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It’s only when he’s dying that he allows himself to think about Ilsa Faust.
He left her body and the memory of her in Venice, didn’t spare a second thought to her in all the chaos that followed. Maybe a brief second, a flash of her face before he plummeted into a valley in the Austrian Alps, but not long, not long enough, but far too long. It might have been unfair to her, but he thinks that if the roles were reversed, Ilsa would have been more or less the same.
She wouldn’t have thought about him. In fact, she wouldn’t have thought about him nearly as much as he still had let himself think about her, and even that was barely half a thought.
Now, with his body convulsing, his brain losing control of his muscles, and excruciating pain lancing through his entire being, she’s all he can think about. Ethan’s brain doesn’t even necessarily cycle through flashing images of her. No, he thinks about her in the desert, the weight of her body on top of him, his knee up against her hip.
Her hair looked more golden than he’d ever seen it. She smelled nothing like that lavender and gardenia perfume he’d almost gotten used to—just like sand and sweat and something that was innately her, something Ethan had never quite gotten enough of before.
Inches from death, water in his lungs, dying from the bends, and that heady scent overwhelms him. He’s never been this close before. To dying, certainly, but to accepting his death, no. That was his greatest secret, his key to survival—the inexplicable, irrational, absolute certainty he had in himself that he’d survive. He’d been put through some terrible plans, some hair-raising escapes, but he never thought he wouldn’t survive.
Not until now. Not until he sees her face and smells her body so clearly and vividly that he’s just about sure that he’s half dead and his consciousness is ebbing into whatever comes after.
Ethan could never make any sense of it before. The fixation on her features, the pull of her presence, the desire to touch her, see her. The way her smell and the sound of her voice had burrowed deep into every crevice of his brain, and the reason for his only hope of coping with her death being the act of shutting her out entirely. He never figured out what he felt, let alone tell her.
But he has a feeling he’ll see her very soon, and maybe they’ll talk, and maybe they’ll be totally honest with each other, for once.
-
This part, he thinks he might remember. Strong arms, soft hands. Caressing his face, his bare skin. Yes, he’s in Casablanca, and any minute now, he’s going to feel the sting of defibrillator paddles. He’s going to open his eyes and see her, her soaking wet hair, her lips parted in relief.
But that’s not what happens. He senses, through the uncontrollable jerks and spasms of his body, that arms are wrapping tightly around him even when he’s out of the water, his face being tucked carefully into the crook of a neck, sobs and gasps of relief against his half-frozen ear. Soft flesh against his body, a smell that’s not quite unpleasant but one he doesn’t recognize.
Ethan opens his eyes. He touches the face of the woman lying in front of him, melts into her touch. Seeing Grace fills him with such raw, earth-shattering relief that he almost, almost forgets about the feverish vision of Ilsa in the desert. Grace clings to him, or maybe he’s clinging to her—the latter is more likely.
Their breaths almost echo in the decompression chamber. They exchange soft words, and Ethan’s eyes graze weakly over the Podkova in Grace’s hands. Their noses are inches apart, faces close enough that he can feel her breath on his lips.
(“Who in the world would you trust with all that power?”)
(You.)
(Me?)
Ethan doesn’t particularly worry about Grace voicing second thoughts about killing the Entity. Even though it never crossed his mind to let it live, he knows why others might want that. He knows why Grace is looking at him like this, eyes wide in uncertainty, wet hair clinging to her sharp jaw. What he doesn’t quite understand is why Grace would ever think that Ethan is the one who should have the responsibility, if they are to let the Entity live.
(Ilsa never would have said that.)
The thought pops into his brain and refuses to evaporate or fade into the background. He wants to appreciate Grace’s utter and unwavering faith in him, the warmth of her presence, the relief of her smile, but at the moment, all he wants to do is roll away from her for just a second, turn his face into the ground of the decompression chamber.
(Ilsa never would have said that. She’d already be whispering in his ear about how to kill the Entity for good, her long, slender fingers dancing over his sternum, the smell of her overpowering his lungs, not lavender or gardenia but something that’s just her—)
Time moves too fast. An Inuit woman with a smile sweet and warm enough to melt the entire ice cap is tossing heaps of clothes at him, winking at the sight of him and Grace intertwined on the floor of the decompression chamber. Grace rolls away to peel her wet top off of her body, and Ethan’s eyes flicker away instinctively as he pulls on his own clothes.
In between slow, painful blinks, he still sees her. Hair more golden than Arabian sand at sunset, eyes shining brighter than any mirage.
Too late, Ethan realizes that he might have been in love with her, and doesn’t have a single moment to dwell on it at all.