47 pulled his gaze from the passing blur of landscape outside the train car window and looked to Nika sleeping in the seat to his right. Her face was calm and relaxed – so far removed from the indignant and fiery look she had cast at him not more than three hours ago in the alley in St. Petersburg when he had tried grabbing her wrist as she walked away from him for the second time. It was a move he now acknowledged as irrational on his part. Irrational, but ultimately inevitable.
He sank back into his chair and looked down to his hands in his lap. There had never been a moment when he had felt such a loss of control. His hands had always been a delicate extension of the weapons he held, moving exactly as needed, but as he had watched Nika walk away, a strange feeling of panic had welled in him and his hands had acted on their own accord trying to pull her back to safety, back into his arms.
He suspected that the heightening and distorting attributes of his adrenaline, spiked as it was by the firefight with the black BMW M5, was the cause of his unacceptably erratic behavior- there seemed to be no other explanation. He could have just as easily let Nika walk away and still would have been able to track her without difficulty. It's what he would have done, had he been thinking clearly. But the close proximity of her body to his own and the intoxicating taste of her mouth still lingering on his lips from the kiss they had shared in the doorway had coupled uneasily with the completely irrational fear that she might run somewhere even he couldn't follow, efficiently wiping away years upon years of training. He had been helplessly reduced to his baser instincts and could process only one primal feeling: want.
I want her tongue in my mouth,
I want her body against mine,
I want to be inside her.
That last thought was so utterly foreign to him and had shaken him so badly that he had to put all of his effort into pulling his lips from hers. He knew if he hadn't stopped himself then he would have taken her right there in the alleyway, in spite of the fact that he wouldn't have had any idea if he was performing the act correctly. Perhaps his instincts would have taken over, moving his body as they had his mouth and tongue and hands and well, everything.
Nika shifted and mumbled in her sleep, snapping 47 from his thoughts abruptly. He looked over at her as she slowly woke, rubbing at her bleary eyes and arching her back in a graceful stretch. She gazed up at him and smiled and he couldn't help smiling a little himself; she was beautiful even in her half-awake half-asleep haze with a crisscross pattern pressed into her cheek from where it had rested against the fabric seatback and her dark hair sleep-mussed and lightly tousled.
And just for a moment he was struck by a strong sense of déjà vu. They had played out this scene in a train car not so very long ago early on the day he had killed Belicoff and spared Nika from ever having to feel the bastard's hands on her again. 47 had told her before he left her standing in the aisle of the train car that he would find her, had sworn to himself that he'd do whatever he could to see that she was safe, even if it was from a distance, undetected. But it was clear now, after being pulled to her side, quite literally, that there really was no other place he'd rather be. He'd just have to become more meticulous in modifying his defense tactics.
There was no doubt in his mind that the ICA would send more agents after them; no doubt the impressive price on their heads would draw the interest of even the most amateur bounty hunters. His vigilance had been heightened since they had departed the alleyway and would most likely remain so indefinitely, or at least until any and all threats against Nika had been neutralized. And even then he was unsure if they'd ever be left to anything that closely resembled peace.
But if it was a constant state of chaos they'd be subjecting their lives to, with the ultimate reward being the right to share those lives with each other, 47 knew with a sudden swell of conviction that he was eager and willing, he was just slightly uncertain of how long Nika would put up with that amount of disarray.
He glanced over at her, trying unsuccessfully to quiet that anxious, gnawing uncertainty as she finished taking a long draught off of a water bottle she had purchased from the refreshment cart on the train. She smiled and passed the bottle to him.
"Hello," she said, eyes bright and holding no trace of the sleepy daze that had been present in them only minutes before.
"Hello," 47 answered after swallowing a mouthful of the cool water.
He ran the back of his hand against his mouth, wiping away excess moisture, but suddenly stilled as Nika's gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips. Desire coursed straight to his groin at the sight of her pupils dilating, blatantly telling of her arousal. She drug her tongue across her bottom lip, imitating the movement his hand had made against his own mouth and very nearly had him coming undone right there in the train car.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, slightly appalled at the bulge tightening against his trousers as he sat in the middle of a moderately crowded train. He hooked a finger behind the knot in his tie, loosening the suddenly restricting fabric about his neck and took another sip from the bottle, wishing desperately that it was something a little stronger than water sliding down to his stomach.
He cleared his throat and glanced down to his watch before looking up to Nika, a bit annoyed to see amusement on her face.
"Are you okay? You look a little flushed." A suppressed smile twitched at the corners of her lips. At least he could commend her for not laughing outright.
"I'm fine," he bit out tersely. " We should go over the itinerary."
"Alright, alright," she said holding her hands up in mock surrender. "I'll do anything you want me to."
He looked to her face, studying her expression, and felt his heart stumble in his chest when he saw that she was completely serious – anything.
He cleared his throat again and pulled two transfer tickets out of an inside pocket in his jacket, handing them both over to Nika. "We'll take this train overnight until it stops in Berlin tomorrow afternoon, then transfer to the ICE 558 line that will take us to Cologne. I'll need to obtain a suitable vehicle there that will get us to Provence, France."
"Okay…couple questions then." She tapped the tickets lightly against her knee. "Did you reserve us a room in the sleeper car?"
"Yes."
She raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"There are separate cots," he answered, as if she required explanation, and was a little delighted to see a small pout tug at her bottom lip.
"Alright, but why do we have to take a transfer in Berlin? This line runs straight through to Paris."
"One of the first rules of successful evasion is unpredictability," he stated simply.
Nika looked thoughtfully to the tickets in her lap. "And who, precisely, are we evading? I thought you, uh, took care of Belicoff," she said softly, never bringing her eyes up to meet his.
"He'll never hurt you again, Nika."
Her gaze slowly found his and he could see that unshed tears glittered at the corners of her eyes. "I dreamt so many times of killing that fucker myself, but I couldn't ever muster enough courage to do it. I was so afraid that he'd discover I was even considering it and he'd beat me harder than ever."
She broke down into sobs then, hands flying up to cover her face.
And without even a thought as to what he was doing, he pulled her into his lap and held her against his chest. He had often wondered, since being denied it as a child, if he'd ever be capable of compassion, if it was one of those traits learned only from experience, but suddenly realized, as he cradled Nika in his arms, her body trembling against him, her tears splashing warmly onto his shirt and tie, that comforting her was as second nature to him as disassembling and cleaning his weapons.
He ran his hands gently up and down her back and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, drawing in the smell of her hair as he did so, enveloping himself in the scent of sun warmed gardenias. His heart constricted painfully and he gathered her closer.
Nika sniffled as her sobs subsided and drew back to look up at him meekly. He brought a hand up and thumbed away a tear rolling over the dragon tattoo on her cheek.
"The agency that employed me has been tracking us and will continue to do so until the job is finished." Nika winced at his words and he sighed heavily. "And that is the reason for multiple transfers."
"Will we be safe once we reach the vineyard?" she whispered, blinking back the last of her tears.
"I had the perimeter fortified when I signed the deeds to your name and the seclusion of the acreage will allow for increased protection. So, yes, we should be safe there."
Nika offered him a small frown as she smoothed her hands over the fabric of his shirt and jacket. "Were you really expecting me to live out there on my own?"
"Only alone if you had wished it. It was my intention to protect you sight unseen as I had thought, and probably correctly, that we would attract less attention if we were not observed together."
"You would still have protected me if I had brought a man to live with me there? Just let me go on with my life without you?" Her voice was soft with wonder and her hands stilled on his chest.
47 brought his hands up to gently frame her face and looked into her eyes, not daring to hide the sincerity in his voice. "Nika, I would do anything, including giving my life, if it meant I could keep you safe."
And that alone seemed to be answer enough for her. What the question might have been, he did not know, but at his words she smiled softly and leaned forward to press a light kiss to his lips. She slid off of his lap and held her hand out for him. 47 stood and placed his hand in hers and followed, heart beating a rapid and uneven staccato, as she led him back to their cabin in the sleeper car.
Nika looked back over her shoulder, eyebrow arched in question, and he wordlessly placed the room key in her outstretched palm. She examined the key for a moment before stopping outside of their reserved sleeper room.
47 pulled in a shaky breath as he stood behind her, fighting the viciously dark part of him, the part that had been drilled into him since childhood, which spoke, or rather shouted that this woman was a dangerous distraction and positively had to be neutralized. Personal involvement with anyone was an unquestionably lethal mistake in any situation. He pulled his hand into a trembling fist, repeating rapidly to himself: I am no longer what I once was, I am no longer what I once was… as Nika slipped the key into the lock.
It had not quiet finished turning in its tumbler before the train came to a shuddering and violent stop, the deafening screech of metallic brakes on the train's tracks overshadowed only by the riotous crack of automatic gunfire. The force of the sudden stop had pitched Nika and 47 to the ground roughly and he immediately shifted to cover her, reaching into his jacket to release his silenced Silverballer from its holster high on the left side of his chest.
He leveled his weapon into the thick, white cloud of teargas that was rapidly filling the train car they had just walked from and kneeled over Nika protectively in the narrow hallway of the adjoining sleeper car, taking the raucous curses coming from her as a good sign that she was still alive.
His finger settled over his pistol's trigger and for one fraction of a second before the gun came loudly to life in his hand, one thought dominated all others in his mind:
I am no longer what I once was