The Giuoco Piano

Chapter 49 - Capitulació

"At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice."

― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Roman sits on the sofa and stares at his hands. Hands that are unable to hold onto that which he loves the most. His children. His family. His wife.

There is noise around him, but he's not sure what's going on. He doesn't really care if he's honest. He feels like he's lost everything. He feels like he did the night Chief Tarrington told him definitively he wasn't Roman Brady.

He had gone to the pier that night with a gun. He had been intending to put a bullet in his brain and end it all. And then Marlena had found him. Marlena had saved him.

She has been his savior all along. Even when he thought her dead, even when he thought he'd lost her forever. To an explosion, to a plane crash, to Roman Brady... somehow, she'd kept him upright and breathing. She has come back to him, again and again.

He's not sure this time that she will. She's so lost inside her own personal hell that he feels as though he can't even reach her. She's drifting further and further away, his outstretched fingers just brushing featherlight against the tips of hers. He can't catch hold of her, no matter how desperately hard he tries, and he promised he would always catch her. If he can't catch her, how the hell can he save her?

"Roman?" Kim hands him a mug of tea and sits down next to him. "Are you okay?"

"Thanks, but I could do with something a bit stronger than this Kimmy," he puts the mug on the table in front of him and pushes his hair back as he leans back against the dark blue chenille upholstery. "Bo, you wanna go for a beer?"

"The bars are going to be closing soon, Roman," Hope looks at her watch. "And besides, we're best not drawing any more attention to ourselves."

"Fine," Roman spits furiously, pushing himself up from the sofa. "I'll go out and find a seven-eleven."

"They don't have seven-eleven's here," Bo says caustically. "And the last thing you need, is to get drunk, man."

"Don't you damn well tell me what I need, little brother."  Roman stalks to the door, but Shane gets there first and stops him, one hand on the door handle and one on Roman's chest.

"Sit down, Roman," he says softly. "I'll order you a couple of beers, but you're not getting drunk. Bo is right, that's the last thing you need right now. You need all your faculties about you if we're going to stop Marlena leaving in the morning."

"I don't think anything is going to stop her from going," Roman says morosely.

"We can't not try," Bo says angrily.

"Brady, Stefano has Shawn-D too now," Hope reminds him. This is suddenly so much more personal for her. For all of them. He's taken their son and he's threatened to take Andrew or Jeannie should they try to interfere anymore.

Bo says nothing for a long moment, starting first at his wife and then Shane. Finally, he looks at his older brother, lost and broken. "Fuck!" he curses. And then his shoulders slump. "Better order me some of those beers, Guvnor."

~

Marlena crawls onto her bed, too tired to even strip off her lacy underwear. She's mostly packed her suitcases and she's put aside a traveling outfit, finding within her for at least twenty minutes, the organized, responsible doctor she used to be.