" - I'll call you, next week, then?"
Anything to slip her hand from his clammy grasp without offending him. A representative though he might be - for a reputable charity, which is what made the whole thing worse - he's not afraid of sexual advances, if the billionaire he's schmoozing is of the attractive female variety, and she'd rather avoid it, if at all possible.
When he's satisfied with her promise (the one, she will not be keeping), he disappears into the crowd and she turns back into Chance, leaning her head close to his ear to speak without others hearing. "I have no intention of calling that man."
"I hope not." a flash of jealousy in his eyes, tightly restrained anger thinning out his voice to the point, he sounds like he's struggling to breathe.
Ilsa drops a hand to her ribs where the soft purple fabric of her dress is bunched in his palm. A gentle thumb across his knuckles and along that one pronounced vein soothes him into a semi-relaxed state - well, relaxed enough, she might able to seduce a dance out of him, anyway, but beyond that, she'd need a private location and enough time to get his pants off.
"Might I trouble you for a dance?" she bumps him with her hip, dark eyes tracing his profile. He's thinking about it, she can tell that. His jaw twitches, desperate not to let his hardened exterior crack enough for her slip in and flirt her way to a dance. "Come on, Mister Chance, we've danced before. At your insistence, as I recall."
"Yes, but someone was trying to kill you, then." Chance growls through clenched teeth.
"Pretend someone is trying to kill me, now, then." Ilsa teases, glancing around the party. "Mister Guerrero has me in his sights all the time. I'm sure he'd like the challenge."
"Nah, he likes you, by now. Just has a funny way of showing it." a soft laugh, eyes darting around the room, and shoulders squared off. He's ready to fight with the next person who draws her away from him. Has been since they got away from the pervert from that one charity, her husband only mildly tolerated, because they sponsored one of his trips to Africa to build a school. "Why are we here, again?"
"To be honest, I'm not sure." Ilsa sighs, settling into his side. "Connie insisted. I went along because she's like a sister to me."
"And, I'm here because?"
"Well, I can't very well come without arm candy," she purrs, tracing his jaw with a dark fingernail. "A proper lady keeps a gentleman on her arm at all times."
"Since when are you a proper lady?" Chance teases, eyeing the nearest exit. "How about we break away from the crowd and grab some air?"
But, Ilsa's answering smile is one of mischief; "I know where the stairs to the roof are."
"Lead the way." he makes a sweeping motiong toward the door with his hand.
The music and the crowd fades behind them as she leads him through corridors to an unmarked door. Silence has enveloped them by the time they emerge onto the moon-drenched roof.
"No music for a dance, Ilsa." Chance points out, when she shuffles closer to him for that promised dance - not that he knows he promised it, but she knows, and she figures she can use that to work him.
"We have never done things by conventional means, Mr. Chance." Ilsa's eyes spark with an intensity and a playfulness. "Why start, now?"
...
His eyes shift up to the sky, where the moon is slowly drifting behind a cloud, where the pressure is changing, building, preparing to shower the earth and them. "I think we're about to get wet."
She should pull away, should insist they go back inside. After all, she is wearing a very expensive gown and he's in a very expensive tuxedo and the rain would surely ruin them both but there are reasons, that run far deeper than the shallow excuse of not ruining their clothes, for them to to stay right where they are.
He's not a drunk billionaire looking for a handsy waltz or an awkward tango. He is Christopher Chance. He's been through hell with her, for her, and he's still there, navigating pits of a new hell he never asked for, wearing clothes he never wanted to wear, wining and dining people, who frown upon his social standing, despite his chameleon-like personality. He never asked for this. This life. He'd be the first to say he hates it but he does it because she needs him, barely knows how to breathe without him there to remind her to do so, anymore.
"We should probably go inside." but, her actions betray her words. She tucks herself closer, hooks an arm around his neck, and smiles tenderly into the collar of his shirt.
"But, we're not going to?" he guesses, tightening his arm around her waist.
"No, Mister Chance." Ilsa shakes her head.
"Why?"
"Because, I cannot think of one reason, other than ruining our clothes, to step foot back in that ballroom." she touches his jaw with a feather-light hand. "Because, I can think of a million reasons why I would rather be in the rain with you than in there with them."
"Ilsa..." Chance drawls; he doesn't want her to get lost in his illusion, doesn't want her to lose herself in him, when he doesn't know who he is.
"You don't treat me as some invincible queen, you know I'm not one. You've seen me at my worst." she smiles, despite the weight of her words. "You've seen the Ilsa that is drunk and broken - you know I'm human. That means more to me than anything they could say because they want a check."
"You're not broken." he's quick to correct her.
"The first time we kissed, I was drunk. And, I'd drugged myself." she reminds him softly.
"Fair point but still - you're a strong person, Ilsa. The strongest I've ever met." his words from that night - early morning, really - after the opera return and she's reminded that she kept the ticket from it.
It seems rather silly to say she'd done so but for some reason - that is crystal clear, despite her desperation to deny it - the ticket stub to the spectacular failure that was La Traviata sits on her dresser, weighted down and half hidden by a decorative perfume bottle. Relics of very different pasts; one of a romanticized Parisian 20's, and the other hers...and his. He'd been a part of it, too.
He'd taken apart every detail until he got to the bottom of it, made certain that the terrorists were on their way to nowhere but the morgue before he stopped. She catches a glimpse of it when she gets dressed in the morning, and it calls up the memory of that bruise, the one that had marked her shoulder for a week, after she shot that lock and freed him from certain death. But, still, the thought remains that she's not entirely who she used to be, nor is she who she's supposed to be, yet.
"Strong doesn't mean whole, Mr. Chance, you should know that. Strong doesn't even mean strong when the world is stacked against you. It means getting by, barely making it, struggling for air. I think we both know how that feels." because, they do - him with the death of Katherine Walters, and her with the death of Marshall. They know how it feels to struggle for air, to barely scrape by.
"If that's strong, then I think we did alright." Chance shrugs, soft smile tugging at his mouth. "We fought and drank our way to where we are, now, and we've been through hell. We're not invincible and frankly, I don't want to be. If being human means staying with you, I'm okay with that."
"Are you saying - ?" it knocks her breathless to even think it, but the implication is there, and she wouldn't dare insult him by ignoring it.
"I've never said it, and I've never heard it, but I've felt it." he touches his forehead to hers, almost as if he's willing her to understand what he can't bring himself to say, willing her to feel the same thing he feels, not dragging him down, but holding, keeping him in place. Not weight but gravity. "And, I'll protect it. Whatever it is, whatever it'll become - I'll protect it."
"I know. I will, too." Ilsa murmurs, grabbing desperately at his face to keep him close. "I don't - "
"Shhh."
The moment lifts into a sweeping, moonlit crescendo of seering eye contact, hands grabbing at hips and faces and bodies shifting, nudging, until they finally settle into something they're both okay with, something intimate and soothing to their exposed souls. It only seems natural when he lets his mouth cover hers, teeth sinking into her darkly painted bottom lip. She whimpers and deeper they sink, falling down, down, down, into the warm retreat of a comfortable intimacy.
The words are unspoken and unnecessary.
I love you.