A/N: A friend gave me a book of 100 rare words, and I got halfway through at realised that a surprising number of them gave me interesting ideas for stories, and the characters of Red Eye are ones I find interesting. So here we are, the stories won't necessarily contain the word, they will just embody the meaning, or be inspired by, and will contain the word with pronouciation and definition at the beginning of the chapter. So here we are. 100 rare words. 100 stories. From Afterwit To Zemblanity.

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Afterwit: AHF-tah -wit

1. Later knowledge, the knowledge of riper years or later times.
2. Second though, reconsideration.
3. Wisdom after the event, that comes to late.
4. Hence, recognition or former folly, practical repentance, a 'coming to one's senses'.

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Lisa Reisert had always considered her life a good one. She'd made it past the roadblock that had been her rape, two years later she was still a wallflower, but it wasn't like she never talked to anyone. She was good at her job, she still kept in contact with her family, and her flat may not have been large, but she still had her own home.

But at this moment, locked in a airplane bathroom at 30,000 feet in the air, she was convinced that it was all for nothing, and now it was far too late to change anything. Jackson Rippner's bright, icy eyes held death in them.

Don't fight me.

She should have taken his advice, but god knows experience only comes after you need it. Instead she'd struggled, for moment she hadn't cared about her father, or the Keefe's, she would've done anything Jackson wanted just to get out of the bathroom and away from him. Her belated plea for her father hadn't helped her at all, neither did her attempt at appealing to his morals - she should've known he probably didn't have any - and finally she had done something that he didn't seem to be able to stand.

Someone do that to you? Is that what it is?

She had lied. And he had seen the fear and deceit in her eyes, and she had seen the cautious pity in his turn flat, and then cold.

You know what I think?

Then she lost track, she heard only brief excerpts of his speech, something about truthfulness and cocktails, and she realised that he must have been following her. The lie at the Tex-Mex had been automatic, she didn't like people to get too deep too fast. He'd managed to anyway, when the subject turned to her Grandmother, but the cocktail had been a brief veneer. Something to keep her from thinking what a drink could turn into. But none of that mattered because now she was suffocating in a airplane bathroom, and her dad was going to die, because if she died Jackson wouldn't be able to kill Keefe.

"I can't breathe… I can't brea…"

The edges of her vision were going black, and she thought she could feel the tips of her fingers and toes going numb, and suddenly her lungs filled with air. She fell sideways coughing. He was talking, but she couldn't hear over the vague buzzing in her ears, just registering an "..and our lives go to shit", before his fingers took her chin, pulling her to face him, and she saw a strange kind of desperation in his eyes.

"And that's not going to happen, is it?"

She said no. He made a few more casual remarks, but she just watched his eyes, seeing relief leak into them before his expression became tightly controlled again as he opened the door. Suddenly she realised Jackson Rippner might just me more that he seemed.

--

Jackson Rippner knew he was good at his job. The Keefe assassination was a high profile job, the type he was lucky to get at his age. Most of the prestigious managers were closer to forty then twenty. Until the plane ride he had been surprised about the level of difficulty. The fact that the mark regularly used the same hotel and had a close relationship with the staff, made things very easy, and the stake out of Lisa Reisert was the simplest he'd ever had to do. The girl had seemed to go through her life unaware of anyone besides herself, customers, and fellow employees. Anything outside the doors of the hotel simply wasn't real to her. Even the insomnia seemed to belong to an average workaholic loner. He'd thought she'd been pretty, but empty.

He'd hidden his surprise when she lied at the Tex-Mex. He'd filed it in 'reasons not to feel remorse about using her' and let it past. It wouldn't do for her to realise he knew she was lying. So he played her game, pushing and retreating until he saw a vague trust enter her eyes, and in that moment he knew exactly how she saw him. He wasn't a threat. It was perfect.

The slight pleasure that filled them when she realised they were sitting together was not. That was the kind of thing that did make him feel remorse, the fact that he'd soon be shattering the poor girls innocence wasn't something he enjoyed. He knew others in the company did. The lack of innocence they had made them happy to take the privilege away from others. It made him feel the opposite. But he'd just steeled his resolve, it was job and he did not want to face the consequences if it failed. He simply decided to keep the charade going for as small amount of time as he could.

The attempts to stop him had surprised him. Everything he'd seen before they stepped on the aircraft pointed towards a passive, easy to control person. The message in the book had been surprisingly resourceful, and her quick thinking when the phone cut out had been impressive. He'd meant it when he said he might have to steal her. Someone like that before training was a rare thing to find. But he'd managed to keep himself feeling anything personal towards her until now.

He'd been angry at the soap on the mirror. He didn't enjoy investigations and a message like that was certain to bring one on, but the terror and resolve in her eyes when she said he didn't have to do anything caught him off guard. The scar pushed him over the edge. Jackson knew that many people would consider him a monster. He organised peoples murders, he knew it wasn't a nice normal job. People were scared of people like him. But he couldn't stand people who caused pain for no reason. He knew she'd lied to him and he attempted to control the wild anger at whoever caused the scar by forcing it onto her. But he couldn't go through with it.

He knew when he cleaned off the mirror that she could hear the hysteria that was slowly edging into his voice. He was not at the point in the company where they couldn't afford to 'lose' him yet. Being on the run would ruin everything he'd gathered for himself. He knew when he pushed her face towards his that he'd lost. It didn't matter if she made the phone call. She knew who he was. She'd made him lose control. So she'd won. It didn't matter if the job got done, because the one person supposed to be left knowing nothing but what she'd done knew far too much about him.