Game Over © Miranda Dickinson 2008

I think, finally, we have reached the End.

 It’s been a long night. For hour after deathly dragging hour, you have thrown your accusations and I have hurled mine back in retaliation: each of us vying to grab the upper hand and neither of us succeeding. Now, silence hangs cumbersomely in the air between you and me.
 “It’s late,” you say, rubbing your eyes slowly and staring hollowly at me.
 You’re tired. I can see it, etched in the deepening lines on your face and weighing heavy on your aching shoulders. I’m tired too; so tired I can hardly hold my eyelids open any longer. An hour ago I wouldn’t have admitted it, but now I can: the fight has left me at last. 
 “I know,” I reply, surprised at how small my voice sounds. It wasn’t small earlier tonight, when I roared so loudly by the window that a man walking his dog on the street below stopped and looked up in shock. 
 “Look, Em…” you begin, suddenly vulnerable. I catch my breath at this unexpected tone in your voice. Something in my expression brings a tiny smile tugging at the uttermost corners of your mouth. I can’t help it; I know I’m staring now and I hate that you can see it, but I wasn’t expecting this. “You look so serious,” you say, gently, but the amusement in your voice stings my soul.
 “Don’t laugh at me,” I retort, a flicker of the former flame returning for a moment.
 A heavy sigh escapes from your lips and the smile. “I’m not laughing at you.” You take a step across the invisible No Man’s Land between us, towards me. “I promise.”
 It’s my turn to retreat. “I’m sorry, I know you’re not. It’s just that I’m tired and it’s late.”
 “I know.”

 You smile at me. I hesitate, but submit. There’s no point in fighting now. We’ve reached the end: Game Over.
Silence returns, but rather than oppressing the atmosphere, it warms the room somehow; making our surroundings feel more expansive yet lessening the distance that still remains between us.
 So here we are: you and me, stood like ridiculous demobbed soldiers with nothing to do except remember the battle and figure out what on earth we’re meant to do next. 

 “So what do we do?” I ask.
 “I’m not entirely sure,” you admit and I see us both visibly relax at the admission. “Any ideas?”
 My mind’s as blank as a whitewashed wall. I shrug and you laugh out loud. It surprises us both, I think. 
 “Well, whatever we do, we need to solve this before daylight, which is…” you check your watch, “approximately an hour away.”
 “Really?” A glance at my own timepiece confirms the hour: five-fifteen a.m. “We’ve been fighting all night,” I say incredulously.
 “I know,” you reply, your smile broadening. “Ever since seven-thirty. That’s…” You pause to do the mental calculations. “Nearly ten hours of battling.”
 I blow out a long, low whistle. “And still no resolution, Jack.”
 The smile fades from your face but your eyes remain earnest in their survey of me. “I shouldn’t have called you a liar.”
 My heart rate quickens. My mouth is so dry it chafes my throat when I try to swallow. “I’m not a liar,” I say simply. “I told you the truth.”

 You shake your head and make another advance towards me. “I want to believe you, Em… It’s just that I…” You run a hand through your hair and look away from me, as if what you want to say can’t be expressed eye to eye. “I thought I knew who you were. But what you said last night… It’s changed everything I felt secure with. You pulled the rug from under me and I… I just don’t know how to deal with how that makes me feel now.”
 “But I told you because I care about you,” I blurt out. Your eyes jump back to mine and I mentally kick myself for saying it.
 “What?”
 I stare at the floor but I can feel your eyes boring into me, “Nobody is meant to know here,” I begin, slowly, uncertainly, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I’m under orders never to break my cover. I risked my life telling you…”
 “So – the guy from the rival company? The one I saw you talking to in the street last night?”
 “He’s a Field Agent. He was passing on intelligence.”
 “He doesn’t work for Jefferson-Jones?”
 “No.” I look up at you, unsure of what I’ll find. Your face is colder, more guarded, but your eyes are still inviting more from me. “Like I said last night, I wasn’t betraying the company. I wasn’t betraying you.”

 You turn and walk to the desk at the other end of the office. For several moments, I can’t make out your expression as you stare vacantly towards the wall. I can hear you breathing quickly, but I can’t tell whether the cause is fear, anger or something else…

 “Jack, I don’t expect you to believe me, OK? All I want you to know is that everything else I said, about how I felt and about what you mean to me, that’s all real. All the time, I have been working here to protect you, not to deceive you. You might not have known all about who I am, but you know me…”
 “But I don’t know you, do I?” You keep your eyes away from me as you reply and I can hear pain stabbing at your voice. “I don’t even know your name, Em. Because I’m presuming that Emma isn’t your real name?”

 I have no answer. You’re right, of course. It’s basic Agent training: never disclose your identity. But I’m torn: just like I was last night when I inadvertently broke my cover. I have been assigned on covert surveillance missions for over fifteen years and I have never, ever disclosed my identity. I have never been compelled to. Yet last night, something in me broke and, with less thought than I’ll ever admit to you, I told you the truth. 

 You turn back and I know you can see the battle raging at my core. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” you ask, your eyebrows raising as the realisation dawns.
 “I… I haven’t done this before,” I stammer, finding that I’m wringing my hands as anxiety begins to claim my pulse. “Nobody is meant to know…”
 “So why me?”
 I look at you, struggling to wrench words from the swirling maelstrom in my brain.  “I… You’re different,” I stutter, “You mean something to me. More than this mission, more than my training, more than the fear of what may happen to me. And now you’re all I have…”

 Quicker than heartbeat, you are in front of me, taking my hands in yours, your eyes willing strength to flood my entire being and quell the storm in my soul. 
 “Then you’ve got me, Em.”