They're doing it again.

One look; that's all it takes. An entire debate rages and recedes in the space of a questioning eyebrow and an answering gaze. The slight pressure of hand on arm often reinforcing the unspoken word.

When together, they're a seamless unit, one an extension of the other. When apart, they are merely ragged edges. Each looks over his shoulder, expecting the other to appear just because the one partner willed it. I saw it years ago when she was taken. And again when they were separated by the powers that remain cloaked in darkness. I dread seeing it again. 

During their partnership, I have come to know them both well. As individuals and as one--not as well as they know one another, but that is impossible. I have only traveled their path from a distance. Only those who survive the fire can know the depths of another's heart. 

My job is to protect them. Offering warnings or advice when warranted, but always guarding against those forces that would deny them answers. When I was not their superior, I still watched. Silent, but as always, looking out for their interests. They wouldn't see it as such, especially given my reluctance to help her find him when he took his jaunt to Bermuda. But at the time, I, too, was being watched--judged--to decide where my true loyalties lay. 

They do not fathom the depth of my dedication to their work, to them. I made a deal with the devil. A deal I forbade him to make. To save her.

To save him.

To save them.

The devil is still collecting one nanite at a time. Indeed, my death has been sealed, and with a flick of the proverbial switch, I will return to death's grip, and this time not recover. 

But I do not matter. I am a pawn, while they are the king and queen in this chess game of lies. They will survive. They must survive.

Sometimes I laugh at the irony of it all. Those men who lurk in shadows and surround themselves with cigarette smoke created the object of their own destruction: a pair, each more confident in the other than in himself. They thought to silence a lone man by squelching his innovation with science, but instead, they only strengthened his resolve by allowing her to give credence to his work. Their unfailing commitment to the files is augmented by their complete commitment to each other.

I wonder, at times, how complete their relationship is. Have they consummated their melding of souls with a melding of bodies?

I do not ask. To ask is one step from knowing. To know is to separate two beings that are one. If I cannot allow Them to do so, how, then, could I allow myself?

So, instead, I watch and I wait. Watch for signs of their increasing closeness. Wait for one to hint that they have taken the next step. It will come.

It will not be a spoken admission. I will see it in their eyes, in their caresses. I dread the day I witness it, even as I long for it. It will make them stronger and that will make them a greater threat. As lovers they will be in more danger than before, but it is a risk they will eventually accept. They need each other. They need this. As much as I need my next breath.

END