A/N: I know it's been... uh, years since I've updated this, but I still seem to have 27 people who are still "following" this story. Hopefully you all get emails about this new chapter and are still interested in knowing how it ends! I have brewed up a handful of chapters, because I do plan on finishing this story!

Early the next morning, Bridget was abruptly awoken by the sound of a muffled scream. Because the door to the corridor was shut, the hospital room was quite dark and the sun had still not risen. She sat bolt upright in bed and turned her head towards Hans Landa's bed. Indeed, the scream had emerged from his lips. He was lying flat on his back, eyes locked on the ceiling.

Hans Landa's face was sickly pale save for redness around his eyes, and his sweat-soaked hair was matted to his forehead. Bridget watched as his chest rapidly rose and fell with each quivering breath underneath the thin hospital sheets. Landa's hands gripped the edge of the sheet with white-knuckled intensity, and Bridget could see the muscles in his jaw bulging as his teeth chattered. The bottom halves of both of his legs were exposed and the leg that she had shot appeared to be alarmingly red.

In short, the former Nazi looked like death. A smile began at the corners of Bridget's lips and spread across her face. Her revenge was taking its time going to completion, but it was definitely on its way. He most certainly had an infection or something of the sort. Something was terribly wrong with him and she couldn't be happier that she'd been the one to initiate it.

"N-nurse," Landa murmured through his chattering teeth, his eyes shut tightly now as chills racked his body.

What bliss to watch this man suffer! He had been responsible for the death of so many, and she and the being inside of her had almost been on that list. She rolled quietly onto her side and propped up her head on an elbow to take in the sight, the smile widening on her lips. Suddenly, her bed let out a metallic squeak with the shifting of her weight. Hans's eyes shot open and his head rolled towards her, beads of sweat glistening in the crevices of the swastika in his forehead. The look on his face was that of utter terror.

Her sadistic smile only grew at his obvious suffering. It was then she spoke to him, her words emerging smoothly and quietly from her lips.

"You don't need a nurse," she murmured. "You deserve to suffer."

Normally he would have smiled at this kind of comment and spat out a witty retort, but the pain was too great. Another chill traveled down his spine and he clamped his mouth shut in an attempt to prevent himself from retching. Perhaps he was on his way to dying; it certainly felt that way.

"What?" Bridget replied, feigning surprise at his silence."You mean, you've nothing to say, for once? The pain must be severe indeed," she added with a sneer. The fact that Landa was wholly unable to respond stymied her rage. Perhaps she would be quiet now, and watch him moan and tremble and pray for a nurse to come.

And come the nurse did, much quicker than she would have hoped.

"He's septic!" the nurse cried, having felt his forehead and taken a look at the oozing wound. "We need to fetch the doctor!"

Soon thereafter Landa was wheeled off to the surgical suite yet again, and Bridget was handed a release from the hospital and the promise of an impending taxi ride back home.

Bridget von Hammersmark stood in her kitchen, pulling open her knife drawer and glancing inside at the silvery serrated edges.

She wasn't much of a cook or an entertainer, and so the knives had yet to be used. They had been purchased shortly after she'd signed the lease to rent this particular property. The bungalow was in the ideal location for her to launch her career as an actress, one in a rather expensive too expensive for an out of work actress who had recently fled her home country in a hurry.

Hans Landa's wallet and car keys were in her hand and she absentmindedly shuffled them back and forth under her fingers. Now was the time to remove Hans Landa, Medal of Honor recipient, from California. She pulled out his driver's license, car registration, military honorable discharge card and everything else she had found in his car and in his wallet with his name on it. His big stupid toothy grin was apparent on his photo ID cards, and she rolled her eyes as she placed them in a sauce pot in the sink. The cash he carried, she pocketed.

Bridget pulled out a matchbook from her kitchen cabinet and set fire to Landa's driver's license and identification cards. She watched his shit-eating grin melt away in the flames along with his name, both soon becoming indistinguishable from the metal of the pot beneath. Quickly she added his other eponymous documents into the little fire. Hans Landa was no more, at least not in sunny California.

She strode towards her bedroom now, having noticed the blood trail upon entering her house but choosing to ignore it until now. There was quite a lot of blood. Shit. She'd have a lot of scrubbing to do.

There was a sour smell when she entered the bedroom. The gun she had hidden between the mattress and box spring was still there. Her stomach turned at what she had left behind.

Body fluids everywhere; a crackled and dried black waterfall of blood having cascaded down her mattress, dribbles of it splattered onto the wallpaper, and the pièce de résistance, a large dried black pool of blood beside the was where Landa should have bled to death. There certainly was enough blood here to assume someone had died.

She hadn't needed a scrub bucket until now, and sought out the trash can as an alternative. She could fill it with vinegar and water and hope that the bloodstains would come out of the carpet.

The sour smell originated from her trash can. She peered in to find a rather disgusting soup of stale acrid vomit inside. How odd—was it Landa's? Certainly she would have remembered vomiting and then neglecting to dump it out.

Hours passed. The stain on her carpet grew lighter as she scrubbed her bedroom floor on hands and knees, occasionally feeling the baby move inside of her.

Now what should she do? She'd instructed the nurses at the hospital to call her with updates on Landa's condition. What would they be saying? That he'd successfully made it out of surgery? That there was no more that could be done for him?

And if he made it through surgery successfully and was on his way to better health, what then? He'd be released from the hospital, and he knew where she lived. Should she move?

She would have to move eventually, that was for sure. She was barely making ends meet, as it were, and at some point, she'd probably have to break the lease and admit to not having enough money to stay.

The sad part about it at all is that this house that she chose was the cheapest rental in the Hollywood hills. The entire building could have fit within her German home.

It was a shame. If she'd had time to leave Germany on her terms—selling her house, selling her possessions, packing suitcase after suitcase—she would have had quite a nest egg to start with. In all the confusion and chaos following Germany's surrender, she'd only had time enough to pack up her German radio along with a suitcase full of clothes and jewelry, and accompany them on her escape to freedom, to new beginnings.

Even with the knowledge that she'd have to move soon, most likely before the child was born,Bridget was not one to cower away from a fight. She'd beaten Colonel Hans Landa twice now, once in the Paris movie theatre and once in her own bedroom. He was the one in severe pain, on the brink of death. It was very possible that he would die and she wouldn't have to worry a moment more about him and his plans for her.

But if he did survive, she had to be ready for him. His identification was as good as gone, so the ridiculous Medal of Honor shit could not be proven. He still, however, had that giant swastika in the middle of his head, and now she could inform the nurses that yes, he was an escaped Nazi. Perhaps they'd take him directly from surgery back to Germany where he could be hanged for his crimes.

Hans Landa was a lucky man, though. He'd get through the surgery and he'd recover and he'd find his way back to her house and she'd have to be ready to kill him.

She placed a lid over the scorched remnants of Hans Landa's documentation in her sauce pot and turned her attention again to the knife drawer. Hans himself had created the perfect excuse for his own impending demise, should he return to the house: his poor, pregnant wife was currently traumatized and alone after having had someone break into the house and shoot her husband. So why wouldn't she kill first and ask questions later? She could cry on cue for the police during questioning, put on the best act; it would be the role of a lifetime—getting rid of a monster once and for all.

"He's still in surgery, Ma'am."

It had come to this. The hospital had gone so long without notifying her of Landa's condition that she had had to call them. Surely it had been at least ten hours since he'd first entered surgery!

"How in the world can he still be—?"

"He has a rather serious infection, Mrs. Haynesworth. We will be sure to call you when something changes," the nurse reassured her.

Now was her chance to tell them. Her so-called husband's identifying papers were gone and he would no longer be Hans Landa, Medal of Honor courageous double agent and WWII hero.

"I just wanted to let you know something," Bridget began. "He… my husband—is an escaped Nazi."

Perhaps now that the hospital knew this fact, they wouldn't work as hard to save him. He was, after all, a criminal. They would never get to know that he was the infamous Jew Hunter, but instead another infamous deceased Nazi, Dieter Hellstrom. It was a shame that Landa's own record could not be used against him.

"We all figured as much from that scar on his face," the nurse replied in a low voice. "Thank you for your candor, Ma'am. We will keep you informed."

The ring of her telephone in the dead of night woke her up in a cold sweat. She sat up on her bed, eyes wide open in the complete darkness, the phone's loud shrillness beckoning her through the house. Landa's fate would now be known, if she could race to the phone on time.

"Mrs. Haynesworth, so sorry to call you so late, but your husband made it through surgery and is in recovery."

She blinked twice as she turned on a small light atop her German radio, cradling the phone between head and shoulder.

"Wait—what did you say?"

"He is now resting. You may visit him tomorrow at the earliest, but I must warn you, he will be in a lot of pain."

"Wh-what did they do exactly?" Bridget stammered into the phone, twisting the phone cord around her fingers.

"Well, it's—I think for the sake of your nerves and your unborn child, that seeing him in person would be better than my telling you on the phone. But rest assured, Ma'am, he is through the worst and will continue to improve over the next several weeks."

"Weeks?"

"He has to have ample time to recover. We do understand that you are home alone and with child so it's possible once he feels well enough he can request an earlier release, but it will take some time. I'm sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Haynesworth."

This was certainly a different nurse than the one she had spoken to earlier and revealed Landa's Nazi past. It was not the time now to let this woman know.

Bridget wondered what the nurse meant about needing to see him in person, but she would not be visiting Hans Landa in the hospital. If indeed he required weeks to recover, she could make arrangements to change her name and disappear but that was not an option for her. If he was stupid enough to return to the house, it would be the end of him.

"Can you call me when he is to be discharged from the hospital?" Bridget asked carefully, knowing that there would be follow-up questions from the nurse. She was correct.

"He will need to be in the hospital for quite a while," the nurse replied. "He will not be discharged for several weeks. You will have plenty of time to visit him and talk with him before discharge, but yes, we will call you when he can be released."

"Mister Haynesworth, can you hear me?"

A flood of blinding white light crossed the thin flesh of his eyelids as he lie in bed after the lengthy surgery. He felt disoriented and sick to his stomach as he came to, his mouth cottony and eyes burning. He reflexively winced but did not make a sound or open his eyes.

"Mister Haynesworth," the voice repeated. A hand touched his own. "Squeeze my hand if you can."

He squeezed the hand of the unknown person as his mind spun. How had he ended up here? What had happened to him? He had so many questions but his mouth couldn't even form the words. Hell, he couldn't even figure out how to open his sticky eyes.

It was several more minutes before he could get some saliva into his dry mouth. Complications must have arisen with his gunshot wound. He moved his fingers reflexively to touch his damaged right leg.

"Let's not be too hasty, Sir," the nurse said, attempting to bat his hand away.

Hans's eyes opened then, squinting in the bright hospital lights. Ignoring the nurse, he reached his arm down again, to scratch his knee.

It was gone.