At the door he sank to the ground. The hallway was quiet; he could hear the faint sound of a TV coming from inside one of the apartments. He checked to see if he'd left a trail of blood - one or two spots, a streak on the wall at the elevator. The hallway was dark, low-lit by small ceiling lights. If he was lucky, no one would come out of their apartment and see him there, lying in a bloody heap in the doorway of 5C – but it was after 3 a.m. He might be lucky.

He knocked softly, two, three times, but there was no answer. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. When he opened them again, he cradled his useless arm in his lap and knocked once more. There was silence but he knew she was behind the door, gun in hand, on the tips of her toes, poised for fight or flight.
"Quinn," he whispered. "It's me, John. John Wick."
She whipped the door open and jammed her gun against his temple.
"What the eff?" she hissed. "Ah, for f- . Get in. Get in."
"It's clear," he whispered as she peered cautiously into the hall. "But there's blood."
He crawled into her hallway and leaned against the wall, resting his head against the wood panelling. She ran back inside, returned silently with a cloth in hand, and swiftly jumped over his prone body.
"Don't move. And don't effing bleed on my rug," she said softly. She turned in the doorway and yanked the rug out from underneath him, throwing it out of his reach. Just in case.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was bending over him.
"Move," she said. She half-pushed, half-kicked him inside so she could close the door, then helped him to his feet. She'd noticed his arm, the dislocated shoulder. She'd also taken note of the blood and he knew she had quickly assessed his personal armoury.
"Lovely," she spat. "Just freaking lovely."
He didn't know whether she was referring to the blood on her white woodwork or the situation in general. She bent to swoosh the stain with her cloth, muttering under her breath. She wasn't wearing pyjamas, but some kind of black yoga pants and t-shirt. She'd always gone to bed in clothes she could fight in; some things hadn't changed.

John looked down at his own clothes: his shirt was splattered in blood, a lot of blood, a lot of different bloods. His black pants showed no stains but were stickily wet to the touch, he'd left bloodstains on the hall floor where he'd slumped. He pointed them out silently and she heaved a martyred sigh, and then wiped the floorboards as well. She looked different. He hadn't seen her for – ten years? Twelve? He tried to think, but the pain was a dull pulse that made calculating hard. The last time he'd seen her was at the Continental in Barcelona. She'd been with Pfeiffer then, a happy couple: sitting at the bar with her long dark hair tumbling down her back – the only time he'd ever seen her hair loose, not braided and tied back in business-like severity. She'd been wearing a deep blue dress, something sparkly, and was laughing at some joke Pfeiffer was telling. She'd acknowledged him with the barest of nods and he'd returned it, then she'd turned her back on him and returned to the conversation.

They'd trained together and they used to be paired up a lot when they both worked for The Agency: similar working style, similar working ethos, despite having dissimilar personalities and tastes so far apart that they rarely managed to agree on anything that was not work related. Then they'd been assigned different jobs, gone their separate ways. They both discovered they liked working alone – but on the rare occasion their paths crossed, they were careful to skirt each other, keep out of each other's line of fire, metaphorically and literally. She'd taken a bullet for him near Philadelphia, yelping "John!" to distract a shooter, who'd then turned his gun on her. After John had taken the man out, he called a driver, leaving a gold coin in Quinn's bleeding hand so her carriage to the doctor would be paid.

Now her hair was chopped short and blond, her face was softer – she wasn't wearing the heavy eyeliner and dark lipstick she used to favour when she was a professional – but she was still wiry. He knew she probably still worked out every day, knew she probably had a boxing sack somewhere in the apartment that she beat the crap out of on a regular basis. She looked him up and down, shaking her head slowly. Clearly she did not think as highly of his current appearance as he thought of hers.

With vicious ill-grace, she flung the bloody cloth through the open door of her kitchen, striking the tiles behind the kitchen sink before it fell in on top of a small pile of dishes, a neat slam-dunk. She picked up her gun and motioned for him to go down the small hallway and into her living room.
"What are you doing here?" she said evenly, levelling the gun at him.
"I need your help," he said.
"I've retired," she said. "How the eff do you even effing know where I effing live? No one knows my new name and address, that was the agreement. Who the eff did you eff to get the effing information?"
Despite himself, he smiled. "I was counting on the bet still being on," he said softly.
She ignored him. "Who told you where I live?" she demanded.
"Marcus," he said.
"I'll kill him," she said. "I'll effing kill him."
John closed his eyes. Briefly. For a second.
"He's dead," he said.
That stopped her. The gun didn't waver, she just narrowed her eyes, watching him.
"It's true," John said. "But he told me all about you. He told me you were an elementary school teacher now. Teaching little kids how to read and write. Miss Grady, Miss Eileen Grady. And he gave me your address, just in case. Kind of like an insurance policy, in case anything should go wrong."
"Well, that was his mistake, John Wick. He should've known that out means out. I've spent the last eight years going to college and getting my degree and my work experience and a job – and, yes, I teach little kids to read and write and be nice to each other and use words, not violence, to solve their little fights. Ironic, huh? But that's who I am now, so I'm truly sorry you took a beating, honey, but I'm calling you a driver. I'll even stick a shiny gold coin in your little hand so you'll be sure to get to someone who'll fix you up reeeeeeal nice."
She smiled her tight, mirthless smile. The gun stayed steady.

"Anna," he said. "I need your help."
"I don't want to help you, Johnny," she said, knowing he hated when she called him that.
He reached into his jacket and she jerked the gun in warning.
"My wallet," he whispered and withdrew it. He put it on the table and used his good hand to find the piece of paper that he always carried with him, just in case. His insurance certificate.
"Recognise this?" He read it out: "I, John Wick, do hereby bet that Miss Anna Quinn cannot refrain from cursing in my presence, – yeah, we even listed the words that count as curses, including some of your more creative attempts like stinktwizzler or twatweasel – a challenge she herewith accepts. Should she curse in my proximity, even under duress, she shall owe me A Favour, to be redeemed at my convenience. Signed: John Wick, Anna Quinn. Witnessed by Marcus and Mr Black, your thumbprint in blood, even. You were very melodramatic back then."
He held up the piece of paper, a bit tatty and worn from being in his wallet. "You signed it, we shook on it."
"We were kids," she said quickly. "It was a stupid bet. I only did it to shut you up. God, you were really prissy when it came to language. How sad are you - still carrying that thing around?"
"You couldn't say a sentence without a fuck in it," he countered. He closed his eyes. The pain.
"I'm calling you a driver," she said. "I'm not having you bleeding out on my floors. I just got them effing sanded last summer, man."
"You always said that you honour your bets," he said. "And you still honour this one. You haven't cursed once around me yet."
"Don't be effing ridiculous. I'm an elementary school teacher," she snapped. "Remember? We don't effing curse."

Keeping the gun trained on him, she pulled open a drawer and withdrew a mobile phone. She tapped in the key code to unlock it. John took a breath and continued quickly,
"Quinn," he said urgently, "I've left a trail of blood all the way here."
She was scrolling through the contacts list, looking for the switchboard number.
"It won't be long before they find me."
He heard the beep-beep-beep as the number connected.
"Who's they?" she said quietly.
"Miss Knight. The Aimes brothers."
She punched screen with her thumb to disconnect the call, pounced at him, shoving the gun against his dislocated shoulder. He winced.
"What the fuck, John Wick?" she hissed in his ear. "The Aimes brothers? In my fucking apartment?"
A heartbeat.
"No," he admitted. "I lied. But I win the bet and I'm redeeming my favour now."
She clapped her hand over her mouth.
"You fucking bastard," she gasped. "You motherfu- "
She proceeded to call him every name on their list.
Plus a few more, for good measure.

It took him ten minutes to convince her that the Aimes brothers weren't going to storm her apartment. Not straight away, at least.
"But they are coming for you?" she said, moving a curtain aside a fraction. The lights were off, the curtains drawn completely, revealing not a crack.
"They're coming for me, but it's going to take them some time to find me. They'll check out the doctor, the Continental, any known contacts. They'll know I need medical help. Eventually, they will find you, Annie."
"I preferred it when you called me Miss Quinn," she said sharply. She removed a second handgun from underneath her sideboard, checked it and laid it on the table beside the first.
"We're safe," he said. "For now."
"Why did you come to me, John?" she said. It came out almost like a wail and not for the first time, he felt sorry. He knew how it felt to be ripped out of a new life and shoved back into your old one.
"Because I can trust you. Because you're good. Because you can fix this," he said, indicating his arm.
"Is it the same one?" she asked.
He nodded. "It pops now and again."
She sighed.
"Take off your jacket and shirt," she said. "I don't want to touch all of – " she waved a finger, indicating the bloody mess "– that."
He did so.
"You'd better lie down," she said. "I haven't done this in a while and it's easiest if you're lying down."
She took a blanket off the back of the sofa and threw it over the cushions. Gingerly, he lay down.
"Nice sofa," he remarked. It was deep purple, the cushions petrol blue, grass green. Typically Quinn, the apartment was full of stuff: prints, paintings, books, clutter. Bold colours, bright prints. He felt faint; it might have been the pain, but it could've been the décor.

She closed her eyes, held his arm and elbow… and pushed the shoulder back in.
John bit back a yell.
"Thanks," he said, moving it carefully. It was in the socket.
"Ice and painkillers," she replied curtly. "Then take a shower. Woe betide you if you've stained my couch."
"Thanks," he said again. She helped him up, showed him silently to the bathroom and gave him a small pile of towels.
"You can stay here tonight," she said. "I'll give you clothes and a gun and you'd better be gone before I get up for breakfast. You're damned lucky this is not a school night."
"That's all I wanted," he said. "Favour redeemed."
She snorted. "I effing hate you, John Wick."
He smiled.
"Force of habit," she said. "But don't worry, I'm sure I'll get used to calling you an stinktwizzler again."