2012-09-06 A Hell of a Cherry Blossom

There are two prevailing opinions on the Latverian Embassy: one is "I wouldn't be caught dead in that place!" and one is "I aspire to be just like Doom." Given the world has fairly few stable democracies with good human-rights records and quite a lot of countries that would be Latverias if only their dictators could be half as competent, well... the 'admiration' crowd is out in full numbers tonight.

This, of course, means that Nick Fury is somewhere between furious, miserable, and outraged. He should be snapping these &#*$&(@#! necks, not making nice to them in the interests of U.N. politicking. He should be smoking a cigar, not parading around in a Smoke-Free Workplace. He should be wearing fatigues, not a tuxedo. He should be picking up a sidearm, not an hors d'oeuvre, and what the hell is this nonsense about champagne instead of whiskey?

One would be hard-pressed to see it on his face, though. Beneath the tuxedo, the left side of his torso is covered in nicotine patches to keep him stable through the night, and he's able to smile and laugh with the ambassador from Turkmenistan as he talks about his recent crackdown on the rebels who are threatening his rule. Fury's words are all professional and faintly flattering, but internally he's thinking only this: /I will find you and I will catch you and I will beat you and I will kill you I will find you and I will catch you and I will beat you and I will kill you.../

Bethany's mood is equally grim for layered reasons, some of which match Nick's. She loathes Latveria, and the ambassador, and all his toadies. She's also not at all happy about the looks she's getting--but that was to be expected on her first event back in the States. Alexander was uncomfortably, for her, at home in these circles. And, now, he's gone and of course all who actually knew him assume it was something in which she had some hand.

The truth couldn't be more distant from the lies but the cloud hangs over her as she--elegantly dressed in black, as is appropriate--makes her way between old acquaintances. If she hears another smarmy condolence, she's going to scream.

"Ah, the Widow van Tilburg." A beefy hand gets her in the small of her back above the fabric of her dress. Damn it, she'd been focused on a minor Countess who was probing for signs of appropriate grief and she'd missed the Ambassador sneaking up on her. He was shockingly light-footed for a meat-wall. "We're all so sorry for your loss." She's pulled in to within inches of a rack of completely ridiculous medals on his chest.

"You're too kind," she manages to say without inhaling. Maybe she can step on his foot. Damn it.

Spider-Man has his danger sense, Wolverine has hyperactive senses, Carol Danvers has her Seventh Sense. What Nick Fury has is something completely different: he has a war sense. When conflict's brewing Nick Fury knows about it, for the same reason that a junkie instinctively knows where to find heroin. Nick Fury is addicted to war.

This is what leads him to immediately turning away from a minor Turkmenistanian diplomat, abandoning the conversation in midsentence (and earning him a written reprimand from the Turkmen delegation to the U.N., which will join the other written reprimands in the bottom of his wastepaper basket). He moves through the crowd -- sliding past those people he respects or doesn't know, and 'accidentally' giving those he doesn't like a hard shoulder -- on his way over towards where the fight is brewing.

This puts him near the Red and the Black, the redhead in the black dress, and in a position where he can see the ambassador's ... let's call it 'encroachment,' yes.

After a few moments of hovering, the ambassador gives Fury a sneering look of condescension. "/Sir./"

"Colonel, actually."

"/Sir,/" the ambassador repeats. "Am I intruding upon your date?" Oh, yes, there's a definite sneer on that: both to imply that Bethany can't be anything but arm candy, and to imply that Fury can't field that quality of arm candy.

Fury, for his part, just shakes his head no.

"Then, /sir/, I suggest you depart, and let the two of us enjoy our evening in peace."

"Sorry," Fury answers, reaching for the inside of his tuxedo pocket and fishing out a cigar. He makes a small ritual out of clipping the end, out of using a WW2 Zippo to lightly toast the foot. "I got this thing for watching pretty girls bloodchoke arrogant Latverians. She's--"

"The Widow van Tilburg, yes, /sir/, I understand--"

"-- been studying jiujitsu with the Gracies for about twenty years," Fury says instead. "And me, whatever she does, I'm gonna say you started it. Just because I love it when a broad puts a prick like you in his place. Best thing on earth." Fury gives a grin, then puts the cigar to his lips to stoke the cigar to life.

The ambassador scowls deeply. "/Sir/." He's obviously a bit off his game, and like every bureaucrat, he recovers by fastidiously enforcing the rules. "There is /no smoking/ in the Embassy."

Fury removes the cigar from his mouth, then hands the lit piece to the Ambassador. "Hit the road, Jack. Enjoy the cigar and enjoy telling everyone who'll listen that Nick Fury gave you this thing. Smoke it right underneath the nearest NO SMOKING sign, like you own the joint. Trust me. It'll impress the rest of your low-life $&(@#(! friends."

The interference draws the Ambassador's attention away to where Bethany can finally slip out of the man's grasp. It feels as though there's a greasy smear left on her skin where she was touched. It's not the physical, it's something worse, a miasma of spiritual corruption that clings to everything. Bethany isn't often a judgmental person in that regard. She enjoys Loki's company, Shaw's, and Hammer's.

As the Ambassador is obviously weighing whether or not to throw that cigar back in Fury's face, Bethany steps away and returns his straying hand--apparently, the thing has a life of its own and an unerring sense of where her backside is--to him all at once. That she catches him in the instep with a stiletto heel and her thumb finds a very tender bundle of nerves in his hand is accidental. She's overwrought, that's what it is.

"If you'll excuse me, sir," she says, watching his face change colour. "I have somewhere else I need to be. I'll give your condolences to Alexander's family." She needs to back off before she rams the stem of a champagne flute into the man's throat... or does something really unpleasant.

Bad girls like bad boys. It's something Fury understands full well: there are the heroes, there are the villains, and then there are the people like him... people who find themselves caught in between, stuck in a script that never quite lets them be one or the other. Fury may want to be a white-hat hero, but he knows the score.

Without a further word, he turns away and, in the turning, sets his hand on Bethany's waist to draw her away from the encounter as well. "$#1281#*! isn't worth it," he mutters to her. His face is all warm smile at being with a pretty redhead, but his demeanor towards her is strictly business.

"He's not worth it but how much better I'd feel might be." Bethany gives Nick a brilliant, practiced smile. She's excellent at being charming. "Blood won't show up on this dress, it'd be fine." She's also completely serious. She'd feel -so- much better. "I'd have put that cigar out in his eye, personally." Still serious.

It's possible that there's a reason people might assume she'd finally had it with Alexander and done something drastic--but that's only people who don't know her well. The people who do know her well are wondering which one of them did it so they can shake hands, send fruit baskets, that kind of thing. Meanwhile, just the thought of a little 'unpleasantry' has brightened Bethany up considerably.

"You've been here a half hour, Director. It is acceptable for you to have to deal with an emergency now," she notes dryly. "Or I could faint right now and you could gallantly offer to take me home. I have been under a great deal of stress and I do owe you for the rescue back there."

Fury arches a brow (coincidentally, the one over the eyepatch). A moment later it lowers and he acknowledges, "Hell of a new record for me. Under a minute from introduction to getting an invitation back to her place." A pause, a beat and a beat. "Yeah, this place sucks. But we both need to be here. See and be seen, and all that. If you want to scandalize the SOBs, then spend some time talking to me and carrying on, and let the gossip mill do what it does best -- be useless. And if you want, I'll leave you be and let you do the grieving-widow thing publicly."

"Please, Director." Bethany snags a champagne glass from a passing tray. "Being seen with you would hardly stir the rumour mills. You're practically respectable and as handsome as you are, you hardly have the kick of Tony Stark, Justin Hammer, or--best of all--Sebastian Shaw. I'm having affairs with -all- of them, don't you know." She shrugs it off.

"My staff on the other hand..." Bethany casts a dark look at a rather inconspicuous yet rakishly handsome man off to the side and -suddenly- something else is just fascinating to him. "...would also think nothing of it because they have never tried to set me up with anyone. Ever. And would never consider it. Because of professionalism. And things. Jeremiah." Jere does keep a completely mild and neutral expression as though he not only can't hear her, even if he did he has no idea what she's talking about.

"But you have a point, I should be putting on a better act, shouldn't I?" Now the amusement and lightness in her face fades out in a heartbeat and she's both angry and sad and a little uncertain as she scans the room. "I just loathe sharing something with them that's so like the truth."

"Mrs. van Tilburg." (Okay, sure, the world knows her as Bethany Cabe. He knows her as a recent widow, and for a man of his era that means she gets called /Missus./) His tone is simple, straightforward: he stands near enough to her to be personal, not close enough to be in her personal space. He doesn't reach out to touch her, but his body language suggests they're comfortable enough to do so. He doesn't ogle: his eyes are solidly above her neck. It's the perfect picture of professional schmoozing, in that an onlooker would have a hard time figuring out whether they're friends or co-workers, lovers or just met, carnally attracted or vague professional distaste. It's a blank canvas on which anything can be projected, really, save for those two words of greeting. Those suggest ... something else, really.

"Mrs. van Tilburg, you can fool the others all you like, but don't try and fool me," he tells her in a frank tone. "Room's full of politicians, but you and me are fighters. Let's respect each other and drop the bullshit."

"As you like, sir." Bethany gives herself a shake and turns her smile back on Nick. "What would you suggest?" She doesn't trust him and, while her posture is relaxed and her expression pleasant, it shows in the subtle tension of her hands on her glass and the way that the tilt of her head is marginally more challenging than curious. She knows it shows, that's quite deliberate, like the angle of a horse's ears.

"I'm old enough to be your grandfather and that means I've got a head full of a century of mistakes and regrets before we add in a form-fitting black dress and me mentally swatting my wrist with a ruler every ten seconds for being a dirty old man." He says all of this with the complete aplomb of someone who's done things so awful that nothing in this conversation is even coming close to being trouble. "So, I'd suggest you keep that in mind. And I suggest I keep in mind the fact that your husband's body ain't even cold yet. Maybe you loved him a hell of a lot and you're all broken up about it and putting on a brave face. Maybe you hated the sonufabitch and you're rejoicing he's gone. Me, I think you're probably doing both. So I suggest I keep that in mind, too, and remember that grief's a hell of a complicated thing. You remember that I'm a decrepit old guy with a century full of damage and don't expect to fix me, and I'll remember that you're going through hell right now and won't expect you to be anything different. That sound like two good suggestions?"

Bethany laughs quietly at that. "I have no intention of fixing anything I didn't break. And I'm not looking for anything from you except to offer you an excuse to sweep out of here in style. As for Alexander, I loved him very much, since I was a child. I am in no hurry for anyone to take his place, if only because I haven't yet worked out why that place seemed tailor-made for a drug addict who beat me when he was high--and I felt it was simply part of the job. I think that's the kind of thing a woman should be clear about before she moves on, don't you?"

She puts her empty champagne glass down on a passing tray and is about to take another when the server is diverted unexpectedly and she's left empty-handed. Probably for the best. "I wouldn't mind some company out to the car, maybe another drink, but that's all. I'm sure you're accustomed to being seen as a dangerous rogue but you remind me of my best friend and all the damage and bad decisions feel quite like home. As for being a dirty old man..." There we go, champagne, thank you. "Believe me, I don't give a damn what you think about as long as you understand it's not happening. I've had far worse from 'dirty old men' than knowing what they were thinking about me. Might as well apologize for wanting a smoke."

"Can a broken-down old man give you a piece of friendly advice about that? Look, I understand about wanting to understand why you went for him when he was so bad for you. It's a good idea. Really is. But I've seen a lot of people chase themselves for years and never get an answer. If it comes to a choice between moving on without answers or staying where you are without answers... my bet is, move on."

He offers her a smile then, followed by his arm. "Anyway. I never tell a woman where she's allowed to take me. Lay on, Macduff." Wait -- Fury's read Shakespeare? WTF?

"I simply want to not do it again." Bethany slides her hand into the crook of Nick's arm, then gestures toward a set of open doors. The garden has a covered walkway that wraps around and lets out in the courtyard. "Which is saying something because there's very little I regret, even the terrible things. I think because I feel like I did it to him somehow, or made it worse. I was an awful wife, as wives go. Suppose that's what you get when you marry someone very young, though, right? *I* didn't know what I was doing, that's certain. I still don't."

No sense putting on airs around someone who can pick up the phone and access all the information on her they want. Now that they're out of sight of other people, Bethany's demeanor is very different. Warmer, softer, far younger, and she seems tired. It is tiring.

The rules for consoling a grieving widow are, strangely enough, not that much different from the rules for consoling a soldier who's lost a friend. You don't judge. You don't make those vague mmhmms and uh-huhs of small talk. You just *listen*, and make sure the other person knows they have your full attention. And thus, Fury deposits his champagne flute with a server as the two of them leave for the garden walkway -- with the harpies and gossipmongers taking note of it, of course. One of his arms is occupied by being a point for Bethany to latch on to: his other arm hangs free.

He says nothing, of course. He simply listens. He doesn't watch her, though: to watch her would make it possibly uncomfortably intimate. But listening? Listening is something Nick Fury does very, very well.

The lack of advice is quite welcome, really. If advice -worked-, Bethany wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. Advice is for when people don't know better. Knowing better and doing it anyway, or having to learn one's lesson, doesn't need anything except the occasional kick in the ass.

"What's it like, being your age and still doing this?" The sudden change in topic is... actually not that sudden, if one could know the factors rolling around in Bethany's mind. There's an offer from a certain god that's open to her now, one she hadn't been willing to take while she was committed to Alex. "Or simply being your age at all. I know that's horribly personal." She glances up at Nick. "But you did bring it up."

"What's it --" Fury stops abruptly, stops walking, and for a moment frustration covers his face. It takes him a moment to continue on. "I been asked that question so many times over the years, and I don't think I ever got a good answer out to it." For a moment, 1916 and the speech patterns of a poorly-educated youth become evident. They're gone, though, by the time he starts his next sentence. "On the one hand, you know, it's ... it doesn't feel any different. You get to wake up tomorrow. So do I. On a small scale nothing changes. On a long one, though, everything does."

He's quiet for a few more moments. "Her name was Molly. Won't tell you more than that. Every man has the story of the first woman he fell in love with, really fell in love with in a grown-up way. I was seventeen. So was she. That was 1933. 1934, we graduated high school, got pretty serious. You know what she died of? Strep throat. Back in those days, strep throat could kill you. Untreated, strep throat can turn into scarlet fever, and penicillin had barely started clinical trials. She died. I put her in the ground and swore I'd always remember my Molly. I'd always remember her. And now... now I can't even remember her last name."

That last admission costs him something: he has to pay a price to say it, and the price is paid in his dignity. He looks shamed, he looks as if he's let himself down, and for a moment he has a hard time looking at anyone or anything. Finally, though, he shakes himself and moves on.

"After her, I joined the Army. I wanted to get out of there, see the world. And I buried so many people in the War, Mrs. van Tilburg. I buried so many of my friends, and I don't remember their names or faces anymore. I just remember how they died. The noises they made. The smells. But I don't remember /them/ any more, you know? And I can still hear my parents' voices, but I can't see their faces. My heart's become a cemetery. It's a beautiful cemetery, like Arlington is beautiful. But it's a cemetery."

He looks over towards Bethany then, smiling at her sort of wanly. "And relationships. Don't get me started on them. How do you do, 'til death do us part,' when one person's immortal and the other's not? You don't. You can't swear that. It's just dishonest. I see you and I know that you're growing older, Bethany. You look beautiful right now. Wonderful. An' if I was a younger man I'd be angling on you like mad, recent widow or no. But ... what could we have? Maybe fifteen years until age begins to catch up with you, and I'm still out of reach? I've tried to do that, Mrs. van Tilburg, I have, and I'm no good at it. Helen Mirren's pretty, but I don't want to do her anywhere near as much as I used to. So when it comes to sex and relationships... being immortal is a pain in the ass. The only thing you can really ever enjoy are one-night stands. And I outgrew those a long, long time ago."

"I'm sorry for your losses." Bethany leans her head against Nick's shoulder, empathizing. "Not just the people, but the memories. I suppose even if one's mind remains perfect, it all layers and blurs. I think there's so much I want to forget right now, I needed to see that there'd be a time when I wanted to remember. One doesn't really live forever, in that sense. Not if what we are is the sum of what we've done and who we've loved. We die all the time, though, while we're walking around, with what we forget and what we deny and what we destroy. Change ourselves and never get back to who we were." She's quiet for a few steps.

"That's very helpful, though, thank you." Bethany puts her other hand on Nick's arm and gives him a little squeeze. "That 'death do us part' thing, yes. It gave me pause. But if one had friends, people one loved, who were the same... what would that be like? It'd be better, I think. You'd make your enemies as well, of course and I've seen that, hate that's festered longer than kingdoms stand. It's a terrible thing. So's love that goes on that long. Terrible, I mean, if it's not a good love." She talks about it quite seriously, as though the possibility were real. "We don't have to talk about it anymore if it makes you uncomfortable. I don't want to take any more advantage of your generosity than I have."

He shakes his head no. "Mrs. van Tilburg, you seem like a woman who needs to hear this, for whatever reason. And me, well. I do what people need. I can bear to live this. I can bear to talk about it, too."

When she stops walking to place her head on his shoulder, well -- the old warhorse has better sense than to start walking again. His hand comes up to Bethany's shoulder, remaining there and not reaching higher for an affection he hasn't earned. "There's one woman I know who's almost as old as I am. Beautiful Russian redhead. But ... she's got a century of damage, too. And once you've known someone for fifty years, you really get reluctant about moving into a relationship. It's worked great for fifty years. It's been constant. Stable. It'll still be there in fifty years if you don't screw it up. And sleeping together... well. That's a great way to wreck things. But stasis is bad, too, and no friendship can survive it. So you're caught between something great you don't want to mess up -- and knowing that if you don't risk messing it up, that's the worst way to mess it up."

He's quiet for another few moments, just burying his head in her hair and breathing. "But there are good parts, too. Every spring the cherry blossoms bloom in DC, and I walk along the Basin and love them. The cherry blossoms always come, and every year they smell different, and every year they're perfect. The fact they're just temporary... that doesn't get in the way of them being beautiful. Doesn't get in the way of them being magical. And just because I'm going to outlive them doesn't mean I shouldn't enjoy them while they're here. You're very pretty, Mrs. van Tilburg, and your hair smells like apples. You're a hell of a cherry blossom. And I'm glad to be here. Glad to be alive. Being immortal is a pain in the ass. But there are so many cherry blossoms."

"I mess things up," Bethany says easily. She lets Nick lean on her and leans into him in turn, relaxed and calm. "I'm a terribly messy person. I blow them up, I wipe them out, I turn them upside down. I mean just personal things." She pats Nick's cheek lightly as she leans back to look at him. "So you have far more restraint than I, which probably makes you better suited than I for a gift like yours. I'm not afraid of dying, of course. I just really love living and I want to be so much better at -everything- than I already am. It might be worth the pain. And, as you point out--" She gives him a quirky little grin. "--there are always cherry blossoms and one-night stands. Temporary and wonderful. But you have given me a great deal to think on. I appreciate that."

"It's not a 'gift,'" Fury clarifies, his eye on hers in the darkness. He's not turning this into a liplock: possibly he respects her more than that. Possibly he's spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to ethically enjoy cherry blossoms that know they're transient and temporary when compared to him. The heart of his ethic, apparently, is -- respect.

"The Infinity Formula came with a steep price. Had to be renewed each year or else bad things would happen to me, and the guy who held onto it... I wound up getting leveraged, Mrs. van Tilburg, into things I'm not going to talk about, except to say it took me a long time to be able to look at myself in the mirror afterwards. I finally put paid on his account and the Infinity Formula's since been stabilized and I'm fine. I think. But without exception, /every/ /single/ /person/ who's been given immortality found there was a big price tag attached. Ask Gilgamesh, if you can find him. My Soviet counterpart, she was kidnapped as a kid, brainwashed, everything she touches breaks, every relationship sours. Captain America... hell, there's still big argument in parts of the U.S. government that they /own/ him, that he's some kind of government /property/, Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution be damned. Immortality is never a gift. It comes with a price -- and the ones who sell it to you might be lying. I've never known a seller who didn't lie."

"I'm sorry for what you had to do," Bethany says quietly. "I'm sorry for the pain of those people in the program. It's terrible what that's all boiled down to, I agree. The way those programs handled things is nothing short of atrocious. Time is always a gift, though, if one can claim any of it for one's self." She tilts her head and scrutinizes him. "Is it truly irredeemable? Would you give it up?"

"I'd give it up in a stone heartbeat any day of the week and twice on a Sunday," he answers solidly, without any doubt. He doesn't shout: he doesn't need to. "Mrs. van Tilburg, I'm a soldier. I'm not a super-soldier. Bullets hurt me. I bleed, lots, when I get shot. A single VBIED and I'm a corpse from shrapnel, or concussion, or shock. One TBI and I get to spend the rest of eternity learning how to put on my shirt. Am I willing to give up forever? Yes. I'm willing to give up forever. And not just for you -- although I am willing to give up forever for you. I'm willing to give up forever for those bastards in there, too," he says, thumbing over towards the embassy. "I been living on borrowed time since my boots first landed in Europe during the War. I know this. And I'm fine with this. Someday, and probably someday soon, my life's going to catch up with me and some priest's going to be standing over a hole in the ground making the sign of the Cross. But nobody's ever going to ask what I lived for. Everybody's going to know. And I hope that when that day does come, a million cherry blossoms fall on my coffin before I'm sent off. I love cherry blossoms."

"I can appreciate that." Bethany smiles at him, something on the verge of laughter, but it's not mocking. It's a kind of happiness at meeting a truly determined spirit. "And I appreciate what you do. I understand that you're willing to die for what you believe in. I can't imagine that changing. No matter how many years you had to live if you would only kill yourself inside by turning away from the fight. It looks like you have more to lose, because you have more years than the rest, but living forever as a coward and a traitor to yourself is the worst thing I can imagine. Would you give up the potential, though? Let time pick up where it left off, now, let yourself crumble away?"

"Every year when the Infinity Formula was held over my head I had the chance to answer that question. Each year I decided I wanted more time. It's human nature, you know? To see yourself outliving the world and everyone you knew, and to not like it not even a little bit, and to say that when your time comes you'll go bravely, and at the end we all scream for just a little more time. So whatever I could tell you, Mrs. van Tilburg... the truth's found in the choices I made. And I chose, again and again and again, for more time."

"I wondered. It could have been other purposes driving you, but yes, I'd do the same thing. In my very worst hours, I stood outside on a ledge and looked down at Dubai. It's an amazing view, but I recommend seeing it from an official observation deck." Bethany laughs at herself. "I couldn't do it. I wanted to jump... but only because I'd dreamed if I could fall fast enough I could fly out of myself. And I knew I'd be -me- all the way to the ground, no matter the fantasy. I couldn't do it. I wanted more time to get myself right. Only thing I got out of that drama was a loathing of BASE jumping and a lesson not to even entertain the nonsense again. So, yes, I suppose it's a sign of being human, even a good sign, to want more time." Why debate it if the yearning isn't going to pass?

"Why all these questions about immortality, Mrs. van Tilburg?" the Eternal Colonel asks, his tone careful. It's a direct question and a rude one, but that doesn't mean he has to be rude as he asks it. "Most women in your shoes would be asking about life after death, not about eternal life."

"An offer I'm considering. Not the program you're familiar with at all." Bethany waves that notion off. "A gift from someone I trust, even, but I'm still not certain I'll accept. I had decided not to while Alex and I were together, not that I'd mentioned that. By that point I was already wasting breath asking my associates not to kill him, which was shockingly uncomfortable. Not only did I love him, but I like to solve my own problems. If I'd wanted that, I'd have done it, and I didn't. I didn't want to add incentive for anyone. But my most immediate reason for declining is gone. No one seems to understand that I took being married... probably foolishly and naively seriously. Maybe it was a flaw."

Fury gives his head a slight, gentle shake. "Taking your word seriously is never a flaw." He pauses for a moment, watching her, studying her, and then -- "You're trying to move on with your life. I understand that. I do. Would you like it if I stopped calling you 'Mrs. von Tilburg'? I can call you something else if you want. And if you want to stay her, well... I understand that, too."

"You can call me Bethany. Or Miss Cabe if your sensibilities allow it. That is who I am in the part of my life I have left. Mrs. van Tilburg is as dead as Alex is. Though I retain all her skills, so if you ever need a party thrown, you can call me." Though she's teasing, Bethany's breath catches and she blinks away frustratingly unwelcome tears. "There's a great deal about being her I will miss. Almost all of it. But, my apartment at the embassy is ready for the new tenants, my mail is forwarded, my diplomatic protections revoked. I went from being my parents' child to being Alex's wife without a day between. They're all gone, and I am just myself now."

Other men would brush away the tears, would whisper words of consolation, would try to drown them in 'oh it's all right' or any of a thousand other niceties. Pablum, the lot of it. For his part, the Eternal Colonel sees the tears welling and doesn't try to pretend they don't exist, nor that they're shameful, nor that she's some wilting flower who needs a strong man's shoulder.

Instead he leans his head in a very slight bit closer towards her, as if to emphasize the words he says next. "There's no one here but the fighters."

There's no need for pretense, no need for masks. There's no one here but the fighters."It is my job not to look like crap," Bethany says stubbornly--for all the good that does. "You don't go to work without your uniform on, I don't get a red nose and gritty eyes."

Bethany pulls open the small beaded bag hanging from one wrist and makes an angry noise about what she finds. "Damn woman packed me a handkerchief," she mutters, any bravado broken by a tearful hiccup. "I didn't cry when I found him, it makes no sense that I keep doing it now. I've been in worse places than this and I didn't cry. I should have been scared then, not now, here where I couldn't be safer. Who's going to hurt me with you here?" She wipes her cheeks impatiently.

"Bethany." That's progress: he's using her name. "I'm sure you got a hundred people around you who are trying to give you hugs and be all hakuna mettata, circle-of-life $#&(!#@ with you. I'm pretty sure you like that about as much as I do. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be out here crying with a broken-down old man if there was anyone else in your life who knew how to stand here with you and not drown you in the $&(*@#&(!. But you got one now. It's what a fighter owes a fighter. Ain't nobody that can understand us but each other."

He's quiet for a moment, watching her, as if he's trying to gauge whether some kind of contact is acceptable. Ultimately he elects not for a hug, but to touch his hand to her chin, lifting her jaw slightly. "Crying is okay," he tells her quietly. "Hanging your head isn't. C'mon. You've got more pride than that. It's okay to cry. But you're stronger than to be staring at the ground. You gotta remember who you are, Bethany. You ain't a ground-gazer."

"You're right." Bethany shakes her hair back and lifts her chin. "I'm still me even if I'm sad. Feeling like crap doesn't mean I lost myself, even if it feels like it because it's so strange. I feel like I got fired, stupidly enough." She wipes one cheek with the back of her hand. "I always used to tell myself 'whatever he does, whatever anyone does, I won't let it change my choices or my actions, because I have to remain after it all passes'. I needed to know I'd still be there once all the shit blew away. That got me through everything else, it'll get me through this. I'm still here." She manages a smile for Nick--not her practiced one, just a little real one. "Thanks."

He lets go of her jaw. He may hold onto her for a few seconds more than is strictly necessary, but only a cad would accuse him of lingering. He acknowledges her smile with a faint one of his own and a nod of his head, then reaches into the inner pocket of his tuxedo for a sterling-silver card holder. He opens it up, fishing out a card not from the front of the stack but from the back. "My phone number," he says as he offers her the card. "Get the feeling you need me. Even if you hate the idea of needing anyone."

"I don't mind needing people." Bethany accepts the card and looks at it before tucking it away into the neckline of her dress. Purses get lost--she is far less likely to end up without her underthings. "Just admitting it." She laughs at herself in spite having just been crying, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle it. Really, she doesn't look nearly as terrible as she suggests she does when she's been crying. A little white, when she's already so pale to begin with, but she ever decided to deploy the tears strategically, she'd do quite well for herself.

"Thank you, by the way, you're very kind." Being Bethany, and doing what she does, she actually isn't surprised. She's used to an immutable bedrock of decency in old soldiers, no matter what fronts they put on. That they stand on that decency to do terrible things for the right reasons is the way it should be, in her ideal world.

"Yeah, well. Don't spread word of that or my rep will be ruined." His voice is a half-growl there: for a moment he's become self-consciously aware of the fact he's being /nice/. As is common with most decent people who have very vulgar jobs, the dichotomy between the two worlds causes discomfort once he notices it. "An' if anybody inside asks, we'll just tell them we were up to something tawdry, they'll believe that. But really, don't thank me. Just ... done what's right, and you don't thank people for that, you know?" Ah, Fury the Hero makes his appearance again. Uncomplicated. Simple. Decent. For a moment, his 1930s youth is on display, and if it makes him stand out from modernity he certainly doesn't suffer for the contrast.

"I promise to tell them that you ruined me for mortal men," Bethany says lightly, sliding her arm through his again. She's indifferent to what people say about her--she knows the truth, which is that all of those scandalous things are completely alien to her. People prefer their imaginations. Protesting would change nothing. "And then walked me to my car like a gentleman, as one should."

"Well, that's not technically true, I never actually done any of that," the old soldier answers. "I mean, right after me Marilyn went off to Jack Kennedy, so there's empirical evidence there's at least one woman whom I couldn't ruin for mortal men." He walks with her, arm in arm, back into the embassy. "Marilyn was such a beautiful cherry blossom," he tells Bethany as they walk. "Such a short life. But she had a beautiful soul. And let's face it, there aren't many men still walking the earth who can say they once woke up next to Marilyn."

"No, they can't. She was a great beauty all the way through, it showed in her pictures," Bethany agrees. She gives Nick's arm a little squeeze as they walk toward the courtyard. "It's nice to know that's true for certain, actually. Jack Kennedy, though. You pick some tough competition, Director Fury. Don't sell yourself short."

A photo mailer arrives at Bethany's corporate offices with her address laser-printed on it, with no return address. Inside is a single 8.5x11 glossy photograph of a cherry tree in full bloom, with the Washington Monument visible in the background. Searching on the web for this image will turn up nothing: it's part of someone's private collection, apparently. On the back a short note is written in fine-point felt-tip pen:

THINK ABOUT IT.

THEN THINK AGAIN.

There is no other indicia of whom it might belong to, and the handwriting is simple block letters.