I watch the plane taxi down the runway, and a piece of my heart breaks off jaggedly, falling to the pit of my stomach. It leaves the ground with the plane as it drifts behind the clouds and disappears. There...you...go.

For a long time, I stand there and watch the place it vanished, half-expecting it to reappear. Who knows: maybe I could stand here and wait until is does. Maybe you will simply turn around in a minute, or two, or ten, and the plane will nose out of the sky. It does not, and I am hollowly disappointed.

But, really, what did I expect? This was bound to happen sooner or later. From the moment we met, in that nasty and horrific hut in Nepal, you and I were bound to be separated at some point. I begin what will turn into a bad habit by muttering to myself in my mother tongue, "That is what you get for loving a mercenary, Meera."

Ripping my eyes from the sky, I turn around and walk back into the hangar. My boots' scuffling echoes oddly. It is strange how the sound of one set of boots sounds so lonely, even more so in a huge hangar.

I key the heavy steel door's keypad combination automatically and enter the living quarters. Again, the oddness rears its head. The place feels so incredibly deflated without you, Barney. Empty and lifeless, like a doll compared to an infant.

To test the boundaries of this new aloneness, I wash the dishes. When my back is to the room, it is easier to forget I am by myself. But the moment I turn around, it washes over me again.

Clocks tick, fans whir, a bug taps against the inside of a window. God, the lack of sound feels like a physical pressure against my ears.

I need noise. Something, anything, to break this oppressive quiet. I turn on the TV and find an I Love Lucy marathon, but cannot focus on my favorite sitcom. Flipping restlessly from sitting, to laying, to half-sitting, I eventually get frustrated and get up. I am used to having you to prop up against.

The expanse of time that this will last stretches before me like a road to the planet Mars. It promises to be alien, and strange, and full ugly things to be discovered. Will I find some good in the mix, as well?

It occurs to me I have not been this alone in my entire life. I had the village growing up, if not to the degree of the non-ostracized members, and I have had you for over two months attached to my hip. Is aloneness an American invention?

I turn off the TV and taste the quiet with a bit more boldness, like a mouse peeking out of its burrow. There is no denying it: this is new, and therefore foreign. But that does not mean it has to be a bad thing. That thought brings a slow smile to my lips. Like a trickle on land turns into an ocean tide at sea, I start to think of things I can do while you're gone that I could not do with you here.

You gave me a cell phone a couple of days ago, in case I needed it, and I fish it out of my pocket. I have a wild idea, or at least, wild for me. From memory, I dial the number from the warehouse's sign. "Hello? Is this January?"

"Meera?" comes the confused reply. "That you?" I can hear the warehouse's bustle fading in the background as she walks someplace quieter to talk.

"Hello!" I greet, relieved I got her the first try, and cross my legs on the couch.

"Well, hi!" she replies, clearly not exepcting me. "Little early, ain't it?"

"Not for me. I am sorry, did I wake you?"

The short-haired woman makes a 'pfft' sound. "As if. I run a business. I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead."

I stifle the urge to ask why she would die, then realize it is an American figure of speech. I am getting better at recognizing them.

I giggle. "Airy, do you want to come over some time this week?"

She pauses for a split second, processinig the minor shock. "Is that cool with Barney?"

"Barney is gone for a while," I admit. I feel safe enough telling her, even if Barney told me to keep that one close to my chest.

Airy inhales. "On a job?"

"Yes. And I could use the company," I wheedle.

"So, wait, you're alone now?"

"Yep!" I say, perhaps with more cheer than necessary.

Airy whoops. "Hot damn! Nothing like being free of menfolk, am I right?"

Her tone suggests I have no room to argue, if I were in disagreement. But I am not. "It is odd, but growing more welcome," I reply.

"You know the first thing I do when I have a day to myself?"

"What?"

"Off comes the bra!" I hear something in the background drop and clang. "George, you clumsy thing!" January chides. There is a murmur of apology.

I snort with laughter. "So won't you come over? I have been saving my MRE brownies for just such an occassion," I ply.

Airy laughs. "Okay, count me in! I can't even remember the last time I had a girl's night in. I'm open for two nights from now. How's that?"

I grin. "Ideal!" There is the sound of an office door slamming shut and the voice of an old man in the background. "It sounds like you are busy. I will let you go."

Airy huffs and addresses the voice, "Pops, oatmeal always has brown flecks in it: it's a damn grain." To me, she says, "Yeah, I gotta scoot. See you in two nights."

"Goodbye."

She takes a moment to chuckle, and I guess it is at my mannerisms. "Bye, Meera."

We hang up. Now, when I look around the large room, it feels a tiny bit less empty.

I look down my shirt. If I wore a bra, I would be taking it off now.

Church:

I put a pen down on the notepad that I've been taking notes on and remove a set of earphones from my head. In a windowless room, in a cabin hidden deep in the forest some miles away from the two women I just eavesdropped on, I am one giant step closer to getting even with Barney Ross.

Two nights from now. Glancing at the Playboy Bunny calendar, I smile. Ross, and even Meera, have no clue what's coming down the pipe for them.

I interlace my fingers and tip my chair back on two legs, staring at the ceiling. Ross made the biggest mistake of his life by shutting down what could have been a beneficial relationship. We could have had a nice setup: I give him jobs, he succeeds at doing what he does best, I get the credit from the Langley offices, and he gets his money. I do not appreciate being cheated out of what I had thought was a surefire win with the Kresh assassination. That job could have landed me a corner office. I admit, I had already been daydreaming about what to put on the walls.

But that fucking merc stole it all from me. Now all those little jabs, disrespects, and nose-thumbings are going to come back around to old Ross, hard.

When he refused my offer for the simple Kresh termination, he made a lot of people I answer to angry. That knocked me down a few - okay, if I'm honest, several - pegs across the board. I need to get a slamdunk under my belt, soon, if I am going to get back on top. I am an angry man at being spanked like a petulant child.

So here I am, in one of my best boltholes, sitting under a hot satellite on the roof, bouncing signals from all over the atmosphere to listen in on a half-native and a dike set up a sleepover. I've been gathering intel for weeks on Ross and Meera, and everyone they run across, including January, preparing for this moment even as I hoped it would not come. Now, my forward thinking is going to pay off.

I need real, physical leverage to get at Barney: money didn't work. Once I get him bent to my will, I can have him kill the Kresh girl. And to bend him to my will, I need to exploit his weakness.

Ross is going to obey me: that's a promise. He is going to show me some respect.

The thought of Ross showing me any respect is laughable. But imagining his face when he learns I have him by the short-and-curlies brings a true smile to my lips.

Meera might even put up a struggle. Being in the company of Barney and the rest of his hoodlums has doubtlessly taught her something. That should be fun.

I'll have some entertainment picking apart her brain to sate my own curiousity. All my intel has revealed about her is that she is from Nepal, and Barney somehow picked her up on mission. Having watched her for weeks without fruit has been slowly eating at me. I hate nagging questions. I am eager to find out more about who she is, where she came from, how she and Barney met. More to the point, I imagine she has some insights into Barney's ops that I can use as leverage in the future, once she's of no more use to me.

Oh, the possibilities. Once I get her here, and comfortable, and loosened up as only the CIA methodology can, I can sail back into first place with the song she will sing.

She's mine. He's mine. They just don't know it yet.

Barney:

Ceasar volunteered to arrange the playlist for this mission, and I have to chuckle as 'Smoke On The Water' plays through the plane.

The homesickness is starting to drift away, ever so slowly, like a kid going to camp. I try to hasten the process by allowing the rock to envelope my mind. The first hundred miles pass with me figuratively holding my breath, waiting for the ache in my chest to start. To my utter surprise, it doesn't.

I try to put my finger on why I am not overwhelmed by the thought of leaving you. Maybe I've been mentally preparing for this moment since the first time we met. Maybe I feel confident in your ability to take care of yourself. Maybe I'm supernaturally comforted by the promise I made to come back.

Or maybe it's laying in wait to pounce on me when I least expect it.

"You fixed the altimeter," comments Christmas, tapping the little glass circle.

"Yeah," I reply. "Took me the better part of a day to just reach the damn thing." That was the day you crawled into the inner workings of the plane with me, and handed me tools. If I try, I can remember the smell of you, filling the cramped space as you watched my dirty and greasy hands work, occassionally asking a question but otherwise content to be close to me. That was the day I saw you start to flesh out, when I first noticed the pinpricks of feathers on my little phoenix's skin.

Oh. Yep. There's the ache, twinging like an old wound. In response, I reach under the pilot's chair and grab a flask, unscrew the top, and take a nip.

Christmas doesn't miss a thing, the observant bastard. Those eyes can pin a fly to the wall with a flick of a knife. "You are hopeless," he sighs, shaking his head. He takes the flask and matches my gulp. "Have you at least got a picture of her?"

I growl, then bounce a fist off the instrument panel. Needles swing wildly, then settle. "Shit, no, I didn't even think of that."

"That's too bad," says Chirstmas, drawing a picture of Lacy out of his breast pocket. He smooches it and returns it.

I give him a baleful look. "I hate your guts."

"I know, mate."

"You are an asshole."

"I love you too."

"I believe the term in your native tongue is 'bugger'."

"Keep talking like that, Mr. Ross. You might get lucky."

And so my friend distracts me from my own problems by pissing me off. Bickering, conversation, mission stats, and arguing over the music pass the hours. You linger in the corner of my mind, though, like a ghost.

Fuck me. These three weeks are going to be a bitch.