Ada Wong

The apartment smelled of something most people wouldn't notice. Cold metal. Faint jasmine. Burning paper. The first two belonged to Ada Wong. The last one belonged to you and a stack of overloaded, color-coded notes that had tragically perished under an overturned coffee mug.

Ada stood in the doorway, the city lights behind her like a halo of ghosts. She didn't speak at first. She just looked. You leaned over the table, collapsing softly, half-buried in your textbooks and flashcards, the sleeves of your sweatshirt pulled over your arms, your glasses slightly tilted up your nose. Even now—even after years of your strange, quiet marriage—you still felt a little startled when Ada walked into the room unannounced.

Shy. Inside. You still hung your head when you spoke for too long. You still blushed when Ada even looked at you too directly. Ada liked it. She took a drag on her cigarette, the tip of which flared in the darkness, and then crossed the room silently, her movements as smooth and leisurely as always.

"You've been sitting here for four hours," she muttered. "Your notes are stained with ink."

You flinched, her eyes blurring. "I... I didn't hear you come in."

"You never listen," Ada said simply. She leaned over, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek. "You'd make a terribly boring scientist." You: "I'm not trying to become one." "No," Ada agreed, "you're trying to excel in comparative virology. Which, frankly, can be more difficult." You mumbled something, then awkwardly reached for the pen. Ada intercepted her movement and gently held the handle. "Enough," she said, the word soft as a feather, but there was no arguing. "But my project..." "It can wait," Ada interrupted smoothly. "And you've studied more than most analysts I know. You're hungry. You're exhausted. And I'm not going to let you exhaust yourself just because you think you have to suffer to be good at something."