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Disclaimer: Don't own anything from Collateral. And I don't own Shakespeare, either.

Shakespeare

He healed fast. Within three days he was able to get up, move around, and seemed quite ready to leave. But he stayed. She didn't know why he stayed. Maybe it had something to do with the conversation.

During the days, she went home and slept, leaving him alone. The first day she had stayed to watch him, but seeing that he was quite capable of taking care of himself, hadn't done so over the next two days. When she came in at dusk, she checked the waiting room, realized that it was an obvious problem, having him lying there when other clientele came in for mending, so she decided to just make the waiting room off limits. She moved a few chairs into the small hallway, posted a makeshift sign telling people to sit in the hallway. During the quiet hours, of which there were plenty, she went in the waiting room and sat with him.

They had started talking.

He asked her how she had become a doctor. She gave him the standard story, up until the point where she'd discovered severe signs of advanced sexual abuse in a ten year old boy who was on the brink of death. She wished she had been more careful, checked out who the father was before going on the war path. Not, she told herself, and eventually him when he pressed it, that it would have stopped her. Wrong was wrong. And here she was.

"You and I are opposites, you know," he commented. He had wedged himself upright with some tattered sofa cushions, his white shirt, tainted pink now from the permeation of his own blood, partly closed, in spite of the huge, dark red oval over the right side of his body.

She arched an eyebrow. She wasn't used to talking much with people. Having become a night person, there weren't many people around to talk to. There were a few prostitutes who came in now and again, talked to her about her life, wondering how she managed to be respectable in the same world they inhabited, where women were just a commodity to be bought and traded. There was one drug dealer who seemed to have a good soul, but had been sucked, like her, onto the wrong path, and didn't know how to get off it. He was good for a few philosophical discussions, but he was few and far between. She'd never chatted with an assassin. Usually when she got assassins they kept their mouths tightly shut.

She hadn't pegged Vincent for much of a chatter in the beginning. She should have been somewhat used to it by now.

"How do you mean?"

"You give life. I take it away."

"I don't give life, I just fix whatever's wrong with the human body."

"And if you didn't, these people would probably die." He smirked at her, the light from outside catching on the gunmetal-gray of his hair.

"Why is your hair that color?" she asked idly, sipping at a cup of black Starbucks coffee that she had reheated at least three times in her microwave, giving it the strength now of nuclear waste.

He shrugged. "Premature gray, what can I say?"

She shook her head. "You have dark roots. You did that on purpose."

"It matches my suit."

It was her turn to smirk. Of all the things to clam up about, it was his damn hair. Some people were so funny.

"So you know how I became a doctor. How did you become what you are?"

"A contract killer?" he said, with the sort of indifference that reminded her of the coldness of the person she was talking to.

"Yeah."

"Well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Pure deadpan as he did it. A few years ago, she might have thought he was serious. She'd gotten used to his twisted sense of humor.

"Seriously."

"Seriously." He echoed, then looked away, as if the answer were written on the wall behind him. "Well, it mostly had to do with a big spiritual revelation."

"Nihilistic ways of thinking can be called spiritual?" she asked.

"White is called a color, when it is really the absence of all color."

"I see your point."

"After that, it didn't matter what I did. The first one was hard, I admit. The first one is always hard. I actually threw up, if you can picture that."

"No, I can't."

"After that, it was easy. The more I did it, the easier it was. Now." He gave a half-shrug. "It's just a job."

"Somehow I expected more out of you than that," she said with a sigh, standing up.

He seemed confused. "What do you mean?"

"Typical hard-hearted assassin," she said, dumping her coffee, even thought there was half an inch left. "I guess I shouldn't have expected more," she added, this one to herself. "What the hell did I expect, anyway?"

There was a rustling at the door. She stepped out of the waiting room, without having to tell him to be quiet. She turned off the single dim light on her way, closed the door behind her, went into her lab, anticipating whomever it was who had come to see her. She had just reached her lab table when she realized that there was more than a single pair of footsteps entering her office.

"Dr. Potter?"

Victoria turned, a scalpel carefully shifted into the fold of her sleeve, just in case. But it was business, a couple of men in suits, armed but not threatening.

"We need your help, Dr. Potter," the first one said.

"Most of my clients introduce themselves first," Victoria said, politely.

"I'm Mr. Cranke, these are my associates, Mr. Bottom and Mr. Puck."

"Read Midsummer Night's Dream one too many times, have we?" Victoria joked casually, reaching for her medical bag.

"Excuse me?" Mr. Cranke asked. "I didn't follow you..."

"No, but I'll follow you. You work for Marcus Shakespeare, right? How badly shot is he this time?"

Marcus Shakespeare---the man was nuts for naming himself that. It wasn't his real name, he'd adopted the last name legally. If legally meant by bribes and pressure on all the right people. He had the money to spare, too.

It seemed he needed to spend more of it on better security. There had been so many assassination attempts on the man in the past six months alone, it was almost enough money for her to finish paying back her loans. She would have finished a lot faster if she wasn't the kind of person who liked saving money in savings accounts. And she never went on shopping sprees with her credit card, always a plus.

They politely escorted her to their waiting car, where they asked her kindly if she would please place the velvet bag over her head, which she did. It was routine. No one saw where Shakespeare hid himself. Not even her, who was starting to become his regular physician. Bullet wounds had become something of a specialty for her, and they'd picked up on that fast.

They treated her well. The inside of the velvet bag had even been scented with something that smelled like linen. Of all the things, she thought wryly. They offered her some mineral water when they arrived, which she took, to clear her throat, and after she was done, they offered her a meal in the dining room before she was returned to her office.

It was routine. She got calls like this all the time. They paid her extra for her to wear the bag. Shakespeare - she hated thinking of him like that - Marcus liked her, she could tell by the way his eyes lit up when she arrived at his bedside. He was a rather large man, dark hair going gray, muscular enough to hold his own in a fight, but aged enough to be slowed down. Still, she was quite sure that whoever had dared put that bullet in his lower leg had suffered far worse than he.

She didn't like to think about it. She didn't think about it, she just did her job. They were humans, they needed fixing. These people had all the supplies she needed, and she left Mr. Marcus in a state of half-bliss, the flattened bullet in the hands of people who knew what to do with those things. She was not a forensic expert, although she was starting to wonder if she should have taken it up, like she'd had the hunch to do during her senior year in college. But no, she'd wanted to work with people.

The irony, it was agonizing. If that was irony, she was never quite sure of the meaning of that word.

"This is wonderful chicken salad," she commented idly to the man who stood close by -Mr. Puck, if she remembered correctly.

"The Bard ordered it especially for you, after your last visit," he said. "And the tea?"

"Passionfruit flavored," she said with a smile, finishing the last few drops. "Could you slip me some of the leaves before I go?"

He did, and within a half hour she was back at her office. When she came in, she was met with a rather annoyed Vincent.

"Where have you been?" he asked, trying to be calm and failing only in the sense that he was looking around everywhere, something she discovered he only did if he was nervous.

"Working," she said. "I had a call."

"A call that made them put a bag over your head?" Vincent asked, his voice heavy with incredulity.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I'm fine." She put her stuff away, realized he was still mildly pacing her office.

"Who were you treating?" he asked.

"Do I ask you who hires you to kill people?" she said, after shoving the last of her gauze back in the box, standing up and pressing a fist against the small of her back. That chicken salad was going to make her fat. She could already feel the mayonnaise making its way to her thighs.

"You don't have to be rude," he said, although there was a hint of contrition in his voice. "I understand, professional confidence. It's fine. I just don't like being kept in the dark."

"Vincent, you've been here three days. I think you're well enough to go home," she said, opening and closing some drawers, suddenly very uncomfortable with his continued presence in her office.

"You want me to leave?" he asked. He stopped by the door, looked back at her, face a picture of innocence. She had studied that face before, how it could be so perfect, and so absolutely nuts underneath, she didn't know. She thought there was some kind of rule in nature against beautiful things going insane.

Suddenly, she felt guilty. "It's not that," she sighed. She slammed the last drawer shut. "You still wearing that shirt?"

He looked down. His white shirt still hung open, ruined and bloodsoaked. "I don't have anything else."

She picked up her keys. "Look, I'll go get you a shirt."

"At three in the morning?"

"Well, I'm not going to send you off looking like that. And your ear-" she stepped closer, and then suddenly the door behind her opened. She spun around, startled, vaguely heard - more like felt, as Vincent's movements were practically silent - Vincent retreat into the next room, invisible. There were four men in the room, none of them like the three characters she'd encountered earlier, all of them holding their guns in their hands in plain sight.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" she asked, a bit loudly.

"You can," the first one said, turning on the rest of the fluorescent overhead lights. She blinked hard - keeping the lights low helped save her electricity bill, which was insane in this town - looked around at their faces, didn't recognize anything, stared back at them blankly.

"And-?"

"Marcus Shakespeare," the first one said, raising his gun. "You treated him a short time ago, yes?"

"Yes," she said, her stomach doing a slow summersault. No sense lying, but it felt wrong.

"You know where he is, yes?"

"They blindfolded me, I don't know."

"But you've gone many times before," said the second man. The third and fourth seemed to be mainly occupied with blocking the door and looking out the windows, making sure they were alone.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" she asked.

"I'll ask the questions, Dr. Potter," said the first man.

"Anybody tell you, all you guys look alike?," came Vincent's voice from a doorway. "What do you do, go to a cronies school or something?" He had gotten his suit-coat back on, had buttoned up his white shirt and buttoned the suitcoat to mostly cover all the dried blood.

They turned. Surprised to see him. "Who are you?" asked the second man.

"I'll as the questions now," Vincent said. "Are you bothering my doctor?"

"She is Marcus Shakespeare's doctor," the first man said. "We need to find him. You," he said, to Victoria, "will take us to him."

"I already told you-"

"She was blindfolded, she didn't see anything. She's no help to you guys," Vincent said, and Victoria finally noticed that of his hands was behind his back. "I suggest you apologize and leave."

"I suggest we shoot you and leave, if you're no use to us," said the second man, and they all cocked their guns.

"They teach you that in cronies school?" Vincent asked, his voice pleasant, conversational, nearly teasing. "Shoot everybody?"

"This isn't any of your business, old man-"

"Don't let the gray hair fool you," Vincent said, his eyes sharpening, his smile becoming dangerous. "Like I said, Dr. Potter isn't any help to you. So apologize for wasting her time, and leave."

The second man raised his gun at Vincent, obviously annoyed that this supposed nobody was bossing him around. He fired, but missed.

As he fired, Vincent fired back. He didn't miss.

Victoria had heard gunshots before, but not inside a room in which she was enclosed. The sound was horrible, like an explosion, a miniaturized volcano erupting and spraying hot lava blood everywhere. The man fell, surprised and, a few seconds later, dead. The first man looked at Vincent, impressed, but knowing damn well such a thing couldn't be tolerated.

The fourth man, the one who had been scouting the other rooms, had somehow gotten behind Victoria, and she didn't know he was there until she felt his hand on her shoulder and the barrel of his gun pressed between her shoulderblades. She let out the smallest of startled noises, then heard that explosion again, this time with the bullet whizzing right over her shoulder and causing a sickening sound behind her.

Vincent was looking at her, at her, as if he was angry, as if it were somehow her fault she'd nearly gotten shot. And then his eyebrows arched just a touch, and he looked as if he expected her to say something, but if she had intended to say anything, she didn't get the chance, as the other two men opened fire and Vincent had to duck back into the waiting room.

The glass between her office and the room was shattered, and Victoria stepped back so quickly she lost her balance and landed with a thud on her bottom behind a tall, marble-topped table that she'd been given as a gift from Mr. Marcus after her first visit, when he'd told her she was the best doctor ever and would let no one but her ever take bullets from his body.

It was a stupid memory, but one that managed to keep her from going into hysterics as her office was shredded by gunfire. When it was done, she heard the metallic clinking of empty bullet casings on the floor, and then Vincent was standing over her, his hand reaching down, offering her help to her feet.

She was quite calm when she stood up. "You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," she said. "I don't even think I got scratched. But my ears are ringing."

"That will pass. You sure you're okay? If you're stressed, you should concentrate on breathing."

"I'm breathing fine," she said. She stepped away from him, toward the dead bodies. She'd seen dead bodies before, even freshly dead bodies, but not in the background of her destroyed office.

"Fuck," she said.

"What?"

"I'll never get this cleaned up."

He almost smiled. "You certainly won't have time. Come with me."

"Why?" she snapped, starting to pick up some of the larger pieces of glass and throw them into one of the sinks.

"Because the police are going to be here and you don't want to have to explain four dead bodies."

"I'll just tell them it was a gang, they'll buy it," she said, searching for a broom. Even she was amazed at her own calm.

Vincent fixed her with a look. "You're serious?"

She looked back at him. "What, you're afraid I'm going to tell on you? Come on, Vincent, you've seen that's not how I run my business."

"No, I saw that you didn't know how to get to Marcus Shakespeare, so you told them you didn't know. You were lucky. What would you have said if you had seen it?"

"That's a stupid question. I would have lied."

Vincent smiled. "You know something, Victoria? I never lie. I believe in complete and total honesty. And so, I'm going to ask you to come with me one more time, then I'm going to throw you over my shoulder and lock you in the trunk of that car outside if you say no."

She hesitated, swallowed. "Why?" she whispered.

"Just come," he said, taking her arm, and leading her out the door to the car the thugs had left parked just outside her office.

A/N: Like it? Hate it? Suggestions? Manners are always good, reviews are even better.