missing.

[Danicka] How many times has she called him after a blowup, meltdown, crisis? She's shown up at the Brotherhood when he's thought he would never see her again after some argument they've had. She's brought him goddamn kolache. A handful of times he has expected nothing, and there she's been, but that was back in winter. Since then, it seems like he calls her. Because he wants to see her for five minutes before going to avenge his fallen packmate. Because he just wants to see her. Because they need to talk.

Two days pass between Danicka literally running away from him and out of the W and the phone call that makes his phone vibrate, or chime, or whatever it's set to do. It's technically a time when he should be asleep, and he may miss the call: it's the middle of the day, past what most people call lunchtime. The call comes, though, and it's her, and she doesn't sound like she's biting back screams when he picks up, or when his voicemail does.

I don't want your excuses.

I didn't believe it.

Why the fuck am I surprised?

I asked you a question.

It's her.

"We have some things to say," she says. "I'll be at the Skydeck in Sears Tower." A beat. "The second one, on the 99th." This pause is longer. "Please bring my necklace, and the blue La Perla thong, if you still have it."

And that is all she has to say to him, at least over the phone.

[Lukas] Lukas picks up the phone. She knows it's him and not his machine because the prerecorded message does not begin, and also because he picks up in the middle of the third ring. He says nothing; he just listens. When she's finished, he says, simply:

"Oukej. Dvacet minut."

His tone is difficult to read. It's very level, very steady.

--

Twenty minutes later, Lukas is stepping off the elevator onto the lower Skydeck. His ears feel stuffed from the rapid ascent. Looking around, the skydeck looks like any room in any office building, neither soaringly high-ceilinged nor particularly breathtaking ... until one steps to one of the ubiquitous windows, that is, and sees just how far above the Great Plains one stands.

He doesn't go to the window, though. Lukas can see the world from this height whenever the fuck he wants, and he's not here for the view. He looks around for her, finds her almost immediately, walks toward her. Tourists scamper to get out of his way; they might not even realize they do so.

In his hand is a small box, the sort a pack of 50 christmas cards might come in. He holds it out to her without comment. She needn't open it here, but if she does, her things are inside, carefully and neatly packed in tissue.

"Is this a goodbye?" He asked her something like this the night she tried to break it off with him, too: are you ending this? It's as though he tries to preempt these things -- as though he thought by predicting them, by seeing it coming, he could somehow mitigate the damage.

[Danicka] Twenty minutes later, when Lukas walks onto the Skydeck on the ninety-ninth floor of the tallest skyscraper in North America, Danicka is already there. It's possible she was there even when she called. Not as many people are here as on the hundred and third floor. It's more private, but there are still people milling around, people who hate crowds or whatnot. Danicka is not standing by the windows with her arms crossed, looking down.

Danicka is sitting on a bench by herself, wearing a blue and white sundress with a pair of simple braided sandals. The design on the dress is Grecian, and the bracelets on her left arm -- like the chandelier earrings glinting through her hair -- are thin and gold. Her hair is down, less wild than the last time he saw it but not quite straightened. She has a purse with her, but it's just a small clutch that rests on the bench beside her.

It's the middle of the day but she looks like she could be going on a lunch date. This could be her first date, blind date, with this dark-haired gentleman that walks up to her and hands her what they can all assume is a gift. What they all would assume, if they were looking at Danicka and Lukas. She takes the box from him without looking at it or opening it, setting it down on the bench next to her purse.

She shakes her head, then nods at the seat beside her.

[Lukas] Briefly, Lukas is ashamed of the relief rushing through his veins, weakening his joints, numbing his muscle.

He lowers himself to the bench beside her, carefully. They aren't at the windows, though they're close enough that where a bar of sunlight falls across their laps they can see themselves in incomplete reflection.

For a while he gropes for something to say. Another apology? An (excuse) explanation? The net comes up empty; a shining ocean of words, and none of them fitting. He keeps quiet. The windows, expensive, thick, double- or triple-paned as they are, shudder faintly in a gust. They're over a quarter-mile off the ground, and there's nothing but lake and plains all around. The wind is ferocious.

The day is mostly overcast, sun peeking through here and there. There's a yellow-grey cast to the light: humid heat made visible. The buildings before them spill away into the glistening lake. He looks out at these for lack of anything else to do until he doesn't anymore; turns and looks at her instead. He tries to read her silence, or her expression, or whatever she might give him.

[Danicka] He says nothing, apology or excuse, and so he doesn't immediately incense either her temper or her terror. Danicka watches him sit down and then simply stares at him for a little while. She looks at the way his hair curls here, smooths there. She looks at the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the clarity of his eyes, the way that how he looks tells even her untrained senses:

Stín Pánem.

The light comes in and washes over them, or tries to. It doesn't make her any happier. She smells faintly of magnolias. Not perfume, but the flower, as though she were rolling in them before coming here, something.

"My father hit my face when I told him that I intended to stay in New York City and told me he would never forgive me if I stayed," she says quietly. "Up until last autumn he was the only member of my family who had never struck me."

She is controlling her breathing. Her stillness. The light glints off her jewelry, off of her hair. The metal is softer than her words.

"You made me feel like I was home again, Lukáš. The only thing missing was a shattered clavicle."

[Lukas] Absurd, but right now, right this moment, Lukas wants nothing more than to turn to Danicka and pull her into his arms. It's not that he's afraid people will see; it's that he cares that they're in public, and exposed, and everyone in the skydeck will see and know and understand that this woman means something to him; means everything to him. It's not that, that stops him.

It's the thought of her running from him. Literally running. It's the thought of her flinching away, or worse, going still and terrified, limp as a ragdoll, empty as a school of fish; an effigy on which to hang his own desires.

He doesn't reach for her. There's a wince at the corners of his eyes. He looks away again.

Low, "Would it even mean anything for me to tell you I regret what I did?"

[Danicka] There's an agonizingly long pause after he asks her that. She has no Rage, no supernatural fury to make her change her skin or fuel her own personal wars. That makes it all the more wrenching, that she is this angry and needs no power behind it, has nothing in her genetic or spiritual makeup upon which to pin some of the blame for how very close she is to snapping.

Her legs are crossed at the ankle. Of course. She looks older than she is, with the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, the premature aging of a life filled with more stress than most people are allotted. The signs of her trauma are easily read enough: she looks like she's thirty, when she's only just recently twenty-five. But her back is unbowed, and her shoulders squared. She is turned towards him a bit, her knees and shoulders angled in his direction. Her hands rest on her lap.

Silence... until she nods once. "It wouldn't mean anything coming from anyone else."

Danicka doesn't leave room for him to reply there, doesn't wait for him to come up with something to say, some apology. And she is not here to make him beg for mercy, for relief, for her love. She's already told him that this isn't a goodbye, and he's already apologized, even if it was two days ago.

"I did not belong to you any of the times I slept with Martin," she says flatly, "and I have been zkurvený loyal to you for all the time that I have been yours."

She takes a breath, deep enough that it moves her shoulders and her chest visibly, shallow enough that it's almost inaudible. "If you ever treat me like that again, I will never believe another word out of your mouth, especially Miluji tě."

This is where her voice tightens, strains against emotion. This is where she pulls it back, clenches her jaw against feeling this, looks away from him and at a seven year old girl being held up to the window by her father. "That was not love."

[Lukas] Even now the very mention of Martin, that last time with Martin, makes him angry. Lukas's jawline shifts as he grinds his teeth. He's silent for a long time.

"I'm not going to argue pointless the details and perceptions of a night five months gone with you, Danička. I'm not going to argue what you thought and what I thought and where the truth lay between us. It was a long time ago; it doesn't matter now, and besides, I was so careful not to reveal too much that I can't fairly blame you for failing to understand me. But I don't ... do that, any of that; I never did any of that before you. I don't kiss like that. I don't hold women like that, after. I don't ..."

He trails off. The day is bright, but the sunlight across their laps, across their feet, does little to cheer him either.

"You were always different. I tried to make you the same as all the others and you wouldn't let me. You were something else entirely for me, and I thought you knew that. I thought maybe I was ..."

A fragmentary sort of confession, dissertation, rambling.

"Maybe you can understand why I had a hard time thinking of you as a one night stand when it was over." That's the best he can come up with. "And why I felt so fucking betrayed last night when I realized in your mind, that's all I ever was.

"But that was not love. Whatever the provocation, I have no excuse." To say he'll never do it again is a promise he cannot make; what he says instead is, "I'll try never to do that again."

[Danicka] At least this time Lukas is not alone in his anger. Last time they met he was furious; she was terrified. To say that she's at ease now would be a lie. Danicka is not calm, not safe. But she is not scared for her life today, the way she was a couple of hours before dawn at the W two days ago. She is outraged. Still. Over fifty hours have passed and she is so angry she can barely sit here with him, listen to him, look at him.

In large part she is angry at herself for not nodding her head and telling him yes when he asked if this was a goodbye. She's angry for calling him at all; like she needed to get the necklace back, the stupid thong.

She looks out the window, stares at anything but Lukas right now. Something in her chest crumples, but he can't see it. He might not even know it's there, and since no tears spring to her eyes this time, it's hard to say if he can tell what words, exactly, made her collapse in on herself a little.

"How can you believe that of me?"

[Lukas] "I don't know what to believe, Danička." They converse without looking at one another. "You tell me you fucked Martin to prove how little I meant. You did this three days after you gave me a promise I didn't even ask for. Then you spit out all these reasons about how you didn't think I wanted you again, or that you didn't think you wanted me again, and then you split hairs over whether or not we were together, and -- "

His anger is rising again. He shuts up abruptly, leaning forward to drop his brow against the thumb joints of his clasped hands. Lightly, he taps his forehead against his hands, once, twice, as if to jar his thoughts into order.

"Look, Danička. I don't want an apology. You had your reasons for doing as you did. But I have a right to feel like you gave me your word and broke it three days later. I have a right to feel betrayed. I just want some acknowledgment of that."

[Danicka] "I'm not splitting hairs," she says harshly, exerting effort just to keep herself from snapping at him in public. This time she looks at him, turns her head so that, like her body, it yearns towards him even if there is a cold, careful distance between them. "I don't want you holding over my head for the rest of my life that I'm a liar or a whore."

A tourist from North Carolina passes them as she says this, glances their way because they are both of them beautiful, striking, and possessed of some kind of inherent ferocity that is as appealing and fascinating as it is terrible. The tourist looks away quickly on the last word, passes by, and Danicka closes her eyes.

"I'm sorry, but that's just... all I've ever known, and I don't know to get used to it if you don't do that."

This pause is wrenching. He can almost feel the twist in the air.

"I'm scared to get used to it."

She takes a deep breath, opening her eyes again and looking from the line of his leg and his arm, the way his back bows forward and the way muscle presses against his shirt, revealing hints at the body she knows underneath. All she does, for a few cycles of breath, is look at him, unsure if what she's feeling is loathing for what he is or what he's done... or if that choking ache is a wish to be held the way she was on the solstice, to hear his voice in her ear or feel his hands on her face and know without doubt, without looking for the lie, that she is loved.

Her voice falls. "I tried very hard to hate you, and it didn't work. I tried betraying you to prove to myself that I didn't want you, and it didn't work. The next time I saw you, you treated me like shit and I still felt like my heart was going to break when I saw you again and you were hurt."

A breath. She's not breathing much, not very well, right now. "All I really wanted you to know was that I have always wanted you so badly that nothing I did could stop it. Even after the other night, I still want you, and I still love you, and I hate the thought of going back to being without you.

"But if you feel betrayed, or that I broke my word... I am sorry."

[Lukas] What Danicka doesn't know is how hard it is not to reach out to her somehow; hold her; keep her; give in. Capitulate. What Lukas doesn't know is that it's not a fucking war, it's not a battle, and there's no such thing as capitulation between lovers.

He listens to her; the words, and also the way she breathes, deliberately, haltingly. When she looks at him he doesn't return her regard, but he doesn't need to. He can close his eyes and remember the way she looks with

perfect fucking clarity.

So he does. Close his eyes, at least, and lay his brow against his thumbs. When she's finished he shakes his head, and it's important, somehow, that she understands this:

"No, Danička, I don't need your apologies. You don't need to apologize to me for any of that. It was a long time ago. I understand what you were trying to do, and I've done worse things for the same reasons. I have no right to blame you for trying to make this less than it is.

"I just need you to understand that the reason I was angry had only a little to do with fucking Martin or not, and everything to do with me feeling as though you'd broken a promise you'd made of your own free will. It wasn't that you betrayed me by fucking another man; it was that from where I stood, you had broken your word to me.

"I just need you to acknowledge my point of view. Not that it's right or wrong, but that I had a right to it."

[Danicka] "I didn't apologize because you needed it."

That is spoken flatly, at his shaking head and bent body, at his insistence for her to understand, at his inability to see that she does.

"As for acknowledging your right to feel... angry, or betrayed, or hurt, or elated, or anything you feel at a given moment, have I ever tried to tell you that you shouldn't? Why on earth do you keep asking for that when I haven't tried to tell you otherwise?"

This... more intense, more strained, as though the self-control and composure it took her two days to build up is cracking at the edges because as hard as they're fighting to find each other again --

"Would you please look at me?"

-- they keep missing each other.

Whether he looks up or not, she finishes: "Lukáš, I didn't blame you for being angry the other night and I wouldn't have told you not to feel betrayed if you hadn't acted the way you did. I don't blame you now for feeling the way you did. Jesus fucking Christ, if you hadn't scared the shit out of me you'd know that."

[Lukas] Look at me, she says, and he does. He turns his head without raising it until the corner of his brow rests against the base of his thumbs. In the direct sunlight her eyes are blue, but the sunlight isn't direct here; it's reflected, angled, refracted through the windows.

Her eyes are green. And his are blue, like glacial ice. He watches her as she speaks, winces when she tells him he scared the shit out of her. Shame is not something Lukas is accustomed to. He doesn't know quite how to deal, how to express it, how to move past it.

"I'm sorry. I -- "

A break; a pause.

"Je mi to líto."

[Danicka] "Vím," she says, carefully. It wants to be clipped, sharp, even hard around the edges. Stop saying it, a part of her wants to yell at him. It doesn't mean anything, says an angrier voice. It never changes anything.

But she tries not to yell the word at him. She tries to say it gently, with understanding. Danicka's back is still straight, her hands still folded. She's barely moved, even while swearing, even when her breathing has become elevated, even when she's wanted to start hitting him, strangling him, tearing at his hair, anything to hurt him, anything to be touching him, connected somehow even if it's through violence.

The fact that a part of her understands that just as well as the way she feels when he makes love to her causes her stomach to turn in revulsion. She looks down for a moment, even though she just told him -- asked him -- to look at her. After a deep breath, she looks at him again.

"I don't want to go to the W anymore. It seems rather stupid to waste hundreds of dollars on a room where we're just going to tear each other apart."

[Lukas] There's a holding-back on both sides, here. Danicka tries not to snap at him. Lukas tries not to grow irrationally angry -- because he likes the W, goddammit, because the W was where they first made love, incontrovertibly and unambiguously; because he likes the height and the view and he even likes that it reminds him of New York City, now. He tries snarl right back:

Where would you rather tear each other apart at, then?

He doesn't say it. There's a stillness. Then, "All right."

She's not longer looking at her, and after a moment he looks out the window, too. The horizon's curvature is apparent at this height, on these plains, on that lake. He frowns at the day outside for a moment, then turns abruptly to her.

"Let's walk. Okay? I can't stand sitting here anymore."

[Danicka] "I was just going to go home," she says quietly. At least she doesn't look away from him to say it.

[Lukas] This time he doesn't even try to hide the wince that makes his face tighten, makes his eyes skate aside. A beat.

"Chybíš mi, Danička. A to mě děsí když necháte jako tento."

[Danicka] A truncated sigh leaves her, as she puts up her hand and presses her fingertips to her forehead, eyes closing tightly for a moment. There's dozens of things she could say, each of them a step into a maelstrom just like the one that demands sacrifices at the Caern. She doesn't want to dip her toes in again, lose it, lose herself, lose him, lose everything. They would do nothing but spiral out of control yet one more time, and she's worn out still from three -- was it four? -- arguments two days ago.

And she doesn't want to hurt him, just because she can, which eliminates most of the rest of the things she could say. So after exhaling, she drops her hand. Opens her eyes. Danicka gets to her feet, ankles uncrossing and skirt falling into place around her knees. She picks up the box he brought her as she moves, the tissue paper inside rustling.

"Leave like what?"

[Lukas] The easy answer would be, like this.

Lukas takes a moment to consider the question though. He watches her stand, making no move to follow her, though he does straighten his spine, roll his shoulders back. He tries a few answers in his mind, none of which fit perfectly; and then he knows.

"Like we might not see each other again."

[Danicka] Standing, even when his back is straightened like that, Danicka has to look down to see his eyes, but she does. They look at each other for longer than they have this whole time -- when in fact 'this whole time' is not even half an hour. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and briefly she's backlit. It's midday, so the sun is neither rising to give her a soft white glow not setting and turning the edges of her body a brilliant, blinding gold. This time of day it just makes her face more shadowed, though only for a moment: someone across the room moves, and the light from the other side touches her, and everything balances out again.

"I told you this wasn't goodbye," she says, remaining in English as she has for almost the entire conversation. "I'm still yours."

Danicka looks to the side, at the North Carolinan tourist who looked at them earlier and now looks again, only to snap his head back around so he won't be caught casting glances their way. She sighs and turns her eyes back to Lukas. They're pale blue now, in the light, but it won't last.

"It's just that the fact that I still want to be with you after the other night, after how I grew up, is just as frightening to me as everything else," Danicka tells him, almost in a whisper. "I miss you, too.

"But all this has already been just about more than I can handle right now."

[Lukas] "Okay."

Their mutual regard is brief and glancing. She looks away; back. He looks away; back. Their eyes don't linger on one another but skirmish, as though their very gazes were wild, inconstant things, incapable of holding long.

Until now, anyway. Now, Lukas's eyes are steady, and they stay on her. The blue is faintly reminiscent of the luminous hue of the aquaria in Shedd; it's faintly reminiscent of the wild, borderless skies a thousand feet above the ground. In truth, it's neither. His eyes are their own color, like nothing else but themselves.

Lukas draws a breath and lets it go.

"Should I call you?"

[Danicka] Her right hand goes to his cheek, and it's the first time she's touched him since they held each other in a hotel room, since she said There is no solution. This is just how things are and moved away from him again. The feel of his face under her fingertips and against her palm suffuses her entire arm with melting warmth, and so her hand lingers there, and her eyes linger, too... finally.

"Jo," is all she says, though there could have been more.

The touch can't last any longer than that without something breaking. She pulls away rather quickly, though, as though she has to move fast before he tries to catch her hand, hold her wrist, keep her where he wants her. Danicka takes one step back as her hand goes back to her side.

"I'll see you soon, miláčku," she says, instead of goodbye, and walks towards the elevators.