I do have a good reason for the absent, I finished my bachelor degree and got a real grown up job! So, so sorry though, I will try an post another chapter within a few days!

xoxo

VPOV

The house striked me as something close to a British cliché, it was every bit of what I imagined a small countryside cottage would look like. It was located on a hillside with a beautiful view and a small rose garden turned brown by the fall. Ivy in reds and browns clung to the walls around the kitchen window as I looked outside.

The inside was sparsely, but beautifully decorated with warm colors and comfortable furniture. A large bookshelf stood in the living room filled with books wish gave me a faint hope that I would have something to do the next week, or weeks.

The small kitchen held what it needed to, and I began making tea. I noticed that the fridge was fully stocked as I looked for milk; I made a mental note to see if I could find a cookbook in the bookshelf later on. Mr. Bond, or James I guess, finished unpacking the car in time for the fresh tea. We settled in a comfortable silence.

The next week was uneventful, I cleaned, read and wrote on my master paper, cooked and every night James and I would end up discussing some current political or ethical problem. Under the circumstances, it was actually very pleasant. I slept badly however, sleep never came and when it did it was troubled by nightmares.

JPOV

A week in the assignment everything had so far gone as well as could be, Miss. Hagen (or

Victoria as she insisted I call her by her first name) proved to be good company and I had to

admit I had been wrong about her. She was not the spoilt and ignorant child of a minister; she was a well-educated and bright woman. She insisted on doing the cooking and cleaning, I guess to keep occupied; she made great food so I kept my mouth shut and thanked her. I did the dishes; it had become this unsaid agreement.

I had done the last round to make sure everything was in order before going to bed, all were doors locked, windows closed, no unknown cars outside and no unknown people inside. Victoria had went to bed early that night with a headache so I had checked her room before she had fallen asleep. Her room was located further from the stairs then my room, the window in her room was also facing the back of the house, more covered by trees. Harder for anyone to see inside, or manage to get a good shot at. The windows were all covered with vintage looking bars, they were however just a few weeks old. I had the room closest to the stairs putting myself in the middle of Victoria and some potential assassin. I slept with the door ajar and was always on guard, my weapon on the nightstand. This night were no exception, I had stepped into my pyjamas pants and was about to take of the white t-shirt I wore under button down shirts. I heard Victoria scream and glass shattering at the end of the hall and grabbed the gun I just had put down and ran towards her room. As I sprung into the bedroom it took less than two seconds to establish that no one but Victoria was there, it was a small room with nowhere to hide. In front of the bed stood Victoria looking disheveled with tears streaming down her face and her hair wild. She stood deadly still looking at the gun I still held high. I realized she was standing on broken glass.

VPOV

My nightmares tended to be a mix of every bad experience and thought I had in me, there were always weapons, darkness and chaos in them, and every time the bad dreams woke me I was exhausted after a sleep filled with suspense and angst. This night was worse than before and this time I sprung up from bed knocking over the glass of water and glass mug on my nightstand so it fell to the ground and shattered in thousands of pieces with a bang that caused my newly woken self to scream. Before I managed to do anything James came storming in with a gun, which caused the blood in my body to freeze.

"Do not move, not even a muscle!" James left the gun out of sight on a shelf before seconds' later coming back whit a pair of shoes in hand. He quickly pulled them on and came close to me.

"You are standing on broken glass so I need to lift you up so it won't do any more damage, lift your hands slowly up and put them around my neck. When you do that, I will lift you right up, alright? I did as he said, to out of myself to understand what just had happened.

He lifted me up and held me tight against himself, he ordered me to put my feet around him, and had I not been so scared I would have protested, blushed and probably died at this point. He held me up as if I weighed next to nothing and he quickly got me to the bathroom where he sat me down on the counter between to sinks. He turned round and switched on the light, grabbing a first aid kit from a drawer next to the door and placed a towel underneath my feet. I saw how the white towel got red spots and I started to feel the pain.

"What happened?" His eyes did not leave my feet as he was gently pulling broken glass from my feet; I let out a shaky breath and wiped away the reminder of tears on my cheeks before answering-

"To be quite honest I don't know, I have been sleeping so badly and keep having nightmares, and I guess this night was even worse than before. I just woke up being so scared I must have knocked the glass and mug over. I am so sorry about all this; your job is not to babysit me or being my nurse…" I groaned as he pulled the last piece of glass out of my foot and as the adrenaline was coming down the pain really kicked in. It also hit me that I was only dressed in a pair of nickers and a tank top, and you could see the scars on my thigh very clearly. It got me uneasy and all I wanted to do was to jump down and go to my room.

"You have to sit still, I'm almost done, just need to disinfect the wounds first, it will sting, sorry… When was the last time you slept well?" For the first time he looked up at me, no judgment in his eyes, only concern. It only intensified as he too noticed my scars.

"Last time I slept well was the summer of 2011, but it kinda got worse this august I guess"

"2011? Well, lack of sleep can bring out the worst from all of us. I am done, but I don't think there are any painkillers around here. I'll go check downstairs, don't move" He walked downstairs and quickly came back with an unopened bottle of Whisky and a glass. He poured a hearty dose in the glass before filling it with a little water from the tap, I was glad he did. He gave me the glass and I decided to just down it all to get it over with. James started to clean up and I was glad to see that there had only been a few, small pieces of glass he threw away.

"Those scars, they are from guns, how did you get them?" James were washing blood from his hands, an MI6 would definitely recognize them. I reached the bottle and filled myself another drink, although a bit smaller one, and downed that one too.

"Give me five minutes to let the alcohol do its job, and I'll tell you"