coping in chaos

The knock should've told you anything you needed to know, it was sharp and precise, insistent in a way that informed you that it was certainly not John. John would've just walked into his own house.

You took a brief inhale but you could only scent the clean, sterile musk of scent blockers and a sliver of fear, slipping under your front door like the morning mail. You dropped what you were holding and opened the door, your heart in your hands.

With John, it was only a matter of time. You expected it every time there was a knock at the front door, or an unnamed caller ID on your phone screen, the taste of grief rising in your throat.

You were scared of losing him, losing the encrypted texts and five-minute phone calls and hasty letters because that was all you had of him now. He hadn't been around for a Christmas or birthday in years, so death would hardly change anything—it would just make the silence deeper. 

Men stood in front of you. Men in black, men with bullet-proof vests over their hearts and fear in their eyes. 

"Sorry to disturb you, ma'am." The ringleader forced an awkward smile at you, his eyes flicking to the shadows of the kitchen. "I understand this may be confusing, Mrs. Price, but we're here for information about your husband." "My husband?" You could only stare, the cold winter air nipping at you through your pajamas.

"You will be coming with us, ma'am," he continued as if you hadn't spoken. "Immediately. It's a matter of international importance."

They were UNOCT. You recognized them because John used to be them, United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism—until it became too trivial for him. 

"I see," you said softly. Then, "Can I change?" "No," the man said, not unkindly. "Come, ma'am, I'll get a coat for you."

He took your hand, his grip tight enough to hurt. You stepped outside and watched the men around you tense, their hands going to their sleek, dark weapons. 

They trickled into your little home like ants, dozens of them from all sides. There was the sound of furniture turning over, the tinkle of shattered glass, and you realized that this was very, very serious. 

"My name is Shirley." The officer very politely wrapped handcuffs around your wrists. "Commander Shirley. This is precaution, ma'am, I hope you don't take offense."

"I'm sure you have your reasons," you said, your flimsy house shoes catching against the gravel driveway. The pain in your back made itself known, twinges shooting up your spine. "I assume asking questions is pointless?" "Extremely," he said, guiding you to a black SUV. It was bullet-proof, clearly, the type of car they would send a high profile government official around in. 

You were given a heavy black jacket that made the scent gland on your throat spasm, the scent of unfamiliar man chafing your nose. You kept up with blockers just as well as John did, a very strict regimen so you could time your heats together—but despite marriage, he had never marked you. He was gone so much that the bond would suffer, but the two of you had plans to settle down soon (or at least, you did,) where he would finish what he started. It was the only thing that kept you sane, the idea of a baby with your hair and John's eyes, the family you never had. 

The lack of a mark was uncomfortable, you had to rely on shallow bites and scent-marking to soothe your orientation, but John had always had the self control of monk. He would only do things when he was ready to, when he decided it was time. 

And you…you were too scared of change to ask for more. 

Officer Shirley took the seat in front of you, his eyes dropping to your throat. "I was under the impression that you have been married to John Price for four years," he said, an unasked question in his tone. 

"Yes," you said, tucking your chin so it wouldn't be so obvious. Shirley was an alpha, you could tell by the confusion creasing his brow, the subtle change in his scent. 

"When was the last time you spoke to him?" "Around two weeks ago, a phone call." It had been brief, as usual, but John had sounded…off. He asked about your surgery, your recovery, and then hung up abruptly. "I had a car accident a few months ago, and an emergency surgery after that. He wanted to know how I was doing."

Shirley's brow only grew more concerned. The SUV peeled out of the driveway and he offered you a bolt of black fabric, the familiar apologetic grimace on his mouth. 

"Is that necessary?" You asked, gripping the worn fabric of your sweatpants with your fingers, trying to ground yourself. "Yes." 

And so before noon, you had been blindfolded and driven to a mysterious military base, your home vandalized in what you were beginning to realize was a search for your husband. They placed you in a small, bright room lined by glossy black glass, a metal table at the center. 

You were allowed to keep Shirley's coat as you were questioned by eight different individuals in suits, the questions ranging from personal ("How often does John Price contact you?") to very personal ("Why aren't you mated to your own husband?") and by the end of it you understood that your husband had done something bad. Perhaps unforgivable. 

You didn't know the extent of his work. You knew that he was important in the military, knew that he could not tell you where he was or what he was doing, knew that he kept a handgun in the bedside table and a sheathed knife under his pillow. Sometimes when he came home there was still grease and blood in his beard. Sometimes you would wake up to him watching you from the chair in the corner of your bedroom, the cherry red end of a cigar illuminating his face. 

It had been an agreement when you first began dating—don't ask. At the time, being the focus of such an imposing man felt good, the unwavering way in which he had pursued you irresistible. Time passed and work took up more and more of him, until the man you had married was tucked under the mantle of Captain.    

The endless questions wore a hole straight through your chest and you felt…numb. A woman who introduced herself as Laswell took the longest with you, digging until she saw you flinch and then digging deeper. She had known him, you could tell by the familiar way she referred to him as John, the barely concealed betrayal in her eyes. 

Jealousy was a common taste for an unmarked omega, and you were careful to not let yours show, to not let it bloom in the air and let it humiliate you even further. Whatever he had done had hurt this woman, and you could sympathize. 

You felt them watching you through the black glass, could feel them weighing your responses, figuring out new ways to make you bleed all over the linoleum floor. 

Your back aches viciously, pain beginning to bleed up your spine and into your skull. Your pain medication had been left at home, likely strewn across the floor thanks to these lovely people. 

After an hour of silence, Commander Shirley brings you a cup of coffee and a package of cheap biscuits, the beginnings of pity in his eyes. "You didn't know him at all, did you?" He asked. 

You took a sip of coffee—it was too hot and the beans were bitter, lingering on your tongue like a cigarette. "Are you going to tell me why you're looking for him?" "We checked every inch of your house." Shirley opens the package of biscuits for you, conscious of your cuffed hands. "They found nothing. Barely any trace of him at all." "John travels light," you said sardonically. "He's gone eight months out of the year at minimum. That house is my home, but the military is his. I get whatever is left." Shirley doesn't ask any more questions, only slides a file in front of you. 

It's redacted to hell, entire paragraphs painted black, a tiny picture of John frowning up at you in that stern way of his. "Could I-" your voice wavers, the first crack forming. "Could I please get some tylenol? I'm sorry to be a bother, it's just my back is killing me."

Shirley gestured to the black glass and within a moment there was a young man in a uniform skittering to place a tylenol bottle in his hands. "Not a bother, ma'am," he said calmly, shaking out two to place in your palm. "I'll have my team bring your prescription by this evening. Keep reading." It was difficult to piece together what the file was trying to say, but eventually you read the words "terrorist" and "assassination" and the pieces fell into place. "He killed someone," you whispered, ice flooding your stomach. It didn't make sense—John was all about loyalty, about queen and country and Doing The Right Thing. It was one of the things that made it difficult to be married to him, how easily a cause could stir him up, how he wouldn't wait for anyone else to act before he did. 

"Someone very important," Shirley agreed. "It's grim. For him, and for you if you haven't been telling us the truth. John Price is now a wanted man." What does that make you? An accomplice? 

An idiotic wife? Your only sin was cluelessness, but perhaps that was enough.

After a while, there was not much more they could wring from you. You shut down slowly, numbness spreading from your chest outward. 

Weeks passed this way, endless dark rooms lined in glass, endless cups of bad coffee and plastic-wrapped sandwiches that tasted of nothing. You slept in an equally small room that only held a cot and sink, the door locked and guarded like they expected you to follow in your husbands footsteps. 

You wouldn't––John had made sure of that always, that you could never follow where he went. Your back worsens, despite Shirley allowing your prescriptions, and the pain is your constant companion, an old friend in the silence. 

John had known that this would happen to you. John knew your life would be ripped away, the sheet pulled back to reveal a rotting mattress, and there had been no warning, no contact, no thought towards you at all. You spend hours thinking about it, letting the hurt sink inside, the anger, the betrayal, all of wearing down a path in your mind. 

You had moved when he asked you to, a dozen different apartments and houses, a new country every few years or so. You had waited when he asked you to, waited to be mated, waited for children, waited for him to come home like a good dog. 

Why?

The answer was simple. You had loved him. Completely. You had known in the grungy bar where the two of you had met, the harsh scent of him filling your lungs, the dark blue of his eyes flashing in the shadows, silly words like fated and destined floating dreamily in your mind. 

Did John love you? 

That was more complicated. Perhaps there was time where he had, when the two of you were younger, but maybe not. Maybe it had always been about power, about proving to the world that he could be loved. 

Shirley seemed to foster a strange mixture of pity and kinship for you, but that was likely a ruse too, a trick played by the suits standing on the other side of the dark glass to make you believe you had a friend, a companion. There were times he would bring a chessboard, to give you something to do with your thoughts, and the two of you would play in silence.

You kept track of the days by thin lines you scratched into the metal side of your cot, thinking of your job, your friends, the life you had left behind. You wondered if you had just gone missing, or if the government had given some excuse to your disappearance. 

The glands on your throat and wrists swelled and blistered at the stress, at the lack of sunlight and the lack of John. You swallow blockers every morning with fanatic precision, hoping against hope that you could stop what was coming. 

"You're going into heat," Shirley said, breaking the silence of your second round. He was good at chess, but not as good as you were. He didn't seem to mind being beaten again and again, a rare trait for an alpha. 

"I know," you said, sacrificing a pawn so you could corner his rook. 

"It happens with widows, mostly, during times of great duress," Shirley sounded like he was repeating sentences from a textbook. "If John is out there, he won't be able to resist the call."

An embarrassing fact of biology, a vestigial structure from when humanity was just another animal in the ecosystem. When an omega comes under great stress, it could trigger a rare hysteria heat, a heat to either draw in their mate or find a new one. Those who lost their mate typically spend it locked in a center, working through the worst of the pain alone. 

The fever consumes them. Some die, some lose the ability to have children, but most are never the same again. The only thing that could help you was John, and that was what they were banking on. 

Had they been feeding you placebo blockers? Sugar pills?

"He won't come, Commander," you said, your queen swallowing his. "Checkmate."

Shirley looked at you then, his eyes solemn. "He will, if he cares about you at all."

"I think we've proved that John is a very good liar." You turned away from the board, tucking your knees to your chest. "I have a week, maybe more, maybe less." "I know," Shirley said, his eyes dropping to your throat. "You stink like a wounded animal." In some odd way, he wanted you––or at least, you triggered his instincts. Likely the sheer amount of hormones and hurt that fell off of you in waves. 

"I feel like one," you said. "An animal in a cage." His scent was beginning to be oppressive, too sharp in your nose. 

Shirley said nothing more, only packed up the chess pieces and left you to your thoughts. The woman, Laswell, tried to speak to you once more, holding yet another redacted file, but you had shut down at that point, the fever spreading into your bones. She wore a mask to keep herself from your wounded stench, another alpha in sheep's clothing. 

Your heats are usually languid, hazy things, timed to be spent with John's rut. It was the one thing that kept you tied to him for so long, the totality, the rightness you felt with him, the feeling of his hands on your hips, the scruff of his beard on your skin, the vulnerability glinting in his eyes. Perhaps it was ego, the idea that such a powerful man could be brought down by the scent of your slick. Or maybe you had been terribly infatuated with a man that did not even deign to put his mark on your throat. 

The humiliation doesn't stop. You found yourself sweating through your clothing, the sheets, the room turning into a claustrophobic prison as you started to tear yourself to pieces. Betas come to feed you and force medicine down your throat, but their touch was like knives, like being flayed alive.

It wasn't a heat at all––you were burning. Burning from the inside out, blood, muscle, skin, all melting until you were nothing but a sobbing lump underneath the bed, drowning in your own sweat and slick. They tried to give you his clothes for relief but the scent was long washed away, the whisper of it driving you deeper into insanity. 

They allowed it to go on for far too long, too hopeful that your suffering would draw John Price out of whatever cave he had retreated into. You don't eat for a week, then two––your hair falling out in clumps while you vomited up bile until strings of saliva and blood stained every inch of the bed. Once, there had been a dog infected with rabies brought to your clinic, a skinny scrap of filthy fur and foamy spit––it had snarled and snapped even as the euthanasia took hold, and now you could understand the fury, the helplessness in its eyes.  

You wondered when they would put you down, put you out of your misery. 

Throughout it all, you called for him. John, John, John, why did you leave me? Why did you go where I couldn't follow? 

Have you left me to die?

It doesn't matter. The heat swallowed you whole, sinking you deeper and deeper until you couldn't remember your own name. 

________________________________________________________________

You come to in a sterile hospital room, stripped bare in a papery sheer gown. The first thing you saw was the sun, beaming bright through the yellow curtains. 

It had been so long––weeks or months, you couldn't remember anymore––and it was so bright it brought tears to your eyes. You gripped the sheets and attempted to force yourself out of bed, closer to the light, closer to the outside world.

An alarm shattered the peace, shrieking through the hallway outside your door. You come back to Earth abruptly, your legs collapsing under you when you attempted to stand. 

You gasped for air, the oxygen cannula ripped from your nose. It took you a moment to realize there were hands on you, slipping under your arms and hips gently. The touch almost made you weep––you didn't realize how lonely you had been, how starved of skin against yours. 

"You're awake," a woman in pale blue scrubs said, smiling. She helped you back on the bed, her comforting scent flooding your lungs.

"Where am I?" You rasped, your voice raw and strange. 

"St. Thomas's Hospital." She settled you back in bed, slipping the oxygen cannula back into your nostrils. She was younger than you, her dark hair tucked neatly into a bun, her eyes warm and dark brown. "You were very sick, Mrs. Price."

"Oh," you said, slurring slightly as she injects something clear into the IV bag you hadn't noticed, your veins warming from the inside out. "Am I okay now?" "You will be," she said, but her voice trailed off as you felt yourself relax back into the pillows, an all-encompassing calmness coming over you. Memories come back to you slowly, the sickness, the heat, the horrible room they kept you in, slipping through your mind like a current. You tilted your face to the window, the very beginnings of sunrise brightening the horizon. 

You were all alone––but hadn't you always been alone? 

You spend a few days falling in and out of sleep, morphine warping your dreams into murky half-memories. John was there, of course, but it was John as he should've been: his teeth in your throat on your wedding night, his hand cupping yours after the accident, after the surgery, his crinkle-eyed smile, his low, grumbling laugh. 

It was like baptism by fire.

It was like letting go. 

You had never been very good at that; you were the sentimental type, the kind of person to keep every single birthday card people had sent you over the years in a shoe box underneath the bed, right beside the faded sonogram from the miscarriage you had when John was on his second deployment. You had never told him you were pregnant, hoping to keep it a surprise until he came home––but then there was no surprise anymore, and no point in burdening him when he already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

The drugs wore off as the pain eased, like bursting to the surface of a very cold lake. You opened your eyes one morning and found Laswell at the foot of your bed, holding a cup of ice chips like a peace offering. She called you by your first name, as if she knew your husband's last name was not welcome in that room. 

"Did you get what you wanted?" You asked, accepting the styrofoam cup. You couldn't resist ice chips, they were the one bright spot in the haze of bad hospital tv and the uncomfortable bed. 

"No." She looked to the linoleum, the yellowing edges that were just beginning to separate from the wall. "I want to apologize. On behalf of our organization…we nearly-" "Killed me," you finished helpfully. "For nothing." "For nothing," she echoed. "It was gross misconduct, and I'm sorry. I see now that you're innocent, and a victim. Shirley warned us we were going too far, and I didn't listen."

You took her in, the lines beginning to form around her eyes, the stiff, defensive stance of a woman preparing herself for battle. 

"You worked with him," you said. "Didn't you?"

 Laswell doesn't blink. "That's classified," she snapped. Then, softer: "Yes. I thought I knew him." "Me too," you said. "I suppose we were both wrong." She sat at the end of your cot, her hands braced against her knees. The mark on her throat made itself known, a delicate bite peeking out from the collar of her shirt. 

"I'm married too." She watched the hazy skyline, unable to meet your eye. "I can't…I can't imagine my wife going through what you did."

You shrugged, managing a wry smile. "That just means she has better taste than I do."

Laswell's exterior cracked a little then, a bit of warmth sparking in her eye. "Your life will be different after this. You'll change your last name, move to a new city, walk away from the whole thing." You weren't surprised––you used to do the same for John, but now you supposed you were doing it for yourself. A new life, a new name, a fresh start from the bloody mess he had left you in. 

"You won't be married anymore," she said. "John Price officially doesn't exist, so you're free to move on, live your life. There will be agents checking in from time to time, to make sure he doesn't find you." You nodded, closing your eyes. You imagined John Price, the totality of him, shedding off his life with you like another disguise. He had probably found your replacement by now, someone younger, someone who would earn his mark. 

It hurt like pressing on an old bruise, the pain already beginning to fade.