To the locals, the street was anything but quiet, hundreds of footsteps and rumbling engines the ambient soundtrack to the perpetual motion of a midday commute. To one drop in this sea of pedestrians, however, this noise—this normalcy—represented a unique silence. He was happy for it: he remembered the city in far darker times, one in which actual silence meant nothing but anxiety, the warm-up before a garish symphony none here would willingly attend. Such was the paradox of his career: he was the conductor that hoped never to wave his baton.

He'd retired from that orchestra a couple years back. He'd toured the world on official business; now he was revisiting those stops at a tourist's leisure. Sure, he was a professional, had seen his ensemble through what might very well prove the concert of the century... but he much preferred this amateur noise. It proved the audience had recovered.

Legendary though he was both before and after, without his uniform there was little to attract attention from the parade of self-interested citizens marching past—not that he sought it. These complete strangers may very well owe their lives to him, but he much preferred the mantle of invisible guardian angel. He was, first and foremost, a public servant, even in those lands beyond his official jurisdiction. He'd done his duty to the best of his ability; that's all that really mattered in the end, and he would've been just as content to die without any recognition at—

"Max?"

He froze in his tracks. It was a soft call, the kind one picks up only because the names match, quickly dismissed as conversation between travelling partners. But he knew the voice, knew it was directed at him. He turned about and, even in the crowd, instantly spotted her several metres afield. "Kimi!" he exclaimed, his face a mix of confused delight. She sported her winter coat but otherwise looked the same as last they'd met—good Lord, how long was it now? Already he was threading his way through the human currents to the gentle shore of the sidewalk's far end. He didn't wonder what had brought her here, now; she was a free spirit, and indeed their very first encounter had arisen from not-dissimilar happenstance.

Wrapping her arms around his neck she pulled him in for a peck on each cheek. "Of all the side-streets in all the towns in all the world..." he deadpanned. Try as he might, three seconds later his face split into a wide grin. "It's good to see you."

"Likewise." A moment's silence as the wanderers simply stood, gazing at one another. His stream of consciousness was like a river squeezing itself through a kitchen funnel, thoughts and feelings good and bad cascading over each other in a dizzying montage. "Come," she declared, seizing his hand and practically dragging him down the street, "I know a good café down the block." A couple minutes later they were seated on opposite sides of a window table, steaming tea at each setting. It was just like the old days, he thought, before the magnum opus, when it all seemed so clean and simple and they were free to play this game without regret... He was only retired a few years and already it seemed like a lifetime past.

"No missus?" she asked casually, eyeing the fingers clutched around the cup.

"No," he muttered, "Never had time to ply those waters."

"You aren't married to your work now," she teased, "You are free to live again."

He smirked. "Maybe you set the bar too high?"

"In which case I should apologize for leading you astray," she grinned.

"...But?"

"Neither of us really regret it."

Trying to hide his smile, he took a sip from the cup. Her own fingers were bare, but given how much her work and play tended to overlap it only really meant the probability that her husband wasn't in town—very little was ever certain with those two. She'd told him once that all of Vegas couldn't break her knot, and it had most devoutly tried; whatever her reputation, in the end she was unshakeably loyal to her household, and indeed husband and wife made the most formidable pair he'd ever met. While he counted himself within her inner circle of intimates, they had never crossed that line—he didn't have the gall to ask, and despite her own teasing she never pushed it further.

But she was an invaluable confidante, able to pierce through his public persona to the human being beneath, deeper than his church, or indeed his own family, what little remained. Whenever the symphony became too much, pushed him to the verge of a breakdown, she was there to hold his hand, guide him through. He looked up into her face, her eyes—those arresting hazel eyes that so often laid him bare regardless of his state of dress... Even now, even after, they hadn't lost their shimmer, her aura seemingly undiminished. Of course, professionals were trained never to leave marks...

"I'm sorry," he said, softly.

"It wasn't your fault."

"That's what they all tell me, but..."

"You did the best you could."

"I could have done more." He leaned forward, arms sliding across the table. "I was chief of staff, I should've stood up, I should've—" Glancing away he lightly bit his fist, a rare moment of losing control. "Responsibility for an entire army, and I couldn't save just one more..."

"Max," she said, taking his hands in hers, "Your staff supported you, that's all the vindication you need. Britannia was out for blood. If you'd dug your heels in, they'd've had you sacked, branded a traitor, and replaced with one of their own—one without your rules of engagement."

"You weren't even a combatant," he gritted his teeth.

"But I was family to the Public Enemy №1. Brabant's witch-hunt was in full swing. To Altown, the war was vendetta. No citizen was safe; we knew that from the start." Pressing his hands together, she leaned in, fixing him with an unblinking stare. "You were a general; I was a foreign national implicated with the enemy. I wasn't your responsibility."

After a moment he bowed his head, conceding defeat. With a coy grin she nudged his nose with hers, and they returned to their tea in silence. She was right, of course: he'd been lauded for his unwavering sense of duty both to the soldiers under his command and his approach to civil–military relations as a whole—she'd said herself it was part of what made him so fascinating. And yet it did look ridiculous how far he'd stuck his neck out on her behalf, especially given he couldn't prove she hadn't been funnelling military information to the foe.

Yet what was any relationship, but a gamble of trust?

He looked her over again, searching. Altown wasn't known for respecting its opponents even on a good day, but the bloodlust in that war bordered on genocidal. She noticed his gaze, and guessed what he was thinking. "The first few weeks were the worst," she said matter-of-factly, "There's guilt by association, and then there's figuring I was second-in-command of the whole enterprise. They wanted names, they wanted plans, they scrabbled for even the tiniest scrap of a detail, right down to what watch he wore. Hanford was dead by then but his thinking lived on: sleep deprivation, starvation, confinement worthy of contortionists; the works." She sipped her tea, utterly nonchalant, as though recounting a trip to the grocer's and not state-sponsored terrorism. "I never gave them what they wanted, just recited passages from the legal code and Bill of Rights. You could practically hear their minds seizing up from the doublethink." She sniffed. "Eventually they gave up on hardball but held me as leverage, thinking they might goad him into some desperate jailbreak, overplay his hand and grab his Achilles' heel or some such. Then they signed the treaty, emergency powers were revoked, and several thousand ex-prisoners launched a class-action suit."

His tongue drew circles in his mouth as he grappled with the follow-up question, eyes darting to her hands again. He made to speak, but once again she'd anticipated the query. "They wanted him dead or alive. They opted for the former. There was a firefight; a crack squad got publicly shown up and he went underground. Try as they might they could never find him. Surfaced in France at war's end. They still don't know how he did it." She looked out the window, a mirthless grin on her lips. "The greatest democracy in the world..."

He sat in silence, trying to think of a proper response that felt more and more crucial as the clock ticked on. Eventually he fell back to the default reply to any traumatic event. "Kimi, I—"

"Don't apologize on their behalf," she said gently, turning back in an instant. "Britannia knows its sins, and is answering for them." Gliding her arms across the table, she slid her palms over his knuckles. "You played your part far more nobly than others in your position, and I will never forget that. Besides," she brightened up, "Equilibrium has been restored and we finally have a stable peace. I'd say it all worked out in the end."

He couldn't help but laugh. "I never will figure you out, will I?"

"You've life yet," she grinned, "You can still try."

They finished their tea—she insisted on taking the bill—and stepped back out into the cold. "How do you do it?" he turned to her.

"The same way you do," she grinned, "Say: 'There are people out there that need help. I'm gonna do my best to be there for 'em.'" Taking his hands she pulled him down for parting kisses. "Call me any time; I might even be in town." With a wink, she turned and walked away. He was about to call after her that he didn't have her number, but realized she'd put something in his hand—a small orange origami flower, intricately crafted. He smiled, shaking his head. Tucking the memento into his breast pocket he sighed, straightened out, and carried on.