Thank you so much for the reviews! Enjoy chapter five, even if it is a wee bit short.

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Chapter 5

"I got you some more coffee, sir," the assistant – whose name was Joshua something – said with as much cheer as he guessed was appropriate. The entire office was crowded around a TV monitor, where a French news station was broadcasting the discovery of a body in an alley, apparently murdered with a broken wine bottle. They all knew who dead man was. And they all knew who had killed him.

Seymour took the cup wordlessly, his steely grey eyes fixed on the screen. He had been silent for the last half hour.

The blonde woman, Rikku, came and stood next to him. "Maybe Kinoc was right," she commented, frowning. "We should have sent more than one. Now the press is involved in this."

"Thank you, I hadn't quite figured that out myself," the older man snapped. "How about you talk when you have something useful to say?"

She rolled her eyes, clearly not intimidated. "Well, maybe we could try to contact him somehow. Send someone to talk to him, see what's going on."

He gave her a withering glance. "You volunteering?"

Rikku gaped at him, astonished. "What? Me? No, I . . . hey, that's not fair! I was just suggesting."

Seymour scoffed at her. "Relax, I'm not sending anyone. That's probably the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. Clearly, he's no longer our man. Our main priority is to detain him and keep him from exposing us. I don't know what exactly he plans to do, but you can be sure he is no friend of ours anymore."

Rikku shrugged. "Fine. So what are you going to do?"

She stared at his profile. He was gazing intently at the television set, the wheels obviously turning in his mind.

"Lynwood," he said, calling the man across the room at a computer desk. "What do we have on this mystery woman?"

The man stood up and began shuffling through a handful of papers as he headed towards his superior.

"Her name is Yuna Savard, aged 23, currently attending med school in Marseille," he began. "Her family isn't listed, which means she either changed her name or is a single orphaned child. However, we know she is being fed money every month from an outside source. I can't track it, but from the amount she gets, we can assume it's a wealthy relative of some sort. She also works in a local hospital as an intern. Her credit history shows that she's not a big spender, and tends to keep her purchases minimal and rarely anything flashy. No criminal record, and she lives in a fairly quiet part of town."

Seymour took the papers and scanned over them briefly, his eyes lingering on her picture. A pretty girl, in an understated, classic sort of sense. Soft features and somewhat unimpressive hair.

"Well," he said at long last, handing the files back to Lynwood, "since the press is already so keen on this story, why don't we give them something to chew on? Put up posters. I want this woman and our guy's faces plastered all over France. Wire the cops, tell them to keep their eyes opened. When they get nailed, I want one of our people waiting to intercept the arrest and have them brought in for questioning. I don't want either of them leaving the country. Come on, little ones, time to wake up!"

Immediately there was a rush of activity as people began heading back to their stations. Seymour stood motionless, a rock in the middle of a river. People began dialing phone numbers left and right, and a few people were already setting up posters. Two faces were put side by side, the woman and their assassin staring blankly from the computer screens. The word WANTED was typed neatly and warningly under their portraits.

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Yuna's apartment was not what he had been expecting. The walls were painted bright, vibrant shades of pink and yellow, while the stucco ceiling was lightly washed orange. The furniture looked old, but comfortable, ranging in colours from lime green to a soft, dusty purple. There were wooden shutters covering narrow diamond-paned windows, and all the lampshades were dark, cobalt blue. It was also a mess. There were clothes strewn about the room, as well as magazines, movies, CDs, scattered bits of jewelry, and countless books. The joint kitchen was small and cluttered, its tile floor a dark sea foam green while the cabinets were white and peeling. The counters were the same colour as the floor, and piled high with dishes and cups. There were several houseplants crouching here and there, surprisingly in good shape compared to their surroundings.

A blue-blackish cat was lounging on one of the obscenely bright chairs, opening one golden eye as his owner walked in.

"Allo, Kimahri," Yuna said sweetly, scratching him behind the ear. He purred and pushed insistently into her hand. As the blond stranger drew nearer, the cat gave a low, threatening growl that resonated surprisingly deep in his chest. Wisely, the man refrained from petting him.

He didn't know Yuna well enough to judge exactly, but nothing about her character suggested that she belonged in this sort of chaos. She seemed too calm, too collected for it. She noticed his expression and gave an embarrassed sort of smile.

"I did not choose these colours – and the furniture came with the place, but I had no heart to throw any of it away. My landlady is very nice and I do not wish to offend her."

"And the mess?" he asked, grinning slightly in spite of himself. There was an odd sense of security here, a homeliness that could never be touched. He felt more at ease than he had all day, and he sensed Yuna begin to relax a bit more.

"I've never been very organized," she said with a shrug, blushing slightly. "Living alone, I suppose, I never really needed to keep up appearances."

"What about your parents?" he asked, roaming around, looking for family portraits and finding none. He felt her shift uncomfortably behind him.

"My mother is dead," she said, shrugging slightly. "And my father does not visit me very often. And we usually just go out to a café, or out on the boat."

He nodded, noting the strange tone in her voice. "I'm sorry," he told her, because it seemed like the appropriate thing to say. She shrugged again. "Who is your dad, anyway? Must be someone important to have an assassin sent after him."

Yuna looked at him sharply. He knew it was strange to speak of it so calmly, and he couldn't really understand it himself. The whole thing made him feel so numb, as if he couldn't properly register the idea. Perhaps it was simply his way of dealing with things. He found himself wondering how he might have dealt with killing people for a living. The man in the alley had been a matter of life and death, not money. He suddenly found himself wishing he had left him alive for questioning. No matter now, he supposed.

"I don't know if I should say," she confessed. He glanced at her.

"Yuna, we need to trust each other. I'm not going to go after your father again, I promise."

"I know," she said quickly, looking almost apologetic. "Only, he is just so important. He's in a very dangerous, powerful position right now. I haven't told anyone who my father is, not even my best friends. I changed my last name so that people would not find out."

She turned and went into her bedroom to get some things. He followed her, hovering in the doorway. The room was just as disheveled as the rest of the place, but small and comfortable, lit by a golden stream of light from the skylight above. Her back to him, she removed her cashmere sweater to find a new shirt. He averted his gaze quickly, but not so quickly that he missed her pale, flawless skin and lacey white bra strap. French modesty was somewhat of an oxymoron, he guessed, struggling to banish the image from his mind. She pulled on a white camisole and jean jacket before tying her hair back in a loose ponytail with a few errant strays falling around her face.

"Can you at least tell me what he does for a living?" he asked, sensing it was safe to look up at her again. She kept her back turned to him.

"La politique."

He sighed. "Figures. He would be even more famous if I had killed him, I suppose."

She shuddered. "Please, may we not talk about my father being killed? It frightens me."

Obligingly, he fell silent. She was a smart packer, taking only a few items of clothes and stuffing them into her bag along with a tiny makeup bag, her wallet (which he saw was quite thick), and a passport.

"I still don't understand why you won't tell him what you're up to. Wouldn't he want to be informed?" he asked after a moment of quiet.

"He has enough to worry about," she replied, moving past him and into the main room. "His job is . . . very demanding."

"You don't think he would find this a little more important than some press conferences? He would probably want to help you out. Maybe hire some investigators, or something."

"He probably already has. But this is something I need to do for myself. I want to help in any way I can."

"Yeah, but this is very dangerous. I doubt he would want his child –"

"What do you want of me?" she demanded suddenly, whirling around and nearly colliding with him. She was so close he could see himself reflected in her eyes. "A reason? You think I must have a reason for wanting to protect my father, the only family I have left? I do not have to explain myself to you!"

He was stunned by her intensity, taking a step backwards. "Sorry," he said quietly.

She visibly relaxed. "This has all been very stressful," she said, her gentle tone returning. "I did not mean to snap. Just let me call some people and we can go. Please, sit. Are you hungry?"

He found that he was starving, and had not realized it until that moment. "I can help myself. Go ahead and make your calls."

She smiled lightly at him and gestured to the kitchen behind her. He wandered in and out of cupboards and poked around in the refrigerator before grabbing a croissant and making a quick sandwich out of it.

"Lulu," he heard Yuna say, dragging the long phone cord with her as she paced around the room. She was speaking in French, and he half-listened as she spoke to her friend. Something about a 'family emergency', 'would you please cover for me at the hospital?' and 'please look after Kimahri'. She chatted for a moment longer before making a kissing noise at the receiver, and then hanging up.

"One more," she said, almost looking hesitant. "I'll be quick."

He nodded, his mouth too full to say anything. Something about her expression told him to pay attention to this one. Her slender fingers slowly dialed the next number.

"Bonjour, Auron," she said, smiling slightly, "ça vas?"

He finished eating and began clearing away his dishes as she exchanged pleasantries over the phone.

"I was wondering if you could pass a message on to my father," she was saying, still in French. "I'm going to be out of town for a few days – to a cabin with some friends, and I won't have my phone with me. Bad reception out there. Oh, just some obscure place in the mountains. Yes, I will." She laughed suddenly. "No, no skiing! I learned my lesson last time, trust me. Thank you. Goodbye."

She then kissed the receiver and hung up, looking slightly troubled.

"I hate lying to him," she admitted with a sigh.

"Who is he?"

"An old family friend. He stayed close with my father after university."

Yuna quickly wolfed down a sandwich before they locked up and left.

At the Buick, he hesitated before climbing in, opening his mouth to ask her something. She stopped and looked up at him, but at his expression she quickly cut him off.

"If you ask me again whether or not I am certain of this, I will scream at you," she warned him, though smiling slightly. He grinned back before shrugging and getting into the driver's seat.

The roads stretched out and twisted before him, but as Yuna guided him towards the main highway, he allowed his mind to wander slightly. He didn't know what he was expecting to find in Zurich; either the answer to all their questions, or a whole load of new ones to ask.

He knew that it was dangerous to have Yuna with him. For her sake, he should have gone alone, whether he would have found out about Zurich or not. There was a very real possibility that one or both of them could get hurt, if not killed. He reasoned with himself that this was her choice, and he had given her plenty of opportunities to walk away.

Nevertheless, the sight of her in the passenger's seat through his peripheral vision was comforting. If she walked now, he would be left standing alone in the dark – something he found even more terrifying than staring a gun in the face. She was his only friend in the world, his only human connection that didn't seem to want him dead.

If one of them had to die, he prayed that it would be him, and not her. And then he promised it.