Standard Disclaimer

A/N: Well, lots of great buzz about the last chapter...this chapter is a bit more low key, but I really enjoyed writing it as well. I hope you like it.

Ungrateful

She hadn't been paying attention to anything during the ride there, and noticed, with a little jolt of surprise, that they were back in downtown L.A., on Hill Street, not too far away from the Coliseum. His hand went from its pincher-like grip on her forearm to a more relaxed drip on her wrist, and then his hand went into hers, casually, like a high school couple walking through the hallways. She was tempted to try and pull her hand away, but knew that wouldn't succeed in anything other than annoying him, and she'd seen enough of his anger for one day. His grip only tightened whenever she went too slack, or moved too far away, giving the feeling that her hand was going to slip out. It was clearly a gentle warning - very gentle, considering he'd shot at her not more than a half hour ago. Stay close.

They went into Union Station, which was still used as an MTA station and a regular train station. There were some lockers tucked away into one of the corners, probably mostly used by homeless people and the occasional drifter. He went straight to one of the lockers and opened it up with an easy spin of the dial.

Victoria watched with a detached disinterest. She didn't care how in the hell he got his information, she didn't even care where they were going next. She was dead weight now. She even let her gaze drift across the station, toward the places where people sat. It was almost noon, there was lots of activity, families hugging each other, saying goodbye before someone got on a train, ordinary business people running for the Metro rail, the workers standing around enjoying a few moments of chatter, trying to kill the time before they went on break.

A man walked through the station. He was older, early fifties at least, thin brown hair, very round about the middle. He was carrying something in one of his hands. He had large, ape-like hands. At first she thought it was a ball of yellow fluff, some kind of toy, maybe a doll, or something he'd bought for his little girl. But there was no girl with him, and he was just walking through. He was saying something, something she couldn't hear over the din.

Vincent grabbed a thin brown leather satchel from the locker, pushed it shut, and started to walk. It pulled her closer to the man carrying the yellow fluff, and she realized that it was a dog. She saw four tiny little paws waving through the air, saw the ears flop up. She squinted, wondering what kind of dog could possibly be that small, could fit into a man's hand, even a hand as big as his.

They passed very close. A few women had stopped and were petting the animal. They were asking questions. She heard the man say, "He's for sale!" and her feet stopped. Vincent tugged her hand. She strained her eyes harder, determined to get a good look at the tiny little puppy, to hear if what she suspected was correct.

The man turned around, met her eyes. He held the puppy up for her to see, noticing her interest. "He needs a good home!" the man said, in the slick way street-sellers had, playing on sympathies. Someone beside him asked how much the dog was, and he said something that Victoria didn't catch, there was too much other noise, Vincent was saying her name, trying to get her to move without yanking her.

The puppy was peering out over the rim of the man's fingers, his little chin resting there. His eyes were two shining balls of coal, and he looked so sad, so helpless, so in need, that she felt herself moving toward him.

She knew what that felt like. Being trapped, being dragged around for the world to see, not having any choice in where you went or who you went with. Then, to her utter surprise, Vincent let go of her hand and stepped up beside her.

"How much?" he asked, as if he didn't believe what he'd heard.

"Twelve hundred," the man said, catching Vincent's voice clearly, as it carried well over the crowd without being obtrusive. "He's a purebred."

"Twelve hundred?" Vincent said, incredulous. The other people were backing away, shaking their heads, either cooing over the puppy in sympathy, or shocked at the high price.

"Dog like that would go for five hundred in a pet store," Vincent continued.

The man shrugged. "I seen 'em go for fifteen hundred."

"Well, how about this one goes for seven hundred? What do you say?"

The man was slightly offended at the price, but didn't walk away. "A thousand."

"Eight hundred."

"Eight fifty," the man said. "Cash."

Vincent reached into his pocket, pulled out eight hundreds and a fifty, and handed it to the man. The man handed him the puppy. "If he's got worms," Vincent said, his hands just a little smaller, and he needed both of them to hold the miniature dog, "I'm going to find out where you live."

"No worms, man, he's clean. We just can't afford to keep him."

Victoria wondered how a man could get his hands on such an expensive dog if he couldn't keep him, but her thoughts were abruptly silenced when Vincent turned around and handed the puppy to her. It snuggled into her arm clumsily from all the handling, but she quickly righted it, brought it up to her shoulder, where it's soft nose, icy cold, sniffed her neck. She kissed its little head, her heart warming.

"Come on, let's keep moving," Vincent said gently, taking her free hand and continuing their walk out of Union Station. "We were going to take the Metro, but they don't like it when you bring dogs on, so we'll have to catch a cab again."

The puppy was very young. Victoria wondered if it was even old enough to be taken away from its mother. But the shock from being shuffled through public seemed to wear off rather quickly, and in the back seat of the cab, he began to squirm around on her lap, sniff her fingers, investigate the folds of her shirt that hung down over her stomach with his nose.

"You going to name him?" Vincent asked.

Victoria closed both her hands over the dog, pulling its face up so she could look at it. "Sure," she murmured. "I just don't know what."

"You'll think of something."

"How about Max?" She didn't dare turn to see his face when she said it, knowing it wasn't going to be pretty. But he didn't say anything in reply.

When she realized they were going back to Pasadena, she felt a slight thrill of alarm.

"Why are we going back?" she asked.

"Why not? We have a room there."

"But won't...won't there be a problem?"

"They won't connect us to what happened in the alley," he said, his voice a bit lower. "Don't worry about it."

But she did worry about it. He was right, but she worried anyway. When they reached the room, she raided the mini bar, searching for something she might be able to feed the puppy. The best she could come up with was some crackers and a bottle of milk. It seemed to work.

Vincent made himself busy with his satchel, and she didn't bother to look. She just didn't care. The dog was a distraction, she knew, and it was successful. To hell with it, she thought. He was going to do whatever, no matter what she said or did. The fight from earlier had gone out of her. All she worried about at the moment was taking care of Max.

She wasn't going to tell Vincent that she'd named the dog that, but it stuck in her head, and she went with it.

"Are you even going to say thank you?" he said, and she realized he had somehow crossed the room and was standing over her, watching her fuss over her new pet. She gave him a quick, cold glance, and went back to stroking the soft golden fur.

"Thank you," she said tightly.

He made some kind of disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "I don't get you, you know? I save your life, I protect you from people with far less honorable intentions...I won't even go into what I did for you last night, but I did it, and there aren't many men willing to take that kind of direction. I even bought you a dog!" She heard the slap of his hands against his legs, and looked up again, knowing she had to see his frustration, that if she didn't, it would only intensify it.

"You're ungrateful, you know," he said, his voice low as he turned away toward the window.

She straightened. "Why did you sleep with me?"

Abruptly, he turned back. "What?"

"Why. Did you sleep. With---"

"I heard you," he snapped, irritated.

She moistened her lips with her tongue. "Well?"

"Why do people say that? Sleep with me. We didn't sleep." His eyes flickered wickedly. "Would you like a recap of what we did do?"

She balled her hands into fists, clenched tightly on her thighs. "Answer the question," she ground out through gritted teeth.

He approached her, slowly, non-threateningly. "Why are you asking me that?"

"I just want to know how much of this little adventure was planned and what you had to improvise. I want to know if it was just plain old hormones that made you have sex with me, or if it was some other ulterior motive."

His eyes widened in a way that seemed almost innocently surprised. "Victoria...you don't get around much, do you?"

"And I supposed you do."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Basic bodily needs, 101. Food, clothing, shelter, sex. You can go without any one of them for a time, but eventually, things have to be taken care of."

She snorted. "And I suppose I took care of it."

"Well, yes, if you want to reduce it to that. But you haven't slept around much, apparently, if you think what we did last night was a standard one-night-stand."

She was starting to feel very uncomfortable. She picked Max up off the floor and cuddled him against her chest. "Enough," she breathed.

"No, you asked, and I'm going to tell you." He sat down on the bed across from her again, just like before. A smile curled the corner of his mouth, knowingly. "You want to know if last night was special."

"Enough!" she said, more loudly, and Max let out a little yip in her arms.

Vincent's eyes traveled down toward the dog. He reached out and gently took it from her, holding it with one hand and stroking it with the other. "You know, normally, I don't get involved with people. Women, I mean. I haven't had anything like a girlfriend for most of my adult life. Claudia was probably it." He was talking easily now, as if he were sharing secrets with a trusted friend, instead of a very irritated hostage. "But, eventually, things can get distracting, and I don't like to be distracted."

"Distracted?" she echoed, in spite of herself.

He shrugged, a bit uncomfortable. "Every man in the world masturbates, Victoria. But it isn't the same. Sometimes you need a woman. You go find one. It's not hard."

She blinked slowly, shocked, looked away out the window, hoping to heaven he would shut up soon.

"But no, what happened wasn't a standard for me. I haven't had a night like that in...forever."

She shut her eyes, wishing he would just disappear...that she would wake up and all these last days would just turn out to be a horrible nightmare. "Please stop," she whispered, the humiliation starting to set her cheeks on fire.

"But you asked. You asked why I slept with you. You want an answer?"

She opened her eyes, looked at him, hoping for once he would read her mind and all the vicious, horrible things inside it that she thought of him. Most of all, she hoped he would hear the "NO!" screaming through her head.

"Because I wanted to." He half-shrugged again. It seemed to be a tick with him. He looked away, at some invisible spot on the lower part of the couch. And instantly she knew, she knew he wanted to say something, wanting to say it desperately, but just couldn't, because she didn't know how. So he didn't. He just let it lie.

And those horrible, vicious things melted like cobwebs.

She reached out, took the dog back. He let her, his mind somewhere else. She went back to feeding the puppy milk and crackers, keeping one eye on Vincent as he eventually went back to whatever he'd been working on.

So maybe she didn't hate him anymore. But she still didn't trust him, either.

Finding a place to keep Max -- she still didn't tell him the name, so he just called it "the dog" - turned out to be rather difficult. The best thing to do would have been to put some newspaper down inside a cardboard box, but as they had neither, Victoria suggested they put a towel in the bathtub and leave him there for the night.

Problem was, night was at least seven or eight hours away.

Vincent ordered room service, and Victoria made sure to be in the bathroom with the dog, making sure he stayed quiet, when the order arrived. The waiter was probably a little suspicious when he brought two cheeseburgers and one plain hamburger to a room containing only two people, but he didn't say anything. Victoria gave the puppy very small bits of meat, knowing it might be too young yet for it, and wound up only using a quarter of the burger - Vincent finished the rest, his appetite at a record that day. The puppy seemed to prefer milk anyway.

The bathtub worked like a charm. If the puppy peed, it went down the drain, and all they had to do was run some water after it and then wipe the tub again. But when Victoria went to lie down - on the couch, in spite of Vincent's insistence that she take the bed - he began to whine in lonliness.

Victoria, exhausted from the exertions of the morning, fell asleep rather hard. Vincent had to watch the puppy, and she was glad to find it was still alive when she woke up. Max even seemed to like him, the way he playfully tugged at the sleeve of his gray pants with his puppy teeth. Vincent seemed mildly amused by this for a while.

Victoria changed her clothes. The ones she'd put on the morning before all this had happened were starting to suffer from repeated wearings in the smell department. The only other thing she had was the dress Vincent had bought her, so she put it on. She felt strange, though, as she stood and looked at herself in the mirror. Too much skin was showing, now. How odd that she should feel uncomfortable showing Vincent too much of her skin after all that had happened. But the thought, the nagging feeling that it had all been an act, a game, wouldn't leave her alone. She shut off the light before she stepped out of the bathroom, covering herself in the shadows as she came back out into the room.

Vincent was sitting on the bed, his back to her, going over something from that little brown satchel again. It seemed like some kind of laptop, only much more compact. He was reading - she could see the shifting in his eyes. Feeling rather confident that he was absorbed, she went to the window. The curtains were pulled open just a little, enough to let the sunset through. Their room faced west, and she could see the horizon, and the clouds that were turning a deep pink blush.

There were pretty sunsets in California.

She found herself reaching toward the window, her palms pressing against the glass. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against it as well, relishing the coolness. The thought that if the glass should suddenly break, she would fall to her death, didn't bother her. It always had before. She sighed, frosting up the thick pane, and doodled a face with a straight line for a mouth in the fog.

She felt Vincent's hands on her hips, drawing her back. She didn't have a lot of room to move, so resisting him didn't seem like much of an option. Besides, he was gentle, not obtrusive. His thumbs moved against the small of her back, massaging the muscles there.

"Reflective of your mood?" he asked, his voice low behind her ear. She rubbed out the face with her thumb, didn't answer.

"You still angry at me?"

She didn't want to say no, but didn't dare say yes. Then, his breath, which was so warm against her neck, was followed by the touch of his lips.

Victoria felt a terrible rush of blood to where he touched her. Slowly, he moved upward, his lips half caressing, half-kissing her. The roughness of his cheek brushed hard against the crook of her shoulder. She shivered, ashamed of how quickly he'd seemed to figure her out.

She tried to tell herself that she was not a mindless walking bag of hormones, that she couldn't be controlled by someone who happened to know exactly how to touch her. She wanted to press her head down, push him away, but it got worse and he moved to the back of her neck from the side, to the top of her spine, his fingers lifting up and threading through her hair in the process.

"More games," she heard herself whisper.

He stopped. It was a simple stop, just needing him to life his lips a single inch from her skin. She folded her arms, swallowing hard. Her facial muscles were starting to scrunch on her and she felt her throat tighten. Why did all of this hurt so much?

"I'm not playing games with you, Victoria." His lips came close again, this time against the skin on the back of her jaw. He wrapped his arms around hers, bringing her even closer against his chest. He did not press her backside against him, though, and that was not lost on her. One arm lowered to her waist, pinioning her firmly in place.

"Why are you doing this, Vincent?" she managed through the chaos that was her mind.

He hesitated. "You really don't know?"

"No. I don't." She paused, swallowed again, gathered her strength. It was hard to think, being so close to him, but she was going to do it. "Why me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Of all the places you could have come, why did you ever come to me?"

She felt his smile. "You were good." He paused. "I'll never forget the day I met you. You remember that?"

She frowned. "You mean when you had me at gunpoint?"

"Yeah, but you weren't scared. Every other woman would have screamed bloody murder. You just calmly followed directions. You were even worried enough to bandage my wounds."

"I was trying to stay alive," she said tightly.

He chuckled - it vibrated through her. "Then when I showed up at your office, you didn't even blink. You weren't angry at me or anything. You just did you job. I always respected you for that."

"I'll bet you respect me," she said, jiggling her arms a little, showing him how tightly he was holding her. Still, he didn't give.

"I'm growing tired to reminding you that I don't lie." But his voice was still soft, patient.

"I know you don't lie. You also don't tell the truth when you don't have to."

"I want to tell you the truth, Victoria," he said, his smile fading. There was the tiniest touch of a frown in his voice. "But you won't believe me. And I can't tell you if you won't believe me."

"Why not?"

Stupid question. He stared over her shoulder, out the window, at the darkening sky. He let out a small sigh and then rested his head on her shoulder, his cheek pressed up against his. God, she loved the feel of his beard just too damn much.

"I've never told it to anyone before. I won't risk it." He bent down, kissed her shoulder one final time, and let her go. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To do the job," he said. He gave her a very sharp look as she turned around. "And I don't want to hear any arguments."

She bit her lip. She had no idea in hell what she was going to do, but she knew she had to do something.

A/N: So....yesterday, I finished this part of the story. And now I'm staring at a blank screen, waiting for the second part to come. I've got ideas, but it's going to be told in a different way than this one. This one is all Victoria's POV, but for the next story, that's going to change. Although I will admit that I'm a little afraid to go inside Vincent's head...anyway, here are some replies.

Okay, Byrony Cel, I forgive you. I know you all have lives, I'm just being silly and petulant...like all the great artists...yeah, right! Ha!

SweetArwen: Okay, then you owe me a double review when you get back! Of course by Saturday Midnight, the story might be over...I just finished the first part this morning and now, unless something for part II hits fast, it'll be the end! GASP!!!

firegoddess164: Glad you liked it as much as I liked writing it! Yeah, I was totally into Vincent going psycho, but Victoria held her own, go girl! I figured it was a matter of time. There may be more of that in part 2...if there IS a part 2...Well, to reassure you, Vincent wouldn't shoot Victoria. He shot AT her, but he didn't hit her on purpose. Even a sociopath like Vincent has his limits!

cerebralgoddess: Welcome to the mix! I hope you've enjoyed yourself here in our little corner of insanity. Yes, they should have a Collateral section up, I know someone out there is parading for it. We shall see, shan't we?

I know there are a few more of you, but I'll have to hit you at the end of the next chapter. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!