You don't have to do it.
“Just because you’ve done something, doesn’t mean you have to keep on doing it,” he whispers, and kisses her wrist.
It is then she realises that she loves him, then she decides that she is going to stop. She wouldn’t hurt him, and to hurt herself is to hurt him. It is that simple for her, now that love has touched her.
*
It’s agony, it’s maddening, she doesn’t know if she can bear it. His life is in her hands, and to save him she must betray her country. There’s no question about what she’ll choose. But part of her can’t help but think that it’s her fault, somehow, her fault this happened, and she wants to punish herself for it. But then she remembers his lips on the open cuts and she doesn’t. She has the power to save him, and she will do it if it cuts her to pieces and kills her.
A little part of her hopes it will.
*
Bond is funny, she’ll give him that. Funny and handsome and quite observant. But not too observant, and she relaxes at that. He calls orphan and he’s right, but her sleeves are long and even if he sees, he’d never say. No one does. He’d just look away quickly, as awkwardly as a man that well dressed can, and talk about something else. He’s clearly had his own struggles. For some reason, she likes that.
*
She’s shaking as she raises the wine glass to her lips, trying to find a distraction, but nothing will numb the horror and the fear that’s inside her, making her shake. She feels sick to her stomach. She had never seen a man die before tonight, and then two were just killed in front of her, by a man she is supposed to trust. And she didn’t stop him. She didn’t reach out, didn’t say a word. Maybe it’s her fault. Knowing she could have stopped it hurts. But doesn’t hurt enough. She knocks the glass over. It smashes and she pretends to herself that it was an accident. It isn’t an accident when she cups a shard of the glass in the palm of her hand and stumbles to the bathroom.
She does it over the sink and after so long it feels good, and for that she feels guilty. She would hate to get blood on this beautiful dress, she thinks, and Bond could return to the room at any minute. A second later, her mind hates her for being as vain and silly to think of the dress. The fact that Bond picked it out for her holds no emotional weight at all. That’s what she tells herself. He is a pawn to get her love back safely, and if she must pretend to care for him, so be it.
She would be less frightened if she was entirely sure she was pretending.
She steps into the shower and turns it on full blast, coldest setting. She wants to feel the cold, wants to suffer for her weaknesses. She sinks down the wall so she is sitting in the jet, her arms wrapped around her legs, crying gently. Her mind whispers, you deserve this, you deserve this, you deserve this.
Bond appears from nowhere, like a ghost or a bad dream. He crosses to her immediately and steps into the shower in his bloodied shirt, not seeming to mind the cold. Does he feel it? she thinks. Does he feel anything at all? He killed two men without a second thought. He is like those who would kill her husband at her slightest mistake. But he sits down next to her, and he must notice her bleeding arms, but doesn’t say a word. She murmurs what scares her so, professes her guilt; and he kisses and sucks her fingers, absolves her. She knows he has seen what she’s done to herself. And she knows he forgives her.
She rests her head against his shoulder, and then he feels the cold. He reaches up to turn the dial, and warm water rains down upon her, and she stays still, because he makes her feel safe.
*
She has done it. He loves her, and she betrayed him. She locks the door, releases the elevator shaft and plunges into the water.
He tries to save her. He wants her to live, he is desperate for her to, she knows that. But she can’t, not anymore. The first man she ever loved is dead because of her inadequacies, and the second she has betrayed. She can’t live like this. But it’s okay. She’s always known she would die like this: at her own hand.
He reaches for her hand, and she takes it to kiss his fingers softly. There are no words in the water, she can’t speak to tell him that it’s not his fault, that she forgives him. So she shows him, how he showed her, that it doesn’t matter how much he hates himself, how much Hell he will put himself through to try and get rid of the self-loathing and the guilt, she in this moment loves him, and always will.
When she lets go and pushes herself backwards, in the water, he roars and shakes the bars. Her vision clouds, and the water in her lungs hurts, but she feels like she deserves the pain, one last time. She shuts her eyes and it all fades to black.
*