Consciousness came back to Bourne slowly and for a moment he thought he was dead because he couldn't move; he feared he was paralyzed. He heard movement, screaming, glass breaking, car alarms, an engine revving, tires screeching to a halt, car doors slamming.

The sound of the car made his adrenalin rush; his mind identified it as a hit team coming to finished them off. His lungs and eyes were burning. He felt hot fluid running down his face and dripping off his nose and knew it was blood. The oddest sensation was something cold on his neck, it was the size of a grape. He felt it move and heard murmuring, he realized it was pressing against his jugular and he knew it was Nicky's one exposed thumb. She checking for a pulse as she struggled under him.

He heard people screaming in pain and felt someone trying to lift something off of him as he heard a far off voice yell, "Sound off: Kirill…"

"Carrasco…" he heard Paz call from near the Russian.

"Tyler…"… Byers ex-wife, the pilot.

"Shearing…" Marta choked between furious coughs.

"Cross…" he heard called from above him.

He yelled, "Webb…"

Nicky rasped, "Bourne…" and her couldn't tell if she was correcting him, or begging him to move.

"Bourne," he corrected followed by, "Parsons…"

Cross cleared the debris from his back and Bourne managed, "Car! Finishing us off!"

"No, it's Kirill and Carassco creating a barricade- circling the wagons. They have rifles…"

"Rear?!" he rasped.

"Right," he heard Cross running through glass.

He rolled off Nicky who quickly said, "Don't open your eyes Jason, there's glass all over your face. Here," he felt something against his stomach. "It's water, I can't open it." He opened the bottle and tried to rinse his face off. "Stay here! Take your time, you're no good to us blind. I see a body near us, I need to check it. Some others didn't sound off- I'll be back…"

He nodded even though he knew she was already gone to do triage, the doctor in her was taking over. A moment later he heard her yell, "I found Reina- she's got a pulse. Who is mortally injured!"

He heard a woman say, "This guys legs are pinned; I think they're broken…" Someone else yelled, "The bartender is bleeding… I… I… can't stop it."

Nicky screamed, "don't unpin that guys legs yet, not until Marta or I check him!"

Marta had laid on the ground looking stunned until she heard Nicky say her name and it spurred her into action. She had never imagined even being in a combat zone, much less full-blown triage.

Paige yelled, "Eric! Malana! Allen! Ashley! Khanh!…"

Reina rasped weakly, having come around, "Allen was going to the bathroom…"

Bourne knew he was the only one close enough to Reina to hear her. He tested his eyes and saw that visibility was reduced to five meters due to floating debris not unlike the Trade Center collapse. He yelled, "Ashley and Khanh were outside. Allen was in the bathroom."

Bourne saw Reina struggling to sit up and helped her rinse her eyes. "Are you injured?"

"I… I… think I'm bleeding a lot…"

"Where?"

"Legs…"

He felt that her jeans were soaked, but he knew it wasn't blood by the viscosity. "It's not blood. Your good…"

"But… Awe hell, did I piss myself?!" her Australian accent was asserting itself with a vengeance.

"No, I think it's beer," he said kindly even though he knew she was right.

"Yeah, sure, we'll go with that." She clearly sounded out of sorts, he helped her out of the building and sat hurt behind one of the cars; the structure was less than stable.

He then stumbled down what was left of the hallway to where the bathrooms were. It finally registered that the power was out and that he was seeing by moonlight; the roof was gone. He saw a flash of light and saw a tall figure with a mini-Maglite.

"Wow, you guys really blew the roof off the joint! Tornado?" Allen Goens' light finally fell on Bourne and he saw the blood all over his face and hands, "JESUS!"

"Bomb. People are dead; not a time for jokes."

He rocked backwards as if struck, "No…" thinking the blood on his hands was his daughters.

"I don't know. I saw her outside when it hit…" and Goens pushed passed him. "Was there anyone in there with you?!"

"No!"

Bourne went in the other bathroom, which was missing a wall as well as the roof. His foot kicked something in the dark and it spun away from him and he knew instantly it was a head. He steeled himself and grabbed it and cleared the hair out of the face and moved it to the light; it was Malana. The little cat burglar was dead.

He turned and left it as he tried to ignore the realization that even though he only knew her for a day, he knew her as well as anyone except Marie. He had spent twelve hours sitting next to her and knew more about her than Nicky. In the past four years he had only spent that much time with three people, now two were gone.

As he stumbled back down the hall he heard Nicky scream, "whoever has that light bring it here- I need it!"

"But, my daughter!"

"Bourne! Kill him and bring me his light!"

"Okay, okay!"

Bourne followed the light to find Nicky. "What do you need Parsons?"

"Sugar, cloth, more light…"

It took him a second to register sugar as a coagulant, long-term it also accelerated healing. He stripped off his jacket, gave her both of his shirts and put his jacket back on. Allen did the same. "Allen stay here and help her. I saw Ashley last; I'll go look…"

He nodded.

Bourne made his way to the front and saw that the entire front of the bar was gone. He saw that three cars had been pulled up in a semi-circle guarding the door with Paz and Kirill ducked behind them holding rifles.

"Looks clear Bourne," Paz said without prompt.

"Who's that?" he asked pointing to a body with a jacket over it.

"Khanh Nazari- the guy from SEAL team six."

Bourne fought back a flood of emotion, "You check him?"

"Didn't need to; he was almost cut in half by a street sign."

"Ashley?"

Paz pointed to a car. He went and looked in and saw that she was shaking like a dog in a thunderstorm. "I…I…can't…stop… can't… stop…"

"Don't try to; makes it worse. Slow breaths. Your dad's fine; he's telling bad jokes already. You okay?" She nodded. "Stay down and pop the trunk…"

Bourne looked in the trunk and got some mini-maglites that where equipped to go under their rifles, a fire extinguisher, and a first aid kit.

They were all in crisis mode for a few minutes until everyone was out of the building. They knew several people were dead, including some civilians. Ashley heard crying and peered out of the car window. "Paige! Eric wasn't in there… I took him to the hotel."

"Oh, thank God…"

"Huh? You guys don't know? That's were the blast came from; our hotel, it's gone." Everyone looked at the now empty skyline where their twelve story hotel had been.

Kirill muttered, "So, they bombed us?"

Paige's whole body tensed, "Oh, damn…" and she ran for one of the cars.

Cross yelled, "Wait, wait… I'm driving."

"Huh… what? Bourne?" Allen asked.

"She realized she may want to check on her bomber."

"Ah…"

Marta and Nicky accompanied the seriously wounded, in a hot-wired pickup, to the hospital. Kirill and Paz went with them, while Bourne and the others looked for someplace to hold up that was off the grid.

He found an old hotel that went out of business a month ago; it was away from the main drag. He broke into the office for the room keys and hung up a 'under new management' sign in the office window, while Goens manually turned the electric and water on.

Ashley and Reina checked the rooms and tried to find clean linens. "I don't understand what we're doing here," Ashley moaned.

Reina fought huffing in frustration, "Not everyone has your swapped x-gene or whatever. We need sleep. Some of these people have been awake for thirty hours or more and are delirious. We need to crash and then we'll move tomorrow."

Ashley's voice broke, "Th-that hotel was full; it's Thanksgiving weekend. All those people…"

"American holiday… I wondered why the airports were so busy; try not to think about it. It could have nothing to do with us…"

Ashley frowned at the other woman, knowing full well that they were almost certainly the targets.

The event was all over the news and speculation was rampant. They had all gathered in one room. Shearing and Paz were stitching up people's lacerations. Shearing stitched up the back of Bourne's head and he very quickly had enough of the news and was looking for an exit strategy. He nodded to Nicky's hands, "You need to change those bandages…"

"Oh, yeah… I guess…"

Ashley volunteered, "You want me to do it?"

"No, thanks though. I need to talk to Jason anyway- in private."

Bourne said as he left, "Everyone pair off with an asset in every room, just to be safe. If you do a look-out, put me last."

He looked at the keys for the selected rooms and took the one with the highest number, which was the farthest away. They stopped at the car on the way and got their backpacks; they never went anywhere without them. They slipped into the room; both feeling apprehensive about the extremely intimate moment that was coming.

"You haven't seen them yet have you; your hands?" he asked gently.

She shook her head no and was fighting back tears. "I need to shower first. We have glass all over us." She turned her back slightly to him in a silent request. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra through her shirt, unzipped her skirt, and unbuttoned her blouse.

"I'm going to go see if we have ice yet and look for some cokes to go with the bottle of rum you stole."

"Oh- okay…" she stammered, clearly hoping he would join her in the shower.

He gave her a generous amount of time before returning.

She was sitting on the bed: with wet hair, wearing her NAVY nightshirt, and watching the news with the sound off.

"You ready to change those now?"

She made a reluctant pouting face, knowing she couldn't stall anymore.

"Okay, well… I'll do it as slowly as I can…" He gently unwrapped her 'good' right hand first and then her left. "They did good work." He looked up and saw her eyes were closed. "You have to look. You know that. The longer you wait-"

"- the harder it will be to cope. I know, but I can't…"

He cupped her head in his hand and lifted her face so it was even with his. "Nicky you have to look at it."

She shook her head no again and squeezed her eyes shut tighter, "Please just wrap them up. Please…"

With great authority in his voice he barked, "Constance." Her eyes shot open and a tear jetted down each cheek. Her mouth fell open, her bottom lip quivered, and her eyes flitted all over his face in search of recognition. He wiped her tears away and then placed his thumb in the middle of her forehead and gently rubbed it to her temple. "Please, for me…"

She clenched her jaw and nodded. She slowly lowered her head and he did too, so that their foreheads were resting against each other. He heard her start to make mewing noises and she started sobbing in earnest. He said gently, "That's enough. You want me to wrap them back up?"

She nodded eagerly. He was done with the left and almost done with the right before she stopped sobbing and he helped her blow her nose. She blinked rapidly and he avoided her eyes as he wrapped, "You remember?"

"No." His voice came off far flatter than he had intended. "I had a flashback of you when I was searching for you though. Today when I was knocked out I dreamed about you; about your past. I think I read you file at some point. A lot of it was really personal though. Maybe I read your diary or something…"

She hiccuped, "What was the flashback of? If it's okay to ask…"

He laughed, "Well you were in it, so it's nothing you don't already know. We were painting a wall and were bickering about the Yankees versus the Mets and you told me not to forget about the restraining order?"

She was smiling until he got to the last two words, "Oh… and after that?"

"Nothing. You really had a restraining order against me?"

"No, I was just joking around." With anyone else he would have believed them, but he knew she was playing semantics.

"Conklin ordered me to stay away from you?"

"No…" this time her denial had a 'hot or cold' sound to it despite her best effort to sound casual.

"You keep asking me to trust you, but you won't answer basic questions."

"Okay. Ask me about something else; anything else…"

He was tempted to go into hostile territory, but thought a less aggressive approach would reveal more in the long run. "Tell me about how we first met…"

"Oh, okay…" she was clearly stunned by the normality of the question. "Now, I warned you about this before- it's better to remember on your own; you'll be hearing my perspective which maybe totally different from yours." He nodded. "Okay, I just don't want you to be mad if you remember later and think I'm lying or something."

He nodded eagerly.

She took great care in describing the scene from an objective point of view while he made her a drink.

—

Paris France

1999

Jason Bourne's car was half a block down from the address of the new safe house. He saw the girl come out of the coffee shoppe next to him and paid her no mind. He knew she was wealthy and American from her clothing, but she wasn't a threat; most likely a model. He saw her try the coffee and look at it with disdain and with good reason, the owner hated Americans and Bourne was all but certain he used dishwater for their coffee.

She walked down the block and suddenly her high heel broke and she fell in front of the safe house. She spilled half the coffee on her hand and quickly stuck it in the snow bank. She then gathered her things, went up the steps and unlocked the door.

Bourne appeared completely confused as he double checked the address, both on the scrap of paper and the building. He knew it was right though; he picked the location. He looked around, walked to the door, and knocked.

She opened the door and she looked even younger than he had thought, [I'm sorry. I must have the wrong address…] he said but didn't turn to leave.

[No, Mr. Bourne, you are in the right place… Please-]

His eyes bored into hers, "Don't move. Now take your finger off the trigger," this time she raised an eyebrow. "The gun you're holding behind the door- take your finger off the trigger."

"Umm, okay," she said nervously.

"Never put your gun behind the door," he scolded. "Here's why- in slow motion." He kicked the door slowly, but firmly. Her hand was pushed back towards the interior and away from the door, he took one quick step and grabbed her gun hand. "Now try holding it at your side with the slide just behind your leg. Have one foot planted and the other behind you- ready to step back as I step forward. Let's try it now…" she was able to raise the gun in time. "See- better."

He pushed his way through the doorway and looked around at the moving boxes, some of which were on the desk. "You're not ready for my appointment."

"You're early," she snapped.

He picked up her shoes and tossed them in the bin, strode over to her, took the cup of coffee out of her hand, removed the lid, poured it down the drain, and tossed it as well. She didn't make a sound and he thought that she was going to be looking on in disbelief, but when he turned around her face was nearly expressionless but her eyes seemed to say, 'is that it?'

He went to the door, opened it, and a gale from the snow storm sucked it closed after him. She knew better than to say anything out loud, but was screaming on the inside, 'Fucking asshole!'

She slammed things around while clearing the desk off and busily started unpacking. Later she heard the buzzer ring for the magnetic lock again. She looked at the security camera, it was… Bourne again. "Great."

She got the gun and stood as he instructed her when she opened the door. He had clearly walked in the snow for some distance, he had a box under one arm and a bag in the other. He said flatly, "It's now nine o'clock." She glanced at her watch and saw it was exactly nine. He saw her watch, "You're a pilot."

She didn't respond, just ushered him in. He handed her the box, "here." He opened the bag and took out two coffees. "The place down the block is horrible. Try that…"

She sipped it and nodded, "It's very good…" she said as she opened the box and found a pair of cute shoes, thigh highs, socks, and slippers. "Wow, they are adorable! These are custom-made Louboutin's. These cost three thousand dollars. I can't take these..."

"Yeah, custom-made for someone else. They were marked down."

"Yeah, I tried them on yesterday. They were in the window..."

"Yeah the guy remembered you. I told him you were a very good customer and that he'd be seeing you a lot."

"But, I can't take these..."

He shrugged, "They are a house warming gift. I always give the best. Besides, you already did take them. Did Conklin warn you about upsetting us?" She nodded. "All I expect is for you to say 'thank you."

She nodded curtly and tried them on, "The other things?"

"You have a run in your hose and the gas company takes their sweet time here; usually it's a three-day wait."

"Oh, wow. Okay… That's very thoughtful of you…" she said, still seeing that his face was made of stone.

"You are never to be ill prepared or late for an appointment again; it makes us nervous. I have been tasked to be at your beck and call for the next two months. If you need me, if something feels wrong, if you're afraid- anything: call this number, program it as AAA so it's at the top of the list and inconspicuous. If you are certain there is a physical threat: you see someone following you, see someone in the house, you hear something, or any sort of crime is committed against you- then you do not think, you do not hesitate, you press this button." He handed an ornate golden locket. "It's welded shut and the button is on the back. I tried to water proof it, but I wouldn't shower with it. You understand?"

She nodded reluctantly.

"You may think this is a vacation for me; it is not. I am trained to take lives, not protect them. I will be out of my element against the most deadly people in the world. Under normal circumstances I'm to listen to you without question. In the event of a hostile situation you are to listen to me without question. I tell you to run, you run. I tell you to hide, you hide. Is that clear?"

She nodded.

"From this moment forward- for the rest of your life, trust your intuition. Intuition evolved over millions of years to keep you alive; don't ignore it. If you come home, put the key in the lock and something 'feels wrong', act like you forgot something in your car and go call. I expect two to three calls this week- minimum."

He turned on his heel to leave, "Wait… wait. I'm supposed to ask you questions."

"Yes, no, yes, yes, 4, yes, sometimes, no, yes, yes, twice a week."

"Wait," she was frantically trying to scribble it down. She looked up and he was gone. "Bourne?" She walked around the first floor and he was gone. She opened the door and heard the buzz of the lock and felt the blast of cold air. "BOURNE…? Okay, that's creepy with a capital K."

Three Nights Later

Nicky bolted upright from a deep sleep to the sound of something metal crashing downstairs. She hit the panic button without a second thought. Within three minutes Jason Bourne was on her balcony and opening her window. He was proud to see her still scantily clad, armed, and kneeling in the corner near the door. He figured her for the type that would grab a robe before a gun.

She tapped her ear, then held her arms out wide to indicate size, then pointed down. He motioned for her to stay and slid through the bedroom door. He returned two minutes later, "A box of cd's tipped over and fell onto a metal filing cabinet…"

"…but what tipped them over!"

"A rat I suppose… Paris is infested with them… Or, maybe the place really is haunted like the last tenant claimed," he laughed as her eyes bulged out of her head. "Boyfriends?" he said pointing at the over-sized NAVY shirt she was wearing.

"No, uh- yes."

He laughed and slipped out the window, "You were kidding about the rats right?" She looked down the fire escape but he was gone. "Bourne?!" she hissed. She looked up it, "Jason?" she whispered.

Three days later she was taking a late night shower and felt an icy draft. She left the shower running but slipped out and called Bourne. He picked up in two rings.

"Bourne."

"It's Parson's, I was in the shower and I felt a strong draft. I think someone opened the door," she hissed.

"Stay there. Keep the shower going. Don't do anything. I was already coming; you have a breach."

"Jesus…"

"Sit the phone down behind the toilet. I hope you have your gun. Whatever you do don't leave the room!"

Time drug on for what seemed like forever. Suddenly something hit the door hard at head level and she almost fired through the door out of reflex, but was proud that she didn't cry out.

She heard a struggle outside the door. She flung it open and watched in stunned disbelief as Bourne fought what could only be described as a battle for the ages. She watched him exchanging blows with a man dressed in all black including a ski-mask. It drug on for minutes and she watched in wonder as Bourne beat on the man with innocuous objects. The man pulled a knife and Bourne grabbed her violin from the top of her dresser.

"Stradivarius!" she shrieked out of reflex.

He did a double take and tossed it onto her bed instead of clubbing the man with it.

"Should I shoot him?!" she asked.

Both heads jerk up and Bourne laughed, "No, I'm just toying with him. I need the practice." She watched as they exchanged blows in a blur of motion. Bourne struck him behind the knee, distended his elbow, then arm-barred him.

Nicky reached out and pulled his mask off, "Gee willikers Shaggy! It's the lighthouse keeper!"

"Who are you?" Bourne cranked down on his arm hard, "I'm not going to ask you again…"

Nicky studied his bruised face, "He's 'Rome'."

"Figures. Conklin said you'd be by. How many?" he asked him.

"Four…" he man groaned.

He cranked down again, "How many?"

"Five… Five!"

"Thank you for your cooperation. Parsons, go stand by the window for a minute, but not in front of it."

"Why?"

"Because the people on the street will see up your towel," he laughed. Then he glared at her, "I wasn't asking." She locked her jaw and stamped over the window, out of ear shot. "Conklin said to give you a message. He said the girl is mine; she belongs to me. He said if you ever touch my property that I should make an example of you. You ever touch her- even to shake her hand and I'll castrate you. If you ever come after me and I'll take your eyes too; I'll make you a blind Eunuch. Nod if your primate brain understand that," he nodded.

"You have sixty seconds to run before I come after you and I'm not stopping till you're out of France." He released him and kicked toward the bedroom door. "Go."

He took off out the door and Bourne followed him and locked it. When he went upstairs he saw her come on of the walk-in closet having gotten dressed in the Navy shirt she usually wore to bed, "hey, Parsons…"

"JESUS!" she snapped. "Stop doing that! I thought you followed him. I'm so getting a collar for you with a bell on it."

He laughed, "No. I don't need to follow him," he held up a device that looked like a GPS. "Here," he handed it to her. "Watch that. Make sure he leaves Paris," he said looking around at everything.

"So, on your way to rescue me, you stopped to bug his car?"

"No, I bugged him last week as soon as I found out that our new handler was a woman." He took down her fire alarm and handed it to her, "hold that."

"Is this 'one of five'?"

He nodded.

"Five what?"

He pointed to a dot on it. "That's a wireless web-cam and transmitter."

"That creep!" she fumed as she crossed her arms as if cold.

He laughed, "Well I think that was a bonus: that you're a beautiful woman. He was bugging it for intel."

"Intel? But, he is one of ours! Right? You let him go…"

He laughed, "Wow, you're green. One day you're probably going to be sending one of us to kill him; he'd rather have advanced warning. He would also benefit from any information he gathered on us; it would be invaluable. Anything on you he could use to…" he broke off.

"…seduce me."

"Yes, but more than sex. Control. Brainwashing would be the goal."

She sighed, "So, I guess I asked for too much money?"

"Huh?"

"Conklin said about naming my price, 'Just remember, you will be expected to eat whatever you put on your plate. If you ask for the moon, I'm going to expect you to be an astronaut.' I guess I asked too much: if my body has become your property."

He paused from taking a device from behind a light plate, "You heard that?"

"That I'm your whore, gimp, blowup doll, or whatever? No, I didn't hear it; I learned to read lips in school as a point of survival."

"Not well liked?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits, "Being branded a sex slave is a difficult topic to change the subject on."

"Look. With that guy I would just go with it. That Alpha male crap is the only thing animals like him understand."

"Did Conklin actually say that though?"

"No," he said flatly.

She nodded and started to walk away, "Wait! Did it 'go unsaid' or did you request a plaything?!"

He laughed, "No, but I think he either intended it, or was trying to do the opposite. You weren't selected without forethought on the matter, that's for sure."

"I don't follow…"

"You really don't know how to play people?"

"No," she said bashfully. "I really don't like people."

"A shrink that hates people- WOW. Okay, that is a whole different bag of worms. I think either he picked you thinking we'd: never get together in a million years, or that he thought opposites attract and we'd be lightning in a bottle. You're too far away from 'my type'. You're a Veronica- I like Bettys. Out of like a hundred things on a list of likes you're the exact opposite."

"Like…?"

"Are we 'in the nest' doctor?" She gave him the finger, "I like dark hair and light eyes, you have light hair and dark eyes. I'm a chest guy-" her eyes narrowed immediately, "…you're a leg girl. Simple vs sophisticated. Jovial vs stern. Farm girl vs City girl. Poor vs Rich. Modest vs…"

"Okay… okay!" she snapped.

He held a hand up, "I'm not saying you're not top notch… Look at it this way… You're a world record-setting swordfish; you are a total catch, something you see once in a lifetime. I would be proud to claim you, show you off to my friends, brag about you, and stare at you all day long. I'd put you on the wall in a heartbeat."

"Nice save Boy Scout, you were totally going to say you'd 'mount me'."

He laughed but didn't deny it, "But, if I'm going to the fish market, I'd buy fresh water bass from Alaska, because I generally like the taste more. For what you are you're the absolute best…"

She blinked three times, "Wh-what?"

"You're the best there is. I could look my whole life and be hard pressed to find better. Some guy- err… or girl, is going to be very lucky one day. I just think it's odd that you're such a drastic polar opposite…"

"W-well, thank you. You seem to know a lot about me."

He shrugged, "You're thirty years younger than I was expecting and Conklin was bragging up a storm about you. He isn't easily impressed. I trust his judgment implicitly."

"He'd win either way."

"Huh?"

"If we hate each other he wouldn't have to deal with us being in the same place. If we do click then he has control over you, but we'd be different enough to not be totally invasive- a distraction to each other. I'd be the carrot on the stick…"

"See! Now you're thinking right. What about me?"

"Huh…?"

"Am I that to you too? What do you look for in a guy?"

"I… well. I don't know…" she shuffled nervously.

"Do you prefer: little guys that are PETA members, wear sweater vests, drink tea with their pinkie out, read poetry, and take part in the gentlemanly game of snooker?"

He looked up from searching under her desk and saw that she looked totally rattled. "Hey, it's okay. I didn't mean to freak you out."

"I guess you're my type. I don't know. You're a lot like the guy I liked the most. He was a Naval SEAL and had blue eyes. I got that shirt from him…"

"I was on the teams. What's his name, I might know him!"

"No! That's okay. I never really told him I liked him that way."

He shrugged, "Whatever."

"Why are you searching for the bugs. Why didn't you get him to just tell you, or use a locater or something?"

"Because: It's good practice, I'm showing you where to look, and frankly I'm enjoying the banter."

She gave a huge fake smile, "So, if I tell you off will this go faster."

"No."

"Swell."

He followed her up a spiral staircase to a third floor loft that used to be part of the attic. She planned on using as a reading area and for her violin playing. He couldn't help but look up and notice her apparel, "So, you always wear underoos?"

She glared at him in such anger that he was glad she wasn't still armed. "…and you should have interest in my choice of undergarments because…"

"Well, now that I've seen you in them, how can I not wonder who's the hero of the day every time I see you?"

"Uh huh. Well why don't you worry about playing hero yourself-"

"If I'm good enough at it, do get featured in the spring line?"

"No… masked heroes only. Faces on underwear are just creepy- maybe bedsheets and lunch boxes."

He was searching around the outside of the bay window for bugs and laughed, "You have a view of the Eiffel Tower from here…"

"No I don't…"

"Here… you have to lean all the way out."

"I'll fall, you're taller."

"I got you. Lean all the way out, then look above the white satellite dish."

"Oh yeah! The tip of the antenna… how romantic," she said sarcastically.***

Back in the present:

"So, that's how we first met…" she concluded.

"Wait- What? That's it?! It can't end there! How come I feel like the film reel just broke?"

She smiled coyly behind her glass as she took a sip of her drink.***

***Edited content due to MA rating. When I post the next chapter it will have the directions to the naughty parts; this site refuses to allow me to post them re: their lame ToS.***