A/N: Image by ELAPUSE.

Fouetté En Tournant

"You sure you wanna do this, mate?"

Aster's question, while well-meaning, has the added effect of throwing in a hum of mild irritation through Jack's mind. It's a stupid question.

Inside the room, behind an inch of bulletproof plexiglass, two security cameras and an electrified floor designed to knock someone out if they so much as sneezes the wrong way, is his wife, after all. The woman of his dreams, his soulmate, his heart who kept him going through the toughest times.

Oh, and nearly succeeded in murdering him.

Not to mention dozens of other innocent people.

So, no, he isn't sure. The cold part of him, the frozen walls of his defense mechanism implores him to walk away and never see her again. The rest of him still in love pleads for him to see her, hear her voice, smell her perfume.

So, with such a quandary, it's no surprise the grey steel door in front of him looks mighty interesting.

Jack fingers at the bottom hem of his jacket, and swallows through a dry throat. His voice comes out in little more than a hoarse croak. "Why do you ask?"

"You've been staring at that door for two solid minutes."

Jack would chuckle, had there been any humour left. No, his legs are rooted to the spot before the literal and figurative door. He blinks, and lets out a raggedy breath he has no idea he's been holding, ending it in a noncommittal grunt.

"She's been in that cell for a week, mate." Aster folds his arms in a rustle of cotton sleeves. "You've ignored her every request to see you."

"So?"

"So… maybe you should at least talk to—"

Jack's head whirls to meet him, glaring. "Since when did you get so soft?"

Aster's face, despite the harsh snap, betrays nothing but sympathy and pity. Jack doesn't know which annoys him most. "About the same time you got so cold, mate, and… well-" he lifted his left hand, where gold glimmered around his ring finger, "-let's just say life gave me clarity."

Jack glances once at the precious metal before turning back to the door. He'd forgotten Aster fell in love with an exotic dancer. Thiana is her name. Sparky woman, energetic, colourful. Division had a way of beating the hope out of you, but Aster never lost his optimism - and that was due, Jack suspects, in no small part to Thiana.

All of a sudden his throat begins to burn, and his right hand massages at the two circular scars in the middle of his chest. It still hurts there, even eight years on, though Jack wonders if it's not phantom pain, but a pain that leaves scars you can't see.

"She did come here willingly."

"Yeah, I know," Jack responds gruffly. "She escaped Nightfall and surrendered to us. I read the report. Doesn't mean I should give her the time of day… or have you forgotten how many she's killed?"

"Some would argue she didn't know what she was doing, mate."

Oh, she does. Jack remembers like it was yesterday the cold look in her eyes, and the double muzzle flash before he hit the ground. He remembers the sudden loss of contact with dozens of operatives. He remembers Paris.

Chewing at his lip, he casts one more glance at Aster's wedding band. He's happy. Whole. Anyone can see it. Falling in love… it enriches you. Heals you. Makes you strong.

Kills you.

His resolve crumbles.

"Aster, do me a favour."

The taller Australian smiles. "Whatever you need."

"Protect her. Thiana. Don't… don't be me."

Allowing himself no second thought nor moment's hesitation, Jack sucks in a deep breath and twists the handle, pushing open the steel door to the secrets within.

The underground room is dark save for a large rectangle of bright white light to the left, obscured by the concrete ceiling as Jack descends the hard stairs. His footsteps echo like thunderclaps through the room, a signal that the occupant responds to by a scamper of feet that visibly poke out from under the ceiling. His steps cease at the floor, and he wills his eyes to rest upon the huge transparent plexiglass cell occupying half of the room.

And the woman inside it, her right hand feathered across the clear surface as she gazes upon him with sky-blue eyes of relief, surprise and… happiness.

Love.

"You came," she breathes, and the melody of her voice sings to his ears. "Jack."

He can barely stand to look at her, yet can't look away. He both loves and hates her in equal measure. Love of his life, and architect of his near-death.

"Elsa."

"So, I was thinking," Jack said as he examined with deep interest the Chinese takeout menu, "we should fly to Norway and see your folks, take your mind off the abduction. Maybe stop in Spain on the way back?"

Elsa, her right foot back, her arms spread wide, launched into a rather elegant fouetté en tournant in front of the wall mirror. Ballet was her dream, her life, and in Jack's humble opinion, the most beautiful thing about her. Building a ballet studio in their lavish apartment was the best decision they ever made.

"That sounds lovely," she said. "Are you sure you have leave?"

Jack scoffed just as the first bars of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture blasted out from her gym bag. Probably Anna, he suspects, as Elsa relaxes from her routine and walks over to it.

"I can make the time. Besides, Hiccup can take over for a few weeks. Hopefully he won't blow up the office."

She laughed a sweet, angelic laugh."Did I mention I love you?" she said, before answering the phone.

"Never got tired of hearing it. Now… you want Chinese or Thai?"

Silence.

"I mean, I like both, so…"

Silence.

"Elsa?"

He looked up.

Elsa, as calm as a still lake, returned her phone to the bag, her hand searching its interior for a moment.

"Hey, Earth to Elsa?"

The hand withdrew, and gripped by its fingers… was a gun. Pointed at him. Elsa hated guns. She refused to allow them in the house.

Jack looked between it and her face, and saw nothing but resolute calm, and icy cold.

"Elsa, what the—"

"Nightfall sends their regards."

Two bright lights.

White hot pain.

Darkness.

Her hand slides down the wall to hang at her side, yet her gaze still rests on him. Her platinum blonde hair is woven into that French braid she loves - loved - and a white boiler suit constitutes prisoner couture.

"You look well."

Jack snorts quietly. "Likewise. Lethal divorce must agree with you."

There's a flash, a flinch, a blink. Thinned lips. "I was beginning to think you didn't want to see me."

"I didn't." Jack quietly moves toward the steel chair placed a good seven feet away from the cell. "Aster convinced me otherwise."

"I'm glad." Her lower lip finds its way between her teeth, her mind visibly searching for direction, yet still she does not look away as he sits. "Any… hobbies? Do you still carve toys?"

What the… is it the day of stupid questions? Lame small-talk? "No, but I have a new one."

She smiles. "Tell me, please?"

"Resurrection."

Now her eyes falter. Faint satisfaction courses through him, a perverse joy at her pain. The anger, the betrayal, the hurt drives him on. "How about you? Still dancing, or is sniping your favourite pastime?"

"Jack," she whispers, pleads.

"What do you want me to say, Elsa? How are you? How's life? Do you remember the faces of the people you killed, or are they just bank transactions?"

He bolts up from the chair, and she steps back as his voice grows in volume and fury. "Was I just a mark? When we got married, when we made love, was all that just a buildup to the day you shot me? Did you even love me?" He steps toward the cell, hands clenched at his sides. "Is that what you want me to say?"

She stares back at him, her face slack with guilt and anguish, her shoulders low and her eyes shimmering wet. Her mouth opens and closes, bereft of a single word to say. Jack's chest rises and falls with each angry breath, heat filling his veins like lava. Silence reigns between them, one filled with memory, pain, and rage, and as the seconds pass, his fury ebbs away.

"This was a mistake," Jack sighs. He turns back and makes for the steps at the other end of the room.

"I did love you!"

Her call freezes him in his tracks.

"I still do."

Jack turns, slowly at first, until his eyes rest upon her. Both of her hands press against the cell wall, and her eyes radiate pleading hope… and fear.

"Why did you want me here, Elsa?" he croaks.

Her lips twist into a half-smile, but it's full of sadness and regret. "I wanted to talk to you, wanted to… to explain. Most of all… despite the pain and my guilt… I just wanted to see you one last time. Before… before it's too late."

Division agents are due to take Elsa away in ninety minutes. It was supposed to be half an hour ago, but Aster managed to convince North to delay it… so Jack could talk to her one last time.

Part of him wishes Aster hadn't, yet, against his better judgement, he returns to his chair. Elsa breathes an audible sigh of relief, and her hands slip away from the transparent walls.

He gazes at her for a few moments, taking in the pitiful excuse for a bed and exposed toilet in his peripheral vision. From wealthy professional ballet dancer to incarcerated mercenary assassin… how far the graceful have fallen. His heart twinges at the sight.

"Do you…" he murmurs, "still dance?"

Elsa shakes her head. "Not since that day. I fear I have forgotten everything I was taught."

"I doubt that. You don't forget stuff you've spent years learning."

"Maybe not." She anxiously fidgets with the fabric at her thigh, and slowly backs up toward the bed. It's like she doesn't want to lose sight of him. "I… didn't mean for… I never wanted to become what I am."

"But you did become Nightfall's top sniper." Jack relaxes back into the chair. "You did help them bring down Moonlight. You know that."

She sits on the cold steel surface, and draws her legs up to cross underneath her whilst her fingers play with each other. "I know."

"They all think you're a traitor, Elsa. Hell, I'm not sure I disagree."

"I know," she repeats, her eyes closing not out of exasperation, but resignation.

"Then why?" He leans forward, searching her with his gaze. "Help me understand why you killed all those agents, why-" he paused to unbutton the top of his white shirt, pulling it aside to reveal the two scars over his heart, "-you did this to me."

Upon resting her eyes on her handiwork, her brow furrows as her face tightens, and there's an audible intake of breath. Jack closes his shirt up again, and rests his temple in the crook of his right hand. He can almost feel her regret and pain, and there's a growing part of him that wants to open the cell just to hold her hand.

"As you know, I…" she begins, uncertainty yet strength in her voice, "Nightfall abducted me."

He knows it all too well. Nightfall is an international terrorist organisation. Notoriously hard to track, they had been a constant thorn in Moonlight's side back when Jack worked for them as an anti-terrorist agent. Yet, Moonlight had been equally as troublesome for Nightfall.

It was after her performance of Swan Lake in Prague that Elsa went missing, with Nightfall taking credit for the abduction. Moonlight launched the operation to end all operations, and after a week of combing the entire world, decimating safe houses and interrogating terrorists, they eventually found Elsa in St. Petersburg, dishevelled and hungry, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

Not a day goes by when Jack doesn't curse his overwhelming relief and joy at her safe return for blinding him to how easy and convenient it was… until it was too late.

He should have seen it coming.

"Uh-huh," is all he can muster.

She looks up at him. "Were you… there when I told Aster everything I knew?"

"No." He folds his arms. "I was working."

He's half-right. He was working, but only because he would rather have been anywhere else on the base than peering through the one way mirror, watching Aster conduct the interrogation. If it could even be called that. Apparently, Elsa was more than compliant in revealing everything Division needed to know about Nightfall, and even stuff they didn't know.

"Oh," she says, her eyes falling. "I… can't say I'm surprised. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near me, either."

"Why'd you say that?"

"You've never done anything you didn't want to do." Her lips curl in a half smile. "I heard you refused to breach a terrorist-held school because the children might get hurt."

Jack shifts in discomfort - her words have far more implication on the present than he'd like. "Yeah, and it got me taken off field duty. You're deflecting."

Elsa snorts under her breath. "I suppose so. Well," she wraps her arms around her chest, which is quintessential Elsa Frost body language for this-is-hard-to-talk-about, "Nightfall didn't just abduct me. They… tortured me."

Jack's head snaps up from his hand, and he stares at her in ill-concealed shock. "They what?"

"Tortured me. They found every fear, every weakness, and exploited it. They took my will and broke it. Made me numb… I stopped feeling just to avoid the pain. Made my heart ice… and that was what they wanted. They conditioned me, programmed me… and when I was ready, they brought back my old self back and… abandoned me in St. Petersburg."

"For Moonlight to find you and take you home," Jack finishes.

"Yes." She nods. "For two weeks, I lived with no memory of what they did to me. Two weeks where I was the same Elsa Frost; prima ballerina, sister, and deeply in love with her husband. Two weeks of happiness… and then, while telling you I loved you, I got a phonecall."

"The one in our dance studio."

"Yes." Her finger wipes below her left eye. "It was Nightfall… and the last thing I remember as my own self was hearing the activation phrase. It was… imagine one moment you are in control, and the next, there's a voice in the back of your mind screaming at you to stop shooting your husband. Everything that made me who I was just switched off, and Nightfall's programming took over. It was like I was there just to watch as I shot you, powerless to even control a finger."

It explains a lot, even if it does smell fishy. Elsa would never allow a gun anywhere near her, treating life as sacrosanct. Nightfall must have slipped something else into the programming.

Jack relaxes back into the chair, resting a finger across his lips. "But why me? You were within shooting distance of Moonlight's top staff… but you tried to kill me."

"Of all Nightfall's threats, you were the most dangerous. Every operation against them was led by you. Without you… Moonlight's campaign against them would be crippled."

She's not wrong. In the six months Jack spent in an off-the-grid hospital, the international police force Moonlight was beset by allegations of corruption and unsanctioned operations at the highest level. Public opinion turned against it in a matter of days, and by the time Jack awoke from his coma… Moonlight had gone quietly into the good night.

"They knew you were too good to be assassinated the conventional way so…"

"They made you into a sleeper agent, knowing I wouldn't expect my own wife to kill me."

Elsa nods, though there's a moment of hesitation, as though confirming the truth is somehow painful. Which, well, it is. Elsa was a ticking time bomb Jack had unknowingly brought home.

"Then, I guess, you went right on back to Nightfall and became the mercenary assassin Snow Queen."

Elsa winces at the accusatory bite to his voice. "Yes. They trained me in hand to hand combat, infiltration tactics, and in the use of long range sniper rifles." She rises from the bed, and slowly paces the cell. "They taught me to kill without remorse, hesitation, regret, or any kind of emotion."

She whirls around to face him, her face etched with pleading sorrow…

"Jack, you have to believe me, I never meant for-"

But he's having none of it.

"So then you travelled the world, assassinating people for money." He pulls the lapels of his jacket over his chest with one hand, and leans forward. "Politicians, ex-Moonlight agents, CEOs… fifty people over eight years. And you didn't regret a single one."

Her eyes screw themselves shut as she turns her head away, and her entire upper body seems to hunch in on itself. If his words are bullets, he just emptied a clip into her heart.

A breath escapes his lips in a long, shaky sigh, and he closes his eyes as he massages the bridge of his nose. Of all the emotions he's expecting to feel after seeing his wife again… guilt is not one of them.

To top it off, a voice with a decidedly Australian accent speaks in his mind - "Some would argue she didn't know what she was doing, mate."

Maybe Aster's right. Maybe Elsa, as her true self, was powerless against her neuro-programming. Maybe she didn't want to do the things she did. Maybe she did love him, and wasn't truly responsible for killing all those people.

"You… you still got… are you gonna turn into an emotionless killing machine if I say something like 'cute fluffy bunnies?"

Elsa laughs, but it's a quiet, bitter, humourless laugh of self-loathing. "It was 'marshmallow', actually-"

"Ugh."

"-but no. Your resident psychiatrist was kind enough to help me ensure my programming is gone. Dr. Rapunzel… she is… sweet. Forgiving. After all the things I've done to people, and done with people… she never judged me. It was… nice."

"That she is." Jack shifts his weight in his chair, leaning to one side while his fingers entwine together… but then something twigs in his mind. "Wait…" he leans forward, "You just said 'with'."

She looks up at him with eyebrows peaking as her lips play with her teeth, and there's a sad, regretful, resigned look in her eyes that twists Jack's stomach on its way to the floor. What she's about to say is clearly more unforgivable to her than anything else she's done.

"Please don't make me say it," she whispers. Her head pleads with him in the way it turns to and fro. "Please."

"Why not? Elsa, you wanted me here, why hold back-"

"Because you'll leave me if I tell you."

Silence follows her words. Pregnant and heavy, it slams down between them like a portcullis, and Jack finds himself spent of speech.

"Promise me you won't leave," she breathes. "Promise."

"Elsa, what-"

She darts to the transparent wall hard enough for the sound of skin against plexiglass to reverberate throughout the basement room, and Jack flinches. Her hands spread wide against its surface, and her gaze pleads, implores him to stay.

"Promise me!" she shouts.

Jack spreads his hands, looking at her with complete bemusement. What could possibly be so bad, after all she's done, that would turn her into a fearful mess upon the idea of him leaving her?

"Fine," he blurts. "I promise."

Elsa studies him for a few long moments in silence as her hands slide down the wall, like she's trying to work out whether he means it. A small part of Jack feels offended; he never lied, never broke a promise.

But the pain in her eyes is all too real.

"It was in Bora Bora," she says after a time, turning away from him just enough to see through the corner of her eye as she gazes distantly at the floor, but enough to not look him in the eye.

"Our target was a wealthy techo-mogul named Alistair Krei."

Jack nods - he knows the story. Two kids learning to sail found a body floating in the clear blue sea surrounding the island of Bora Bora, half of his head blown off. It wasn't until the police identified the body that they learned his name - Alistair Krei, CEO of Kreitech, and the main drive behind the shared venture with the much smaller Hamada Industries in nanobot construction technology. Without Krei, the deal fell through, and automated construction was sent back a decade.

The calibre of the bullet, and the witness reports of a dull bang from the island practically nextdoor led to only one conclusion: Snow Queen.

"We had been there for a week, my handler and I, scoping out the best sniper spots, infiltration points, escape routes. Krei… he was a creature of habit. Every morning he would go for a swim but… on the day of the operation, we got word he had to push back his vacation by two days—Jack, you have to understand," she turns to face him, "I wasn't myself-"

"What. Happened."

Flinching at his cold tone, Elsa looks away. "We were told nothing had changed, so we were to remain there until he arrived, and carry out the hit as normal. Since we had already fine tuned our plan we had nothing to do so… we… booked a room and… one thing led to another… we spent the next two days…" she hesitates, and there's a crystal line of liquid that descends from her right eye. Her gulp is so prominent it looks like she's swallowing a rock. "...we spent the next two days…"

Jack's hands clench into fists so hard his nails dig into his palms, and his jaw fuses so tight his teeth threaten to drive themselves into his skull. Elsa's hands, however, curl around her chest once more in a protective embrace, and she flops down onto the edge of her steel bed.

"Fucking?"

Elsa's head jerks up at the harsh snap to his tone, and her face looks like she's just been slapped. Yet, as though he needs further confirmation, she nods.

"Was that the only time?"

Her head moves from side to side. Of course not. It couldn't be a one off. Hot anger flows like magma, and he bolts up from the chair and turns away from her.

"Every time we did a job together after that. We… even arrived at the location two days early so we could… have sex." Her voice, cracking like thirsty soil, takes on a bitter, loathful edge. "He called me his dirty little freak, doing things to him I never did with my husband. It makes me sick to even repeat that."

Jack whirls around, eyes wide with aghast fury. "You feel sick? You?"

She stares back at him in shock, her face as pale as the boiler suit. For several long, agonising seconds, he debates breaking his promise and walking out of the room, leaving her to rot in her guilt, remorse and surrounded by the souls of the dead. Make her hurt as much as she did. Break her heart as justice for nearly stopping his.

Justice, though, or revenge?

"I'm so sorry. Of all the things I've done… being unfaithful to you is what I regret most. Even if you hate me, please… believe that."

Jack snorts - he doesn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. Fifty people's lives were terminated at the end of her scope, and what Elsa hates most is that she slept with another man.

Jack turns away, for the annoyingly balanced Australian voice speaks again in his mind, pushing aside the anger and betrayal. Was it truly her? If what she's saying is true, was it really Elsa Frost that let another man do things to her only Jack should, or was it Snow Queen? Maybe, underneath the layers of programming, Elsa was just as disgusted by herself.

Against all odds, he feels his anger ebb bit by bit through his breath, his own conditioning to control his emotions… and the rationality he never thought he had.

Stupid Aster. Stupid empathy. Stupid love.

"You weren't unfaithful."

Her voice comes back faint, and confused. "What?"

He turns back to look at her, eyes radiating resignation to the inescapable truth - even if he has every right to be enraged.

Slowly, he returns to his seat heavily flops down, head supported by his loose right fist. "You can't be unfaithful to a man you thought was dead."

Her mouth opens and closes, like she was expecting him to rage out and storm away, and had prepared accordingly. Blank, she stares at him in surprise. "I… don't know what to say…"

"For starters, you can tell me one thing… did you love him?"

To his ill-concealed relief, she quickly shakes her head. Smiles with reassurance, too. "No. Jack, Nightfall programmed me to feel nothing except for the satisfaction of a successful job. I know the cliché of 'it was meaningless' but… it truly was. I felt nothing except for… well… what you'd expect sex to feel like."

Jack snorts with dark cynicism, and frowns at the blinding lights above the cell. "Yeah, well, I hope he wasn't as good as I was."

"He wasn't."

Jack gives her a funny look. "I was being flippant."

Her smile turns into a knowing half-smirk. "Flippant, yes, but sincere. There are some parts of you that are unchanged… and if you really want to know… while he was skilled, there was always something missing… so I was never truly satisfied."

"But you still did things to him you never did to me! You obviously enjoyed it enough to keep doing it!"

The words, fuelled by the anger still dwelling in his heart, leave his mouth in a sharp bark before he can stop them. Elsa's smile falls like a stone, and her eyes meet the electrified floor.

"Yes," she whispers, like his snap has chased away any confidence she had. "As I said, being unfaithful is my biggest regret."

There's a voice in his mind that calls bullshit, but he knows if he wastes time on her infidelity like a dog with a chew toy, he won't have time to know the rest.

However, just as he decides to take the line of questioning elsewhere, his mind brings to the front a memory of a Division operation in Istanbul to take out a known terrorist and facilitator… and Snow Queen herself. "This guy you slept with… was he called Hans? Auburn hair, lame sideburns?"

Elsa stiffens, and a frown cuts across her face like a knife through butter. "Why… yes? How did you…"

Her face slackens in dawning comprehension, and her shoulders droop. "You were the one who killed him, weren't you?"

Jack nods. "Yep. Reason I know is his last words were, 'you were lucky to be married to such a hot body like hers. She smells of peppermint… and the way she rolled those hips over me, screaming my name? Can't get enough of it'."

Elsa visibly shudders as her face screws up in disgust, and her eyes glance once to the toilet. "Ugh. Chauvinist pig."

"I think pigs might take offense to that."

She looks up at him, sees the half-smirk across his lips… and emits a soft chuckle. "I thought you were going to leave me."

"Oh, I wanted to-" Jack turns to the side,throwing a heart glare up to the security camera peering down at them like some kind of voyeur, and elevates his volume, "-and if it wasn't for some annoyingly wise and loved up Aussie, and the fact that I promised, I would have."

"I have a lot to thank Aster for, it seems."

Jack turns back to study her through the corner of his eye for a few moments, before getting comfortable - well, as much as one can get in a hard steel chair - and pulling his black suit jacket around him as he takes the questions elsewhere. "Yeah, you do. So how did you get from there… to here? What happened?"

Her face softens, and a smile… a warm, loving smile pulls at her lips like a curtain. "In a word? You."

Jack's eyebrows shoot into his hair. "Me."

"Yes," she says, nodding slowly. "You. Do you remember Paris?"

Like he could forget.

Thrown down by a brutal slam, Snow Queen hit the apartment floor like a sack of bricks, her lungs forcing out a strangled cry of pain. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jack dove for his Glock, cast aside under the bed at the start of the vicious melee. His hands lacing around the handle, he whirled in one fluid movement and aimed his sights squarely between her eyes.

Realising, however, she had also scrambled to her feet and managed to grasp her rifle, and had it pointed right at his heart. The familiarity was all too acute.

With eyes of infuriation, she glared in surprise and piqued confusion at him. Her aim was steady, despite the way her lungs rose and fell with each gasping breath.

"Who are you?" she hissed. "Not many people could ambush me like you—and I know them all!"

Jack said nothing, and merely tilted his masked head.

"Tell me, before I end you!"

A mocking chuckle escaped his lips. Still his aim was true. Still his finger was, a hair's breadth from a gunshot.

"A little overconfident in ourselves, aren't we, Elsa?"

Her eyes widen. "How do you know my name?"

Slowly, Jack's left hand rose, each finger outstretched as a silent sign of non-hostility. Snow Queen's eyes darted once to the rising limb, and nodded. Inch by inch, his hand moved to grip the underside of his mask, and in one brisk movement, pulled it up and away.

Snow Queen's eyes went wide as she sucked in a shocked breath. Slowly her head shook, and though her aim was miraculously steady, her feet found two steps back.

"No… no. It can't be," she whispered. "You're dead… I killed you."

It was then that her aim faltered - and Jack took his chance. Lunging forward, he slapped the rifle aside and used his body to slam her against the wall, pinning her rifle hand well out of pressing the barrel of his Glock…

...right over her heart.

There was no fear in her eyes, only confusion. Bewilderment. Shock. Like she'd seen a ghost.

Smirking with victorious malevolence, Jack pressed the gun a little harder as he leaned in, and whispered:

"You missed."

The sound of car engines outside echoed through the apartment room, as well as the piercing noise of sirens along with the alternating flashes light painting the walls in vibrant red and blue.

Someone must have heard their battle and called the police.

"Next time, you won't be so lucky," Jack growled, before making his escape out of the apartment door.

"Looking back, I think that was the moment my conditioning began to fall apart," Elsa says, looking down as she plays with her fingers. "Seeing you again started a chain reaction… it was like the part of me trapped by all the programming started to gain strength."

"In what way?"

Elsa straightens up, and the fingers once fiddling with themselves move to rest patiently on her thighs.

"In the days following Paris… I began to remember…" her head tilts to the side, as she winces slightly, "...well, that's not strictly true. I could always remember, but the memories were just… nothing more than a video recording-"

She stands, and takes two steps toward the screen, lacing her hands together in front of her. That pose… it's classic Elsa Frost. Elegant, regal, poised. Many of the things he fell in love with… and for a few happy seconds, nothing else matters.

"-but as the days went on, every memory carried with it an emotion. Guilt. Remorse. Anger. I used to think back to our days together with no feelings but… whenever I thought of you… my heart would break, little by little. I would recall the people I killed, and feel utter disgust and shame. That I could take life with no hesitation, that I could sleep with another man… and as the days became weeks, weeks became months, I hated myself all the more. I couldn't function… my programming was fighting my real self…"

Jack leans forward - every word she speaks, he hangs onto like oxygen. "Did Nightfall get suspicious?"

Elsa shrugs. "Probably. I do know that I began to question why, if I was their best assassin, they needed to recondition me every two months."

"I guess they wanted to ensure your loyalty."

"Maybe. In any case, when I felt myself begin to fall apart, I told them I was going after the… unknown attacker… that ambushed me in Paris."

"Did they buy it?"

She shrugs again. "I didn't stay long enough to find out. I transferred all my money into an offshore account, taking just enough for me to live, destroyed everything they could use to track me,and disappeared. Nightfall was very good at teaching its members how to be off the grid."

"What did you do?"

She backs up toward the bed once again, however she lowers herself onto it with far more grace and elegance than before. Her hands lace themselves together on her lap, and she looks at him with distant eyes.

"I found a nice little motel in the middle of nowhere, run by a lovely woman named Belle, and… let my programming fall apart like a house of cards. For weeks, I let every memory of what I did run wild, let myself feel every emotion. Up until then it was like everything that happened was someone else's life but… I knew I had to face what I did - to do anything else would be a lie, and an insult to the memory of the people I murdered."

A hand wipes below her right eye.

"And then you surrendered to Division." Jack rises from the chair, hands hanging loosely at his sides whilst he approaches the cell. "Why?"

Distance becomes peaceful acceptance in her eyes, yet her lips twist into a smile that doesn't lift Jack's heart as it used to, but clenches it in sadness.

"I have committed horrors in Nightfall's name, Jack. It's only right that I answer for them." She too rises from her bed, and takes a couple of steps toward the cell wall. The faint frustration at the presence of bulletproof plexiglass between them sparks like a candle in his gut. "When I felt I could function for long enough without breaking down into tears, I surrendered myself to Division, believing that maybe, in some way, if I told them all I knew of Nightfall, it would go some way to atoning for my crimes. That maybe… I could see you again before a cell like this-" she pauses to give the cell around her a vague look, "-became my permanent reality."

There it is, the fixed point in time Jack had been subconsciously avoiding in the back of his mind. Elsa's time here is finite - soon, Division agents will take her away, never to be seen again. He'd be lying if the thought didn't scare the daylights out of him.

This could be the last time he ever sees his wife… and he can't even touch her.

"Well," he croaks, aware of and not bothered by the wordless message the cracks his voice sends, "thanks to your intel, Division's already planning a multi-pronged operation to cripple Nightfall's activities around the world. If it works out… you will have done us a solid."

Her smile takes on a satisfied hint. "Then it is worth it."

For the first time since he walked in, Jack's smile is genuine. Free of bitterness, cynicism or mockery, he smiles with affection - for he knows that even after all that's happened, the woman inside the cell is still his heart and soul, her yin to his yang.

"If I may ask…" she begins with uncertain hesitation, her fingers playing with each other, "how did you survive?"

Jack utters a single chuckle, and begins to languidly pace the outside of her cell. If he's in no hurry… then maybe he can delude himself into possessing the gift of stopping time.

"It was like I said in Paris - you missed. One inch lower and… we wouldn't be having this conversation." One hand goes up to scratch at his temple, and then the nape of his neck. "But the trauma of the bullets and the surgery put me in a coma for about six months. Apparently, our neighbor - you know, the one who was supposed to be on vacation - heard the gunshots and immediately called the cops. Soon as Moonlight found out where I was, they transferred me to a secret military hospital. Woke up to find Moonlight had been dismantled by the U.N."

"Is that when you joined Division?"

"Yeah. Aster came to me a few weeks after I woke up. Told me that a new task force had been set up, an anti-terrorist black-ops unit called Division. They operated in the shadows, without bureaucracy and red tape, and there was a place for me if I wanted it."

Elsa nods sagely. "Nightfall feared Division. They feared an organisation that would ruthlessly use their own tactics against them."

"Mmm." Jack pockets his hands. "So I jumped at the chance - well, as much as a guy stuck in a hospital bed can jump. They trained me, gave me some conditioning, and… well, the rest is history."

"Paris?"

Jack's lips tug a little - tiring of being stood, being distant, he pulls up the material at his thigh and lowers himself to the floor, bringing his knees up while he leans against the glass. A flurry of movement, and Elsa does the same… right next to him.

It's the closest he's been to her.

"Yep. Paris was… the end of a long operation to draw you out. Division figured if I did enough damage to Nightfall's members, then eventually they'd get pissed enough to send you."

"Oh, they did," Elsa chuckled under her breath. "Key members were disappearing left, right, and centre, and the assassin was like a ghost. By the time I was deployed, Pitch was livid."

Jack's head dips as a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "Mmm. So when we had word Nightfall had charged their elite sniper with eliminating this asshole that had killed their best assets… and Hans… we leaked intel that I'd be in Paris for another target."

"Me," she says. "The target being me."

"Yep, though I didn't know until a couple of days before the ambush, when I made you at the Louvre. Seeing you again… my mission was to kill you but… I couldn't do it. Couldn't take the shot in the apartment-" Jack's right hand tremble slightly as it dives into the silk inner pocket of his jacket, and his eyes take on a wistful look. "-because even after all that happened…"

He pulls out a circular object - a silver wedding band. That thing has never left his side, not for eight years. He stares at it for a few moments, before slipping it back on its rightful finger - all under Elsa's shimmering, emotion-filled eyes.

"...I still loved you."

He looks up at her. Their eyes meet… and the world falls away. She chews at her lips as his heart hammers an anguished rhythm against his ribcage, and the tears they'd both been holding back slide down unfettered by restraint. God, she still looked beautiful, even in a prisoner jumpsuit. She's scared, that much is obvious to him, but there's a resolute strength to her… and as the seconds go by, Jack feels himself drift away in her eyes.

Three loud bangs echo from the door upstairs, jerking him out of his trance with a start. Throwing a hearty glare at the source, he yells out for a few more minutes, before gazing intently at his ring.

Five seconds ago, he could happily lose himself in her eyes. Now… it hurts too much to look at her.

"You know what's going to happen to you, right?"

It's a stupid question which need not be asked as he already knows the answer. Nevertheless, she obliges.

"I will be taken from here and incarcerated in a hole so deep I'll never see daylight again."

Her tone is so matter-of-fact, so honest, it pierces his heart like a dagger. His eyes snap to meet hers, faint incredulity radiating like waves.

"And you're okay with that?"

Though her eyes shimmer with sadness, the smile she gives him speaks of acceptance. "I have killed more people than you and I have digits combined, Jack. I have hurt people. I nearly killed you." He can almost feel her hand rest upon his shoulder. "I deserve nothing less."

He pulls in a breath to argue, but he knows there's no point. The cogs are turning, the machine of justice is rolling on. The inevitable cannot be delayed.

"I could…" he croaks, "I could look at making your accommodation more comfortable."

She laughs, a sweet, angelic laugh he's missed so damn much that it hurts to hear. "Thank you for not lying to me by saying you could try and make me a free woman."

Jack scoffs. "You know me. I never lie."

It's kind of a half-truth. Working for Division entails a certain degree of deceit and obfuscation, but to her? Jack has never lied.

"I do - in fact, I think I understand now."

"What?"

Her head tilts slightly. "Why Nightfall had to constantly maintain my programming." She shifts a few degrees left to see him better. "I visited your grave every year. Birthday, our wedding anniversary, the day of your death - come rain or shine, no matter what, I was there, laying a rose at your gravestone. I couldn't comprehend why I had this strange compulsion, this need to do it for someone who, at the time, I thought meant nothing to me… but now I understand."

Her finger lifts up to trace a slow, tender line down the cell wall, and her eyes take on a wistful look. "Nightfall had to constantly maintain my programming, because there was something stronger underneath it - my love for you."

Though his heart swells with warmth, the words 'that is so cliché' threaten to slip out… at least, until the door hammers again three times. The pleasant warmth makes way for a blossom of anguished aching, and he realises - he's out of time. Swallowing thickly, he pushes himself up from the floor just as she does, with as much reluctance as her. Turning to face her, his eyes burn with hot tears, and his heart threatens to break.

"I guess this is it," he mumbles.

Her smile is sad, but reassuring. Well, he figures it's supposed to be - but it's not working.

"Thank you… for being here with me," she whispers.

Jack sighs, his brow furrowing in pain, and in the overwhelming desire to at least pretend he can feel her touch, he raises both hands and feathers them across the plexiglass. Elsa, her smile widening, presses her hands against the same places, and as he leans forward to rest his head against the transparent wall, she does the same.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye, my love," she whispers. "Don't forget me."

He lingers for a few more seconds before tearing himself away, knowing if he stayed, he'd never leave. He promised her, after all. He forces his feet onwards to the stairs, leaving behind the love of his life to her fate, turning for one last look as she waves him a sombre farewell.

The sobbing he hears as he climbs the steps shatters what's left of his heart.

End of Part 1