OTA

[codenameathos]

Oliver had waited until he had another day off to pour over the contents of the memory stick Victoria had given him. He had read every word of that file. Every mission she'd been on. Every death she was officially responsible for. Most of them aligned with British interests, but that wasn't the issue.

The issue was that this was Anne. His sweet, beautiful Anne, who had insisted that she had only been fighting off her brother. She was capable of these things, had probably always been capable of these things.

There was nothing on her recruitment, and he had no way of knowing when she had started for them. The file as it was started a little while after her 'death', but what did that mean?

He had waited until he had another day off, because after he was done reading, Oliver went out to the pub, a solitary figure huddling over ever-coming glasses of scotch at the counter. He only moved on when the bartender cut him off. A few pubs later, he was stumbling through the streets of London, until he found himself outside her house.

The address had been in her file, the house of late Lord Winter. He rang the bell and banged on her door, yelling for her to open - without ever using a name, what name was he supposed to use? - until he gave up hope and sagged against the wall beside her door, barely holding himself up in his drunkenness.

OOC: find him in the pub, on the streets, outside her door, as you prefer! From tipsy to next to blind drunk!

Comments

[codenameathos]

"You should be dead," Oliver replied, watching her as if betrayed by how alive she was, when the real betrayals had happened before her return to life. Hers of him, and his of her. Forget-me-nots everywhere, the red of her blood staining them, and his hand went to the locket he wore under his shirt, the locket that never left him.

[codenamemilady]

"You would know, husband." He was the one who killed her, after all. Killed his beloved Anne, opening the way for Milady.

She tensed at his movement. A blade? There were ones meant to be worn hidden on a chain; she owned a couple. But he paused. Could it be... Milady didn't want to let herself think what it might be, if not a weapon.

"Why are you here?"

[codenameathos]

"Why are you," Oliver replied, looking as if he might want to push off from the wall, but didn't manage. Could he step closer to her? Should he? Hair fell in disarray into haunted eyes. "I had to see you. I had to know." He still didn't. He would need to touch her, but he couldn't take those last steps. The last time he had touched her when drunk...

[codenamemilady]

The look in his eyes, the pain she could see there, steadied Milady. Oliver had found her. He was here. But she still had an advantage.

"I live here," she answered calmly. "As you must know, unless you've taken to pounding on random doors in your inebriation? What would people say?"

[codenameathos]

Anger surged through Oliver, and with that, he took a few steps closer to her, crowding her, his gaze dark. "Do not mock me."

[codenamemilady]

When he moved, Milady stepped back, keeping the distance between them. Her eyes widened, and even she couldn't say how much was true and how much manipulation.

[codenameathos]

Oliver did not stop coming until he could touch her, backing her up against the wall of her home, a hand on her upper arm. She was real, like that time at the ball. He could touch her, and he looked down at his hand on her arm without any words for the moment, drunk mind reeling from the whiplash of emotions.

[codenamemilady]

She should draw her knife. it was right there. Why didn't she draw her knife? The wall was unyielding at her back, and Milady barely breathed. The last time Oliver had had her in this position...

[codenameathos]

Slowly, he looked up into her eyes, as if afraid of what he might see there. "How did you survive?" he asked, a tremble in his voice.

[codenamemilady]

Not all knives cut with steel. Some of the sharpest were made of words. "I survived, because you were too much a coward to stay and see you finished what you started. Or to try and save the wife you claimed to love."

[codenameathos]

"Can you love someone you never knew?" Oliver asked, although his heart said yes with every stubborn, anguished beat. She had claimed to love him, too, and he had never known her. Not until she had killed Thomas. Not until she had drawn that blade on him, the blade he had offered her. "You were dead." His hand came up to the choker around her throat, needing to see.

[codenamemilady]

"You did know me," her voice like the kiss of a knife as it first pierced flesh.

Milady's hand followed his, but she didn't stop him. She tucked her fingers under the simple ribbon choker and jerked hard enough to break the clasp as she bared her throat to him. "I was dying. And you left me there. With my blood on your hands, you left."

[codenameathos]

"I thought I'd killed you," Oliver muttered, all of his focus on the scar on her neck, fingertips brushing it as if to assure himself of the reality of it.

[codenamemilady]

His fingers brushed over her throat, the scar he'd made, and Milady grabbed for his wrist and jerked away from the touch. "Admiring your handiwork?"

[codenameathos]

Oliver looked up into her eyes, his never more haunted. "Never."

[codenamemilady]

"It's a uniquely personal forget-me-not." Milady wasn't sure why she said it, except that trying to wound Oliver eclipsed other feelings she didn't know what to do with when he looked at her like that.

"Every time I look in the mirror. Every choker. Every scarf. Every lover who wants to see what lies beneath. The rarer ones who get to. Every one a reminder of you."

[codenameathos]

His other hand twitched at the forget-me-not comment, an interrupted gesture to the pendant he wore. He looked at her for a few seconds in silence, once she was done speaking, and pushed away from her, almost stumbling. "I don't know why I'm here."

[codenamemilady]

"Don't you?" He'd come to her. He couldn't expect her to say why. Although Milady believed she knew.

Now he was aware she lived, could he ever stay away?

[codenameathos]

He didn't, and now he needed away. Was the Tube still running? He wasn't sure what time it was, but he would check. Or he might catch a bus and ride it all night; the thought oddly appealed. Watching London pass him by.

[codenamemilady]

Milady said nothing more, watched in silence until Oliver had gone from view. Only then did she go inside, falling back against the door as it shut. Thankful there was no one to see the way she shook.