Molly was fighting to keep her breathing steady as she levelled the firearm directly at the door. She'd been ready for far too long – hair carefully pinned up with curling tendrils framing her face, makeup painstakingly applied, a new dress just for the occasion – and she'd been starting to worry that he was going to be late. Or not show at all. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. But then she heard the rattle of the ancient lift and she stopped pacing, stopped fussing with her hair in the mirror, stopped smoothing her dress to check for the thousandth time if you could see the line of her underwear through it. She picked up the handgun, the weight now familiar in her small hand, drew a deep breath and trained it on the door just as it swung open.
When she'd approached Sebastian initially, she'd been sure he was going to laugh at her. It had taken three texts to get him to reply to her, a further four for him to agree to meet her in person. She didn't want a paper trail, even though she was sure that if Jim was watching either of their phones, they'd have known about it from the first message. They'd met on neutral territory, a non-descript chain coffee shop round the corner from the hospital. It had only been a discreet but definite pressing together of his lips that stopped her assumption from coming true, a smirk spreading across his face instead. Her cheeks had coloured and she'd cursed herself for even thinking of it. She was already the unfortunate lapdog of one impossibly handsome man, she didn't need another one mocking her right to her face.
"You think this is the way to do it, do you? Make yourself, what? Indispensable?" He hadn't touched the black coffee she'd bought him, sitting bolt upright and looking out of place surrounded by the chattering mums and students engrossed in their laptops. What an odd pair they must look.
"Perhaps." She hated to admit it to anyone, but she could feel Jim pulling away from her. And she wasn't foolish enough to think that she'd be allowed to just go back to her normal life once he got bored of her. So she had a whole proposal, a list of reasons why this would work, but she had been hoping they wouldn't be necessary. She realised now that she'd been too optimistic.
He hadn't agreed in the coffee shop. He'd shaken his head and winced as she launched into her spiel, looking distinctly bored through most of it, and left his coffee to go cold as he raised himself from the table and told her that it wouldn't be his death warrant she signed with this childish notion of being helpful. She'd been deflated, but three days later, a single word text had beeped into her phone in the early hours of the morning.
Fine.
And the sneaking around had commenced. Fortunately, Moran knew a seemingly endless stream of abandoned warehouses and office blocks without CCTV or anyone to be suspicious at the sound of gunfire. It had been harder, physically, than she'd imagined. And he was hardly an easy person to be around – surly and prone to mood swings, taking a long time to soften even a little towards her. But eventually they'd settled into something of a…companionable civility. The first time she'd hit the centre of one of his homemade targets, he'd actually high fived her – the first time he'd touched her voluntarily. After that, it felt a little more natural until finally he was adjusting her grip and stance and shoulder placement himself, quick gentle brushes to instruct her where to move. That sped things up, her heart rate being just one of them. But that was stupid, a girlish fantasy she very much kept to herself for when she sank into bed, her head whirling in a way which was simultaneously exciting and guilt-inducing. She tried very hard not to notice how similar it felt to the early days with Jim, or that brief flirtation with John – but sometimes she secretly wallowed in it, letting a smile play around her lips as she recalled a quip or a glance from him while she was knee deep in paperwork. It made the days go a little faster, as she waited for the next night they'd spend together.
Something she hadn't expected was his passion. Once they'd got the basics out of the way and she'd proved herself to not be completely incompetent, he'd started going into more detail and this was where he really came alive before her eyes. The stoic military façade seemed to slide, and in its place was the bright-eyed keenness that normally accompanied a teenage boy and his Pokemon cards or the Star Wars franchise. He loved guns, and he seemed to know everything there was to know about them. Watching him talk made her smile, and made her more interested in learning from him. It's hard not to be infected by that kind of commitment.
They also went over some basic hand-to-hand combat and self defence techniques, so that her arsenal wasn't purely based on being armed.
"Since the chances of that being the case are probably slim," he commented, and when she quirked an eyebrow questioningly, he quirked one right back.
"It's very sweet that you're doing this, but do you actually think he's going to let you walk around London strapped? Anyway. I've seen the dresses you wear with him. Not a lot of room for a holster." His eyebrows raised momentarily in a sardonic expression, and she had to turn away to hide her glowing cheeks.
And now…they were done. He had declared her as ready as she was going to be, and they both knew they had really pushed their luck in terms of stealing time away from Jim. At their last session, Sebastian had pulled two beers – warm from being sat around all night – from his holdall and they had clinked the bottles together, drinking in an oddly friendly silence. She'd wanted to ask him, then. About his life before Jim, his life with Jim. She'd known him, she realised, for quite a long time at this point but knew only a smattering of superficial details. But she didn't. She left him outside the decrepit airport hangar they'd been working in and stepped into a cab, not caring that it probably looked like the aftermath of a drugs handover or something equally as sinister. They'd agreed early on that he could never drive her home, and so he'd taken to arriving on his motorbike so Jim wouldn't notice the car missing. She'd raised a hand to him through the car window, but he didn't see her, already pulling his biking leathers and helmet from the holdall. She realised that was going to miss the training, as pathetic as that sounded. It had been nice to have something which was just hers.
And hopefully, she could still have that. Jim. Jim could be hers, if she proved to him how useful she was. If she didn't fuck this up.
He raised his eyebrows as he registered the gun pointing squarely between his eyes. The shock – yes, unfortunately he had to admit it was shock – that he felt crossed his face as nothing more than mild surprise, and he lifted his hands in a casual limp-wristed way, a token gesture towards surrender.
"So someone wants to play with the big boys, do they?" he asked slyly. His drawl was smooth and unflustered. His eyes burned into hers, holding her gaze confidently. "You'd better have a good explanation for this, kitten.