Disclaimer: Noir does not belong to me. Please do not sue.
Originally written for Yuletide's New Year's Resolutions
Challenge 2005, then heavily revised. This was my first attempt, as a
newbie at fanfic, to write multi-chapter. Reviews will be loved and
faithfully read.
CHAPTER TWO
Life
The trouble is, there isn't really anything to reach for in the end. No matter how hard they might try, they will still be themselves, Yuumura Kirika and Mireille Bouquet, who were once Noir and are now no longer.
Mireille frowns. Some distance below, the river gushes by, the same as always.
She approaches the small terrace they have gazed over more than a dozen times. An ornate balustrade runs along the outer edge for a couple of lengths, after which it is replaced by a simpler but no less elegant wall. The place isn't crowded at this hour; just a few schoolgirls and a pair of tourists looking incongruously gleeful. She comes to a halt a few feet away from the others and plants her elbows on an empty stretch of rail, props her nose behind laced fingers. They come here on clear mornings before work and evenings once the washing is done and the utensils are in their proper places. Mireille likes the spot. Occasionally they get birds wheeling overhead.
For now, the sky is empty. Letting the light chatter fade into the background, she closes her eyes, allows an almost-black stillness to descend over her. The world is quieter in the darkness.
------
She tipped the kettle with practiced grace, letting a clear trickle drift over the bottom of the pale bowl. The pleasant aroma of steam arose, toying with the delicate scent of green tea. Mireille smiled and stepped back to admire her handiwork. "What do you think, Kirika?"There was no reply. "Kirika?"
She found the younger girl absorbed in staring at the modern stainless steel pot they were cooking the Japanese noodles in. There was a streak of sauce on her left cheek that extended nearly to the nose. Mireille crossed her arms and waited until Kirika tore her attention away from the culinary process. "These are almost ready," she said as she turned to Mireille, utterly serious.
Mireille broke into helpless laughter.
"What is it?"
Shoulders still shaking, Mireille brushed her thumb over the stained spot on Kirika's cheek. Kirika remained still, although her eyes widened, then swivelled to follow the movement. Some of the smear came away, but not all of it.
"There you go," Mireille said pleasantly, gaze latching onto hers. They stayed in place for five minutes, Mireille with her arm half-extended, neither quite able to move until the rattling of the pot alerted Kirika to her unfinished task and she left to turn off the gas.
Mireille stared at the ground, feeling curiously shaken. Then she, too, walked away to continue making the tea.
------
The afternoon sunlight floods in when she opens her eyes, temporarily blinding her. Blinking through a thin film of dust motes, Mireille reorients herself to the surroundings, and finds herself staring at the water again. Its surface looks impenetrable.
A clear breeze ripples along, ruffling the edge of her sleeve and bringing a minute smile to her lips behind the canopy of her fingers. She really does like the neighbourhood. It's just that something isn't right, like having an awry piece in a puzzle that throws the rest into disarray. Unlike before, she's a part of this jigsaw too.
These days she's taken to wondering whether Kirika feels as out of place as she does, here. But she hasn't asked, and it's hard to tell where Kirika is concerned. They don't talk about the past, much less compare the present with it. Once they were going to, but one thing or another got in the way.
It's all going to go away sooner or later, though. This she knows with a steely certainty that now thins her lips with resolution. Mireille drops her hands, peers over the rail briefly, then turns, putting her back against it. The dreams of gunshots that she herself has will diminish soon enough, and so will Kirika's harsher nightmares. There are just some things that refuse to be forgotten all at once. And it isn't Kirika's fault that she was brought up by Altena's faction and taught to kill with such proficiency.
She has killed; she understands. No one understands better than she does. Except for Chloe, maybe. But Chloe is dead. Now, leaving their weapons behind is the only way they can forsake the darkness.
This, she believes.
So she has her weaknesses. She's well aware of that. But being flawed doesn't mean she's wrong. The recent mistake was an exception.
The long hallways of the shooting range return to her with surprising clarity. Long hallways, and then a narrow space to herself, with an even narrower line along which to sight. The last time was three weeks ago. She told Kirika she was sourcing for supplies, for the teahouse. Just once, she promised without words, the first time. Just once. That morning, firing round after round into the assigned target, she felt the rented firearm shake, and her next shot was off the mark.
She grits her teeth, eyeing the sidewalk, recalling how she carried on, how the unexpected vision of Kirika looking on, brow furrowed, unexpectedly came to mind. The grooves and bumps in the weapon, already awkward in her hands, acquired an uncomfortable weight. It was easy to walk off after that, Mireille thinks to herself, glancing at her empty hands. She takes her handbag off the crook of an arm, winds her fingers through the loops.
Well, they shouldn't need an actual shooting range to begin with. The regularity of the place got on her nerves. And it does no good anyhow. She didn't enter the game expecting life to be easy. Living a fairy tale didn't rank high among her dreams, at least past a certain age. She is no princess waiting to be saved, even if Kirika might look cute on a horse
How absurd. Mireille peers over the parapet, notes the ripples stirring the unceasing water. She has been an assassin for most of her life, with an established system, dependable contacts, the works. By a strange quirk of fate, all of it means next to nothing now.
It might be nice if things were less complicated, but relationships are never simple, especially if one or both parties kill - killed, she corrects absently - people for a living. Better to avoid them entirely, avoid entangling one's life with someone else's, avoid the consequences that arrived sooner or later.
Those years, living on her own in Paris, Mireille became used to the idea of solitude. It clung about her like a familiar cloak, and she could walk confidently into crowded streets and deserted boulevards alike and still wear a contented smile. It was her way. A killer had to maintain a certain distance, even from her few intimates. But Kirika came along, and as much as she wants to say they aren't in that kind of relationship exactly, she can no longer not see the resemblances.
The comparison is unavoidable. There was a period where she temporarily shared her life with a couple of people. That stopped when the student she was dating was nearly killed by enemies of hers. Henceforth Mireille chose to work alone: less need to worry about someone dying.
Still, this is different. What they have is different from the uncertain weeks she spent with Adèle, Mathilde, Hélène, or even Julien.
------
Sometimes, at dawn, Kirika is overcome by a spasm of sorts, her youthful features twisting into a tortured mask. She makes strangled yelping noises, and Mireille thought she was having a fit the first time, until she saw her face. She knows that face. She sees a stranger in that face.
She put out her hand, then withdrew it. Clamping her lips closed, she lowered herself, tucking her arms down and around the trembling girl.
Eventually, she learned that her caresses can calm Kirika down.
Numerous times has she repeated the same act, solemn with the weight of ritual: drawing her fingers up to a pulse point, tracing vessels fragile as butterfly wings. Reaching the jugular's main artery and lingering, longing to press down into the heart of comprehension, she feels her pulse, throbbing with irrational force.
There, the gulf between them thins for an instant.
Kirika lies limp in her arms.
Her own heart battering at her throat, it often occurs to Mireille that what joins them may be an inevitable fate. But she doesn't relate these reflections, and Kirika wouldn't know of star-crossed lovers anyway. The memory of those pained eyes and the burden they bear keeps her away some nights.
------
Some would call it love. Mireille has never uttered the word.
Hands tightening on unyielding metal, she succumbs to the easy, romantic answer for a moment, lets it wash over her. The aftertaste, burning on her tongue, reminds her of Paris.
Love. The two of them in a bright spring morning, living, loving like ordinary people, playing young couplehood on neat chairs in the morning sun, serving their customers with newlyweds beams lighting up their faces. She would surprise Kirika at the cash register with a rose; soothe rumpled hair with a kiss. There would be involuntary smiles across the teahouse, sly caresses over the dishwasher, and after closing time, the quiet conversations only intimacy can give, the heater's dull whirring a peaceful counterpoint to the evening. The picture has a certain charm.
And why not? There is nothing keeping them from living like everyone else. Nothing but spirits of the past, pale ghosts that she is sure are going to disappear any second now. She has always been confident of this single fact. She hopes her faith was not misplaced. Maybe someday
The skin on the back of her neck prickles.
Mireille instinctively drops her weight onto one foot and spins in place, senses tingling.
A child, cap drooping over his head, takes off running down the path. She leaps into pursuit, flying over grass. As the fleeing figure looms nearer, she reaches into her purse. But her hands grope in vain; she exclaims in disgust and closes her fingers over her compact instead. Hurling it frisbee-style towards the boy, she gets him on the back of his thigh and the surprise causes him to lose his step. He drops to the ground, allowing her time to catch up.
To his credit, he scrambles to his feet almost immediately, staggering forwardonly to be held back by the scruff of his jacket which foresight has made her grab. Grunting, he tries to shrug out of the coarse material.
Mireille takes the opening to deliver a well-placed kick she's certain will not cause permanent harm. He falls again, and stays on the ground this time. She bends to retrieve a ladies' handbag from the inner lining of the jacket.
By now, a small crowd has gathered.
"Thank you for your help!"
Mireille turns to face the owner of the dulcet tones and is surprised to find it is the middle-aged woman whose cries for help she heard earlier. She proffers the bag with a smile. "It was no trouble. But this boy should be taught a lesson. Should he be brought to the police station?"
"I think he's received his lesson." There is a twinkle in the woman's eye as she takes the bag from Mireille. "He looks young, though. Maybe he has parents still living. Ah"
"Don't even think about it," Mireille quips, her hand already on the boy's arm.
He lunges. The cap slips, letting loose a ponytail of dark hair and narrowed, angry eyes. An unmistakably feminine face, snarled into a rictus of rage, glares up at the former assassin.
Mind abruptly blank, she loosens her grip.
The girl dashes into the crowd.
"Miss?"
Her head swims.
"Miss? Are you all right? It's okay. I don't think anything was taken."
Only a child, and already... already... Mireille shakes her head, summoning up a false smile, aware that her breathing is unsteady.
"I'm okay," she says, "I… I should be going."
...and that concludes Part II of III.
This section took so long because I realized that it was the middle part and hence very important. So I went back to rewrite almost everything I'd already written to make it smoother stylistically, based on reviews and what I think I actually do better at (probably). Not everyone will like the directions and implications, though.
