Chapter Twenty

A.N. Sorry, these final updates are coming at you very fast. Only one more (long) chapter and an epilogue left. Gonna miss these stubborn fucks a lot, but have a TLOU fic I've been sitting on that I'm going to start shortly. Appreciate all the love on this fic and my last one <3

Emma exhaled, arms quivering as she yanked the heavy keg through the back door of the bar, beginning to drag it behind the counter.

"Could I help at all with that?" The new guy asked... well, not super new, he'd shown up a couple days after Javier left, which was nearly three weeks ago now. Charles was his name. He rarely spoke, mostly just sat at the bar, slowly sipping Guinness, eyes meticulously scanning the patrons around him.

"That's okay." She huffed, shoulders feeling like they might pop from her sockets as she finally fitted the thing into the fridge.

Three weeks.

It felt twenty times longer than that.

The absence of him was everywhere, it existed as a heavy weight in her chest, occupying so much space that it was hard for her to breathe.

She'd been having nightmares, almost every night. Sometimes it was just her, locked in that room, tied to that chair, screaming for him. Sometimes it was just him, alone in some jungle in Columbia, being hunted by large armies of men with machine guns. Sometimes it was both of them together, but not, always separated by something, a crack in the Earth or an impenetrable crowd of people. She never got to dream of him close to her, holding her, never got to re-enter that asylum that she so desperately missed, needed so severely.

Her eyes were perpetually swollen, but the rest of her face looked hollow, like she was haunted, like she'd aged ten years in the last three weeks.

She was just shuffling along, trying to drag herself though each day at a time. But she had a hard time paying attention, staying awake. Several times, at the bar, she'd zoned out so intensely that Nick or Charles or Ethan or Martin would have to cross the threshold of the bar, tap her on the arm and bring her back to reality. She felt like a walking carcass, an empty vessel, something that wasn't quite human, but that hurt like a human, grieved like one.

She wore his jacket every day, slept with it, cradled it against her chest like it was a living thing. It was starting to smell more like her than him and she wished she possessed the self-restraint to leave it be, in some desperate attempt to keep his smell alive, but she couldn't. It was the only thing she had of his, the only thing that proved that he was real, that she hadn't just made him up as a way to cope.

She had tried to find him, against his orders. Called the US Embassy in Columbia asking about him. They said they couldn't give out any information about their agents to civilians. She'd then tried to do some digging, find his father's name, his address, any information about his family in Texas. But she didn't know the town name he'd lived in, and there were more Peña families there than she could feasibly contact.

She didn't know what she would do if she found him. She just wanted to hear his voice one more time, wanted to cement it into her memory. She'd never gotten a chance to do that, never even got to say goodbye.

The phone in the back rang and Emma felt her shoulders sink as she shuffled her way through the doors, exhaling sharply before she picked up the receiver.

"Fireside bar, Emma speaking." She recited, not sounding nearly as chipper as Martin liked.

The line was silent.

"Hello?" She said, hearing a faint echo of voices in the distance, but that was it.

Nothing.

"Martin?"

Nothing.

She exhaled then hung up.

It was probably some kids, bored after school, flipping through the yellow pages.

_________

"Fireside bar, Emma speaking."

He covered the receiver with his hand, tears pricking the corners of his eyes as he choked.

Oh God he'd missed her voice, so much, so much that in an especially deep bout of desperation, he'd called the bar, knowing she'd be there, Charles had already confirmed.

"Hello?"

Hearing her was a marriage of relief and agony. He'd missed the sound so much, but knowing he couldn't reach through the phone, knowing he couldn't touch her, made his heart plummet into his stomach.

"Martin?"

He wished he could keep her there longer, wished he could respond without her knowing it was him. She sounded tired... She sounded like she was in pain, the reality of it ripped him open. He was no longer just imagining it, or hearing Charles's detached summation, he could hear the strain in her voice, the distress in the way her tone bounced, all wobbly and uncertain... so unlike the way she normally spoke, clear and concise, demanding attention.

At the click of the receiver he exhaled, dead heart pounding in his chest.

He'd initially told Charles to update him once a week.

Instead, Javier had been calling him at least twice a day, deranged and feening, like an addict slipping into relapse.

Nothing was going well. The investigation into the Mexican cartels was just as shrouded in bureaucratic bullshit as it had been over in Columbia. Even if he had been thinking clearly, which he most certainly was not, it still wouldn't have mattered, nothing here could ever get accomplished without bending the rules, stepping on some toes, and he'd promised himself he wouldn't do that this time around.

He couldn't sleep, and when he did it was torture, persistent nightmares, always about her. He'd wake up in a panic, heart pounding, limbs trembling, sheets absolutely drenched in sweat. He'd force himself to wait, wait until he got to the field office or the Embassy before he called Charles for a wellness check. It was always one of the same mumbled answers: She's at home, sir. She's at the bar, sir. She's at the beach, sir.

He tried to nudge him for more details, but Charles was a man of few words, and even fewer thoughts.

So, in his desperation he'd called her himself, hoping for some clarity, hoping that hearing her voice again would feed the insatiable ache deep in his bones, at least for a bit. All it had done was make him want to call her again, again, and again.

"Peña." One of the bright-eyed agents, young and unscathed enough to still enjoy the work, knocked on his door, peeking his head into his office. "The Ambassador wants to speak with you."

Javier exhaled sharply, pushing his fingers through the front of his hair.

"Alright, thanks." He muttered, chair scraping across the floor as pushed himself up with a grunt.

He didn't feel good. His back fucking hurt, it felt like he had a splitting headache more often than not, and there was a large, brutal cavity in his chest that felt like it grew larger with each passing day.

"Ambassador." Javier chirped as he entered his office.

"Peña, please take a seat." He said, gesturing to one of the empty chairs in front of his desk after looking up from the papers he was reading.

Javier sat down, his knees cracking as he did.

"Agent, I'm going to cut straight to the chase," The Ambassador said, folding his hands and placing them on top of his desk. "Do you know how many strings I pulled to get you down here?"

"I would guess quite a few, sir."

The Ambassador nodded, "More than a few, that's for certain."

Javier's jaw twitched with a small click.

"I was willing to pull those strings, because despite your colorful reputation, I know you can get things done, I know you can put narcos behind bars, but a small reminder that I have not seen that happen, not up close and personal, ​​Peña, only through the words of my colleagues and press conferences on the television. You have to earn your keep here, this isn't Columbia."

Javier felt that cavity in his chest boil with annoyance, his jaw taut and aching as he gave the Ambassador a quick, curt nod.

"Understood sir." It was closer to a growl than anything else.

The Ambassador nodded, then motioned to the door with a quick flick of his eyes. "You're dismissed."

Power hungry, dismissive, bureaucratic motherfucker.

Javier marched from the room, shaking his head as he returned to his office.

He didn't fucking want to be here, of course he wasn't making any headway, because he didn't fucking care anymore. He had no other choice, though. Right?

Emma's pained voice flashed through his brain again.

He lit a cigarette, puffing greedily around the filter, trying to get the nicotine to drive away the dull drilling in his temples.

Oh God, he missed her, how much longer could he go on missing her this much without reprieve?

_________

Emma wasn't paying attention, she was rarely paying attention anymore as she poured Nick another Coors, only snapping back into the room when the bubbling, piss-colored liquid started cascading down the cup and over her fist.

"Fuck." She muttered, placing the glass down and grabbing a rag.

"That's the third time this week." Nick muttered as he leaned over the counter, giant bulk of his stomach pressing into the bar as he grabbed his overflowing glass.

Emma didn't respond, not with a muttered insult or a quick rebuttal. She just exhaled slowly, drying her hand off with the rag before dropping it back onto the counter.

"Your boyfriend not coming back, hon? That what got you so down?" Nick asked, a mouthful of beer.

Emma bit down hard on her bottom lip, which had just recently healed, along with her cheek, desperately trying to swallow the lump in her throat, attempting to look distracted by an invisible spot on the back counter.

"He was an asshole, anyway. You're better off." Nick grunted with a shrug of his shoulders.

"He's not an asshole!" Emma snapped, then sunk a bit as she came to terms with the fact that those words had audibly left her mouth. "And he wasn't... wasn't my boyfriend."

No, not boyfriend. Just the only person in the entire world she'd ever felt comfortable opening up around, the only person who made her feel safe, the only person she'd ever trusted.

She felt the thread holding her together snap, almost audible in her head as her vision went all wobbly and blurred, hot tears springing up in her eyes faster than she could halt them.

Nick coughed, and Charles, who had his fist wrapped around his almost untouched pint of Guinness, reached into his pocket to pull out his phone.

No one fucking cared about her, not anymore.

She pushed her way into the back room, collapsing onto the worn office chair in the back and curling forward, shoulders hunched as a sob lurched itself out of her from deep, deep in the pit of her gut.

Why, why had he left her alone like this? After tearing her apart and forcing her to be something soft?

Her breathing was coming out in short, gulping bursts, her lungs begging for oxygen as her body used all its energy to push long, heaving sobs out of her.

She wrapped her arms around herself, like she was trying to hold herself together, as if she might just come undone, limbs tumbling onto the floor, ribs cracking open, heavy, throbbing heart a bleeding offering in her lap.

It hurts so much, could anything ever hurt like this?

Her mind, an awful, terrible thing, flashed images before her as some means of further torture: Her crying, months ago, after having that dream about Javier getting shot, how he'd forced his way into the back room when he heard her crying, held her tight against his chest even after she'd berated him, his rich, vibrating baritone hushing her. "Let it out, I'm right here, I won't let go until you're done."

No one would ever hold her like that again because she wouldn't let anyone else, would never want anyone else to.

She tightened her arms around herself, hung her head, and squeezed her aching eyes tight, trying to brace the storm, begging for a break in the clouds.

__________

Javier's hand twitched over the receiver of his phone.

He wanted to call the bar again. He wanted to call Charles for the third time that day. He wanted to call any airline and ask for the first ticket back to San Francisco.

He had so much paperwork to do, more bureaucratic bullshit, so many leads to follow up on, but he couldn't focus on anything, couldn't get his mind to think about anything apart from her.

He exhaled sharply, rubbing at the tense space between his eyebrows as he picked up his phone, practicing a bit of restraint as he dialed his dad's number, rather than the other two he'd been more apt to call.

"Hello." His dad's voice thundered through the line.

"Pop."

"Javier... it's not Sunday." His dad's voice lilted with sarcasm.

"Thanks Pop, I was unaware." He exhaled, leaning down to rest his face against his palm.

"What's going on, hijo?" The elder Peña asked, tone a bit more concerned now.

Javier swallowed hard, trying to get his words to come out right before they just started exiting his mouth without his permission. "Was there anything, any scenario where you would have left mom?" He asked, voice shaking a bit, hand trembling around the receiver.

Chucho was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke it was firm, "No, son. Not unless she kicked me out, even then it might have been hard to get rid of me."

"Even if you thought she would be safer or happier without you?"

Chucho coughed, clearing his throat, "That would have been for her to decide, not me." He was quiet for a moment. "You want to tell me what's going on, son? Instead of asking me these vague questions."

Javier's fingers tapped anxiously against his desk. "I-- I don't know if I'm doing the right thing."

"Well, hijo... that probably means that you're not. When we're doing the right thing, it feels right, settles your gut, ya know?"

Javier nodded slowly despite the fact that his dad could not see him.

"Is this about your sudden decision to go down to Mexico? Because son, I've told you, you're always welcome back home. I could use your help up here, could fire one of these fuckin' ranch hands, don't know which way is up I swear to god."

"I know, Pop."

Chucho was silent for another long moment, Javier could hear a lawnmower in the distance, could almost smell the grass, the hay, the strangely soapy frostweed.

"Whoever it is you're thinking about, son, go get her. You haven't sounded right these past few weeks... but you know what, you did sound happy in San Francisco, and I've missed you sounding happy. So, if that was because of a girl, you better go fix whatever you fucked up, because I'm not getting any younger and neither are you, and I'd like some grandbabies before I'm four feet deep in the dirt."

"Pop." Javier warned, even as his heart pounded heavily in his chest, an anxious furor tearing its way through his gut.

"I'm serious, hijo... You love this girl?"

Love... was that a strong enough term? Did one even exist?

"Yes." He uttered without cognition, swallowing hard.

"Does she love you?"

Another swallow, fuck his throat was dry. "I-- she did-- before I left. I-- I'm not so sure anymore."

"Then go find out. You deserve to be happy, son."

Did he... did he really deserve to be happy after everything he'd done?

You're not bad, Javi. I can see you just fine.

Emma never thought he was bad... never thought ill of him because of what he'd done. She had loved him regardless, opened up to him, given him all of her and asked for nothing in return.

He'd lived so much of his life consumed by guilt, consumed by work, consumed by some glittering promise of success that never tasted anything but bitter.

Then he'd found her, this sanctuary, this perfect little being that tugged him out of the cage he'd locked himself behind, made him feel like himself again, like just Javier, not agent Peña, not a hero, not a disgrace, just him.

But... the narcos.

Putting a target on her head was not an option.

Still, how likely was it... really, that another narco would be insane enough to go after a DEA agent, or anyone linked to one? He knew, deep down, that it wasn't likely... in fact, it was far more likely that she would be hurt by something much more mundane, a drunk man at the bar, a car rolling past a stop sign, him.

Which is why he'd hired Charles, but that was only out of desperate necessity. Of course, he'd rather be the one there, ensuring she was safe. That was... if she even wanted him anymore.

He didn't know what to do. The majority of him, the aching cavity in his chest, was begging him to return to her, to plead on his knees for her forgiveness, to promise that he would never leave her again, never allow her to be harmed again. The other part of him, though, considered his return to her as a sort of damnation, cursing her with the violence of his life once and for all.

He was so weak, though. And god he missed her. But he couldn't continue to just take, take and take. She gave him so much and what had he given her?

Regardless, it was only fair that he give her the chance to make a decision, right?

If she wanted him gone, he would leave, carve out the cavity in his chest once and for all, hand her his heart and go.

But if she wanted him to stay... oh god if she wanted him to stay...

He couldn't allow himself to think about it yet, that was a peace he could not afford to simply imagine.

__________

Emma stripped down to her underwear the moment she got home.

It was 5pm, but she was going to bed, or rather, going to lie in bed until she finally managed to fall asleep.

She wrapped herself around his leather jacket, burying her face in the lining near the armpit, the only bit that still really smelled like him at all anymore.

"Miss you." She whispered, a little croak into the fabric. "I'm cold, and so tired and scared, Javi. I'm so scared without you."

She started crying again, into his jacket, wishing she had the fortitude to move her face to her pillow so she wouldn't muck up the smell with her salty tears, but she couldn't, couldn't detach herself from the only remaining thing she had of him.

"Miss you." She warbled again, to the empty room. Miss you, miss you, miss you.