A vicious wind howled through the snow-covered streets of Seattle. Darkness plagued the skies, as the moon hid behind the torrential clouds. In the heart of Pioneer Square, stood the archaic yet luxurious Hotel Bradford. Tall and unafraid, it stood silently braving the snowstorm in its eternal vigil.

Inside the lobby of the famous hotel, a concierge milled about normally, the same concierge who an hour ago had accepted a bribe under threat of grievous injury from two Russian gangsters, to momentarily leave his post next to the service elevator that led all the way up to the penthouse. Nervous though he was of the possible consequences of his actions, he dared not return to his post for one of the men still stood there seemingly barring entry for reasons unknown.

Unbeknownst to the concierge, the other man did the same as his companion except on the top floor. Sitting in front of the waiting subsidiary elevator, he sat with a newspaper in hand. Though his eyes briefly perused the headlines, his attention lay on the door of the penthouse down the hallway and on the blonde woman walking towards it.

Inside the large penthouse, hidden away from sight of the door, a man sat silently in shadows on a chair in the bedroom. Black of hair and black of clothes, he blended in easily with the darkness. In his hands, he held an ebony cane, one that concealed a sharp Damascus steel duelling sword. His eyes, one black, one discoloured and flanked by a vertical scar, gazed out of the bedroom window into the storm that assaulted the city.

Patiently he sat in quiet contemplation as he waited for the return of the woman whose penthouse he had broken into. As the sound of a heel hitting the pristine granite floor emerged from the entrance of the suite he felt his pulse quicken. The sound travelled towards the kitchen, perhaps so the owner of the heels could pour herself a drink and Alexander, despite his macabre demeanour couldn't help but roll his eyes. 

An assortment of sounds followed, glass, fur, and something unfamiliar to his ears before once again the heels were on the move, this time towards the bedroom. Inhaling deeply to steel his nerves, Alexander waited and gazed outside at the storm once again wondering if a storm was about to erupt inside as well. The heels abruptly stopped just inside the door of the bedroom. "You look like shit Miss Madeline." Alexander joked and turned his scarred, discoloured eye towards her with a half smile on his face just as a bolt of lightning cracked and cast him in an unearthly glow.

Madeline wasn’t a huge fan of Seattle. She didn’t like the rain and the cloudy skies. She didn’t want the memories of her lost friends, especially Lucious. It wasn’t that the city didn’t have its positive qualities – Coltrane was doing amazing things here and had been for some time. The business district was lovely to visit, and there was terrific coffee. But after a few days here she was ready to go home. She missed her family and her city and, most importantly, she missed her kids. She wanted to get back to the Brooklyn home to see all her little ones; this is the longest she’d been away since the doors had opened.

It would only take a day or two more for her to finish the business dealings she had here. As she got back to the Penthouse suit she had rented for her stay here, she spent a few minutes settling in, tossing her bag on the couch and heading to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She didn’t actually drink much alcohol these days – what she poured herself was a glass of sweet tea, mixed just right so it wasn’t too sweet or too bitter.

She pushed open the door to her bedroom, humming softly to herself as she switched on the light. Doing so brought her to a standstill – there was someone in her room. She nearly called out for Stephen before the man spoke, turning to face her.

It was his voice that struck her first – the deep, rich sound that she’d once known so well. The ice tea that had been in her hands tumbled to the floor, the glass shattering and the liquid spilling over her heels. Still, her eyes stayed focused on him, studying him. His face was different; there was a scar and one of his eyes was discolored. He looked rougher then when she’d last seen him as if the past two years had been difficult for him.

Standing in front of her was Alexander Knight. But it couldn’t be – Alex was dead. Alex died two years ago. This man was an imposter, look-alike, someone sent to deceive her.

Her eyebrows pulled together as his words lingered in the air. It was their phrase, their inside joke. How would he know it? Who was this person in her bedroom and how did they possibly get in? Her eyes flashed with confusion and distrust; it felt like the room was spinning, but she knew that wasn't possible. 

Pull it together Madeline. 

Again she thought of calling for Stephen, but if she did that now, she could bring even more danger to all of them. If the man tried to hold her hostage or started shooting if he suddenly felt outmanned, it could end in chaos. No, she needed to handle this one on her own. 

"Who are you and how in the world did you get into my bedroom?"

Because this couldn't be Alex. It couldn't be. 

Could it?

A sombre smile appeared on Alexander's face as he took a couple of cautious steps forward, noticeably limping in his right leg as he used his ebony cane to support him. "No bullet holes in my chest yet, so I guess this is already going better than I anticipated." He shuffled forward slowly, trying his best not to spook her further.

"Are you really surprised that an unguarded hotel suite in a strange city could be broken into? Come now, you know better than that." He explained softly, his eyes never leaving hers as he continued to step in closer. Stopping next to the shattered glass and the spilt liquid, he got down on one knee and moved the pieces away with his cane. Bringing a finger down, he grazed the liquid with it and brought the extended digit to his lips.

"A little too sweet for my taste but tea nonetheless."  He added before gracefully getting back to his feet. "Colour me impressed. Was expecting something much stronger."

Standing less than a foot from her, he inhaled her intoxicating scent as he looked upon the woman he had come to love, the woman he had lost. She looked at once the same and yet somehow different. Beautiful as ever but with eyes tired by the events of the past. He smiled as peace descended upon him, a peace that had long since deserted him in his woebegone exile. Yet, though his heart still fluttered at the sight of her, his eyes, having witnessed so much sin and so much cruelty, were absent of any warmth.

A dry chuckle escaped his throat as he marvelled at fate's twisted sense of humour. Two lovers, destined for happiness, parted by delusions of death, solemnly suffering in silent solitude. What words could they possibly whisper to each other once reunited?

"Must I always be shirtless for you to recognize me?" he teased.

His words were met with silence as she stood shell-shocked at his appearance. The man holding himself out to be Alex came forward, kneeling before her and tasting the liquid that was undoubtedly ruining her expensive shoes. He made an off-hand comment about how he expected her to be drinking something stronger and that caused a chuckle.

"I have barely touched alcohol in two years." She could count maybe a handful of times since Alex's death where she had drunk. The night of his funeral and the night she went out with Tara. The night of the war, of course. 

He stood back up and stared at her as if taking in the sight of her. She gazed back in return, still not entirely sure she believed what she was seeing, what she was hearing. Each moment that passed she was more and more confident that this was him, that it was Alex. Madeline had struggled to accept his death; she'd spent countless hours and who knows how much money searching for him. But life had moved on, and she'd slowly come to accept that he was gone. But here he was, standing in front of her once more. 

She took a step towards him, hesitating. Her hand rose to his cheek, not in a gentle, loving way but a quick and hard slap. There was a reassuring sound as the palm of her hand made contact with his cheek. 

"How dare you..."

Despite her best efforts, she couldn't control the emotion in her voice. There were a million ways for her to end that sentence - how dare he show up here, unannounced. How dare he let her think he was dead all this time. How dare he act so familiar with her, as if he could just come strolling back into her life. 

Her voice faltered by there was a fire ignited in her eyes: anger, mostly, but also pain and confusion. 

"You're dead." A whisper now, as if she was trying to convince herself again that this couldn't be him. Maybe it was just a bad dream. 

Blood rushed to colour his cheek pink as the sharp sting of the slap echoed throughout the empty room. "I would say that felt rather alive," Pausing to shrug he idly thumbed his cane and continued. "But I don't feel much on that side of my face anymore. Perhaps you'd like to try again?" 

He knew he should stop the teasing, but her temper and her fiery passion had been absent from his life for far far too long, seemingly lost to the past. Her voice cracked with emotion and she seemed somewhat unsteady on her feet. He instinctively lifted his hand to reach out to her, caress her skin, kiss her tender lips and bury her head into his chest. He wanted to reassure her, tell her this was real, tell her nothing had changed.

But he couldn't, for everything had changed. His hand fell away, back to the comforting grip of his ebony cane. He knew just how overwhelming this must have been for her. It had been much the same when he had confirmed, at the cost of considerable resources, that she was alive, a week after meeting Gavin.

Yet, he had allowed himself the time to accept things and prepare himself for what was to come. His return and the complicated legal, as well as political schedule, had not offered him the opportunity to rush head first into things. Content as he had been in the knowledge of her survival and the relatively pleasant life she had led since the war, he had even contemplated if his selfish desire to see her again was unhealthy for her. She, however, had no such luxury, for here he stood, the man she had loved and the man she had, with great difficulty buried.

Unsure of what to do, he reluctantly retreated a few steps. He looked at the door and back at her again, his eyes offering her the chance to cast him out and forget this all like the nightmare that it must be.

She was glad when his hand fell back to his side; Madeline didn't think she was ready to feel his touch just yet. She wasn't the same woman she had been two years ago, and clearly, he wasn't the same man. Despite his jokes and his lighthearted teasing, she could tell that Alex had suffered since she'd last seen him. He was limping, using a cane and his face was scarred. More importantly, there was a hardness in his eyes that she didn't recognize. 

He stepped away from her, and she didn't stop him. 

Silence filled the air as he seemed to be waiting for whatever she would do next. She had a million questions, not all of them very polite. A small part of her was ready to throw him out, to tell him to go away. She had buried him; she had mourned for him and then she had pieced her life back together without him. 

But mostly, she just wanted to know why. Why would he let her think she was dead?

She didn't ask. Instead, she turned and walked away, back toward the kitchen. 

"I need a drink."

She didn't tell him to stay or go. If he chose to follow, he would see her retrieving the familiar glass bottle of Tennesse Whiskey that she carried with her everywhere. It was a constant reminder of who she was and where she had come from; this particular bottle had sat in her luggage for months, traveling from city to city, staying unopened. Until tonight at least. 

She retrieved a glass, filled it with ice and cracked open the bottle, watching as the liquid filled the cup. It wasn't long before she could feel his presence behind her, but she didn't turn around right away. Instead, she took a long sip from the cup, taking a moment to savor the feeling of the liquid as it burned down her throat. 

When she finally turned, her green eyes found his once more. "Why are you here? Why now?"

When she didn't force him out, he breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps there was hope for them after all.

He followed her to the kitchen, slowly limping behind her. She poured herself a glass of whiskey and he remained stoic. When once he would have disapproved, now having seen the cruelty that filled the world over and over again, he understood the desire to succumb to the blissful excesses of intoxication and the momentary piece they offered.

She asked him the questions he knew she would even as her piercing green gaze seemed to wonder about something else entirely. He stared back into the eyes that had haunted his dreams for so long and replied. "The prosecutors have lost control of the case. The 15-year prison sentence is a distant nightmare. NOMA has collapsed in on itself and is ripe for annexation. It is the most opportune moment to return."

His answer had been truthful but he feared it wasn't satisfactory. Turning away from her he stared out of a window at the snow-covered streets and visions flooded his brain. Visions of him, cloaked in black surrounded by hot crimson on the white expanses. His return had been neither easy nor peaceful. Creating the opportune moment had required sacrifices of blood, wealth and soul. Piece by piece, he had cast aside parts of himself and who he was in a desperate struggle to return to who he had been. But now that he had returned, he found the land unfamiliar and the people strangers unknown. Never again would he have the peace for which he had fought all his life. Cursed, he would walk through this cruel world, till his old friend death embraced him.

"Milan, sometime after that beautiful Parisian wedding where everyone had been so happy, on my way to my debut at the Venetian opera, I received a telegram." He began to whisper softly as he continued to stare out of the window. "War, lawsuits, prison. It seemed so dreadfully surreal and so distant. But then came the call that shattered my world. News of the attack on New York, the attempt on your life, Nikolas's death, and your own."

“You thought I was dead?”

Madeline’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. A part of her was amused at the thought – they’d spent two years thinking of each other as dead. And yet there was nothing truly funny about the thought. “And you just accepted it? You didn’t try to find out the truth?”

She stared at him, the flood of emotions filling her, confusing her. Madeline had never handled these kinds of things well – she ran from emotion, from difficult situations, her whole life. Raising her glass to her lips she took another long sip. She hadn’t offered him one – after all, the Alex she knew didn’t drink.

“Nikolas died protecting me. They attacked in the dead of night. I was home, asleep. I heard the scuffle, the gunshot…they were pulling me out of bed, out of the apartment, so fast.” She paused as her thoughts flashed back to that night. She could still see Nikolas laying in a pool of his own blood as if it had just happened yesterday. “I couldn’t save him.”

A deep breath and another sip of the cold liquid and she continued.

“They flooded New York, they were everywhere. Later that night I got separated from the others and I was cornered outside the headquarters. This...horrendous looking woman, a Godmother from Las Vegas, she surprised me. I managed to duck out of the way and the bullet hit my leg. It was nothing, a flesh wound. Jemaine killed her before she could take another shot.”

Madeline finished off the whiskey and put the glass on the counter. She stared at the ground, fighting off the memories of that war, of all the people she had lost. She still had the scar on her leg from where the bullet had torn through her flesh.

“I searched for you for months.” Her voice was soft now as she stared at the ground. “I knew you were supposed to perform at the Venetian, I was going to surprise you there but then the war happened and it was chaos. I hired investigators, people oversees. Long after Ilaria had declared you dead, I persisted. But at some point, I had to give up, I had to move on.”

She didn’t say it, but the point was still there. Madeline wasn’t in hiding as Alex was. If he had tried to confirm her death he would have learned the truth.

"I don't know who told you I was dead Alex, but they gave you some very bad information."

Alexander walked around the room, slowly caressing the marble surfaces of the slabs and the rich mahogany cupboards.  "When the war broke out and I got word of your death, I could see the writing on the wall." He began.  "I knew NOMA would use it as an excuse to come at me harder than they ever had. Sure enough, I soon received word of an upcoming financial seizure as well as a 15-year prison sentence on trumped up charges of tax evasion and conspiracy to commit fraud."

He walked over to a nearby chair and sat down as he continued. "Time was against me, securing my assets was paramount if I had any hope of resisting extradition during my self-imposed exile. Some careful manipulation of legal loopholes along with the public declaration of death allowed me the opportunity to stall as I tried to figure out how to safely return."

Scratching his scarred eye he added. "Bounty hunters were never too far from me as I ran from Milan to Zurich to Munich to Salzburg. Barely a step ahead of them, I knew I needed to go to ground. Disappear from the radar entirely. So I hid with a gipsy convoy cutoff from the world even as my lawyers tried to free up my finances and reduce the charges levied against me in the hope that I may one day be able to return."

Tilting his head back he whispered.  "But with you dead and my empire in shambles, I wondered what the use of any of it would be. So I stayed in hiding, deluding myself into believing that I was ready to free myself from the chains that bound me to a painful past." Gesturing to his leg and his discoloured eye he smiled and said. "As you can see, that didn't turn out all that good. They caught up with me outside Stalingrad and the cruelty I witnessed that day killed the last part of who I had been."

"The events that followed forever stained my hands crimson and my heart black. Vorona the Russians called me. The crow, the harbinger of death. I had not died a hero. I had lived long enough to see myself become the villain. Occupied by a singular desire for vengeance. Until one day I met a ghost from the past who told me you yet lived." Alexander said as he recalled his encounter with Gavin in Moscow.

"I did not, could not believe him. I thought it all a cruel joke by an old fool out to torment me for his own ends. But now that I had tasted vengeance and facilitated my eventual return at the bloody cost of my soul, I knew I had to find out." He said and got to his feet. "Now that I have seen you, I realize I was too late. You buried me years ago and I buried my own heart in Stalingrad. I.. I should not have come." His face was absent of all expressions but his eyes hid an unending pool of sadness and tremendous behind them.

Gripping his ebony cane, he looked at her closely as if trying to memorise every inch of her face in case this was the last time they met. A bittersweet smile appeared on his face, a reflection of his happiness at seeing her alive and resplendent as ever mixed with the regret of not having come sooner. His eyes turned towards the door, preparing himself to leave.

Madeline wasn’t sure what to say. So much had changed in two years, she could barely recognize the person who was standing in front of her. It was Alex but the Alex she knew hated violence and war and death. The Alex she knew would never be called the harbinger of death. She wondered who had been the one to eventually break the news that she was alive and if it was someone she knew. It didn’t matter, at least not enough for her to ask.

He said he should never have come and she wasn’t sure he was wrong. The solid wall she had built around herself had been shattered. For two years she had thrown herself into her work, giving little thought to any sort of social life. She refused to open her heart again as every time she had chosen to do so it had been destroyed, by Vernon and Gavin and then by the death of Alex. Where once she had found comfort in the arms of strangers, now she found it behind her desk. She had built the illusion that everything was ok again, that she had her life well under control and here he was ruining that illusion, making the pain real again. Here he was reminding her of everything she had lost. Even with him alive, standing in front of her, Madeline wasn’t sure they could ever get back what they had lost, and that realization hurt more than anything else.

She watched him as he prepared to leave, and she didn’t know what to do next. If he walked out of her life and disappeared, things might be easier. She could pretend tonight was a bad dream, and she could go on believing he was dead.

But she wouldn’t, would she? No, deep down she would know that he was alive and that old familiar lounging would rear its ugly head. Alex and Madeline had once had something special. Maybe they didn't recognize it at the time, maybe they took it for granted, but it had been spectacular. And knowing that he was alive, would she be able to go on in life thinking otherwise? Pretending like he didn't exist? 

“Where will you go?”

It was the most she could think to say. She couldn’t ask him to stay – no, she needed some time to figure things out. But she didn’t want him to disappear, not again. She wasn’t sure she could handle losing him all over again.

"Where will you go?"

Throughout the two years of his exile, people had asked him that very question over and over again. As he wandered from one city to the other, one nation to another, desperately struggling to stay one step ahead of the bounty hunters, it was the question that haunted him every night. He had hoped that upon his return he would be free of this particular nightmare but it seemed fate would not be that kind.

"I have business to attend to. Have to hold up my end of the deals that facilitated my return. The Russians expect far far too much." He replied in a sombre if not regretful manner.

"Philadelphia is not the most welcome place for me at the moment, at least not till my legal troubles are taken care of. So, if you permit me, I would like to purchase a temporary residence in New York."

The implication though unsaid was hopefully clear. He may not be who he was, and she may not accept him for who he had become, but never again would he deprive her of her ability to find him should she so choose.

Giving her a final parting glance he smiled and walked towards the door.  "Try the Raddison the next time. They have better tea."  With the final playful jab, he was gone as suddenly as he had reappeared.