SOMETHING MORE

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again.

She woke with him tight against her back and his warm breath tickling the bare skin of her neck. The air was tranquil and still around them; a sort of silence on the breeze – a morning cradle song to lull him back to sleep should he too awaken.

Although, however sweet the song, slumber would not share it's kindness with Max. Instead, she remained encircled within Mike's embrace; cocooned in a warmth she hoped he felt in kind. Perhaps the gentle and robust rhythm of his heart against her spine was enough to assure her that he did.

Despite her desire to remain there, her phone lit up with a text which read: "Living room. Now." - who knew such a short message could be so demanding, Max thought as she disentangled her limbs from Mike's. She sat up on the edge of the bed, her back to his sleeping form as she wiped away the last remnants of sleep from her eyes. She felt him shift ever so slightly and when she glanced over her shoulder, she found his arm outstretched towards her and the adjoined hand clutching the hem of her top – as if he had subconsciously sensed her intention to leave the bed. The notion caused her lips to twitch upwards into a small smile: her heart lightened by the sheer endearment of it.

Another text arrived, the impatience evident in the words "I'm waiting." With a heavy sigh, Max coaxed Mike's fingers from the fabric. If she looked back at him, she'd find the same hand clutching a fistful of the bed's linen, clinging to something in her absence.

She made her way toward the living room to find her Uncle standing by the TV. The way he looked at her then told her that he had seen them together.

"Nothing happened." She was quick to clarify, as if the possibility of anything happening at all was very real.

Ryan reaches up to rub at his eyes in frustration. "Whether or not something happened, something will." Apparently, he too noticed the bond growing between his beloved niece and fellow agent.

The reality that someone else might've perceived something she herself was uncertain may be looming was a tad overwhelming, especially considering the earliness of the hour and how her brain was yet to engage itself in the coming day.

He speaks again to continue, "And when it does, you'll both have an even bigger target on your backs. Especially you, Max." the truth of his own words seem to hurt him, having already faced the reality of almost losing his niece – the possibility that there could be a next time was enough to draw tears from his often placid eyes, "And I'm not okay with that."

Following the substantial conclusion to his argument, he quickly vacates the apartment to meet with Carrie, his words left behind to linger in the air.

Max falls onto the couch, her head in her hands. "He's right, you know." She hears Mike's voice say from behind her. She turns to find him standing by the bedroom door, his eyes clouded with fatigue and her own eyes lock with them for a moment longer than they should.

They had been doing that quite a lot lately, catching the other's gaze and holding it there, in place, far often than they ought to. And yet, there is something there; something to find in the depths of each other's eyes – an inexplicable connection seeming almost immediate and perhaps complete as with a power plug intertwining with an electric receptacle that breathes life into a rather useless cord.

"I know." she replies, a sigh on its tail, breaking the eye contact. For all they frequented the sight, Max felt uncomfortable how Mike was so willing to bare himself to her; how his eyes would penetrate the similar colour in her own – speaking volumes as they did. She never believed such a thing possible until the wake of his father's funeral.

He had joined her by the window as she watched Ryan converse secretively with the FBI Director Franklyn. She turned to note his eyes fixed upon her, like a vice holding a piece of timber in a carpenter's shed; his grief written on the slate of his brow and the pain to which it follows swelling beneath it. She had found a silent plea for comfort and solace accompanied with a subtle lack of faith in receiving either within the icy depths.

Having perceived all this and more. Max believed it to be nonsense and would not only try to lift Mike's spirits, but help him understand the sheer folly in his initial assumptions regarding her ability to understand just what he was forced to endure.

It goes without thought that, given everything Max had done for him in the days to follow, the silly supposition had all but vanished from his mind, only to be replaced with a momentous amount of respect and devotion in his heart.

"He's also wrong about one thing." Mike added, moving further into the room.

"What's that?" inquires Max, avoiding his gaze as he now sits across from her.

"We shouldn't have to stop living our lives just because they're threatened." His words forced Max's eyes to meet his again finally. Could it be that he dared to hope for that certain something between them to evolve into something more?

The thought sparked a sense of mutual hope in Max and yet, her unease was not for nothing. Beneath the grand scheme of things, her Uncle wasn't entirely wrong and this, between them, it was potentially dangerous given their proximity and involvement with Joe Carroll, his new cult of followers as well as Lily Gray and her psychotic brood of adoptions. A potential relationship such as Mike and Max's would be seen as the ultimate leverage in causing further grief and destruction in the name of their respective patron saint.

Even so, Mike too had a point. It was simply not an option to cease living as one normally would merely because an assemblage of weak-minded imbeciles saw fit to intimidate those they saw as lesser than them.

Later that night, when all three watch Joe's message to the world on TV, Ryan turns to the younger two who meet his stare. The menacing remarks from Joe echoing in their ears.

Ryan says nothing and merely chooses to leave them alone again with his previous warnings and now, the promising words of a serial killer.

It wasn't that Ryan didn't wish for his niece and Mike to be happy, quite the contrary – he only hoped to spare them any level of agony he was forced to endure at the hands of Joe Carroll. But when he turns back to find their hands have drifted into one another's, he knows his hopes might be short-lived. After all, their lives were their own to share if they so choose.

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown.
Responds unto his own.