Sadly, they aren't mine. Sigh.
After All
When you work as a spy, it's easy to think of people as assets. Resources to accomplish a goal. Because you don't have a personal relationship with an asset. You don't care about an asset. You don't miss the scent of an asset when she leaves the room.
-Michael Westen
A couple was walking through the streets of Dublin in a comfortable silence, snow falling slowly around them. It was late, and they were the only two people braving the cold winter night. Wind whipped harshly around them, and they unconsciously moved closer together,
The man was known by the woman as Michael McBride, but his name varied depending on who you asked. He was dressed well, in an expensive charcoal gray suit with a pale blue dress shirt. He also had a black coat on and a gray scarf wrapped around his neck to protect him from the frigid Irish winter.
The woman was Fiona Glenanne, or Fi, as her companion liked to call her. She, like Michael, was dressed for the cold. She had on dark wool pants, and a gray coat that covered her upper half. She had a navy blue scarf wrapped loosely around her neck and a matching hat pulled over her forehead and ears.
Neither one of them spoke as they walked, but the silence wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. In fact, Michael couldn't help but think that this was the most comfortable he had felt in a long time. He hadn't known Fi for more than a few months, but he felt more at ease with her than he did with people he'd known for years, his own family included.
Michael watched her as she walked beside him, wondering how exactly she had gained his trust and become such an important part of his life. She had started out as an asset and then somehow she had become more than that. She was his friend. It was odd, he didn't have many friends. He had assets, colleagues, superiors, family, even a fiancée. But not simple friends.
It was one of the hazards of being a spy. When you slip on cover ID's as easily as you slip on your favorite pair of jeans and no one knows if they know the real you, friends are hard to come by. But, surprisingly, he had found one in this beautiful, intelligent, crazy, violent, bomb-making, gun-loving IRA operative.
His thoughts were interrupted when Fiona's voice broke the silence they had settled into. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked softly, gazing at the snow drifting from the dark sky.
"Beautiful," he repeated, glancing at her before following her gaze up to the night sky.
He couldn't stop his smile when she threw her arms out from her sides and spun around in the snow, her face tipped up towards the sky. She didn't often let herself act like this, child-like and carefree, and Michael couldn't help but smile every time she did.
She stopped spinning, but her balance was off and she stumbled into Michael. She steadied herself, but didn't move away from him once she had regained her balance. Her hands remained on his shoulders and their chests stayed pressed together. Neither one of them moved away, and Fi looked up at Michael before she slowly moved even closer, gently pressing her lips to his. Michael responded and returned the kiss. There was no awkwardness or fumbling like there usually is with first kisses. Instead it was soft, sweet, and… perfect.
Fi sighed in contentment before pulling away slightly. As she did, a snowflake came to rest between the two of them, as rare and unique as the moment the couple had just shared. They both smiled slightly, and she took a step back before gazing at the snow again.
Michael felt cold now that she was no longer pressed against him.
Their relationship had started out as a job, something he had been ordered to do. He was Michael McBride, from Kilkenny, and he was supposed to use Fiona Glenanne as an asset to complete his job. Then, somewhere along the way, it had stopped being a job, and Fiona Glenanne, the asset, had become Fi, the beautiful bomber with a temper that he was falling for.
He knew that developing feelings for an asset was a bad idea. This was just a job; he wasn't supposed to fall in love. But, as soon as Fi had kissed him, he couldn't seem to remember why it was such a bad thing.
As he stood watching her watch the snow, his thoughts found their way to Samantha, the woman he was engaged to and was supposed to be in love with. It came as a surprise to realize he had barely thought of her in the past month. He had left her in St. Petersburg to do this job. The last time he had seen her, she had proposed. He had accepted. But now, less than a month later, he realized he was falling in love with the woman in front of him. And his fiancée was the farthest thing from his mind.
He knew that she would understand if he became involved with an asset while he was on this, or any mission, as long as it was necessary for his job. She knew what he did for a living, and understood that it meant that he would sometimes have to do things she didn't necessarily like. He had actually found a woman that understood him and, even more amazingly, his job. Being with her was easy. When he had first met her, he couldn't think of anything that could be better.
However, as he watched Fiona, a streetlight illuminating her, with snowflakes falling softly around her, blanketing the town in a serene quiet, he couldn't help but think that he may have managed to find something better after all.
.