Who: Johnny and Max What: Oh look they finally speak Where: Max's apartment When: Nowish?
Johnny hadn’t actually seen or heard from Max in quite some time, and he knew he was partly to blame for that. They weren’t doing a very good job of communicating or staying in touch, and the idea that this was just how it was going to be wasn’t sitting well with him.
So he did what Johnny does. He walked over to her apartment and knocked on the door. He had plenty on his mind, he had more than plenty on his mind, but he was hoping that they might able to have a normal conversation. At least a short one. He wasn’t sure how well it would go, and he didn’t expect all their issues to miraculously be fixed, but he was willing to give it a try.
His feelings wouldn’t go away overnight, but he also couldn’t stand the idea that they were at odds, if friends was the best they could manage, then friends would have to work. It sure beat not knowing her at all anymore. Besides, she was Mason’s roommate and honestly, he wasn’t going to continue to avoid Mason just to avoid her. He was a grown man. This was ridiculous.
The press had cleared, and Max was at Bathos to shower and wash clothes. She hadn’t actually moved her wardrobe into Aubade, not when it seemed like she needed to leave the building every few days for one reason or another. She was living out of a bag these days, and bags didn’t hold very much. She had finally caught up on sleep, after Luke’s disappearance, even if the incident had left her even more worried about the safety of the people in her life.
When the knock at the door came, she was alone in the apartment. The entire place smelled of cotton and laundry linens, and she was fresh out of the shower and drying her hair with a towel. She was dressed comfortably, in jeans that rode loose and low on her hips and a baseball tee, and her pregnancy was obvious in the thin shirt.
She opened the door, towel still in her hand, and her expression at finding Johnny there was one of shock. She hadn’t expected him to come looking for her, not after Sentinel had indicated she shouldn’t go to see him, and she’d accepted the fact that he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. But there he stood, looking like he always did, clean cut and all blue eyes.
“Well, look at what the cat dragged in,” she said, opening the door wider to let him inside. “Monroe’s not here,” she added.
Johnny couldn’t help really but smile once he saw her, he’d really need to do something about that. She looked good, though to him she always looked good. He was seeing her for the first time in quite some time, and for the first time her pregnancy was noticeable, but he didn’t react. He’d known since he’d gotten her memories of it after all, it wasn’t news to him, though they’d never actually discussed it. Then again, she didn’t owe him a discussion on the matter. She didn’t owe him anything, and if all this visit afforded him was closure, he’d take it.
He stepped inside and chuckled, “Actually I came by to see you,” he said easily. “I hope it’s not a bad time, I probably should have called.”
His smile made her smile back, just like it always did. There was something about the way his eyes lit up when he smiled that made her think of a little boy intent on mischief, and she’d never been able to stay pissed at him in person.
She closed the door behind him, and she tossed the towel onto the back of the couch. “You wouldn’t have come by if you’d had to stop and call me, Copeland, and we both know it.” She quirked a brow at him and finished brushing through her damp hair with her fingers. “Spur of the moment, holiday fence mending?” she asked, and it was obvious the idea didn’t bother her. Max wasn’t one to hold long grudges, and while what had happened still stung, she wasn’t still pissed at him for it. She’d been wanting to broker peace for weeks, but she hadn’t had a chance to see him to do so.
She motioned toward the kitchen. “Sit your ass down,” she told him. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate from a packet,” she said, her smile a teasing familiar one. “You look good,” she added over her shoulder as she walked away from him. “It’s been awhile.”
He nodded, “You’re right, but I still should have called,” he said chuckling. He came into the apartment further and sat down fighting the urge to make the hot chocolate for her, because that’s what Johnny did, but he let her take this one.
Spur of the moment fence mending? He didn’t think that’s what this was, but it was as good of an excuse as any. “Something like that,” he said lightly. “I like to think of it as refusal to tip toe around anymore, maybe you weren’t entirely honest with me and I wasn’t entirely honest with you, and things got out of hand. I refuse to apologize for who I am, and I shouldn’t expect anyone else to either, because the truth is Max,” he paused and shrugged a bit, “No one knows who they are, no one has it figured out. Especially the two of us. I think I took that shortcoming of mine out on you a little. And I don’t think it’s too far off base to say you did the same thing. Friendships shouldn’t die because of something as simple as that.”
She listened to him while she microwaved the milk for the hot chocolate, and she listened as she dumped the packets of cocoa powder into the cups and stirred them. She didn’t say a damn thing as she carried the mugs over, or as she set them on the table. And she took a seat on the wooden bench on one side of the table a moment later. “We need to work on how defensive your apologies sound,” she told him, before taking a sip of chocolate and setting the mug down anew. “I was honest with you, as honest as I knew how to be at the time. I still hurt you, even without meaning to, and I’m so fucking sorry for that. But I never strung you along. We have a different idea of what relationships are, Copeland, and neither of us are right or wrong. We just see it differently.” She ran her fingertips over the edge of the mug. “Maybe I used you, but I didn’t string you along. I really fucking wanted you to sweep me off my feet,” she admitted, looking up at him with the hint of an old teasing smile. “Feels like ages ago, doesn’t it?”
Johnny wasn’t feeling much up to drinking hot chocolate but he thanked her anyway and didn’t quite know how to respond to being told his apology was too defensive. No matter what he did he couldn’t do anything right with her. He was either not complimenting her properly, or making judgment calls properly, or not reading her properly, or asking his questions properly, or writing properly...And now he wasn’t even throwing himself under the proverbial bus properly. It stung him to his core, but he shut that off. He wasn’t ever going to be what she wanted, he didn’t know why she even bothered continuing the conversation, why did she even want to be friends with him? He was always stepping in the mud with her, and he didn’t know how to pry himself loose.
He listened as she spoke, it was hard hearing it having seen both sides of this coin. Maybe it was unfair that he knew what she’d hid, what she thought about him, how naive and silly she found him. And now it seemed he couldn’t even manage to sweep her off her feet properly. He wondered if that would have been different if she’d known who he really was at the heart of him. If she’d have been able to help him reconcile his double life that was becoming increasingly difficult to juggle. If he was honest it was becoming near impossible to juggle it. The Bat had told him to tell her, but he wasn’t entirely sure the motivations behind that. To keep him from having to hold onto his secret, or to actually help the situation he found himself in? He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He was afraid to argue with her, afraid to offend her, he didn’t know what to say, or what she wanted to hear, or what she needed him to be. He didn’t seem to be too sure about himself, or anything anymore.
He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t like ages ago for him. It was like yesterday, nothing had changed for him, and like everything was different all at once. He inhaled sharply and smiled a bit, “Sort of,” he admitted. “It still cuts, but more than that, it feels like it’s been ages, so yes.”
She watched him through all that silence, watched the thoughts chase across his blue eyes almost too quickly for her to follow, and she tried to read the expressions that went along with them. Max sucked at emotions. To be honest, she’d had more of them in the past four months than she could ever remember having before, and she reached out a hand for his and threaded her fingers with his. “I wasn’t being critical,” she finally said, because she was starting to realize they spoke different languages. “I just meant I wanted...” she trailed off, because she was nowhere near as open as he was, nowhere near as able to talk about what was going on with her emotionally. “I wanted someone who wanted me,” she admitted finally, because it was the frank truth. “I was in love with him, am in love with him, but I don’t know if he can feel that for me.” Her eyes welled with tears, as she looked up at him. “That sounds like I’m the most selfish fucking bitch in the world, I know, but you’re amazing. You’re handsome, and funny, and the kind of guy who would have no fucking qualms about telling someone how you felt, and I bet you’re amazing with hugs,” she added, rubbing her fingers under one of her eyes. “I wasn’t stringing you along. I was never stringing you along.”
Johnny held her hand, almost tightly, because he needed the contact. He listened to her as she spoke, and while he appreciated the honesty he knew that he understood that better than anyone else might. She was crying, and it was hard to watch, and he was pretty sure that if he kept going with this he was going to cry and make a complete jerk of himself. He didn’t want to do that. “Max,” he said her name softly it was almost a whisper. “It doesn’t make you selfish to want someone who can love you back, but,” he didn’t want it to come out like he was scolding her at all, “I wanted that too. It’s not a crime to want that, I wanted to sweep you off your feet. I think I just expected you to love me back too, I’m not blaming you, please don’t think that. It’s not your fault that you don’t, honestly Max,” he smiled a bit, a sad smile, but a smile none the less. “You don’t even know me, not really, I have a good smile and great hugs but I’m in no position to be sweeping someone off their feet, no matter how badly I want to.” He had to sigh at the ridiculousness of it all, she wanted him to be one thing and he wanted her to be something else and neither of them had managed it in the end. He wasn’t what she thought, and she wasn’t what he thought...There wasn’t anything wrong with that, it just seemed ridiculous that he’d an ideal, and she had as well. This was as honest as he’d ever managed to be with her, and he appreciated her candor as well.
She closed her other hand over their joined ones. She was uncomfortable with casual affection, uncomfortable with her own emotions, uncomfortable with anything that could be considered touchy feely. But this was important, somehow, this honesty between them; she realized it, recognized it, and she wasn’t going to let her own damn fear of things get in the way of it. “It felt like you thought I wasn’t good enough for you anymore,” she told him of his reaction after the memory. “And,” she added, “I never asked if you were confused about shit with Monroe. I just jumped to fucking conclusions and let the fact that I was hurt and jealous make me a heinous bitch.” She tipped her head to the side curiously, then. “What don’t I know about you? Let’s play clean slate. We might as well. We’ve got chocolate, and I’m fucking sobbing.” She waited a moment, a pause, a heartbeat. “I could have, you know, loved you. It was bad timing Copeland. By the time you made a move...” her words trailed, but there was honesty there. “Even with that, I wanted to give this a fucking chance. I didn’t expect to get knocked up, and I didn’t know at the beginning. I wasn’t fucking with you.”
He shook his head, “I never thought you weren’t good enough for me, I just felt like my entire view of the situation was wrong,” he admitted easily. “I just didn’t know why-” he stopped he didn’t want to get into the argument again, there was nothing wrong with having a different view of things. And there was nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. He wasn’t going to get into this again.
When she brought up Mason he had to smile a bit and sighed. “Oh Mason,” he said shaking his head, “He’s my best friend, life would be a whole lot easier if I could just run away with him, but that wouldn’t be fair to him either.” he admitted sighing a bit.
He didn’t want to think about how she could have loved him, he knew she never really could have. Not if she didn’t actually know him, and if it got to a point where they were in love he would have been even less eager to tell her. He knew that. It wasn’t that his feelings had changed now, and he wanted her in danger. He just knew himself, and he knew that he would have wanted to keep those two lives separate for as long as he could. It was still important to him, but he owed her an explanation.
She wanted a clean slate, he wanted to be able to give her one, but he’d never actually told anyone his secret before. Mason found out via his memories, the Bat found out by accident. He didn’t even know how to word this. He didn’t even know how to start, “The things you don’t know about me could fill a book I’m afraid, and not through any fault of your own,” he said chuckling. “That’s why, despite my bad timing, and best efforts, we would have been doomed from the start, Max. I’m trying to reconcile two very important parts of my life. I’m lost, and alone, and...” he sighed. “This person you see every day, that is very much me, everything I wanted to be. Good, and caring, loving and smart, gainfully employed and good at my job. And then there’s this whole other part. This crazy, reckless to where it’s almost charming, cunning and strong. He’s...It’s all me, it’s all two sides of this coin that’s me and I believe so wholly in what I do. My job, my life, helping people, protecting myself and others. And these two sides only have one thing in common and that is that they are...Fantastic liars. Someone told me recently that I’m the best liar they’ve ever met. It shocked me at first, but...It’s true.”
“You didn’t know why?” she urged, figuring it was best to get everything out in the open while they were actually having a rational discussion that didn’t involve hurting each other verbally. “Why I didn’t tell you I’d slept with the person I was in love with?” she asked. She took a fortifying breath, and she looked down at the mug again. “When we slept together the first time, it wasn’t a date or some romantic fucking thing. He was angry about something that had happened, and I was on an adrenaline high from chasing a lead, and it just happened. It isn’t an I love you kind of relationship, Copeland, and I don’t even know if I’m anything more than a walking concern for him most days.” She shrugged slightly, and she looked up at him. “I didn’t think anything would come of it, and I didn’t know I was pregnant.”
When he started talking about duality, she couldn’t help but smile, because this was Johnny. He was about as open as a book, and there was no one she expected to hide things less than him. Hell, he got on her fucking case about hiding news stories. “Are you going to tell me you’re a mask, Copeland?” she asked, entirely joking, taking a sip of the cocoa even as she smiled at him over the mug. As she watched him, however, her teasing smile sharpened into something. “You’re not telling me you’re a mask, Copeland,” she said. Statement this time; not a question. “You’re going to tell me you’re a fucking mask.” Full fucking stop.
Johnny shook his head, that wasn’t at all what he wanted to know. At all. He should have finished. And he held his hand up but let her finish, “No, no...That I get. That I definitely get, I mean...I’m sorry that you have to know what it feels like when you feel like you love someone so much your stomach hurts, but not have that returned. And I get that, that’s not my question. I think what confuses me, and it’s because clearly my Modus Operandi is to just take it all until it eats up inside of me, and there’s...Basically no one else in my mind right now but you and I know that makes it awkward. But my question is, why, or how could you stand to try and feel something for someone else...Me? I can’t even imagine anyone else, or trying to find anyone else when I feel this way about you.”
Her first question was a joke, but he didn’t smile, or react like she was crazy, he just looked at her seriously and watched it start to sink in and by her last statement he was taking his glasses off and setting them on the table gently, and turning his ability on to another face she recognized. When he used it, nothing shifted on his face, it wasn’t shapeshifting, it was just quick as anything she was sitting in the room with Sentinel.
“My relationship history isn’t exactly functional, Copeland,” she said, sitting back a little on the bench, wanting to try to make him understand. “In the military, you date a lot of married bastards who are stationed away from home, and you have sex with a lot of people just to remind yourself that you’re alive. I’ve had never feelings for someone that stuck, because nothing in our lives stuck. Finding other people people to wrap your legs around, that was just the way you moved on when you couldn’t give a shit about anyone.” She crossed her arms on the table. “I was an international operative. I didn’t stay anywhere long, unless I was undercover, and then I wasn’t me.” She gave him a look that was apologetic. “Not something you get, I know, and that isn’t your fault. But I don’t know how to do it your way. I suck at talking, and I suck at emotions. I either fight something out of my system, or I fuck it out of my system.” It was crass, yes, but it was true, and if they were being honest, well, that’s who she was. “I came to humanity to play normal mid-twenties woman, but I’m me. Can’t change that; I know that now.”
When he didn’t laugh or deny her statements about him being a mask, she felt every single hair at the back of her neck stand up, and she knew, even before he did the fucking face change, she knew. “You son of a fucking bitch,” she said, standing so quickly that the bench almost toppled with her movement. Oh, she was pissed alright. “Did you get a fucking kick about me talking to you about you?” she demanded, and her palm itched to just smack the hell out of him.
Which is what she did.
He wanted to respond to everything she’d just told him, he didn’t want to judge her on it, it wasn’t his lifestyle, but he knew that people had differences and he was going to tell her that there was no right or wrong, but it was too late for that now. She was pissed. With good reason.
Okay he probably had the smack coming, and he took it like a champ, but he didn’t keep his facade up for long, it could be exhausting to hold the other face, and coupled with the emotions he was already on high alert, he stood up, but only to hope she would calm down. “Max, no, that’s not what this is about,” he said holding his hands up. “There was nothing worse for me than listening to that, I’ve never done anything so hard in my life. It was like death, Max. Knowing what I knew, and having to continuously pretend with you, every aspect of my life was a lie, I just couldn’t repeat past mistakes, Max. I had to keep it up, and it got worse, and I just almost told you so many times, you have every right to be angry, but I just...I thought you deserved to know why I am the way I am. You know my secret, a secret I have never intentionally let go of. I know you’re mad, and I want you to be, but Max...When you’re calm I hope you’ll understand it a little.”
When he stood, she moved closer, and she grabbed the front of his shirt and fisted it in her hands and tugged angrily, not enough to hurt, more out of a helpless kind of frustration. She had trusted him- no, no. Sentinel. She had fucking trusted Sentinel. “What past mistakes?” she demanded. And it better be good. It better be really fucking good. “Because last I checked, I keep everyone’s fucking Mask secrets in this town. So either you thought you couldn’t trust me with it, or... what? What other reason could you possibly have for not telling me? I’m not a fucking civilian Sent- Copeland, Jesus Christ, and after you said all that-” Pause. “You wrote a fucking article slamming yourself? Why the fuck did you do that?” Oh, yeah, it was all rushing back now, coming together, lightbulbs lighting up all over the damn place. “And you were in that damn bar that night. Why the hell did you give me shit about the column?” She gave his shirt another very sharp tug to punctuate all of it, and then she let the crumpled fabric go and began pacing. “Waiting.”
He put his hands on her arms gently when she started tugging on him, and he tried to calm her down a little, he didn’t want her flailing around all pregnant and nuts. That wouldn’t do at all. “Max,” he said calmly. She was angry, and he understood why, but he couldn’t very well get her to understand while she was hollering.
“I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but it was something I felt I needed to do. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Mason. He found out on his own, the Bat found out by accident, but my life is spinning out of control here, Max. It was so important to me that I...Keep this secret that it became almost a full time job on it’s own. People start getting curious, asking questions, it’s a road I’ve been down before. It’s why I left home, why I left my family. I didn’t come over here for a fresh start and a new life. I loved my old life. I had friends, and a family that loves me. You aren’t the first woman I’ve ever loved, Max. You’re not the first person I’ve ever wanted to try and build something with. But I’ve done it the other way already, and people died, and don’t give me that shit about being able to protect yourself, this isn’t about whether or not you’re capable. This is about whether or not I can stand to have anymore blood on my hands. I made the choice to keep my two lives separate, maybe it was the wrong choice, but I didn’t see another option. It was never about trusting to keep the secret, it was needing to keep the secret myself. I needed Johnny Copeland to be as far away from Sentinel as possible, unfortunately when emotions get involved...Everything spirals out of control and I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
She stopped pacing about midway through his speech, and she just watched him as he finished. She still wanted to shake him, and she was still pissed, but some of it ebbed away with understanding. She knew this sentiment, had heard it before from someone much less vocal than Johnny was, and in the end she rubbed her eyes and dropped back down on the bench, facing him. “Who died?” she asked, because that’s what this was about, right? He’d told someone, and they’d died. And so telling anyone was a risk. She tried to imagine what Corbinian or the Bat or even Rorschach would do if someone who knew, someone close to them died, and she found she couldn’t even fathom it. Corbinian would go for revenge, the Bat would drown in guilt, and Rorscach would go off the radar again, killing everything in his path, no doubt.
“Which one are you really?” she asked, looking up into those familiar blue eyes. “Which one is really you?”
When she sat back down and asked her question he sighed a bit and shook his head, he really didn’t want to talk about it. Soul crushing guilt was one thing to carry around, but sharing it almost made him feel like it wasn’t his anymore. He cleared his throat, “Her name was Carrie, we worked together,” he had to smile just a bit at the symmetry of it all and how stupid he must have been to even attempt to go down that road again. She was the complete opposite of Max, but not in a bad way, they were just different people. “She was great, she was just...Great. But you work in this life long enough, piss off the right people, they can find you and find anything out about you. It’s not safe,” he couldn’t say if he’d known ahead of time what would happen that he would make the same choices again. But now here they were, and he was, in fact, making the same choices again but whether or not the choices were a direct result of what had happened to him back in Musings, he couldn’t say. “But she’s gone, and I’m alone and it sucks, but I think it might actually be better that way. Even though I keep wanting to fight it, there are more important fights than the one I keep having with myself.”
Her next question packed a punch but only because he didn’t have an answer, and he loved having all the answers, he shook his head again and stared hard at the table as he tried to formulate words. “I don’t know anymore, I want to be this nice normal guy who can have a life and a job and look after the people he loves, but this feeling inside of me that needs to do more than that, its part of me too. I can’t deny that, but the truth is I have no idea who I am anymore. Everything that I thought I was, everything I thought I had figured out is getting thrown out of whack almost every day it seems. I mean I wanted -no- needed to get away from my old life and my old life just keeps coming back to me here. I miss my family so much it kills me, I can’t even pick up a phone you know? I can’t tell my mom Merry Christmas, but now I’m here and Mason’s here,” he chuckled, “I found out that a girl I was in love with in high school,” he finally looked up at Max, “She had a kid and I didn’t find out until a couple of weeks ago, so now there’s this 18 year old kid who had a terrible mother and I don’t even know how to tell him I’m his father, but if all it’s going to do is put him in danger what the hell is the point? I would have liked to have had a chance there, I was young and naive and thought she loved me too but she left and it was bad, but I had a good family, and I’m adopted too my parents would have helped or something. It would have been better than what she offered him growing up. But here I am thirty-four years old and no clue what the hell I’m doing with myself, let alone what to do with a long lost child, or my day job or my night job or you or Mason or anyone.”
He’d rambled, he was feeling choked up, and he just really wanted to forget that he’d just completely unloaded on her, because as far as he was concerned she had enough on her plate, and didn’t need to give two shits about what was wrong with him. He’d come by to apologize, managed to screw that up from the get go and now he was unloading like some asshole on a therapy couch.
She reached for his hand, once he was done, and she dragged him toward the bench she was sitting on, tugging until he sat down in front of her. She turned, one leg on either side of the bench, facing his side, and she thought a moment, quiet before saying anything to all of that. It was so much, so much she had no idea was under the surface. She had suspected Sentinel had something in his past to make him do what he did (most of the masks did), but he was different. He was actually doing more than using his day persona as a cover, he was living it in a way none of the others did. She was still angry, oh, man, was she, but even she wasn’t immune to this level of confusion and vulnerability.
“You can’t run away from who you are Copeland,” she said with perfect honesty. “I tried to do that. I tried to come here and be Suzy fucking Homemaker. I tried to forget that I can put a gun to someone’s head and finish them without blinking or losing any sleep at night. I wanted to be a wife, a mother, someone who cooked dinner and maybe had a dog to walk, and I wanted the kind of guy that stuck and hadn’t ever killed a damn person, hadn’t ever wanted to. Someone who loved me.” She laughed a little. “But that’s not me, Copeland. And if you’re anything like Sentinel, this isn’t you, either,” she added, tugging at the sleeve of his shirt.
It took her a minute longer to mention the eighteen-year-old, his son, and she thought of Luke and she smoothed his sleeve where she’d tugged. “One of the most important things in life is knowing who you are, if you can give him that, give your son that, you should. Is it dangerous? Yeah, it’s dangerous. I’ve thought about it a lot the past four months, ya know. Whether it’s better to lie to keep a child safe, or whether to tell them the truth. I chose the truth, because I’m proud of what we do. Sure, we fucking risk shit left and right, but we do it for a good reason. Is it going to keep you up at night with worry? Probably. You might never get a decent fucking night’s sleep again, but that’s going to happen regardless, I think.” She paused. “Tell me about him?”
He listened, he knew he couldn’t run away from who he was, but he was good at being Johnny Copeland, he’d lived most of his life as Johnny Copeland, he liked Johnny Copeland. Hell, everyone liked Johnny Copeland. “I just don’t know what the hell that means, I don’t want to run away from who I am, but I don’t want to forget who I am either.”
She had a point, he didn’t want his son not knowing who he was, but what if it wasn’t good news? The danger thing was the only thing he couldn’t get behind. “What right do I have to put his life in danger like that? What if he’s better off without me?” it was a genuine concern, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit he might not be the best news for someone.
“About Jack? I don’t know him very well, but what I do know has been pretty good so far. He seems like a smart kid, he goes to college, I helped him out with his homework once,” he laughed a real genuine laugh, “I keep bringing him food, it’s ridiculous.”
She smiled softly, and she slid her hand down to his and squeezed it reassuringly. “There’s no manual, Copeland. Just tell him,” she said. “And if it’s dangerous, you keep an eye on him. And if he’s angry, you wait it out. Being a father is something I think you’d be really fucking brilliant at. And you’ve already lost eighteen years. He’s already lost eighteen years. Don’t lose more time.”
She had a point, Mason had told him as much, he knew that it probably wouldn’t pretty or functional but it would have to be done eventually. He couldn’t just keep bringing the kid food. And he couldn’t stand the thought of someone else figuring it out and telling him before he got the chance to. He wouldn’t rush into it, he’d keep getting to know him, but he’d have to tell him. “You’re not wrong,” he said simply. “I’ll figure something out,” he said trying to sound more sure of himself than he felt.
He gave her hand a squeeze and smiled a bit, “I didn’t mean to unload all of that on you. I honestly just came by to see how you were,” he said sighing.
“And I haven’t forgiven you for lying to me for months, but I get it,” she said, leaning pressing fingers to his cheek in awkward reassurance. “But if you ever lie to me again, I’m going to kick your ass. You got that?” she asked, her fingers relaxing enough to cup his cheek a moment longer, before she pulled her hand back. “Tell him before the holidays. They make everyone yearn for family,” she recommended. “And, for the record, I think Johnny Copeland and Sentinel are pretty terrific, but Sentinel’s charm gives him a distinct advantage,” she said, giving him a familiar teasing grin.
He smiled at her softly, but he certainly wasn’t going to promise never to lie to her again, that was irresponsible and stupid. But he’d at least try not to have to. It didn’t matter much anymore anyway, they were just...Whatever it was they were, and the situation would probably never arise again that he’d need to lie, or that he’d need to have a conversation like this with her again. “Well, it’s easier to be charming when you’re wearing a different face,” he said shrugging a bit. “I better get going before I can think of anything else traumatic to unload on you. Thanks for the hot chocolate.”
She nodded, and she started to say something else, but she stopped before she managed the words. “Let me know how it goes,” she said. “And I’ll see you at work on Monday.” It wasn’t a question. It was an assurance that she wasn’t going to let him hide again, and she was stubborn enough to see it through. They both knew that. It wasn’t a goodbye, either, though it savored of it, of regretful things and things left behind. “Get the fuck out of here, Copeland,” she finally added.
“Yep,” he said regarding the day job as he stood up from where he was sitting. “I'll be seeing you Max,” he added easily and headed back home. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now, but at least that was done and over with, and hopefully he wouldn’t have to deal with this mess ever again.