Archive of Our Own

"You need a name."

She spreads out the stack of takeout menus she's stolen from the front desk, sprawled on her stomach on their third motel bed in a week. The wallpaper is the worst she's seen yet, and is still somehow better than what was in her old bathroom. "What about Indian?"

"As names go? It's a little tongue-in-cheek." He flops to his back beside her, scratching at his stomach and squashing half the pile. "I could go for some Chinese."

She wrinkles her nose, wrestling the menus free. "No Chinese. I hate Chinese."

"You are Chinese."

"Yeah, it's tragic, they revoked my membership and everything." She holds the next one in front of his face so he can get a good look at the lamb. "Mediterranean?"

He takes the menu and tosses it away, looking kind of curious and totally confused but not at all like he's craving kebobs. She takes it as a no. "You eat noodles," he muses.

"I eat pasta," she mutters, and sifts through the stack again. "Ooh, Italian."

"Baby, you need a name."

His hand comes over to card through her hair, and she squirms on the slippery bedspread until her chin is propped on his chest.

"You need one more than I do," she says, tapping the tip of his nose. "I mean, Slevin's the guy the cops might connect to a world-class assassin, two asphyxiated mob bosses, the fried gay son of a Rabbi, a long list of henchmen who were either stabbed, shot, or brained with a baseball, and twenty years of bad guy boogie man stories about betting on the wrong horse. Lindsey's just some girl who left her security deposit, her shitty cell phone, and her socially dubious job working with dead people."

"Point."

He slides his thumb over her cheek and sighs up at the ceiling, and she buries her face in the softness of his sweater. Sure, they're on the run, their cash will only last so long, and the greasy guy who'd checked them in had actually winked at the "Smith" scrawled on their receipt. But there's this, shiny and new, Norman Rockwell by way of the Twilight Zone, and deciding to deal is the only real option.

"Okay," he says, "let's go with Indian."

With a face full of wool, her laugh is nothing but a huff of hot air. Food now, new names later. The rest will work itself out.

Lindsey was born at eight months old, which tends to be confusing for some people.

Once upon a time — or more accurately, one August in LA — her parents had boarded a plane and come back with a baby. They'd wanted her and spoiled her and fed her the food of her heritage, until somewhere around four she'd gotten so sick of chow mein and chop suey that, in a fit of pint-sized protest, she'd stopped eating entirely. Then there'd been nothing but fish tacos and french fries, stars and sandy beaches and endless summer sunshine.

The adoption had been a closed one. She'd never known her birth parents, her birth story, her birth name, but it hadn't mattered much. She'd been happy in middle-class Malibu, where everyone who saw her, with her fair-haired father and her too-tanned mother, could guess as much as she knew herself. And whoever that winter baby had been, back in Beijing, Lindsey will never be that person again.

It's not confusing, not for him. He'd been someone else before, the same as she had. But with everything that happened in his last life, and however long it took for him to stop being Henry and start being Slevin, she's never been more grateful for all her unknowns. For the gulf between her before and after, for every question she'd never needed answered, for the cut-and-dried drunk driver who'd run her parents off the road while she was still in the middle of med school. They'll both need a charm, this third time, now that the name he'd taken after doesn't mean anything anymore.

According to some, you only live twice. Maybe Bond's not the best metaphor after all.

They leave the third motel on a Monday. By Friday, they're already in the fifth — still Smiths, just with grasscloth wallpaper and a solid green duvet — and when they come back from a food run with a bagful of burgers, there's a delivery for them at the front desk.

Nothing new there, really, it's just the first time that it's not food.

They sit facing each other on the floor, crossed legs leaving a circle in the center, and he lays out each item in the box, explaining them all so she gets it — the cash (down payment), the cell phone (dummy SIM card), the manila envelope wrapped in cellophane (soon-to-be-dead-guy's dossier). Innocent enough individually, but combined, they make the world's creepiest care package.

He rubs his jaw, too rough. "We haven’t exactly talked about this."

"No," she says, "but we don't have a whole lot of options. We haven't stayed in one place for longer than three days, I can't be a coroner because I no longer exist, and you were declared legally dead, raised by the hitman hired to kill you, and trained your entire life to track down and take out everyone involved in your parents’ murder. That’s kind of a specialized skill set." She grabs the box and squints at the label — postmarked from clear across the country, on a day they were still in motel number three. Creepier and creepier. "The real question is how he found us. Do you have some kind of internal tracking implant that I don't know about?"

"You're serious."

"What? They exist. Oh, you mean, yeah." She sets aside the box in favor of the phone — new model, no contacts — and kind of hopes Smith senior has upgraded his own as well. The camera on the old one really was crap. "Well, this is all you've ever done, right? I guess I figured that you'd keep doing it, and we'd keep doing this."

He gives her a sideways grin. "We've had bad fast food in fourteen states and yesterday you made me watch porn for the plot. I'm not sure that sums up everything entailed in the life of a contract killer."

She chews her lower lip and flips through the stack of bills, banded with bank strips from New Mexico. Maybe his mentor has a teleporter. "So the motels might get better."

"No, that part's pretty accurate."

She finally stops flipping, because holy crap. "There's like ten thousand dollars here, and we're in a backwoods HoJo's. What if late-shift Lurch had gotten curious?"

"You've met the man," he says. "Does curiosity seem like a good idea to you?"

The envelope is the only thing left, but it's not hers to open.

"So?"

"So." He reaches out to lace his fingers through hers, rubbing the skin between index and thumb. "Is this really something you think you could do?"

"I peeled two units of blood off a bulletproof vest, and then got on a bus with you," she says, and squeezes. "Pretty much made my peace already. But I only dealt with dead people once they were dead, you're the one who has to make them that way. So you tell me. Is this really something you still want to do?"

His free hand moves to her neckline, tugs the edge down to the top of her bra. The hematoma is huge, though the bruising's begun to fade, a splotch of sickly yellow bleeding blue at the edges. But it's still tender to the touch, and there are two rings of red in the center, like bull's-eyes, marking the points of impact.

Whatever he’s hoping to find, it doesn’t seem to be down her shirt. He takes a deep breath and looks at his watch, then takes both his hands back to palm the cell phone, and it rings in his hand like magic.

"That implant," she says. "It's lodged in your frontal lobe, isn’t it?"

His chuckle is unexpected but not unwelcome. She’s not sure how to tell him that she’s only half joking.

"The exit route’s his, the motels are all vetted, and it’s nine o’clock on the dot. Systematic, not psychic." He looks at her for a long second, then flicks the phone open and presses the biggest button on the keypad, once, again. "Yeah."

Instead of putting the phone to his ear, he props it on his knee and waits. When the voice comes, it’s on speaker. "Glad you made up your mind," it says. She’s tempted to ask for tomorrow’s lottery numbers. "Since you haven’t had a look yet, I’ll save you the trouble — one of the Chicago boys, Vito Dianello. Rival outfit wants him out of the picture. The Russians are making noise in those parts, so use a foreign piece, let’s say the Steyr — getting them to quiet down might mean a big bonus."

"The Mafia’s still a thing in Chicago?" she mouths, trying to stay as silent as possible.

"The Mafia’s always a thing in Chicago," he says, full-volume, "it’s Chicago. What if I said I was done?"

"What if you did?" the disembodied voice asks. It doesn’t wait for an answer. "I know you’re not, you know you’re not, don't bother wasting the breath. Dianello’s gonna go down regardless, I’m just giving you first crack. Guy’s put a lot of people in the ground."

"Kid's first solo job, let's hand him a bad guy." He snorts and picks up the envelope, turns it over in his hands. "Gift wrapped."

"Everybody's a bad guy, some are just worse than most. But that is your M.O."

"The marks never mattered to you."

"Mark's a mark. But you're not me."

It's like watching someone play chess with a supercomputer, and she listens close and tries not to breathe too hard. Maybe this is what his life had been like — all the pawns moving on their own, taking his pieces away.

His hand comes up to scratch his eyebrow. "Little late for a clean conscience, don’t you think?"

"If I did, you’d be dead by now." There’s a pause, a rush of air that sounds vaguely amused. "So would she."

Her eyes search for his, but he’s looking lower again, staring at stained skin he can’t actually see.

"What’s the timetable?"

"There’s a cushion built in for the bus," the voice says. "Get your girl a ghost package, kid."

Then the call is cut, and he closes the phone, and his eyes finally come back to hers. "Guess we're going to Chicago."

"So we finally get a decent pizza." Her stomach rumbles right on cue. The burgers are probably gross by now. "It's your first job?"

"First one that doesn't matter either way," he mumbles, and grimaces. "Fuck, we need names for this, too."

He shoves everything from the box across the shag carpet and swivels away, scoots down to lay his head in her lap. "Maybe the bad guy is a good thing," she says. His hands lay flat on his stomach, and hers smooth out the cowlick against her left leg. "You could have a code. Like that show with the serial killer who only kills other serial killers."

"I have got to get you away from free cable."

She laughs, and one hand comes up to grab for her fingers, tugs until his lips are warm at her wrist.

"You're amazing."

He doesn't say it so much as press it into her skin, and something besides hunger tingles low in her belly. "Because I left with you and went on the lam and have turned to a life of crime?"

"Among other things. Shouldn't you be freaking out by now?"

His grin is upside down. His nose is healing nicely.

"You never know," she says, sifting through his hair again. "Ataraxia could be contagious."

The name game goes literal with mix-and-match Memory made from the scraps of old meals, first names scribbled on blank bits of menus, last names scrawled on the back of receipts. They may not know who they're to become — Slevin had died with the Boss and the Rabbi, Lindsey had disappeared in a rush of bullets and blood — but when it comes to covers, well, who better to be than Bond?

It takes twenty minutes for her to win the first two, making her Maud Adams pre-Octopussy and him mid-era Moore in The Man with the Golden Gun. But he hand-picks the third, holds up the slip from their hot dogs and fries. A View to a Kill. She knows he chose it because she's still new to this, since it's close enough to Smith to avoid a big slip, but considering the venue, it's pretty damn inspired.

In the meantime, off the clock, he sticks with the same pet name and she sticks to strategically-placed pronouns. It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough for now.

The Smythes rent a condo in the Marina City complex. It's on the lowest residential floor and lacks a view of the river, and to say it's a step up is an understatement.

She walks around while she waits for him to bring up the bags. It's a studio, so there isn't far to walk, but the space itself is fascinating — the windows are round and the walls are all curved, not a right angle to be found. "I feel like a pod person," she says when she hears him come in, "but at least there's no wallpaper." Then she stops and turns back to the door. "Didn't Bob Newhart live here?"

"Nope, further north." He drops his duffel on the bed, and it sinks into the fluffy down duvet. "They just used a shot in the credits."

She tilts her head. "You watched that show?"

"I did my research," he says, and smiles. "Your turn."

She claps her hands and climbs onto the bed, and he hands her Dianello's dossier. He hasn't told her exactly what the plan is, and she's eager to see if she can guess for herself.

The giant sheaf of paper is mostly made of surveillance shots, with all the real information on a single typed sheet, and half an hour later she still hasn't got a clue. "So he owns eight downtown developments and a good chunk of the Mag Mile, which is all probably public record. But he's also a real estate magnate with known ties to the Mafia, so I'm guessing he's not fitting guys for concrete shoes in the basement of his own buildings."

He looks down as his lips twitch, clearly trying not to laugh. "They don't work that way anymore. But that's not the angle, no."

"Then if you take that away, the only thing left to go on is that he smokes smuggled Cubans and likes bad live music. Unless you're gonna strangle him with a guitar string and set him on fire, how do you kill somebody with that?"

He does laugh then, and somehow it's aimed everywhere but at her. Then he rolls off the bed and reaches out a hand, and their cover glints gold on his finger.

 "Hungry?"

There's a restaurant called Crossroads at the base of the complex, in the lobby of a House of Blues that's been hollowed from the old Marina City movie theater. It's the peak of the dinner rush and the place is packed, but they somehow have a reservation.

"I'm missing something," she says once they're seated.

He hands her the bread basket with a smirk. "You're missing something."

She orders the pulled pork and he orders the prime rib, and when she catches a familiar profile behind his head, flanked by two men with more muscle than is strictly necessary, she leans forward to hiss over her wine glass.

"Do you always stalk your marks at mealtime?"

"Not always," he says, "but it kind of kills two birds with one stone."

Dianello is polishing off his dinner, seated three tables away, and she ducks down a bit and leans a little more. "Wouldn't it make more sense for you to sit on this side?"

He shakes his head. "This is exactly the view I want."

His smile is slow and his hand slides over hers and something warms in his eyes that isn't the wine, and for the stretch of a second, fact and fiction smudge together — they're a happy couple on their honeymoon, sharing a drink and a meal and a name. Then his eyes drop to the table, and the second snaps away.

"Hold that thought," he says, getting to his feet and laying his napkin on the table. "I just need to make a pit stop."

She looks up at him, then looks back to the mark, who's still chewing the last of his chicken. "I'm missing more than one something if you think making a date with a mobster in the men's room is really the way to go here."

He leans down to laugh into the crown of her hair. "Stay put and act natural, I'll be right back."

She straightens in her seat as he leaves, sipping her wine and trying not to look too hard in Dianello's direction, and finally focuses on the middle-aged marrieds to his right, making easy conversation over coffee and looking so comfortable with each other that she has to smile.

Then there's movement and her eyes snap back and it's impossible not to look, since the mark has just signaled for his check.

"Shit." She glances around as inconspicuously as possible, trying to find the sign for the facilities. "Shit, shit. See, this is why you're supposed to go before we leave the house."

It's entirely possible that talking to herself in public isn't quite as natural as she should be acting.

Dianello slips into his coat while his heavies stand guard, absentmindedly patting his pockets. Tables are clearing all around — must be turnover time from the first round of reservations. And it's only been about a minute, in the grand scheme of things, but really, how long does it take for the average man to pee?

Then the mark's on the move, shoving through the crowd and out the door faster than she can think. But she's supposed to stay put. Specifically. Act natural, and stay put.

Out on the street there's a pop and a scream, and suddenly she knows why.

By the time it occurs to her to count he's already coming out of the hallway, locked on her and breathing hard and pushing past the panicked people who aren't already pressed to the glass. He pulls her up and tugs her close, holds her head to his chest, and the chill of his fingers at the nape of her neck is the only way she can tell that he's been outside.

She knows what it must look like, exactly what picture he's painting. But when his lips drop down to whisper in her ear, there's an unmistakable smile in his voice.

"Did you know that the Marina City elevators are completely camera-free, and go from the lobby to the roof in less than thirty seconds?"

Once the cops have cleared the restaurant and Dianello's been carted away in a body bag, they make their way through the mezzanine and back up to the condo, where she buzzes with adrenaline, walking back and forth at the windows.

"You killed him."

He nods. "That was the plan."

"I thought we were just there to watch him."

"Yeah, as it turns out, not so much watching as killing."

"But you were only gone for like two seconds! How is that even possible?"

Settling into one of the sleek leather armchairs, he shrugs. "You tell me."

She picks up her frantic pacing to and tries to focus. "Sniper rifle on the roof, like the Boss' son, you'd told me that much before. Pretty sure I would've noticed if you'd brought a gun when we went down for dinner, so it must've been there already." He raises an eyebrow, and it clicks. "When you sent me up here and said you'd get the bags. You set it up then."

"So far so good," he says. "Keep going."

"We had a reservation in the same restaurant where Dianello was having dinner, but there was nothing in the file about food. So how did you connect a bad hobby and a bad habit to —" She stops cold, and he crosses his arms with a smile. Son of a bitch. "Dianello haunted piano bars and hole-in-the-wall clubs, but it's not the venues that matter, it's the music. The cops made the whole place a crime scene and closed everything down, but I bet half the people in that restaurant were there to eat before a concert. That's why it was so crowded on a weeknight, and that's why so many people finished eating at the same time. He wasn't really there for dinner. He was there for the House of Blues."

"Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy," he says, and winces. "Shame about the show."

"You knew he'd be at this once-in-a-lifetime concert, which was set to start at a certain time, so that's your cue right there. And you figured he might eat in-house beforehand, probably checked his reservation when you made ours." She sits on the edge of the bed, brows pulled together. "But the restaurant connects directly to the theater. How could you be sure that he'd go outside?"

He sits forward, legs spread, wrists hanging over his knees. "You know this," he says. "I know you do."

"Oh good, glad one of us thinks so." She taps one finger to the tip of her thumb, lower lip trapped between her teeth, and rewinds the night in reverse – the shot, the exit, the mark signing his check and shrugging into his coat, leaving just a little ahead of everyone else.

She spools all the way back to the moment they'd walked in, when they'd given their name and been shown to their table, and that's when lightning strikes.

"The hostess didn't ask what section we wanted," she says slowly, slightly dazed but distinctly remembering the sight of Dianello patting down his pockets. "It's a non-smoking restaurant, and he wanted to smoke before the show."

He laces his arms on the top of his head as his smile spreads to a grin, and there's so much pride in it that her heart stops for a second. "The man did love his cigars."

"So you went through the complex and up to the roof in the super special speeding bullet elevator, waited for Dianello to step out with his Cohiba, shot him with the sniper rifle you'd already set up, came down to the room to ditch the gun, and made it back to the restaurant in three minutes flat."

"No."

She blinks. "No?"

"I left the gun," he says. "Russians, remember?"

She nods, too fast, feeling almost all punch-drunk but also just a little bit pleased with herself. "Right, right, Russians, how could I forget."

Then he's on his feet and across the room, one hand pressed to the bed beside her left hip and the other pulling gently at her hair, his mouth warm and wet on hers. Her fingers find the front of his shirt and hold on tight, and she can still taste the wine on his tongue.

He sinks to a crouch that brackets her calves, palms warming her thighs through her jeans.

"Sorry. I knew you'd work the whole thing out, just didn't know how hot it would be." Her smile must not cut it, since his hands knead at her legs. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… yeah."

"Baby if this is too much, I need you to tell me."

"Relax, this is not finally a freakout. I just…" She takes a big breath and blows it back out. "It feels really weird saying this, since there's a man in the morgue that I actually helped put there, but you got my hopes up and then took the guy down and I'm so hungry I could eat his dead body. You couldn't have pulled the trigger after my pork?"

He laughs and leans in and kisses her again, then pulls something out of his pocket.

"I just thought you might want that pizza," he says, and passes her a menu.

It may not be wise, but she's curious, anyway.

She'd seen him as Smith and he'd shot her as Goodkat, but her boyfriend just calls him He. Capital H and everything. Like God. Or helium. In her head, she makes it a merry-go-round of mock titles. His Excellency. His Eminence. And that one time, after Detroit, His Encephalopathic.

Maybe his story reads something like theirs. She doesn't know who this man had been, before. She's not sure that he does, either.

By now they've had Bond covers in six different cities, and pick up packages wherever they go — new phone, new money, new mark to make disappear. There's always a backstory, brief as it may be, and the lives in the envelopes always belong to bad men. But she stays silent on every call, and the man with no name who'd once tried to kill her pretends that she doesn't exist.

She wonders if he regrets it, if he resents her, if he'd aim a little higher if he could do it all over again. If, after the little boy a hired gun had let live, she's just one miss too many.

Curled up in a bed in downtown Denver, she decides to share her little nickname game. It gets a laugh that goes on a long time, and then he makes her swear she'll never say them out loud again.

The dossier for the Vegas job holds a Russian restaurateur with a taste for human trafficking. The beat sheet is so much longer than a single page, and that's when she offers to be more than just the backup.

She's helped him plan every job since Chicago, but this is different — this time, this mark, she'll have a hand in the actual hit. If they ever figure it out.

He'd mentioned once that the lone wolves were hard, and right about now she actually misses the mob.

She chews the inside of her lip. "So both his clubs are completely clean?"

"Security checks the customers at the door, employees get a drug screen every week. Servers, bartenders, dancers, everybody. There's no coming at him that way." He puts down the file and pinches his unbroken nose. They've been at this for hours. "He might be stocking the stage with half-naked hostages, but everything else is by the book."

Damn. There has to be a hole somewhere. They have got to help these women.

"What about the restaurant?"

He glances over with a smile. It's tired, but she appreciates the effort. "The guy's strip clubs are a drug-free environment. I doubt his diners are doing lines over lobster."

"No, I mean…" She grabs the sheets he'd set aside, waving them in the air. "You said the answer's always in here, right? So yeah, it's sin city and the money's in the clubs, but his real pride and joy is that restaurant. Look, he approves every shipment, closes down every shift. I know it makes sense to slip in through the seedy door, but maybe we're barking up the wrong pole."

He picks up half the pile again. "It's worth a shot."

Fifteen minutes later she finds a copy of the menu nestled among the mug shots, and grins when she gets to the specials. "Got it."

"Got what?"

"Fugu!"

"Gesundheit."

She explains the gist and expects the worst, but he actually nods along by the end. Then he tilts his head down and kisses her temple, holds the heat of it to her skin with the pad of his thumb.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, this could work."

It takes two days to get what they need. Then the plan and the pieces and the players are all in place, and she's standing outside Dimitri Rusakov's sleek Michelin-starred restaurant, wearing sky-high heels and stick-straight hair and a dress shorter than half of her shirts.

Babylon. How fitting.

Beside her, he's wrapped in an Armani suit and mirrored Aviators, and suddenly reaches out for her arm.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, are we sure this will work?"

She rolls her eyes — no easy feat, with five pounds of makeup slathered on her face and studded feathers stuck to her eyelashes. "Sweetie, if a former coroner can't call cause of death, we should just stop killing people now."

"Just —" He stops, swallows, starts again. "Watch yourself in there."

"Please," she says, smiling wide. "I was taught by the guy who was taught by the best."

He laughs, and the line of his shoulders loses its tension. Then he leans in, mouth quirked at the corners, and she slaps a hand to his chest. "Do you really want to walk in there wearing my lipstick?"

"Might help sell the cover."

"True," she hums, and goes up on the toes of her tacky heels to crush their mouths together.

She wipes away every trace but a bright coral speck, smeared at the center of his lip. Then his hand on her arm readjusts, becoming proprietary, fingers biting into her bicep. A bouncer in head-to-toe black lets them in through the side, marches them down a dark hall to the wide-open kitchen. The back of the house gleams marble and chrome, smells like saffron and shaved truffles and seared cuts of steak.

And a snake slithers past the double doors.

"Mr. Sterling, yes?" Rusakov holds out a hand, and it's taken with the one that isn't holding her captive. His accent is exaggerated to the point of hilarity. "So pleased to meet you."

Staring straight ahead like a good little slave, she can't see her partner in crime. But she hears the sunglasses come off, and he seems to squeeze into the handshake just hard enough to make the man wince.

"Van is fine," he says. "Thanks for seeing me on such short notice."

"No, no, nothing of it. I was very… intrigued by your call."

Russian blue eyes crawl over every inch, from the top of her wig to the tips of her gaudy pink toes,. He's gotten lazy, gotten away with it for too long.

There's a little laugh beside her, barely more than a breath of air. "Well, she is intriguing."

Rusakov finally finds her face again. "What is your name, my dear?"

She'd done this, drilled it, practiced it in the mirror — calm, contained. Cautious, but not cowed.

"Honey," she says, not quite making eye contact. "Honey Lin."

There's laughter at that, big and booming, bouncing off the walls. "I could not have made it better myself. We will be fine, you and I." His attention snaps away again, and he smiles with too-white teeth. "Come. We talk business."

The hand holding her falls away, and the two men walk away, Rusakov's arm slung over designer-draped shoulders. He'll have the whole story in a minute — raised in the States but not born, no papers to speak of, new in town and needs a place to disappear. She thinks she's here to be a waitress. He'll have other ideas.

They've left her behind in the big, bright kitchen, which was the hopeful part of Plan A. The bouncer in the corner, watching her too closely, is the reason Plan B's the one they'd bet on.

She squirms in her spot and glances around, taking in what she can without budging. There's a wall of ovens and a wide prep station, and in the back corner, by the walk-in freezer, a cardboard box covered in kanji.

Rusakov's laughter makes it back before the men do. When she looks up, her eyes lock with familiar brown, and a thumb comes up to swipe at a smirking lower lip, slowly, deliberately.

It's code, one they hadn't even created, saying all clear as surely as words. If she could, she'd kiss him again.

He stops in front of her, clenches his jaw, and cups the side of her face in one hand, sweeping that same thumb over her cheek. "Be good," he says softly. It means a million things at once.

Then the glasses are back on, and he's as good as gone.

The bouncer escorts her to a private dining room, decked out in crisp linens and cut velvets, a black marble bathroom on the back wall. A bottle of Dom chills on the table, next to two crystal flutes and a silver tray full of strawberries.

Not much for subtlety, this one, but whatever works.

Reaching into the side of her bra band, she draws out the little vial and carefully unscrews the cap. She tips several small drops of slightly-cloudy liquid into the bottom of each glass. Her hands don't shake at all — thank you, med school — but when she tucks the vial away again, her heart beats like a hammer beneath her forearm.

Now it's a waiting game. And with any luck, not much else.

Oh god, please let this work.

The man of the hour makes his grand entrance not long after, ordering the man in black to pop the cork. Bouncer and bottle opener, apparently. How fun for him.

"Ivan," Rusakov says, once the bottle is breathing, "go and check that clubs are set for the night. Meet me back in the kitchen before the butcher's delivery."

Ivan is already on his way out the door. He must know the drill by now.

Oh god, this really might work.

"Now, isn't that better?" The flutes get filled to the brim. He sits down next to her, plucks a strawberry between his fingers and bites it clean in half, and follows it with a sip of champagne. "You are working for me, have joined our little family. We celebrate, don't you think?"

She tries to smile and can't quite make it — now that it's done, she doesn't know whether to draw this out or move things along. "I've worked in nice restaurants before," she says. "I'm a good waitress."

"I'm sure that you are, my dear." The back of his hand brushes up the length of her arm, and she hopes her shudder looks sexier than it felt. He doesn't seem to notice. "Of course, there are other things I can offer you. Fewer hours, more money. You would be good at that, too."

"Like bartending?"

"Have a drink." He pushes the other flute toward her with a grin like an old oil slick. "We will discuss it."

"No thanks." She holds up a tentative hand. "I haven't really eaten anything today."

Bingo — his whole face lights up, and he slides out of the velvet booth. "In that case, you are in the right place. When you eat, what is it that you enjoy?"

They'd counted on this, his ego, the pride he takes in his own little culinary empire. But there's still a strategic seed to plant, and she doesn't have a whole lot of time.

Thankfully, neither does he.

"Um… cheese? And fruit?" She bites into her lip with a shrug. "I like sushi."

Rusakov returns with a selection of soft cheeses surrounded by mixed berries and, on a round platter, the crown jewel of his menu: a beautiful blossom of fugu sashimi.

Oh god, this is actually going to work.

He slips back into the booth, clearing his throat and moving closer this time, and wields a pair of chopsticks in his fingers. There's a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, shining in the light suspended above the table. He's probably written it off as attraction.

"You see, my dear, there is very special market in this country for Asian delicacies." He plucks one paper-thin petal of fish between the chopsticks, holds it up for her to see. The overwhelming urge to gag has nothing to do with the food. "Fugu, for example. One of the finest dishes in all of Japan. But the fish produces a toxin in the liver, lethal in even the smallest doses. A true delicacy, but deadly if incorrectly prepared. There are fewer than twenty establishments in the United States legally licensed to prepare and serve the fugu. You sit in one of them now."

Oh… god, he's totally going to try to feed her that slice of fish.

"I'm Chinese," she blurts, and actually manages to smile this time, "and I grew up here. Could we maybe… try it at the same time?"

His slimy smile comes back. "Of course, my dear."

The other pair of chopsticks is already unwrapped. If he'd touched them with the same hand he drank with, she still runs the risk of cross-contamination. He clears his throat again — shit, shit, shit — and she darts a hand directly to the fugu tray, tilts her head back, and drops the slice of sashimi into her mouth.

He chuckles, and somehow it's more disgusting than anything he's done so far. Then he finally slides the fugu past his lips, and she wants to weep in sheer relief.

Oh god, it worked.

He presses impossibly closer, and she tries to steer clear of his hands.

"How fascinating," he says. Those snake eyes slip over her face and settle on her mouth, likely still stained with a smudge of color, and the accent slips right along with them.

Of course he'd been right about the lipstick.

"Tell me, my Honey… are you as sweet as your name?"

She leaps from the booth and sprints for the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her and locking it tight, then leans over to spit the fish into the toilet. Miraculously, nothing else comes up with it.

The first sound is so muffled that she barely hears it.

She shuffles back to the door and presses her ear to the wood, and there it is again — a gasp, a grunt, and then the crash of breaking glass.

Her hand shakes a little on the lock, but she manages to get the door open. The Russian has slumped to his side at the edge of booth, arms and legs and face frozen in place, and he's drooling into the soft velvet.

Twenty one minutes. Fairly normal, by tetrodotoxin standards, but not a good number for Dimitri Rusakov. Not even in Las Vegas.

Her heart is racing so fast she can feel it beat between her ears, but she crouches down to watch as it happens — hypoxemia, hypercapnia. Panic in dying pupils, blotted out by petechiae as the body systematically shuts down. Then the last of the light goes out, and she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, slowly coming back to herself. The last half an hour has felt like a lifetime, but this, this is something she knows, this strange balance of being the only thing breathing in a space that holds more than one body.

There's an extra button sewn onto her dress, a little distress beacon right at the nape of her neck, and she presses it twice for good measure. Not a magical implant, but the next best thing.

When he comes into the room, it's with a gun in one gloved hand and a garbage bag in the other. His eyes flick over the scene, assessing, but his face is as anxious as it's ever been. If this were a movie, this would be the cue, the moment when he'd make a quick quip or marvel at her skills or dramatically drop the gun to rush across the room and take her in his arms, hold her close while some sweeping score crescendos. But he's never cast her as the damsel in distress, and he just finds her eyes with a nod.

"Okay?"

She straightens on her stilettos and nods right back. "Okay."

And then they're in motion.

He drops both flutes into gallon-sized freezer bags and half-fills a fresh pair with champagne, while she darts around the room from the table to the door, wiping down everything she may have touched. Henry is dead, Slevin is gone, but Lindsey is still in the system.

They leave the side door to the restaurant wide open, as if poor traumatized Honey had left in a hurry. Part of her kind of feels bad for Ivan.

He's already moved them from the Mirage to the MGM Grand, and she strips off the dress and scrubs off the makeup and climbs into the big bed in her underwear, feels him curl up behind her. Everything had gone according to plan — they'll find the toxin in Rusakov's system, chalk it up to the poisonous pufferfish in his stomach, and two dozen women with shiny new passports will sleep a little easier tonight. But even so, the whole thing makes her shiver.

"I think I should stick to the planning part."

"That's okay, I've got the rest covered." His hand ghosts along her bicep, lips tracing the shadows earlier fingers had left behind. "You know the people who pay us aren't exactly the good guys."

"I know," she says, turning her head to meet his mouth over her shoulder. "We'll just have to take it one bad guy at a time."

He says they've both earned a break, so they pack up and point their rental west. LA looks strange through grown-up eyes — she'd become an adult in New York, braving the big city, learning to live on her own. She was always a child in California, a little girl with two living parents, and there'd been nothing left for her here with them gone.

But however long it's been and whoever she is now, LA still feels like sunshine. And when they stop for a long red light on LaBrea, she smiles into his eyes and squeezes his hand just for knowing, at this exact moment, right where she needed to be.

By the time they find their five-star hotel she's gotten sick of being a Smith, and signs them in as Mr. and Mrs. Alias, instead.

The next night, after they're back from the beach and she's shoved him into the shower and heads down to the lobby for junk food, the concierge calls out a greeting with her fake married name.

She corrects the man with soft vowel sounds and emphasis on the second syllable (it's el-EYE-us), then laughs all the way to the elevator.

They sublet a loft in Washington state, all brick and timber and wide-open space, with "Smith" signed on the lease and a deposit left in cash.

"So we don't work Seattle?"

"Too much natural competition," he says, shaking his head. "Have you seen the suicide rate?"

They bring in a bed and a bunch of low sofas and some classic midcentury casegoods, paper one wall in the living room with giant metallic gingko leaves in homage to motels past, and it's all cozy and domestic and right.

Then His Emptiness comes in for Christmas.

The two of them head off god knows where to do god knows what while she tries to decide what kind of takeout one serves to a hit man, or at least one she doesn't sleep with every night, but when they get back, it's with a telltale box and no fewer than five bags of groceries.

Now the world's most ruthless contract killer is standing in her kitchen, rinsing cranberries and humming something that sounds curiously like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

She's sorely tempted to take a picture, but that hadn't worked out all that well for her before.

"There's an apron," she says instead, pointing to the pantry, "if you need one."

On second thought, said apron is bright orange and covered in pink polka dots — not that she cooks, she'd just thought it was cute — so maybe she should've kept her mouth shut.

Chef Smith Butnotreally goes eerily still, shoots her the world's sharkiest smile. "I'm not really in the habit of making messes."

Well, then, that'd be her cue to exit.

There's enough food for an army when they sit down to dinner, mashed potatoes and gravy and honest-to-god green bean casserole. The man of the hour holds a giant carving knife, cuts the turkey into such thin, perfect slices that she has to wonder who he'd practiced that on.

He asks her to pass the muffins, pleasantly, perfectly normal, like it's not pretty much the third time he's ever bothered with her at all, and when his hand hits the plate, hers doesn't quite let go.

"Okay, this is weird." She looks to her left, where his protégé is pointedly chewing. "This is weird, right? I keep waiting for whatever is probably happening to actually happen, because I am a nameless girl having Christmas dinner with two equally nameless assassins, one of them is my significant other and the other once significantly shot me, and somehow it's the dinner part that's disturbing."

"Baby —"

"No, it is actually Death Takes a Holiday in here. So if I am the dying Duke in this whole production, somebody figuratively put me out of my misery before you literally put me out of my misery, because I would like to enjoy my last meal in peace."

"Hey, Tweety Bird." Smith sips his wine and shakes his head sharply. "Stop talking."

They spend the rest of the meal in silence. The green beans are really, really good.

She dreams of Smith in a Santa hat, seeing her when she's sleeping, knowing when she's awake, and eventually eases out of bed to make some warm milk. It's always sounded fairly disgusting, but desperate times call for desperate drinks.

Except, when she gets to the kitchen, the man in question has beat her to it, his back to her as he builds a sandwich out of leftover scraps of turkey.

She's slowly trying to retreat, walking in reverse, when he turns.

"Having trouble sleeping, for some reason?"

"No," she says, switching gears again. "Just thirsty." She reaches into the refrigerator and grabs blindly for a bottle, then wonders if cold coffee creamer could pass for warm milk in a pinch.

He raises an eyebrow. Probably not, then.

She fills a glass at the sink instead, swallows a mouthful of tepid water while he leans against the concrete counter and eats his sandwich in measured, methodical bites. Then she puts the glass in the sink and the creamer back in the fridge and tries to visualize the steps to her bed.

"Well, night."

"The Russian job's getting some buzz," he says, and swallows. "It was a tricky setup, with a pretty smart solution." He pauses to watch her, eyes shrewd even in the dark. But her mouth doesn't move at all, and he polishes off his last bite and brushes the crumbs off his hands with a nod. "Yep, pretty damn smart. Tell the kid he did good. I'm proud of him."

He strolls out of the kitchen and into the hallway, then stops in the doorway of the den.

"Next time, try 'enigmatic.'" The shadows must be playing tricks on her, because she's almost sure she sees him wink. "Just a suggestion."

They're alone in the apartment when they wake up in the morning, folded sheets stacked neatly at one end of the sofa. She fills him in on the horror of the night before — which hasn't done a thing to dispel her theory that Smith is psychic — and he sets a cup of coffee in front of her as they talk, slips warm lips over her temple.

"Nope," she says, groaning at the sight of the creamer. "He hasn't decided that he likes me, he's just stopped actively wishing I was dead. At the most, I've been promoted to indifference."

He laughs, sitting down across from her and smoothing out his bedhead. "He gave you a nickname. That's about as affectionate as he gets."

She settles against the back of her seat, taking a minute to watch him. They may both be trained killers, but somewhere amidst all the plotting and target practice, the Smith who can cook a full holiday spread had raised this man who loves her.

"I don't think that's true. I mean, he mentioned how well he thought Vegas went, and how proud it made him. He even told me to tell you that. That you did good, and he was proud."

His smile is soft and sweet and sure, and he leans forward to hook his hand under her knee.

"Baby," he says, "he was talking about you."

She hasn't forgotten about the box. He just stubbornly refuses to tell her what it is.

They spend the last day of the year wandering around wind-swept Seattle — coffee at the flagship Starbucks and lunch at Pike Place Market and a slow ferry across Puget Sound. The day's half over before she realizes that she no longer feels like a tourist, that she's learned the streets and the sights and the smells the same way she'd learned New York, and it all starts to feel like home.

After a dollar theater showing of the new Casino Royale and dinner at the top of the Space Needle, they brave the crowds on the observation deck. In the dark, the snow-capped tip of Mt. Rainer is barely visible in the distance, and what seems like a million miles below, the city is sprawled at her feet.

He comes up behind her to wrap her in his coat, blocking out the worst of the wind, and tells her how he'd spent this night as a kid. How he'd been allowed to stay up late. How his dad had let him have a sip of champagne every year, even though he'd hated it the year before. How his mom used to tell him that whatever you were doing when the clock struck twelve would affect everything you did for the rest of the year. For a second, she swaps whatever you're doing with whoever you are, and wonders if the same superstition applies.

She wonders again when they're back at home, watching the seconds tick away in the Times Square on their television, and he shoves the box into her hands.

Inside there's a single wrapped envelope, and once she's peeled away the cellophane and torn through the seal, a new life spills out onto the sofa.

She looks at it all — licenses, passports, birth certificates, social security cards — and laughs.

Adam and Eva Wesson. Naturally.

For one tiny slice of time, everything is brand new. They've been plenty of people by now — separate and together, before and after — but they've never lived this life. She'd started to think that they'd live in limbo forever, with pet names and pronouns and aliases borrowed from Bond, but now he’s an Adam, and she’s an Eva, and Daniel Craig is Double-Oh-Seven.

Of course, Bond has never been blond before, and the after is the best thing since Scotland, so they could be on to something.

The clock chimes, the ball drops, and she kisses him goodbye and hello all at once.