Archive of Our Own ^beta

The closet door was hanging open.

It had been like that since he’d been taken.

She sat on the edge of their bed, very still, staring at its contents. Her husband’s neatly ironed shirts, in tones of placid blue and white. Tan and dark-hued pants hanging on the lower rod. Suitcoats, partly obscured in the late afternoon shadows, in one corner— he never wore them to the office, only to special events. Press dinners and speeches and such. Ties and belts hanging from an organizer in the other corner. It was all so ordinary.

They would never fit her— their heights weren’t so different, but he was broader, built sturdily and strong, barrel-chested with a laugh that could be heard across a room.

Not that she wanted to wear his clothes, anyway. If she wore them, inevitably she’d have to wash them. And if she washed them, any lingering trace of him in their fibers would be gone— the scent of his skin, his cologne, his deodorant. Whatever was left of him would be gone, too.

She took the train that afternoon to a secondhand store across town, and bought every shirt or slacks that would fit her.

~

She’d never used his clippers before. Surely it was not so difficult.

She tied her hair into a low ponytail and took a deep breath. The buzzing was shockingly loud against her skull, but the blade wouldn't go more than a centimeter into her hair; when she pulled back and undid the ponytail, only a handful of long dark hair fell to the bathroom floor.

Fear and frustration flashed in a quick heat across her skin. She set the clippers down on the counter, wringing her face in her hands.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Her hands made quick work of her hair, dividing and braiding into smaller bunches. Her reflection was absurd, hardly recognizable in the mirror, and she took this as a grim affirmation that she was on the right path. The scissors came next; for as much as she wished she could have closed her eyes, it required all her strength and concentration to hack through the ropes of hair.

One, two, three, four. Her hands were shaking, but it was done, the first part at least. A choppy bob. She continued to cut aimlessly, trying to take off as much length as she could.

When she tried the clippers the second time, haltingly, they passed. A clump of hair fell into the sink below, and she looked up in horror at her reflection. Horror, truly, in every cell in her body, in every fibre of her being. Her fingers found the ledge of the counter and gripped, holding her up, holding her in place.

She gritted her teeth and continued. Enduring was a skill. She had endured much so far, and would have to endure more in the coming days. She would endure this. She could endure this.

With a deep breath, she brought the clippers to her head again and continued, again and again and again.

~

She’d stopped shaving weeks ago. Put on a sports bra, and then a second, under the button-up. Stood wider and tried to project confidence, angled her head up and thrust out her jaw. Sighed in the mirror, and immediately the facade crumbled: she was not Fidelio but Leonore.

There was no way this would work. She would be caught out immediately. She could never pull it off.

Courage and strength, said her husband’s voice in her mind. Courage and strength.

~

They hired her— him, Fidelio— on the spot.

On the bus home, she conceded that this was probably less of an affirmation of her acting prowess and more just a need for bodies, brute strength to control the imprisoned masses.

It was her first time ever stepping foot in a prison. The office and administrative spaces were shockingly nice, what you might see in a corporate building in a big city. The inmate housing was horrifying beyond comprehension.

Florestan had shown her the videos, but nothing compared. She’d wavered at the threshold, falling behind the warden, and feared she might start to weep.

The smell was overwhelming, despair and sweat, hopeless bodies crammed into cells. Children crying, men yelling. Unrelenting, glaring white light. Stuffy air and low ceilings.

After, she'd signed the name, Fidelio, on the contract with dread in her throat. They would make her be cruel. She would have to be cruel. She was meant to yell, to scold, to use violence if needed. To corral these people, these wonderful, devastatingly human people, like they were livestock.

Was this what he would have wanted from her? Pizzaro’s puppet, a tool of the oppressor.

She would not— she could not. But she had to, to save him.

~

She woke early— well before the alarm she’d set, before the sun had even risen— on the morning of her first day. Tried and failed to fall back into sleep. Laid awake with her eyes open, her stomach tight, her brain turning in the same futile circles. Got up with a sigh and started a pot of coffee. Stood in the shower, letting the hot water run over her face and chest.

After dressing, she stared at herself in the mirror, and her reflection stared back. She closed her eyes before the tears could come, and kept them closed, breathing deeply for a moment.

In her mind, for a moment, she allowed herself a fantasy: that she might open her eyes and find herself back at home, at her dressing table, and not in a shared apartment with a prison warden and his daughter. Florestan would be sitting in the kitchen, his tie loosely around his neck, doing a crossword with coffee before work.

Or maybe she’d open her eyes and be back at her mother’s house the morning of her wedding, with flowers all around them and a white dress instead of her stiff guard uniform. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a lucky sixpence in her shoe, said the rhyme. Her mother had given her vintage earrings and a necklace; the dress was new, the veil borrowed from a cousin; she carried hyacinth amongst the white peonies and sea heather in her bouquet, and the cloudless spring sky above them was as blue as could be as she walked into the chapel. They’d laughed about the sixpence, her and Florestan, a charming antiquity tucked into the back of the poem. She’d worked it into her vows, too: no need for luck if they had faith and love. He’d beamed at that line, too, at the altar, and the joy in her chest had swelled like the rising sun.

~

The guards’ entrance was a short walk from Rocco’s apartment. The morning air was cold and damp, but she breathed deeply, as if she could save each breath for later, for those long, horrible hours that awaited her.

With each step forward, in her heavy shoes and stiff uniform, she was reminded of their wedding. Walking to meet him at the altar, each step bringing her closer and closer to her love.

She had her something old: her wedding ring, hidden on its chain, its diamond pressed sharply against her chest. The only tie to her old life.

Something new: Her name. Her title. The baton and taser at her hip, and the heavy vest on her chest.

Something borrowed: her work boots. Rocco had taken sympathy on her apparent poverty, and had loaned her a pair of his old boots, scuffed but steel-toed and sturdy.

Something blue: the starched collar of her work shirt, and the unforgotten grief of Florestan’s disappearance.

She really could use a lucky sixpence right now.

Courage and strength, Florestan’s voice reminded her. Courage and strength.

With each step forward, she was moving closer and closer to him.

“Name and position?” the man at the window asked as she approached. She felt his eyes sweep over her, but his face revealed no suspicion, only bored apathy.

“I’m the new guard,” she stated. “My name is Fidelio.”

fin