Work Text:
Everything seemed normal that day, as it does, before something unusual happens. There may have been hints, written in the streets or the stars, but Alma didn’t notice them as she caught the train back from the office, even as she was walking up the stairs to her apartment.
It wasn’t until she walked in the door and the lights were already on that her hand automatically went to her sidearm.
But then came flowers, and that sweet voice saying, “bonjour,” just American enough so she could recognize it, just French enough that she knew he could do better.
“Dylan,” Alma said, knowingly, her voice a wisp on her breath.
“Hello again, Alma,” he said again. He lowered the flowers (they had been produced from up his sleeve, but looked no worse for wear), and behind them, she saw his face. Wrinkled, twinkling eyes, and a smile. Behind the flowers, she noticed the changes in the time since she’d last seen him. His hair was longer, less maintained. He had a beard. He was not the same hard to read detective she’d worked with. There was a happiness—a vulnerability—in him she didn’t see before.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said. She reached behind her and closed and locked her apartment door. “How did you get in here?”
He shrugged, walking into the kitchen as if he owned the place. “Nothing’s ever locked,” he reminded her. “Tea?”
“You made tea?” she asked, pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah, well.” Dylan leaned back against the counter, taking a sip from one of Alma’s cups. He looked just at home, standing in her white tiled kitchen, like he belonged as an ex-pat, living in France with her. He watched her from over the rim of her own cup, and she knew he must have dug through the cabinets to find them, because she didn’t often drink tea. “I got tired of waiting for you to come home.”
“You are unbelievable.”
He laughed, and it was genuine, and it was sweet.
“Dylan, what are you doing here? You know if they find out you came here…”
“They won’t find out.”
“I am already being watched closely, Dylan…”
“Alma,” he said sharply. This was the Dylan Rhodes she was familiar with--the brusque, American detective. He softened instantly after the initial bite, melting like a pot of chocolate. “They won’t find out.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, knowing she couldn’t win, and that she didn’t particularly want to. “Fine. Have a seat, although it seems you’ve already made yourself comfortable.”
Dylan found a spot on her sofa, still sipping his cup of tea as she set her work bag down in her bedroom. She closed the door to her bedroom and went back to fill a vase with water for the flowers Dylan had given her. She watched him from the kitchen as his eyes wandered around the apartment. It was a minimalist apartment with large windows and lots of books. He’d taken a few books on magic from her shelf and had flipped through them while he waited for her, and they sat on the coffee table in the middle of her living room now.
Alma came around to him, setting the flowers on the table next to the books Dylan had picked out. She sat next to him, in the armchair next to the sofa. They stared at each other, and Alma knew that this time, he was an open book. He could be hard to read, yes, but he had faith in her.
“What brings you to France?” she asked.
He avoided her look. “I, uh… wanted to see you.”
“You came all the way to France just to see me?” It was not a nice tone she took.
“I did.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Alma…” he started.
“If you need a favor, Dylan, you can just ask me.”
“I just need you to listen, okay?” he asked, and the desperation in his voice surprised her. “There’s nobody else. Nobody I can talk to--nobody understands like you do.”
“Understands what?”
“I thought… Thaddeus Bradley… I thought he killed my father.” Dylan’s eyes were firmly planted to the left of Alma, towards the exit of the apartment. “For 30 years, I… I put everything into punishing him, getting my revenge.”
Alma nodded, crossing her arms. This was a conversation they had had before. “And the revenge? Did it make you feel better?”
“He didn’t kill him. They were friends. Thaddeus Bradley and my father, they… it was a joint act.” Dylan’s head dropped, he rubbed his knuckles. “He let it play out, kept an eye on me.”
She sighed, lightly, watching the top of his head. Dylan sucked in a shaky breath.
“What else happened?” she asked, leaning down to see him.
Dylan rubbed his face, cover whatever it was he was trying to hide.
Alma took his wrist in one hand, his face in the other, as she moved to sit on the table, closer to him. He leaned his cheek into her hand, and his eyes were shaky and wet.
“You know, Alma, I… I was in the FBI for so many years. I got threatened and shot and beat, but nothing…” He paused to take a breath, and his eyes fluttered closed. “… nothing was as terrifying as being stuck in that safe, thinking I was gonna die like my father did.”
“You almost drowned?” Her voice was pitchy. She cleared her throat. “Tressler and his son put you…?”
Dylan nodded before she could finish.
When she didn’t say anything, he opened his eyes and smiled just a little.
“This is what you wanted to talk about? Your father?”
“You were so interested in him before,” he said, matter-of-factly. He took her hand that was still on his cheek in his, and kissed her fingers lightly. “I thought you might still be interested in his son, too.”
She chuckled through tears of her own. “They had to cut down the Pont des Arts.”
“I saw,” he said with a nod.
“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”
“Me too.”
“Did you really come just to see me?”
He laughed bashfully. “I did,” he admitted, lowering his gaze. “I also… came to give you this.”
Dylan reached into his pocket. He took Alma’s hands and put a heavy object in them, closing her hands around it.
“Dylan?”
“I don’t… know if I can come again.”
He brushed his fingers over hers.
“You’ll have to hold onto this for now. This meeting, too,” he said. “Is it okay if the meaning of our secret changes?”
She looked up at him, but his eyes were still on their hands, interlocked. “Dylan?” she asked again, softly, in the quiet of the sunset of her room.
“If you come to Macau, I’ll find you,” he promised.
He leaned forward and kissed her, never letting go of her hands.
And just as quickly as he’d come, he was gone again. This time through the windows next to them. She tried to catch him, to see him leaving, but he was lost in the crowd already. Alma sighed, closing the window and turning back to her apartment, finding just small signs that she had had company. The cup of tea, the misplaced books…
There was a letter sitting on the table, where she’d been sitting.
And in her hands was the lock they’d put on the Pont des Arts.
She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve as she opened the letter. It was an apology for not coming to see her earlier, a confession that he missed her, and the promise to keep these things secret so she could keep her job.
In the bottom on the envelope was the key to the lock.
Alma stood up again and went to her balcony, locking the lock on the railing. She then went inside and stashed the key and the letter in one of the books before putting them back in their space on the shelf and washing the dishes, erasing any evidence that she had any company.