Sergio gently nodded his head as she talked, so that she would understand that he was listening intently.
“I should have just done as he asked!” Marco said loudly, then halted herself and began again. “If I had just listened… maybe I could have gone with him to the Gardens… then he wouldn’t be—”
“You can’t think like that.” Sergio leaned forward, trying to physically interrupt her thought process with his hand held up.
“I had opportunities, so many chances to change my mind. I told Sacco over and over again that I couldn’t go with him. That was the deal, from the very beginning: if I chose to stay with Roten Spaten, then he would never make mention of me to anyone, to protect me. I guess he told Vera that I existed, but no other details, otherwise the Order might have contacted me first – like any other military wife whose husband—” Marco cut herself short with only a tiny squeak coming out and no more words, then she covered her eyes with her right hand.
“So what happened the last time you saw him?” Sergio urged her to talk again, so she wouldn’t succumb to an abyss of sorrow in her own mind. He knew what that abyss looked like.
She sniffed and rubbed the bridge of her nose but didn’t look up from the floor.
“There was a time he had asked me again to come with him and I told him that I wanted to but also why I couldn’t, and then for a while he didn’t ask about it although he still came to see me. Only Sacco would come alone in the tunnel from Paveletskaya, so if we ever heard footsteps, we knew who it was.”
Sacco walked slowly along the tracks, his massive strides consuming three cross ties at a time, although he was holding himself back. He hadn’t traveled to see her in several weeks and regretted that now he was coming to tell her of his uncertainties about his upcoming expedition. Not because she deserved to hear what he was involved in, but because she was one of the very few people in his life that cared – that wanted to know. When last they spoke, she had again turned down his plea to go to Polis, and so this time he intended not to ask or even to mention it at all. But trying to decide what he should say first was taking far too long to figure out, and thus his steps grew ever slower the closer he got to her station.
He stepped into the service room corridor hesitantly just before the platform at Avtozavodskaya, pulling off his helmet entirely and placing it on one of the tables by the door.
Marco could recognize him by the sound of his balanced footsteps, the sound of his armor and equipment shifting, although she knew he could be almost completely silent if he wanted to. Turning away from her book, sitting by the warm stove, she instantly put the volume down and hurried over to him. The way he had stopped just inside the door frame was not a good sign, and judging from the dead expression on his face she knew something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” She eyed him suspiciously, taking his automatic weapon from his hands and laying it beside his helmet on the table.
“You know me too well.” He attempted to smile, but the forced expression wasn’t enough to convince her otherwise. “I’m going on a dangerous mission.”
“When is it ever not dangerous?” She said tentatively, not daring to suggest that they sit down to talk about it. Clearly something was different this time; he seemed hurried, as if trying to tell her goodbye as quickly as possible to lessen the pain of having to leave. “Please, tell me.”
“It’s the attacks in the north; I’ve been hearing the rumors more lately. My old friend Sukhoi at Exhibition is the security chief; he can tell me the truth about these happenings. The perpetrators are relentless and they threaten to invade the entire The Subway if something isn’t done to avert them.” Sacco adjusted his stance, shifting from one foot to the other. “We need more information so that we can strike against them precisely. I have to find out where they are coming from before more people are killed.”
“You’re going alone?” Marco took a step closer to him.
“Vera can’t spare anyone; he won’t listen. It’s up to me to search them out.” He said flatly, trying not to look into her eyes.
“You can’t go without a full patrol, and to where – from the surface? Then you would be in their territory where they tread daily and you are essentially feeling around in the darkness!” Marco pleaded her case convincingly, but he avoided the depths of her eyes at all costs.
Only one person in the whole underground world could make him doubt himself; it was both the blessing and curse of entrusting your heart to another. But he had already made up his mind to go north, and he couldn’t put aside the lives of every survivor in the Subway simply because she was worried about the unknown danger that was inherently involved. After all, he would ultimately be protecting her, too.
“It’s just a reconnaissance mission, I have to find their source, or where they are coming in from. Figure out exactly what these new mutants are. I don’t aim to do battle with them but if that’s what it comes to – so be it.” He clenched his fists.
“Let me go with—”
“No, Marco.” His use of her name stunned her momentarily. He knew she would ask, and although he didn’t have a particularly good reason to deny her, something deep in his gut told him that he needed to do this alone. He could not risk her safety so far from her home station, and if Vera found out that he had included her as an accessory in his mission to convince the Order to mobilize against this new threat, there would be hell to pay. “This is my duty alone. It is different from what I have trained you for, these creatures supposedly attack psychologically.”
“You’ve already decided everything.” She sighed, defeated, taking one of his hands with both of her own. “You can’t just… I-I need you.”
“You don’t need me; you learned everything I had to teach long ago.” He said coldly, attempting to begin severing his link to her in case the impossible odds finally outweighed his effort. But at second thought, he knew that all she was looking for was reassurance, and so he tried again in a different voice. “You’re stronger than you know.”
“Maybe that’s true… but I want—”
“I know what you want, Marco, but this was also your choice, and you know that I can not involve you in this. That’s why I kept it a secret! If anything ever happened to you…” His harsh appearance folded, the stoic mask he had tried to keep plastered over his affections cracked and he couldn’t hide behind it anymore. Stepping closer, he gently stroked her face with one hand and committed as much of her flawless visage as he could to memory.
“Please, this is too much for you to do alone.” Tears had gathered in her storm grey eyes, filled with genuine worry, and she pressed his hand tighter against her cheek in hopes to anchor him there forever.
“Remember what I told you.” With his free hand he untucked the brass cartridge from her shirt to remind her of their pact. Then, almost using the string as leverage, he leaned down and kissed her squarely on the lips. She relaxed slowly, and he lingered for as long as he dared before he felt that her fearful and passionate energy would start to overwhelm him and force him to change his mind and stay here with her forever.
“Sacco…” She breathed in a whisper, holding him as closely as she could before he pulled fully away from her. “I’ll go with you, okay? When you return from the surface, I’ll go with you to Polis.”
“Then I have to come back.” He smiled genuinely, wrapping his arms around her thin frame, even with the melancholy undertone he hoped it came across as sincere.
“Please be careful.” She cooed next to his ear, and he struggled with himself to release her.
“We will speak again soon.” He said as he always did before leaving her, rubbing her soft cheek with his fingertips before turning away. He took his helmet from the table and fitted it snugly on his head before grabbing his machine gun and heading out the door.