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Each bump in the road felt like she was being stabbed all over again, her insides churning and head spinning dangerously, as the asinine taxi driver sped along not nearly fast enough.
‘He is far too distressed for someone who does not have a stab wound,’ Villanelle thought sluggishly. She pressed harder upon the gaping wound that just seemed to be unable to stop bleeding, as the pressure builds she gasped long and hard, seeing white and she’s sure that she passed out for a moment.
Her thoughts turn reminiscent as she comes to and the city sweeps by her window that she could barely see out of anymore, and it comes in flashes, all at once and slow as syrup.
She could see Eve so close to her face, breath intertwining and hair splayed out upon the cool sheets, mouth agape just slightly, eyes intense and in hindsight, just barely guarded.
The feel of the cool, steel tip of the blade as it bit through the fabric of her jumper, it felt altogether gentle and violent.
The thrust came so much sooner that she thought it would, if it all. After that her thoughts become messy and obsolete, not knowing what is real and what was pain and rage-addled fantasy. The warm blood spilling out over her shaking fingers, Eve perched on top of her and her eyes wide, a gun in her hand and it’s firing shot after shot, the hard floor against her knees, the fading sound of Eve’s screams.
The taxi comes to a grinding halt and her mind is telling her to move, to get help, but her body refuses and soon there are hands on her and she’s being dragged out of the door in a rush. The smell of exhaust fumes lingers in the air as she is ushered onto a stretcher and her nose soon fills with the distilled and sanitised air of the hospital.
Villanelle lets her eyes fall closed, she can hear people shouting at her in French to squeeze their hand, open her eyes, anything. However, she found she couldn’t, her body just didn’t seem to have the will anymore. Before it all goes completely dark, the final thought that drifted through her mind was, ‘Let me die, that will fucking show her.’
—
Eve sits stone-faced and blood-soaked on the park bench, waiting for something but she isn’t sure what. She doesn’t exactly have any sort of precedent for this, *what to do when one stabs a psychopath that one has been chasing all over Europe in some sort of deranged cat and mouse game but now sort of regrets the stabbing*.
So she sits. And waits. At this point it may have been hours. Judging by the gentle dusk that is settling over the yellowing leaves, and the outpouring of people in business attire from the buildings surrounding, it seems as though dark is on its way.
Her mind seems to be unable to settle on one train of thought at a time, it keeps jumping from memory to memory, from thought to thought. But she can’t escape one image that continues to appear without her permission. The doe-eyed and haunted look as Villanelle breathed, “I really liked you.” And the immediate wave of intense guilt and shame that took a hold deep inside Eve and hasn’t yet completely let go.
She thought she wanted this, wanted it for so many reasons she told herself. For her life that has been turned not only upside down but inside out so that all her guts and blood are showing, for Niko for whom she can’t look at anymore without seeing what could be, for her job where she feels as though respect dwindles everyday for her, and for Bill. Mostly for Bill. That is the only reason that seems to stick, the only one that feels unjust to her, and the only one that isn’t simultaneously a result of her own undoing as well as Villanelle’s.
And now she’s gone and done it, and it’s finished. Eve imagined herself as a triumphant hero, returning from a war she waged with herself, walking into the MI6 offices and announcing her victory. As-fucking-if. As if that ever would have happened, how did she ever think that she would be in any way okay after this? How did she ever think she was capable of killing a person? Of killing Villanelle.
Eve’s mind quickly falls blank, and there was her focus, a primal need to know whether Villanelle was alive. She needed to know if she had done it, it seemed an insatiable drive, nothing else mattered more than that. However, a brief thought of who it was for, herself or Villanelle, flashes in her mind.
—
The rapid click of her shoes follows Eve as she traverses Paris. As she found her way from hospital to hospital she calls Kenny intermittently asking for progress on whether he had found Villanelle or not on any hospital systems, any police files, any coroners offices, anything. He hadn’t.
She didn’t feel tired, though it was approaching morning now and Eve had never been more grateful for 24 hour Emergency. She wasn’t sure what she would even do if she found her, but she could only bring herself to look in hospitals. That meant that she would be alive.
There comes a point that Kenny must have fallen asleep, because he is no longer answering any of Eve’s calls and it’s nearing on mid-morning. Nearly 24 hours since the incident itself occurred. Eve walks sullenly into an Emergency room, not exactly having given up, but certainly trying to get used to the idea that it is completely possible she may never find her. She takes a deep breath and looks through a glass door to the triage nurse station, before plastering on a worried expression, and pitching her voice just a little higher than it usually is.
“Please, please can anyone help me! Does anyone speak English? I’m looking for someone, please help me!” Eve cries out as she falls towards the desk, her eyes intentionally wide and glassy.
One of the triage nurses looked suitably distressed and answers in heavily accented English, “Yes, I can. Who are you looking for?”
“Oh thank God! I’m looking for someone who may have been brought in here, sometime yesterday afternoon? She has blonde hair, looks about 25, she has a stab wound to her abdomen,” Eve’s skin-crawls at the mention of the injury.
Each time she had put on this act to the anyone in the hospital, she had received blank stares and a rushed, “Sorry, I can’t help you.” But she knows this time was different, and her stomach almost drops out from underneath her. Her heart rate begins to pound, the nurse’s brow furrowed in almost disbelief, but she knew. Villanelle was here.
“Do you know the name of this person?” The nurse asks.
Shit. Eve honestly hadn’t thought this far ahead, why didn’t she think this far ahead? Surely Villanelle wouldn’t be using her real name, that would be foolish considering the mass clean out of her apartment and the dead old woman. She’s got people coming for her, she would know that. Eve flounders for just a moment before picturing the old passport and she says softly, so desperately afraid to be wrong, “Marta Poslovina. Her name is Marta.”
The nurse’s eyes widen slightly, and she says, “Can you describe her? What is she like?”
Eve has to hold it completely together as she realises that the name must be right, by some blessed deity she has guessed.
“Ah, she’s tall-ish, very blonde, white, 26. Wearing a light pink sweater, black skinny jeans, and she has some cuts on her face. On the right side of her face, I think,” Eve tries to remember every single thing she can visually recall from their last encounter.
The nurse nods and turns to the computer in front of her and clicks rapidly through and Eve can see her eyes scanning and she reads through what Eve can only assume is Villanelle’s patient profile.
“There is a note on here from her Doctor, asking that no-one is to visit her,” the nurse says absent-mindedly, “I’m sorry, it’s not possible for you to see Ms Poslovina.”
And that will not do whatsoever. Eve has not searched through the night, visited six hospitals to be turned away because of a fucking doctor’s note. Though she knows that shouting will get her nowhere. She quietly traces along her wedding band to ensure it is there, as she begins to let her eyes fill with tears. She lets out a strangled breath as she says through choked inhalations, “Please, please, she’s my wife,” and Eve lifts her hand to show the nurse, “We’re here on holiday and we got mugged, I saw them stab and hit her. The police haven’t helped me, they don’t believe me. Please, I’m begging you just let me see her.”
It’s so so weak, Eve knows it. Why wouldn’t the police help? Why would her and her wife have been separated after a mugging? If this was presented to her, she would never believe it in a million years. But through some miracle, the nurse’s face crumples and she says, “Of course, of course. Let me check what bed she’s in.” Eve thinks to herself that it’s possible that she’s only getting away with this because she’s a woman and happens to be from abroad. She’s okay with the deceit.
Eve’s mind spins as she is being led down hallway after hallway by another nurse this time, who cannot speak any English so it’s painfully quiet. The only sounds they can hear are their own footsteps echoing down the long hallways, and the sound of machines beeping from inside rooms. He eventually stops in front of a room and gestures towards the back, saying something in rushed French before disappearing out of sight.
She’s shaking as she steps through the door, not sure what to expect. Honestly, at this point her mind had run through so many iterations already of the two of them meeting post-stab that she couldn’t even pin-point down a likely scenario. Would Villanelle stab her? Would she curse her out of the room? Order her death? Would she be different, changed by it? Didn’t she seem different in the apartment anyway?
There are four beds in the room, all empty except for one hidden behind a light blue curtain that is bathed in dappled sunlight from the window next to it. Jutting out from the end of the curtain is the end of the bed, hosting a medical chart and a crumpled white blanket, which Eve can see the outline of feet underneath. She walks with a quiet purpose towards the curtain, just needing to see her for herself and then she can go. She just needs to see. That’s all.
—
It’s not like Eve walks in and sees Villanelle small and weak, like one might expect.
She just looks...different.
So intensely different than what she usually looks like. Vivacious, bright, almost arrogant in her liveliness. But now, now she looks dulled around the edges somewhat.
Eve’s hand rests upon the end of the plastic bed frame, trying to ground herself because it all feels *wrong*.
Villanelle looks so pale, so drained of what makes Villanelle, Villanelle. She lies, slightly raised in the sheets pulled up to her chest, her arms lying limply along her sides. Needles piercing the skin of her hand and inner elbow, held down by tape that Eve could see the bruising around the needle through. Bags attached to the needles hung like balloons around the bed, of fluid, of blood. Her mouth hangs just open, lips chapped and raw in the air-conditioned room. She has a nasal cannula that drapes across her grey face, resting on those high cheekbones that seem to be ever more pronounced.
Eve can hear her own breath moving quickly in an out of her own body, maybe a little too fast. The only thing cutting through the noise are the two, almost melodic beeps of heart monitors that are hooked up to Villanelle.
It’s so quiet. So much quieter than it has ever been around Villanelle. It feels wrong and abnormal, and against the laws of nature. Eve can’t stop staring. One one hand she is terrified that Villanelle will open her eyes and see her here, on the other, Villanelle doesn’t feel complete without the piercing gaze that Eve swears sees right through to her core. Like Eve is the sun, and everything else in the entire universe has dropped away.
She moves her hand from the frame, to touch the coarse white blanket near the outline of Villanelle’s feet. Not quite close enough. She is so afraid. Of what, she’s not sure anymore.
She notices the files hanging off the end of the bed, she glances and sees after ‘Nom’ there is merely an ‘X’. So she must not have guessed her name after all, just provided them with an identity for their Jane Doe.
Her fingers trace up along the bed, closer and closer until she’s mere centimetres away from Villanelle’s hand. Both their cuticles still stained with blood, Eve notices. It’s fading on her own, from wringing her hands and trying to wash it all away. But it’s still there, in the tiny crevices. But on Villanelle, the blood covers her fingernails, and has settled in the lines upon her palm. It makes Eve wince, picturing it all over again. The pained look upon Villanelle’s face, the stark realisation that Eve had actually done it.
As the scenes flash through her mind over and over, she just barely brushes her finger along the stained blood on Villanelle’s thumb. Just making sure she’s real, and that she’s there, and that she’s alive. Eve is rewarded with warmth.
Eve snatches her hand away as she hears quick footsteps walk into the room from behind the curtain. It becomes cold again.
“Excusez moi? Ms. Poslovina?” She hears a male voice say.
“Uh, yes? I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” Eve says, an unintentional quiver in her voice, she supposes makes her cover story more convincing.
A tall man emerges, dressed smartly, carrying a folder and a lanyard around his neck, “That’s okay, I’m the doctor on Marta’s ward for today. You are her wife?”
“Yes, yes, I am,” Eve says, a little stilted.
“Right, this is good. We were very worried for her, that no-one was with her,” the Doctor says, eyes pinched, “You were there when the stabbing occurred?”
Eve grasps this as her opportunity to make a halfway decent cover, because she wasn’t sure if her previous story was going to cut it with everyone she had to explain herself to whilst she was here.
“No, no I wasn’t with her. She had gone out to get some groceries for us, to bring back to the apartment we’re staying in. But she was on the phone with me, asking what we needed, and I heard her get attacked, I heard her say there was a knife involved. I just guessed she may have been stabbed when she was no longer responding,” Eve rushed out, not even sure where it all came from. But she had to remove herself, she knew that much. She’d be gone soon anyway.
The Doctor nodded slightly, “I understand. We haven’t called the police in yet as she has not been awake. However, we can call now, yes?”
Eve shook her head, “I barely know anything. It would be better to wait until Marta wakes up. There’s no point otherwise.”
“Very well,” The Doctor said, clearly a little uneasy, but seemed to let it go to Eve’s great relief, “Marta had surgery late last night, the stab wound had cut through her stomach lining, so that had to be repaired. However, she’s doing fine now, a long recovery though. She’ll wake up soon, she just lost a lot of blood before she got here, we have kept her sedated for now.”
Eve is dizzy with it all. The deception, the stabbing, Villanelle so close.
“She’ll be okay?” Eve asks, she almost winces at the desperation she can hear in her own voice. It’s not even put on.
The Doctor smiles gently, “Yes, your wife will be fine. I’ll be on shift until this evening, call me or the nurses if you need anything.”
It takes a moment to realise that *wife* was directed towards her, it twists something deep inside her and she’s not sure that it’s entirely uncomfortable, just...unexpected.
And just as suddenly, she’s alone again. With Villanelle. Waiting.
Eve should really leave, she knows she will be fine. She knows that she hasn’t killed her. This is her chance to leave now, to fuck off somewhere, change her name, shave her head. Leave before Villanelle has a chance to enact some sort of violent revenge. But instead she finds herself in the lumpy seat next to Villanelle’s bed, doing anything but fleeing. Her eyes burning at her to close them after a sleepless night running around Paris, her mind so sluggish it’s barely moving coherently from thought to thought.
She’ll just rest now. Her hair cushioning her fall against the back of the seat she’d curled herself up in. She sees Villanelle’s silhouette against the bright mid-morning sun, fading behind her eyelashes as sleep finally overcomes her.
—
Eve sleeps fitfully. There are no dreams, merely darkness. She awakens suddenly as her knee slips out from underneath her, aching and half-asleep. Checking her watch she sees it’s only just encroached upon the afternoon. Villanelle still sleeps, looking markedly more peaceful than Eve has ever seen her.
Her eyes closed softly, no lines of frustration, no smirk, no arms held so tightly, no feet in fighting stance. She looks relaxed, Eve thinks it suits her somewhat.
Eve isn’t particularly sure what to do with herself, she’d shut off her phone to stop Kenny or Carolyn or whoever else is tapped into her phone from tracking where she might be. She just needs time, before she re-enters the real world. Like this is somehow all fantasy, just on the periphery of reality. So she sits, and stares, and waits. And without even consciously thinking of it. She knows she will stay until Villanelle wakes up, it feels like a sign of respect somehow. Not that she particularly deserves it, the asshole.
It isn’t long until Villanelle does begin to stir. At first it’s just a twitch of her cheek, like she’s trying to open her eyes, and then her foot slides a little up the bed under the covers. The noise of the rustling of covers startles Eve in her seat, she places her feet on the ground, sitting up almost violently straight. Her breath quickens and her palms start to sweat as she sees Villanelle’s eyes start to flutter open.
—
Villanelle is vaguely aware of her surroundings as she starts to come to. Her throat aches, and her eyes burn something severe. She hears the beeps before anything else, consistent and slow.
*A hospital*. She realises.
Quiet, means a private or empty room. She feels warmth on her bare arms, a window nearby, good.
She starts to feel the burn of the wound as she shifts her leg, it pulls vaguely on her upper body, and she suppresses a small groan. She wonders how bad it was, it certainly felt it. A lot of blood loss by any means. She continues to test her limits.
Flexing her hands, inhaling deep and slow, her stomach muscles contracting and releasing, a gentle shift in her hips. It is mostly painful, but nothing that she can’t handle, she needs to get out of here. She’s not stupid. The Twelve will be after her soon, she saw the body bags and the clean up crew. She needs time, and most of all she needs space between her and this fucking city.
It’s quick, and mindless and she scrunches her eyes even more closed as she pulls the cannula out of her nose and begins to push herself up on her elbow, and then she hears a sharp intake of breath far too close beside her.
Villanelle’s eyes snap open and she is greeted with a sight that she honestly would not have picked if you gave her a million guesses. Eve Polastri. In the same ugly blue cardigan as she was in when she stabbed her. The nerve, an assault to the eyes.
She notices that Eve’s eyes are dark, but the circles underneath them are even darker still. She wonders how long it has been, hours, days? Eve shifts backwards ever so slightly as they stare at each other, both breathing the same airspace with not much other than sheets and needles between them.
“Where are you going?” Eve chokes out, like something has gotten stuck in her throat.
Villanelle almost laughs, this whole situation is insane. Why is she here? Why did she come back? She doesn’t understand, why isn;t she scared?
“Somewhere not here,” Villanelle says, her voice rough around the edges.
Eve inhales and opens her mouth as if she is about to talk, but shuts it, clearly thinking better of it. Or maybe she’s unsure of what she wants to say.
Villanelle pauses in her pursuit of the door, wincing as she shifts to face Eve more on her elbow. She can’t quite understand why Eve is here, she shouldn’t be. She stabbed her, she should be terrified of some sort of bite back. Maybe she is afraid, and maybe something else inside her won out. Like something else won out against Villanelle. Something that is foreign and unknown, and more terrifying than the threat of harm.
As her eyes pinch just a little Villanelle says with a lilt, “Aren’t you going to apologise? I am mortally wounded.”
Eve seems to appreciate that Villanelle has addressed it first, a gentle release of her clenched fist tells Villanelle so, “‘Mortally’ implies that you are dead. And you are decidedly not dead,” Eve pauses for a moment, “And no, I’m not going to apologise.”
That seems right and like some sort of justice has occurred. Of all the things that Eve has lost, she has at least gained back some upper hand. She feels like she’s finally breaking a little below even with Villanelle, that’s good enough for now.
Villanelle snorts out a small, derisive laugh, “That’s rude. You stabbed me, Eve Polastri.”
“And you have ruined my life multiple times over,” Eve says quietly but it’s laced with venom, she is leaning forward a little in her seat now.
“You are so dramatic, Eve,” Villanelle says, finally settling back into the pillow with a wince, her abdomen beginning to ache, “No ‘ruining’ has occurred.”
“You killed my best friend!” Eve almost shouts, she glances back in the direction of the door in fear someone may have heard.
Villanelle at least has the decency to divert her eyes for a moment, in something resembling guilt, just maybe. But her piercing gaze is back on Eve’s in seconds, “It’s okay, I understand why you have done this. All is fair in love and war as they say. I forgive you, Eve.”
Eve has to hold herself back from blurting out a responsive, ‘I forgive you too.’ But she holds it in, and just nods tiredly, her hand coming up to rub at her eyes.
It’s silent for a moment, only the distant bustling of the corridor behind them can be heard.
“Have you talked to any doctor’s yet?” Villanelle asks, quieter than Eve has ever heard her.
“Yeah, he said that you’ll be fine. They had to stitch up some stomach lining, but just take it easy for a while and it’ll be okay,” Eve says.
Villanelle hums and stares at the ceiling, “This must not be a very good hospital, just letting my stabber come in here, get all of my medical records, and sit by my bedside while I suffer through an ordeal.”
Eve laughs a little, so small Villanelle could barely hear, “Well, funny story. I told them that’s your name is Marta Poslovina, and that you were my wife and you got mugged while you were getting us groceries, so keep up the cover, please.”
Villanelle’s face widened into the biggest shit-eating grin Eve had ever seen, “Your wife?! Eve Polastri, if this is all it took, I would have let you stab me a long time ago.”
“Fuck off,” Eve grumbles, but she has a serene smile on her face as well. This all feels so fuzzy around the edges, not real or tangible. Eve yawns, covering it with her hand.
They fade into silence again, this time for a few minutes. Villanelle glances at Eve on and off, still not sure what to make of this whole thing. She wonders briefly if this is all a fever dream induced by the anaesthesia wearing off or infection kicking in. But Eve looks so real, like she could reach out and touch her and it would be soft and warm and inviting.
“What are you doing here Eve?” Villanelle asks, before she even realises the question is out of her mouth.
Eve opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, trying to find the right words, “I’m not really sure,” she says slowly, playing with a piece of loose thread on the blanket, “I think I just really needed to know if you were alive. It felt important to know that.”
“You would not make a very good assassin, you worry too much,” Villanelle says, watching Eve’s fingers wind themselves around the thread.
“I think I might be alright, only if I wasn’t assassinating you,” Eve almost whispers with a self-deprecating laugh, but Villanelle hears it loud and clear and it feels better than it should.
Villanelle watches as Eve’s eyes, bloodshot and dark, begin to blink for longer than normal, her head drooping further down the chair. It feels as thought it is just the two of them, alone in a too white room, with too thin sheets, and the afternoon sun bathing them in a glow that makes it feel like a dream. They are both aware this is borrowed time, no matter how inevitable it feels.
“Well, thank you for coming, I guess,” Villanelle says, letting her head drop on the pillow, “Get some sleep, I promise I won’t stab you.”
Eve smiles behind closed eyes, “You’re welcome. And thank you.” She lets sleep take her, strangely comfortable in the knowledge that she is sure she is safe.
—
When Eve wakes next it is nearing on midnight, moonlight has painted the colours of the room blue and grey. She glances up to Villanelle’s bed, and is not surprised to see it empty. The needles scattered across the bed, staining the sheets with tiny droplets of blood. She wonders how far away Villanelle is already.
Against the pillow is a small sheet of paper that Eve reaches out to read it. In the slanted, curling writing she has come to know well it says, “Until next time, baby.”
Eve folds it up, stretches out of the lumpy grey chair and walks straight out the ward, out of the hospital, and takes herself to the nearest train station. The real world feels a little too loud, and she keeps seeing blonde hair chasing around corners. But it’s okay, that was enough for now.