There is a conversation they begin to have as Pamela Landy sips at her coffee and David Webb eyes her and the cup in front of him warily.
She's not sure who initiates it, who takes the first lunge and braces for the first parry, but suddenly it begins.
"Decaffeinated?" he asks her.
One word, five syllables, seven consonants and six vowels.
But it's conversation.
She shakes her head.
"For me, yes."
A raised eyebrow from him.
And then Pam falls back into it, the silent chess board which the ex-protagonist and antagonist wage their war.
They're both very good at this game.
But it's time to see who will win.
"I thought you'd be coming in from a long drive," she elaborates to him. "Might need some caffeine to keep you awake the rest of the way."
This translates literally into a question of: where the hell did you go? but they know that asking that would be breaking the rules of their game.
So then he makes his move.
"Yeah."
One word, one syllable, two vowels and consonants.
Webb finally reaches forward and picks up the cup, taking a sip himself.
The cup goes back down with a click.
And then he elaborates.
"I went to Missouri," he says.
She watches him for a moment, waiting for more, then realizes that that's it.
Her turn.
"So you remember."
Statement. But question, too.
A nod from him, accompanied by a brief flicker of a smile.
"Yes."
It would explain a lot to her – how the hair has morphed from brown to blond (obviously not naturally) and how the glasses he perches on his nose make him seem more human.
When he didn't know who he was, he clung to the black-on-black attire, the brown hair and the blue eyes almost adamantly. It was all he had, all he knew – a physical identity that defined him as him.
But now he knows more, and he can break away from what he was. Bourne is still there, hiding behind the eyes, but someone else resides in that body, too.
His turn.
"How's the shoulder?"
He means the not-so-discreet bandaging on Pam's right shoulder, hidden beneath the shirt.
He's talking about the bullet-wound she received a week ago.
She'd known that she wouldn't have fucked over her superiors and gotten away with it – it had been painfully clear from the second she slipped the files into the fax machine and turned to Vosen, eyes defiant.
She'd known it when she stood before Congress and testified about the so-called Kramer Scandal.
And she knew it when the black GMC began to tail her and Cronin in the car, heading back to the hotel.
They weren't discreet about it, they weren't brash about it, but they were coming for her.
Tom did well under the circumstances, considering. The two hadn't been in the field in over seven years (for Pamela it was nine), but he doggedly dodged through traffic and bounced from highway to side-street to alley for as long as possible, trying to keep them in heavily populated areas.
Sure, it slowed down their escape, but it made it so that shooting the Volvo would become out of the question.
Eventually, though, they forgot that the enemy had the tendency to come in more than one number. As their tail suddenly vanished, another black Yukon abruptly screamed out from one of the intersections heading back towards the Hill and slammed into the passenger's side of the car, sending them spinning.
Even now, Pam wasn't sure how she wasn't knocked unconscious – the force of the impact was such that glass sprayed and her entire body felt like it had been dislocated. The world flickered, collapsed, and metal crumpled all around her but she didn't black-out. And Tom – bleeding, clutching the gun in his hand awkwardly and fumbling with his seatbelt – didn't either. Instead, they managed to stagger out of the wreckage and tried (tried was the operative word) to get away from the car as fast as possible, moving towards the police sirens and away from the black Yukon they knew was waiting for them, engine idling somewhere nearby.
They got to the police car only to realize it wasn't the police, and later (after Pam twisted in the grip of one, went straight for his eyes and proceeded to get an elbow in her throat) began to understood that they were going to die.
Tom had a six-year old son, a three-year old daughter and a wife at home.
Pam had this – her career, her life and the truth.
They didn't want to die.
It took two cracked rips, three broken fingers, a black eye and a shot to the shoulder to fight her way out of it.
For Tom, it was a broken leg, two shots to the chest and a broken nose.
But they made it.
"It hurts," Pam says after a long moment.
Webb is expressionless.
"Your partner?"
"Recovering." she looks at him full-on, then, and says matter-of-factly: "Most of us have a rather slow recovery-rate."
She's talking about his resiliency and the fact that Tom and her were desk jockeys for a good seven, eight years. She's telling him that not everyone can function with a bullet in their shoulder, eight-hours of sleep in over forty-two hours and a fractured femur.
He understands, and again there's that flicker of amusement. It vanishes, though, at her question.
"How'd you survive the fall?"
He blinks, eyes shuttering over into that icy, dead look for the briefest of seconds before it vanishes.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "I just did."
It's a fair enough answer – brief and to the point, informing her that even he doesn't know how he survived a ten-story fall – and in the awkward silence that follows, they both understand that they're nearing the end of this peculiar talk.
Pam gets up from her chair, taking the newspaper and throwing it in the trash, before turning around and carefully (it hurts to walk) coming back to her seat.
There is something on the borderline of admiration and empathy floating in David Webb's eyes as she sits down.
Pam ignores it and instead kicks off their conversation.
"Where are you going now?"
David's brow furrows, and the one hand he had on the cup backs off and fidgets on the table, drumming the surface silently.
Finally, though: "Goa," he says. "I want to see Marie."
All the puzzle pieces are back, but now the puzzle has to be put together.
She can only hope the best for him.
So she does.
"Good luck," she tells him.
"Thank you," he replies.
They both rise, but David takes her cup (it's empty, and he's right in assuming that she's not going to have anymore) with his and walks over to the sink, placing them in.
It's a very human gesture, and Pamela doesn't quite know if she should be amused or frightened that the super-assassin is helping her with dishes.
He turns back around, walks back to his seat and picks up the backpack lying next to his chair.
The two evaluate one another again before Pam takes a step forward and motions for him to follow her to the door.
"How is my security?" she asks him as they reach the front door and she notes the green light flashing on her system.
There's that ghost of a smile again.
"Good." he says. "Most people won't be bothering you."
She shoots him a look as a response but says nothing, instead opening the door and taking a step out. He tails her, then stops when they're both on the front porch, looking out at the forest and flowers that surround her house.
They regard each other again, but it's David who makes the move, sticking out a hand.
"Thank you," he says, "for everything."
She takes the hand, shakes it firmly, and nods as she replies.
"Thank you."
His eyes go cold for a minute, the grip on her hand suddenly painful.
"You almost died," he says.
She nods again. "But it was worth it."
His brow furrows at this, eyes considering, and then lets go, bringing his arm to his side.
Another long pause. An awkward pause. They glance at each other again, not quite sure how to finish off this odd meeting, and then David starts to walk off, moving down the drive.
Halfway down, though, he stops.
"Be safe, Pam," he tells her. "And you might want to change where you put your house key."
Pam shoots a sideways glance towards the petunias hanging near her head, and then looks down at the ground below them.
A spatter of dirt is what greets her.
Pamela Landy can't see David Webb, but in the distance, she swears she can hear him laughing.
A/N: I personally think it's out of character and lame, but I'm one of those fanatically self-deprecating writers. So I guess it's up to you readers to give me the whole truth and whatnot.
Is this the end? Should it be? Up to you, dearest reviewers.
By the way...
Darlian, you are a dear,
lazaefair, you crazy pianist whose name I terribly butchered, I'm so glad you enjoyed these and
Jelly, thanks for your anonymous yet continuous reviews. Certainly appreciated.
Enjoy, and please give me your best crit.