To that, she pressed her lips together.
"I'm not a tender-hearted person. It's why I was always good at the job. Why they chose me to do what I am doing now. I am cold and calculating and dedicated to the cause. Not soft. But something about the two of you - about the confusion and the way life fucked you both over, stole something good from you - it got to me."
"Okay..." Mack said, shaking her head a little.
"Well, I guess I should just get to it, huh?" she asked, looking at me.
"That'd be good. We're not getting any younger here."
"I'm the one who burned you," she declared in the same tone as if she was telling me about the weather.
There was a full moment before the words could seem to sink in.
"You burned me? But... why?"
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"How?"
"Well, the way I saw it, you two would have just continued that cat-and-mouse game forever if someone didn't step in. So, I stepped in. Made up some bullshit about the Russians getting to you. You got sent back to the US. Where Mack could easily find you. As I see she did. So you two could hash things out."
"What if she had killed me?"
"I mean, we all die sometime," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "But I knew she would't be able to do it. You were safe enough. It seemed worth the risk."
"What did?" Mack asked.
"Seeing you guys finally get your happily ever after," she told us, offering a small smile. "We don't all get one. But you two deserved it. So I took the chance. I'm glad to see it all worked out."
Maybe I should have been mad.
She'd burned me.
Turned my life upside down.
But then again, I had only been working for the program because it was all I knew, because I couldn't think of a different life.
She'd forced me to do that.
And then pushed Mack in my direction.
She was directly responsible for all the good that had happened, for all the repairing, for the rebuilding.
I couldn't muster up even a small sliver of anger or resentment.
"Thank you," Mack said before I could find the words. "I know better than to say we owe you one, but thank you for doing that for us. You have no idea how much it means," she went on, reaching for my hand under the table, squeezing it.
"It's an ugly life, at times, doing what I do. It gets hard to know if you are actually doing any good at all," she told us, getting to her feet. "I'm glad to know I put just a little bit of good into the world. You two have a good life," she demanded before disappearing as suddenly as she had appeared.
"Wow," Mack said after a long silence.
"Yeah," I agreed, giving her hand a squeeze.
"I mean... it is good to finally know, right? Who burned you. Why?"
"It is good to know," I agreed.
It used to be a question that plagued me, that wouldn't let me rest.
As time went on, though, as happiness filled all those empty places within, it really started not to matter anymore.
I still wondered on occasion.
But not the same way I used to.
"It's crazy how much our lives overlapped over the years that we still hadn't realized," Mack said.
"It's almost like the whole world was trying to push us together," I agreed.
"Almost like we were meant to be or something," she agreed, resting her head on my shoulder, turning in, pressing a kiss to my neck.
My smile was big as I turned enough to press my forehead to hers.
And just like that, the storm finally calmed.
"Or something," I agreed.XX