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It was still very early, the combination of her entire cluster being asleep and intravenous morphine leaving her foggy. Wolfgang had finally allowed himself to get some sleep, his head on her hospital bed and the rest of him hunched over a chair in a way she could already feel was extremely uncomfortable. She faintly heard Rajan talking on the phone to her parents in the hallway, his shoes squeaking as he paced. She'd opted out of speaking to them herself, delaying what would inevitably be a very long conversation. One she had no idea how to even begin.
Her own phone chimed, a text from Felix who had wasted no time exchanging numbers with everybody to keep tabs on his friend. This you? and a picture of Wolfgang on stage holding a microphone, staring awestruck into space. She gasped and nearly sat up, a quick sting of pain that reminded her she wasn't going to be out of bed any time soon.
Ignoring the lingering ache and completely forgetting to text Felix back, she zoomed in on the photo. Her literal dream come true, a moment between the two of them that she had no idea had been captured on camera. A moment she had doubted was even real until she heard his voice again, similarly drunk and playfully searching for her in the stalls of a nightclub bathroom with a longing she couldn't doubt.
She was tempted to wake Wolfgang, to show him photo evidence of how much he loved her as if either of them needed to see it. But he needed sleep more than he needed proof, and with a sting of guilt that rivaled the sting of sitting up, she saved the photo knowing she likely would never be able to show it to anyone from home. Would never be able to show him to anyone from home.
Even if she hadn't been unfaithful to her husband, could her family ever accept someone like Wolfgang? And yet Rajan, who had more reason than anyone to hate him, had openly embraced him. If she hadn't had them both, if they didn't still love her despite her hurting them with each other, she'd be dead. That had to count for something. But would it count for enough?
Rajan's pacing stopped for a bit, and the talking changed languages before resuming in Hindi and then Felix hobbled into the room on crutches.
"Hi!" she whispered excitedly. "Sorry, I was going to text you back."
"It's okay, I needed a cigarette anyway."
"Don't!"
"If I hadn't been in a coma last time I could've exhaled out of multiple holes in my chest. Do you know how cool that would've looked?"
"If you keep smoking you can get throat cancer and have a hole there too."
He chuckled and nodded like that was somehow a good thing, then gestured to her phone. "So that was you?"
"It was." She'd listened to that song for days even though it sounded wrong because it wasn't his voice. Their voices. Together. "I can't believe you got a picture of that."
"I thought he was just fucked up. Like some drugs kicked in or something. He was gone. And then smiling…I've never seen him smile like that." Daya had said the same thing to her. "He had a lot more fun with it once you showed up. Made the crowd go wild."
It was a different crowd, a different song the first time they saw each other at her and Rajan's engagement party. How inexplicably tied together the three of them were right from the beginning. And how many times she and Wolfgang had been interrupted by Felix.
"Do you remember when you told him Abraham would take the rest of the diamonds? When he was sitting at the cafe in the rain?"
"That was you too?" He smiled. "And when he was rolling around throwing snowballs in his own face?"
She nodded. Even though it was the wrong time of year, she'd held out hope she'd get to see snow in Paris. "I'd never seen it before. It was so lovely and he was being…"
"Wolfie?"
"And he was being Wolfie." In all his melancholy beauty.
Sitting on her bed, Felix adjusted Wolfgang’s blanket. Rajan had draped it over him, being so delicate with it because he thought for sure he’d wake him. Felix got right in there, tucking it around his shoulders and moving him to a more comfortable position in a way that made him stir but he didn’t wake up. The dark circles under his eyes were nothing new but being puffy from crying definitely was. "So what happened with Lila? You forget to shoot first?"
"Yes," Kala pouted. Wolfgang made shooting people look easy. She'd been so confident she had her. That she was capable of it. But she'd still hesitated and Lila didn't. "I really wanted to be the one to kill her."
"You still kinda did, what with you guys being mutants and all."
"That is not the preferred term," she scolded even though she knew it was the one Wolfgang had used.
"Did you at least get to see the look on her face?"
Lila had told Wolfgang he would regret crossing her. Rejecting her. She certainly regretted crossing him. The only benefit of eye contact with that bitch, and she'd been beside herself. And then suddenly very far away from herself. Kala smiled. "I did."
"Can't believe I missed that shit again! I gotta stop getting shot."
Kala had registered Wolfgang's concern, but since Felix was still conscious and shooting off both his gun and his mouth, he'd just passed him to Capheus like a baton and gone back to raiding the Forcella. Not that the thought hadn't done more than cross his mind that he could lose them both once the adrenaline wore off in the waiting room.
Felix lovingly stroked Wolfgang’s hair. "You gave him quite the scare."
"So did you."
"Getting turned into Swiss cheese did come with the benefit of not feeling it." He nodded towards her IV. "Shit hurts, huh?"
Her cluster's collective grief hurt worse than getting shot, all of them feeling her pain and then each other's like repeated aftershocks. And seeing Wolfgang break down and cry for her after everything he'd been through. He and Rajan were both still so scared, acting like she'd drop dead if they hugged her. Wolfgang held her hand but otherwise only touched her in their heads. It was refreshing to have Felix there to joke around with.
And he'd survived getting turned into Swiss cheese.
"I visited you," she said. Felix may not have felt anything the last time, but Wolfgang certainly had. Sharing his pain, it had hurt too much not to cry; a crowded theater surrounded by laughter—by her family—it felt particularly cruel. Her first real introduction to Wolfgang’s world. "Well, I visited him while he was with you."
Gripping her hand, he gave her an appreciative smile. "I’m glad he wasn’t alone. As weird as all this cluster shit is."
As weird as it was, Felix had still been eager to join their fight with no comprehension of what they were up against. So had Rajan. Without them it would've had a very different conclusion.
And without Felix, Wolfgang would've grown up to be a very different person. She was a part of him, and still there was so much she didn't understand. Maybe he didn't either. But Felix knew him better than anyone, and now Wolfgang wasn't awake to stop her from interrogating him. "You met in detention?"
"Is this you asking, or the cop?" Felix said suspiciously, then laughed. "Yeah, we were little delinquents."
She skeptically raised her eyebrows. "Were?"
Felix paused to acknowledge Rajan as he came inside. "I'm a respectable businessman now, thank you very much." A respectable businessman who ran a key shop to legitimize their burglary and owned a club given to them by a money laundering gangster.
"Your parents remain extremely worried but I talked them out of coming here for the time being," Rajan said. "Again."
"Thank you." Her parents showing up was the last thing she needed. It looked like no one was going to be arrested, and Puck's cluster had dealt with the rest of Lila's, but she'd willingly take another bullet before explaining to her family who Wolfgang was. And another bullet was the only thing that could separate them right now.
"Sorry for interrupting," Rajan said to Felix. "You were saying you're in business?"
"We own a key shop. And a nightclub but that's kinda up in the air right now."
"Why, what's going on with it? Cashflow issues or…advertising?"
Kala smiled at Rajan trying to be supportive of a world he thought he understood. He'd been so sweet through everything. He rented that convertible just to please Capheus—which was honestly the least he could do considering his previous business practices were arguably more criminal than Felix's despite being legal. He provided the rendezvous, not to mention hotel rooms for her entire cluster plus all their friends. A last minute first class plane ticket to Italy for Diego. And more than anything else, comforting Wolfgang over the two people he loved most in the world being in the hospital. And now bonding with Felix. Over business.
"Nah, nothing like that. It belonged to the gangster boyfriend of the Neapolitan bitch who shot your wife. He gave it to us as a sort of gilded cage situation." With an exaggerated wink that Rajan absolutely did not understand, he added, "We're into that."
"Mein Gott," Kala groaned and pressed her morphine button. It was bad enough Wolfgang was flirting with her husband without his friend joining in.
"But I was just about to tell embarrassing stories about Wolfie growing up."
"Oh, I'm here for this." With a quick look at both her and sleeping Wolfgang to ensure he wasn't in trouble for saying so, Rajan sat on Kala's other side.
"So yes, we met in detention. But I was already aware of who he was. By then his reputation had preceded him."
Rajan glanced again at Kala. He knew all about that. This Wolfgang fellow. The man his wife was in love with. The man she was arguing with on their honeymoon that caused her to put Rajan in this very same hospital. And he still risked his own life to save Wolfgang's. And hers. "Reputation for what?"
"Fighting," she and Felix said together.
"Technically fighting," Felix added. "In reality, doing a lot of standing between the bullies and the losers and getting his ass kicked. Only all their usual tactics didn't work because Wolfgang couldn't be intimidated. He wasn't scared of getting hurt and he knew how to hit back.
"So I'm hearing all this gossip about this new kid from the east, from the bullies, from the losers, even from the teachers, and finally the day comes where our paths cross. The principal's son felt secure enough with his place in the social hierarchy to pick on a nerd right in front of his dad, absolutely humiliate him, and the principal did jack shit about it. But Wolfie did. Popped the kid square in the nose. Also right in front of the principal. Hence, detention."
Those so-called embarrassing stories made Wolfgang sound like he was from one of Lito's movies. Maybe to those other kids he was. He hated bullies, and he'd protect anyone from what he went through. And Rajan looked as enraptured by every word out of Felix's mouth as Kala felt.
"And the principal shoves Wolfie into the room, I mean you can tell he wants to rough him up himself but instead he just leaves and locks us in. Probably didn't even notice I was there."
It was different hearing Felix's version of events, and not only because she wasn't able to relive it as a memory like she had with Wolfgang. He'd said he didn't know why Felix liked him. But the way Felix looked at him, talked about him, was pure hero worship.
"So I call him over and Wolfie is…cautious but not scared, like a hungry stray dog who'll bite if he has to but would rather just be left alone. And naturally the first thing I do is make fun of his name."
"Is that not a common German name?" Rajan looked between her and Felix. In only a few days he'd gone from thinking she was in an insane cult to assuming she was as much an expert on German naming conventions as a native. In this case, he was right.
"Yeah if you're sixty," Felix scoffed. Or two hundred and sixty, since Wolfgang's mother chose a name that sounded strong and masculine and German when really she named him after Mozart; a silent act of defiance because she loved music and his father wouldn't know the difference. "But even though that's the name his mama gave him, Wolfie took it in stride. And that's when I knew. That one was mine. By the time the principal came to let us out, we'd forgotten we weren't allowed to leave."
That part was definitely true. According to Wolfgang, they were there for hours and it was the most anyone had spoken to him since he started at that school. He'd been so excited he went home to tell his mom all about his new friend. And she warned him he was just going to get hurt.
"And what did you do?" Rajan asked. "To be in detention."
"Me?" Felix looked around like Rajan could be talking to anyone else. Wolfgang didn't think of his friend as a sidekick, had never considered Felix lesser in any way, but it was clear Felix's life revolved around him. "I lived there. Talking back, stealing, smoking. Skipping detention."
Just the thought of getting into trouble at school, much less skipping that punishment made her blood pressure visibly rise on the monitor. She'd never even taken a sick day, and despite her husband owning the company she worked for and nearly losing her life, Kala still had chemical analysis and shipping reports in the back of her mind.
"Not fighting?"
"Nah. I used to get beat up until I figured out the best option for a small kid with a big mouth was to provide a service. Cigarettes were easy to steal and even easier to sell. That's business, baby."
Rajan laughed. Maybe it was the fact that she'd finally figured out she was in love with him, or they were finally being honest with each other, but apart from when she nearly died he seemed lighter, like he was having more fun among her cluster than he ever had at home. No stressing about work or whatever was going on with Ajay, just letting loose with Felix and bonding with Wolfgang.
"So you two connected over an affinity for theft?" he teased. Wolfgang had stolen his watch within minutes of meeting him, which Rajan unexpectedly found delightful.
"I taught him everything he knows." Felix was a good liar when he wanted to be, but not even tossing Rajan's watch to him over Kala's prone body made that lie convincing.
"When did you…"
"In the hall."
"Wallet," Kala said.
Felix tossed him that too.
Without opening his eyes, Wolfgang muttered, "Ring."
Rajan gasped and looked down at his bare hand. Part of her expected him to get angry; she'd been in love with another man since before he married her and that other man's lunatic best friend stole his wedding ring right off his finger. Even Wolfgang sat up, giving Felix a rare reproachful look. But Rajan was just impressed. "I was literally holding my phone to my ear with that hand how did you manage?"
Felix shrugged and handed it over, not risking tossing it.
Looking at her with the utmost fondness, Rajan put it back on. Then he turned back to gape again Felix. "You're on crutches! And you don't even have pockets."
He didn't have pants on either which Kala hadn't previously noticed. She gasped and looked away until Wolfgang dropped his blanket on Felix's lap to cover the hospital gown. Germans.
"One of the perks of getting shot: extra storage space."
She laughed so hard she hurt herself again. Wolfgang groaned, more pained by Felix's joke than Kala's wound. Rajan paled and looked like he might be sick.
"Really though, it's mostly distraction. And I gotta tell you Raj, you're an extremely easy mark."
"You are." Wolfgang nodded to her.
She proudly held up his watch. "Look!" It really was easier than it should've been. No wonder he'd already lost one of them during their first trip to Italy. If only shooting Lila had been that simple.
"My wife! Or was that my Wolf—um…Wolfgang."
Oh my Ganesha. She and Rajan both pretended not to notice that slip of the tongue. But Felix did not. He suggestively raised his eyebrows at Wolfgang, who just shook his head. "Why are you out of bed?"
"I came to get you for smokes."
He looked at Kala as if to ask whether his recently hospitalized friend who shouldn't even be out of bed was allowed to go outside with no clothes on to inhale carcinogens. But considering Sun had just gone outside with her detective, Riley and Diego joined them, and Wolfgang had wasted as little time as possible to start smoking again after being forced to quit by BPO rendering him unconscious for weeks, could she really say no?
As the only one with common sense—morphine or not—of course she could.
"Kala says no."
"She ain't the boss of me. Is she?"
She crossed her arms. Wolfgang shrugged. "Yeah."
"In that case, we should continue our stroll down embarrassing memory lane."
"We hadn't got to the embarrassing parts yet," Kala reassured him. Not that she or Wolfgang believed Felix would actually embarrass him on purpose.
"Or maybe we talk about the selection of music that you left in your car for my listening displeasure on the very long drive to Naples."
Wolfgang laughed the way he only did with Felix. "Okay, let's go smoke."
"Nope, too late. Raj, do you wanna guess how many Whitney Houston albums this asshole has in his car?"
"I love Whitney Houston," Kala said. And she loved Wolfgang all the more for the musical tastes his mama gave him.
Rajan laughed and shrugged. "I too love Whitney Houston."
"Gah!" Felix playfully threw his hands up in defeat, standing to leave with his hospital gown wide open in the back. Kala turned away again while Wolfgang stood behind him and tied it closed. "You three can have each other. If I can't smoke I'm going back to bed."
"I'll ask the nurses to move your bed in here," Rajan offered, not noticing or caring about Felix's implication causing Kala to blush.
"They're releasing me today. Thanks though." Felix mouthed gilded cage in German at Wolfgang and kissed his cheek, then left the room loudly singing "I said hey-ey-ey-ey-ey…"
With a bewildered expression over Felix's musical talents, Rajan asked, "Was that supposed to be Whitney?"
"Four Non Blondes," they said together.
"I'm not sure I know that one."
"Ooh!" Kala grabbed her phone, ready to quickly move away from Felix's text to play the song for him. But no. Whatever happened, Rajan was as involved in their relationship now as Felix. With a glance at Wolfgang—who was clearly as surprised at the photo's existence as she'd been but not opposed to Rajan seeing it—she gave it to her husband. "I'm there, but not there. It was one of the first times we saw each other."
A smile crept across Rajan's face and he sighed. "I know that expression." He hesitated for a moment and looked warmly between the two of them before handing it back. "I, um…when I was talking to your parents I think I gave you a bit of an opening. For an introduction at least, if you want one. I mentioned some German tourists helping to save your life."
This far into their relationship, two weddings and two visits to an Italian hospital and he was still surprising her. It was perfect. Nothing improper about a man who helped save her life coming to Mumbai and meeting her family. They'd insist upon it. They'd celebrate him.
Kala could feel that Wolfgang was even more touched by the gesture than she was. One step closer to his India plan, which hadn't felt this attainable since before Felix got shot the first time. "You really oughta marry this guy," he said in their heads.
How many sleepless nights had she spent stressing herself out over secrets instead of just being honest with her husband? All because she didn't feel the way she thought she should feel, the way she felt with Wolfgang, who was now looking at him with their shared admiration and gratitude.
She took Rajan's hand. Without hesitation—and without his watch—he took Wolfgang's. "Thank you, my husband," she said sincerely. Wolfgang may have taught her what love was, but every moment since she was learning more of what love could be. And as her cluster gathered around her bedside, those first few notes calling them to her while pieces of Lila and Whispers were washing up on the siren islands in the distance, she played their song for him.