Please notice the rating of this story: it contains an explicit sex scene.

Don't remember, don't forget

It didn't take much effort to shake off the two men Sam had put on her security detail for the night. After one sleight of hand and a few maneuvers that involved moves that were more commonly seen in professional gymnastics than in a black tie event, Alex was free from her minders. To be fair, the bodyguards had been busy at scanning the ballroom for potential threats and not watching for their ward's unplanned getaway. After nearly a year of being Alexandra Udinov, the ambassador to the UN and champion of the fight against human trafficking, all the skills Alex the spy, the secret operative, had learned from Division and from Nikita, were still there, easily accessible. Just under her skin.

Those skills would always be a part of her. Some things you don't forget; how to break in unnoticed, the weight of a gun, the best way to shatter someone's larynx. It was comforting, in a weird, twisted way.

Alex smirked as she picked the lock easily with the improvised magnetic card she had made in thirty seconds. It really was all too easy; she would have to have a word with the management about the security. Although, knowing Sam, he had probably already done that and was planning a move to a different hotel. And if he wasn't…Alex snickered. He definitely would be after this night. Sam took his duties as her head of security surprisingly seriously.

The room behind the door was dark and silent; the outline of the suite and the silhouette of the mahogany furniture were just visible in the light spilling from the hallway. Her bathrobe was still rumpled on the armchair, which meant that either the chambermaid was very weak-sighted or had neglected to come. Everything in the room seemed to be in place. More importantly, Alex didn't feel any imminent sense of danger. Although not very scientific, her forebodings had proved to be accurate on numerous occasions, saving her life when she had listened and shattering her world when she had ignored them.

Closing the door, she stood in the darkness for a moment, before switching the small table lamp on. A quick glance to the watch showed it had only been ten minutes since she had left the party. Plenty of time for the bodyguards to notify their boss of the slip their charge had given them. She would give him five minutes to find her. Maybe less if he was suitably angry.

Alex kicked her high heels off and dropped her small purse to the desk, right next to a discarded pair of cufflinks. They were square, the silver smooth under her fingers. Tonight, there had been more men wearing dress uniforms than tuxedos. Lot of military personnel. Even a few Navy SEALs.

She tried sitting on the bed, but stood up a half a minute later. Restless, she went to the huge window and opened the heavy drapes slightly, so as to watch the street below. The streetlamps spread their yellowish light around the stationary cars and street signs, the immovable buildings standing tall, boxing them all in. No big city ever truly slept, but at that moment the neighborhood seemed subdued, almost deserted. However, just beneath the surface was the anxious wait for action, the certainty that soon a taxi would speed by and someone would shout and a dog would bark. A gaggle of people would go past, looking for a fight or a party. In an odd way it matched her mood.

For a moment she contemplated peeling her stockings off and brushing her teeth, but then decided against it. No reason to make it too easy for him. The earrings and the rest of her jewelry she took off, as they would be a bitch to find, if they happened to get lost in the mound of bedclothes. Alex carefully placed them next to Sam's cufflinks, all the silver and gold in a neat line.

Despite their messy past, erratic present and foggy future, they had somehow fallen into a neat line with each other. They made a pattern that was getting more familiar day by day. Her escape from tonight's party being a good case in point. From the first moment of that escapade, Alex had never entertained the notion that Sam wouldn't know where to find her, wouldn't know what waited him. They both knew how to play this game.

As if on cue, the door opened. Alex tensed for a fraction of a second, ready to either fight with all she had or run if the odds were too heavily against her, before she recognized the familiar form in the doorway. She let herself relax slightly, all the while quickly assessing him. Sam looked remote and cool, but the taut lines of his shoulders revealed how incensed he really was. Alex readied herself for another kind of fight. And the best defense was always offence.

"What took you so long?" She asked casually, letting her body relax against the desk.

"Oh I don't know…" Sam stepped inside the room, closing the door gently. "It probably took a few minutes for those amateurs to notice you had vanished; a couple more for them to find me in the men's room; then a minute to get them to spill their mistake and fifteen seconds to fire them; two minutes to find a witness that saw you leave very much alone and probably voluntarily…" As he talked, Sam took of his dinner jacket and tugged at his bow tie leisurely. He didn't seem to be in any hurry. "And seven minutes to sprint back to the hotel."

"You're missing a minute."

"I checked your room first," he grudgingly admitted. The bow tie fell from his hand and joined the dinner jacket on the floor.

"You really didn't fire them, did you?" Alex frowned; maybe she had miscalculated how enraged he would be. She certainly hadn't anticipated him firing anyone.

"Yeah, I really did," he said, seemingly nonchalant, and opened the collar of his shirt.

Alex didn't have to fake her dismay. "You're going to hire them back tomorrow," she told, feeling a small bang of remorse – although all of it was completely Sam's fault. Who fired people for such a small mistake?

Sam removed his cufflinks as he snorted, "The hell I am."

"Sam –" As he stepped towards her all her words seemed to disappear. In a few seconds he was in front of her, so close they almost touched. She hated how her heart beat a little faster with his nearness, but she also reveled in it. It meant she was so very much alive.

"I'm not going to hire people I can't trust. And clearly, I can't trust them with your safety." His arm snaked around her, pressing against the silk of her dress. He put the cufflinks on the desk, lining them perfectly with her jewelry and the square cufflinks he had debated wearing to that evening's event. She had argued against them and had chosen another pair instead, the ones he had just removed from his cuffs.

"But they could hardly be expected to be on the lookout for me to pull a vanishing trick," Alex reasoned, tilting her head upwards so he got the full force of her most enticing smile.

"Alex, they had one job. One. To keep you safe. And that's pretty impossible to do, if they don't know where you are." For the first time since finding her in his room, Sam's frustration was evident in his voice. He breathed hard, not moving away, still standing so maddeningly close.

"I can take care of myself." The words came automatically, harsh and defensive. They were the absolute truth. They were her well-tried first attack. She readied herself for his counterstrike, for the angry words and accusations, her pulse quickening. She knew this game. But he could still surprise her.

"I'm not going to argue," Sam sighed, turning away from her. She shivered from cold as his warm body retreated from hers.

Momentarily unbalanced, Alex thought feverishly about her next move. When talking failed there was action; she had always been more comfortable, more fluent with her body than her words. So she grabbed his arm and pulled him back to her, kissing him hard. Just like she had done on the plane many months ago, which had led to them sleeping together for the very first time. She shamelessly hoped that result would now repeat itself.

Of course it did: Sam never did need much persuasion. As they continued kissing, he crowded even closer to her; one of his hands came to cup her neck, the other settled on her waist. Alex kept a tight hold of his arms, her heart speeding ever faster. When the need for air became overwhelming, she reluctantly tore her mouth from his, breathing deep and feeling a little faint. Without a pause, his lips navigated lower; trailing her neck and bare shoulders, exploring the low neckline of her dress.

"You know, if you just wanted to jump my bones…" Sam murmured, his hand straying up her thigh, ever closer to the hem of her dress, "…you could have said to me, Sam, let's ditch this party and go fuck; there was no need for any Houdini acts, I would have been so aboard that – I'm easy."

"Shut up." Alex shifted, aligning their bodies more firmly against each other. The bones and muscles and soft spots fit seamlessly together; like the right bullet to your favorite gun. Or the key to a well-oiled lock. Or – whatever, she was fresh out of metaphors. "Shut up," she ordered again.

"Yes ma'am," he managed to say before Alex dragged his head up, claiming his mouth again. After that, there were no words. Only indistinct murmurs, that might have been his/her name. Just her breathless moan, when his fingers sneaked under the hem, and his almost pained groan as she pressed her hand against his growing prick.

Sam lifted her onto the desk; something clattered down to the floor. Her fingers were busy unbuttoning his trousers, impatiently tugging his shirt up, but he continued to mouth her earlobe, cheekbones, the corner of her mouth – everything his lips could reach. His hands slid her dress upwards, and Alex wrapped her legs around him, the green silk crushing irremediably between them.

Tightly pressed together, there was suddenly very little room to maneuver; she tried to unsuccessfully slip her hand inside his shorts. Frustrated, Alex bit his clavicle, squirming in his hold. Getting the hint, Sam grudgingly disentangled, disheveled and breathless. Alex let out a protesting whimper, when he suddenly stepped away, striding to the nightstand. He wrenched the top drawer open, took out the packet of condoms and was back in front of her before her heart even had a chance to think to begin to calm down. She wanted to praise his planning skills, but pulled down his shorts triumphantly instead, freeing his erection. Alex figured it said all that was needed.

In no time at all, her panties were on the floor, and he was pressing against her. Both of them too impatient, there was no teasing or foreplay; she pulled and he pushed and with one smarting thrust he was sheathed inside her. They groaned in unison, and she clawed at his back, urging him to move.

Sam withdrew a little, shoved back in. Repeated that faster, over and over, making all her thoughts quieten under the relentless onslaught of his hands and mouth, the way he felt inside her. She squeezed her legs tighter around him, willing him to go even deeper. Alex knew she was going to have bruises the next day from the hard wooden desk under her, from his fingers digging into her skin, and she welcomed every one. She could feel the pressure building up, the fever climbing. The world was shrinking, until there was nothing but the two of them and the piercing pleasure cresting between them.

For one too short a moment, there was blissful oblivion. She was unmoored, unfettered, high.

Then time, space and memory rushed back. Alex trembled, the aftershocks of pleasure continuing to surge over her. Sam was still hard inside her, his thrusts increasingly erratic. She knew he was close and reached for his hand, drawing his forefinger into her mouth. He growled as she sucked, and one, two, three desperate shoves later he was coming.

For a moment, they rested against each other, their bounding hearts and rapid breathing slowly calming down. The relentless itch Alex had been feeling the whole night had been muted and shoved far back under the lid where she kept her most private, painful thoughts.

Slowly, almost a bit reluctantly, Sam untangled himself from her. His thumb smoothed her cheek once and then he went to sit on the bed, his clothes still in complete disarray, trousers and shirt buttons unfastened. He looked shagged and contented, his usual sharp edges softened. Alex imagined she looked much the same; her hair was a tangled mess and her silk dress was going to need some serious dry-cleaning. Sam's touch and their mixed sweat still lingered on her skin. Alex met his dark, heated look and knew he liked the mess he had made of her. She felt a tug of desire and knew the night was far from over.

"You destroyed another of my dresses." Alex slid down from the desk, not even trying to smooth the dress down. "And this was brand new too. I'm taking it out from your salary." She tried to unsuccessfully suppress her grin, but it crept into her voice, made her lips turn up.

"Totally worth it." Sam matched her grin with his own, his eyes roaming her body. "So, a shower?"

She didn't bother to answer. Instead, she slipped out from her dress and sauntered into the bathroom. In less than a minute, he joined her.

Much later, they lay in the darkness. It was well over midnight, but Alex knew Sam was still awake, although he was motionless beside her, his breathing slow and deep. He couldn't fool her though; she had become familiar with the ways he truly slept and when he only pretended to or waited for sleep. With a start, Alex realized that she hadn't even contemplated going back to her own room. It had been happening more times recently; he spent his nights in her bed or vice versa. At this rate they might as well book only one room when travelling. What was the point of paying for two rooms if only one ended up being used? But still – something in her shied away from the thought. Too soon, something whispered.

Tired, but still unable to sleep, she turned over onto her side, her eyes fastening onto the sliver of light coming from the chink in the curtains. Outside the world kept turning, the city kept living, the people kept moving forward. Sometimes she thought that despite all the action in her life, she was still standing still, rooted to the same spot where she had been standing all these years. Sometimes she thought she had lost that spot altogether, had gone too fast and too far.

"Hey," Sam's quiet voice scattered her heavy thoughts. "Your thinking is keeping me awake."

A flippant answer was on her tongue, but she mumbled "sorry" instead, surprising herself. He shifted closer to her, but didn't touch her; Alex could feel his solid presence just behind her, questioning but not demanding. The quiet stretched out, and she was tempted to let it claim the room until both of them would succumb to sleep. Alex knew she owed him words though, and it would be easier to say them in the darkness, where he couldn't see the emotions on her face.

"I'm sorry for ditching the bodyguards like that," she admitted. "I just…I need to know I still got it, that I can take care of myself." She knew she didn't make much sense, but didn't know any other ways to explain the feeling she sometimes got; the need to make sure she still knew how to break locks and handcuffs and people.

"I know you can take care of yourself, Alex. But sometimes, you don't have to. Not anymore." His words were soft, but they held utter conviction. She swallowed the familiar counterarguments; none of them would ever convince him.

"Yeah, but that party was boring the hell out of me." She tried for a nonchalant tone, hoping that he would let the matter drop.

"No arguments there. My one free night for a long while, and you persuade me to spend it with those rigid toads," he said, mock annoyed. She snorted; they both knew he would have accompanied her no matter what.

"I think my quota of irritating lobbyist is full at least for another month," she sighed. When she had started her job as an ambassador, she hadn't imagined that combating human trafficking would entail so much chitchat and rubbing shoulders with all manner of people in various shindigs. It still felt a little odd to try to implement change with words rather than guns and explosives.

"There were a lot of military personnel too," Sam remarked, making her heart skip a beat. Alex closed her eyes in defeat. How could she have ever thought that he wouldn't notice? Sam had probably known the moment she had left the party. She stayed stubbornly silent and he continued, "Saw a couple of SEALs. Not their usual action, but they seemed to be having a good time." He was apparently determined to force the words out of her.

For a moment Alex felt the need to get up and storm out of the room, but the urge to flee drained from her as quickly as it had come. Suddenly so very tired, she didn't want to evade or deny or argue. She didn't want to play the game anymore. What did it matter if she told him? He already knew.

"All those men in navy uniforms…" She felt her throat close with all the unshed tears.

"You miss him," Sam said, without any reproach or wonder. His fingers came to rest against the nape of her neck, a warm and familiar weight against her skin.

"I do, but tonight…I looked at those men in uniforms and suddenly, for a moment, I couldn't remember Sean's face, it wasn't there," Alex admitted, the misery and guilt she had felt that night taking hold of her again.

"Alex," his voice came straight behind her ear, his breath tickling her skin. "It doesn't mean that you forget if sometimes you don't remember."

"I don't want to forget, but – sometimes I need not to remember," she confessed, her voice barely a whisper.

"I know." And he did know. He had also loved and lost, had fought and killed and lied. He too had sat in Amanda's chair, had listened to Percy's lies. They both had been twisted into someone else, and they had tried to take new forms, hatch into something of their own.

After that, no words were needed. They lay together in the darkness, waiting for the dawn to come. Alex could feel him tracing the lines of her tattoo, the wings of the butterfly. Little by little, she fell into sleep.

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