sentimentalism

They’d been checked out by the best doctors the BSAA could possibly harass into signing their near life-ending NDAs. On consensus, they called him a medical marvel. If the medical community was allowed to know about it, Ethan figured they definitely would have marveled.

The doctors told him, in off-puttingly eager tones, that where he should have started to experience tissue damage in the intervening period between Mia sawing through his arm and waking up with staples pushing through his skin, he just… hadn’t. The cut was jagged from the chainsaw blades and far too close to the joint of his wrist for comfort, but the staples held and his severed motor nerves fired just the same.

(Ethan didn’t tell them that he still had feeling in all his fingers. He thought they might collectively pass out if they heard that one.)

The BSAA agents weren’t soft with them. Ethan and Mia were interrogated separately, in their hospital beds, for three days before they were allowed to see each other. When the agents decided they were “cleared” (which Ethan knew just meant they were confident they’d pulled every last bit of information about their precious bioweapon they possibly could out of he and his wife’s battered minds) they were moved into the same room. Mia had limped over to his bed and laid down, pressing herself into his chest carefully. Her head rested just underneath his chin and Ethan raised his tightly bandaged hand to wind careful fingers through the brown locks. They’d just sat there, feeling each other’s heartbeats in the same hospital bed, for a long time.

For the couple's trouble, they were all-but-forcibly moved out of the country. A new home in the Carpathian mountains by September. The delivery was less than kind, and neither of them wanted to leave everything they had, but it was something. Maybe Romania could be the place where they started over.

Their new home was nice. Really, it was. The people in the nearby town were welcoming enough, and they both enjoyed the cold weather. No point in complaining when, for the first time in three years, they had each other.

At night, when Mia got up to take another shower because her dreams were filled with grime and decay even if their house wasn't, Ethan sometimes wondered if he'd actually had her before she'd gone missing. They were together, but in none of the ways that really mattered. For months he was on edge from her constant lying— about her job, about her life before she took his name, about... everything, it felt like. He had hoped she wasn't lying about how she felt for him, but when everything else was uncertain he could hardly convince himself he had that. 

One day, when Mia left for another "babysitting" job, he cracked. Ethan had stopped her in the hallway of their apartment and demanded, voice warped with tears, that she stop lying to him.

Mia had just pulled his hand off her wrist and told him that she "wasn't lying, Ethan, and I really have to go." He didn't get a chance to interrupt before she continued. "We'll talk about this when I get home. Goodbye, Ethan."

The door shut in his face; not a slam, but with all the finality of one. Mia Winters was pronounced missing by the end of the month, and presumed dead by family and friends by the end of the year.

But she was here now and she loved him. Mia loved him. They held each other in the dark and gave space when needed (because sometimes Ethan swore he could see her face twisting, veins filling dark and eyes turning cold and her voice came out as an inhuman sort of snarl as she shouted “You shouldn’t have done that!” and brought her hands above her head to— well. Sometimes they needed space).

Chris visited often. Ethan wasn’t entirely sure his motivations for coming to Romania were innocent, but he loved to see Chris nonetheless. Having dinner with the man who took your hand and saved you from the worst experience of your life might have been awkward at first, but Mia broke through his shell the moment she thought to ask about funny stories from his squad. He was a gruff man, but he was kind, and they looked forward to the monthly dinner dates they had with him.

In his new BSAA-sponsored free time, Ethan took up photography. Mia gave him a scrapbook for his birthday during the pregnancy, declaring him the world’s most adorable father-to-be. He took to his camera like a lifeline, capturing everything he saw that he thought would be worth keeping. It was mostly filled with Mia. Later, Rose joined her. 

On bad days, he clung onto those image galleries to keep his mind in one place. On better days, he and Mia would sit together and debate through their laughter which pictures were worth keeping (though Mia only ever insisted Ethan delete ones that she claimed made her look bad.)

When their good days coincided, they danced in the living room while Rose giggled from her high chair. They walked into town and bought each other matching bracelets and tried to eat from every single food stall at the farmer’s market. Mia cooked a new recipe she got from the two women down the street while Ethan knitted for Rose and they had dinner as a family.

It was incredible. Especially compared to the years following their marriage, when it felt like Ethan was reaching out for someone who refused to look back at him. They kissed each other on the cheek as they passed each other in the hallway, basking in the quiet displays of affection. When bad days came, they got through them together. They were together in every way that mattered and more still that didn’t. 

As Ethan looks up at the towering heart of the megamycete, he hopes that Mia will remember those three years as fondly as he does. He hopes that Rosemary will know he’s right behind her as she walks across the stage at graduation or finds a love of her own. The tip of his thumb starts to stiffen and crumble to dust as he presses down on the detonator trigger. Most of all, he hopes that this is where it all ends.