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The sun spills through the tiny crack of the curtain in a slant that is as much as a waiting hearse than a herald to another morning. A candle erected by a gravestone that is ready with its warm candlelight gleaming against soil that is yet to be disturbed. A coffin awaits, and the air is marred with the stench of sweet roses, and carnations that whisper – adieu, adieu for what once was, will now be a name underneath six feet of land.
Twilight shifts underneath the warm hold of the blanket, and the draped arm of Loid Forger’s wife. A prayer clings onto the skin of his teeth like a vow that is meant to be broken as he asks himself kindly for five minutes more in a life that is never his. The birds beyond the glass chirp unkindly, and he wishes he be suspended in twilight where neither daylight nor nightfall can jeopardize this sanctuary he has found for himself.
His eyes flutter open in a slowness that is unforced, and wanted as he clings onto the seams of his dreams he never dared envision until he was temporarily living in it. This is the dream of the boy beyond the war – to love and to be loved, to provide warmth and to be warmed. The dream, now shattered, now a wisp, now a whisper in the wind, slips past his fingers, and the reality, though jarring is waiting for him like a clock incessantly ticking.
Twilight blinks his eyes open. The sunlight is harsh and blinding just like the reality waiting for him now that conclusion has arrived and waiting. And just like himself, it takes a while for his vision to set – unwilling, unrelenting to acknowledge what lies ahead after years of knowing what love is, only to lose it once again. He blinks away the sands of slumber, and the tears that cling like stardust amongst the expanse of a stark sky. The blur shifts into focus, and the aperture fixates on Loid Forger’s wife that is as much as his than the prior.
The melancholia sets forth like ink blotted carelessly on parchment – stark and scattering in spatters that can never be erased nor forgotten; a stain of what used to be his, now a dead man’s. The death certificate is ready, and so is the lighter that Twilight wants to use to set it all on fire if only he gets to live underneath the skin of a man who lived the life he wanted. He wants to settle underneath Loid Forger’s bones, and mold his entire existence into him if only he gets to hold her for an eternity that is not his to promise.
His heart is a fault line that runs deep with pain that he has accumulated then forgotten, but it beats tirelessly in the shape of her name and their daughter’s. Twilight had once thought he had buried the organ underneath rubble and had often lain flowers to commemorate the boy that died in the war; and yet, it bleeds for the people who unearthed it, and held it as though it is the most precious thing they have been imparted. His heart is more broken glass and dust, and yet Yor and Anya hold it as though it is whole.
He feels it crack – gently, forlornly – and he knows the sinews will grow further like spiderwebs until it stops beating. The death certificate waits, and so does the reality outside of the door, and though he loathes what comes after, he must face it and bury himself without a wake and a pastor at his funeral. The least he can do is lay flowers, and yet, he does not want to for he believes that the flowers should be for the living that he has left behind.
Maybe he will leave them flowers, but an adieu is too cruel even when they already know that they must take separate turns by the fork in the road.
Twilight reaches out to Loid Forger’s – to his wife, and runs his fingers through the silk of her hair to commit to memory how close he was to touching something divine, only for it to vanish. He wants to wake her, wants to taste her at least one more time, but he does not. He knows that one kiss will lead to many, and he will in turn forego burying the man that is supposed to die.
Perhaps, that is what it’s supposed to be – to live on, to be greedy.
Twilight shakes his head even though he does not refute it, and touches his lips against hers in a farewell that is whispered, yet heavy. He feels her shift underneath his touch, and he retreats before she can share his tears and a goodbye that they do not want to have. If he shares it with her, he will attempt to dry hers, and he knows that he does not intend to dry it with cloth, but with a promise that is not up to him to fulfill.
Weighted, he peels himself off the mattress that has housed their troubles and their joys and their affection, and lets the rigorous reality of the life he has chosen wake him from this trance he willingly walked to. The carpeted floor feels cold against the soles of his feet, and he knows that his life after this will only be met with gelidity.
Twilight, after years of warmth, has now known coldness to be a stranger, and he fears, even when he is forced to walk with it, it will remain as such until his dying day.
He lets out a breath that is shaky, filled with the tremors of his sorrow and the tears that are wanting to be shed as he looks back at Yor, and takes her in for the last time. She will wake to a funeral, and though Twilight wants to allow her one more screening before the burial, he chooses to let her be pillowed by her dreams and their proclamations from last night. A kindness, he tells himself, for her sake and for his.
Reluctantly, like a car’s engine sputtering after a third turn of the ignition, Twilight leaves their shared space and approaches his daughter’s door. He takes in her corrected name plate, and allows himself to be transported to a time when he had gently pointed it out, and she answered him with wide emerald eyes filled with question. Hatred clings heavy onto him like ice in his veins, and he wishes that things could have been different. He does not want to be another father that she loses, and yet, want is not important, and he has to be what he least wanted to become.
He opens her door gently, afraid to wake her. If she rouses, he will stay. If she pleads with him with those innocent viridian eyes, he will soften and will play god. He is not a god nor can he afford to play one, so he quiets even when he wants to be loud, even when subconsciously, he is praying for a creak loud enough to rouse her.
Anya is pillowed by the darkness, her pink hair a mess underneath her sleeping cap. A soft snore escapes her as she sinks herself further into oblivion, fingers curled around her Mr. Chimera, the other hand lost underneath her blanket. Twilight feels another crack forming in his heart as though something has shifted, and he knows, just like Yor, she had carved herself a space in his heart lest he forgets. He will never forget his little girl.
He commits her to memory one more time before he retreats. Anya already knows what today waits for her, and even though she does, Twilight hates that she has to wear a black dress to lay flowers for a man that is not dead.
The office is quiet like it knows the depth of his tragedy despite the achievement. The halls feel painstakingly long as he journeys through it, whispers circumventing like the wind, words of praise gibberish and lost as though the only language he knows is his family. His footfalls echo like a harrowed shudder from a man who has lost everything, from a man who has won a war for a cost that is lost to him now. The stares and the cheers are blurs of nothingness as he drags himself into the pit to conclude the life he had lived for three years like a book that took too long to be finished.
Sylvia waits by her desk with the television turned on and set to mute. A typewriter sounds somewhere in the corners, but the place is devastatingly vast despite the company. To Twilight, if it is not Anya nor Yor, they are no one and faceless.
“Agent Twilight,” Syvia Sherwood starts, and the name is cold and a dagger that cuts cleanly and wounds. “Good morning or should I say, good evening.”
The fan from beside the television set sputters itself to life, and Twilight attributes himself to it like a metaphor for a man barely holding on. He schools his face as best as he can discipline it, and takes temporary residence on the lonesome chair across her.
“Handler,” a low greeting with a tenor that feels like a stone dropped finally making its way to the bottom – a soft thud that echoes the weight of it from the ground.
Sylvia flips through the report she has received from Twilight the day before without reading it, and regards him with a smile that barely touches her eyes. “Congratulations on Strix.” She says, and the congratulatory message feels like the final earth to seal away Loid Forger’s coffin.
“Thank you.” He says even when the words feel like flowers he is laying on his own grave, and his family’s.
The ache is a careful burn that ebbs, and despite it, Twilight finds himself flooded with a sense of gratitude. If it had not been for the mission, he would not have known what it was like to love, and to be loved, and to have a family once again to cherish. And yet, despite the recognition of gratitude, it remains heavy. The love he was imparted with also came with a loss that piled up with the losses he has already had, and though he has known grief like a fellow in the evenings, it still opened up wounds he had previously stitched only for it to be met with anti-sceptic and salt.
Loss, as it seems, appears to be something that follows him closely even when he tries to distance himself from it. But then again, what is grief if not love persevering?
Twilight, though this, wishes that he may not know love again for the pain is too excruciating. His parents. His friends. His wife and child. Too many bodies to bury. Too many lives to forget, and what is he, but only a man who has suffered too many wanting nothing but a solace that does not burn him.
“I suppose you would like a vacation.” Sylvia says after a while, a hint of amusement in the edges of her words as she spares Twilight a glance. She sees the sorrow behind the blue in his eyes like weathered leather, and though loathe she may be at the prospect of losing another headcount, she knows when a time has already come to be. “Although, before I give you this, I’m asking you one question, Agent Twilight.”
Twilight lifts his gaze, but there is no surprise in his expression, just an exhaustion that is not borne by overworking, but an exhaustion that is bone’s deep and emotionally charged. “Go on.”
She regards him before sighing. “And you better be truthful – do you want to continue as Loid Forger?”
Eyes slated grey like steel widen in surprise as his face morphs into several expressions of grief then exhaustion then joy then sorrow. The ice behind his eyes softens into a sea of blue brimmed with tears he is fighting to keep upheld, and for a moment he fixates them on the nail of his pointer finger being rapped against the edge of her desk.
A beat, a breath then – “Yes,” and it sounds like a rush of air coming through an open window, like a sigh of relief exhaled after a long, winding day. Sylvia sees the weight of it crumbling in the way his shoulders deflate, and hunch in over his form like walls finally losing its foundation.
She smoothens her palm against the file and gazes on Twilight’s family picture attached to it. “I figured.” She resolves as a memory of her own flashes like a reminder of the one she once had only to become rubble. “Congratulations on your early retirement.”
Twilight lifts his head up like a snap, the whiplash tipping his fedora hat sideways as his eyes widen in surprise. Retirement was not part of the many outcomes he had believed this will come out of. Unearthing Loid Forger’s coffin was not part of what he had expected this to come to be.
“I – “ He starts, unknowing which words to choose as they become elusive and cursive. The fan from before comes back to life as though resurrected, and Twilight feels his heart start once more as though resuscitated. The world is spinning before him, and yet, through it, the focal point remains to be Yor and Anya, and the life waiting for him that is now his.
“Go home to your family, Agent Twilight.” Sylvia adds, and the smile she carries is genuine and bright and blinding. “Or should I say, Loid Forger. We will talk about what this entails for you on Monday. We are still short-staffed after all, and we will be needing extra hands for recruitment.”
Loid comes home to the sun hanging lowly as it paves way for afternoon, and yet, despite the dulled brightness, it seems as though his path is illuminated for once in a warmth so golden. His footfalls are unhurried, but they are heavy with an anticipation he has never been well acquainted with until now.
From the staircase, he can hear Yor calling out for Anya, and Bond’s heavy footfalls trailing behind. His heart does that careful tug that no longer aches like it is being doused in salt, and feels something blossom underneath it like a flower in spring. A feeling, he tells himself, seems to be of permanence now that the funeral has been held off, and the hearse has been called back to the chapel. There will be no tears today and no eulogies – just a man coming home from work.
The keys jingle as he slots it in the doorknob, and he hears the life behind it stutter as though trying to understand what is happening. He opens the door to stunned silence and paused tears, to Yor’s face kissed by sorrow and to Anya’s hiccups borne of grief. He feels the air in his lungs constrict, and before everything clicks into place, and he can announce his permanent homecoming, they are a mess of limbs and tears and relief by the door. Anya clings onto him as though she is rooting him into place, and Yor sobs against the crook of his neck in a relief that he reflects.
The first few minutes of reunion is heavy before it dulls and fades into a murmur of promises that will be kept.
“Papa is home.” Anya is the first to speak as she peeks from the place she had wedged herself in between her parents, green eyes softened by tears that have only stopped streaming.
Loid reaches for his daughter to erase the remnants of tears that clung heavily at the edges of her eyes, and flashes her a small smile. “Yes, papa is home.” He says because it needs to be said, needs to be made concrete.
“Will Papa cook us hamburg steak?” She asks and he chuckles, ruffling his little girl’s hair as she peels herself away from the adults. She purses her lips as if testing something even though she already knows the answer to it. “Forever?” Hope clings, swollen by the ambition of a found family to remain for eternity.
Loid nods his head then – “yes.” He says even though he wants to add that he will be cooking her more than that for a more balanced diet, but that is a worry for later. They will have more days for these types of conversations. For now, all she needs is the reassurance of permanence, and if it is in the form of the same homecooked meal, Loid is willing to compromise.
Anya smiles – her smile bright like the sunshine before she reaches for him again in an embrace. “Anya loves papa.” She declares, and Loid feels another crack in his heart, yet this time, it is so he can make space for this.
“Papa loves Anya too.” He replies, and this time without a time limit, without the fear to say it so many times to compensate for the upcoming days that he would not be there to say it. For now, it is said in truth without hurry, without fear.
Anya bounces to her toes, bright eyed, before she departs just in time for Bondman; his girl every bit of the five year old she once was despite the years beyond it. Loid watches her for a breath before turning to Yor who has been watching him with crimson eyes watered by a grief she has kept from tormenting her. He gives her a reassuring smile she can fall back into, and she leans against him as though he is the ground underneath her feet.
“You’re back.” She says after a while, and beyond it is the question – for how long though unspoken.
Loid nods as he reaches for her, and tucks her chin in between his pointer finger and thumb to taste her lips in a devotion that speaks more volumes than words can. The kiss is chaste – a vow more than a thirst to quench. “Yes – Handler forced me to retire.” He replies even when there is no force at all.
Yor blinks at him, flummoxed, and he sees the sorrow beneath the rubies in her eyes being chased away by happiness and warmth. He promises himself that he will make sure that the sparkle of it remains eternal. “Did she now?” She asks, the question rhetoric, as she presses her forehead against his in silent surrender.
“She did. We can burn the death certificate now.”
Yor chuckles at that. “We did need something to kindle the fire.”
Later, after the dishes are washed, the tea is consumed, and Loid has consummated his new beginning with Yor, he closes his eyes without fear of the morning and the mornings beyond that. There is no hearse waiting, no gravestone with his name. There is only life, his wife, and his daughter come what may.
Loid Forger lives, and he lives in daylight than the suspense of an unending twilight zone.