Dec 23rd

"This is nice," Simon said, walking the streets of the Old City. Though his job had taken him all around the world(the irony was that he had been more places as a financier than he had as a SHIELD Agent), he had never seen a place like this. Of course, in the company of Wanda, even the mundane became a world bending experience. Seeing things through her eyes, so pure and mystical, was like experiencing the world for the first time. Everything was new. Everything was exciting.

"This was a good idea. Much better than the Hawaii," he looked to the scarlet hued witch. "I'm glad you thought of it. It's so peaceful here. I bet you could spend hours here just sitting, imagining the people who used to live here, what their lives must have been like."

He knew she didn't spend all her time there though, because much of that was spent with her. In fact, they had grow exceptionally close in the last few months. They had grown comfortable with each other. He held her hand now as though it was an unconscious thing, as thought hat was where he belonged. He strolled with her comfortably, allowing their conversations to subside and fall into silence. No longer did he feel the need to fill her ear with babbling. He was confident in their relationship. She was the first thought to brighten his day in the morning as well as the thing that ensured his dreams were sweet.

"I'm really glad I met you," he said, squeezing her hand tighter.

"I think, my dearest," she said leaning in and planting a brief but sweet kiss on his lips, "that it was destined to happen. If not on that ship, then elsewhere - on the street, in a store, in situations comical or not so comical. What I am glad of is that I meet you now, when the time was right and my head is clear." Then added with a shrug, "As clear as it ever is... as here as it ever is." She spoke in riddles that weren't actually riddles but a literal truth; in the previous years, her mind had been so seldom here, she'd been lost among layers and layers of reality that no one but her ever saw, and so to on-lookers she'd been a mad woman talking to herself and about imaginary things. It had taken hitting rock bottom and being such a danger and a mess that she'd wanted to end of life - had put her head against the muzzle of Madison's weapon and told him to fire it - before she'd gotten learned how to live in the here and now.


"Did I tell you," she said as they walked the old streets of forgotten aliens, "that Pietro and Avery are finally to be married?" They came upon that resembled a crossroads of several streets and at the center was an obelisk, markings were engraved along its length something that seemed to be an empty bowl at the top. "For the longest time, I thought Pietro and I would never be parted." She squeezed Simon's hand and grinned. "I, too, can be mistaken."

The streets of the forgotten city, so full of the memories of former lives, would have taken the man's breath away had the woman walking along with him not have stolen it already. She kissed him quickly and, in that moment, as in every one where their bodies met, the world melted into a meaningless thing. It was extra, collateral and, as such, expendable with the spin that encompassed them. She was the sweetest most intoxicating presence he had ever known. It stripped away the worries of the world. It stole life's importance. It made him who he wanted to be. Without her, he would not be Simon Williams, the Defender. Simon Williams, the Agent. Simon Williams, the man.

"Well, clear or foggy," he said, sidestepping the vast unknown that must exist within Wanda's mind. "I sort of dig it. In case you hadn't noticed."

The came up to a crossroads, how fitting, and Wanda told him the news of her brother.

"That's wonderful, isn't it?" he said, a bit unsure. She had always been close with her brother and, while Simon was hardly his favorite person in the world, he knew how important that relationship was to Wanda. "And being wrong doesn't have to be a bad thing. Your brother's moving on. It doesn't mean he won't still be in your life. And it doesn't mean you wont move on too."

"Oh, I know," she agreed, "being wrong can be a very good thing. But I do not think I was so much wrong as," she paused, considering her words, "that I did not know enough. I was young, we both were, and all we knew was the very tiny space around our feet. Pietro did not know such a person as Avery existed." She turned and looked up into Simon's eyes, "And I did not know such a person as Simon Williams existed." Standing at the alien crossroads, she wrapped her arms around his waist; being there felt so right and the only place in the world she wanted to be. "And now, I would not go back to those old days of only Pietro and myself, even if I could. I was so lost back then, but now I know where home and happiness are - they are at your side."


Wanda laid her head on Simon's chest; they'd spent so much time apart in the last few weeks, him with SHIELD and her with finding at risk mutants with the Mutant Hunters, that she wanted to soak in every detail of him and store it away in her heart. "Christmas is only a few days away; you are staying, yes? Unless," she continued as a touch of doubt clouded her eyes, "you were planning to stay with your family. Your brother and mother." She tilted her face up to his, awaiting his answer.

"You're amazing," Simon said, almost instinctively as Wanda spoke to him. He had thought it so many times that, when the words spilled from his mouth, they seemed natural. "You feel like home to me too. You really do. I want you to know how important you are to me. I wouldn't go back either. I'd give up every instant that came before for this one, I promise. You're my family now. That's it. I don't want anyone else. I don't need anyone else. I- I love you."

He felt good after saying it. The words were freeing. They emptied from him like water, like sweet nectar feeding him. "I'm not interested in some stuffy family dinner where the only thing worse than the silence is the conversation. I wanna have Christmas with you.We can do whatever you want. I mean, I don't have any money anymore, but you have super powers, so I think that should cover the distance. Whatever you want. Wherever you want, I'm game."


Simon wrapped his arms around Wanda, feeling as free as he ever had, as whole as he ever had. There could be nothing better than this. He knew that, and he was never going to forget it.

I love you, he'd said and Wanda closed her eyes, drinking in the moment. For all the terrible moments she lived through every day, all the things that bend her sanity, horrors from beyond space and time that she forever sees leaking through the soft spots in reality, the quiet moments with Simon make them bearable. He was her oasis. He was the calm island amid the wild, shifting winds that her unique mutation had made of her life.

She would be content to stand there all night, just the two of them in their own world, away from the problems and demands of life, but - after a moment Wanda lifted her head from his chest and found his eyes. "But your brother, your mother. You may think you can do without them now because you know that you could forgive and forget all that separates you - the fights, the bitterness, the distance. But if they were dead..." she let the sentence hang, unfinished in the air. "If your brother called for your help, you would go to him without a moment's hesitation, you know you would." She laid her hand on chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart beneath her fingers. "Why wait for disaster to darken your life?"

Whether or not she expected an answer from him, a sound she never expected to hear in this forgotten and ancient city. The baby's wail snapped her attention from Simon and to the street it was echoing from.

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Continued in Even an enemy would give them aid