yeah shilah is an immortal shifter who would do anything in the world for jo and is head over heels for her but they still get in the pettiest fights about the stupidest things and thats the real real
“ and i doubt you would do anything to hurt her. ” the reply isn’t immediate, but it’s given quick enough to give a finality to this particular discussion. we both know it doesn’t matter how much you want to do this, because you won’t. natasha turns, moving to the couch to take the spot that had just been his, legs crossing easily as she leans back. “ he hasn’t been fully conscious since that night. this isn’t a simple situation. ”
there is a bristle to his shoulders, but he follows to sit across, fingers clasped at his lap. better that he remains that way, though he does not say it; not to her, not to roman, not even to josephine, who held guilt like a knife to her neck. “ and so? “ he spreads his hands. “ what do the doctors say? “
she stays with luz for a couple of days, then elliot. then back to shilah’s, feeling guilty, like she has somehow abandoned him. he doesn’t mention it, does not even seem to be thinking it, but josephine apologizes anyway, ignores the look that he gives her when she does. she lets him order dinner, lets him fill the silence with questions from claire, stories from his long trip away, which seems so spoiled now. she knows he is trying to distract her. the attempts become more and more desperate and obvious the longer the evening stretches.
“i should’ve gone with you.” she says. “you know?”
he does not know what to do other than talk. it was he has always been good at; it is what they always have done. they have filled hours and days and years of conversation with one another, sharing thoughts through texts no matter how ridiculous or mundane. but it feels a little empty, here, his stupid trip and his stupid meetings thinking everything was going stupidly fine while things were all going to hell here.
“ we shouldn’t do that to each other. “ he stops what he’s doing to look at her. they had come a long way from feeling that blame; he couldn’t be there every waking minute to protect her, as much as he wanted to be. “ -- but i wish you would have. “
for her twenty-fourth birthday, shilah takes her to rome. a month before, walking home from an event at which they drank too much champagne, he asks her where in the world she would like to go if given the chance and josephine rolls her eyes, leans into his side. i know what you're doing, she says, because shilah has never let anything be simple. i told you, we can do something here. just dinner.
but that won't do. shilah asks her again, and then the day after, and josephine finally looks at him and says i've always wanted to see the trevi fountain and three days later, shilah is sliding an envelope across the table to her at breakfast, a pair of tickets inside.
shilah spares no expense, of course; the hotel is beautiful and too extravagant. on the balcony overlooking the city, shilah opens a bottle of wine and kisses her cheek, the corner of her smile.
this is too much, she tells him, and shilah shrugs, pours her a glass. roman helped me picked it, he says, he thought you'd like it best.
two.
the comforter is thin and the window unit wheezes and drips water onto the carpet and the towels are threadbare, worn clean through. it is the only motel they could find, the vacancy sign blinking. they'd given the front desk clerk fake names, paid in cash. when asked –– people friendlier down south, nosier –– they'd said they were just passing through, visiting family outside of atlanta, on their way back to jersey. the clerk had smiled and given them a key and pointed out the location of the ice maker, the vending machine. she'd told them that not much was open this time of night other than a waffle house down the road.
in the room, josephine calls roman. she tells him they are safe and ignores the ache in her chest at his sigh, the exhaustion in it. are you sure this is a good idea? he asks, and josephine looks to shilah, tells him everything will be fine. they'll be home soon. she will call him again tomorrow to check in.
on the bed, shilah leans back against the headboard, studies photographs, blurry stills of surveillance footage. she sits cross-legged beside him, looking over his shoulder. they pore over floor plans, the specifics of security alarms, the realities of staffing.
roman's not happy, she says, without looking at shilah, that we're doing this.
i know, shilah says, and she thinks of the whispered conversation she'd overheard the other night, back at home, how the pair of them had stepped away from one another when she'd come into the room.
she will have to stop this eventually. she knows that. shilah does, too, but tonight –– tonight, when they are so close, when this facility is well within their reach, they don't talk about it. they can't.
they fall asleep back to back, but sometime during the night, shilah rolls over, slings an arm around her waist, and pulls her to him.
three.
vegas is hot, blistering. she is pink and sunburnt and they have spent the day searching for a dress, have finally found one, the garment bag hanging from the back of the door. in their hotel room –– roman kept away, occupied by elliot, as though they are doing this the traditional way, trying to save their first looks for last –– shilah buttons his shirt and straightens his tie before he helps her with the zipper.
you look beautiful, he tells her, tucking her hair behind her ear. he cups her chin, tilts her face up to his. roman'll turn red the second he sees you.
are we crazy, she asks, for doing this?
(they'd come here, first. a detour, an hour flight, and why not? why not do what she and roman had been planning to do before phil coulson showed up at her apartment, before he'd frightened her into leaving the city? it had seemed defiant, then. like they were proving a point, making the decision they were always going to make, doing what they wanted to do. eloping was easy. neither of them had needed much convincing.)
no, shilah says, no, sweettart, you're not. not at all.
later, when she is dancing with the pair of them –– roman red-faced and comfortably drunk, smiling wider than she has seen in months; shilah laughing at something he'd said, twirling her out and away from him –– she thinks she has never been happier in her life.
four.
they're in paris. he spends his days in meetings and she spends her days wandering the streets, sending him photos, complicated series of emojis that he matches. she comes back to the hotel with armfuls of secondhand books or shirts and ties that he will like, a pair of loafers that she couldn't leave the shop without.
they have dinner, drink too much wine. his hand is warm against her bare thigh, his smile bright.
back at the hotel, he unzips her dress, untangles her necklace from her hair.
i love you, you know, she says, and shilah grins, his eyes flashing green.
i know, he tells her, teasing, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, took you long enough to catch up.
five.
there is a photograph framed in josephine's study at the brownstone, black-and-white, taken at just the right moment, roman lifting the camera like he knew, could sense it. she and shilah on the balcony of the same hotel where he'd taken her for her birthday before, this time on the morning of her thirtieth.
she is plucking a cigarette from his mouth, tossing it over the balcony's edge, and shilah is grinning, all teeth. her hair is wild and she is wearing one of roman's shirts, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her sunglasses dark and glinting.
if she looks at it long enough, she can still hear the sound of shilah's bright, warm laugh.
he tells her one day. it will be years before she meets luca, but it is a forewarning of his nature. of fathers.
“ it’s been so long. i don’t remember where i heard the name. “ he didn’t want a reminder of someone he was never going to be, as long as he was alive here, which was meant to be forever. his mother had good intentions, giving him that name. her heart was in the right place. it was his father’s that was no longer beating right; black and blue, corroded over.
“ i liked it. i made it mine. “ they walk shoulder to shoulder in the garment district of the city, one of his hands pressed on her back and the other holding her latest dress for the next gallery event. in the sun, on the street, his own heart feels alive again; a thumping red. it only intensifies when she laughs, peeking up at him through her sunglasses.
something you often do? he shrugs, presses a kiss to her cheek, and continues to let her lead him along the way.
second.
there is nothing more that can be done in the days that follow elliot being taken. he feels it in his gut: the trail is cold, gone, the minute that he was picked up and thrown into a car. there are things that money can buy and there are things that men want just because they want them; revenge a price too high for him to pay.
he looks at the back of her head. he considers the cost of his own actions, for once, as heavy as they weighed on her. ( this was no longer about just having fun. about letting her get her own revenge in, about paying that back. inviting her to parties, hanging out in his apartment, letting her know all the ins and outs of his world. about their friendship --- )
she turns to look at him, eyes red and puffy, and his heart breaks. we’ll find him, won’t we? she asks in an impossibly small voice. he pulls her closer, kisses her hair. tucks her body against his and holds her as close as he can.
“ we’ll find him. “ it is the not the first or the last promise he makes her, but it is one of the important ones.
third.
consequences; they hang the heaviest over his shoulders now more than ever. when he dies, he comes back. when he makes a mistake, he does not care about the after affects. but now -- how he ever could have lived without her, how these weeks could have turned to months to the day that he thought she might have been ripped from him to early --
“ josephine ! “ he is the first to find her, amidst the blood bath that he has created in his pain and his anger. he had told roman, almost desperately so that day: she knows that i’m looking for her. she knows that i wouldn’t stop. because he hadn’t -- because if it had meant tearing the world apart, he would have done so in a minute. because he had admitted to himself a while ago that this was no longer about what it was in the beginning.
when he catches hold of her; both him, and roman together, feeling her hands dig into his body with what strength they have to do so -- for the first time in so, so many years his eyes fill up with tears. “ god damn it, jo. “ his body is trembling, finally able to release all of his pent up grief. “ i’ve got you. we’ve got you. “ he presses a kiss to her temple, and carries her out to go back home.
fourth.
“ what did i tell you? “ he’s got his hands on his hips, head cocked. four pairs of eyes look up at him. “ if you all get into bed tonight, tomorrow we’re going to be traveling to . . . “ he leans forward with anticipation, releasing one hand forward.
andrew is the first to pipe up. a special secret place ! shilah ruffles his hair. “ that’s right. but you have to go to bed in order to get to that place, so, i’m gonna turn around, and then count to five, and you all better be in bed waiting to be tucked in. ready? “ a collective nod. “ alright. one, two, three . . . “ the count to five doesn’t even go that far. the feet all scuttle to their bedrooms, laughing along the way, bouncing into bed.
another pair of feet joins him, wrapping his hands around his shoulders. i’m letting roman do all the packing. she says, and he laughs, kissing her smile. it was like this now; the two of them. roman. the children. the odd family members in between.
( they didn’t talk about how he was going to lose this one day. about how he should get the right to some grays in his hair when the kids stomp their feet, or when the news channel was a little much. when years down the road josephine and roman started to slow down just a little bit more. )
fifth.
most days when they come, the day is bright and sunny. he likes to think that it something she does for them all; a little bit of her light, still coming through. today is that day once more, the heat bearing down on his back like it might be her hug, her smile, her touch, like how they never liked to be without each other for too long.
of course he brings too many flowers, because even if it has been ten years, he won’t stop. it’s over the top, she would say, and he would argue, tell her she deserves it. even in death. even decorating her grave. roman would like it, he would counter, and roman with all of his good naturedness would only smile and shake his head, in their shared space for eternity.
“ i know it’s too soon. “ he speaks to her as he does. but it has been ten years; he just wants to remind her. “ you need some peace for a while; you deserve that, sweettart. some rest. “ life in the beginning for her had been marked by hardships, but she had preserved with nothing but strength and come out with a beautiful family.
“ but you promised to come back to me. so please -- “ he squeezes the top of her gravestone, leans to press a kiss to it. “ don’t forget. i’m waiting. “
in the back, he can hear the children calling him. papa? so he stands, making his way to them. for now, he still has them; ellie’s hand slipping in his, andrew’s arm around his shoulder. isabel’s kiss to his cheek, and ridley’s solid smile. time kept moving. it did not stop. but his grief, and theirs, was the love leftover that they could only share with one another right now.
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