way too many feelings for fiction characters

And now, interestingly, Micheal manages a surprise of his own.

It strikes Matt as clumsy and uncoordinated jab, considering the caliber of surprise he normally stumbles into. There’s too much effort in the words, saturated by a sense of mutilated glee. In Matt’s world, surprises are dangerous, potentially deadly ordeals and his usual company tends to treat them with the appropriate grimness. Not Micheal. There’s a confidence in Michael’s shoulders and a grin at the corner of his mouth, both of which make it all too clear that this world of ridiculous high society picnics is fueled by a twist of shock wielded in just the right way.

The least Matt can do is play along. “Weird,” he says. “It’s just that Rachel never mentioned an engagement. Never mentioned you at all, actually.”

This knocks the grin from Michael’s face, but unfortunately, he regains his composure too quickly for Matt to properly enjoy its loss. “That’s a shame,” he says. “Although it does make sense—she was pretty heartbroken when I called the whole thing off. She always did say she needed me.”

Rachel Cameron has never needed anyone and Matt opens his mouth to say so, but before he can get a word out, there’s another surprise tapping along his shoulder. He turns to find Abby, all done up and beautiful against and early spring evening, and she smiles at him as though she’s not surprised one bit. “I’ve been saving a dance for you,” she says, holding a hand out to him. “This is your chance to ask for it.”

He knows Abby well enough to understand that she knows him right back. She knows his expressions and his gestures. She knows his hometown and his cover legends. Matt has spent years hiding behind piles of phony passports and fabricated paper trails, but even after all of that, Abby can still pull him straight back to the surface of his own skin. There are unspoken words waiting behind her graceful smile and for the first time since Texas, Matt gets the sense that Abby might know him better than he knows himself.

Matt steals one more glance at Michael, but Abby takes his hand in hers. A warm, buzzing excitement stretches through his fingers, his wrist, his arm, and this battle was over before it even began. “Abigail Cameron,” he concedes, “will you dance with me?”

Her shrug is outlined by delight, and a wistful sigh tumbles through her smile. “If you insist,” she says, already starting toward the center of the garden. “I couldn’t stand to disappoint you, Matt.”

This is the kind of confession that comes effortlessly to her, meanwhile Matt’s had the same confession on his mind since that very first day of training and has never been able to dig it out of the stubborn parts of his chest. He adores that about her—adores the way she exists without apprehension or apology. Abigail Cameron might just be the only spy Matt knows who doesn’t have any secrets. Not any that matter, anyway. One look, one conversation, one moment is all it takes to know exactly what she’s about.

She guides him toward a stone dance floor, one earth-eaten paver after another, and Matt gets to thinking about how it’s high time he follow her lead.

The orchestra is well into their set by now, stings warm, and smooth, and easy. With a slow and simple smile, she steadies her stance against his, and after all these years, she’s finally convinced him to dance with her. “If I didn’t know better,” she says, words wrapped in the edge of a whisper, “I’d say you and Micheal were becoming fast friends.”

Her free hand falls to his shoulder, easing it down from a tension he doesn’t recognize until it’s leveraged out of him. He doesn’t remember when his own hands landed along her hips, but he’s there. And she’s there. It’s the two of them, and urgency coils around the core of Matt’s thoughts. “But you do know better.”

She looks up at him with that same smile she always does—a smile he’s always known he would move mountains for. “I know you,” she says. “And from experience, I know what it looks like when you’re about to bash someone’s head into a half-melted ice sculpture.”

He falls into step with her. “That was one time.”

She leads without question. “I remember.”

“My cover was already blown.”

“I remember that, too.”

“I wouldn’t do that here.”

Skepticism is a rare look on Abby. Matt can spot it on Rachel from a mile away, pulled from a constant source of doubt and distrust that sits somewhere inside of her. But Abby ain’t much for doubt and she only wrangles it when she really means it.

Something in Matt’s chest deflates at the certainty of it. “I wouldn’t blow your cover. Not here. Not with these people.” The promise hangs heavier than he intends, because he could have sworn it already went unspoken between them. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Abby just nods, light as ever. “I know you think that.”

She borders on hurtful, now, calling his character into question. He wonders what his pops would have to say about it. What his mama would say. “You really think I would risk your whole life here?”

“I think,” she says, pulling herself closer as the two waltz across flagstone, “that you’ve had a long couple of days, wrapped up in a long couple of weeks, wrapped up in a very long couple of years.” There’s no way Abby could know just how long the past couple of years have been, with missions run in duplicate and triplicate across the globe, tracing down dead end leads and covering every track he’s left behind, from both good guys and bad. But the sisters have always had a way of knowing the things they shouldn’t. “And that you wouldn’t be the first person to lose their cool around Michael.”

They’re in the middle of two dances, now—one set to the sound of strings, and another hiding in the back-and-forth trill of their voices. He’s not sure when he started keeping secrets from Abby. Probably around the same time he started keeping secrets for Joe. Whatever the case, it sends him sidestepping into safer territory. “You’re talking about Rachel?”

She glances up at him, spotting his stumble. “You’re talking about Rachel,” she notices, with that studious glance she usually saves for overseas ambassadors or double-talking senators. “Why are you asking about Michael and Rachel?”

Somehow, this doesn’t seem any safer. “Just business.”

“I see,” she says. “And it doesn’t have anything to do with Micheal mentioning their engagement, does it?”

She really does seem to know everything. “How did you hear that?”

“I didn’t have to,” she says “You just confirmed it.”

Only then does he realize Abby is leading their second dance, too. “One of these days, I’ll stop falling for that trick.”

With two, friendly taps on his shoulder, she cracks a soft smile. “Nice to know it still works on you for now, though.” Then, with a certainty only she could muster, “Don’t waste your time on Michael. He didn’t take anything from the office.”

They’ve made their first full rotation across the floor, and Matt lands right where he started. Over Abby’s shoulder, he can still spot Michael, huffing away at a cigar with a thick, blue ribbon wrapped around its center. “I’m not so sure.”

Abby pops up onto her toes to intercept his eyeline. “Why?” she asks, although it don’t sound like much of a question. “Because you don’t like him?”

He knocks her back town onto her heels. “I like him plenty—I like everyone,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I like him?”

“I can think of at least one reason.”

She lets her hand fall from his shoulder and he’s trained well enough to know that she intends to spin out into the crowd. Matt extends the arm that still holds her, and lets her linger, very briefly, in the beauty of a lavish gown spun into a flourish of fabric. But soon enough, her words catch in his ears, and their two dances finally overlap when he pulls back into his arms. “What do you mean?” he says. “What reason?”

He should already know the answer to this, at least according to the look Abby gives him. She chooses not to dignify his question with an answer, and instead, starts with another all her own. “Why did you tell Rachel you weren’t in Texas?”

It doesn’t seem very fair, that she gets to change the beat, tone, and tempo of their conversation, and all he can do is follow. “Because I wasn’t in Texas.”

“Why are you telling me you weren’t in Texas?

“Because I really, truly, honestly was not in Texas.”

“Really, truly, honestly,” she echoes. “The words of an honest man, if I’ve ever heard them.”

He’s never had this kind of conversation with Abby before, wandering in every direction, looking for a place to land. It used to be that she was safe. It used to be that he could tell her everything, ask her anything, and joke the whole way through. He wonders what must have changed, and then he wonders how he can change it back.

With an effort to settle back into a steady pace, Matt looks down at her and returns to the question at hand. “Why wouldn’t I like Michael?”

Abby allows this, for now. “Because Michael likes Rachel.”

“Why wouldn’t I like people who like Rachel?” he says. “Rachel’s very likable.”

“Lovable, some might even say.”

Something about the words feel less like an observation between friends and more like a trap set for a neighborhood fox, just outside the chicken coop. He keeps his steps cautious when he says, “I reckon some people might, yeah.” When nothing seems to snap shut around his ankle, he goes on. “But what's that got to do with Michael?”

“Not much,” she says, with all the fervor of a foxhound. “But I think it might have everything to do with Rachel.”

And there’s that name again, the only constant throughout the entire conversation. There’s a code a work, and Rachel’s name is the only thing that can decipher it, but he can’t, for the life of him, imagine where Abby wants him to start. He turns this over, and over, and over again in his head, trying to think up some way to work through it before she does, until it becomes plainly obvious that trying to outsmart Abby is never going to work in his favor.

“Alright,” he says instead. “Let’s pretend, just for a second, that I’m a fool from Nebraska who has no idea what you’re talking about.”

She smiles, finally getting her way. “Pretend?” she teases, but she drops this tone in favor of more urgent matters. “I just don’t want you getting distracted by the wrong things, is all—Michael’s harmless. Ever since Daddy got him that job with the NSA, he’s been ridiculously loyal and—”

“Hold on, he works for your dad?”

“He works with my dad,” she corrects, but that hardly seems like an important distinction. “The two of them are together all the time, which is a nightmare for Rachel, but—”

“And he’s in intelligence?”

She pauses. Tilts her head to the side. “What are you really asking me, Matt?”

Matt’s asking a lot, and they both know it. Matt’s asking about motives, and opportunities, and all of the elements of espionage he was taught at Camp Peary. Matt’s asking about Michael, and Rachel, and Michael and Rachel. Matt’s asking about the Circle of Cavan, and the NSA, and he’s wondering if maybe this wasn’t a break-in, so much as it was a mole. Maybe the information was passed along, instead of stolen, and maybe Michael isn’t quite as loyal as he seems.

But Matt doesn’t say any of that. Because Matt can’t say any of that. He just holds a dear friend as they dance to an orchestra that shows no regard for covert conversations held on the dance floor. “Nothing.” And when Abby digs into more of her doubt, he doubles down. “I trust you. I’m not asking anything.”

Another pang of longing buries into the back of Matt’s mind. Abby is one of his closest friends. If there’s such a thing as soulmates, then Abby could be his. He sensed it the first moment he saw her, and the want weighs heavy on him now. When did the secrets start to overwhelm them?

Guilt scrapes at his insides, collecting all of the secrets he can’t share into a dense ball at the base of his gut. It leaves him feeling hollow, until he has no choice but to surrender to the secrets he can share. “Hey, listen,” he starts. “I’ve got to tell you something.”

Abby knows Matt. She knows his voice and his patterns. She knows his heart and his soul. When something shatters in her eyes, he understands that she knows this about him too—the deep dark secret that he thought he hid so well. She lets her chin fall. Shakes her head. “Matt, you don’t—”

“Just—” The words stop in his throat out of habit, forced down for so long that he’s not quite sure how to get them up. “I know you already know, but I just need to say it, okay? You’ve gotta let me say it, while I’ve still got the guts to.”

There’s a newfound rigidity to her, as she braces for impact. Years, upon years, upon years of something unspoken, now finally finding its way to the surface. Matt brings a finger to her chin, and lifts it so that her eyes meet his. “I love you.”

And, of course, she says, “I know.”

It doesn’t feel like it should. It doesn’t feel like his world melts and it doesn’t feel like Han and Leia on Cloud City. It doesn’t feel like anything. Nothing changes about Matt and Abby in that moment, because Matt and Abby have always operated under the knowledge that Matt is hopelessly and helplessly enamored by her.

“I planned it that way,” Abby goes on. “I always plan it that way.”

“This could be different,” Matt offers.

But Abby just shakes her head. “I’ve had this conversation with a thousand different guys in a thousand different ways,” she says. “I make people like me, because it’s easier to use them when I need to. I promise, you’re not in love with me.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“Abby,” he says. “I am.”

“No,” she says right back. “You’re really, really not. And I think you’re going to be awfully surprised when you figure out who you are in love with.”

Matt’s not surprised by much, nowadays, so he starts to pull from his own reserves of doubt. For so long, there's been a tension in her presence, radiating from a sense of want—wanting her approval, wanting her adoration, wanting her to notice him in the way no one else does. But in an instant, it all evaporates, and she's gone and thrown another question into the mix.

But before he can ask it, Joe’s in his ear. “Nebraska,” he says, interrupting for the first time all evening. “Our friend is on the move.”

This particular brand of stress comes with the territory of espionage—and it comes with Matt’s territory, especially. These days, he spends more time in Moscow than he does in the States, and most of that time is spent practicing surveillance, countersurveillance, or some hybrid combination of the two. He starts every day with a tail. Most of the time, he ends the evening with one, too. One wrong move exposes every covert intention, and the KGB don’t take too kindly to that sort of thing, so Matt’s gotten real good at laying low. He never had much of a choice.

But Matt’s not in Russia, he’s in Georgetown. And he’s not tailing Russian officials, he’s tailing Joe.

In their early days together, the girls told Matt that he had a natural talent for going unnoticed. He prays they’re right, because if anyone is likely to spot him, it’s Joe. Of course it’s Joe. Even with the rain and even under the cover of nightfall, Joe can pick Matt straight out of the shadows.

As he settles into the driver seat of an idling Impala, he asks himself which would be worse—facing the KGB or facing Joseph Solomon. He ultimately lands on the KGB, but he has to think about it.

Raindrops pitter and patter against the steel roof of his car as a wind blows freshly scarlet maple leaves down to the shimmering cobblestone. Moscow has already seen two snowstorms this season, but Georgetown is still a few weeks out from its first. Temperatures have only just started to drop below sixty overnight, so he leaves the key in the ignition for now, if only for the heat. The headlights and the radio, however, don’t make the cut.

There’s still plenty of life to the city, even at this hour. In the distance, a main avenue bustles with late-night diners and students leaving their evening classes. Matt finds himself tucked away on a quieter street just around the corner, wedged between a rusted pickup and a crooked parking job. Strangers shield themselves as they walk past him through the scattered storms. Red, white, and blue waves resolute from nearly every doorway in sight. The second-story window of a nearby brownstone flickers alight, casting gold into each round drop.

Matt’s breath catches. His attention halts. A familiar sense of spycraft creeps up his shoulders and clutches at him, holding him in place, as the hollow house sparks into movement.

He found the street name circled in a takeout menu, hanging from their front door after he returned from his latest trip to Leningrad. He pieced together the street numbers from a series of four overheard phone calls, whispered over the course of a week through a code that came to him like second nature. Georgetown was a lucky guess, leftover from his search in Manhattan, and he still hasn’t been able to pin down a rendezvous time—but it all leads him here. All the sleuthing, and sneaking, and spying. Every night, he parks in the same spot, watching the same row of houses, hoping that his hunch is wrong.

He’s still not sure if this particular brownstone is a safehouse or a permanent address. It could be a mark’s house, but he won’t let himself imagine what fate awaits those living within. All he knows for certain is that it’s Joe’s address, in one way or another. The rest is all mixed up between his mind and his heart, until he’s lost all semblance of fact, fiction, and prayer.

The flash of a lamp is the first sign of life he’s seen since he started this unofficial op, and he can’t decide whether it fills him with relief or further dread. Both, maybe. Relief that he isn’t wrong. Dread that he might be right. The two exist together, despite having every reason not to.

It’s instinct to scoot down in his seat, although he doesn’t get far. His legs get tangled up beside the brake pedal and his chest is still well above the steering wheel. He has to count on the darkness for cover, hiding his silhouette from any onlookers. He’s always been better in a crowd, but lightning shatters across the skies and there’s no one to share the sidewalks with in this weather. He’s on his own for this one. He has to be.

He didn’t see anyone go into the brownstone, but he waits patiently for someone to come out. As the minutes tick across the corner of his radio, he debates whether or not he should leave the car running. The noise of a settling engine may call attention, but every other car on the street is already parked. Does he risk the movement, or does he try his best to stay out of mind? If it is Joe in there, he’s likely to notice either way. Joe notices everything.

God, he hopes to the high heavens that it ain’t Joe.

He twists the key out of the ignition and gives in to the rolling taps of the growing rain. The digital clock stays aglow for another few minutes, but it clicks off after too much time has passed, tired of waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. No one ever warned him about the waiting, and all of the silence that fills it.

But all of that escapes him the instant the front door opens. His shoulders tense and his eyes widen. His breaths give up on him as someone walks down wet, stone steps—but it isn’t Joe. Maybe he should be thankful that it isn’t Joe, except that he does recognize the agent. She has a familiar face, framed by brilliant red curls, as she waltzes down the stoop.

She’s graceful, and quick, and every bit as careful as she was below Wrigley Field. She risks a glance over her shoulder, as though she can feel Matt’s eyes on her, and he freezes. He outwaits her. Caught up in the storm, she must decide it's safe. She throws her hood over her hair and takes off toward the town, leaving the light on behind her.

If he wants to spare his soul, he could drive off now. He could sit with the satisfaction of knowing that Joe didn’t show—and pin it all on this mystery woman. He could report on the agency mole with confidence and pride, knowing that his dear friend held up under investigation, and never stumbled into any sustainable proof. He could do that, and he could save himself a whole lot of heartbreak.

But Matt knows better. He looks up toward the golden window and knows, without a doubt, that it is speaking to someone. It’s a signal, aimed at an agent far smarter than he is, so he waits for the message to reveal itself.

The cool air seeps through the glass of the windows, creeping up his fingertips first, then chipping into his shoulders, his nose, and the rosy red tips of his ears. Before long, he can start to see his breath, so he cracks a window to save his windshield from fogging. To save his cover from the cold. He swears the years get colder, the more they pass him by.

An hour passes. Then two. He glances at his watch and decides there will be no pass tonight. He’ll head home and lean into a steaming hot shower, then study his case file for Tula. He should be studying. He should be home. There is so much more he could be doing.

His keys are already scratching against the ignition when he spots the umbrella.

It’s one of two dozen black umbrellas to pass him this evening. There’s nothing special or unusual about it—which is exactly what gives him pause. Something in the indistinguishable stride sends a shiver shredding down Matt’s goosebumped spine, and his chest bloats with all of the hope that he’s horribly and hilariously mistaken.

He wants this man to be one in the crowd. He wants this man to continue down the red brick sidewalk, and he wants to go home to see Joe without a drop of rain on him. He wants to be a terrible, talentless spy and he wants to be paranoid. He wants to be foolish. Any of it is better than being right.

The man with the black umbrella climbs the staircase of the mysterious brownstone. When he reaches the top, he pulls his umbrella down, and Matt’s heart drops into his gut as hope gives way to damning evidence.

The first time he met Joe, they were wearing Army greens while Drill Sergeants screamed at them, and Matt was scared.

The second time he met Joe, they were caught in a crowd of prayer while Joe bled out in Italian streets, and Matt was scared then, too.

Watching his partner walk through the door of an unsanctioned safehouse, Matt knows that there will be a third time they meet. It’ll come after all of the accusations. It’ll come after all of the lies have come to light. But it will come soon, and it will be the scariest meeting yet. Matt ain’t certain about a lot of things at this moment, but he knows at least that much.

But it won’t come tonight. Tonight is for watching, and waiting, and trying to understand. Tonight is his last shot at proving Joe’s innocence. Tonight, he’s still allowed to hope.

Joe doesn’t take nearly as long as the girl did, which is a shame. Matt would have happily taken those extra minutes in ignorant bliss, but he doesn’t get that chance. It’s not long at all before the window light flickers back off—message received. Dead drop successful.

When he leaves, Joe doesn’t look over his shoulder. He doesn’t miss a single step. He’s an absolute professional as he takes off in the same direction he came. The man with the black umbrella takes on a seamless stride, then vanishes into the bustle of the busier streets.

Matt finds himself waiting once more, because it’s in his training. Because he’s well practiced in the art of surveillance. Because he needs to steal these few bittersweet seconds to calm himself. His own heat begins to thaw him from the inside out and he’s angry. Angry at Joe. Angry at himself. Angry at the shriveled-up shred of trust they once shared. Angry at the agency, and at the world, and at God himself.

A righteous fury lands in the palm of his hands as he slams them into the top of his steering wheel. Once. Twice. Three, four, five times. “Dammit, Joe.”