The call with Henry took a few more turns than Anna expected and she finished with the time and date for the meeting. John occupied himself with marking the locations on the map before removing the pins and rolling it up to tuck into the jacket he hung on a hook in her entryway. She watched him move, the almost imperceptible hitch in his gait doing nothing to lessen the grace of his movements. The series of unconscious calculations that put a person as large as he was at ease with his surroundings. That gave him the air of defense and protection instead of haunting bulk or looming threat.

The little motions about him that drew Anna to him all over again.

John caught her staring, his eyes narrowing to fight with the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Anna nodded at him, "I'm simply admiring the view."

"Of me?"

"What other view do I have here?"

"I don't know." John made a show of pivoting to study the details of Anna's small study before tracking around her flat. "It is a lovely spot."

"Yes but there's a novelty to the view you offer."

"Is there?" John came over to where Anna still waited in the doorway, dwarfing her as he closed the distance until barely a breath could pass between them. "I didn't think myself that special."

"But you are." Anna put her fingers to his cheeks, dragging the tips of them down to trace his skin. "You are very special."

"What happens when I'm not special anymore because I'm part of the everyday? Or when the novelty wears off?"

"Then we'll just have to find a new novelty." Anna's fingers continued to trace down John's face to his neck and over his bare arms so their fingers could interlink. "If we both wanted to, we could."

"I do want that." John tightened his hold on her fingers to twist his grip and bring her knuckles to his mouth to kiss over them. "When are we meeting with your friend to discuss what we know?"

"It won't be until tomorrow afternoon. It was the soonest he could get away and still meet with you and Inspector Crawley."

"Then we have time?"

"I don't know," Anna bit at her lip. "He wants something in return for the information he'll give you."

"What?"

"That case you've got stashed away. He wants most of the contents back."

"Most?"

"Just enough to put his superiors at ease."

"But we've got to make a case with the evidence inside it and-"

"And he knows that." Anna slipped her fingers from John's grip to rest them over his lips so the flow of worry ceased. "He's not taking all of it and he'll ensure that Ross and whoever else might be breathing down your necks about it will back off and let your case proceed."

"He'll do that?"

Anna gave a shrug. "There's no stopping it now. You're already in it too deep to back out and whatever reasons they might've given about secrecy have been blown wide open. Especially given how the journalists'll flock to the story once that expose gets published within a news cycle of the announcement of Vera's death."

"There'll be no escaping it now then?"

"None at all." Anna went onto her tiptoes to kiss John's cheek and whispered in his ear. "But I've got a distraction for you, if you'd like."

"Have you?" She almost bit her lip watching the dilation of John's pupils, the way his Adam's apple bobbed, or the expansion of his chest as he tried to steady his breathing. "And what kind of seductive thoughts are you having, Ms. Smith?"

"The kind you'll like." Anna tugged on John's hand and dragged him behind her through the tight confines of her flat to bring him to her bedroom. "Especially since I know how exhausted you are."

"I do feel a little lethargic." John made a show of sitting on the bed, easing his body onto the mattress. "I may not have the energy for your salacious plans."

"You could let me do all the work." Anna leaned over him, her fingers dragging over his chest until she reached the waistband of his pants and slipped surreptitiously under it. "I have proven rather adept at it in the past."

"True." John's fingers trailed over her hips, shifting her dressing gown against her skin before delving into the gaping space to allow his hands to caress her breasts. "But that wouldn't be fair."

"I promised to spoil you."

"We both deserve to be spoiled." John sat up, trapping them for a second as he pushed her dressing gown apart so it pooled and caught on her elbows to leave her upper torso bare. "And I want to spoil you."

"Do you?" Anna did not even have time to smile at him. Or attempt any intriguing enticement at all before John's mouth closed over one of her breasts and soulfully sucked there. All she could do then was sink her fingers into his hair and dig her nails into the back of his scalp to herself steady as her feet no longer seemed to touch the floor.

It took wiggling in the trapping confines of her dressing gown to force her hands away from John's skull but Anna tried to cut through the time as quickly as she could to leave her dressing gown floating to the floor. All the while John's mouth never stopped lavishing kisses and affection at her breasts and abdomen. And once Anna's skin met his, freed from all entrapping material, John's hands firmed at Anna's hips and dragged her forward.

For a moment Anna thought she saw her life flash before her eyes. But John proved steady and sure as he lay back on her bed, perpendicular to her headboard, and slid Anna over the sheets until she almost sat on his chest. That did not prove her final destination and her fingers, once again, clutched desperately at his scalp when John's mouth settled at her core and gave it the same level of uninterrupted affection and care. Each stroke of his tongue dug Anna's nails deeper until her entire body released tension as John brought her to climax.

She sagged above him, her hand barely finding purchase in her duvet to stop herself tumbling forward when she attempted to breathe. And all the while John continued licking at her, easing her down from her high with another, smaller, orgasm that left Anna almost limp in his hands. Hands that treated her so gently as he helped her lay back on her mattress.

"I might begrudge you that expression if you didn't have every reason to be very pleased with yourself." Anna almost drawled as she struggled against her post-coital haze to stare up at John. He practically crouched over her, hands on either side of her head, and only smiled back.

"I told you I wanted to spoil you."

"You did." Anna nodded, her leg drifted up slowly enough John did not realize until her foot caught the hem of his pants to tug them down his legs. "And now I'd like to spoil you."

"Would you?" John teased, moving his hips in time with her efforts to allow his pants to slide a little further off his body.

"Very much so." Anna sat up just enough to reach down and yank his pants to his knees. Before John could attempt a smart remark about her speed or lack of patience she had him in her hand, caressing him carefully as she held his gaze with her own. "If you'd like."

"I'd be a fool to say no."

"You rather would." Anna released John only long enough for him to shuck his pants to the floor and reached for him the second he returned to the bed.

But John dodged her grasp, one of his hands moving to her thigh to shift into position and thrust forward without preamble. Anna clutched for him then, clinging to his arm with one hand and his hip with the other as John held the position until her body relaxed enough to revel in the pleasure of it. Then he withdrew to do it again, setting a steady pace that had Anna rocking her hips to join with him.

When she shifted her legs, widening them before locking her ankles behind his back, John sank deeper. Their pace changed, to adjust for the change in angle, and Anna let her head fall back into the pillows behind her as her nails found a new place to leave their mark. With each shift of John's body she scored over his shoulders and tried to bring him the imperceptible distance closer with her fingers leaving bruises in the flesh of his ass.

They kissed at one another, just missing one another with their imperfect timing. Settling for kissing and mouthing at available skin between their sounds of pleasure and the noises they made as they move in unison proved sustaining enough. Enough that Anna attempted one last lift of her hips and it only took John three more thrusts to send her over the edge again. And the resultant grasp of her vaginal walls of her orgasm left him driving frenetically forward in the last throes of his climax until they practically collapsed together.

John moved but Anna clung to him, landing them sideways and barely managing to keep both of them on the bed as they tried to stop John rolling off and then overcorrected in the opposite direction. When they did settle, giggling between breathless gasps as they tried to recover enough strength to move, Anna traced her fingers over his face. "You are always going to be remarkable to me."

"If you say so."

"I do." Anna kissed him, lifting herself onto her bent arm to try her best at towering over him. "I said so from the first time you invited me to tea."

"Not in those words."

"Did it have to be in those words?"

"I guess not." John grinned at her, tracing the contours of his face. "I just know that I don't deserve you."

"We're allowed to deserve each other." Anna caught his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. "Just as you're allowed to be happy."

"You think I don't let myself be happy?"

"I think you're used to people telling you that you can't be happy." Anna let herself flop back down next to him. "And when those articles come out, and the journalists swarm to you, and you're defending yourself you need to remember that the vindictiveness of a now dead woman is not the measure by which you're judged by those who matter."

"You being one of those people who matter, yes?"

"I don't offer the use of my bed to just anyone and I definitely don't engage in fornication with people I think aren't worth my time and attention." Anna smiled at him before laying on her back, her hand blindly seeking his. "You've spent too long in the shadow of that woman and what she implies. Don't spend another moment thinking about her."

"I'm not the one thinking about her right now."

"No, but you might." Anna turned her head to him. "In an hour or a day or a week or whenever the storm breaks over you, you will."

"Are you afraid of that?"

"Am I afraid of a dead woman?" Anna raised an eyebrow and then nodded. "I'm afraid of what it'll do to you."

"What is that?"

"It'll make you believe, mistakenly, that you're not worthy. That you're not worth it. Then you'll try to break off what we're… What I hope we're building here. You'll think you're not good enough and you'll hide away somewhere." Anna tightened her grip on his hand, forcing John to meet her eyes. "Don't do it. No matter what they say or how much her words still sting when someone brings them up or memory proves a strong motivator, don't fall for it."

"I won't." John gave her a smile, tinged with sadness. "As tempting as it may be, I promise that I won't."

"Good." Anna reached over to trace his face again. "What now?"

"Sleep would be the best idea."

"Oh," She pushed out her lower lip to tease him with a pout. "Have I thoroughly exhausted you?"

"You did your best to."

"I did." Anna nodded, grinning at him before sitting up. "And you do need your beauty sleep."

"Fat lot of good it'll do me now."

"I think you're beautiful." Anna leaned over to kiss him. "Now, get some sleep so you're not totally useless when Henry comes around."

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

"In a bit." Anna slipped off the bed, grabbing for her dressing gown. "If I try to fall asleep next to you now I worry I won't be able to resist you."

"I'm that fetching am I?"

"Beyond." Anna shrugged up a shoulder, "But I've got to sort out a few things first or else my mind won't rest."

"Promise you'll sleep?"

"Promise."

Anna left the room and went into her study. The map John rolled earlier still tucked into his coat but she found a smaller one in a box she had locked under a floorboard beneath her immaculate desk. Each move she made forced her to pause and listen for John's movements but nothing stirred from her room.

Leaving the lockbox open, Anna studied the map and shook her head. "We got ourselves in it now."

"In it how?"

Anna jumped, putting a hand to her heart and trying to breathe when she saw John at the door. "What are you doing here?"

"I was curious what could have you still up when you've got to be as exhausted as I am." John jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "So I followed you in here and waited."

"You didn't make any noise."

"I'm very smooth." He pointed at the map in her hands. "What is it?"

"An unfortunate truth." Anna stood and put the map on the desk before dipping back into the lockbox to extract the files there. "It was an idea I had, during the war, that we never went through with."

"The smuggling operation was your idea?"

Anna nodded, "I thought it would be a way to control supply lines and earn us untraceable capital." She shook her head, berating herself with each motion. "It was… I'm not proud of it. But we were getting desperate, low on funds, and losing more agents then we were managing to return home then. I presented it after we captured a smuggler operating on the border of Austria and he told us about the poppy fields of Afghanistan."

"But they never went with the project?"

"No." Anna tapped the map. "It's why the cities sounded so familiar and… And why I have a feeling Green is after me for more than just revenge for my involvement in his court martial."

"You think he's trying to eliminate you since this was your idea?"

"I think his discharge was for show."

"What?"

Anna could only shrug, "As I said, our division was desperate and sometimes they'd find people who were just as desperate. People they wouldn't mind dying in the field because they were just fodder."

"Did your division recruit Green?"

"I don't know but the evidence is there if he knows about this line." Anna bit the inside of her cheek. "And it would explain why they don't want us investigating that dinner party too closely."

"And you're feeling guilty?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"I've had a lot of bad ideas before."

"They didn't become the reason five people are dead and more are…" Anna sighed, folding her arms over her chest. "It's hard not to feel guilty when you know you sparked an idea. Whether or not you followed through with it isn't the issue because someone did. And you wonder, 'if I hadn't then…' and it's… It's a dangerous thought to have but it's been plaguing me since I put all this together."

"Does your friend know?"

"More than likely, which would explain why he's willing to meet with us and answer some of our questions."

"The strange machinations of guilt."

"It would seem." Anna risked looking at John, "I do hope this doesn't make you think any less of me."

"Never." John's fingers drummed on the smaller map for a second before facing Anna. "In fact, it answers quite a few questions as to why you're so willing to look past the multitude of faults I bring."

"Multitude?" Anna managed little laugh, shaking her head at him. "You've got depths and multitudes within you, Mr. Bates, but you're not brimming with faults."

"It's a distinction without a difference." John reached his hand out to her, "Do you think your mind could rest now?"

"I think so." Anna gathered the files and map, tucking them into the lockbox and storing it away again before taking John's hand. "I'd rather you not mention that little hidey-hole to anyone. It's my… insurance policy."

"Your secrets are always safe with me, Ms. Smith." John guided her back to the bedroom, tucking himself under the duvet as Anna joined him. "Just as I know any of mine would be equally safe with you."

"It's nice to finally have someone to share confidences with." Anna lay back, tucking herself along John's side as they found their niche together. "Someone you can confide in without equal payment."

"Someone who understands."

"Exactly that." Anna closed her eyes, "Exactly that."

For whatever worries and thoughts might have been swirling around Anna's mind, they settled and her exhausted body won out. Deep sleep wrapped her safely and securely until time meant nothing. All she needed was the restorative power of rest and it would prove the refreshment she craved.

But something enticed her from the ever-tempting, always beckoning, call of slumber. A faint sensation that played over her shoulders. Shoulders she realized were not wrapped in comforting warmth but exposed. Exposed enough to receive the attentions of flitting kisses that then traced down her back.

Anna shifted, a muffled noise into her pillow as she realized she shifted onto her side in her sleep, and then sighed at the gentle caresses of John's hands smoothing over her skin. The golden-grey glow of the sun sinking below the horizon but valiantly fighting against the choking fog of the city left the room an odd hue but gave enough light to see. And the sight Anna caught over her shoulder as she met John's eyes was enough to have her shifting closer to him.

He responded as she hoped, accommodating her form in his space and trailing more kisses down her spine before retracing his steps over her shoulders and toward her neck. All the while his arms managed to wrap around her and position his hands where they would entice her to full wakefulness. One arm, half trapped under her side by the angle of their bodies, managed to pivot up and knead at her breasts while the other hooked around her hip to delve between her legs. She opened to him, locking her leg back over his hip to grant him unfettered access.

And John's efforts did not disappoint.

The curve of his hand allowed two fingers to enter her, riding along the seams of her folds and stroking intimately inside her. He found the places that sent Anna writhing in his grasp and focused there, pressing hard with his palm against her clit to deepen his reach and increase the sensation. It brought her right to the edge and when John's fingers firmed their grip on her breast while he nipped at her shoulder it sent her soundly over the edge.

Gasping her breath, and debating between trying to bury herself in the sheets or throw herself back toward John's chest, Anna groaned at the realization John's shift not only brought his chest to her back but also firmly fit his arousal between her legs. The sensation of him dragging the soft heat against her still fluttering muscles left Anna whimpering and reaching blindly back for a hold on him. Something to ground her as he ground against her. When she did find it, her hand cupping hard around the back of John's neck, he thrust forward and impaled himself to the hilt in a second.

Anna did cry out then. Her fingers gripped hard enough on the bedsheets to whiten her knuckles and she vaguely considered the idea that John's body would be covered in bruises of her making before he withdrew to thrust forward again. The motion arched Anna's body back into John and she tensed like a string until John's fingers played at her clit. Then she released in a rush and sagged into him.

John, however, was not finished. His motions slowed, thrusting shallowly through Anna's climax as her body quivered and trembled in his grip, and he waited. The thud of his heart from his chest through her back almost betrayed him to Anna and she used the little strength she gathered to writhe back against him. It ground him closer and changed the angle to spark against her already frazzled nerves.

The noise she let out when it happened had John shifting. His hip leaned into hers and Anna proved pliable enough to John's non-verbal urging to leave her stomach and abdomen pressed into the mattress. It altered their motions and forced John even deeper so Anna buried a guttural groan into the comfort of the sheets. Muffling the sound did little to hide her reaction and John reveled in it as he undulated his hips to rock the slightest bit deeper. Her screech into the bedsheets had him almost purring into her ear, the vibrations from his chest running through her back as he spoke.

"You are breathtaking."

"You're the one taking my breath." Anna tried to argue back but with John's weight spread along her and his kisses continuing over her shoulders and up her neck, it was all she could do to form a sentence.

"I'll take whatever you're willing to give me." He breathed against her, kissing back toward her ear. "And more, if you'll let me."

Anna had no words for him. So she turned her head, their cheeks sliding against one another, and kissed him. Kissed him at an angle they could not maintain but kissed him as hard as she could. Kissed him until she could not breathe.

Then John took her breath away again. His fingers interlaced with hers and he used the leverage to drive himself into her with long, deep strokes that dragged along every one of her flashing nerves. When he rolled his hips against her, striking right where her body needed, Anna came again.

Clutching and grabbing at the sheets while her vaginal walls attempted to do the same to him, Anna could barely cry out. But the length of John's body eased off her and his hands trailed from hers. They sculpted along her arms, up to her shoulders, down her back, and settled at her hips as he drew back.

Drew back enough to bring her with him so they did not separate. For a second Anna rested back against John's chest as he sat on bended knee, she resting on his thighs. Their fight for breath matched and Anna tempted herself enough to gyrate her hips around John as he stayed seated inside her. It was all the prelude he needed to kiss her again, the position easier to maintain from this angle, and then leaned them forward.

It took a moment, the adjustments proving a little difficult with flagging energy but not flagging interest, but Anna managed to support her weight on her hands and knees as John reseated himself inside her. And then thrust with abandon as the sounds of them coming together formed the score to the oldest of all traditions. One that left Anna quivering as her body expended the last dregs of her reserves on the orgasm John elicited from her before he surrendered to his own.

They sank back together, both heaving for breath with chests moving at the speed of racehorses to try and settle their racing hearts. Hearts that still beat a little too quickly when Anna finally risked speaking. "What brought this on?"

"What?" John turned to her, frowning as if trying to settle his thoughts to operate for conversation.

"What brought this on?" Anna repeated, her own brain barely managing to function normally. "It's not usually so-"

"Sudden?"

"Possessive."

"I…" John shrugged, letting out a long breath before an equally deep inhale. "Those things you said, earlier, before you went to open your insurance policy. The fact that you have an insurance policy. Then I woke up and saw you sleeping and I…"

"Couldn't resist?"

"Wanted to try and express something I don't think I've got words for."

Anna nodded, "That's fair. More than fair, actually." She sat up, blinking at the colors warped for a second before they resettled. "And I wouldn't know how to put that into words either."

"Good thing we don't have to then." John sat up, his fingers grazing over the back of Anna's hand. "But it was alright?"

"If you have to ask then-"

"Not that part." The rise of color in John's cheeks almost had Anna taking the mickey at his sudden bashfulness but his maintenance of expression sobered her. "That I might've… Taken advantage."

"No." Anna shook her head, her fingers grazing over John's cheek so he turned to look at her. "You didn't."

"But if you-"

She kissed him then, her fingers finding the places where she grazed and bruised him during their encounters. They stayed there as Anna pulled away, tracing them like a map she unintentionally left for herself. "You'd never. And I rather enjoyed myself."

"I hoped so." John risked a smile then and Anna could only shake her head. "It was supposed to spoil you."

"I find I was thoroughly pleasured by your ravishing attentions." Anna let out a breath and reached for her dressing gown again. "But we've got more to do then leave each other deprived of our senses in this bed."

"Do you have another bed in mind?"

"Maybe later." Anna winked at him, rising and giving herself a moment to allow the spots to vanish from before her eyes. "Although we should eat something first. And perhaps wash."

"Then we're going out in public?"

"We've got to retrieve that case, Mr. Bates." Anna motioned toward her bathroom. "If you wash up first we'll take it in turns."

"Or you could join me."

Ann forced herself not to look back at him. "We both know that would be a mistake, Mr. Bates, and we'd never get anywhere."

"Spoilsport."

"We've both been thoroughly spoiled." Anna finally looked back at him, fighting the desire to do exactly as he asked. "Now we've got to do our jobs."

Though the task proved almost monumental, they both managed to eat something and get clean enough that they were out of Anna's flat before the streetlamps were lit. But even with the lamps glowing at full strength the weight of the fog, almost choking them, proved blacker than they expected. Pulling scarves over their mouths and noses. Anna and John attempted to hail a cab before finally giving up and trekking their way across town toward the Cerulean Swan.

They stayed to the pavement, not risking the road unless they could hear nothing from either direction as lorries and buses continued snail's paces on the roads that offered a visibility barely ten feet from their windshields. Space that could not be said for trying to get from one side of the road to the other as the visibility worsened until others walking even a foot or so beyond were nothing but black shadows and vague shapes in their vision. For all the difficulty, however, they managed they alleyway and Anna kept 'guard' while John dug around for the case.

It was then, as John dragged it loose, that the hairs on the back of Anna's neck tingled. Barely a moment passed, not enough time to signal or cry out, and a body slammed into hers. She knocked back against the brick and all the air in her lungs rushed out.

Anna fought for breath, keeping her arms in front of her face before attempting to bring her elbows down on the back of the body now wrapped around her midriff. But nothing loosened the hold and a great hurdle sent her skidding over the stones before she rolled to a stop. Whatever air had been left in her lungs left as Anna gasped against the panic of needing to breathe.

The figure, still hazing in the fog, landing on her stomach and hand grabbed for her neck. Anna tried to fight, scrabbling back at the person above her as black dotted her vision and her body seemed to shrink as her lungs refused to fill. All the weight and pressure and trauma to her body had her blinking to try and force the urge to faint away but nothing helped. No matter what she did no air came and her body collapsed under her.

But then, a breath of air.

She gasped out, choking and coughing as she clawed for more. Clutched ravenously at the opportunity to fill her lungs. They inflated slightly, growing a little more full with each struggle, and Anna rolled to her hands and knees as the weight left her chest. More coughing and choking followed until she could finally fill her lungs. Could finally breathe the filthy, soot-laced, clogged air.

Anna blinked past the tears and tried to adjust her position, crawling forward until she found a wall to act as a crutch as she stood. Stood to watch the familiar outline of John's bulky shape fighting the other figure. They collided again and again, wrapping like brawlers or tumblers around one another in the alley until John threw the figure out toward the street.

They impacted again as John tried to tackle the other one but the figure held its ground. Held it just enough to try and kick John back and loosen John's hold. And it loosened as John lost his footing for a moment. The figure struggled free, danced out of reach, and into the path of an oncoming bus.

Staggering to John, Anna tried to help him to his feet and them stumbled together to where the body lay sprawled on the ground. Anna ignored the constable trying to stop her approach as John explained their situation in level tones before confronting an absolutely apoplectic bus driver. All that was nothing but noise in the background that muffled the second Anna recognized the body on the ground before her. The body coughing blood she narrowly avoided while reaching a quivering hand toward her.

It took all of her training to ignore the face and immediately rip open the man's coat and shirt to assess the damage. To realize there was nothing to be done as his chest purpled and darkened before her eyes and the sick sight of bone trying to protrude from skin met her gaze. John was at her side in a moment and his voice broke her concentration.

"Is this…"

"It's Green." Anna confirmed and sat back on her heels as she shook her head. Her eyes met Green's and she noted the tingle of hope there fizzle out as she shook her head again. "You're dying."

"Please." He wheezed, the tone of his begging voice almost wringing at Anna's heart but no amount of pleading could save him. "Please."

"There's nothing I can do." Her voice broke as she said it. "There's-"

"You've got minutes." John interrupted them, forcing Green to look at him. "Tell us what's going on. Why are you trying to kill Anna? Kill me?"

"It's…" Green spluttered, coughing up more blood. "It's not what you think."

"What's that mean?"

"Things…" He coughed again, the grating rasp of his voice making Anna wince. "Things aren't what they seem."

"What does that mean?"

But Green was already dead.