couch, I’ll take the chair instead.”
Again she shoots him that smile, and Loid can’t help but relents, taking a seat on the couch, but catching her wrist when Yor moves towards the chair. “I…” he swallows, throat dry, “I think it can fit two.”
Yor stops and Loid doesn’t have the strength to request politely. He’s just—tired. Weary. He pulls her towards him, and laces her hand between his, pressing his forehead to their twined hand in silence. Asking.
Yor understands, it seems, because she pulls her hand out and presses his head to her stomach, hands embracing his shoulders. Loid buries his forehead there, above her navel, breathing in her faint scent of their laundry detergent, and loops his arms around her.
“I don’t believe in God,” he whispers to her stomach, “but if there is one…”
There’s a long silence that encompasses them, Yor moving to card her fingers through his hair. “When I was young,” she quietly says, “Yuri would get sick more than I did. I was always so afraid, and I knew nothing. I didn’t have the money to get him to the doctor,” her fingers are gentle on his scalp, warm seeping through, “I had to make do with home remedies I asked the neighbor grandmas about. We were never raised religious, from what little I remember about my parents. I also didn’t know who to pray to, but…”
Loid tightens his hold around her waist. “But he always pulled through, even with the horrible way I was taking care of him. Despite my worries, he’s stronger than he is. And now he’s all grown up, all on his own,” she pushes him gently, hands moving to cup his face in them. Loid looks up as she runs her thumbs on his cheek, her red eyes shiny, droplets threatening to spill out. “She’ll be okay. Anya is strong. Have faith in her, at least.”
He weakly smiles, cupping his hands over hers. “She is,” he mumbles, “you’re her mother after all.”
They stay like that for a while, Yor letting him hold on to her waist as she caresses his head, fingers gently running through his hair, and the warmth of her makes him feel safe, makes him feel a little less of the fear that has been consuming him. He’s reminded of that disastrous date when he woke after she knocked him out; head on her lap. Loid lifts his head and gently pulls her down to sit on his lap. She hesitates, but acquiesces, though her face burns pink. Loid’s always been aware that his wife is a beautiful woman, but something else, not just her beauty, makes him want to anchor himself to her right now.
He circles his arms around her, properly embracing her and burying his face on the crook of her neck. “Can you sing me that one lullaby?” He asks, breath brushing against her skin, giving in to his deepest wishes.
“I don’t know the words,” she whispers to his ear, but she nods, “but of course.”
If anyone finds Dr. Forger and his wife asleep and tangled together on his office sofa in the morning, nobody mentions it.
+
There is an endless vine inside his chest, twining around each rib until it envelopes it whole, a layer over the cage. It twists relentlessly on each turn, filling inter-costal spaces and crowds the muscles of his chest wall, making it harder and harder to breathe. They take air from his lungs like epiphytes, until it’s cut away on his throat and it undoes, unravels.
They move Anya back to the regular ward, cheeks pink and eyes bright.
Fear is a weighty thing when shouldered alone, faith a feeble thing when he tries to believe it alone. Shouldered together, placed over one another, fear is a removable weight and faith a pillar of fortitude. When the constellation of rashes start to disappear from her skin and her appetite is back to the the peanut-centric bizarre thing, Loid is allowed to take her outside to the gardens of the hospital.
“Pa was scared?” Anya asks, looking up at him from her place in his arms; he’d let her down from his hold but not yet. Later. Her brilliant emerald eyes, reflecting the shine of the late morning sun, boring into Twilight’s soul.
“Of what?” He asks. I haven’t felt fear like that for so long.
“Idunno,” Anya crinkles her nose, “will I get Tony-stresses for missing school?”
Loid laughs a little. “To-ni-trus, and no, I don’t believe Eden would be that unreasonable,” he presses a soft kiss to her temple, “don’t worry about it anyways. It’s just good you’re getting better.”
“I miss Bond and Uncle Scruffy and Becky and Sy—I mean, Damian,” Anya grins, “when can I go home and play with everyone again?”
“Soon,” he promises, “you don’t miss Bondman?”
Anya’s eyes grow large, shocked. “Pa I missed so many episodes—!”
“Doctor Forger?”
He swivels in his walk, wary; and relaxes. “Oh, Sylvia?” he says, hoping it’s the right one—it must be, because the Handler doesn’t shoot a warning look to him and instead walks toward them leisurely. “Good morning. What brings you here?”
“Hello,” she says instead to Anya, “I’m Sylvia Sherwood, your Father’s old friend.”
“Miss Boss Lady,” Anya whispers instead, and she panics a little when Loid turns his head in confusion, “Anya means—Miss Share-wood dresses like a boss! A lady boss. Like in Bondman.”
Both of them laugh at that, and Sylvia shoots him a meaningful smile. “I was in the area and I thought to drop by since I remember you now practice here,” she nonchalantly says, “I was surprised when I asked about your office only to hear that your daughter’s sick! If I knew I’d bring something with me, but—well, I went to the room, met your wife, and she said you’re taking little Anya for a walk.”
You missed a number of important reports, you know.
“Ah, so you’ve met Yor,” he says amiably, “yes, Anya’s just getting better.”
I was preoccupied.
“I understand,” Sylvia smiles genuinely, “I heard it was typhus? Oh, you poor, sweet thing.”
I understand. Nightfall’s been filling in.
Twilight clears his throat. “Yes. Thank you for coming by, I really appreciate it,” he shifts Anya a little in his hold, “it’s been a rough couple of days, but if you’d like, let’s talk more in my office? After I return Anya to her ward.”
Tell her thanks. It’s been a rough couple of days.
She’s just recovering, can we put more Strix strategies on hold?
Sylvia lets out a low chuckle, shaking her head. “No, no, I wouldn’t want to impose. It’s alright, I’m glad that you’re getting better, aren’t you, Anya?” Loid looks down and watches Anya nod, looking oddly starstruck at the Handler. “Either way, I wasn’t planning to take up your time, even more so that your daughter’s just recovering. Everything’s fine anyways, I was just here on a whim. But do let me know if you have time to catch up with me and our friends, would you?”
I know. I was just checking in, I’m not as heartless as you think, Twilight. Besides, the operation’s doing fine, as far as I know.
But do report when you’re able. I’m still your Handler.
Twilight gives her a weak smile. “Of course, I promise I would,” he says; and he has Anya wave at Sylvia when she bids them goodbye. Still, now that Anya’s getting better, he knows that he has to get back on track again; he decides they should return to her hospital room and have her lunch.
“Miss Boss Lady is a very cool and kind woman,” Anya comments idly. Twilight gets flashes of memories where she nearly killed him multiple times during training, and suppresses a shiver.
“Yes, she is,” he distractedly agrees.
When they return to her ward, Yor is fixing Anya’s hospital-made lunch and two small boxes by it, but instead of dressing down to join them for lunch, she’s still wearing her coat. She turns her head and smiles sweetly at them both, and Loid sets Anya down, watches cautiously as she runs to Yor and hugs her; telling her half-heartedly to not tire herself. Yor picks Anya up in one arm easily and kisses their daughter’s cheek, sunlight filtering through the open curtain of the hospital window behind them.
They’re a sight. Twilight can breathe freely, now.
“Ma, what are these?” Anya asks curiously, pointing at the boxes. “Crunchy tea cakes?”
“Yes,” Yor laughs, and then turns a little towards Loid nervously, eyes questioning, “oh! I asked Dr. Gunnhildr if it would be fine for her to eat a little cake and she said it is. Would it—would it be alright?”
“Papa, please!”
Though on the fence, Loid shrugs. “If she says so,” he says, walking over to idly rub his hand up and down Yor’s arm. “Two boxes aren’t exactly a little, though.”
“Ah, well, it’s up to you to give Anya, I just feel bad if I only give Anya one,” Yor fixes Anya in her arms so her one hand is free and she can take his. “I mean—one is from sweet Becky, and the other from Melinda, I figured Anya would want to try both cakes from her best friends.”
He doubts Damian can be called Anya’s best friend, but sure. Still, it surprises Twilight. “Oh—you told them Anya’s sick?”
“Not directly, but they found out from school, because I call the school every other day to tell them Anya’s condition,” Yor tells him, “and, well, Melinda and other moms in Lady Patriots Society has been helping me with everything, like our meals when we’re staying here… Which is why I’m going to miss out on today’s lunch, if it’s okay with you, Loid. I’d like to get the ladies some cookies in return for all their help and join them today…”
Loud blinks, stunned. So that’s why the meals she brought him have been vaguely (extremely) delicious; but he simply didn’t have enough wits about him to appreciate them. He figured she just got take-outs from somewhere new and really good.
He really has done nothing for Strix, has he? He wonders, but also—the revelation oddly soothes him. For once, Twilight—ever self-reliant, non-trusting, is glad that he has them to lean on.
“Of course,” he says, not caring to stop fondness from seeping into every sigh and syllable. He can’t help but enveloping his arm around Yor and pressing a kiss to her forehead, ignoring Anya’s comment of them flirting, for once. “Thank you, Yor, you’ve been such… a great partner, mother, and wife—I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Twilight is a master of lies—but this—this is nothing but the truth. And it applies to them both.
+