Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This is not how the night was supposed to go. It was a routine assignment, a politician whose plethora of armed guards had been child’s play to Yor to dispose of. She’d been in a hurry, more ruthlessly efficient than usual, anxious to get home before her absence exceeded a length suitable for the excuse of a work event she’d used to justify her late night out. The assassination of the target had gone smoothly, but one of the guards had managed to activate some kind of alarm system that had the place swarming with reinforcements within minutes.

Yor sighs in annoyance, glancing at her escape route. The guards have all seen her, so it’s safest to get rid of all of them. It feels like a waste of time and energy, since the assassination is already done anyway, but she slashes at one after the other, golden thorns dripping with blood, glinting with each swing.

Suddenly, the men around her all don masks, as if responding to some unseen cue. The room rapidly fills with some kind of gas, clouding her vision and filling her senses, and all at once everything is a lot less distinct than it was a moment ago.

Caught in the visual and mental fog, she fails to evade a shot from one of the masked men ahead, and the bullet hits her square in the shoulder, knocking the breath out of her. She snarls at the pain blooming in her shoulder, quickly slashing at her assailant with her thorn. Once he's out of her way she stabs through the crowd of still gathering guards, towards the window she’d planned to leave through. Forcing it open, she lets herself drop through, narrowly dodging another shot and disappearing into the darkness.

Hurrying out of the compound, she takes deep gulps of the fresh night air, trying to chase whatever’s left of the mysterious gas out of her body. Her shoulder burns, and she presses at it with her hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Right now her primary objective is to get rid of her blood stained clothes and get the wound treated. There are Garden safehouses that have first aid kits - she'll go to the nearest one, get clean, and take a dozen painkillers to get rid of the ache in her shoulder. Then she'll go home, and everything will be fine.

The street lamps blur, and the world wobbles dangerously as she melts into the shadows, making her way towards an increasingly indistinct cluster of buildings in the distance. Her head is light, and her footsteps uneven, and she realizes with a distant panic that she’s inhaled more of the gas than she’d thought. Everything is muddled, and she shakes her head, trying to remember what she has to do. This disorientation is dangerous, she’s still covered in blood, and carrying a pair of equally bloody thorns. She hurls the weapons into the bushes, though a faint voice at the back of her head screams at her that that’s not what she’s supposed to do with them.

Her shoulder hurts, and the corners of her vision are blurring. Shaking her head to clear it, she tries to focus on where she needs to go, somewhere where she can get help. Changing course, she hurries through the back streets of the city, dodging behind walls and trash bins that all look the same, driven by sheer adrenaline. She’s losing blood, and it adds to the haziness. She stumbles blindly, carried by her instincts, until she reaches her destination. Fumbling with her dress, she realizes that she doesn’t have a key. Her shoulder twinges, and she crushes the door lock with her hand, pushing into the room-

-only to be met by a very startled Loid Forger. Her first reaction is confusion - as glad as she is to see him, what’s Loid doing in a Garden safehouse? She looks around and realizes that this isn’t a Garden safehouse at all, this is her literal house. And that is her husband, staring at her in her bloody dress with the most bewildered expression she’s ever seen him wear.

She doesn’t have time to parse the implications of the fact, as the adrenaline wears off and leaves a sudden bout of dizziness in its wake, causing her to pitch forward. Strong arms stop her from hitting the ground, and she finds herself in Loid’s hold. She winces as he touches her shoulder, and he shifts, supporting her weight against himself.

“What happened, Yor?” His tone is commendably even, save for the slight breathiness in the way he said her name.

“‘s nothing,” she mumbles, grimacing. He’s warm and solid in front of her, and she clings to the sensation through the haze in her mind. “Just my shoulder…. 's been shot.” She frowns at the memory. She hates getting shot. It’s such a hassle.

Loid doesn’t say anything more. She shifts so that she can see his face. He’s got that expression that he dons when he shuts everything out so that his mind can work at a mile a minute to find the solution to a problem. The sight is oddly reassuring in its familiarity, despite the alarm bells going off somewhere in the back of her head.

Loid seems to have come to some internal conclusion, because his face goes carefully blank, and in one smooth motion, he scoops her into a bridal carry, moving towards their bedrooms.

She distantly registers him opening a door, and then she’s sitting on a bed, back against the pillows. She recognizes the place, it’s her room. Vaguely, she hopes that Loid doesn't check the drawer where she keeps her poisons, then wonders what reason he would possibly have to do so.

Loid dips out of the room, returning a moment later with the first aid kit and a glass of water. With mechanical precision he pulls a few things out of the box, and moves over to her side. He holds two pills and the glass of water out to her.

“Painkillers,” he says simply, and she pops them into her mouth, gratefully accepting the water once her hand is free.

Loid stands by the bed for a moment, looking at her contemplatively.

"I’m going to treat the wound," he announces, clearing his throat. "Is it ok if I undo the neck part of your dress?"

Yor nods her consent, still trying and failing to clear her thoughts and pinpoint what exactly is causing that distant feeling of alarm that clangs noisily in the back alleys of her mind. Loid stands for a moment longer, as if gathering courage, before slowly moving to undo the halter neck of her dress, gently moving the fabric down from her shoulders. Refocusing on the wound, Loid wipes her shoulder with what’s probably some kind of antiseptic, given how it stings. Then he presses gauze to the wound, and she hisses at the sudden pressure.

“It’s to stop the bleeding,” he says, and his tone is both tense and soothing all at once. The shoulder is not the worst place to be shot, but it’s still risky. To distract herself, Yor mentally lists the major arteries that pass through the shoulder. She’s lucky that it doesn't seem like any of them were hit.

Loid wraps a bandage around her shoulder, holding the gauze in place. “That should be fine for a now,” he says quietly, moving to stand at the foot of the bed, almost awkward now that the initial shock has passed. There’s a tension to his posture though, and his blue eyes seem sharper than usual in the half-light. Yor looks at the blood on his hands, her blood, then down at the blood covering her own hands. A sudden spike of guilt and fear pierces through the imprecise jumble of her thoughts, making her shudder. The cause of the previously distant alarms leaps to the forefront of her mind, and she’s suddenly short for breath.

It is very, very suspicious to come home in the middle of the night covered in blood. Normal wives do not come home in the middle of the night covered in blood.

And yet here she is, practically bleeding out on her bed, as if to announce to the whole world that she’s an assassin. As if to carelessly reveal the one secret she’s worked so hard to keep to the one person she’d wanted to keep it from the most, the person who is currently standing at the foot of her bed with her blood on his hands.

She does not regret her work. But she does not want it to damage the family she has come to cherish. Finding out that your spouse is an assassin is something that would shake even the most long-lasting and stable of marriages. It’s a failure as a wife, on a scale most people wouldn’t even think possible. Mentally, she curses herself for getting mixed up, for allowing this brush between the carnage of her work and the comfort of her home.

She can barely bring herself to look back at Loid, but she chances a glance up at him anyway. His gaze is contemplative and shrewd, and her internal panic grows. There’s no way he isn’t suspicious. He’s always been extremely alert, and there’s nothing subtle or discreet about a wound like this. Dread pools in her gut, and she swallows harshly. Loid figuring out she’s an assassin would make him a risk to Garden, a target. She would never forgive herself if Anya lost her papa because of her.

If only she'd gone to the Garden safehouse like she was supposed to. If only her usually infallible instincts hadn't somehow guided her back home in the midst of the mental fog. Then perhaps she wouldn't be sitting here in front of her (fake) husband, risking everything. Yor tries to breathe deeply, willing whatever had been in that disorienting gas from before out of her system. It’s too late now, she thinks as the room swims before her eyes.

She doesn’t dare look at Loid again, leaning back and closing her eyes to avoid having to see the distrust that has no doubt found its way to his face by now. She hears him mumble something about cleaning off the blood, then there's the sound of steps heading back out of the room.

Exhaling shakily, she opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling, marveling at his lack of reaction to her coming home covered in blood, past midnight, with a gunshot wound on her shoulder. Maybe he's just sparing her the inevitable, being polite until she isn't on the brink of bleeding to death. Maybe he’s too shocked to process the gravity of the situation right away.

Either way, she knows that everything will need to be addressed eventually. And then he will figure out the truth about her work, and he will recoil in fear and disgust, and she will either have to return to a solitary life of office work and murder or become a target of the SSS. Or she will have to kill him. Yor isn't sure she could.

Loid comes back, distracting her from her thoughts. He’s got a basin of water and a cloth, which he sets down on her nightstand, pushing the lamp atop it aside. He studies her for a moment, eyes calculating in the dim light.

“Your dress is covered in blood,” he says slowly. “Would you like to take it off?” She blinks, looking down at her dress. It’s got more blood on it than usual, likely because there had been so many guards. Some of it is probably also her own blood. It’s not unfamiliar to her, but the scent of blood hanging so thickly in her room, in the sanctity of their home, feels wrong. So she nods, too tired to be truly embarrassed.

“Does it have a zip?” he asks, and she nods again, gesturing towards her back. He hesitates for a moment, then reaches out, gently supporting her as she leans forward, giving him access to the zip. Despite the storm of dread brewing in her chest, she’s at least grateful that the excuse she’d given for her late night outing justified the dress. An unexplained and bloody late night return in a dress like this would have been the final nail in her secret’s coffin. Not that that coffin needs any more nails at this point.

A lump forms in her throat at the thought, and she tries desperately to think of something else, refocusing on getting out of the dress. One of the many good things about her Thorn Princess dress is how easy it is to get out of. The zip goes all the way to her lower back, and she could probably get out of it fine by herself without overexerting her arm. It's convenient when she needs to change quickly after a job, and this time it's saving her from having to further inconvenience Loid by asking him to help her out of the dress.

Her head is still heavy and her thoughts are still racing, but she manages to shimmy out of the dress without too much trouble, Loid only helping get it free from her legs. She feels exposed without it, sitting in just her underwear, like her last defense has been stripped away.

“I’m just going to get the blood off, okay?” Loid says softly, and she nods shakily. The bed dips with his weight as he settles next to her. He wipes the blood off her legs first, and she relishes the feeling of being clean. He covers her legs with a blanket, and moves on to her arms and neck. His touch is light and careful, and she watches, unable to speak, as he gets rid of the traces of her targets, like he understands how much it worries her when they cling to her no matter how much she scrubs.

He pauses momentarily when he's done, eyes unreadable and somber, before reaching out to wipe the blood off her face. She starts at the touch, but quickly relaxes into it, savouring the warmth of the water against her skin. It's soothing, and gentle, and so much kinder than she deserves, and suddenly she feels tears spill hot and ashamed over her face. It’s suddenly hard to breathe, and she forces herself to inhale and exhale shakily, vision blurring.

Loid pauses his movements, withdrawing his hand, and for a moment she thinks she sees sadness in his carefully schooled expression.

"It's ok, Yor," he says, softly. "You're safe now."

The reassurance only makes her feel worse. She's put him and Anya in danger by coming this close to exposing herself as an assassin, and Loid is still the one comforting her. The thought of Anya makes her throat constrict, choking the sobs that wrack her body. The movement hurts her shoulder, but she can’t bring herself to care, not when the memory of Anya’s earnest wish to stay with her parents forever hurts far more.

"Yor, please don't cry," Loid says, and there's a helplessness to his tone that is almost unbearable. Her mouth is dry and her head is spinning, and her heart feels like it’s made of lead, sitting heavily in her chest.

She doesn't dare look at him, and distantly she can feel her hands shaking. It’s too much all at once, and she buckles under the looming knowledge that soon he will know, and she will lose everything.

It feels like drowning, gasping for air that isn’t there, and her head spins. Visions of Anya and Loid looking at her in horror flit through her mind, and her heart twists in her chest. Distantly, she hears Loid calling her name, but she can’t focus on the sound, can’t focus on him or herself or anything-

“Listen to me, Yor,” Loid’s voice permeates through the fog, firm and pleading all at once. His hand comes to rest atop hers, and she realizes belatedly that she’s been gripping her hands together, nails digging painfully into skin. “I need you to try to breathe deeply. Inhale, then exhale.”

She fixates on the sensation of Loid’s hand over hers, trying to force air into her lungs at a more regular pace.

“That’s right,” Loid says, gently prying her hands apart, clasping them in his own. “It’s okay. No one will hurt you here.”

Yor feels her heart sink at the words. He doesn’t see that she’s the threat, that she’s the source of the hurt. Her throat tightens, and she chokes out a painful cough in a futile attempt to force more air into her lungs.

“Yor, it’s alright. Concentrate on your breathing.” Loid’s voice is low and soothing, and Yor squeezes her eyes shut, trying to focus on the sensation of his hands caressing hers. She inhales in time with the rhythm of the movement, willing herself to calm down.

Yor doesn’t know how long they sit there like that for, her hands in Loid’s, his low soothing voice murmuring reassurances until her breathing starts to smooth out.

“You’re safe here,” he says softly. “It’s okay.” She swallows harshly at the words. Despite everything, she does feel safe here. Even with the scars that her job left on her, emotionally and physically, she’s always felt safe here, with Loid and Anya. Even now, as she sits on her bloodstained sheets, Loid’s calloused hands over hers are the greatest comfort she could hope to have.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, putting all the things she wants to and can’t say into the words. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” She desperately wants to believe him. But she knows that, were it to get out, the damage her secret could deal to her family, her safe haven, would be the greatest wrong she could ever fear to commit.

She can’t help the sobs that follow the thought, the tears causing her view of Loid to blur into indistinct flashes of the sandy blond of his hair and the white of his t-shirt.

She feels his hand cup her face before she sees him put it there, palm warm and soothing against her skin, thumb wiping at her tears. His other hand stays in hers, a solid and comforting presence. The action grounds her amidst the tears that just won’t stop, and she blinks up at him, once again overwhelmed by the tenderness of his touch, even in a situation like this.

His expression is pained, and his eyes are such a nice shade of blue. A peaceful colour, unlike her blood red. If she looks into them for too long she feels like he’ll see right through her, straight to the thorns in her heart. She averts her eyes, fixing them on a spot somewhere behind him.

“I’m a terrible fake wife,” she mumbles, before she can stop herself. “What kind of wife comes home after midnight covered in blood?” She was never cut out for this. She’s sorry she ever approached him, dragged him so close to the tangle of thorns that protect her secret. It was selfish. An arrangement of convenience, for an education for his daughter and for a cover for her assassin work. Looking at it now, the imbalance in motive is striking.

And yet, deep down, she truly cares about them. This family based on a premise of lies and facades has become her everything, irresistible warmth and a refuge in the turbulence of her double life. The thought of losing it is unbearable.

Loid’s hand guides her face so that she’s looking at him again. His expression is calm, the bags under his eyes and the set of his mouth the only signs of his less than composed state.

“We’ve been over this, Yor,” he says, kindly but firmly. “You’re doing fine, and it wasn’t your fault you were shot. It’s alright now, I’ve got you.” His thumb strokes her cheek, a calming rhythm in the midst of the cacophony of her emotions. Despite it all, she wants to savour this. It’s selfish, but she relaxes into the touch, nodding minutely.

They stay like that in silence for a while, until her tears subside, and the weight on her chest lifts just enough for her hands to stop shaking. When he seems satisfied that she’s calmed down, Loid wipes away the rest of her tears, hand moving back from her face. She almost follows the withdrawing touch, missing the comfort of it already. He gives her hand one last squeeze before letting go of it too, turning to the basin by the bed.

She’s suddenly very, very tired. Her shoulder aches, a dull and consistent thrum of pain, a physical reminder of her mistake. Her heart aches too, thumping weakly in her chest, trying to cope with her current loss of blood and the imminent loss of her family. She strains to keep her eyes open, focused on Loid, like he’ll disappear in a puff of smoke if she looks away.

He’s rinsing out the cloth he’d used to clean off the blood, the lines of his face paralleling the exhaustion she feels, highlighted by the bedside lamp’s soft glow. She forces herself to look at him, to commit the angles and slopes of his features to memory, the grey-blue of his eyes and the tousled blond hair that falls into his face, in case this is her last chance to see him like this, here in their home, just the two of them. When he’s done he turns, as if to leave. The panic is sudden and sharp, and Yor is reaching out before he can stop herself.

Her hand grabs his, holding him back. He turns to look at her, something unreadable brimming in his eyes. She doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t want this to be the end.

“Please don’t go,” she mumbles, through the tiredness. Everything is blurring again, and she clings to him like her life depends on it. He’s still for a moment, then he lets out an almost imperceptible sigh, shoulders slumping. He’s saying something, and she tries to focus on the words, but the exhaustion is winning its battle against her consciousness.

She doesn’t let go of his hand, a lifeline in the flood of sleepiness that seems intent on claiming her.

Distantly she feels the bed dip, then she feels him next to her, warm and solid, her head resting on his shoulder. It’s bittersweet, but she can’t help but savour the rays of contentment that stream through the dread of what is to come.

She vaguely registers the feeling of being shifted around, and then nothing.

Chapter Text

When Yor emerges back into wakefulness again, she’s lying down and the room is bright. For a moment she can’t remember what happened, blinking groggily against the daylight streaming in through the window. There’s a persistent pain in her shoulder, and she groans, trying and failing to shift into a more comfortable position.

She stares at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts. The previous night comes back to her in bits and pieces. The assassination, the shot, the blurry journey through town. Loid’s shocked face as she came into the apartment, Loid taking care of her. The panic, the dread, the looming knowledge that her secret was very close to being out in the open.

She swallows harshly, squinting against the light, unsure and adrift. The momentary bliss of sleepy ignorance fades away, and suddenly the weight in her chest is back in full force, worsened by the morning’s newfound clarity of thought.

The night had gone as badly as it possibly could, short of her showing up at home with a handwritten sign declaring that she’s an assassin. And not only had she failed to report the success of the assassination, she'd also left the scene in a hurry without covering her tracks. She squeezes her eyes shut.

The target had been a secretive man, and it had been a remote compound, so it was unlikely that the news of the massacre would get out too quickly. And hopefully her supervisor doesn't think too much of her late report. It'll be hard to report back for a while, she realizes. She's injured, and at this point, surely Loid must be suspicious of her. Despite his kindness in treating her wound, and the fact that he hadn’t asked any questions about how she got it, it was only a matter of time until he pressed for the answer.

If she told him the truth, he would want to tell the SSS, and she would have to kill him. If she made up an excuse, he could still be suspicious of her, and want to tell the SSS, and then she would have to kill him. Even if he doesn’t tell the SSS, if Garden were to become suspicious that he knew her identity, she would still have to kill him.

She really doesn’t know if she could. The mere image of his neck at the end of one of her needles, metal piercing skin, is too much for her to even think about.

This is the closest she has ever come to being exposed as an assassin, and it will be a miracle if she comes out unscathed. Even if she doesn’t (can’t) kill Loid, him finding out about her identity would probably mean the end of her time as a Forger. There’s no way he’d want someone with so much blood on their hands as a wife, even a fake one. Biting at her lip worriedly, she tries to organize her thoughts. Maybe she should get up and run away while she can.

Anya pops into her mind, and she lets out a sigh. By now she’s probably at school, and Yor is relieved that she’ll never get to see her the way she was last night, covered in blood, an embodiment of carnage. An intrusion into the safe space of her home. That’s what she is, ultimately. A poison to this little family that she has come to cherish so much.

Her eyes sting with unshed tears. She hadn’t realized how much she had truly come to love her home - the meals they shared, the feeling of Anya’s little hand in hers, Loid’s gentle smiles, their family outings, the warmth of every day spent with them - until she stood to lose it all. A few tears spill out over her cheeks, and she wipes at them, hastily. The action causes her to remember the sensation of Loid’s warm, calloused hand cupping her face the previous night, soothing away her tears.

Her face reddens slightly at the memory, at the recollection of his low, soothing voice talking her out of her panic. She marvels at how composed he’d been. He’s probably used to things like this from his job. Still, treating patients in a hospital as a psychiatrist and treating your own (fake) wife in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances are two different things.

Thoughts of Loid and last night remind her that he had been by her as she fell asleep, and panic settles back in as she realizes with a start that he’s no longer in the room. She scrambles to sit up and get the covers off with the arm that doesn’t hurt, worst case scenarios racing through her mind. He’s probably already gone to call the SSS to haul her away, or he’s taken Anya and gone as far away as possible-

The door creaks open, and Loid sticks his head into the room. His expression softens when he notices that she’s awake.

“You’re up,” he says, coming into the room and settling on the bed next to her, helping her into a sitting position more comfortable than she’d managed with just one arm. “How do you feel?”

He’s wearing his usual pleasantly disarming smile, but there’s a slight tenseness to the pull of his lips that makes the sight both comforting and unnerving all at once.

“I’m alright,” she says, clearing her throat to rid her voice of sleepiness. For a moment, there’s an awkward silence. Internally, Yor scrambles to find words that could somehow fix this and get rid of the dread that sits like lead in her chest.

“Loid, I’m so sorry for all this,” she begins, but Loid puts up a hand, smiling tiredly.

“You were shot Yor,” he reminds, not unkindly. “Someone shot you, and that was probably not your fault. As for me treating your wounds, I’m a doctor, that’s what we do.”

Yor nods, nervously, unease churning in her gut. There’s something off about Loid’s demeanor, but she can’t put her finger on what exactly. It’s not his nonchalance about treating a gunshot wound, odd as that is. He’s a doctor, yes, but psychiatrists don’t usually treat gunshot wounds, right? She wonders where he got the practice, because he very clearly knew what he was doing.

But no, the off feeling doesn’t come from that. There’s a stiffness to his smile and a wariness to his posture that speak of something opposite to nonchalance. Suspicion. Distrust. Anxiety. Whatever it is exactly, it hurts to know it’s there, as much as she’d expected it. Because normal people don’t come home with gunshot wounds. Normal people go to the hospital, and don’t make their fake husbands treat said gunshot wounds in the middle of the night.

But when has she ever been normal? She’s always known she isn’t considered normal, and as much as she tries not to let it faze her, it has always stung to have to live with that feeling of being on the fringe of everything, out of touch with everyone. But Loid had accepted her as she was, welcomed her into his family, let her become a part of his and Anya’s lives. Let her feel valued, at home, safe, loved. Respected her, her eccentricities, her past, her goals and desires. And this is how she repays that kindness, by crashing into his home in the middle of night, covered in blood.

Everyone has their limits. Surely this is too much, even for him.

Loid isn’t looking at her, but Yor can almost hear the question hanging in the air before he asks it.

“What happened?” he asks, finally, and though his tone is clipped, there's an undercurrent of worry to it.

"I, um… I was on the way home from the mixer…" she starts, fumbling awkwardly, and he nods, expression unreadable. "Uh, well, on the way home I was mugged, and one of them shot me. I managed to get away and in a daze I ended up here."

She almost cringes as the words come out of her mouth. Almost no one gets mugged in this part of Berlint, let alone at gunpoint. And if he asks why she didn’t go to a hospital, she has no excuse prepared. She doubts he’ll believe that she forgot. She can see her life as a Forger disappearing before her eyes, and she tries her best not to crumple under the wave of sadness that crashes into her.

There's a disappointed look in Loid's eyes that says that he doesn't believe her, and for a moment there’s a tense silence between them. She waits for the accusation, for the anger, for the end.

“Really?” Loid asks, simply. Yor shudders, but nods.

“Please don’t lie to me, Yor,” Loid says, and his tone is cold. Yor’s heart pounds in her chest, and for a moment she can’t speak.

“I was caught off guard,” she starts, haltingly. “I didn’t intend for any of this to happen, but unfortunately it did.” She swallows, looking away.

“If someone is hurting you, you can tell me, Yor,” he says, tone softening, and Yor shakes her head firmly. She can’t allow him to think that. Not when she’s already caused him so much stress.

“It’s nothing like that,” she says, hoping her voice isn’t wobbling. “I’m fine, I’m not in danger.” She pauses for a moment. Courage, Yor, she thinks. Everything is on the line here. Loid remains silent, waiting for her to continue with the same steely expression.

“It’s complicated,” she says, then stops. Her palms are sweaty and her head is starting to hurt. She wants to withdraw, to wrap her arms around herself and hide, but her shoulder protests the movement, sending pain shooting sharply through her body.

She has to press on. She owes Loid some kind of explanation, something to put his mind at ease after all she’s done to inconvenience him.

But she cannot tell him the truth.

“It was nothing dangerous,” she says. “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Technically it’s the truth. She should have left before the guards started to swarm the place.

She’s coming a bit too close to touching on the reality of the situation, so she stops there, looking up at Loid, hoping he’ll sense the sincerity in her words.

Loid’s expression is still scarily closed, blue eyes searching her face, like he can see right through her. It’s not an expression she’s ever seen on him before, cold and calculating, like a judge about to pass a verdict.

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” he asks, and she draws a blank.

“Um-” her voice is weak and unconfident, and she knows it’s a sloppy and obvious lie long before she says it. “I got lost?”

Loid frowns.

“Yor, I-” he starts, and something resolved and doubtful in his expression causes Yor’s panic to reach a peak. She’s speaking before she can stop herself, cutting him off.

“Please don’t ask me to tell you everything,” she chokes out. “Please. I don’t want to have to leave you and Anya.” She can’t bear to look at him, squeezing her eyes shut.

Loid blinks at her blankly, and she can almost hear the gears turning in his head, deciding her fate, raising the hammer to declare the verdict. A tense moment passes, then Loid takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and all of a sudden his face is filled with the exhaustion of someone fighting a losing battle. “Okay. Do you want me to report the incident to the police?”

“What?” Yor’s head snaps up, the knee-jerk fear that usually accompanies the mention of police reports coursing through her body, sudden and fierce.

“You were mugged,” Loid says, slowly, giving her a scrutinizing look. “It could be risky to leave the perpetrators roaming free.”

Yor shakes her head, violently. “No, it’s fine,” she stammers out. “They- I don’t remember enough about them for it to be worth it, really.”

Loid’s gaze has an intensity she can barely take the weight of. “Will you really be okay?” he asks, and the question carries an undertone of something genuine that gives it a grave air of something Yor can’t quite put her finger on.

“Yes,” she says, with conviction. “I doubt it will happen again.” It won’t. If she survives this, she’ll make sure to take extra precautions against large groups of guards in the future. And she won’t allow her work life to intersect with her family life ever again. If she even has a family life after today.

Loid looks at her like he knows exactly what she means, and it both scares and reassures her. He doesn’t respond immediately, pressing her to go on.

“I’m really sorry for the stress I must have caused you,” she says, voice soft. “I can’t expect you to forgive me for inconveniencing you like this, but I want you to know that I would never let myself get involved in anything that could bring harm to you or Anya.”

Loid remains silent, and a shiver of anxiety runs down Yor’s back. At this point Loid definitely knows she’s hiding something from him, but telling him the truth would do more damage than good here. It would put him at risk, and Anya too. She thinks about leaving Anya, and her heart twists in her chest. She kept her assassin job to protect the peace, to help create a world where her family could live and be happy. How ironic that it could end up being the thing that shatters that happiness.

It’s irrational, but despite everything, she hopes that Loid accepts this tentative compromise between truth and lie. She can hardly hope for him to trust her, since she is actually hiding something from him, but foolishly, she hopes he doesn’t ask further.

She thinks of that time at Camilla’s party, when all this had been fresh and new, when he’d looked at her with that amiable smile and validated her work in front of all her colleagues. He can’t have known the truth of it, but he looked right past the sneering and saw the heart of Yor’s intentions, the draw to persevere through hardship, through grueling client after client, in the pursuit of something greater, something kinder.

Perhaps he would understand, if she were to tell him. Perhaps he will understand why she can’t tell him. Selfishly, she hopes that that understanding that stood its ground in the face of Camilla’s attempts at jeering lets him see that there is a good reason why she can’t be honest, and she hopes he forgives her. It’s too much to ask that this doesn’t change anything between them, but nevertheless she hopes, with every desperate bone in her body, that this doesn’t have to be the end.

"Alright.” Loid says. “Would you like some breakfast?"

Yor blinks up at him blankly. His eyes are still tired, but there’s a clarity in his expression that wasn’t there before. He stares back at her nonchalantly, like her shoulder isn’t bloody under the careful white of the bandages and her lips and hands aren’t tainted with all the things she isn’t telling him. It’s a lifeline, an offered peace.

She takes it, and nods. He gives her a brief little smile, disappearing out of the room. Yor stares at her hands. They’re shaking. She’s shaking, the hope that had seemed nothing more than a futile and fleeting final comfort solidifying in her grip. She clings to it, with the cautious desperation of someone faced with something almost too good to be true.

There’s no way that Loid doesn’t know she’s hiding something. And yet, he isn’t angry, nor is he pushing for an answer. Yor isn’t sure he couldn’t pry the secret out of her, if he really put his mind to it. A sudden flash of paranoia wonders if he’s gone to report her anyway, but she hears the sounds of movement in the kitchen, the clacking of plates and pans, and it fades away.

She hugs a pillow to herself with her uninjured arm, tears springing back to her eyes. It doesn’t make any sense, logically. She is all but a stranger in his household, a stranger clearly hiding something dangerous from him. And yet Loid has extended that trust to her once more, that willingness to understand despite not knowing.

The hope intermingles with guilt, and gratitude, and for a moment all Yor can do is sit and feel it all, sorting through the emotions that tangle in her chest. The gratitude melts into something impossibly warm and tender, and Yor closes her eyes, listening to the sounds coming from the kitchen.

It almost makes her want to tell him everything. She doesn’t know if she’s brave enough for that yet, though.

She still hasn’t sorted her thoughts when Loid returns a while later with a plate of eggs and toast and a mug of tea on a tray. He sets it down so she can eat comfortably with her good arm, then sits down on the side of the bed, watching as she eats. There’s a quiet resignation in his eyes, and something else that she can’t quite figure out.

It’s difficult to quell the quiet awe in her expression as she steals glances at him between forkfuls of egg. He smiles back, eyes soft despite the tiredness in his face.

“Is Anya ok?” she asks, sipping the tea. Loid nods, running a hand through his hair.

“She went to school a few hours ago. I told her you weren’t feeling well.” He lets out a quiet huff of air that’s almost a laugh. “I don’t think she fully believed me.”

He’s silent for a moment. “I just didn’t want her to see you like this, not when I wasn’t sure you were completely okay yet,” he says eventually, and the somber look in his eyes causes the guilt to win its battle with the other feelings in her chest for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Yor says, frowning and looking away. She’s said it before, but she can’t help but say it again. He’s done so much for her, and all she does is cause him worry and anxiety. “I should have gone to a hospital instead of coming here, I don’t know what possessed me.”

Loid shakes his head. “It’s alright, Yor. Really.” His eyes are sincere, and for a moment she holds his gaze, soaking up the complicated emotions that flit through it. “I’m glad you trusted me enough to let me take care of you.”

Yor looks down at the tea in her hands, feeling its warmth through the mug.

“How could I not,” she says, quietly. “You’re always so good to me. More than I deserve, really.”

“Don’t say that,” Loid says, and his tone is clipped. “You’re my wife, and fake marriage or not we promised to be there for each other.”

The warmth in Yor’s chest seems to spread at the words, seeping into the small smile that settles on her face.

They sit in companionable silence for a bit, and Yor finishes her breakfast, wondering at the ever spreading feeling of warmth that doesn’t seem to have come from the tea.

“I know you aren’t telling me something,” Loid says, suddenly, and she starts at the comment, heart leaping to her throat. He doesn’t immediately continue, seemingly struggling with the rest of what he wants to say. “You more or less said as much earlier.”

“You also said that you’d never do anything to bring harm to me or Anya,” he says, and there’s a vulnerability in his expression she has never seen before. “But what about things that bring harm to you?”

“I-” Yor blinks, a lump forming in her throat.

It’s an odd feeling, knowing that despite everything, Loid is still invested in her safety. Despite the disturbance she had been, despite the ways she could pose a threat to him. It’s a mix of guilt, and a rather pleased feeling that hums at the knowledge that someone cares. She’s suddenly extra conscious of the white bandage covering her shoulder.

“I’m a difficult person to hurt.” she says, trying to keep her tone light, only half joking. She is. That isn’t to say she doesn't get hurt at all. But maybe before, when it was just her alone in her apartment, she could afford to get injured. Now she has a family, and a husband who is half aware of her secret, and she is less inclined to pay the price of injury, if only to just to keep that uncharacteristically panicked look from the previous night out of Loid’s expression.

“Well I want you to know that either way you're always safe here. With us. With me. No matter what happens.” Loid says, and Yor’s heart swells until it feels like it will explode in her chest. For most of her life, she hasn’t had the chance to rely on others. The thought that someone is willing to look past the blood and the carnage and extend care and concern to her is unspeakably precious.

“I don’t trust people easily,” Loid continues, quietly, and his tone is tinged with melancholy. “I often can’t afford to.”

“But I’m going to try and believe that you have your reasons.” His eyes are grave, and there is a hint of something that looks like anxiety in them. “Please don’t let me regret it.”

“Thank you,” Yor says, softly. It’s only two words, and she can only hope they carry the depth of the gratitude she feels. “I won't.”

“I’ll tell you one day,” she says, with quiet conviction. “I promise I will. When the time is right.”

Loid’s reply is so quiet she almost doesn’t hear it. “Likewise.”