Sara leaned back in her chair. So, Cassey was on the run? That was about as bad as bad could get. She heaved a sigh and ran her fingers through her thick black hair, all the while thinking about her friend alone on a train to, most likely, Italy.

"I'm not able to help it. The only way I can be of any use now is to find out about this guy. " mumbled Sara to herself, as there was no one else in her small apartment.

It didn't take Sara more than 3 hours to collect all the data she could find about Julian Druzhinia. According to the last database she'd checked, he was on top of the CIA's list of most wanted criminals. What on earth connected this bastard, who had already been sentenced for homicide, torture and manslaughter, to Cassandra? Okay, Sara knew Cassey was working for the Sicilian mafia, but her cute, little Cassey was way to kind to be able to work with someone like him! Sara shook her head in desperation. She'd probably never be able to figure Cassey out, because, even though they'd been friends for about all their life, she still couldn't see through Cassey's mask of coolness and composure. Well, at least she knew it was a mask, unlike most people who obviously believed Cassey was really as uncaring as she appeared to be. With a last look at the data, she send everything to Cassandra's account and dialled her number.

Cassey was woken up by her own, annoying ringtone.

"Hm?" was all she grunted into the phone, only to be greeted by a "That's not how you greet someone who just send you all the data they could find about a guy who's a complete and utter bastard and deserves to have his intestines ripped out while he's still conscious, chica!"

Cassandra had to stop herself from laughing. "Thanks a lot, Sara. I'll look at it once I can get my hands on a computer."

"What about your laptop?"

"Battery's dead."

"Oh."

They fell silent for some seconds until Cassandra heard the oh-so-familiar sound of a gun's safety being released.

"Sara...there's someone with a gun standing probably right behind you." Her voice sounded wooden, at least to herself.

"I know, chica. That person is pointing that very gun's barrel at the back of my head."

Unconsciously, Cassandra started trembling.

Sara had frozen on the spot the moment she had felt another person's presence in the room and the gun the intruder was pointing at her didn't encourage her to move, but even though her body was petrified, her brain was still working. She knew that smell the person behind her emitted. She'd smelled it before and was absolutely sure that there was only one person she knew that smelled like that.

"Chica, I know who's standing behind me." Sara gulped, as she was sure, that as soon as she'd say it out loud her attacker would shoot her. "It's your mo-"

The sound of the shot tore at Cassey's eardrums and tears made their way across her cheeks.

"Sara?" She knew that her friend wouldn't answer, but maybe, just maybe, she was still alive and Cassey clung to that tiny glimpse of hope like a drowning man would cling to a piece of driftwood.

Suddenly, a voice she hadn't heard in years, made her wish she was deaf.

"Cassandra, are you still there? Still holding on to your tiny bit of hope?" Cassandra tried to calm herself. It couldn't be HER, could it?

"Well..., I'm sorry to tell you , but Sara is no longer amongst us. To be honest, her exorbitantly large brain and fragments of her skull on her computer screen, which, by the way, seems to be the only source of light in this muggy apartment, make a fine work of art."

Cassandra stifled a sob and swallowed her tears, but was unable to speak anyway.

"Not able to speak, huh? Fine, I just wanted to tell you that I'm the one who's going to kill you and everyone close to you. Oh...and I know you're travelling by train, so be careful, because due to your irrational hope of Sara being alive, I was able to detect your current whereabouts. Man sieht sich~"

The line was cut off and Cassandra, in a sudden fit of rage, threw her phone out of the train, which was still moving through the now dull and ugly looking landscape of Austria.

The hours passed by, but Cassandra neither noticed nor cared. Everything seemed dull and, even though she tried to stop herself, she kept on crying and sobbing. Someone, she couldn't see quite clearly through her curtain of tears, but guessed it was the conductor, asked her whether everything was alright. Cassey couldn't remember her answer, but was sure she'd nodded in response and he'd probably given up and left after some minutes. He had work to do after all!

By the time the train came to a halt at the Roma Termini station, Cassandra had no tears left inside of her. She took a quick look at her reflection in the window. Her eyes looked puffy from crying and the lack of sleep, her hair was a mess and she smelled of the damn cigarettes she's bought and smoked while on this train. All in all, her pale complexion and the beforehand mentioned aspects mirrored her inner feeling perfectly: she felt awful.

She left the station in a hurry, all the while looking over her shoulder, which must have given a lot of people the impression she was paranoid, or at least no one dared to come close to her. After maybe 2 hours of wandering through the streets of Rome, Cassey found a little shop in an alleyway, which, much to her delight, had a public phone she could use and some sweets she could buy to stop her stomach from growling.

"Helloooo~ Lussuria speaking "

Cassandra stared at the phone in disbelief. She could her Lussuria speaking even though the phone was about an arm length away from her ear?

"Erm…it's me, Cassey." She braced herself for more screeching, but, much to her surprise, Lussuria continued speaking normally.

"Well…,are you calling me so I can tell you how your beloved Xanxus is doing? He's doing just fine, but maybe he's a bit more happy. You see, he's not throwing glasses at Squ-chan's head as often as he used to, so I guess he's happy."

Cassandra smiled. Xanxus was happy and that somehow made her happy as well…even though his way of showing happiness was quite…strange.

"Luss, I…need someone to talk to." She fidgeted with a strand of her hair.

"Oh…did anything happen, darling?"

"I…don't want to tell you everything over the phone. Where are you?"

"Erm…in Rome, at a friend's house. But, you know, you're not in Rome, you're in Germany…"

"I'm in Rome too." Cassey fought some tears back. She wouldn't cry here, where the vendor who was starring at her bum and the old man who had just bought a newspaper and was currently also starring at her bum, could see her.

"Then we can meet up. Where are you? You sound terribly tired, dear."

"I don't know where I am, so…let's meet…at the Pantheon."

"I'll be waiting for you. With a bag full of chocolate." He hung up and Cassey rushed out of the store before the two men could see her tears.

Why was Luss always being so nice and kind? And how did he find out that she needed tons and tons of chocolate right now?

I'm baaaack =)

My holidays are going to start this Friday and I'll try to update more often then. Why I'm updating now? Well...I'm sick ^^"

Short translation:

'Man sieht sich' - is Germany and could be roughly translated as 'See you'

Reviews are craved for O=)