Sleep never came easily for Katia, if it ever came at all. It wouldn't exactly be accurate to say that the idea scared her. The idea of sleep, and the dreams that came with it, terrified her. She would just keep seeing images that she did not understand, all red, red, red and black and cold and frightening. They were meaningless, not real, but they made her afraid of closing her eyes.
It was easier on pills, because sometimes dreams just didn't come when she took them. Her body would be shocked by painful spasms and she would awaken sore, but she would be somewhat rested and not as frightened.
But now, without them, her senses were sharpening… And her nightmares worsening. Each time she tried to rest, closing her eyes for a little while, red would flash before her eyes. Visions of cold and fear would pervade her mind and she would jolt awake, tired but unable to rest.
It had been almost three days since she last slept for more than an hour undisturbed, and the lack of sleep was taking its toll on her. She was sleepy, grumpy (perhaps even grumpier than 47) and losing coordination. Her movements were slow — her reaction time was long enough for someone to kill her two times before she even moved — and she was losing her appetite. Every time she closed her eyes to catch a breath, she saw red and her rest was interrupted.
At least she hadn't taken 47's Silverballers apart again. That was progress.
She entered the living room of the hotel room they had rented, shaking from her nightmare, her body protesting against every move and in desperate need of the rest she wished for but couldn't get. 47 sat on the couch, looking at something on his laptop. Katia opened her mouth but found it hard to speak. Her throat tightened.
"What are you doing?" Her voice sounded stiff and tired.
"Getting us a new assignment," 47 stated. "You really should get some sleep," he noted. Katia couldn't stop a wry chuckle from escaping her throat.
"Easy for you to say," she muttered. The couch did look welcoming. Very welcoming, since it was made for three or maybe more people. 47 sat on one end of it, leaving plenty of space for Katia to lie down and take a nap, however brief that might be. The thought seemed so tempting to Katia that she had no will or energy to protest. She desperately needed that sleep, even if it would only be for a few minutes. Even if she would wake to cold sweat dripping down the back of her neck, and even colder chills running up and down her spine. She walked over to the couch and lay down on it, curled up a bit, the top of her head touching 47's thigh and her feet on the arm of the couch. For someone so tired, all it took for her to fall asleep was to close her eyes, really.
The next time she opened her eyes, though, something was wrong. A few things were, actually. There was some thin but warm cover around her body. Upon further inspection, she realized that it was a blanket. Katia didn't remember covering herself with one, nor putting a soft, small pillow under her head — which was still resting against 47's leg. And most of all, she didn't think that the sun should be starting to rise, since when she had lain down to take a nap it hadn't even been twilight. She felt much more rested than when she had first lain down, much more than she should have after mere minutes of rest.
That could mean only one thing: she had slept peacefully through the whole night, which also meant that she hadn't gotten any of those pseudo-nightmares that she always felt but never remembered.
While she was resting, 47 had been nice enough to cover her with a blanket and put a pillow under her head.
Katia turned her head around slowly, looking up at the man sitting next to her. He was sitting in the same seemingly uncomfortable position as he was when she had taken apart his Silverballers – arms crossed against his chest, head bowed, eyes closed. She had never seen him sleep any other way.
It was his presence, she assumed. It had to be. His calming presence assured her that everything was fine and that even if it wasn't, he would put a bullet through whatever was endangering them. She had no doubts that he would actually do so, if she was to be honest.
She knew that she should get up. Get up, shake off any remnants of sleep, shower, dress. She didn't care for what she should be doing, though. She instead lay back down, snuggled up with the blanket, and allowed herself to fall into blissful darkness once again, undisturbed by red and black and cold and fear.
When she next awoke she was fully rested, her eyelids no longer heavy. She was lying on her back with one leg hung over the arm of the couch and the other one still bent over the furniture, her head partially on 47's lap. The blanket she was covered with was still on her, some of it tangled around one of her legs but most of it on the ground.
47 wasn't asleep anymore either. That she could say for sure because she felt his gaze on her before she could gather the courage to look up at him. She managed to move her still sleepy muscles and lock eyes with him. She had to admit that he looked better. Much better, actually. His face looked younger and less tired, his cuts were closing fast and there were no more dark circles under his eyes.
"Hi," Katia finally said after deciding that five minutes of quietly staring at each other, barely blinking, was enough. "You look less like shit than you did before," she admitted.
"You still do," he stated calmly, turning his gaze back to the window. It took Katia a while of contemplation to get a grasp of what he had just done. He had just talked back to her.
"I don't believe it." Katia closed her eyes and gigged. "You actually talked back to me. I'm so goddamn proud of you!" she said, patting his shoulder gently and sitting up, kicking the blanket to the ground. She sat up on the couch, stretched and yawned loudly. 47 gave her that weird, emotionless look of his that she couldn't decipher.
"I'm a fast learner," came the only answer.
Katia sighed, stood up and headed towards the bathroom without a second glance, a smile gracing her lips once again. Yes, a smile. Since they had rented the hotel room to recover a bit in peace, Katia felt like it was something she did most of the time. Smiling. She couldn't remember smiling much before, mostly because back then she didn't know how to smile. There was no time for smiling when she was in constant or delusional danger anyway. And now… It just happened.
Now she had to make 47 smile, too. It was possible. There were times when he almost or faintly did. Now, she had to turn those almost and faint smiles into real ones.
After grabbing some spare clothes - she had no idea how or when 47 had gotten her them and didn't really want to know - she locked herself in the bathroom. A warm shower was truly a blessing for her body. She was a bit sore and sweaty, feeling somewhat disheveled after sleeping a bit longer than she should have. But she was, at long last, rested. She was even, dare she say it, well-rested.
She got out of the bathroom dressed in rather formal clothes: a white, long-sleeved shirt, a black linen jacket and black linen trousers. A white hotel towel was wrapped around her head. She was greeted by the view of 47 in the exact same position as he was in before. It was almost as if he hadn't moved an inch since she had left, but the blanket lying neatly folded on the couch and the suitcase lying open on the table said otherwise.
The suitcase and a lot of the things in it were the Clone's things that 47 had insisted on taking. Katia didn't really know why, but had gone along with it anyway. If she was to guess, she'd say that it was to replenish 47's inventory.
"Need help with your tie?" she asked, sitting back on the couch.
"No," he said. Katia ignored the answer, though, gently grabbing the silk tie and tying it. What surprised her was the fact that she was actually able to tie it properly on her first try. She left it loose for him to adjust – she didn't want 47 to choke, or to choke him herself.
Yes, she wanted to shoot him, a little more than she had twenty-four hours ago, but that was long time ago and wasn't actually true anyway.
"Look, I did it!" Katia beamed once she had finished, proud of herself.
"You've never tied a tie before?" 47 asked. He was answered only with a sharp, frantic shake of her head, which made the towel wrapped around her hair partially fall off in the process. "You slept well?"
"I guess." Katia shrugged, brushing her hair with her fingers and then attempting to dry it a bit more with the towel. "Thanks for being my personal pillow, by the way."
"Good. We have an assignment."
"I thought you were done with Agency."
"I am, but I need to make money somehow, and killing is the only thing I'm good at," 47 answered calmly. Katia puffed her cheeks out like a child.
"There are plenty of other things you're good at!" she argued.
"For example?"
"Being my personal pillow," she answered immediately. "Being a big grumpy baby, being annoying, shooting things, whooping people's asses. I'm sure there's more, but that's yet to be discovered."
"Very… Comforting."
"What's the assignment?"
"Something easy for the first time, some minor businessman in Berlin."
"You picked Berlin on purpose, didn't you?"
47 gave no answer.