Goodbye ... Until We Meet Again

[huffpuffblonde]

GOODBYE MY FRIEND.

Goodbyes are inevitable. Maybe someone is moving away, maybe it's that final battle, maybe you can't stand to see this person any longer. They're leaving and this is your final chance to see them, final opportunity to say all those words you've been hiding away.

• Post with your character, name and series in subject
• Tag it up!

Comments

So sorry I'm late! And I <33 every post that you make. Will embark on tagging expedition next.

[fischer]

Hard to find happiness, when half of your life is lived as someone else and the other half for someone else. Perhaps that was what made small moments like this all the more precious.

He was no gullible schoolboy mooning over that one special person without whom life lost all meaning. More to the point, he knew exactly what they were. Already he had made her back in Marrakech, for he was cursed to see grounds for suspicion wherever friendliness resided, even one inflicted on him by an ostensible brake light malfunction, which he was willing to admit had been very clever. He'd taken the liberty of conducting a little sightseeing of his own during the German tourists' preoccupation with the American; nor had she disappointed him in her handling of the tests with which he had seasoned their conversation. Least of all, there had been the sweep drive in the rear seat to remove all lingering doubt. But, anyone could shake a tail, at the expense of giving away his own hand. It was the mark of the master to know when not to do this obvious, predictable thing-instead, to throw the opposition chickenfeed and to prey on their ego. He knew and she knew that he knew, and that was just fine.

At least, that's how he'd justified the charade in the beginning. But neither sensibility nor simple curiosity had kept him from mentioning her to his handler. He could not have said why. Maybe it was just another currency in his pocket in a trade of secrets. Maybe he didn't think it was important enough to bring up. Or maybe he had known, even then, just how important she was to him. She was a promise of the man that he could have been-a better man than he was, but a man that he could still be. He saw that now, as he fell into step beside her, her heels clicking across the white granite tiles of Terminal 2. Every spy had an exit strategy; not because they planned on skipping town the next day, but because they were paranoid creatures by nature. Still, when one had been at it for as long as he had, there came a time when the idea of getting out of the game became less of an idea and more of a reality. This desire had been growing inside him for a while now, but it had not been more than a sort of a fantasy. Annie made that impossibility seem, somehow, possible. When he was with her, he didn't feel as though he was putting on someone else's skin. It was rather ironic, all things considering.

Somewhere overhead, a dutiful female voice reminded them, Liebe Gäste! Bitte beachten Sie, daß auf dem Flughafen München Rauchen nur im Freien erlaubt ist. Then in English: Dear guests! We would like to remind you that smoking at Munich Airport is permitted outdoors only. Beneath canopied glass ceiling hung neatly a row of LED departure boards on the side of the mezzanine. Public spaces brought out hyper-awareness in him, yet Annie found a way to remain his focal point. She was dwelling at his side with a bright smile that worried him and he thought he sensed unfamiliar agitation in her steps and in the way that she brushed against him.

For half a beat, he did not answer, but a quiet pull of the lips readily returned her smile. "I am, too," he said, blue pools resting on her. He had come to enjoy her company immensely and yes, the lies were endless, but in a strange way, this had been truer to him than most other relationships that had come before it precisely because of its unusual parameters. Even so, it was never meant to last. The risks of word getting back to his people grew by day and they were not a very abiding lot. It was not a question of if, but when. Perhaps it was appropriate that it should end on one last false note. "Safe journey," he bade her as though expecting to meet again soon, ever guarded with his words and miserly with what he let betray.

<33 No worries about being late. Ever.

[freshoffthefarm]

Every time he looked at her with that deeply intense gaze, she wondered just how much he knew about her and how much he was letting slide. It was that gaze there that felt like he could see all the way into her heart and it made Annie catch her breath.

There was nothing more that she wanted in that moment than to catch the next flight; she could call Langley and mention something stupid ridiculous like traffic. A flat tire on the cab she'd taken to the airport. Mechanical issues with the airplane. A need to sight-see. Anything.

All she needed was time. Just a few more precious moments to savor the man standing in front of her. To touch him, to tell him-- tell him so many things that she wouldn't get to tell him. Not unless...

Stepping forward, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, lingering for a moment too long, then whispering, "Love you."

A second kiss was brushed against his lips, her eyes closed, before she pulled back and, unable to meet his eyes, she turned on her heel and stepped away. Her heart was pounding with the effort to not turn around, not to look back. If she looked, she knew she would break down and stay. It was the worst kind of good-bye.

You're a darling. <33

[fischer]

The first came unexpected, an overture that caught him unguarded. The second, he eased into it, not like two strange comets on a collision course, but in a soft burst of sunlight. His lips found their way to hers and it was the most natural thing in the world. In that instant, he would have given her his everything. With that, she was gone and he watched her slip away, unspoken words hanging in the air and looking very, very beautiful. And he was left alone, lost in a sky filled with stars shining darkly, and no-one may ever come to rescue him again as she had. All that would remain were the memories that would sustain him until the day that he died.

How simple it would have been to call out to her! He could expose everything that yearned to leave his chest. It did not have to be good-bye if they didn't want it to be. She might come back to him, if only he could get her to look back. If only he could let her know how much she meant to him before she boarded that plane that would take her out of Germany and out of his life. But he did not bear the love for the Agency that he did for her; and while he was not in agreement always with those seated in Kremlin, one could not expect the luxury of picking and choosing the best aspects of one's country while turning one's back on the rest. That was the worst kind of patriotism there was, being a patriot only when it was easy and convenient. Some believed that reformation was only possible on the rubbles of the old, but he believed, in simplest terms, in the Socratic principles of provoking changes from within than without. Nor was he blinded by ideology, for everywhere had been home and it was only by virtue of his mother's strength of ties that made the country his by blood.

That was a part of what he liked about what they shared-that life didn't always have to be about politics, about the ethics of their work which often required one to behave very badly in defence of a greater good, that choices could be rendered in terms of simple human conscience without thinking and that life and all its beauties could be enjoyed instead of being incidental to some larger picture. They didn't have to belong to any Service but each other. But was that too sentimental? Did she deserve better than what he could give her, under the circumstances? The die was cast; there was a line between retirement and betrayal, and he was not willing to turn traitor. How could he hope to love and to receive love, by sacrificing his integrity, his honour, everything that he held sacred as an individual? He could ask her to run away with him. Leave this all behind. Had he been more selfishly inclined, he would have. But not everyone was so unlucky as to maintain expendable social ties, capable of expunging their old life and never looking back.

So he said nothing. He had known a surfeit of people who had many talks but no action and these were the most dangerous kind of people, who carried the pestilence of misguided inspiration at virtually no cost to themselves. But silence also could be much more powerful and far more costly. When the distance between them was too great for her to overhear, he muttered softly to her receding figure, "Good-bye, Annie."