She says that they're gone, he can hear her just fine, and then almost as if in response - no, of course it's in response, it's Anne, it's in response. She says 'They're gone. They left.' and he hears Anne's light laughter, the kind that he used to hear when she was down the hallway looking at some thing she'd found, or chatting with some person she may or may not have liked but she knew well enough to know that it wasn't a bad thing to be nice on occasion. It was the sort of laugh that had always called to him, to make him come and seek her out.

(He wondered, in the months afterward, watching vids and holos if it wasn't like that on purpose; whether or not she was having him find her happy, amused, entertained, by those around her, and calling him in to see, or calling him in just to see if she could do it, to manipulate one person who wasn't even in the room at the time effort and seamlessly while she was doing the same to those who were already there. He wondered if she learned from him, or if he was just simply so easy that it was a relaxing break when she came home. He wondered all of that then, and what he has right now is a voice that drips with mimicry, a saccharine 'Yes, my love,' in affirmation, and it's not real but the rest of it was and he just...

He just can't tell. )

Athos has been looking off into indeterminate space for some time now, and this isn't likely to change even as he registers that Juliett has begun speaking again - and thank god, because even though having her voice outside and Anne's voice inside and Anne's voice responding to her inside and his own, quietly, asking her to stop just for a little while; it's all getting a little cacophonous. He closes his eyes so he can hear better and he doesn't tense, he deliberately doesn't tense - which has the approximate effect of making him more or less go a little rigid, which totally isn't the same as tense, and he's listening to Juliett, yes, Monet is dead, Athos is okay with this, 'Anne can fuck off' and wow she's so mad and he squeezes his eyes and bites his lip just a little because she doesn't feel like she's dead like she's supposed to be - what? no, dead like she is, except not right now, because she's here and he has her, and he doesn't know what to do to keep it all in his head and it's just --

Someone - he has his eyes closed and to be honest right now he's not quite himself but he's still subconsciously pretty sure it's Juliett has yanked him down to her by his shirt and slammed their mouths together and for about one-point-eight seconds he freezes, he has no idea, and it's silent in his head, everything's quiet. Juliett is kissing him, and it's                  

He takes the free hand he'd had this whole time and puts it on her head, her cheek, her neck, wherever she wants it, and the one on her heart he keeps trapped between them as he continues to kiss her back.