A/N: Thank you to PropernameSurname, Traveler of Worlds, and Calathiel of Mirkwood for your reviews!! Also, I want to thank those who simply visited. Your time means a lot to me.

I do not own The Bourne Identity.

I Talk Like This When I'm Nervous

So, of course I was doubtful of the safety of the situation. But I figured that we'd exchange names and get chatting, and then things would feel better. But oh was stupid Marie Kreutz in for a surprise.

My passenger surveyed the scenery with wide, alert eyes, his corded hands resting on his knees. That's all. When we left the city, he hadn't said a single word, hadn't cracked a smile or a frown.

We climbed into the hills, following a winding road that cut into the steep, pine-coated white slopes. It would be about an eight-hour rattle. I call my drives rattles because that what my old car does, constantly. Since we'd started late afternoon, I would drive through the night.

He still hadn't said anything. I couldn't concentrate. What was with him? If he said nothing I would have a nervous breakdown and we'd probably end up wrapped around a tree because my car likes to go fast. So I introduced myself like a little kid on the playground. "My name is Marie Kreutz. What's yours?"

He looked at me, a little startled. He pressed his lips together, quick, then, "Jason Bourne."

"Jason." I nodded too hard. Keep talking, please, for the love of God! But he just returned to gazing out at the snow. I cursed silently and looked at the road ahead. Eight hours with this Feldsteinmauer, this stone wall. Not good. Not working.

"Have you been to Paris before?" I asked.

He shrugged without looking at me.

"Well I have," I said brightly. "My stepbrother lives there. Martin. He's the artist in the family."

He didn't even twitch. I had a fleeting urge to kick him. And then I was talking faster than a Formula 1 racecar, lips flapping, mind scrambling for anything I could say to keep away the oppressive silence and the scary questions that came with it. Even so, I could hear the voice inside my head berating me for letting this creature into my car. I was good and stuck.

Kilometers and kilometers later, my car had finally warmed up and I was still going strong. Everyone has always been constantly telling me to shut up. It was a wonder that Jason could even breathe.

"…which was fine with me because I was ready. 'Cause, you know, after six months in Amsterdam, you're not sure if you've been there twenty minutes or years, if you know what I mean. So I went and I took all the money I had. And I went in with friends and we took over this really cool surf shop outside Biarritz, um, which was right by the water, which was amazing…" I glanced at him and got the same view of his profile I'd been getting the whole time, "…it was, just amazing for about three months until it turned out that this, uh…jerk who had fronted us the lease was actually…shining everyone…on and…"

A motorbike whizzed past in the other direction.

Why do none of my stories have happy endings? I gazed at the massive, snow-laden pines, the sourness of the memory lingering in my mouth. I sighed, shifting in my seat. Fine. We would be quiet.

It's odd how loneliness can attack you at the most random times.

In the corner of my eye, I saw him turn and look at me. "And what?" he asked.

I stared at him; he stared back with the same hesitant inquisitiveness of before, his lips parted. "What do you mean, 'what'?" I finally asked. "Listen to me. I've…I've been speed talking for about sixty kilometers now. I talk when I'm nervous – I mean, I-I talk like this when I'm nervous…I'm gonna shut up now."

"No, don't do that."

I kind of wanted to kick him again.

"I haven't talked to anybody in a while," he added.

"Yeah, but we're not talking. I'm talking. Y-you've said, like ten words since we left Zürich."

"Well-listening to you, um, it's relaxing."

I was taken aback. He avoided my gaze, turning toward the small town we were passing through.

"I haven't slept in a while," he finally said, still without looking at me. Two cars went by. "And I've had this…headache. It's like a constant thing inside my head and it's just starting to…move to the background, so…" gazing at me now, brows raised earnestly, he said, "keep going. Really, if you want, please, keep talking."

Well. I looked at him, trying to understand, and saw a hint of a smile. Long dimples on either side of his mouth peeked out, like parentheses. Oh. I'd never seen a smile quite like that and couldn't help smiling back, just a little. "Okay, well," I gave a tiny laugh. Warmed, but still not comfortable. "What kind of music do you like?"

His smile stiffened and his eyes dropped. "Um…"

"What do you like? Hmm?" I turned on the radio and the hyper pulse of a techno song filtered through the speakers, along with a lot of static.

"No, you know what?" he raised a hand. "Never mind,"

"No, it's fine." Keep smiling, Marie! The radio rasped and whistled as I twisted the dial. "Tell me. What do you want to listen to?"

"I don't know," he said. He was staring straight ahead, the remains of the smile awkwardly crinkling about his eyes.

"Come on," I coaxed, "it's not that hard…what do you like? Tell me."

"I don't know," he said sharply, giving me a flat, end-of-discussion look.

The moment died and I turned off the radio, sitting back. I licked my lips. The hissing of the road filled the car, but not enough. Finally, I couldn't keep the scary thoughts back.

I remembered the flawless German that had poured from his lips and wondered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slowly raise a hand to his face, drawing his fingers over his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose.

"Who pays twenty thousand dollars for a ride to Paris?" I asked quietly.

Face turned away, his arm was propped on the window ledge. The backs of his first two fingers rested on his lips. He faced me, and then turned away.

"F---- it." His face was hard, his eyes distant and frustrated. "I can't remember anything that happened before two weeks ago." He looked at me as if he expected me to be alarmed.

When I was younger I believed everyone on earth was slowly going insane. Here was proof.

"Lucky you," I said.

"No, I'm serious." He waited, but I didn't turn from the road. "I don't know who I am; I don't know where I'm going – none of it."

"What, like," I chuckled, "amnesia?"

"Yes."

"Amnesia."

"Yes."

I took a deep breath. "Right."

How much longer until Paris?

We crested a hill and I could see the Jura Mountains in the distance, sharp and feral white.

Too long.

Some hours later, we were still being quiet.

Perhaps he really was insane. At least he wasn't drooling or trying weird stuff. He was just sitting there, like a lump. A lump with a gross sweater. That was almost worse…

We climbed between the Jura and Vosges mountains, tracing the edge of Germany. My stomach reminded me that I had enough money for supper – enough money for a thousand suppers- and I asked Jason if he was hungry. He said yes, so I pulled into the next Aral petrol station, just outside of Möhlin.

I drove up under the blue-lit shelter and parked in front of the shop. It felt good to get out and stretch in the frigid air. Jason did not stretch when he got out; he simply closed his door and looked around with that same wide-eyed expression. He had his bag with him. His breath made clouds in the air, and the harsh blue light brought out the bruises under his eyes.

When he looked at me expectantly, I realized I'd been staring. I smiled awkwardly and we hurried inside.

There was a diner off to one side with tables along the windows, and a bar. Beyond that was a small arcade. White Christmas lights were draped over the windows. It was late and there weren't many people there. I went to the shop part of the place and had one of the hundred-dollar bills broken into twenties and tens. I was lucky they had dollars on hand. Lucky for the first time in a long, long time.

We visited the bathrooms and then took a table against a window, settling across from each other. For a while we just sat, soaking up the warmth, listening to low conversations, the clink of forks on plates, and the crooning of Aimée Allen coming from the speakers on the walls.

Why couldn't I run into someone reasonable for once? What was I going to do with this man? What if he sat up all night, staring out the windscreen and saying nothing?

He spoke. "You don't believe me."

Startled, I looked up at him. At that moment, the waitress arrived. She smelled like cheap perfume. I ordered a sandwich and bottled water. Jason ordered the exact same thing, eyes self-consciously flicking toward me, but never landing on me.

The waitress scribbled on her pad and sauntered away.

I fiddled with the top button of my coat. Now Jason was watching me so intensely, I wondered if my face would melt. "I don't disbelieve you," I finally said. "I just don't understand. How could you get amnesia?"

"Don't know." He took a long, slow breath. "My first memory, the only memory I have, is waking up on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean with two bullet holes in my back." I stiffened. He shook his head. "The fishermen who saved my life said they found me floating in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night. They don't know who shot me. I don't know who shot me….what could I have been doing?"

He stared into my eyes like I had the answer. I've never felt a gaze so intense, like a physical force against my skin. The blue light pouring over half his face was the same color of his irises. He looked pale and exhausted.

The waitress returned remarkably fast with our meals. I thanked her, and then Jason and I ate in helpless silence. He ate quickly and efficiently. As I was putting the last chunk of sandwich into my mouth, he was shaking his head at the window.

"They brought me into some Italian port. I took a train to Zürich. That night, I was sleeping in a park and two cops came and asked for my papers and I…" Disbelief creased his forehead. "…One guy put his nightstick in my face and my body just moved. The next minute, they were lying on the ground, unconscious and I had a-a gun in my hand. One of their guns. Pointed at them. Like I was going to shoot."

I had been about to take a drink. But now I just twisted the cap tight on my bottle and leaned back in my chair, pulling my scarf up under my lips. "So you know how to defend yourself," I reasoned. "There's nothing wrong with that."

He looked at me like I'd spoken in Martian. "I was in Zürich because the doctor on the fishing boat found a little piece of plastic in my hip. When you press it, it projects a bank account number on the wall." He leaned forward. "I went into the bank. I wrote that number down. They took me into a little room, gave me a safety deposit box that had a gun in it. And money. And six passports."

He pulled the red bag open. Inside, I saw piles of currency from a multiple countries. I swallowed and shook my head.

"I'm not making this up. These," he pulled out a handful of little booklets, "are real." He shuffled them and planted them in front of me.

I looked down at the top one. PASSPORT- United States of America. Beneath it were more passports for other countries, each with a different man's name. Paul Kay…John Michael Kane…something Levpon… I sat up. "Okay."

"Who has a safety deposit box full of…" he straightened, gesturing confusedly, "money and six passports and a gun?"

I looked out at the cars whizzing by, wishing he wouldn't ask.

He kept going. "Who has a…bank account number in their hip?" He leaned back, pulling his hands toward himself. " I come in here, and the first thing I'm doing is I'm catching the sightlines and looking for an exit."

"I see the exit sign, too," I glanced at it; "I'm not worried." He looked away. "I mean," I tried again, "you were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing stuff when they're scared."

I don't think he heard a word; he was too busy scanning the room. I watched him watch everything else with his elbows on the table and his hands together near his chin.

Then he folded his arms, leaning toward me. "I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself."

Scheiße. I stared at him.

"I know that the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside. And at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half-mile before my hands start shaking." He bit his lower lip slowly. "Now why would I know that?" With a short sigh, he glanced out the window. "How can I know that and not know who I am?"

My mind was a blank. My lips wanted to form words, but I didn't have any.

Jason averted his eyes. Then he grabbed the passports and shoved them back into the bag, tugging it shut.

I paid numbly and we left.

Thanks for reading! Any thoughts you have are welcome. :)