Status: in progress and will be finished this year wohoo and will probably get a sequel

Unravel

XIII

“This is a disaster.” Elizabeth giggled, letting her chopsticks clatter onto her plate. “I’m getting you a fork.”

Despite the less than amused look on James’ face she grabbed the broken pieces of what used to be his chopsticks and made her way towards the kitchen.

She probably should have seen it coming. Superhuman strength probably wasn’t going to go well with two tiny and easily breakable pieces of wood. It wasn’t that he couldn’t hold them correctly; he was actually rather skilled at picking up anything from spring rolls to chow mein. But the concentrated looks on his face before the chopsticks snapped in half made her question how she could ever have been scared of that man in the first place. Sure, he could snap wood with his pinky if he wanted to but he hadn’t hurt her or Vito yet and she hoped he kept his word of not doing so anytime soon.

Pulling open her cutlery drawer, she was suddenly interrupted by her phone going off. There weren’t too many possibilities when it came to who it could be who was calling her, so she wasn’t too surprised when Ewan’s name flashed across the screen accompanied by the frantic vibrating of her phone.

Grabbing the promised fork and bumping the drawer closed with her hip, she reached out to pick up the phone. “Ewan? What’s up?”

“Just checking in to see how you’re doing. I almost miss you at work,” Ewan answered and Elizabeth could sense he was smiling. “No, seriously. How are you holding up?”
Elizabeth sighed and turned to look out of the window in her kitchen. It looked like it was about to rain. “I’m good, just bored and pissed off. But I’ll be fine. How are things at work? Any idea when they’ll let me come back?”

Ewan paused before answering and Elizabeth could almost guess what his answer would be. She wouldn’t be allowed back at work any time soon.

“It’ll still take another week, most likely two before they’re finished with everything.”
Elizabeth groaned at the predictable answer and threw the fork in her hand into her sink with more force than necessary.

“I’m going crazy... You know that, right? I need to work! Otherwise I am a completely useless human being and there’s only so many tricks I can teach Vito. I’m so close to teaching him to bring me my toothbrush in the morning. Do you hear me? Please tell me they at least found something.”

Ewan sighed at the other end of the phone before answering. “They’ve only got one other suspect for now. You know Agent Estevez? The new one?”

“Marie?” Elizabeth asked when it hit her why exactly that Agent had been singled out alongside of her. Now she knew whose file shredder she had used. “Oh god.”

“Yeah, it came as a shock to most of us, too.” Ewan replied, mistaking her guilt for shock. “The evidence against her was a bit more solid, though, so you know what that means.. But there’s literally nothing I can do for you. I was the first one to be questioned because of my affiliations with you and I’ve never been questioned so thoroughly before, Liz. Don’t think they want us to know but they seem pretty pissed off and scared. I haven’t seen Hawk since two weeks or so, either. It’s strange.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and turned away from the window, only to be startled by James standing at the entrance of her kitchen. “Shit.” Then he smirked.

“Liz?”

“Right, sorry, I just bumped into the table.” Elizabeth glared at James who acted like he hadn’t just creeped up on her. Instead he kept looking at the wall by her kitchen where she had hung up a few pictures of her family.

“Right,” Ewan replied, obviously suspicious but continuing anyway. “I’ll keep you updated, alright?”

“Yeah, alright. Thanks, Ewan,” she replied and hung up, keeping a close eye on James who had kept studying the pictures curiously. Putting the phone down onto the counter, she braced herself for the upcoming conversation. “What do you want to know?”

“What?” Came his short reply. He still didn’t talk all too much.

“I know a whole lot more about you than you probably want me to,” Elizabeth told him with a shrug and stepped closer to take a look at the pictures herself. “Figured it shouldn’t hurt to answer a few questions you might have.”

Both were silent for a few moments before James finally stated what she had anticipated. “I know him.”

She let out a breath and nodded. After all he had said that he remembered quite a bit. “Yeah, I know.” Taking the picture off the wall, she studied it more closely. It was a picture of her and her brother in front of their childhood home, seated on the steps leading up to the terrace, and their father and grandfather standing beside them. “He’s my grandfather. James Montgomery Falsworth.” Elizabeth looked at him to gauge his reaction but his expression didn’t shift one bit so she continued, slowly and more somber than before. She didn’t know what he was feeling or even thinking, being confronted with this information. “He died about fifteen years ago but he kicked butt until his last breath. My dad was obsessed with all of these stories he used to tell and it motivated him to join the Army. I was more or less forced to learn everything there was about the Howling Commandos, you see. Did you never question how I figured out who you were while a bunch of government officials with the same intel didn’t?”

“I had my theories,” he answered but went eerily silent after that, studying the picture even closer than before. His almost normal sociable behaviour from before had vanished completely and all Elizabeth had been left with was this vessel of a man who was still trying to garner a lot of his missing memories.

Deciding to give him peace and quiet she hung the picture on the wall again and with one last look she told him, “If you have any questions about yourself or any of them you can ask me. You know that, right?”

She guessed he knew who she meant with ‘them’ though she didn’t elaborate. He seemed too deep in thought to even notice she had spoken. She thought about giving him a supportive and friendly pat on the back but decided against it, and with a nod of her head she left him to it, the food on the table forgotten by both of them.

////

After a while of him staring at the picture in her kitchen, he had retreated back into Elizabeth’s guest room. He hadn’t come out the rest of the evening but she guessed that was somewhat normal for someone in his situation and she didn’t want to pressure him into thinking about any aspects of his former life he might not want to grapple with at the moment. However, when he suddenly stood in her kitchen the next morning, with dark circles under his eyes which Elizabeth knew weren’t usually that prominent, she knew he had anyway.

“Did you ever meet the rest of them?”

She knew who he meant. “Yeah, when I was a kid,” she told him and wiped down the countertop.

“Your last name, it’s not…”

“My mom and dad never married and it just stuck after she died.” She knew he tried to piece everything she had told him together. It probably had come as a shock to him.

He nodded softly and pinched his eyes shut for a short moment before continuing. “Can you remember some of the stories he told you?”

Elizabeth froze but not out of shock. It was more out of heartbreak for the man in front of her. By the look of his face, the day before as well as right then, she knew that he definitely hadn’t anticipated being confronted with his past by forming an alliance with a strange woman. She looked up at him and nodded with a small smile. “Make yourself comfortable in the living room, I’ll be there in a second.”
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's monday again whew

I still feel like I got hit by a car but I'm gradually getting better. But since I lost a lot of time where I should have been doing stuff for uni I'm not sure whether I'll be able to update next monday. If I can't make it, I'll update sometime during the week!

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think!