Piles of photographs and endless pages of notes were spread far and wide across the table in the abandoned furniture warehouse. Samar sat in front of them, focused intently on each and every one, with eyes narrowed in the frustration of having stared unsuccessfully at a puzzle for far too long.

Still, after years of hits as The Phoenix, the one killer who had started it all –the man who killed her parents- loomed at large.

Finding that one man and taking him down was all Samar ever had wanted to do in the spiraling grief after her brother had passed as well. Taking a temporary leave from Mossad had turned into a trail of searching, hunting down and taking out other killers from the same government program as the man who had been sent to murder her parents, as well as the officials in that program who had trained him and given him that order. Each one was a step closer to finding that man, and brought her a sense of justice for others like her whose loved ones had been killed and their families destroyed by that same program, just as hers had been... But still, that one killer had managed to evade her, and had never been found.

It hadn't occurred to her that she had gone too far to ever be allowed to return to Mossad, until after she had nearly wiped out the program in its entirety.

That was when the quest for the life of one man, had turned her into The Phoenix. Taking down all those who had hurt others gave her that continued sense of justice, all the while earning a reputation as one of the world's deadliest assassins and all the matching paychecks, allowed her the freedom, cover, and resources to continue her own personal hunt... Until she was well beyond the point of no return. Nowadays, between jobs, she stared at the files she had accumulated over the years, desperately trying to figure out the one thing that she had missed... The one thing that allowed that killer to remain free.

She still didn't even have a name for the man, just a mountain of aliases, and the image of his face that had been burned into her memory ever since the day he had pushed his way past her terrified twelve year old self on the way out of her family home after leaving her parents bodies bloodied on their living room floor.

Tired, frustrated hands pushed the hair back off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Samar squeezed her eyes shut and then quickly opened them again, letting out a sigh of miserable annoyance as she tried to reset. Still, nothing new popped out at her from the pages in front of her. By this point, after years now, it felt like nothing ever would.

The phone strewn across the other end of the table began to buzz with a new, incoming message, making the entire table shake for a moment. Half-heartedly, Samar glanced up, before reaching across for it and wearily flipping it open. The message that stared up at her from that tiny screen finally made the tiniest of smile tug at her lips for the first time all day;

'Hey, how are you today?'

One hand swept across the table, pulling all the loose pages and photos back into their folder, and then pushed the folder back into the backpack that housed all of her belongings, as Samar read over that message once more. She shifted her gaze just enough to eye the time in the corner of the screen; 7:43. If any of the occasions she had gatecrashed his apartment in the last few weeks since the first time she had turned up with a pizza were any indication, Aram should have just arrived home from work. The tiny smile on Samar's face widened a little more; there was one thing she could do now after a whole day of trying to solve the mystery that haunted her, that stood the slightest chance of making the day a little better.

/*/*/*/*

'If you're going to keep turning up like this, I should just give you a key,' Aram's gently teasing voice greeted her as soon as he opened the front door to his apartment.
'I can pick locks,' Samar quipped, all too matter of factly. She pushed past him into the apartment, though the push was gentler this time, far more the move of a friend who knew she was welcome to come straight in and make herself at home, than the assassin who had barged her way in to interrogate him the first time around. 'The knocking is just a courtesy,' she added, as the door fell softly closed behind her. Aram simply shook his head, following her quite contently back inside his own apartment.
'Thanks,' he murmured, the pitch of his voice rising just enough at the end of the word to make it sound almost question-like, 'I think...' He shook his head again, torn somewhere halfway between genuine amusement and mock exasperation, and Samar simply glanced back at him over her shoulder, breaking into a teasing grin.

Aram chuckled softly to himself, leading the way back into the kitchen once Samar stopped in the living room. The smell of delicious cooking filled the air and caught her attention now, turning her smile into a far more curious one.

'So... What's this new recipe you're cooking that I have to help you taste test?' She mused. Samar lifted one edge of the lid on the pot that sat simmering on the stovetop, peering inside at the contents as if to answer her own question.
'It's a sort of chicken stew,' Aram explained, 'with rice, vegetables, kidney beans, paprika, a few Persian spices, and a dash of lime.' He turned on the spot, shooting her a sheepish grin over the bowl of freshly cooked rice he had just set on the counter. 'And you don't have to help me taste test it,' he added, shuffling awkwardly on the spot. 'It just seemed pointless to make a whole stew for one person.'
'So it's kind of somewhere between a Persian ghormeh sabzi, and a Hungarian chicken paprikash?' The lid was lowered back onto the pot and Samar glanced up at him, eyes crinkling far more eagerly than Aram would have anticipated. He did a double take, staring at her in amused disbelief and not quite sure how to respond to Samar's lightning fast rattling off of different stews. That was her cue to bow her head with her own hint of sheepishness; 'variations of stew is something I've always found everywhere, no matter where in the world I've ended up,' she added, giving a small shrug. A good stew was a comfort; wherever in the world she was, and even on some of her worst days in the last few years, there was always somewhere around that offered some national or regional specialty of stew. There were so many different types, but the foundation was always the same; meat, vegetables, seasoning, and an immensely satisfying warmth in her belly. It was one of the few things that always felt at least vaguely familiar no matter where she was.

It was one of those things that felt far more like home to her now, than any place ever did.

Aram moved across the kitchen to her side, peering into the pot for himself and screwing up his face in contemplation. All of a sudden, the pressure for the new concoction to go well, seemed to double in intensity at the sight of the enthusiasm on Samar's face.
'I'm not really sure how the lime is going to work with the paprika...' He warily observed. Samar glanced back and forth between him and the pot of still bubbling stew. The smell swirled through the air, filling her nostrils with a scent that she couldn't help but smile at.
'Well... It smells good,' she murmured.
'I guess...' Aram trailed off in response, 'and if it doesn't taste just as good, then there's always that new pizza place you wanted to try.' Finally, he broke into a cautious, but all too mischievous grin once more; 'they deliver, I checked.'

/*/*/*/*

The stew ended up being delicious enough that both Samar and Aram had second helpings, and Aram insisted on Samar taking a full tupperware container with her for lunch the next day just as he was planning to as well.

Samar's now empty lunch container sat on the table in her warehouse hideout alongside the piles of photos and notes scattered across once more. The time between jobs, staring at the puzzle of her parents' killers again was always frustrating, but now that her growing friendship with Aram filled her with a strange sense of personal progress, the lack of progress in the puzzle felt like it was pulling her backwards even more so.

Four days in a row of unsuccessfully trying to figure it out, and Samar was fairly certain that if she had to stare at those pages for one minute longer, her head was going to explode. With a sigh of absolute, utter frustration, she shoved the closest pages to her, sending them flying across the table. She dug the burn phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, staring once more at the clock in the corner.

If it was a normal day, Aram would still be at work.

That prompted yet another breath of frustration; having little else to do made her feel like time was going backwards. Regardless, Samar opened up the only text thread and began to type. Aram would get back to her as soon as he had a free moment.
'Still want to try that new pizza place?' Samar typed. She paused before tapping the send button, wondering if there was anything else to add, but ultimately decided against it. After a few weeks now of dinners and sporadic text conversations, Aram had at least a basic understanding of the mystery she was stuck on and how much it frustrated her. He would understand that she simply needed an outlet to move out and about, and look at something other than that endlessly annoying pile of pages.

Surprisingly, the phone buzzed with response while still held in her hand.

'Sure,' it read. Short and to the point, as Aram's messages often had to be while he was still at work and forced to be discreet with their communication, but as per usual he had added a smiley face. Samar paused before responding, hesitating over an idea suddenly popping into mind. Every dinner thus far, had been at Aram's place. That was understandable –after all, for the sake of keeping both their covers they couldn't be seen in public together, but also because Samar had initially been wary of sharing the location of her warehouse hideaway with him. Now though, she was content enough in her trust of him, that she was beginning to toy with that very idea.

Not to mention, her frustration at her lack of personal case progress was making the warehouse atmosphere feel particularly miserable... Maybe, just maybe, Aram would be able to bring back some levity to the space.

'Let's change the routine though,' Samar quickly typed back, breaking into a wry smile, 'I'll order now... And you see if you can find me.' Across the city at the Post Office, Aram paused at the sight of that message, reading it twice over again just to make sure he really was reading what he thought he was reading. To him, the concept was both terrifying –as if she was luring him into some kind of horrible trap- and thrilling all at the same time. It took everything to maintain the neutral expression of someone busily working, rather than breaking into the sort of nervous smile that would alert his co-workers to something else going on, as he hurriedly typed back;
'Challenge accepted.'

/*/*/*/*

Some two hours later, Aram found himself warily navigating the dark, back alleys of DC that he usually preferred to avoid. He had his phone in his hand –the main one, not the burn phone- with directions he had noted down for himself to guide him. So far, nothing threatening had jumped out at him from around a corner or from behind a garbage dumpster, but still Aram wandered the alleys with cautiously tensed shoulders. The simultaneous feeling of terror and thrill still had his stomach twisting in knots. It was almost the feeling of trying to track down the Batcave; both deathly curious and wondering if that really was something he wanted to see. By the time Aram reached what appeared to be the entrance to the warehouse that he suspected was Samar's hideout, his breath was caught in his throat.

Ever so cautiously, he knocked on the door.

Inch by inch, almost as if Samar was still toying with him, the door slowly opened and she peered out at him.
'I found you,' Aram practically gasped. He broke into a grin that ran wide from ear to ear, his words more an expression of stunned disbelief at the fact, than the sheer announcement of it. A smirk tugged at Samar's lips as she stood back from the door, quickly ushering him inside. Aram stared eagerly around the space, taking in every piece of it. The pieces of furniture scattered around gave a certain element of comfort and the air of a home-like environment, but it was only a mask. The walls were grey, the floor little more than cement, and the plastic dust covers on every surface seemed to be heading above and beyond their call of duty. The light was musty, limited to small corner lamps in only the spaces Samar was using and nothing more, so as not to let too much light flow out onto the street and arouse suspicion. For all the comfort that the endless couches seemed to portray, it was a hollow comfort... The sort of comfort that worked well for Samar's shorter visits, but was more a taunting reminder of everything she was really missing out on if she stayed there any longer.

Nonetheless, Samar stood in the centre of what seemed to be her preferred end of it all, watching and waiting for his gaze to return to her.

'How'd you do it?' She asked softly. The grin returned instantly to Aram's face, still inordinately pleased at having found her hiding place.
'Well...' He began, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 'Tracking the burn phone was a no go, I didn't even bother. What I did try was street surveillance cameras but you seem to be pretty good at avoiding those so you only popped up intermittently-' Aram rolled his eyes in mock exasperation at her triumphant smirk '-but then I remembered that you said something about a furniture warehouse so I searched for those in the area, narrowed it down by those that were surrounded by other abandoned buildings so you wouldn't have curious neighbours accusing you of trespassing, which brought my list down to three that I then narrowed down to one by calculating the distance between those and my place, and comparing it to how much time seems to pass between you texting to say you're on your way, and actually arriving. Then just to make sure I checked the street cameras around this one, and...' Aram suddenly paused in his delighted, non-stop rambling, shooting her an uneasy look.
'….And what?' Samar prompted. It took everything to hold back the chuckle at his antics and just how proud of himself that he seemed to be over them.
'And... You missed one,' Aram reluctantly pointed out, 'there's one on the corner two blocks over that you walk straight past every time, when you could go the other way around the block instead. It's longer but there are no cameras.' Samar's eyes went wide in horror.
'I thought that one was broken,' she grumbled, shaking her head. She muttered something else under her breath too, that Aram was fairly certain he didn't want to hear.
'Nope,' murmured back, shifting awkwardly on his feet, 'it's a little shaky, but it still works.'

Samar gave a sigh, but shot him a small smile all the same. He could have chosen not to tell her about the camera she had missed, instead keeping an eye on it for himself to track her movements, but he hadn't. For all his FBI agent dilemmas over where their friendship was going, he was being as honest with her as she was with him in sharing the location of her hideout. She took the few steps closer to the table where two boxes of fresh pizza sat waiting for them and picked them up, then turned and strode towards him once more, holding the boxes out to him. Aram's gaze however, was now focused, brow furrowed, not on his prize, but on the piles of pages on the table she was leaving behind.
'Is that your parents' case?' He asked quietly. Samar bit her lip at the question and at the concern quickly spreading across his face.
'Yeah...' She murmured, before slowly trailing off. There was nothing else she could think of to say in response. Aram watched her for a moment, wanting to help but not sure if she would want him to make the offer... Before deciding that he wanted to. The case bothered her, and that bothered him. If she didn't want his help, all she had to do was say no and he would leave it be... But he wanted to at least put the offer on the table so to speak, in case he could help. All he had to do was phrase it gently.
'Do you want a second set of eyes to look over it,' he began carefully, 'while we taste test this pizza?' Samar did a double take, tilting her head quizzically as she contemplated that. She had stared at the case for so long, it felt like she was missing something that was right in front of her nose.
'Actually...' She mused, offering him a soft smile, 'that would be helpful.'

Silence fell between them for a moment, as they sat at opposite sides of the table, spreading the endless pages around the pizza boxes. Piece by piece, they went over every photo, every note, and every detail, even well after the pizza boxes were empty and pushed to the side.

Hopefully, the extra set of eyes was all it would take to solve the mystery.

A/N: I'm just about ready to start working on the next section of the story now. It's starting to get exciting... I think the mojo is slowly coming back, folks! *victory dance* :)