The shrill beeping from his bedside table kicks his pulse up for just a moment, not well used to hearing the sharp sound, causing him to suck in a breath. He shot a glare over his shoulder, one of his hands reaching out to turn off the alarm as he rises, each movement smooth, planned, and controlled.

He takes a quick mental inventory of himself, of his day, the information he just stored away. He takes the time to center his tie and straighten his suit jacket, his mind returning to her excitement over a dead body, tugging the ghost of a smirk from one corner of his mouth.

He wonders if this will be one of those instances in which she forgets the time all together. He had noticed she was awful at keeping track of it. She'd focus on something and forget to sleep, recalling her mentioning how she often only remembered she should sleep when her alarm was going off.

He found himself stepping into her firm, a nod to the secretary and a professional stride kept him from questions, though perhaps it was in part to his showing up earlier. But 47 knows the right outfit and a purposeful stride gets him into most any place. Thankfully everyone here is also wearing a suit, which further helps him to blend in.

Their conversation is brief, and he likes it that way. That is his comfort zone, and it allows him to take control of the situation. He tells her to head to her place, that he'd follow, and he'd bring food. He uses her distraction of her cases, and the embarrassment of him taking her by surprise a second time in one day, to get what he wants, which is her not whimpering about costs.

He turned on his heel before she could argue, bought some pasta, he'd seen her eat it before after all, and some white wine. The alcohol is nearly automatic, but once he gets a moment to consider he realizes she either will completely ignore it, give it a few sips to please him, or be happy to have something to ease the dull of being busy at work.

47 knew well just how great a glass of scotch or whiskey felt after far too much work in far too little time. He did not envy Arleen, either. Her work load was so drastically different from his. For him, it was simple. A hit was given, he brushed up on them, discovered the best plan of attack, finished the job, and awaited the next assignment.

Arleen had over a hundred cases at any given time, and had to some how remember the details of each. 47 knew he would not be able to manage too many projects at once. Too high of a chance for information to be forgotten, and the smallest thing could be the difference between life and death. Forgetting how many people lived in a house, or one number to a security system, could leave him vulnerable to capture or death.

Arleen was still in her entry way, having not gotten to her home long before he had, when he knocked his knuckles against the door. He rolled his eyes as a frown cut deeply into face at the sound of her clearly getting startled. How had she not seen his car coming into her driveway? The frown only deepened as she pulled open the front door without checking to see who it might be.

When she spotted him, wine and pasta boxes in his hands, and a frown quickly turning into a sneer on his face, she rose her brows up at him. "What?" she asked softly, glancing around outside as if whatever it was that had bothered him so much was out there, stepping to one side to let him in.

He felt some of his frustration melt away once he stepped into the house. She was barefoot now, and he always forgot how much those heels did for her. Without them she seemed so much more vulnerable. He shifted on his heel to face her, his sharp eyes locked onto her face as she shut her front door.

"You didn't even check to see who it was," he explained, his voice steady, firm, but mostly informative, like a father trying to explain something to his beloved child. "I could have meant you harm," he pointed out, though he had hardly finished his sentence when she playfully rolled her eyes, laughing.

"Malcolm, I knew you were coming along after me. Who else could it have been?" she asked, sliding out of her suit jacket. Once it was in the closet she turned back towards him, her hands settling on her wide hips. 47 felt almost as if he was being the one scolded for a moment, but he simply firmed his resolve.

"You are a criminal defense attorney with her home address on her business card, and you open the door every time without glancing to see who could be on the other side," he pointed out, his voice deadpan, though perhaps a bit on edge.

What did he miss about her again?

Though, he supposed as he watched her huff a laugh, wave one hand dismissively, and wrinkled up that nose of hers, that those actions were a small fraction of the things that had invaded his mind the past several months. He exhaled in defeat and tipped his head back for only a moment before returning it to a more defensive position.

"Never mind," he cut her off right before she had started to defend herself. "We shouldn't ruin our night because you lack survival instincts," he teased, exposing his teeth a moment and stepping for her kitchen, listening to her following after him like a well trained dog.

"I do too have survival instincts," she retorted quietly, folding her arms even if it went unseen by him. She touched at his hip as she reached around him once they both were in the kitchen to snag wine glasses, hardly aware of the way he tightened up.

Like always he had nearly attacked her, his hand reaching down, every muscle already set into a well trained sequence of events, which should have ended with her on the floor. Instead, he simply covered her hand for a moment, gritting his teeth before releasing her again, offering her hand a gentle pat. If she noticed the potential danger, she didn't bat an eyelash over it.

Together they were able to get their dinner set up properly, if you could call sitting on her old leather couch proper, but she seemed perfectly content with it. "So, you haven't been doing anything too dangerous, right?" she asked, shifting her bright eyes over to lock onto his face.

He rose a brow in return but remained stoic and silent, which seemed to mildly unnerve her. She began to fumble over her words, her hands gesturing vaguely at nothing. "Well, I mean. Not super dangerous. I know it's dangerous," she stumbled over her words, and eventually screwed her eyes shut.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he answered in his quiet, gravel filled voice, watching her through the corner of his eye as he pretended to be more focused on his plate. It was easy to make her squirm, and the hitman loved to see just how easy it could be.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she echoed, her voice sounding a bit more worried. "Are we going by injuries, successful missions, explosions," she rattled off, her attention far more on him than anything else, even if she did sip her wine directly after speaking.

"My missions are always successful," he answered, sounding like any other soldier Arleen had run across. He even sat straighter, turning to face her as he spoke, as if that would make her more likely to believe him.

Her right hand reached out slowly, her eyes locked with his until just the moment before her thumb brushed a long scar on the left side of his chin. "Always?" she asked, tightening up her eyes and showing off her own scars.

He managed to be properly gentle as he caught her hand and lowered it from his face. "Most of the time," he amended, his expression pinching a bit, showing his displeasure for admitting failure. "Very few injuries, mostly successful missions," he clarified, using her own terms, a natural habit that came from being trained to blend in with those around him.

She tightened up her eyes as if suspicious, reclining back as she eased her hand from his. "Your silence on explosions is disconcerting," she informed him teasingly, returning her gaze back to her plate to get another bite of food, though she could almost feel his frustration in the air. It served only to amuse her, and her nose wrinkled up to show it.

He spotted her freckled nose do that thing. That bunched up motion that hid those freckles. That thing he actually enjoyed. He shut his eyes in annoyance at himself. He shouldn't have come back, he knew he shouldn't, but he enjoyed her teasing, and teasing her in return, too damn much. He forced his jaw to loosen a bit as he settled back more, putting his arm up along the back of the couch to try and seem more relaxed, managing to eat one handed though he was nearly finished with his plate.

If Arleen noticed how forced his relaxation was, she didn't let on. When he asked her about her cases, if anything interesting had happened, she discussed her finalized cases, speaking at equal length both her triumphs and failures. Arleen simply found law interesting, though she always felt terrible for losing a case, feeling as if she had failed not only on the case, but had failed her client, and herself.

This was, perhaps, one of the things he found most interesting about her. When he found himself with an unsuccessful mission, it was thanks to the agency, or the client giving deliberately false information. He hated failure, and in his profession it was dangerous beyond his reputation. He couldn't imagine having the view she seemed to have of win some, lose some.

Arleen was content to sit there, one shoulder right near the crook of his elbow, not nestling into him nor keeping a forced distance. She was happy to sit in her place, to let him make the decision regarding the distance between the two of them. She didn't want to crowd him as she had learned well enough already that he had a severe problem with touching, or someone being too close.

He noticed her attempts at consideration, how could he not when she was as subtle as a mac truck, but made no mention of it. Perhaps because he appreciated it, perhaps because he loved watching the way that people treated one another, her in particular, or perhaps it was simply because he loved seeing how far a person would go.

Arleen never pushed him to talk about things, and when there was a lull in the conversation she was more than happy to fill in the gaps with whatever she could think of. Old cases that she had found interesting and figured he might find enjoyment in hearing about it, friends, co-workers, even a bit about her siblings. 47 noticed she didn't say a word about her ex-husband.

For some reason he enjoyed it, her attempts at keeping him entertained being enough to entertain him, let alone the stories she was telling. He did notice something about the way she got when speaking about a prosecutor she dealt with often, some man named Fletcher that caused her to look so frustrated and annoyed that he worried he would end up having to calm her back down.

It was as intriguing as it was entertaining. Arleen seemed unshakable in her constant patience, so for someone to bother her to such a point was interesting indeed to the contract killer. He wondered just what is was about him. Arleen could complain in her stories all she wished, but it didn't give him a true window into what it was that rubbed her the wrong way about the other lawyer.

"Would you defend him?" he asked, one of the few times he ever asked a question when listening to her speak. Arleen was terrible about rambling, she detested talking without a focal point. In court she had a reason to speak. Ask her a question and she'll deliver an answer. But her simply talking was nothing but a task.

"Of course I would," she answered, her brows furrowing and her voice holding a clear tone of confusion. "Why wouldn't I defend him?" she asked, leaning towards him just a bit, more enthralled in the conversation now that it wasn't her simply speaking to try and fill the silence.

"You seem to hate him," he explained for his reasoning, studying her and her position in relation to him. He could get his arm around her shoulders without dragging her against his side. He would seem a lot more normal if he did, he reasoned with himself. He brought his arm down slow, his hand cupping her deltoid on the opposite side of her body.

"So? That doesn't mean to is undeserving of counsel or representation," she whispered, relaxing as he put his arm around her. "And I wouldn't say I hate him. He just frustrates me. He's a great lawyer, and that's bad news for me," she pointed out, her hands settling in her lap.

47 furrowed his brows at her, twisting his lips to one side. "So you dislike him because he beats you in court?" he asked for clarification, doing his very best to keep his tone steady as he watched the expression on her face turn almost scandalized for him suggesting that was the reason.

"No, that isn't why. He's rude," she admitted, furrowing his brows as he chuckled, looking away from her for a moment to be sure his expression was schooled. Laughter wasn't exactly something he was used to, though it was one of the things that drew him to her. She made him laugh. "What?" she asked for clarification, her voice holding an obvious pout.

He glanced back to her, shrugging his shoulders. "So rudeness is what does it? Not killing someone, or shoving a gun in your face. But being rude, that's unforgivable?" he questioned, tilting his head subtly to one side, watching her as she folded her arms under her chest, her legs drawing up more so her knees were pushing into his thigh.

"People who do violent things often times something terrible happened to them to make them that way. A bad childhood, a risk to their own safety, something. Rude people are just spoiled, gifted everything in life and unaware of the fact other people are struggling through life," she explained, leaning back against the cushions of the couch.

He was quiet for a moment as he considered this line of thinking. He simply couldn't wrap his mind around it. Too many people he had removed from this world seemed to be born cold, cruel, and vicious. The idea of them being innocent little children and having some type of life defining moment that turned them into the monsters he choked the life out of was beyond his scope of thought.

"So, how long are you going to be around this time?" she asked quietly, lifting her eyes to his face, looking soft and vulnerable. She was the perfect mix of intelligent, yet terribly stupid when it came to survival. Forgiving, but seemed unable to believe that she was worth forgiveness in turn. While he was sure that, if given the chance, he could find a woman just like her in any city, he found himself enjoying her presence more and more.

"Few days, same as before," he explained, able to feel her deflating subtly under his hand. Boldly, he brought her closer against his side, only stopping when he felt her handle settle over his ribs. "But I don't have anything else to focus on this time," he offered to her. This was a lie for two reasons. He did have other things to focus on this time, where as when they had met he was enjoying some actual vacation time.

Arleen's legs had slid onto his thigh a bit when he had brought her closer, but she hardly noticed it, nor the fact one of her hands was curling into his suit jacket. She bit back a frown, nodding her head as she tried to figure out how to go about maximizing their time together.

47 could see those gears turning in her head and he patted her deltoid. "Arleen, we already spoke about this. At lunch?" he asked quietly, raising his brows at her. He'd be worried if he wasn't so sure that, number one, he retained everything that happened around him, and number two, Arleen was a woman with a pile of cases on her plate at all times.

Arleen bit her bottom lip and wrinkled up her nose. "Right," she whispered sheepishly, a faint blush covering her cheeks. This was getting too intimate for him, and he had been doing his best to push himself beyond his comfort zone. If nothing else, Arleen was a great training tool. He would learn how to deal with things such as this, and being able to connect at this sort of an intimate level would sure help him to get into higher security areas.

He stood, gathering up their plates. It was absolutely alien for him, but he knew it was what normal people do. He knocked back the remains of his wine glass, leaving hers on the table, smirking once he had his back turned at her sputtering.

She got up and followed after him, carrying her own wine glass. "You bought dinner, and you're a guest in my house. I should be cleaning," she finally articulated, her eyes tightening as she spotted the smug look on his face as he glanced over his shoulder.

"You were at work all day," he countered, setting the plates next to the sink before shedding his suit jacket. Arleen automatically took it as he extended it to her. At this point, he was trying to see how far he could push her. He could see her out of his peripheral vision, practically chewing on her bottom lip while clutching his suit jacket against her chest, her other hand setting the wine down well away to avoid spilling on it.

He rolled up his dress shirt sleeves to his elbow, hardly putting any focus into his task. He was paying attention to her and her lack of reaction at fully seeing his double holster, and a good portion of his focus remained on keeping the area around him safe, studying the horizon and listening to every passing car.

"I can't properly express to you how illegal that is," she admitted quietly, earning another chuckle from the contract killer. Though as her eyes moved from his holster to his arms, where he had significantly more scars than he did on his face.

"You really need to be more careful," she whispered quietly, her brows drawn together as she touched gently at his left forearm, making absolutely sure to not hinder his ability to clean the dish he was currently working on.

He glanced down at her, always forgetting how much shorter she was without her heels on. "I am now. Those are old," he explained, glancing to her with a bit of a smug grin as he finished the last piece of silverware.

Arleen pulled in a breath as if she wanted to scold him, to get after him more for his apparent lack of concern for himself, but she could tell no amount of her concern or fretting would help him when he was in the thick of it, and they weren't anything remotely official, her even worrying about this was silly.

She offered him a dry towel for his hands, waiting patiently for him to finish fixing the sleeves of his shirt. She offered the heavy black jacket to him, watching as he shrugged it on with the same level of routine she had when she did the same motion.

"It's late. We should both sleep," he informed her, glancing to the clock over her oven before returning his icy eyes to her soft face. "I'll see you tomorrow for lunch," he reassured her, bowing his head a bit to try and make himself appear more serious.

"Alright," she conceded, unaware of how obvious she had been in her worry and want to keep him around longer, as if that would help him once he was off again to wherever he was asked to go. While Arleen hadn't ever met someone in a special operations division of any branch of the military, something told her he wasn't any sort of American soldier, but she was too trusting to dare give even a questioning thought any of her time.

Their goodbyes for the night weren't climatic. He cupped her deltoid and she touched his forearm and then just like before he was gone, driving back down the highway towards the city of angels while she stood in her doorway, watching the tail lights fade into the distance before finally closing and locking her front door.