The Lazarus Protocol

It had been the Monday-est Monday ever. I was walking home with the rain pouring down and soaking my entire body despite the umbrella I carried. I was tired, I was wet, and I was cranky. All I wanted was to catch the train and get home where I could peel off my wet clothes, take a hot shower, and collapse. I was in no mood for delays, when someone bumped into me suddenly, it was enough to basically send me over the edge.

             “Would you please watch where you are going?” I fumed, the frustration evident in my tone.

             “I’m sorry, I do apologize.” I stopped in my tracks. That voice was so familiar, I had heard it in my dreams every night for the past year.

It couldn’t be him though. He was dead. Everyone had told me he was. We’d had a funeral and everything. I had mourned him, I was still mourning him. My heart had been empty since the day my phone rang and the voice on the other end informed me he had been killed on the job and that was all they could tell me, but “We are grateful for his service.” Those words just before they hung up had made me angrier than anything else. Your finance’ is dead, we can’t or won’t tell you how, why, or where. But, oh by the way, we are grateful he sacrificed his life for our cause, whatever that is.

The funny thing was, any time I discussed his death with anyone in my life, not that there were many, they all assumed that meant he was CIA or Special Forces or something like that. The truth was much stranger than they could ever imagine, though. I wasn’t even entirely sure what he’d been about or what he did. The only thing he’d ever told me was that if anything ever happened to him, I should leave it alone and just move on with my life. He told me to sell our house and move away as quickly as I possibly could. The last thing he said on the subject was, if something happened to him, they had a hand in it and that could be very dangerous for me.

After I had received that phone call, I planned the funeral and put our house on the market. I had moved to another town a few hours away and started my life over again, alone. I grieved the wedding we never had, and the future that was ripped away from us. I mourned losing my other half, and the hole that was left inside of me with him gone. I swore on everything that I was, I would never love again, not truly, not like I did with him. But, I moved on with my life because that’s what he wanted me to do.

I had spent the past year looking over my shoulder. He had always told me that I could be in great danger if anything happened to him, and I had believed him. So, that meant never feeling settled and always worrying that someone was going to come after me at any minute. I had always accepted his secrets, because I loved him and that was part of the deal. Now I wished he had just told me what was going on, and what he was involved in.

Before he left on that last job, he had kissed me hard and when I looked into his eyes I knew then something wasn’t right. He was the strongest person I knew, and I had never seen him fear anything, but there was fear in his eyes that day. It was as if he knew something was going to go terribly wrong. There was a part of me that wanted to beg him to stay, but I knew he wouldn’t. He had been very honest with me from the day we started dating that his job meant everything to him, and that it was something he couldn’t just walk away from even if he wanted to.

I had kissed him once more and sent him on his way. I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I watched him drive away from our home, but I brushed it off. I went about my routine as usual, putting out of my mind what he was doing and where he was. That was all well and good until the day my phone rang with that fateful phone call that changed my entire life, turned my world upside down.

Now, a year later in the middle of the street in the pouring rain, the voice I had so longed to hear filled my ears. I slowly tilted my head to look up at the person who had ran into me. My breath caught in my throat and I gasped as I met his gaze.

             “Hello, darling.” He said, reaching for my hand.

He was dead, everyone told me he was. We had a funeral and everything. I was still mourning for him. Yet, there he was standing in front of me drenched from the rain and smiling down at me. I placed my hand in his, unable to even think about speaking. There was nothing I could say, my tears mixed with the rain that was now running down my face. I stared up into his gorgeous hazel eyes, eyes I had only seen in my dreams for a year. Eyes I never thought I’d see again. Eyes that had made me fall in love with him.

He wrapped his hand around mine, intertwining our fingers like he’d always done. I still couldn’t find any words to say. All I could do is look at him, and feel his hand warming mine. I couldn’t believe he was real. He was actually standing here in front of me. I had only recently began to accept the idea that I would never see him, or touch him, or smell him again. Now I had to try and wrap my head around him being here in front of me.

             “Come on, darling, let’s get out of here. What do you say?”

We got in a car and instead of taking me to my apartment, he took me to the hotel he was staying at. He told me we couldn’t go back to my place because it wasn’t safe. All I could do was nod, and keep touching him. I was having trouble comprehending the fact that he was there, sitting in front of me, talking to me. I had to force myself to concentrate on his words, because my mind was going crazy from this jolt in my reality.

I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. We were sitting on the bed in his hotel room. I refused to let go of his hand, because I was afraid if I did he might disappear, or I might discover this was all just a dream and would have to go back to my sad lonely life once again. I had questions and I needed them answered though. So, I forced myself to concentrate.

             “Okay, Michael, hold on. Start at the beginning.” He’d been talking the entire time and I hadn’t heard a word he said. “First of all, what the hell happened? How are you even here right now in front of me?”

             “Oh, babe, there is so much I have to tell you now. Stuff I wish I could’ve told you sooner, that I should’ve told you sooner. I have been so desperate to get back to you, I knew this all must have absolutely tortured you, and it was killing me knowing that. It was the only way though. I promise if there had been another way, I would’ve done it. I didn’t want to leave you. I never want to leave you. I never want to hurt you in anyway.”

I nodded. Tears streamed freely down my face as I waited for him to finally explain to me what was going on and why my world had been completely turned upside down in this past year. I was so happy to see him, but at the same time was so angry it seems as though he had willingly put me through all of this.

He told me that it was time I knew exactly what he did for a living. He was a paid assassin for a pseudo-government organization and had been for nearly twenty years. They sent him all over the world to take out targets deemed dangerous, or unseemly. He had always been good at his job, and truth be told, he had even enjoyed it for a while anyway. But, then he met her and his whole world changed. His perspective on everything became different than it had ever been. He no longer found any excitement or enjoyment in his work. All he did was worry the entire time he was away. He worried about her, he worried about how dangerous his job was, and he worried about what would become of her if something happened to him.

Add to that the fact that he had become increasingly uneasy with the way things were being run at the Agency, and he knew he had to get out. The issue was, you didn’t just walk away from this line of work. It was considered that you knew too much and you were marked as a security risk. They couldn’t have that. The reality was, the only was to get out, was to be killed either on the job or by one of your own. In that world everyone was expendable, and everybody was replaceable.

He knew that the only way for him to ever be truly free from them, was to die. But, that meant he had to make it all look as real as possible, which meant even me believing he was dead. I was trying really hard to be understanding of what he was saying. I could feel myself growing more and more angry at him as he explained it all to me. I couldn’t believe the number of secrets he had kept from me for all these years. I had always believed that we trusted each other completely, now I wasn’t sure what I should believe.

             “I’m so, so sorry, Jules.” He was the only one that ever called me that. “I never wanted to hurt you, I just didn’t see any other way out. And I thought it was safe to come back to get you. I thought I had done enough to cover my trail, but apparently I was wrong. I am pretty sure I’ve been found out and that someone is on my tail. I can’t stay here, but I couldn’t just leave without you knowing the truth.”

             “So, you’re leaving again?” I whispered. I wiped tears from my cheeks and sniffled. I couldn’t believe he showed up just to turn around and leave me again. “Why come back at all if you are just going to leave me again? What was the point? Just to make yourself feel less guilty?”

             ”You have every right to be upset with me. I would be if I were you.” He stroked my hand, and lifted my chin so I was looking him in the eye. “But, babe, I wouldn’t be here with you right now if I didn’t want to take you with me. The choice is yours now. You don’t have to come. You can stay here if that’s what you want. If you do choose to leave, however, it has to be now and you have to leave everything behind. If you come with me, the people we are now, Jules and Michael, don’t exist anymore. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I only took a second to think about what he was saying to me. It didn’t take longer than that, because I knew what my decision would be as soon as he said I had a choice. I didn’t care about any of it, not really. I knew what I had to do. I held his face in my hands, kissed him softly, and stood up from the bed.

             “Well, are you coming?” I asked holding my hand out to him. He looked at me with a surprised hope in his eyes. I knew he’d been convinced I was going to walk away from him.

             “Are you sure? It’s not going to be easy, and will almost definitely be dangerous.” He asked, taking my hand in his.

             “I lost you once, and it nearly killed me. I’m not going to lose you again now. I’d follow you anywhere, my love, you know that.”

He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to him as he led me away toward the unknown.