#read this instead

She tries. She tries to make herself take the shot and fulfill the mission she's had for the last five years of her life. The mission she was told was a life or death situation, it never being more important for her to maintain her flawless success rate.

But the mission changed. Somewhere along the way, he wasn't only the Mission; he became just Gilgamesh. Gil was sweet, and charming, and friendly in a way she had almost never encountered in her life before him. Then Gil was a pretty good date. She was used to having to play any part necessary, be that the blushing virgin, the seductress, the cold bitch. But Gil was himself, and somehow he had tricked her into being herself too.

Now he's Gilgamesh Lee, and he's a great home cook, and he likes beer but he hates red wine, and he's handy with home repair but he can't identify the difference between paint shades to save his life. He's Gil, and he brings her flowers for her birthday, and he lets her drive because she gets carsick as a passenger. He's her husband of four years, and they've built an entire life together.

And she has burned it to the ground in a single night.

"Dammit!"

Gil watches as she tosses the weapon aside, and sinks to the floor. She curls right up, which is her go-to posture; it protects her, makes her feel more secure. She hugs her knees to her chest.

"Baby?"

"Don't," she practically whimpers into her lap, balled up like a child in the face of her life choices. This is pathetic; she's a top agent, one of the deadliest in Eternal Agencies. And here she is crying like a fool over her first love.

Gil sighs, moving over to her on what remains of their polished hardwood floors. "C'mere, hot stuff."

She should be trying to kill him. She should be fighting and clawing at him to regain the upper hand. Just because she decided she couldn't take the shot doesn't mean she can give up on the mission completely.

Gil lets her curl up on his lap, pressing her tears into his - dislocated, and then re-located - shoulder. He grunts, but bears it as he wraps his arms around her. "Easy, Sweetheart, I've got you."

Thena presses her face harder against him, muffling her agony as she wails into him. She hasn't cried like this in...maybe ever. Maybe she's never felt anything like this, but she supposes Gil has made a habit of unearthing feelings she thought she had cut out of herself.

He rubs her back, presses kisses to her temple. Their home is crumbling around them and he spent the last hour trying not to get assassinated by her, but now he's holding her as if she's had a bad dream after a thunderstorm.

Thena tries to build up her walls again. She tries to think about the house structure, how she can get away and regain the high ground on him. She tries to think about where she tossed that weapon, or which door frames still have her knives lodged in them.

But all she can think about his her husband, holding her in his arms, safe from anything and everything, including the omniscient reach of a man called Father. These are arms which held her after their fifth date, in an apartment she procured just so they could go somewhere after dinner. These are arms which held her against his side in a gondola, and then held her that same night after proposing. This embrace is the only place she has ever felt safe enough to truly banish her other thoughts from her mind and just be Thena.

Missus Thena Lee.

Gilgamesh whispers and coos in her ear as her sobbing subsides slowly. He holds her trembling form against him, offering all he can when they've already been worn to the bone by life and its complications. "Sweetheart?"

She groans into his shirt. "Stop calling me that."

She can hear the smile in his voice. "Why?"

She stays buried against him. She doesn't even want to look at the house, right now. "You want the full list?"

Gil chuckles, running his fingers through her hair. "You're still my wife, Thena. Nothing about tonight changes that."

Fuck. He always knows exactly what to say to make her want to throw herself to the ground and beg him to love her for just one more day.

"Nothing changes that," he repeats in a whisper as she clings to him so tightly her nails dig into him. "Unless you're about to ask for a divorce, in which case I change my mind about putting up a fight."

He also knows how to make her laugh at truly the worst times. "Gil, I'm serious."

"Yeah," he lifts his head and looks around them, "I'd say it's pretty serious, Honey-Bun."

Such cutesy pet names; she once tried to convince herself that they were off putting and that she hated them. It didn't last long. They're cliche and embarrassing and she loves each and every one of them.

Thena lifts her head too, unable to avoid looking at the massacre of their home. A few shreds of wood fall to the floor as if they're paid actors. "Really did a number on the place, hm?"

Gil shrugs as if she's asked if he knows what the weather will be tomorrow, "I'm sure I could make some progress in here if I took some time off work."

Thena thunks her head against his chest again. "Work."

"Sorry," he apologises and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "We don't have to think about that now."

They will sooner or later, though. Both of them will, given all that they've learned in the past 36 hours.

"We'll figure it out," he says so definitively.

Thena looks down at her tattered and shredded dress. She looks at Gil's ripped and burned suit. She sighs, "they're going to call a domestic disturbance on us."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't blame them," Gil murmurs, shaking out his jacket and letting the bullets that got caught in its reinforced lining clatter to the floor. He lays it over her shoulders. "You hungry?"

Thena lets out an even longer, even louder sigh. She feels like she could throw up. "Starving."

Gil groans as he hauls himself to his feet. "Fridge is a little beat up, but I'm pretty sure there are a few eggs left."

"Scrambled?" Thena looks up at him from her miserable quarry on the floor, "with cheese?"

He leans down to kiss her, letting her hand rest on his cheek no matter how much he has to twist his neck. "I know what you like."

"Thank you," she whispers, hoping to memorise every line and feature of his face in case the next 36 hours also go to shit. She listens to the sound of him prying open the dented fridge door, pulling out the eggs, finding a pan that doesn't have bullet dents in it. She loves listening to him cook. "Baby?"

"Yeah, Hon?"

Thena smiles to herself. He's right, they will figure it out, and he is her husband; nothing about tonight changes that. "I love you."