The order came down the next morning. Anderson's office, the door closed, his face doing something it didn't usually do — something almost kind.
"Two weeks," he said. "Mandatory. Get your stuff together and come back stronger."
"It wasn't—" McGee started.
"It wasn't a choice. I know." He looked at her for a long moment. "You're no good to me like this, and you're no good to yourself. Two weeks."
She nodded, because there was nothing else to do, and went home and packed a bag, and went to Hannah's.
---
Hannah's couch was blue. McGee learned this the way you learned things at 3 a.m. with a glass in your hand — thoroughly, and without meaning to. The cushions had a pattern. The throw blanket smelled like Hannah's laundry detergent. The ceiling had a crack shaped like Florida.
She drank. That was the shape of the days: wake up on the blue couch, drink, sleep, wake up. Hannah went to work and came home and never said a word about the bottles, just put food where McGee could find it and sat with her in the evenings like it was the most normal thing in the world. She was watching — McGee knew she was watching, making sure the stupid didn't go past the bottle. It was the kindest surveillance she'd ever been under.
Once, around day five, Hannah found her crying into a dishtowel at 2 a.m. and didn't ask why — just made tea she didn't drink and stayed until the crying stopped. Another night McGee heard Hannah on the phone in the bedroom, voice low: "No, she's not ready. I'll tell you when she's ready." Anderson, probably. The machine, waiting.
She dreamed about the mask. She dreamed about the kitchen — his heartbeat under her cheek, the eggs going. She woke up reaching for him and found the blue couch and the Florida crack, and drank until the reaching stopped.
On the ninth day, Hannah came home early, sat on the coffee table across from the couch, and said, "We need to talk."
"Do we."
"You're asking the wrong question."
McGee stared at the ceiling. Florida was still there. "What's the right question?"
"Not how could he. You know how he could — you've had two weeks to do the math." Hannah leaned forward. "The question is what you're going to do about the fact that you still—" She stopped.
"That I still what?"
"That you still love him, Miggy." Hannah's voice was gentle and merciless at once. "Say it or don't. But stop drinking around it."
McGee closed her eyes. The Florida crack swam.
---
The news was on that evening. Hannah had left it on — or maybe McGee had turned it on herself; the days blurred. And there he was.
Glorified. That was the word. The mask on t-shirts, the dancing footage played like a music video, think pieces about what he meant. Cable news had given him a nickname — the Maestro, some of them called him, like he was a conductor and the burning banks his orchestra. Some of them called him a monster. Some of them — God help her — called him a prophet. There was footage of a rally downtown, kids in paper masks, chanting. Kids.
And underneath it all, the crawl: markets frozen, banks shuttered, the crisis jumping borders like he'd said it would. Hours. Days, maybe. London. Tokyo. The world was actually burning, and he was becoming a folk hero for lighting the match.
She sat on the blue couch and watched him dance on a loop, and felt it — the thing she'd been drinking around for nine days. It hadn't died with the mask. It was still there, stupid and stubborn and hers.
She still loved him. And she still needed to know.
Hannah came in from the kitchen with two mugs and stopped when she saw McGee's face.
"I need to see him," McGee said.
Hannah set the mugs down slowly. "As a detective?"
"No." McGee looked at the screen — at him, mid-spin, arms out wide. "As Marcene."
Chapter 35