She desperately wanted to tell him. Tell him about the threats and the danger, what might happen to them if they were together. Her father, she believed, was a good man. And in his imperfection had always strove to maintain his moral standards . But even good men make mistakes. She had been one of them. Family was dangerous in his line of work. A work where people got hurt and jostled and shoved like cattle.

The threats had doubled with each lay off, the news articles weren't doing any favors. The occasional rock thrown by someone across the road, the angry glares on the bus stop. But last week it went too far, last week the cops were serious. They looked like Josh, the way they spoke quiet and only in facts no personal biases. Since when had that become a bad thing? How was it someone could do everything right and still be in the wrong? She'd tried so hard to escape it all, so hard.

They would be gone by the time Josh returned she knew that much. Their superiors had requested she move quickly into witness protection.

Superiors with ulterior motives, superiors who knew the innocence of one man but needed to pin the blame somewhere somehow for awhile before they could make it disappear. Superiors with greed and memorized pin codes that somehow gave them free reign of life itself.

One day or another, someone would go through with their plan, it was only a question of when. Any town, any state, they'd find them.

Greedy, skimming, morals, horrible, degenerate people. She would dare break off from her Father, start a new life if she could- but not yet. War is a strange thing. She has always thought so. War isn't always with the machine guns and tanks that you see on TV. Sometimes it's a girl alone in a room deciding whether or not to stay. Deciding whether she can break one heart to keep another beating.

She has a pair of nikes.

When Melanie traveled they did too. Down avenues and boulevards, France and Spain. They've outrun dangerous people, turned away from crying friends and backed against funeral parlor walls.

They're tired, their souls breaking loose, but she loves them all the same. Scuffed and battered, falling apart at the seems.

She loves them.

"No," Mel reprimands herself, "Don't think about him, focus."

Her small hands grace the laces gently as she binds the two together.

She sets the shoes on the bed.

She turns to walk out the door, and perhaps she thinks something before she leaves.

But one will never know for sure.

----------------

The old small room appeared the same way it always had, but it's identity had changed. It had once been a place of joyful tidings, the sweatshirt on the end of the bed welcoming and warm, the lava lamp in the corner glowing red with hope. 

"Can I come in?" she asks knocking on the door frame, her knuckles aching ever so slightly. 

He sat at the desk, feet up on top, red converse hazy in the florescent lighting. 

"What's up?" Josh said closing all his tabs and giving her his undivided direction. So the slight arguing had been more common lately,  but everyone disagreed sometimes. He watches as she texts less in the mornings, as the phone calls slowly dwindle and the speculation and research projects together dissipate into lonely nights and take out meals. 

"I-I have to tell you something." 

He notes the way the lines form across her forehead, how the veins in her hand tense and her toes fidget in their shoes. He knows this look, he invented this look. He's been here before a million times. In a hospital waiting room, in a school office or bus. It always starts with a single word of condolence followed by his delicate world crumbling into pieces. 

"Mel?" he frowns crossing his arms, "What's wrong?" 

"I'm so sorry." she whimpers paying with the fringe on her sleeve. "Josh, I really am." 

She stares into the floor. 

"What?" his voice is emotionless, cold. 

"This whole situation," she extends her hands forward, pleadingly open, shaking, "What their saying about Eli, the way things are turning..." 

"We'll figure it out Mel, I've been working day and night on it and as soon as I have a more solid plan I'll talk to your Dad and-" 

"My Dad thinks," her eyes look around the room in shame and like a snake shedding its skin she cringes and squirms in her sweater, "that we can't wait any longer. It's serious you know that we've talked about this and I'm scared." 

"So?" 

"So what?" She frowns, he sits before her with crossed arms, a belligerent tone. 

"You don't trust me to figure this out?" 

"It's not that it's a question of time Josh we only have so much time and when it runs out it just makes things worse for the both of us and I'm nervous that this is going down a path neither of us want to face." 

"You're being emotional," he stands and paces nervously. Its like an earthquake, his architects designs crumbling away, sky scrapers glass panes shattering against hot asphalt no time to evacuate, "Nerves don't help anybody, I've looked at the same information and I'm telling you, I'll protect you, I can do it." 

"This isn't some paranoia Josh! There are things bigger than you and me going on here and my life isn't yours to risk. Can you understand that, that I'm doing this for the best interest of everyone involved, I have to think of Dad too, I have to leave!" 

"Leave?" Josh's stomach twisted and he felt the blood rush from his face and leave it cold and stiff, "You're leaving?" 

"You're not the same anymore," her voice choked, "You come here, you work all day. What they say, it doesn't define you, but you're letting it take over your life! You spend every second here and its like we don't even have fun anymore anyways-"

"Fun isn't everything! Besides since this is such a big enough issue to leave I've been focusing on it! I've been doing all of it for you it's stupid you can't see it." 

"You're right its not but now you don't believe in joy either? Is joy just another one of my stupid story book constructs? I would like to think that for this to work there has to be some measure of happiness for us is that so unreasonable to presume that two people who love eachother-"

Josh interjected rashly, "I never said that I loved you." 

And though he knew it was true, technically he was correct, it hadn't been spoken. He found himself crude in arguments, looking to win rather than resolve. 

Mel spoke before she could allow her program begin to process the blow he had just dealt, "And I've tried Josh, I've tried to act like we don't need to communicate about this stuff but if you won't talk to me-" 

"I thought you would understand, you of all people! You're lying, you think I can't tell when people are lying to me?" 

"Josh-" 

"Don't," he says after a moment, "I need to think." 

"No, I need to talk about this with you. Look this is for your own safety too things have been going on lately and my Dads been meaning to talk to you." 

"Just quit it!" he spits out and walks with heavy steps, properly angry for the first time in a long time. 

"If you leave now," Mel choked out, "I won't get to say goodbye. And I need that kind of closure or I won't be okay. I'm doing this for you, really I am. I just need you to support me and trust me just this once Josh without overthinking it." 

"You said yourself this isn't a question of sentimental attachment." 

Mels tone dropped, and in a voice melodic and smooth, quivering with a silent rage she said her last piece, "For once in your life, can you be something other than a heartlessly processing machine?" 

Josh stopped in his tracks and needles pierced the back of his neck. He felt nauseous, hot, queasy. He feels her staring at him, hears the humming of the air conditioner and the voices laughing down the hall. 

And in that moment, that flicker of film, the room darkens. 

Without turning to face her, he takes his coat from the chair and his laptop off his desk. He grabs the brass key to the door and his lanyard key to his office. He slips into his black dress shoes and snaps his tie from the hook so quick it cracks like a whip. He doesn't expect her to apologize, and though if he turned round to look he would see the horror on her face- he doesn't. Why would he? 

He quietly shuts the door on his way out, it clicks shut behind him. 

He doesn't say goodbye. 

----------

The TV blares in the background of the spacious apartment. He uses it to tune out the never ending roar of crowds and shows above. The music hurts too much. 

It's not that he minds being alone. 

The night seems simpler now, without too many stars to wish on. Without big plans and futures. Now when the small wishes come true, the seem bigger. More important. 

Shoes are funny things. They walk with him, feel and do what we do and then when the day is done we toss them away. Every shoe has a story, has been somewhere, touched someone. 

There are days he wishes he could forget it all, start anew. But when the announcement comes over the radio, his name as another inquiry, another insider who might be able to say where Melanie Steele is hiding, he remembers why he's here. 

Here in his small job, hands on the soundboard, hiding his face in shame as the man who once knew Jacob Steele. 

Some days he is almost happy. But then those two white shoes peer out from the closet and the dark closes in all over again. 

Two weeks without her feels like years. 

It is too much of a nightmare to feel real, so every step continues as normal. 

If; he sticks to the routine

Then; he doesn't have the time to think. To realize that his entire life has fallen apart before his eyes. That every day without speaking to her is an empty and lonely feeling that consumes all else. 

'But why would you care' he pinches himself slightly, 'you're only a machine.' 

"You ready?" A young man asks peaking his head around the door frame. "First day! You excited?" 

"Thrilled," Josh grins quickly shutting the door. 

They can never know he stays in the shadows. Never know that the basement is more than a bunch of recording mics and extra supplies.  Never know that every second of every day is spent wondering what she's doing, what she's feeling. 

That his mind is constantly regretting a walk that returned to an empty room, and broken mind.

------------- 

The lights dim and the dull roar diminishes into quiet rustlings of programs and the orchestra tuning up. Josh moves from spot to spot, rushing, overseeing, nit picking. 

He knows, that whoever there, their troubles are all about to fade into the theater lights, their own lives dispersing into obscurity.

A phone call, that's all it would take. Check in the actors make sure the placement tape is down. Why is she hiding anyway? Turn on the mic, be sure to smile and wave at the regulars.  Why now?  Thats where we sat.  What had he done wrong? Cared too much? Wheres the  wipes for these lenses? Where does this cord plug in? 

---------

She sits in the back row, but the show isn't what she's trying to see.

She has her orders. She knows her lines and doesn't cross them.

Do not be seen. The wrong someone recognizes you, and the disaster could be imminent.

He's innocent, she knows that. Why can't they let him live, and live properly? After all the pain he's suffered, the life he's been deprived. Why do they have to tear him down and force him back into silence. One last visit, one last chance to try and explain it all. Why did he have to like someone who had a life just as full of turns and knots. 

"Come on Josh," she chants in her head, biting her lip, "Josh see me. Please. See me."

The crowd is bigger tonight then he remembers. That's alright. More people to hide between, more lives to hide behind. 

No one in the protection of the U.S Marshall services has ever been a fatality. That is what google will tell a researcher. But of course this does not account for those who beg for time to say goodbye, who disobey stubbornly and directly.

 For young people without the sense to run when their life has been rewarded to them. But of course, where would be the humanity in that. They risk protection and sheltered safety for something greater. She risks it for him. 

"Take it easy Uriah," Josh laughs scolding his friend, "We're not dealing with math here we're trying to tell a story."

Uriah face contorts in ridicule, "Funny; I never learned that at college."

Josh's eyes look out over the rows and rows of seats. Sometimes he wonders-

"Get a grip," he hisses internally.

But still. 

It's like somethings off tonight, somethings wrong. Somethings throwing him off, something, someone he saw. 

"Do you see me? Somewhere out there?" Josh worries to himself.

His phone buzzes violently.

A single text, and with it a thousand questions. 

"dycm?"