Standard Disclaimer. Emily and Steve will be here all week, if anyone needs sharpshooting lessons, or to hitchhike across Mexico. Don't know where the hell they came from, but they're funny and they stay.

Pursuit

"I don't think you've thought this through enough."

They were in the big expensive car that Vincent had bought a few weeks ago, his "emergency" vehicle, the one that could drive over tree trunks if it had to. He tore through the jungle road, creating a wider path where it had only been narrow before. Victoria was strapped in across both sides, a big gray X across her chest, and then a lap belt. The ride was not smooth, even Vincent had the extra belt on. Although Victoria couldn't help but worry that he was hitting some bumps extra hard on purpose.

It was late into the night, well past midnight, but the moon was full and the stars were out and brilliant, giving them more than enough light. The trees were thick around them, and there were noises of animals coming from all directions, but his headlights were scaring most of them away. It was insane to be out here at this hour, but obviously he thought it worth the risk.

He was giving her his version of a lecture. It was usually very short, and to the point, and completely inarguable.

"We'll head farther south for a while," he went on. "Just for a bit, until things blow over. You need time to give this plan of yours more consideration."

Very matter of fact. She couldn't help but get the feeling that he simply wasn't going to let her go that easily. For the first time since she'd first been with him, she felt rather trapped. But no, it was Vincent. He wouldn't hurt her. It was just difficult for him to accept something like a person he cared about leaving him. It probably hadn't happened since he was very young.

Thoughts like that were no good to her now. They weakened her resolve.

"I'm not going to change my mind, Vincent," she said softly, not caring if he heard her or not. But he did hear. She heard his restrained sigh, even over the cracks and smacks of the foliage on the windows of the car.

"I don't understand why you suddenly want leave me," he said in a low voice.

She struggled with the remaining shreds of her patience. "I told you. I want to be with you. But I can't anymore."

"Because of the baby."

She dared a look at him. "Because of a lot of things. But yeah, the baby, too."

"So I either have to be a dad, or you walk."

"You're a dad either way you look at it," she said with a sardonic curl of her lips, "but that doesn't say much in today's day and age."

He would have said something else, but apparently, there were other thoughts in his brain competing for dominance. He clenched his hands around the steering wheel, and she swore they were going faster than before. He didn't speak again, merely hurled them through the underbrush. A good half-hour later, they came out onto a main road, and he found a small, island-like truck stop, a hundred miles from nowhere. He pulled up, and she was mildly surprised to see that they weren't the only ones. There were a few other cars there, particularly one large motor-home with an older man and woman in it, a small pack of bikers, and some other random travelers.

"What are we doing here?" she asked before he got out of the car.

He looked at her, pinning her with his eyes for a moment. Then, slowly, he tilted his head to one side, indicating the small building that contained the cashier and, hopefully, the restrooms. Then he got out of the car, stood and looked at her for a moment, tilted his head again.

She opened her mouth, but his finger pressed against his lips. Finally, she got it. The pregnancy hormones had to be making her daft. He thought they were still being spied on. He wanted absolute privacy.

She got out of the vehicle and followed Vincent, two paces behind, one to the left, as he had taught her a long time ago. Or maybe it only seemed long.

It was amazing that this place was open. There was just a glimmer of morning in the sky, the barest hint of dawn. The air was still cool and sweet from the night. The walk to the shack was nearly pleasant. She followed him behind, where he tried various doors until one opened. He gestured for her to come with him, and slipped inside to turn on a light.

She had been in grotesque bathrooms during her life in L.A. This one was a hazardous waste facility. She almost held her breath as she followed him in, but Vincent pulled her close, his hands roving over her body.

"What are you-"

He gave her a very sharp glance as he stopped, silently ordering her to stay still. Then, he continued. She had to submit to his probe, and realized within a few seconds that it wasn't a sexual advance - although it had the intimacy of one. He handled her so roughly at one point that she bumped the wall, and her skin crawled at the thought of touching whatever was there.

Finally, in her underwear, during the search of which she actually had to hold her breath, he found what he was looking for. She felt him yanking at the band where it thickened around her waist, and when he stood up, he was holding something small and silver.

She could guess what it was. Claudia had bugged her. It wasn't enough to bug the house - they could leave. She could bug the car, but Vincent was too smart, he could just ditch it somewhere and steal another. But to bug one of them - and Victoria had been unconscious for a bit. She shuddered to think of that woman messing with her clothes and fiddling with her underwear.

Vincent dropped the device into the sink drain. He didn't bother with the toilet - Victoria doubted that it even flushed anymore. He ran some brown water after it, sending it into the sewer system.

"We safe?" she whispered.

He considered her question for a moment. His hand rested lightly on the small of her back, and he gave her a quizzical frown.

"What?" she asked.

"You're trembling."

"I am?"

Slowly, that hard look had the beginnings of a smile in one corner of his mouth. "That search turn you on?"

She wanted to punch him. Instead she just turned around and threw open the door, stepping back out into the night. Quick as a flash, Vincent was pulling her back, toward the wall, before she could round the corner. He pressed her between him and the wall, but she realized after her balance returned that he wasn't looking down into her face, but out into the wide lot that surrounded the station.

"Don't trust it," he said, just loud enough for her to hear him. "She bugged you, no doubt she bugged every car in the house just to be careful."

"How do you know?"

"Because I would have," Vincent answered. "That trick in your underwear was smart, but it also means we have to head back the other way. They'll think we're still going south, but we're going to go north."

"Vincent, we go far enough north, and we end up back in the states," she said quietly.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm going to the car, get what we need." He glanced down at her. "You did bring the present I gave you, didn't you?"

"It's in my bag," she answered.

"Stay here," he said, and stepped away from her to walk toward the car.

The man was like a living shadow. He slithered across the lot, and she barely saw the car door open. She heard absolutely nothing, and after a brief few minutes, he was coming back, her bag in one hand, his in another. He didn't give it to her, though - he took it back into the bathroom and checked each and every item, just to be sure. Satisfied that there wasn't anything there, he packed everything back up and guided her toward the other end of the lot.

"What are we going to do?" she asked quietly.

"Steal a car," he stated. "I left our keys in the car, so it's really more like a trade."

"Unless the people whose car we steal doesn't know to take our car," she pointed out.

"Details. It's not my fault if people don't think. Besides, anything we're going to get here? Trust me, they're getting the better end of the deal. Come on."

She didn't have much choice - it was either that or stay there and wait for Claudia to show up. While that didn't appeal, she did consider suggesting it to Vincent, thinking that maybe a good confrontation might end this entire mess. Vincent, however, would have thought of that himself if it had been a wise option.

They were heading toward a newish-looking Volkswagon Bug when she grabbed his arm. He stopped, giving her a reprimanding look over his shoulder.

"We could take another chance," she said, pulling herself up to him, speaking as quietly as she could. "We could ask that couple for a ride." She pointed to the motorhome. Mom and Pop were emptying out the trash, sweeping out the inside, and they were a rather spritely looking couple, with kind faces and the weight that came with age.

"What, you think those old farts are going to give a ride to a couple of hitchhikers like us?" He looked incredulous. "You know how unsafe it is to pick up strangers. They'll think we're psychos."

She bit her tongue. Well, in your case, Vinnie, they would be right. "But I have my doctor's license," she pressed. "They might trust us. And why wouldn't they, we're not going to hurt them, are we?"

"No," he said, actually beginning to consider.

"If they say no, we'll go to plan B," she said. "Improvise, Darwin, E-Ching, shit happens." She leaned a little closer, pressing on his wrist. "Come on, we don't have anything to lose."

He shrugged. "Fine. Worth a try, I guess."

For someone who had once been quite insistent that he didn't lie, Vincent was very good at it.

The couple, Emily and Steve, were as sweet as they came. They were out in Mexico, enjoying the environment and the beginnings of their retirement. They had always wanted to travel in wild places, and while they were keenly aware of the safety issues, neither one was worried. Turned out, both of them were marksman shooters, and they had been in the military at one point, which was where they'd met. After their service had ended, they'd been discharged, and gotten married. They had about a half-dozen kids, all of them involved in some kind of martial arts or another, one of them a blackbelt in something Victoria didn't recognize, but Vincent smiled and nodded to with the clear indication that he knew exactly what they were talking about. Either way you looked at it, Emily and Steve were two very tough cookies, and not worried about running into trouble.

Vincent and Victoria sat on the large, curved couch in the motor-home's miniaturized dining room slash living room. Emily was chatting away like an old relative, while Steve had them back on the road. The sun had cleared the horizon about an hour ago, and they were already talking about making another stop at the first place they found for some breakfast.

Vincent had introduced them by their real first names, Vincent and Victoria. Victoria was a doctor (true) and he was a private contractor (false) and they were married (very, very false) and spending some time in Mexico, looking into some places that could take them both on. Vincent knew too much about private contracting, though, when Steve started to ask some questions that Victoria found a little too detailed. Anyway, their car had broken down and they were stuck at the station. Mom and Pop, as Victoria saw them in her head, had saved their lives.

She listened to them chatting, listened to the woman carry on, listened to Vincent smile and be gracious and polite and interested. For a while, it was almost enough to keep her awake. She had to keep herself from staring at Vincent. It wasn't often she got to see him in his social mode, but she knew it was there. As long as he didn't have to do all the talking, he was really great at it. A real listener, the kind of person who had you utterly convinced that he cared what you were saying, like an old friend. But soon, the lack of sleep and the heavy stress of the night and morning began to take its toll on her, and she felt her eyelids growing very heavy. Before she knew it, they had drooped shut, and Vincent, very discreetly, had slipped his arm about her, pulling her closer so that her head rested on his shoulder.

"Oh, goodness me," Emily said after laughing at some comment Vincent had made that Victoria didn't catch, "listen to me, just going on and on. Your wife is drop dead tired. Would she like to lie down in the back? We have a queen size bed in this home, and it's a good quality mattress, too. Special ordered and installed. No camper beds for us."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "You've had a rough night, having to hike to that station in the middle of nowhere. We can pick you up some carry out, you can stay in the camper and get some rest."

Victoria had opened her eyes. The thought of a bed was wonderful at the moment. She felt Vincent standing, felt him half-lift her with him.

"That would be great, Emily," he said, his voice all sweetness. "I want to hear more about your niece and nephew at lunch, though."

Emily chuckled, slapped her hand lightly across Vincent's shoulder. "Never knew a man who loved jazz as much as my little Rickie. Maybe I can dig up one of his recordings of his sax if you want to hear it."

"Sounds perfect," Vincent said, although his full attention was on Victoria now, who felt like a zombie. They went through the back curtain, and she vaguely heard Emily slip the folding door shut, giving them total privacy.

She slid down onto the bed. Vincent caught her before she went down completely. His hands found the edge of her shirt and he lifted it up, then let her slide back as he removed her shoes and jeans. Then he pulled the covers out from under her and put them over her. She shut her eyes; Emily had not been lying about the mattress. It had been slept in, but it had a nice, worn feeling. And the smell of the old people was not nearly so bad - the sheets were freshly washed, still carrying the fabric softener's scent.

Then Vincent slipped in behind her. She could feel that he had removed his shirt, the way his hairless chest brushed against her back. But his pants were still on. While it was a habit with him to sleep fully dressed, he'd told her some time back, it wasn't healthy, especially not the shoes.

Sleep floated above her head. She could feel the dark pulling her down, but Vincent was acting odd. Not a bad odd, but definitely odd. It was keeping the very last shred of unconsciousness away. His arm, which was slung over her hip, dangled down, and his finger, usually just nervously twitching, had a purpose. She realized, with a slow push of adrenaline, that his fingers were moving over her womb.

She lay still, her breathing still long and steady, as she felt his hand. It was a tender touch. From that touch, he could almost imagine what he was thinking. He was aware of the baby, he was searching for physical signs of it. Not with the cold, determined precision that he had used to search her for a bug, but with the simple curiosity of a man who had just learned he was going to be a father.

Vincent was going to be a father.

She sighed, shut her eyes again.

"Why aren't you asleep?" he asked, his mouth so close to the nape of her neck that his breath sent air over the fine hairs there, making her shiver.

"You're distracting me," she managed, although it was in a mumbled, slurred form, as her mouth was half-down into the pillow, and not all of her muscles had been touched by the adrenaline.

She felt him smile. Then his lips came closer and he kissed her. She smiled back, settled herself, and expected to feel the adrenaline drift away and sleep to return, but he didn't stop there. The kiss that had started on her neck moved down, and soon, he was exploring the plane of her back. He'd done it before, although at the time he'd been heavily occupied with another task while he was behind her, one that didn't leave much concentration to the finer details of her skin. She remembered she had liked it. Especially when he gently scraped her with his teeth.

He did so, on her shoulder-blades. Her muscles twitched in pleasure, and the adrenaline increased.

"Vincent," she half-whispered. "You're waking me up."

It didn't stop him. The hand that had been feeling the delicate swell of her belly had rested there, cupping it in the palm of his hand, but his mouth took its sweet time. She knew he knew every inch of her body well enough, but this was a different thing. It was tender, above and beyond anything he had ever done to her before. It was slow, taking its time, not seeking its own pleasure, but expressing a level of affection she hadn't known he was capable of.

He had worked all the way down to the small of her back - she didn't know how long he'd been going, it felt like forever, no single inch of her back left untouched, her spine nearly on fire from the exquisite sensations. The beginnings of her cheeks were either going to be his next target, or he was going to turn her over, which would have consequences of its own.

"You sure you want to do this in a stranger's motor-home?" she managed, realizing she had been struggling to say those words for quite a while, and simply hadn't had the focus.

That seemed to give him pause. She felt a ticklish exhalation of breath right at the bridge of her backside, had to press her legs together to suppress the shudder it sent through her. She didn't succeed too well.

The hand on her belly reached up, grasped her shoulder, pulling her toward him, onto her back. She looked up into his face, which hovered over her. He tenderly kissed the corner of her mouth.

"Probably not," he said, his mouth a millimeter away from hers. He smiled, a smile she hadn't seen in a while. His glowing smile. But then, just like that, it faded. He stared into her eyes, hard but not cold. Looking nearly desperate. She doubted anyone had ever seen him look as vulnerable as she was seeing him now. When his lips parted, she had no idea what to expect.

"Don't leave me, Victoria."

Four little words...and the power of life and death. Her throat instantly closed, she could barely breathe. She pursed her lips, moistening them, attempting some vain semblance of control.

His fingers had been idly combing through the strands of her hair, out across the pillows. She reached for it, pulling it into her hands, cradling it against her chest. Her fingers traced the scar - it was a thick line, going from between his middle and ring fingers, across his hand to the back of his thumb, with a star-burst pattern at the end that indicated it had once been much worse than it was now. The scar was old, so old it was starting to fade. It still had the faintest shiny quality of new skin. She hadn't noticed the scar for a while, not until they'd come to Mexico. He'd told her a brief story about how that had happened during his military days, when he got ambushed during a scuttling mission, and some kid had nearly taken off half of his hand with a hunter's knife before he'd gotten himself together enough to take care of business. He didn't finish the story. Didn't state the obvious. A kid had tried to kill him, and had been killed instead. She never asked what he meant by "kid," and tried to imagine he meant it in a figurative sense - someone young, in their twenties. But not a child.

He propped his head up on his other hand to look down at her. His eyes held curiosity, but he seemed content to let her do as she pleased, willing to see where she was going.

She brought the hand to her mouth. Her lips lingered over the scar. For a moment, she swore she saw his eyelids flutter. Perhaps all of that business had been his roundabout way of attempting to express to her what he wanted from her. That he wanted her to reciprocate. While the idea was not unappealing, not by a long shot, the timing was horrible on two counts - she had told him she was leaving him, and to behave in that way now would just be wrong if she was still planning to do so. Although she didn't know, at that particular second, how strong her resolve was. And second, while he could get intimate in the oddest circumstances, she could not. So she gently put his hand back down, caressed his cheek, feeling the bristle between her fingers, making the skin tingle, and rolled back toward the window.

"I really, really need a little bit of sleep, Vincent."

She felt him nod as he settled down beside her. "Then sleep, Victoria," he whispered. She closed her eyes, and he didn't disturb her again.

A/N: Geez, got more reviews for this than any other chapter. Guess it was pretty good then, huh? Well, I'll tell everyone the truth -- I have no idea wehre this is going to end up. I mean, I thought I had an idea, but the characters are resisting me, and that's usually a sign that it's not going to do what I plan for it to do, and instead it's going to go somewhere else. Although how, I've got no clue. I'd ask you guys to be patient, but you've all been so incredibly cool, I know you'll all stay with me.

Par: Good, glad to hear you're okay. Especially after that last chapter. Now this one is all goooooey. Fluffy, fuzzy, whatever you want to call it. Sap. Sticky sweet. Damn it was fun after all that stress. Ha! Hope I didn't make you blush with the last part on the train, although I'll admit it was kind of tame and didn't go all the way. That would have just been too much, don't you think? No, of course you don't, you're for triple X. Well, this is as detailed as I get. Maybe. Heh. MMMM...Ham sandwich. Honeybaked Ham makes the best ham salad
I've ever had. Think I need to go get some tomorrow, now that you've mentioned it. :) And I couldn't help but be intrigued by what you're reading. IN college I majored in English, but we never got to read some of the great Russian masters so after graduation I had to take matters into my own hands. I read "Crime and Punishment," and also Soltzenitzen's "Cancer Ward," which was really dark. Love those RUssian novelists, lots of plots, lots of characters, lots of headaches. I usually understand like one or two story lines and consider myself lucky.

firegoddess164: I guess this chapter has given you encouragement. Truth be told, I still don't know what Vincent is going to do. He hasn't told me yet.

Byrony Cel: Thank you for your continued encouragement. I think I need to go see Collateral tomorrow,
though, just so I can get back in touch with the character. I think I've been watching too many Tom Cruise movies lately and the characters are starting to bleed through.

LunaGrrBack023: You can say it as many times as you want, darling, I won't stop you. LOL. Yeah, I guess
you have a point, but people like Vincnet don't ever really get out from under the shadow of their past.
Kind of like the Borne Identity, it always comes back. Vincent would testify, but he would be sure that
Felix's people would be coming to hunt him down, and he wouldn't want VIctoria around to get hurt, and she certainly wouldn't stay around if she had a baby to care for. So there are complications. But who knows, we'll see.

SweetArwen: Hit them with a stick! LMAO!!! I just had an image. Sorry, that was just funny. Yes, I like to
thicken the plot. Although if it gets too thick it won't go down, so I have to control my urges. Heh. I'm ready to fall asleep at the computer again, and it's only 10:30 on a Friday Night! My God, I don't have a life!

mellow yellow: Didn't they fire the guy who called it mellow? Sorry, couldn't resist. Welcome to our little
group here! Glad to hear you read the first one, hope you're enjoying the second. HOpefully there will be more chapters to come, and I shall be expecting other reviews of those chapters in the future. Hint wink nudge. Thanks!

All right, goodnight my dahlings. Vincent is asleep, Victoria is asleep, and soon, I shall be asleep. Pleasant
dreams, all! May visions of a naked Vincent dance in your head.