[Action post: Farewell]
When Tino had decided he was to become a cop, he had been ready for risks and such, but he had never expected this. Sure, he knew there was a thing called organized crime in the USA. He had even heard that things like mafia existed also within Liberty. But he hadn't thought that he could somehow get badly involved with something like that. As a cop arresting some thug at most.
The universe had had other plans for him, of course, and for the past week or so Tino had been in the middle of a situation completely unknown to him. It had all started when he had ended up witnessing a crime. Well, that wasn't so unusual for a person looking for people who commit crimes, but he had been unlucky enough to witness the crime of some big shot guy. And he had been seen. No one knew about that of course before a car he'd been in had been shot and the men resposible arrested. They had admitted that they had been after him. In retrospect, Tino almost hoped they hadn't. Almost.
The police had taken action immediately, and Tino along with Berwald and Flower-Egg had been taken in to safety in case someone would try to go after Berwald for blackmail purposes. A bunch of some special forces men had spent a few days in their home, waiting in case someone came to get Tino or Berwald or both so that they could ambush them, but no one had arrived and Berwald had been given the chance to return since it seemed they hadn't found out about where Tino lived and with whom. ...And they wouldn't either, since before either of the men involved could blink, Tino's legal address had been wiped from the archives. Suddenly - on legal terms - he wasn't living with Berwald anymore. Had never lived, in fact. "Just in case," they had told him when Tino had switched to his Finnish vocabulary, choosing the words that had most growling rolling R's and most venomously hissing S's.
The next few days had been hard, to say the least. Hard and incredibly stressful. Tino wasn't used to big changes, and suddenly his world was turned upside down. Apparently he was in real trouble with real danger, and as if that didn't make things complicated enough, he had been forced to listen to some clean-cut attorneys who insisted he witness against the man he had seen. The damn guy Tino wished he had never ever come across in his life. How could one person cause him so much trouble just like this? The attorneys had told him what a grand deed it would be, how noble of him it would be to play his part in putting him in the cage, and they hadn't forgotten to mention his duty as a police officer. Not knowing what else to do, what else to say, Tino had been tossed from a professional to professional until he finally grew tired of their infuriatingly calm and serious speech and had agreed to everything if it meant they would let him be.
And so he had been accepted to the United States Federal Witness Protection program. A fine name to a system that - to him - meant he was given a new name, a new place to live in, even a new background. You know, the regular Sunday morning. At some point Tino thought that his brain had sort of gone into some safety mode. He had been through so much in such a short time. He had yelled, he hadn't slept or eaten much, and he had even cried, even though that was something he'd rather not mention to anyone.
It wasn't just him either, it was Berwald. That was something Tino really didn't want to think about. That moment he had been forced to tell Berwald about this. To keep it short, it had been all kinds of awful with an additional spice of dread. Tino wasn't sure what part of the conversation had been worst. The beginning, when he had told he wasn't "Tino Väinämöinen" anymore, the middle when he had seen from the other's face that he had begun to understand where this was going, or the end when he had left him. Left, as in ended their relationship. There was no way Tino would make the other get involved in this, and considering where he was going and from whom he was running from, continuing their relationship wasn't even an option.
In the end, they had managed to talk after the information had settled into their minds, and - this was the only thing Tino was glad about - they had separated in relative peacefulness. Tino hadn't said anything like "I might come back" or "I'll miss you" or even that one thing he hadn't gotten far enough to say yet - "I love you." He had firmly decided to leave Berwald so that the other could let him go. He wanted to leave in a way that would make it easier for himself to let go. One thing he had given Berwald though. Flower-Egg, his treasure and the one who had been with him since he first arrived here. Tino didn't think the little dog should be taken to his long journey, and she had already accepted Berwald as his second owner. It felt right, somehow. He'd miss them both, but he knew it was the right decision.
Now everything had been taken care of. Tino had his plane ticket, people guarding him for as long as it would take for him to get to his new home and further, and he had said goodbye to the ones he felt was right. He wasn't allowed to tell much, but at least he had told Berwald he shouldn't tell people to make the connection between "Tino Väinämöinen" and him publicly anymore. He hadn't been able to tell him to get rid of all the photos though. Some officer could tell him that later, when they went to check on him. Standing in the lobby and watching the planes take off outside, Tino leaned to a railing and sighed deeply.
I guess this is goodbye to Liberty. It was really... great.