#contract killings

The solution to his problems, or at least the Grace problem, comes to him on night while he’s lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. It’s a risky plan. He doesn’t know how to get into contact with the right people, first of all, but he knows people that will. It’ll take a bit of work to get the information out of them without giving away exactly why he wants it, but somehow, in his bones, he knows it’ll work. Men talk, when they’re drunk, and all it takes it a few seemingly innocent questions before he hears all he needs to know. 

He sends the letter the next morning. It’s a shot in the dark, that it’ll even reach the right person, but he has faith that it will. The letter, unsigned so he doesn’t give himself away so soon, tells the truth; everything about how he knows what’s going to happen in the next few years, and how he’s working to change it as much as he can. It’s the intrigue that’ll do the convincing, and not the money he’d tucked in between the pages, he knows. He makes sure to keep it vague, no clues about who’s written the letter so there won’t be any suspicion on the wrong people. It’s the riskiest thing he’s done so far, but he’s running out of options. He’d do it himself, but he can’t afford the suspicion on himself either.

“What did you do?”

“What are you talking about?”

He doesn’t expect to be there when it happens, or that it would happen in the middle of the day in the Garrison. 

“Tommy seems cold, these days.”

“Good.”

He hears the shattering of glass first, When he thinks back on it later, that’s the thing that sticks in his mind the most. The tinkling of it as it hit the floor, scattering into a thousand tiny pieces. If it wasn’t for the second glass that smashes when it drops out of Grace’s hand, he isn’t sure he would have noticed anything was wrong. At least until the bloom of red appears on the front of the blouse she’s wearing, before she drops to the floor. He hates her, with an intensity that’s only reserved for a very few individuals, but he’s not totally heartless so he follows her down and presses his hands against her chest. It’s an exercise in futility, but he tries anyway. She looks him in the eyes, confused, and must see something there that she recognises, because her face smooths over, and he knows that she knows this is his fault. 

“Why?”

“I had to save my family.”

By the time Harry comes up from the storeroom below the bar, she’s already dead, and Isaiah is standing next to the window, looking out to see if he can see where the shot came from. 

“What the fuck happened?”

“Sniper. Stay away from the windows, they could still be out there, waiting.”

When Harry’s got his back turned, busy on the phone to tell Tommy and the others what’s happened, he looks down at her. In a way, he hates that he’d been pushed to this to keep her away. Even if she was a manipulative bitch, he knows that Tommy had loved her even if she hadn’t deserved it. He’s not sorry that she’s gone, but he is sorry that he took that away from his boss. 

“Is she-”

“Yeah. Dead before she hit the floor.”

When he sees the pain in Tommy’s eyes, it’s almost enough to make him second guess himself, but he tells himself that this is easier than letting it get any further. A bit of pain to save him too much pain than he could handle down the road. No one stops him when he slips out the doors and walks home. Most likely because they think he’s grieving, in his own way, and he can’t be bothered to correct them. What would Tommy do to him, if he knew that Isaiah had been behind it? Nothing good, he’s sure. Especially because he didn’t have the guts to do it himself. 

His bedroom is still the same, when he walks up the stairs and through the door. Everything is the same as it was when he was older, but he’s alone in it, and it feels cold. He wonders what he’d do, what the two of them would do, if Michael had been thrown backwards in time with him. He never thought it was possible to miss someone that you saw three times a week, but he supposes it’s because there’s too many differences between now and then for him to be comfortable. It feels like there’s a heavy weight on his chest, when he sees that familiar smile, and has to turn away to stop himself from admitting everything. What would he even say? “You don’t know me, but I’m from the future, and I’ve loved you since the day I met you.” 

It takes three more days before he sees another familiar face pass him on the street, and it’s still just as strange as the day it had been when he’d seen John alive and well again. 

“You’re the one that sent the letter.”

Truthfully, he’s never spent that much time around the man, but he’s not entirely surprised that he’s been figured out. As far as he could tell, the older man had been unnaturally observant. 

“You realise that you sounded like you should be locked up in a padded cell somewhere.”

“I took a gamble, and you’re here, so it obviously paid off.”

“Does it happen like you said it does?”

“Do you swear never to tell anyone what the letter said?”

For a minute neither of them move, just staring at each other in the dark alley between the bakery and the old tailors, and then the man nods. 

“I’ll want something in return. Business, you understand.”

“If we agree that none of this ever happened, then I’ll be able to save your son’s life.”

Aberama grins at him, but it’s not cheerful or nice. It’s the snarl of a wolf just before they attack, warning you not to take a wrong step.