Disclaimer: Same as always.

A/N: Hope this chapter doesn't bore anyone. Please keep reviewing, as I've picked up the habit of responding. (grin) It makes the work go a lot faster, knowing I have people waiting to know what comes next. Sometimes even I don't know!

Protection

It took him a while, and she found herself alone in the hotel room for a bit. She pulled down the heavy bedspread, wondering if she might be able to get a few hours of sleep before they had to check out. The hotel had those velveteen blankets she liked so well - not the knotty cotton that showed way too much use. She pushed the sheet down, let her legs, the towel discarded in Vincent's absence, relishing the soft feel of the blanket against her skin. She picked up the remote and flipped through the dial, watching for some late news headline, and seeing nothing, she turned it off. It was going to be morning soon, and maybe there would be something then. If she and Vincent were there long enough for her to see it.

When she thought about it, she wasn't sure what she expected to see. And if she did see anything, it might only make her panic. It didn't seem that Vincent was willing to let her go anytime soon...not that she'd really asked.

It dawned on her then. She hadn't asked him to let her go. What if she tried?

When he emerged, a towel wrapped around his waist, his shirt hanging over the shower rail, some of the bright red blood diminished but the shirt itself utterly ruined, she wondered how he would react if she asked him. He hadn't let Max go, but Max was more of a hostage. He seemed to think he was helping her. Protecting her.

"Did I tell you I got to see Max's mother?" Vincent asked as he made himself comfortable on his bed again. She had made herself comfortable and now was directly across from him. She leaned forward on her elbows, her lower half modestly covered by the blankets.

"You saw your hostage's mother?"

"I prefer to think of him as a friend," Vincent said sincerely. "That's what I told his mother, too. Turned out he'd been lying to her, telling her he was running a limousine company. It was kind of sad, but it really made a lot of sense. Max was the sort of guy who had to have everything be perfect and ready before he'd try anything. He was going to spend the rest of his life waiting for everything to line up for him - I even told him that. Although this was much, much later. I guess he got pissed off that his mother liked me so much, he stole my briefcase and ran off with it."

She jerked up a bit. "Stole your briefcase?"

"All my work-ups. Threw it onto the freeway."

"And you still didn't shoot him?"

Vincent shrugged, picking at what was left of his potato chips. "I made him go get me new ones. I have no idea what the hell happened when he did, but when he came back, he had it."

Victoria stared at him. "Wow."

Vincent was staring idly ahead, out the window, over the lights of Los Angeles. "Yeah. Impressed even me, I gotta tell you."

"So what happened then?" Victoria asked, sincerely interested now, perhaps in spite of herself.

"We went after the last two targets. The first guy was easy, in a big club called Fever. Turns out making them think Max was me was a really good idea. My boss sent some of his goons after me to make sure I didn't fuck it up. Tried to kill Max." He turned, looked at her, gave her something of a smile, and said, "I didn't let them. Want to know why?"

"Because you still needed him?"

He shook his head. "Max didn't deserve to be gunned down by goons like that. But he didn't appreciate it. He was very pissed off at me later when we got out of the club. Probably because I killed the cop who was trying to take him away from me."

Victoria pulled back a bit as his words ran through her head. Tried to take him away from me. Like Max was his property. It was a little creepy.

"Wouldn't talk to me afterwards. Didn't even say thank you." Vincent frowned a little, as if still hurt by the memory. "Then he tried to kill us both by running us off the road. I got the message, and I took off to take care of the last assignment." He chuckled. "That's when things turned shitty."

She had pulled back, was leaning against the headboard, watching Vincent from over a small pile of covers, like a child being told a scary story by a mischievous baby sitter.

"Turns out it was the woman he'd met earlier that night. You know, it's kind of funny." He stopped picking at his potato chips, took a long drink of water, which was mostly melted ice cubes by now. "I was actually telling him a little while ago that he needed to call her. That he needed to take the risk. If we lived through that night."

"Didn't you already know she was your last target?" Victoria asked.

"I guess I did. I don't know why I said that to him. Maybe I was trying to make him feel better."

"About having to kill him later? That's what you were going to do by then, wasn't it?"

After a heavy pause, "Yes."

Victoria shut her eyes. "Vincent, I'm really tired," she said softly.

"Yeah, you should get a little bit of sleep. I'll wake you when we have to leave."

She slid down onto her back, pulling the covers up close. "Yeah. Thanks."

She dreamed about being in that cab with him. She was an invisible person in the back seat, watching everything.

"No, all you can do is clam up on me," Vincent was saying to Max, who was furious and silent. Vincent was all over the back of the cab, looking out the window in every single possible direction, a living twitch of movement. "How about telling me to fuck off?"

"Fuck off," Max growled.

Then the cab started to flip. He had rammed it into something on the side of the road and they were flipping over and over, and when they landed, Vincent managed to get his hand into the front seat, where he started to hit Max in anger, but not hard enough to really hurt him. There was something funny about the whole thing, but in the twisted realm of dream logic, it made sense.

Then the cops came. Vincent ran off into the night.

She dreamed she was the woman, Annie, in her office, as Vincent stalked her. She dreamed she was sitting at a desk when all the lights went out, and as she ran for the door, she saw his shadow appear. She crawled on her belly among the tables, desks and chairs, trying to hide as Vincent stalked her, finally cornering her. She tried to get away, backed into a wall, closed her eyes and waited for him to kill her.

Then Max was there, a gun pointed at Vincent's head.

"Let her go," Max said. He was just a giant black shadow with glasses, looking like every other cab driver she'd ever ridden with in her life. She didn't even know what he sounded like, but in the dream, she just knew it was him.

"Why, what are you going to do about it?" Vincent taunted, retaking his aim. Then the world exploded.

Victoria opened her eyes, her heartbeat in her throat. It took her a few minutes to remember where she was, and then a few minutes more for her to figure out that she needed to go to the bathroom.

As she sat up, she saw Vincent was where she had left him, only he had turned the light out, encasing the room in blackness. Their nightlight was the city lights below, bright enough for her to find her path to the bathroom door. She looked back at Vincent as she entered, trying to figure out if he was awake or asleep. She swore she saw him blink. She turned on the bathroom light.

The glow fell over him and he looked up toward her. She responded by stepping into the bathroom and pulling the door shut.

Vincent was still sitting upright on his bed, having found a deck of cards that someone had left beside the Bible in the drawer, along with the sewing kit. He was idly tossing the cards down the length of his body, trying to see how far he could throw.

She walked over to the gap between their beds. She saw down, reached over and flipped on the lamp between them.

"I thought you said everyone sleeps," she said softly.

"I've been thinking about that night," he answered, his voice a low, vibrating hum.

"The night..."

"On the MTA, with Max and Annie. I've been playing it over and over in my head for three days now. I can't figure it out." He paused, pushing the deck of cards away. "You know, that sort of thing, I do it for a living. And a cabbie and a D.A. get the drop on me."

"I wouldn't call it a drop," she said, smirking, attempting to lighten his mood. "It's not like you were cowboys in a showdown at the O.K. Corall."

He shrugged. "I'll figure out what I did wrong. I won't do it again."

"He shot you in the ear, too, right?" she said, standing up. "How does it feel?"

"That sticky stuff you put on it itches like a bitch, but I'm pretty good at ignoring it by now." He turned his head without having to be asked as she approached, giving her a clear path to his ear. The bullet had taken a chunk out of the cartilage on the top. He would be scared for life. At the moment, she had packed the wound and bandaged it with a new kind of bandage, one that was made of tiny fibers that covered the wound like a glue. It looked almost normal to the outside eye. It had been hell getting all that dried blood off the side of his face. But it had given her time to admire his goatee and beard, if it could be called that, as it was as thin as a five o'clock shadow-if thickness went up with numbers, it was actually a ten o'clock shadow.

His hand reached up, his fingers gentle on her wrist as she started to pull away. He pulled her down so she sat in front of him on the bed, facing him, her legs dangling over the side.

They looked at each other. Victoria wondered what he was thinking. The thought of him being attracted her to hadn't really occurred to her. First of all, she did not consider herself attractive, especially not with her only redeeming feature, her black-brown hair, clumped in dried chunks and hanging down her back, brushed only by her thin fingers. Second of all, he was very attractive, especially in his large, dark eyes, now the color of the sky at night with the moon just barely lighting the dark dome.

She pulled back just an inch, trying to break the moment. "Don't you..." she hesitated, searching. "Don't you have anyone at home who might be worried about you? Do they know where you are?"

"No, nobody," he replied, and it didn't seem to bother him. "What about you?"

"I have an Ex, "she sighed.

"Boyfriend?"

"Husband. We broke up around the time that I lost my license."

"What happened, you weren't a good enough meal ticket anymore?" Scathingly, as if he were wounded in her honor.

"No, actually, I left him," she said. She sighed, her hands in her lap, fingers loosely laced. She searched for the right words. "I just couldn't be married to him anymore."

"What kind of man was he?"

"He was a banker." She looked up and away, the image of him coming to her mind. "He was a good man. We met in college, got married right after I graduated from medical school. It didn't last long. I think it was my fault, I shouldn't have married him."

"Didn't you love him?"

"I did. But you know...some people...he was a moody person. I was never sure who I was going to be with every day. Either someone compassionate and caring, or someone snappy and distant. It was a little too much, his unpredictability. I knew it, I just ignored it, figuring I'd get to know him. But when the times got tough I just couldn't take anymore, so I walked out."

"You two still close?"

"He keeps tabs on me. Sometimes I think he wants me to come back to him. He's not as moody when he's around me, I think he blames himself, thinks he drove me away."

"He did."

"No, he didn't. I ran."

Vincent fell silent, and it made her uncomfortable, the thought of him digesting this information about her personal life. "I want to check your stitches," she said, putting on her best doctor's voice. Her fingers reached for the edge of the blanket, but his hand caught her wrist again.

This time, he didn't say anything.

He lifted her hand up, placed it gently on his shoulder. Then he let go, reached for her cheek, then stopped, as if suddenly realizing what he was doing.

She looked at him, watched him, wondering what he would do next. His fingers lightly touched her skin, his thumb grazing the skin underneath her chin.

"You don't know, do you?" he whispered.

"Know what?"

"How beautiful you are."

The words startled her, but she couldn't move. "Believe me, my face is anything but beautiful."

"It's not your face," he said, "not just your face, anyway. It's who you are."

"You don't know who I am any more than I know who you are, Vincent," she said, wishing like hell she could just get her head to move back, just a few inches, out of the reach of his hand. Her skin was tingling wherever he touched it. She had always known she found him attractive, but at this moment, he was outright breathtaking.

"Exactly," he said with a small smile, and she felt herself being drawn down toward him, his lips looming in the short distance, his eyes close enough to hers so that she could see the dark flecks in his irises.

When their lips met, she was more caught up in the sensation of his facial hair against her cheeks than the way his lips fit against hers. He didn't have a full mouth, but he seemed to use it well enough. She was just getting into the kiss when something like an alarm went off inside her head, and she turned her face to the side, getting a heavy scrape from his black and gray hairs against her skin. It felt almost as good as the kiss itself.

"Wait," she gasped, standing up, anything to get some distance between them. "We can't..."

"Why not?" He hadn't moved, but was holding her in place with his eyes, his huge, round, dark eyes, fixed on her. She couldn't see anything but that midnight blue, dancing in front of her, around her. "You're attracted to me. You always have been."

"That doesn't mean..."

He chuckled, cutting her off. "You and Max have a lot in common. You know, all you ever get is one night. That's it. If you don't take it, you wake up tomorrow, and it's gone, you're old, and you realize that everything you ever wished for didn't happen."

She straightened herself. Dammit if he was going to talk down to her like that. "You know what they say about being careful what you wish for, Vincent. You might get it."

He pursed his lips slightly, still looking at her, a silent reprimand. She managed to tear herself away, get back into her bed, and turn off the lights before he could say another word.

A/N: So close, and so far away. Heh heh. Well, more trouble awaits our pair. In the meantime, I have some responses to some reviewers. I LOVE YOU ALL! BIG KISS AND LOTS OF HUGS!

SweetArwen: That is high praise indeed! Better than accurate...well, a fanfic is only worth it if it gives
you something a bit more than the movie did. So thanks very much.

Byrony Cel: Why would I ignore such a great idea, even if I already had it? I am working in that
direction but it's going to be really hard because I have some moral issues I'm grappling with.
I just can't see Vincent riding off into the sunset and living happily ever after, so there are
going to be a lot of twists and turns before we get there. And I hope you like the new chapter.
I love checking on my story every day and seeing all the great reviews all of you write.

Sargonne: Another incident of high praise! I take writing very seriously. While I do these fanfics for
fun, I do write my own original stuff. Although I haven't been published for anything original, I plan
to be one day. But fanfics are a great place to find your voice and practice your craft, get feedback
from great people like yourself, develop as a writer. I don't know if I'll ever be able to give it up!

Beguile: I loved your comment about trouble not being far behind old Tommy Cruise. You know, I haven't
enjoyed a role of his this much since Interview With A Vampire. He is so underrated as a villian. I
think that was the big draw of this movie to begin with.