As she stepped into the cold hospital hallway, the white and dim green squares that dressed the floors listened in to her thoughts and secrets. She knew they whispered about her and gossiped amongst each other. She knew they didn't have to have faces to have ears, like many other things in the universe that listened. Listened.
The blinking, painfully white bulb that lit the hallway felt like a fitting scenery for her thoughts; a diving pool with no water for her to explore and plunge into.
As she slowly walked deeper and deeper into the semi-dark hallway that swallowed her, she wanted to ask Other Monday, "How do I know which to prepare for?"
But this time, there was no echo answering back. Still, she persisted, "How come we're all supposed to be prepared to either be married for forty years or be alone forever and still have to be happy either way?"
Other Monday appeared beside her. There was blood splattered across her face. "You're afraid to be loved and you're afraid of not being loved. That's a lot of fears to have."
She looked at Other, "I'm not ashamed of the fears I developed from trauma."
Other Monday nodded and bit her lip, "Maybe that's why you keep re-living it."
Monday stopped walking and was about to ask her one more question when she realized she had arrived at the counter, where a nice receptionist dressed in teddy bear scrubs asked in an understanding tone, "Can I help you, sweety?"
She looked around for a second looking for Other Monday, who had now disappeared.
She heard a man's voice, "You okay?"
He was standing beside her, wearing a cowboy hat.
She noticed his eyes first, one blue and one dark brown. "Oh, yeah. Thanks. Just a little dizzy."
He shook his head and shared with an obnoxious accent, "There's a nice coffee shop downstairs if ya' need something to eat, lady." He leaned in and whispered, "I recommend the croissant." Monday, intolerant and unamused with the man's advice, looked at him and said nothing.
But that didn't seem to discourage him as he leaned over the counter with the side of his body, "Ya' visiting someone special?" He pried, chewing his gum with an opened mouth.
She hesitated, "Yeah. A couple of special people, actually." She placed her purse on the counter and searched for something inside of it, moving things around.
He shot up his eyebrows, "A couple? Oof. I wish you luck, honey."
"Yeah." She grabbed out her ID and handed it to the receptionist, who promptly began preparing her visitor's pass. She looked at him and noticed he still stared at her, wanting to talk. She sighed and budged, "How about you? Friend? Family?"
The man tilted his head, "This guy's kind of both."
She nodded and let out an understanding, "Ah."
He looked at the receptionist and confidently added, "I'm here to help him escape, actually. We have a secret operation in place, Cinthia."
The nice lady laughed and played along, "I've got my eyes on you, Mr. Otis." She pointed at him and he raised his arms, playfully acting innocent.
"Just where they should be, sugar." He winked.
The lady gave Monday her ID back and a sticker with the word VISITOR in bold and her name in smaller letters.
The boy glanced at it and bit his lip, intrigued. "That's a pretty name for a pretty lady."
She put away her things in her purse, this time run out of patience for this interaction. She said, "Thanks." and started walking away.
But before she could disappear into the hallway, the lady asked, "Dear, I'll need to know which room you'll want to visit first."
This made her turn around to answer.
-
Monday slipped inside his room like a silk gown slithered off her shoulder. It was dark and late, and the only sounds in there where that of the machine that monitored his vitals and the pouring rain outside the window. He awoke, noticing her presence, and simply looked at her as she stepped closer and closer to his bed. They looked at each other in peace; there was nothing more to fight, there were no lies in their eyes, there was no power involved, only weakness. Her shoulders tingled with the presence of an angel at one side and a demon on the other. They laughed and argued, and disagreed like you'd expect light and darkness to.
She sat on his bed and they didn't say a word, she simply reached for his hair and clutched it like she was holding on to something important. He stared at her lips before she gave him a slow peck, and then in an instinct, he leaned, grabbing her waist, and devoured all the adoration he had been storing for such a long time. His skin had a faint scent of musk and fresh lavender, and the tip of her fingers traveled down the ironed hospital sheets as if it were ocean waves.
They leaned away a fraction, though her eyes were unable to open immediately, and their foreheads met in the middle.
"Monday." He whispered, furrowing his eyebrows. "I need to know."
She pressed his chest mildly, insisting he lay down, "I know." With little strength, her pull was able to completely overtake Apollo and jab him onto his pillow. The side of her eye caught the vision of an old friend in black that only Monday could see, but she ignored Death's presence. "How is it?" She asked, avoiding his request.
She peeking at his legs that were covered by a thin blue blanket while he grunted softly and opened the blanket for her to see. She made a face, to which he replied, "My thoughts exactly." That made her smile.
When the bomb exploded, a piece of metal flew into Apollo's thigh. It wasn't critical, but it had had to be removed surgically. "How do you feel right now?" Her posture shrank at the thought of his pain.
He smiled and looked at her, "I'm alive. You're alive." She smiled at first, but then looked away only to see her childhood friend still looking at her. "Please." He insisted once again.
Monday scrunched her face a little, containing emotion, and then grabbed his hands and squeezed them. "Elliott is dead. Feyre is dead. Malachi is dead. Gideon has been suspended." She sniffed, "Liza is in surgery. The other girls are alive." A deep inhale, "You are alive. Sawyer is alive." She wiped a tear from her cheek and laughed bitterly, "And was fired." She laughed, and then cried.
He held her and tilted his head to meet her eye-line, "Hey," He raised her chin, "Does that mean I don't have to call you Monday anymore?" He smiled, and that made her laugh.
In between chuckles and tears, she mumbled, "I guess not."
He smiled and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "I can't believe we've been through all of this and I still don't know your real name."
She unclenched her fist; Her body was hypnotized by his touch, and she paid no more attention to the rest. She looked back at the corner of the room, and noticed Death had made her exit. After that day, Monday and her would never be friends again. She looked back at Apollo and whispered to him, "Without the Bureau I don't think I know who I am." She whispered.
He shook his head, smiling still-- examining her whole face bit by bit, and roamed with his thumb across her cheeks as if it were a treasure map. "Well, I know who you are. Trust me, I've been paying attention."
She smiled and touched his hand that rested on her cheek. "You know, I've wanted to be an agent ever since I was a little girl." The tip of her lip curved up, "My mom and I even created a little code--" She paused, and her expression froze.
"What?"
Her body stiffened and she stood up in a bolt. "The code."
He darted up and sat with good posture, "What the hell is the code?"
She pointed at him, "Call the Bureau."
"What?"
She grabbed his phone from the small table beside his bed and shoved it on his chest.
He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, but did as she ruled.
"Yeah, hi." He said to the other line.
She whispered aggressively, "Tell them you have a lead on our case." He repeated her command to the person on the phone. "Before Sawyer left, he knew something was up. He knew someone wasn't trustworthy. Drive West was a code."
Apollo's interest suddenly peaked. "A code for what?"
"He must've learned the name of GUST's leader while he was being held hostage."
Apollo's eyes glistened and his mouth fell open.
"Drive West. Ask them to check if there's a name on the list with the initials D. W."
He repeated it agitatedly to the woman on the other side of the line, and then turned his eyes back to her, "Donatello Wyatt. He's was known for Human Trafficking records with Italian Gangs in New York."
She jumped up and gesticulated widely, "That's our guy!"
"That's our guy!!!" He repeated, and they both hugged each other to tightly the other's prints left a mark for a moment.
Promptly, Monday leaned away. "I have to go talk to Sawyer."
Apollo nodded eagerly, "Tell him we have to go celebrate. Tell him drinks are on me tonight."
She smiled and impatiently walked away to his encounter.
When she entered Sawyer Grey's room hurridly there wasn't a single strand of hair still in place. The smile on her face combined with her out of breath panting triggered memories of a 9 year old girl that was free and had been given generous gifts from the universe which she didn't hesitate to claim as a birthright.
It was undeniable that her eyes dimmed significantly when instead of seeing a boy with stitches and a stupid smile, she saw folded sheets and a piece of paper that had been recklessly ripped from a notebook only moments before.
At first, she looked around. Part of her expected to see him in a corner with 'o' shaped lips and claw-shaped hands, wanting to hear the sound of her scream, wanting to see her body bewilder before transforming into a wave that crashed on a stone of laughter. But the other part of her knew she was the only person standing in that room.
She walked towards the bed slowly, almost like a bride who wasn't certain. Monday grabbed the note and read it to herself. If this were a movie, she'd cry, yell, and maybe throw that hideous vase against the wall. But this was real life and the silent tear that dropped from her eye to her chest was enough for her to feel it burn when it hit her skin.
"I tell myself that deep down you knew I'd have to leave. My job is certainly unconventional and let's face it, I wouldn't be able to make you happy. Though sometimes I think of a life where I'd try, and that thought keeps me awake until about five in the morning every day, which is when the birds that live under my window start chirping and I switch to thinking about how your voice feels like it enters my ears and slides down to my heart like warm honey and it sticks to it and makes it beat slower (not slow enough to kill me but slow enough to make me forget I'm still alive).
I'm sorry that this letter is so messy. I'm not a writer but the anguish of waiting for my name to leave your lips so I could hear it for the first time has made me want to grow the fuck up.
I'm a liar and a good one but the only honest thing I've ever done was love you with every piece of my bastard heart and I don't regret it, but I do a little.
I wish I was Ezra. I wish was anyone else but me.
Yours forever,
SG."
x