Chapter 1

Not him, not him, not him.

Rosa's eyes darted from person to person as she silently moved down the crowded cobblestone street, effortlessly dodging pedestrians like water flowing through a stony creek.

Definitely not him

This was a horribly ineffective way to make a living, but it was one Rosa had grown more than accustomed to during the year and a half she'd spent on the North American continent. She'd come here to get away from the miserable life she'd lived in Venice, but shortly after she stepped off the cramped cargo boat along with the rest of the immigrants, she had learned that life in the new world was not everything it had been made out to be.

Him, he will do.

In the corner of her eye she spotted a tall, hooded figure. From the hood the man's clothes grew down into a long, sweeping cloak. A slightly strange getup, Rosa had to admit, but she wasn't looking to socialize. The man was distracted, and that was all she needed.

She broke into a run, her nimble feet guiding her as she rushed towards her target. Her body prepared itself for the coming impact. She counted down the seconds.

3, 2, 1…

To any onlooker who might have happened to witness the incident it would have looked like a perfectly normal accident, but that was far from the truth. Having left everyone she knew back in Italy, Rosa had had no one to rely on but herself. Having found no one in Boston willing to give her work, she had turned to pickpocketing and stealing in order to survive.

Fortunately for her, she had turned out to be quite the natural.

And so, as she crashed into the man's hard body and braced the hit with her left forearm, she let her right hand slide into the pocket of his trousers, fingers searching until their tips found what Rosa was looking for: his wallet.

It all happened in a fraction of a second. She mumbled a quick "Sorry", and then disappeared back into the sea of people.

It didn't take long for Rosa to realise that the man was following her, she could easily spot him towering over the other men and women on the street as he pushed them aside in search for her. Usually, the people Rosa stole from would be too shocked and confused to comprehend that they had been the victim of a theft. Clearly, this man was smarter than that.

She decreased her own already meagre height by crouching down so that she was almost on all fours, earning some strange looks from the people around her as she did so. She turned right at the first corner and scrambled into a narrow alleyway. Rosa knew the city well, having lived on its streets for the last eighteen months. It should be easy for her to lose her pursuer among the winding and criss-crossing backstreets that lay between Boston's larger roads.

She dived around a corner, and another, and another, sensing his presence slipping further and further behind, until she was certain she had evaded him. She threw a quick look behind her to confirm her estimation before leaning against the nearest wall and letting her head slump against its rough, filthy surface.

Rosa breathed out, a long, heavy sigh. She didn't know how long she could go on living like this. At first stealing had been exciting, almost fun. It was the first time in her life she felt like she was good at something. Yes, the conditions she lived under were terrible, but she also knew people who had it much worse, men and women who had been captured and taken to jail and girls younger than herself who had no choice but to sell their bodies on the street. She wouldn't want to live that life for anything.

But living as a pickpocket wasn't exactly profitable either. She'd gotten lucky today, often one theft wouldn't earn her more than a handful of coins, and she'd have to steal from at least five or six more people just to be able to afford a decent meal. It was a dangerous life. She could start searching for 'real' work again, but considering how well that had gone last time…

Her thought's came to an abrupt end. She could hear something… footsteps.

Merda

She broke into another run, and just as she did she could see the man from before rounding the corner she had skirted just a minute ago, his face still concealed by his hood.

If Rosa had continued to run instead of stopping to catch her breath, she would most definitely be safe right now. But she hadn't, and instead she found herself in a slight state of panic. It was unlike her, but this was the closest she'd ever been to getting caught, and she didn't like the feeling of it.

She scrambled away and, not thinking straight, took right at the nearest crossroad even though she knew perfectly well that nothing waited for her there but a dead end. Her heart nearly stopped as she realised what she'd done. Behind her she could hear the man drawing closer and closer.

Without hesitating she leapt forward, her feet scaling the first three or four metres of the wall before clutching her hands around a ledge and heaving her body upwards. The rooftops were not an uncommon escape route for thieves, and being experienced in the field, Rosa quickly ascended the building's exterior. Even if her hunter was to attempt climbing after her, she sincerely doubted he could keep up.

Her climb continued without falter, and she didn't stop until she was almost at the top. Between the windowsill she was hanging on to and the lining the rooftop was a large, large gap, but she could jump it.

She planted the sole of her left foot on the lower ridge of the window and then sprung upwards, clutching on to the edge of the rooftop with a single hand and pulling herself up with ease. Standing triumphant on the brick roof, she sacrificed a second of her time to check how the cloaked man was doing. It appeared he had followed her up the wall, but had given up once he reached the gap that she had so easily defied.

Not willing to make the same mistake twice, Rosa sprinted across the rooftop, preparing herself to jump across to the next one as soon as possible. The guards had several of their men posted up on the roofs, but Rosa knew where they were located and deducted that she should be able to get out of the nearby area without being spotted if she moved quickly.

Every step she took brought her closer to the edge. All she had to do was jump and then she'd be out of this mess. Her mind did one of its usual countdowns, determining the exact moment that her feet had to leave the ground.

3, 2, 1…

And then, suddenly, there he was. Only a couple of meters in front of her the man rose from behind the roof's perimeter, his strange clothes flowing around him. Rosa's feet slid to a halt right in front him and her eyes widened with tremor. She couldn't believe it. How could he possibly have reached the other side of the building and climbed in such a small amount of time?

There was no time for her to react. He lifted his gaze, and for a moment so short it was almost nonexistent their eyes looked into each other, before his massive body smashed into hers, knocking the air out of her lungs in the process. The last thing Rosa saw before they crashed onto roof was the clear blue sky, then darkness.

A/N: Yeah, I know this pairing has 0 percent chance of being canon, cause, y'know, they're not even alive in the same time period. But wouldn't they just be SO cute together? They totally would.