He thinks he begins to understand Tatiana a bit more now, looking through the hotel window onto the streets of Prague. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there is something about the city, and he assumes the Czech Republic in general, that suits her far more than any part of the United States he’s seen.
John wishes he could go out to explore beyond what the window will show him, preferably with Tatiana at his side. Instead they are both trapped by their official duty, kept on tight leashes of guards and tight schedules by the Council. They still had far too much work to do before they could truly be themselves, before they could be together.
Instead, he slumps into the chair by the window and watches the city pass by on the streets below as though it could fill the ache in his heart. A crew of construction workers drives down the street to a building further down still bearing the marks of the invasion. A woman in white hurries down the sidewalk beneath him, a large bag tucked under her arm. A couple walks hand in hand with their daughter towards Old Town Square, happy despite everything else. Life flows from every nook and cranny of the city, even in the aftermath of potential destruction.
John sighs and contemplates his options. The Council certainly wouldn’t be pleased if they were caught in each other’s rooms, even for platonic reasons. But it didn’t feel right to just wait on his own until their day was to start in earnest, where they would once again have to play the role of Commander and Central. He thinks as long as no one sees him —
A harsh knocking at his door jolts him out of his train of thought. John creeps over to the door to peer thought the peephole to see just who had snuck past their security.
Tatiana stands in front of his door, fidgeting with her white coat and the bag under her arm. She keeps checking over her shoulder for the guards, as well.
John throws open the door to let her in and hurriedly closes it behind her — just like so many nights back in the base. The consequences for being caught together now are a far cry from what they were then, but he still didn’t want to risk it.
Tatiana strides into his room as though it were her own and drops her bag onto the little table by the window. She begins unpacking box after box without bothering to acknowledge him at all.
He stares at her incredulously for a few moments while he processes it all. “How the hell did you sneak out?” he asks at last, crossing the room to stand at the other end of the table. He knows it’s a stupid question even before it completely leaves his mouth — if XCOM’s own security couldn’t keep her in the base, no hotel would contain her either, especially not one in her own home.
“What are you doing, is probably a better question,” he amends.
She stops with one hand buried in the bag, giving him an incredulous look. She withdraws another take-out box and offers it to him. “Breakfast,” she explains flatly.
He takes the box and pops it open. The smell of sausages hits him full force now that they were no longer sealed away. He had to admit, it looked a lot better than all the other hotel food they'd been eating as over the past few months.
He sets the box on the table and helps her unpack everything.
“I figured we deserve something a bit better than hotel food before the ceremony,” she says, setting a paper mug of coffee on his side of the table. She sighs faintly before continuing. “My sister was happy to help out, but she did notice I ordered a coffee and wanted to know why. So, you’re now invited to every family event from now on. Depending on when the Council frees us, my birthday might be the first chance we have to actually introduce you.”
He chokes back something between a laugh and a cry of shock. “So they’re just instantly taking me in as part of the family?” he asks incredulously.
“Yes. Don’t be surprised if you get half a dozen friend requests and get added to a group chat that’s mostly incomprehensible Czech by the end of the day,” she says apologetically. She finishes opening up each of the take out boxes and finally pushes her chair back so she can sit down. “Take anything you want,” she assures, passing him a plate and a fork. “I got more than enough for both of us.”
“Missed home that much?” he asks, shooting her a curious glance. Nevertheless, he starts piling some food onto his place.
Some of the warmth immediately evaporates from Tatiana, a harsh reminder that she was risking more than most while working under XCOM.
“Yes,” she answers briefly. “But I didn’t want you to miss out on your first proper Czech meal, either. If you can even call this a proper breakfast.”
He laughs, unable to help himself. “I couldn’t imagine a better breakfast,” he assures.
They spend the rest of the morning eating and chattering about her home.
He finds her on the surface one evening. At first, he thinks it’s to get some fresh air and to escape the ever confining walls of the base, but as he approaches it becomes obvious that it is not the case. She is on the phone speaking a language he’s not heard anywhere else in the base, looking as though it’s a lover on the other end of the line.
He waits for a few moments after she hangs up before making his presence known. “There are phones in the base that will call outside, you know,” he says, keeping his voice light and teasing.
She jumps at the sound of his voice and shoves her phone into her pocket as though she’d been caught breaking rules. “It can be hard to hear things in the base,” she explains casually. “And it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“Plenty of people call their partners on those phones, can’t be more embarrassing than Mueller cooing to his newborn baby over the phone. It’s not like you have to pretend to be anything other than human.”
She shakes her head and bites back a laugh. “It’s not who I was talking with, which was my brother, by the way,” she explains quietly.
Relief floods him, and he doesn’t know why. “The point still stands. But if you’re not afraid of the crew teasing you for cooing over someone, then why sneak out to make a call?”
She hesitates for a moment, shifting on her feet. He finds himself reminded of bitterness and unhealed wounds. “Czech is close to my heart,” she says, voice dropping so quiet he can just barely hear her. “I really only speak it with my family and childhood friends, so I know I act different while speaking it - like I’m a kid again. Our men don’t need to see me like that, not when I’m supposed to be leading them.”
“That shouldn’t matter, though. Everyone knows you’re human, it’s a normal human thing to act differently around different people, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” she says, shrugging. “Still, it’s a bit uncomfortable to think about, everyone listening even if they can’t understand.”
He thinks for a moment, trying to weigh if what he was about to say was a bad idea or not. “Would it be less weird if someone could understand you? If there’s no one on base that knows, you could teach… someone,” he suggests.
“I don’t need to be teased mercilessly once someone understands that I’m cooing over my family, and I have restrictions on who I’ll teach it to,” she replies, laughing. “Besides, English is the language of work for me, while Czech is the language of heart and home. You of all people should agree on keeping those separate.”
“Right,” he agrees weakly. “I’ve never heard of anyone having restrictions on who they’ll teach, though.”
“That’s mostly only because of a joke between my mom and I,” she explains with a shrug. “She’s never been completely happy that I’m… unattached, so I’d always say that she’d know when I’d found someone because I’d be sure to teach them Czech. To date, I’ve only started teaching one person, but that fell through before my family could meet… them.”
Her voice seems to tense at the mention of her ex, and although he’d like to ask questions leading down that rabbit hole, he’d already agreed that work and heart should be separate. He pauses for a second before deciding to pry a bit more, since the Commander was seemingly so willing to start showing her cards. “When did you learn English? I would have thought you born American, just listening to you.”
“I was ten when we defected. Early enough that I would eventually speak without an accent, but late enough for me to be set back in school until I graduated,” she explains.
He raises an eyebrow, curious now. “And you moved all the way to the US? With your last name-”
“Everyone thinks I’m French, I know,” she interrupts, laughing. “My dad’s American, the french name just stuck around. I purposely butcher all the French I know so no one gets the wrong idea.”
“That explains why the French council member hates talking to you so much,” he laughs.
“Do you speak anything other than English?” she asks once they’ve both stopped laughing
His grin falls and he shakes his head. “Learned French in high school and promptly forgot it. I’m lucky most of the base speaks English as a second or third language.”
“Hope I haven’t hurt your ears too much with my pronunciation, either,” she says, stifling another laugh. “Well, if you ever wanted to learn a language, you’ve basically got your choice among our people.”
“Any language I want, except Czech, apparently,” he teases before he can even think about what he’s saying.
“I never said I wouldn’t teach you,” she replies, a daring glint in her eye.
Before he can think of any words to say, a communicator beeps. They both scramble for their pockets, but it’s the Commander’s whose has gone off.
“Vahlen,” she says. “I should get down before something bad happens. Don’t stay out for too long.” With little more than a wave, she disappears back into the base, shoving her comms device back into her ear.
He’s left with his head spinning and something in his heart that he can’t put into words, not in English, at least.
Přemysl flutters his wings as the wind picks up again, careful not to smack Tatiana as he does. “We should make camp soon,” he says, more so to her than to anyone else.
Both Tatiana and Bradford glance up to the sky at his words. It’s clear and blue, but the wind makes it impossible to feel the sun on their skin.
“We should be fine,” Bradford says, turning his attention back ahead of them. Verena pauses from where she was darting around to look at him, a concerned look on her face.
Tatiana lifts a hand to rub Přemysl’s chest as he huffs and shuffles around on her shoulder. “Just a bit longer,” she assures.
He leans down to affectionately nip her finger, then leaps off of her shoulder and into the sky. The three of them stop for a moment to watch him before continuing on.
Verena slows down a little to let Bradford and Tatiana catch up to her. She settles into a comfortable pace beside Tatiana and glances up at her. “Doesn’t it ache when he flies off like that?” she asks.
Tatiana looks down at the wolfdog and offers her a smile. “We’ve trained for this,” she assures. She can feel Bradford’s eyes on the back of her head as well, curiously listening in. “This was part of our job in the military, before all of this.”
“I’d imagine it’s part of the reason you kept your haven as safe as you did,” Braford offers.
Tatiana’s polite smile drops as she looks up again. “It certainly helped.”
They continue marching along in silence after that, awkward but not wholly uncomfortable. Before long dark clouds start to fill the sky. Despite the sun having done little to keep them warm earlier, its effect is obvious now that shadows cover them. The temperature drops further, forcing both of them to pull their coats tighter around themselves.
Přemysl drops out of the sky a few moments later, landing gracefully on Tatiana’s arm. She opens her coat and does her best to shield them both from the wind as it starts to pick up.
“Should have listened to me,” he grumbles. “We’re going to get soaked.”
“Next time,” Tatiana assures.
They take off sprinting to try and get to the nearest haven just as the downpour starts.
John thumbs the flowers in his hands as he waits, constantly searching through the flow of people as they get ready to leave the airport. Tatiana’s hard to miss with her duffle bag thrown over her shoulder and the presence she carries as she walks.
She, conversely, takes a moment to spot him. A smile breaks out across her face when she does and she hurries through the rest of the crowds to greet him with a kiss. “You could have just waited in the car for me,” she says.
“And wait even longer to see you again?” He laughs and steals another kiss.
Despite her usual cheer after visiting home, Tatiana becomes more reserved during the short drive home. He can see it in her short answers to his questions and in the anxious biting of her lip.
John tries not to let the anxiety infect him as well.
“Do you have plans right now?” she asks suddenly as they pull up to her apartment. “I’d like to chat, if you have a bit.”
He hesitates just a moment while he kills the engine. “I always have time for you,” he assures.
She flashes him a tired smile, then grabs her back out of the back. Pýcha greets them at the door, mewing her demands for attention before they can even step inside. Tatiana offers her a few scratches in appeasement, then heads to stow her things away and clean up a bit.
John starts the kettle for some tea and gives Pýcha the attention she deserves — though she is far less interested after having spent a week with just him.
Tatiana emerges from her room a few minutes later, twirling an envelope in her fingers. “You know when we were talking Monday morning? And you mentioned you wanted to visit with me for Christmas?” she asks.
“Yes. If you’re going to try and dissuade me again —”
“I’m not,” she assures quickly. “My siblings overhead me and — you know how I mentioned my family can be overbearing?” Tatiana sighs, though there is no frustration behind it. It doesn’t even have any exhaustion to it, despite her long flight.
John pours her tea and slides her the mug across the counter. She, in turn, hands him the envelope. Inside it is a postcard featuring a photo of a couple kissing and a date. He vaguely recognizes the woman as Tatiana’s sister, Lýdie.
“You’re invited to everything, really. Christmas, the wedding —” Tatiana nods at the card in his hand. “Any time I visit, my family would like to see you there.”
She takes the mug and takes a grateful drink.
John continues to stare at the postcard for too long a moment before glancing back up at her, confused. “They haven’t met me, though,” he says flatly.
“I told her that. I also told her that we’ve only been dating properly for a few months. And that we haven’t even known each other for a year yet.” Tatiana shakes her head and sighs again, though a smile pulls at the corners of her lips as she does. “It didn’t matter what I said. My siblings know me too well.”
He laughs and leans in to snag another kiss. “I’ll make sure I get some time off for Christmas and —” he pauses to glance at the save the date again, “the end of February? Really?”
“You’ll have to ask her why the 28th, exactly,” Tatiana retorts, laughing. “I was thinking of visiting for my birthday, too, if you wanted to plan that far ahead. If you aren’t put off by my family by then, of course.”
“I don’t see that happening,” he assures. He wraps his arm around her waist and nudges her towards the sofa so the three of them can cuddle for the rest of the evening.
The bell over the door jingles as someone enters the pub. She hears Tomáš greet them, so Tatiana does not bother to leave the kitchen herself.
After a few moments of chattering the bell jingles again, and the dining area is blanketed in silence once more. It’s odd, but not completely unusual for the middle of the afternoon.
“Táňa!” Tomáš calls. “You got a delivery.”
That makes her pause. “What do you mean?” she calls back. She resumes mixing the dough she was working on. “I didn’t order anything recently.”
“I mean you have a delivery,” he retorts. Tomáš’s head pops through the doorway. He is doing his best to suppress a wide grin, making her worried about just what had been delivered. “Come see for yourself.”
Tatiana sighs and keeps working until she can set the dough aside for a few moments. She grabs a towel to wipe off her hands and follows Tomáš out of the kitchen.
The towel drops to the floor at the sight of the flower arrangement sitting on the counter.
“Happy Valentine’s day,” Tomáš teases. He elbows her in the side, then resumes cleaning up some of the tables.
Tatiana sighs, though there is no bitterness behind it. She picks up the towel and tosses it onto the counter, then plucks the little card attached to the bouquet. Happy Valentine’s Day. Next year we’ll celebrate together, it reads. It finishes with a simple, Thinking of you.
She rereads the message over a few times and tries not to let her emotions show on her face. When she looks up again, Tomáš turns away and tries to hide his own grin, letting her know her efforts were wasted. Regardless, she tucks the card into her pocket, ensuring its safety besides the picture of her family.
She turns her attention back to the flowers themselves, staring at them for a long moment. Before doing anything else, she pulls out her phone and takes a picture of them, sending it to John to assure him they arrived.
“Can you handle things for a little bit while I run home?” she asks Tomáš, glancing over briefly at him as she texts. “I want to get these out of here before Volk shows up.”
He doesn’t even bother to look up, instead just waving at her. “I’ve got it,” he assures. “Better hurry, though. You know he likes to bother you on holidays.”
“I’ll be quick!” she retorts. With that, she grabs the bouquet and hurries out the door. The distance between them makes her heart ache, but she’s confident that the next year would be better.
"petrichor - the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of dry weather" for Ghost AU?
He wants to believe that the day cannot get much worse. After unrest at the haven in the morning, a bogus rumor about a supply train coming through the area, and nearly being caught by ADVENT, there wasn’t much left to go right.
Bradford would say it cannot get much worse, but the dark clouds overhead warn him to be cautious. With any luck, he will make it back to the haven still mostly dry.
A sense of unease washes over him and he cannot help but to glance over his shoulder. There is nothing behind him but trees, of course. The sense of unease does not dissipate, and he hopes it is just from the incoming storm.
The wind picks up and he knows his time is quickly running out. Bradford turns up the collar of his coat against the wind and tries to hurry back to the haven before the storm breaks.
He does not make it much further before the rain starts falling, going from little drops to a downpour in mere heartbeats.
Something bright white catches his eye among the trees, bringing Bradford to a stop despite getting soaked.
“Tanya?”
The figure turns and disappears into the foliage, the hem of her coat whipping around her knees from the wind.
“Wait!” Bradford runs after her, stumbling through the brush. It’s thick already, and the rain only makes it more unmaneuverable. In his heart he knows that no human could have pushed through so quickly, but he still tries regardless. He hasn’t seen her — whatever it was she was — in months now, and so he had to try.
He slips on some mud and collapses into a bush. For a moment, he just stays there to wallow in his hurt.
Then, over the sound of the howling wind and rain, he hears the unmistakable sound of alien garbling. They have to be close for him to hear them, he knows, so he stays out of sight until he is sure that they have passed.
By the time he gets up again Bradford is thoroughly soaked, but he is at least safe for the moment.
He can’t help but to glance around again, but there is no shock of bright white anywhere around him. He mumbles a quiet thanks under his breath as though afraid someone might hear him, then he hurries back to the haven to dry off.
The only sign of the rain the next morning is the fresh smell of the air, like a ghost of what once was.
The fire does a lot to keep the winter chill off of him, but no matter what it seems Bradford cannot keep entirely warm. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he figures out why.
Tatiana sits at the other end of the log, staring into the fire like she could scry the future from it. Her trench coat makes her blend too easily into the snow behind her, though now that he’s noticed her, he can spot the collar of her green uniform as well. “I was wondering when you’d notice,” she says casually.
“How long have you been there?” he asks.
She shrugs and glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “A little bit.”
“Who’s idea was it to give you a white coat?” he teases. “You blend in too well.”
Her expression instantly drops into something melancholy. “My sister got it for me as a gift. She’d given up explaining fashion to me by then, though,” she says. Her voice is measured and even, not betraying any of the emotion that either of them surely feel. “You’ll have to ask her why she decided on white.”
“Do you know if she —” He stops himself before he can finish. If he didn’t know what had befallen her family, then the apparition didn’t either.
“I’ll be sure to ask, if I run into her,” he corrects carefully. Tatiana relaxes slightly at his words, but her grin doesn’t return to her face. “Need to thank her for helping you with your wardrobe, at least.”
That makes the apparition break out into a grin again. “Don’t do that unless you want to be grilled about our relationship,” she retorts, looking at him. “That goes for any of my family, if you run into them.”
“Noted,” he laughs.
They linger and chat well into the evening about the events of the day, about the future of the resistance, about everything. When he finally has to give in and let himself sleep, he digs through his bag to find the same white coat the apparition had been wearing. It doesn’t smell of her any longer, but he curls up with it regardless.
She has lived her life in greyscale and nothing — not even aliens — will change that.
(It’s long, so it’s also on Ao3 here)
“Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to build an underground base? If the Council is trying to spite me, I’d rather they come out and say it to my face,” she snaps. The XCOM base is damp and dark, and something tells Tatiana that even if her vision was filled with color that it wouldn’t change much. It does little to inspire hope to fight against an invasion, but she supposes she and her soldiers will have to do that themselves.
The representative sighs and does his best to keep ignoring Tatiana’s ranting, though in the close confines of the base he has no escape. Even as he leads her into mission control, surrounded by her soon-to-be underlings, she does not let up.
A man stands in front of a silvery grey projection of the Earth, looking only a fraction as frazzled as she did. The moment the representative sees him, he practically bounds forwards to catch his attention. “Officer Bradford!” the lackey says, loud enough to cut through Tatiana’s ranting. He gestures between the two of them. “This is Commander Tatiana Mercier. Commander Mercier, Central Officer John Bradford, your second in command.”
Tatiana levels her second in command with a look that she can only hope is less tired and angry than she feels. She had issues with the Council, but those did not extend into their other appointments. If they wanted to defeat this alien threat they would have to work well together, and so she didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot.
“Please excuse the first impression, I haven’t slept in nearly thirty hours,” she says, forcing something resembling an apologetic smile to her face. She flashes a quick glare at the representative, then offers her hand towards Central. “I’ll be infinitely more pleased to meet you tomorrow. Otherwise, I look forwards to working with you.”
He reaches out to shake her hand. “It’s no issue. I think we we’re all caught off guard with —”
Central leaps back from her touch as though burned before he can complete his thought. He stares at her, wide-eyed and expectant.
Tatiana blinks, too exhausted to even begin to comprehend what had just happened.
Fortunately, the representative gets them back on track without drawing any further attention to the reaction of her second in command. “Commander, your quarters are down the hall, on the right, if you’d like to get some rest.” He pauses for a moment to glance at Central. “Unless you think she’ll be needed today, Officer?”
“No,” he stutters out after too long a moment. “I can handle duties for the rest of the day.”
“You’re my hero already,” she says before anyone else can interject. She flashes him something closer to a genuine smile, though it does not reach her eyes. Without waiting another moment, she snatches the keys from the representative. “Remember, the Council fucking owes me,” she reminds him before stalking off to get some much needed rest.
The feeling of Central’s eyes on her back don’t disappear until the door to mission control snaps shut behind her.
She emerges onto mission control the next morning, rested and without any lingering hangover, and truly ready to take on the title of Commander.
Central stands before the hologlobe, just as he did the day before. It’s silvery light shines on his face to show him looking just as if not more frazzled than before, though. Nevertheless, she does not think much of it as she approaches. They are the leaders of the world’s first and only defense against the aliens — they have every right to be a little bit stressed.
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I’m not sure I could’ve come up with a worse way to be introduced to people,” the Commander says, leaning against the hologlobe’s railing to look at him. He starts a little at her sudden appearance, but quickly pulls himself together again. She offers him a smile and her hand. “How about we try again? Tatiana Mercier, pleasure to meet you.”
“No need to apologize,” he assures. He hesitates for a moment, then takes her hand. “John Bradford.”
He takes his hand back quickly, not like her touch is searingly hot like yesterday, but still like she might burn him if he lingers in her orbit.
“I hope yesterday wasn’t too overwhelming for you.”
He blanches and stutters slightly, but he cannot form the words that so desperately want to crawl from his throat. “I managed,” he admits after steadying himself again. “I’m happy to take over as needed, though I’m sure neither you, nor the Council, nor the soldiers will be pleased with my strategy.”
She can’t help a laugh, though she tries to brush it off quickly. “With any luck, that won’t be necessary,” she says. The ghost of a grin finally crosses his face and she can’t help one of her own. With the end of the world on their doorstep, she figures there’s no reason not to play around. “I’m going to go try and whip our soldiers into shape,” she continues after a moment. “From what I’ve heard, they need it.”
“They do,” Central assures. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”
She nods in acknowledgement. He shifts his weight on his feet and doesn’t quite look like he’s done speaking, so the Commander lingers a bit longer. He doesn’t say anything, so she pushes herself off of the railing and turns to head down to the barracks.
“Commander,” he says quickly before she can take more than a few steps. She stops and looks back at him. He looks almost like he regrets calling out. “When we have a moment, can we speak privately?”
She blinks at him, confused. “Of course,” she agrees regardless. “Let’s hope we don’t have a mission this evening. Should have some time then.”
Relief washes over him, but it does not carry away the terror behind his eyes. He doesn’t divulge anything else, instead giving her a nod and wishing her luck with the troops.
By the time she comes out of her meeting with the Council late in the evening, she has almost forgotten about the nervousness with which Central had asked her to meet. She does not see him as she crosses through mission control so she stops and knocks on the door to his quarters.
The door flings open almost immediately. “Commander,” Central greets stiffly. He steps aside to let her enter.
Something curls anxiously in her gut as she takes a seat, though she does her best not to show it. “You had something to talk about?” she prompts tentatively.
He doesn’t say anything for too long a moment, and she worries she’s done something to turn him off already. “I just want to know if you feel the same way,” he manages at last. “You didn’t react yesterday, but you were obviously tired. But you haven’t said anything today either and I’m —”
“Central,” she interrupts gently, trying to calm him. “I’m not sure I follow.”
He stares at her and his shoulders slump slightly. “We’re soulmates,” he says simply.
Her stomach drops. She leans back and takes a deep breath and tries to process the information.
“You don’t feel the same way.”
It’s a statement, not a question. She grimaces while she tries to find the right words to reply. “I’m interested,” she states at last. “But I don’t believe in soulmates.”
“What is there to believe in?” he asks, near incredulousness in his voice. “Do you not believe that color exists, either?”
“I don’t believe in soulmates for me,” she corrects. She steels herself and prepares to hide behind walls she hasn’t truly defended in nearly ten years. “I’ve been hurt too much, I’m not sure I can risk exposing myself like that again.”
It’s misleading, she realizes, but she is not sure she can explain it better.
“I understand,” Bradford says after a moment. Some of the frustration in his gaze softens, but the disappointment in his voice is still clear. “Where does that leave us, then? It’s not as though I can change what I see.”
“I am interested,” she repeats quickly. “Just because I don’t see color doesn’t mean I can’t love. I thought I’d found the love of my life before, and neither of us could see color. I’m willing to see what happens if you are.”
He seems to relax a little at the knowledge of her past relationship. She hopes it does not fill him with false hope.
“I’d like that,” he agrees.
The invasion, their titles, the disconnect between their emotions — she knows their arrangement is far from ideal. Still, they manage to make it work. It’s not much, but they are just human and it is the least they can do.
They are just human, and for that there is nothing either can do when the Muton turns both their worlds black.
Tatiana is keenly aware that she is not alone when she wakes again despite the darkness enshrouding her room. She knows better than to try and push herself up again, instead conserving the little energy she had and allowing her vision to adjust to the darkness.
When she can begin to discern shapes again, she sees a man sitting on a chair beside her bed lit only by the ambient glow of electronics across the room. One of his hands rests on the edge of the mattress, as though he’d been holding her hand when he’d fallen asleep.
She’s not quite sure how long it takes — all sense of time had gone out the window since she first woke up in this new room — but eventually the realization strikes her like lightning.
After the disaster that was the base attack, in the face of all that had happened, John was still at her side. The realization should worry her more than the pain, more than the confusion at where she is, but it doesn’t.
They are alone in a dark room, but it suddenly becomes too much, too intense for her. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to settle her thoughts.
When she opens her eyes again the room is just dark — nothing else.
She reaches out to tangles their fingers together once more and keeps and eye on him as she is dragged back into unconsciousness.
She stares at Bradford, unbelieving. She’s read the archive files on her terminal three times over, but having it confirmed by the only source she can trust still leaves her reeling.
She lets her gaze drop for just a moment while she processes the information. The world is not so drab at it was while she regained her strength, though she is not quite sure that it counts for much. Her vision is still defined by shades of grey that blend all too easily into one another. The edge of his sweater and the start of the sofa is difficult to distinguish.
“Why come back for me?” she asks at last, looking back up at him. “Anyone else would have thought I was dead — why keep looking?”
He shrugs and looks away as though he’d never expected to be asked why. “Figured you were our only shot at taking the world back,” he explains.
She opens her mouth to argue, but no words come. There are no words for all the visions that had been haunting her dreams, and even if there were, she is not sure she could to share them yet. She shuts her mouth and reluctantly accepts his explanation.
If he notices her reaction, he doesn’t show it. “Plus,” he continues sheepishly, “I knew you were still alive. Or at least not dead. I couldn’t just leave you — not without knowing for sure. I know you don’t feel the same way, but we’re still — I’m still —” He pauses and rubs his hand over his face, giving him a moment find his words before looking back at her. “We’re in this together, no matter what.”
Out of the corner of her eye, his sweater seems to stand out a bit more from the sofa.
She nods, ignoring the minute change. “Together,” she agrees.
The data flows by on the terminal and as tempting as it is, the Commander resists reaching out to interact. She has been cleared to wander the Avenger, but even Central hasn't agreed to let her work again. Instead she just watches, prepares, and tries to fight off the feeling that her nightmares contain more truth than fiction.
A hand with a mug is suddenly thrust into her vision, breaking her out of her train of thought. The Commander starts and nearly falls out of her chair before catching herself.
“Sorry,” Central says gently. “Thought you would have heard me walking up.”
She shakes her head minutely. “I was just lost in thought. Don't worry about it.”
He raised one eyebrow and she is sure that he knows, but fortunately he doesn't call her out. He just offers her the mug again. “Figured you might want some tea,” he offers. “Chamomile should be okay according to Tygan.”
“Thank you.” The Commander takes the mug and just holds it for a few moments, enjoying the warmth seeping into her fingers.
Central pulls another chair over with his newly freed hand and takes a seat. He positions himself between the Commander and the terminal but not in such a way that he's blocking it for her. He sets his own mug down and gets to work.
Neither of them say anything. Even after everything that has happened so far, there was still too much left unsaid, too much that needed to be set straight before they could be normal again. It’s uncomfortable, but there’s nothing she can do at the moment.
The Commander sighs faintly and lets her gaze drop to the mug of tea in her hands. The light reflects off the tea, glittering something just barely visible. Regardless, it’s soft and warm just like the mug between her fingers.
She is reminded that things will get better between them.
She takes a drink and watches Central work.
She rubs at her eyes with the sleeve of Central’s sweater, trying to regain some semblance of the person she once was. Even after a few minutes of steeling herself, looking at her pistol feels impossible. Nevertheless, she manages to pick it up again to clean it out.
Anything to occupy her mind is a relief, even if the weight it carries is hardly any better.
The door to Central’s quarters opens, but even after the door snaps shut there is no sound of footsteps. Tatiana does not need to look up to see John’s baffled look.
When he finally approaches his footfalls are soft and unsure. “You alright?” he asks, sitting down across from her.
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
His gaze burns into her as she works, but she refuses to look up to meet him. She is not sure she’d be able to hold herself together if she did.
“None of this is your fault,” he assures quietly. “You’re a victim, too. Earlier was just proof of that.”
Her hands still for a brief moment as though in thought, then they continue their work. “I know,” she says hollowly. She finishes cleaning her pistol in silence. His reassurances help, but no amount of words can save her now.
When she finishes with her pistol she sets it on the table between them, setting the handle towards John.
“I tried to find your pistol in the base — your grandfather’s, I think you mentioned,” he starts, trying to break the silence.
The mention of her grandfather dredges up images that she is not sure if they are truth or fiction. The fact that they are tinged the same color as psionics does not lend itself to either theory. It just makes her blood pressure spike and screams to die in her throat.
John continues, unaware. “Looked like all your things in the base had been taken or destroyed. Couldn’t even find the pieces of it.” He frowns, looking ashamed of himself. “Really wanted to find it for you. Sorry.”
She shakes her head weakly, but she cannot force even a ghost of a smile onto her face. “It’s fine,” she assures. “I’m not sure Grandpa would have approved of what I need it for now.”
He visibly tenses and she can only hope he has expected this conversation would come eventually.
His voice is measured, careful not to betray his own thoughts for once. “Why wouldn’t he approve?”
She swallows a hard lump in her throat. “I will not survive being captured again,” she states. “If there is no other way out, I won’t let myself fall into the Elders’ grasp again. As long as they can’t use my mind, the rest of the resistance can defeat them.”
Silence stretches between them for much too long.
“Please don’t tell Tygan,” Tatiana adds quietly. “He already worries enough for my health as it is.”
Nothing happens again.
“It’s not going to come to that,” John says at last.
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I’m not going to let it come to that,” he clarifies. There’s a conviction to his voice that makes her want to cling to the last strands of hope. “Everyone on this damn ship is willing to die for the resistance, and that means keeping you alive.”
She looks up to meet his gaze at last and does not bother to try and hide how tired she is. “Only a terrible strategist doesn’t prepare for the worst, no matter how unlikely it is to happen.”
He offers her a faint smile, like they’re back in the old base, joking around and being far too casual for their situation. “And you’re the best strategist on the planet.”
His comment draws a hint of a smile to her face, but only for a transient moment. She drops her gaze again so she doesn’t have to see his reaction to what must come next. “There’s a chance —” She pauses to steel herself. “There’s a chance if this happens, if I need to — I might not be able to pull the trigger myself.” She spits the words out like they burn on her tongue. “I don’t want to put that burden on you, or on anyone, but — shit — if I asked anyone else they’d be dragging me down to Tygan before I could even finish explaining. And you’ve seen what they’ve done to me, how badly off I am. I can’t go through that again.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and waits. Images of psionics dance behind her eyes — images of sectoids both new and old; of priests invading havens; of Ethereals floating before her. Every heartbeat without an answer is a heartbeat too long.
“You have my word,” John says at last.
Psionics are purple, she knows this from both Vahlen and Tygan’s reports. Whatever connotations the color had in the old world mean nothing to her, not now, not when it is so deeply tied with her worst fears.
“But I swear, it’ll never come to that.”
Tatiana opens her eyes again and the purple tinged memories fade away, leaving her once more in her grey-toned reality. If the world seems less drab than a few moments ago, she doesn’t notice as she crosses the room to collapse onto the sofa beside John.
For the first time in a long while, she feels safe as she falls asleep.
Blood paints everything around her. Where it hasn’t spattered against a wall it seeps into the ground. How so much blood appeared, she doesn’t quite want to know.
Tatiana can only hope it’s the blood of aliens, finally defeated and not that of her own soldiers — or worse: the blood of all the lives she’s responsible for. She knows blood is supposed to be red, but she’s seen enough in Iraq to recognize it no matter the hue. She’s seen enough aliens bleed — both in the real world and in her mind — to know that theirs is something else, something lighter.
She looks down at her hands to find them painted too dark.
She screams as purple psionics wash into her vision.
The quarters are pitch black when she jolts awake. It takes her a few moments to figure out where and when she is, but the arm across her chest helps. She is on the Avenger and she is safe.
She breathes deeply to try and calm her racing heart. With any hope, she might be able to get a few more minutes of sleep before she needed to face reality. She knows it’s hopeless, but she made a promise to try.
The arm across her chest curls around her and John stirs slightly. “You okay?” he asks, words slurred and muffled by her skin.
She nods and loops her arm around him, realizing after a moment that nonverbal answers wouldn’t help him at all. “Just a dream,” she assures. Even to her own ears, her voice sounds weak. “Go back to sleep.”
He mumbles something unintelligible and pulls himself up just enough to press a kiss to the corner of her lips. She returns it with one of her own once he settles back down onto her shoulder. She brings her hand from his waist to gently scratch at the nape of his neck until his breathing evens out once more.
Sleep will not return to her no matter how much she longs for it. Her vision adjusts to the darkness enough for her to make out shapes in the room. Her gaze rests on the tattered banner hanging on the opposite wall as her mind wanders.
She is halfway through musing about their short-lived attempt at being professional when she realizes that the fabric of the banner is the same hue as the blood of their soldiers. The realization shocks her and she subconsciously curls into John out of guilt.
Logically, she knows red does not mean blood and blood alone. She did not need to pass her literature classes to know the color represented passion and anger and love.
It makes sense, she supposes. Still, she had assumed it would be the same shade of green that she’d fallen in love with first, the same color as the rest of XCOM.
The alarm drags her back to consciousness before she knows it. John presses a kiss to her lips and climbs out of bed to get ready. Tatiana lingers a bit longer before finally sitting up.
Her gaze wanders up towards the banner again and with the light streaming into the room she can tell it’s not quite as blood red as she thought it was. It’s brighter, speaking to something more hopeful than her squad mate’s life seeping between her fingers.
She finally understands where the passion of red might come from, then gets up to join John in the shower.
The door clicks shut behind her and she knows she should apologize, but she can’t find the strength to even lift her head off the railing. For better or worse, the horizon holds her attention. Tatiana wishes it were for the fiery sky and not the dingy buildings below.
John drapes her coat over her shoulders, then sits down close enough that their shoulders brush up against each other. He sets a mug on the ground between them as a silent request. Otherwise, he doesn’t say a word.
The silence is just as painful as it is comforting. She wants to keep screaming, keep crying until she’s as empty as the city before them, but she ran out of strength for that hours ago. It wouldn’t matter if she screamed or not, though, John is the only person aboard the Avenger who understands what the bones of Pilsen mean to her.
She reaches into the pocket of her coat on a whim and pulls her worn photo. She has stared into it so many times in the last few months, but if it were ever to have answers for her, she needed them now.
The black and white faces of her family stare up at her, just the same as they always have.
She knew what would happen, but the disappointment still stings when she slips the photo back in her pocket. Reluctantly she picks up the mug and takes a sip. The tea is still warm, so Tatiana can only assume they’ve only been outside for minutes — not hours like it feels. John takes the motion as a cue to press a bit closer to her.
“Would have been nice to see the city with you,” he offers gently. “It must have been beautiful.”
She nods minutely. In another world, maybe, they could have saved her heart. In another world, ideally, they would have crossed paths without the alien’s help at all. She can only surmise that in a world like that she wouldn’t see the city bathed in the sunset-orange light.
She’s not sure if she’d take that trade-off.
“I could sketch it for you,” she says at last. Her voice is weak from sobbing, making her regret speaking for more than just the suggestion.
He doesn’t answer for a few long moments. “I’d like that. If you don’t mind.”
Tatiana rubs her thumb over the side of her mug and takes another sip. It does little to soothe her, but the warmth is nice. “It wouldn’t really be the same. The last time I was home properly was Christmas, I’d make mistakes. And I don’t know what color anything was. I know the cathedral was supposed to be gorgeous but —” She cuts herself off and shakes her head.
Even now looking at the buildings, she can’t glean much as to what was there before. They are greyscale and tinged with brown, just like in the picture from her childhood. From the comments of her soldiers, that was just how abandoned cities looked — like dusty skeletons. At least orange light gleaming off the remains of glass gives it some color, for now.
Tentatively, she grasps his his hand and loops their fingers together.
“I don’t mind,” John assures. “I’ll see it through your eyes.”
She leans over and kisses him.
The water laps at her calves, warm and soothing. The Commander still wasn’t sold on the healing properties of the spring that Geist claimed, but her wounded leg certainly didn’t ache so much like this.
“Not going to jump in? You deserve to relax just as much as anyone else.”
She looks up to see Central approaching the hot spring, an amused smile on his face. He sits down beside her and begins taking his boots off. Framed against the green trees and the blue sky, she can’t help a small smile herself.
“I’ll destress better by everything staying quiet for a bit. I don’t need to swim,” she replies shortly. She thinks absently that she should wrap her coat a bit tighter around herself, but if any of their crew saw them like this there would be gossip regardless of their states of dress.
He shoots her a disbelieving look, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he strips down and hops into the water himself. He looks happier in the water, surrounded by the deeper blues than the sky had to offer.
Eventually he swims back to her side, resting one arm on the rocks beside her to hold himself in place. “So what’s the real reason you aren’t hopping in?” he asks.
She frowns.
He places a hand on her knee. “You can tell me,” he assures.
The Commander shifts uncomfortably, but she knows there is no use in trying to escape. She looks away from him, ashamed. “I tried. As soon as I got partway into the water my heart rate jumped, like the onset of a panic attack. I didn’t want to risk seeing what would happen if I kept going,” she explains quietly. “I guess if you spend twenty years floating you develop a pretty strong reaction.”
“It’s not something to be ashamed of,” he says quickly. “We’re all broken in some way. At least this one we can work on, if you’d like.”
Central pushes himself back from the edge and offers his hand to her.
She stares at it for a long moment, then shrugs her coat off. She grasps his hand and slides into the water herself.
As soon as she hits the water she shudders, but Central loops one arm around her waist and does his best to keep her more out of the water than in. “Feeling alright?” he asks.
“Not as bad as earlier,” she admits. She looks over his shoulder to see the sky reflected in the water and some of the panic slowly rising in her chest fades away. No matter what happened, they were together. “But that might just be because I’m not alone this time.”
She wakes not to her personal alarm alerting her of her shift, nor to the blaring of the base alarm warning them of imminent alien conflict. After more than twenty years of waking up to one of the two daily, waking up from a kiss is a more than welcome change.
Tatiana hums a little and stretches, inadvertently pressing against John.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs, his own voice still groggy with sleep. “We’ve got a few minutes until we really need to get up.”
She opens her eyes and rolls over so she can look at him. John’s eyes are a warm brown, despite all the hardship he’d been through over the years. They are not unique by any means, but she finds herself staring into them regardless. “Wasn’t going to roll out of bed yet,” she assures quietly.
He stares at her a moment longer,a tiny grin on his lips, then leans in to steal another kiss. Without a word he tucks himself back under her chin.
Gently she lifts a hand to scrub her fingers through his hair, drawing a pleased sigh from him. His hair is grey despite the vibrancy of the rest of the world, retaining only a little color after so many years of stress. The guilt of that gnaws at her heart, but she does her best not to let it get in the way of the moment.
They linger in bed for a few precious minutes longer, hovering on the edge of alertness. If they could ignore the world outside their door, everything would be perfect.
Their alarm beeps incessantly at them before long, breaking the little peace they had. John presses yet another kiss to her lips before reluctantly climbing out of bed. She watches him disappear into the bathroom wistfully, then sits up herself.
She doesn’t move for a few long moments, somewhat wishing they could return to their brief taste of peace. Eventually she sighs and glances up at the blood red banner — no matter what, they still had work to do. She gets up at last and starts puttering around the room.
“Can you toss me a clean undershirt?” John calls, hearing her moving about. “I didn’t grab one.”
“Which do you want?” she asks over her shoulder, picking two of them up from their mess of clothes. “Blue or green?”
“Green.” Tatiana tosses him the green shirt without a second thought. “Blue looks better —”
She turns to look to see why he stopped short, only to see John staring blankly down at the shirt in his hand. After a moment, he looks up at her, dumbfounded. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks weakly.
The interaction clicks in her head after a moment. “Oh, right,” she mumbles.
“I thought you didn’t believe in soulmates?”
“I didn’t. I still don’t,” she says quickly. She looks away from him, out of anxiety or shame she cannot say. “I didn’t know how to explain it. I didn’t know what was happening at first.”
John is quiet for a few long moments. “How long?” he asks.
“Since I woke up.” She closes her eyes and can practically feel that first rush all over again, as though struck by lightning. She opens them again and looks at him once more. “You were passed out beside me and everything changed — the world became less dull. It all happened so gradually.”
In an instant he’s crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her to pull her into a kiss that contained all the adoration he’d held back for twenty years. She returns it gladly, pressing against his lips as though she could make up for all the time she’d lost them.
“I love you,” he says breathlessly when they part.
Tatiana hesitates just like she always does when hearing those words, her own caught in her throat. “Miluji tě,” she says at last.
He holds her a bit closer. “Think we could just ignore ADVENT for today?” he asks sheepishly.
