A Hitman's Miss

Epilogue

or, in Which Everything Goes Right

Russia mourned many lives. He mourned the death of his friend and the death of the man that East might have become. He mourned his father and the father that he might have had instead. He mourned the death of his old life. However, these wounds were clean and well-cared for, and they healed without festering. From spurting blood, to new scars, to dull aches and pains.

The grief was most soothed by a deepening relationship with his siblings and with the people of the country he was now in charge of. The former USSR was slowly dismantled: Russia's father had been displaced at the height of his power, and the systems he had put in place had a tight fist around Russia's siblings and the satellite states.

Now being shackled by more responsibilities than ever before, Russia found himself a free man. He even had a new flag to show it, a flag that he discovered, though his own genealogy, had once belonged to a naval officer under the old Russian Empire.

He now cared for his siblings, by letting them go and arranging things so that they could care for themselves. He helped them most by helping himself, growing his own ideas and seeing what he knew that was valuable and what he had to unlearn in order to unstunt his growth.

Two years came and went, drawing lines on Russia's new face. His duties kept him flitting from place to place and project to project, but again and again, he found that his spirit drifted West across the sea. He read the New York Times instead of local papers in the morning, both to improve his English and to sate some of this urge while he was yet occupied. Finally, with his affairs in order, he crossed the Atlantic and went to that city to which his innermost self pulled him.

Was he a more mature man now than he was then? He supposed, as he walked down the street towards Sally's Diner, that he hadn't even been a man then, despite his estimation of his own maturity. Everything had seemed so clear then, and now, knowing more, Russia realized just how little he knew at all. In a few more years, would he look back on himself and once again wonder how he had ever been such a child?

The sky-line had already shifted. Old buildings had been uprooted and new buildings had been built. The street was certainly more worn by tread and track of foot and car. Perhaps it was the same, though, and Russia's memory was only being returned to the tracks from which it had wandered.

He stepped into the diner. The bell jingled as he closed the door. The place seemed smaller, because his eyes had been shifted up a few centimeters since he had last been here, and now he was just as tall as his father had been in his prime.

The woman behind the counter was as Russia remembered, except for a few more laugh lines than she had had before.

"Does a man with sunglasses come here often?" he said. His English was much improved since he had last been here, and his accent was a coloring rather than a stumbling block to his words.

"America? Yeah, he and his brother are regulars. Love 'em both to death," she said, brushing back a lock of curly hair.

Russia held up two coins between his fingers, rubbing them together to make a metallic rasp. "I'll give you fifty cents to give him a message for me."

"Mighty important message for fifty cents. What is it?"

"Just to meet at the Lavender Lady tonight at nine o'clock," Russia said as he pressed the quarters onto the counter.

Sally shrugged and dropped them in her apron pocket. "And if he asks who's it from?"

"An old friend."

"Alright, Mister Mysterious."

"Thank you." Russia nodded to her before leaving the diner.

He wandered the streets, dwelling on old memories for a few hours. The knife that he always kept on his belt found itself sheathed and unsheathed dozens of times as Russia took it out to retrace the scratches and notches with his eyes. Finally, he came to the old, squat building as the sky's last colors faded into night. The stars hovered above, dim as candles, but never about to flicker out.

He knocked on the inner door of the Lady, and told the man who answered that he was a friend of Canada's.

Then, he went in.

There was a familiar figure at the bar, looking around at every face, and Russia noticed with a slight smile that the man's glasses were shaded yellow instead of black. He enjoyed looking at Meri's eyes, especially when they met his for a moment as Russia was examined for familiarity.

Russia sat down in the seat next to the man, much to Meri's chagrin.

"Uh, hello? Can I... help you?"

Russia gestured to the bar-tender.

"Hello?" the assassin pressed.

Russia smirked knowingly, waving over his own face. "It's just the color that's different, Meri. Have I really changed so much?"

The man's jaw dropped. "Holy shit, kid," Meri murmured.

But it was Russia who was completely caught off guard by the following kiss. Meri's lips were as soft as he imagined, but so much less reluctant. He could taste the whiskey on America's tongue.

And in that moment, two battered spirits found their homes.

.

.

.

"Oh, maybe I should tell you--... My name is--"

"I've had an entire year to see your face in the papers. I know your name is America."

"Yeah, that makes sense. You're not mad at me?"

"For trying to kill the man I eventually murdered?"

"Yeah, you're right."