It turned out that being back at HQ was even weirder than being back at school. It had been months since I'd set foot in these hallowed halls, because despite the mission being over for a good two weeks, the directors had wanted me to wait to debrief until they were sure Daniel Stafford's conviction was going to stick.
Which basically meant I'd spent the last couple weeks in the apartment Evan had recently evacuated, watching every romantic comedy I could find and eating a lot of ordered in Chinese food. But now that I'd eaten my weight in pot stickers, the agency had cleared me to return to active duty, starting with a full debriefing back at HQ. Despite never having been through one before, it sounded decidedly unappealing, as I was going to spend the entire day locked in a room with Agent Jenkins and Director Haddock, telling them every single gory detail of what happened over the course of the past few months.
It was kind of surreal, actually. I sat spinning slowly in a chair in the same conference room where I'd been given this assignment, still early for my meeting, yet I felt like a completely different person. I was more sure of myself and more confident in my abilities as a field agent. The only thing that hadn't seemed to change was how uncertain I was about my future outside of work. I wondered if the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach at having left everything so unresolved with Max would ever go away.
Before I could think myself into a rabbit hole, the door of the conference room opened and I bolted to my feet to greet the director, who was smiling at me warmly as she entered the room, surprisingly alone.
"Agent Dupont," she spoke softly, taking a step towards me to briefly shake my hand. "Welcome back."
"It's good to be back, Director," I nodded, feeling a bit more at ease with each passing second, since Agent Jenkins wasn't around to make me tense.
Her smile widened. "Congratulations on the completion of your first undercover operation."
"Thank you," I grinned back, waiting for her to tell me to sit so we could begin.
Instead, she shrugged nonchalantly and nodded towards the door. "I imagine you're quite tired, so we'll begin your debriefing tomorrow. Get some rest. You've earned it."
Blinking rapidly and sure I misheard, I decided not to question the decision to postpone what was definitely going to be one of the least fun days of my life and said, "Thank you," before stepping into the hallway.
It wasn't until I'd turned left and walked about five steps that I realized I had no idea what to do next. To be completely honest, as much as I relished not having to sit through a debriefing at this exact moment, having free time wasn't exactly appealing either. I'd already spent the last two weeks doing absolutely nothing. One more day of cleaning out a fridge might just drive me crazy.
"Lexi!" I heard a familiar voice call my name.
"Evan!" I immediately smiled as I saw him jogging down the hallway, opening my arms to pull him into hug when he was close enough to do so. I'd missed him. Although I'd been essentially put on house arrest, Evan didn't have a good excuse to keep me company, so he'd returned to headquarters to wrap up the administrative side of the mission and delve into the other work that had been piling up. "It's good to see you."
"You too," he smiled as we pulled apart, grabbing my hand and gently tugging me down the hallway in the direction from which he'd just come. "Hey, before you go, you should come with me."
I furrowed my brow in confusion, wondering why the conversation had taken such a sharp turn. It wasn't as though Evan was huge on small talk, but considering we hadn't seen each other since the day of the arrest, it seemed odd that he hadn't even bothered to try. "Come with you where?"
"There's someone here you should see," he replied vaguely, tugging me along a little quicker, to the point where I was almost jogging beside him to keep up.
I was out of breath when we finally came to a stop outside a wooden door. "Who?"
He didn't answer right away, pulling open the door and gesturing for me to enter. "Look."
Curious, I stepped into the observation side of an interrogation room, my heart stopping and my eyes widening when I saw Max sitting at a table on the other side of the two-way glass, staring blankly at a wall. "What's he doing here?"
It was so strange to see him this context. I'd spent the past few months living in his world, or at least trying to get as close to it as possible, that it was jarring to see him in mine. He sat under harsh fluorescent lights, his shoulders relaxed, his stubble grown out to nearly a full beard and his eyes dark from exhaustion. He looked so vulnerable, so afraid, so...human.
And that was a startling epiphany for me, because it would have been easy to categorize everything that happened on the mission as some kind of alternate universe and then return to this life as though nothing had happened. After all, that was how field agents normally dealt with the stress of coming off of an undercover assignment. But seeing him here, sitting in my place of work, just a few feet away, made me painfully aware of the fact that all of it had been real; that everything I'd felt for him hadn't just been a figment of my imagination that I would eventually just forget about given the proper amount of time.
Max was an actual human being. One that I'd fallen in love with and one that I'd hurt deeply in the midst of that process and whether I liked it or not, it was time for me to face the music.
"He turned himself in this morning," Evan replied softly. I could tell he was trying to gauge my reaction.
"Turned himself in?" I stopped breathing, thinking that it would break my heart if I now discovered that Max had been completely game for his father's plan this entire time. Part of the reason I'd fallen for him had been that he hadn't seemed to approve of the family business, his moral compass being much too rigid for that lifestyle. It would be such a tragedy if that had all been an act. "For what?"
"That was probably the wrong wording," Evan corrected himself, sending my impeding devastation. "He agreed to help us dismantle the rest of the syndicate now that his father is in prison."
I let out a small sigh of relief, mentally scolding myself for thinking that the fear in his eyes that night by the fountain could have been an act. "Really? The last time we talked about it, he didn't seem too into the idea. What changed his mind?"
That was a bit of an understatement. The last time we'd talked about it, he'd become enraged at the thought of what he considered to be betraying his entire family. I was intrigued to find out why that mindset had changed.
Evan shrugged. "Why don't you go ask him yourself?"
I contemplated the idea for all of two seconds before shaking my head. "I don't think he wants to talk to me."
"I'm sure that's not true," he reassured me.
"Trust me, Evan," I sighed, knowing that it wouldn't be joy that sparked in Max's eyes if he saw me again. "I'm the last person he wants to see right now."
"Lexi, I know this is hard for you," he spoke softly, "but you're going to have to face him sooner or later. Don't you want closure?"
Leave it to Evan to be rational at a time like this. I wanted to protest, but maybe he was right. Maybe I did need closure. Maybe finally confronting Max and having everything out in the open would bring me the peace I so desperately sought.
"Fine," I huffed, leaving the observation room to walk quickly to the door to the interrogation room just around the corner and pulling open the door before I could lose my nerve. It wasn't until I was standing in front of Max, wide eyed and speechless, that I realized this was actually happening and I probably should have come up with some sort of plan before I walked in. I didn't know what else to say, so I settled for, "Hi."
There were about five different emotions that flooded his eyes at the sight of me, not least of which was anger, but it finally simmered to disappointment and hurt before he spoke, his voice low and soft, as though he was telling me a secret. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't ever see me again. The agency wasn't in the habit of exposing the true identities of their undercover operatives to high profile targets and if Agent Jenkins found out I was even anywhere near Max, I was going to get seriously chewed out, but I didn't care. I needed this. I knew that was selfish and maybe a little immature, but I'd spent too long keeping my feelings all bottled up and if I didn't say what I needed to say to Max now, I might never get the chance again.
Taking a step forward, I curled my fingers around the top of the chair opposite him, toying with the idea of sitting down, but wondering if it would feel too much like an interrogation if I did. "I hoped I would see you again."
There was an apology in my tone, and maybe a glimmer of hope, but he acknowledged neither, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, his expression hardening with each passing second. "What are you doing here?"
Since the mood of the room was tense anyway, I decided sitting wouldn't change much and plopped down on the edge of the metal chair, lacing my fingers together atop the table. "I heard you agreed to help us."
"Yes, if they keep my mother and sisters safe." His reply was dry and almost monotone, but there was a glimmer of worry in his eyes, as though he wasn't sure we'd hold up our end of that bargain. We would. I'd make sure of it. Besides, there wasn't enough evidence to directly connect Max's mother or sisters to any of the syndicate's crimes, so the agency would more than likely set them up with new identities and relocate them a few thousand miles away to keep them out of harm's way.
That must have been his ultimate reasoning for coming to the NIA. He knew that the only way to keep his mother and sisters as safe as possible was to cooperate. It made perfect sense, since it also kept him from having to take over as leader of the family business.
"Thanks," I whispered, genuinely so grateful that he'd decided to go this route. I shuddered at the thought of how this all could have ended if he'd set out to fulfill his father's legacy.
His jaw tensed and he shook his head. "I didn't do it for you."
"I know," I replied, struggling not to feel the pangs of pain in my chest because he had every right to be upset with me. "But I'm still grateful. I never wanted you to get hurt."
He stared at me and I wondered if this was going to be the end of the conversation, if he was just going to refuse to speak to me any further, but instead he dropped his arms from his chest and looked down at his hands, his voice coming out just barely above a whisper. "But I did."
"Because of me," I matched the volume of his tone, feeling the aches in my heart increase. "I know."
He blinked slowly as his gaze lifted to meet mine and then let out a bitter laugh. "You know what's funny? I've never been as open with anyone as I was with you. I felt like it was the most honest relationship I'd ever had. Pretty ironic, huh?"
It was ironic. And completely heartbreaking. And I wanted to tell him that I had felt exactly the same way; I still did. How completely devastating that people who were trained to be closed off had opened themselves up for the one person on the planet with whom their relationship was doomed from the very beginning.
"I'm sorry, Max," I said, leaning a little closer to the table. "I don't know how many times I can say it until you believe me."
"How can I believe you?" he scoffed, his eyes light with fire. "I spent the past three months falling in love with someone I apparently knew nothing about."
"But you do know me," I insisted. "I know you think that I lied to you this whole time, but I didn't. Not really. Everything I've ever told you about myself is true." I was being honest, because, for once, he deserved the truth. And maybe I should have left it at that, should have reassured him that those stories I'd told about my childhood hadn't been entirely made up and decided that was enough for him to hold onto. But I felt like I was about to explode, and it was entirely possible that telling him the secrets of my heart would only make matters worse, but I knew that this was something that I needed to say or it would eat away at me forever, especially if this turned out to be the last time I ever saw him. So I took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes as I spoke. "And you should know I was falling in love with you, too."
He didn't say anything, maybe because he didn't believe me, but he didn't divert his gaze, either, which meant I got a front row seat to figuring out exactly what was running through his mind. He was fighting his instinct to find that revelation joyous, the pessimistic and rational side of his brain listing all the ways I could be trying to trick him, and I couldn't blame him, considering the circumstances. But I could provide proof that I wasn't just lying to save face. "It's the reason Evan almost pulled me off the case. I was getting too emotionally attached to you."
His posture relaxed slightly, though I still couldn't fully read his emotions, and I took that as an indication that he had decided I was telling the truth.
"Almost?" Max tilted his head to the side, staring me down. "Why didn't he?"
"Because I begged him not to," I replied evenly, finding that telling the truth was oddly exhilarating. "Because I didn't want to leave you yet."
It was his expression that softened this time, this mixture of anger and hurt in his eyes dissipating into something lighter and dreamier and if I didn't know any better, I could swear he was on the verge of smiling. His lips parted to speak and my heart rate spiked in the anticipation, but before he could get a word out, there was a tapping on the two-way mirror, a signal from Evan indicating that someone was coming and I needed to scram before they discovered my serious breach of protocol.
"I should go, they probably have a lot of questions for you," I sighed, a bit disappointed when he pressed his lips together into a tense smile, deciding not to say whatever it was that he was on the verge of saying just moments ago. For a split second, I thought about asking him to just spit it out, but I decided that maybe, in this situation, he deserved to have the upper hand.
Pushing myself from the chair, I turned towards the door, pausing when my fingers wrapped around the handle and twisting just my torso to face him. "Hey, Max? Is there any version of our story that has a happy ending?"
His eyes widened, the corners of his lips lifting into the faintest smile as he finally came to the realization that I didn't want this to be the end.
"I don't know," he admitted, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach, but the feeling was only temporary, because he continued with, "But I hope so. Someday."
It was a simple answer, and an extremely vague one at that, but it made my heart soar, because it meant that maybe, after all the shit we'd endured, Max and I actually had a chance at a normal life and a normal relationship. So even though I didn't know when someday would be, I did know that I would wait for as long as it took, whether it was two weeks, or twenty years. Matching his miniscule smile, I nodded as I pulled the door open. "Goodbye, Max."
He met my gaze, those blue eyes as piercing as ever, though this time I hoped they really could see into my soul, so he'd know that I meant every word I said. "Goodbye, Agent Dupont."
It was startling to hear him call me that, like the shattering of an illusion, but in the best possible way. Hearing him use my title and name made me feel as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, like I was finally free of the prison I'd been trapped in during the mission. I was finally free to be myself again, even if I currently had no idea who that was. But I supposed the most fantastic part of it all would be in the discovering, and that was a mission I couldn't wait to undertake.
I couldn't help the slow smile which stretched my lips, and at first, he looked surprised by my reaction, but it wasn't long before the corners of his lips kinked upwards as well, and I felt my entire body relax as I realized that it was possible we might actually be on the same page. With one last nod, I stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind me, unable to hide my grin as hurried back to my desk to collect my bags and make the most of my day, excited for whatever it was that the future had in store.