I am very sorry about the wait for this one, guys.

Sent: 25 December 2013
Merry Christmas. Where are you again? – J

Sent: 29 December 2013
Hello? –J

Received: 1 January 2014
Don't worry. I'm alive, John. I'll be away for a while— I'll text you when I'm available.

Sent: 31 March 2014
Mary? – J

Sent: 13 June 2014
Mary, are you ok? –J

Sent: 06 August 2014
Please text me soon. –J

John shifted from the staircase where he sat, refraining from wiping the sweat from his forehead. The heat in the emergency stairwell was artificial and stuffy— he had dressed for the brisk outdoors, and it was making him uncomfortable here.

He had a gun trained on the right shoulder of the man he could see from the window he'd been sitting in front of for more than an hour— Tony had been in there longer than he was supposed to be, and it was making John nervous.

Tony, also in view, seemed comfortable, happy to sit and drink and smoke with criminals and killers. He was laughing heartily at something the targeted man had said. He kept on moving freely, lounging one way, readjusting his chair another way— John assumed this meant that he didn't feel threatened. If he had, John hoped that he would have known better than to get in the way of the sniper he'd set up himself.

After Guatemala with Angela, it had been months alone— Argentina, then the Côte d'Ivoire, then Northern Canada, doing a variety of things with a variety of people that he didn't know and had no relation to.

And now, it was Perth— with Tony. Tony, who hadn't said a word to him since they'd arrived in June, except for maybe to tell him what to do or when to do it. When he was with Angela, she would at least break in her anger every so often, not forgive but something a little like it: She was angry, but there was nowhere else she needed to be. Not so for Tony.

And Mary— Mary hadn't said a thing to John in months. He had no way to know where she was, how she was doing— Craig and Angela were together, Jennifer was with a few other computer professionals; coders, hackers, her type of people that, John imagined, just sat in cafés programming weapons of mass destruction. No one knew where Mary was. John knew better than to ask Tony, but if anyone knew it would have been him.

John could only hope that Tony was responsible enough to tell him if he'd heard any bad news from her.

Well, he could also hope that this meeting could end quickly— his back was killing him from being in one position.

And it wasn't even as if he hadn't tried: John had tried to reason with Tony, but there was only so much he could do without putting himself in an uncomfortable position and hell, he was more than a little angry at Tony himself, now. If it was his job to go travel the world and get criminals to trust him, why was it such a big deal that he'd have to do this particular job for any longer? He'd have another job after this, and another after that one.

He blinked, refocusing to the sight of Tony leaning back, hands behind his head. He itched the spot where his bald head connected with his neck.

At the ready. Wait for next signal.

Three heavy seconds hanged between the time it took to prepare himself and what happened next: in one fluid motion, Tony had pulled the gun from the back of his pants to shoot at what must have been the second person in the room, out of view of the window John was looking at. John wasted no time in shooting his target— square in the right shoulder, away from vital organs. He had to trust that Tony would be able to diffuse the situation while he quickly packed everything up and got away from the stairwell.

He sprinted down and exited the building out into the connecting alleyway, slipping into the side door of the café. Tony was busy in the back, which left John with the ability to tend to the men's wounds. Two guns were scattered, dismantled, on the floor away from the two men. John's shot had hit the man in the shoulder, but Tony's had hit in the abdomen— not good. They wanted them incapacitated and then taken into custody, not dead.

Didn't they?

"Have you called the ambulance yet?"

No answer. It was a younger man, the one most injured— thin, with a long nose and a dark complexion. He wasn't used to pain, and this was torture to him. But he was handling it well, expressing his pain in heavy exhales and his twisted face. His hands grabbed at the red hole at his stomach, eyes darting from the blood on his shirt and hands to John.

John called out again— they hadn't decided on aliases, and so he didn't know what else to do but repeat himself. Finally, the other man called out from the back.

"We'll call them when I'm done here."

"I don't think we have that long, he's bleeding... Quite a lot."

John heard a scowl, then a mad shuffle of papers. John tried to get the man to allow him to look at the wound, but he wouldn't stop moving and huffing in pain.

When Tony re-entered the front room he had a duffle bag slung across one shoulder and his phone to his ear: John took the plastic gloves off of his hands and followed him out the door.

He walked briskly, long legs making it hard for John to keep up with him. He didn't try to talk until they were far away from the scene, and the sirens had faded away. Tony turned them down an alley; it was getting dark, the sun turning everything purple. A single streetlamp shone yellow on the bricks.

It was then that he spoke.

"Tony."

There was no answer from the other man, as expected. He picked up his pace, knowing it would at least irritate John.

"Tony, what was that?"

John took a few running steps, enough to catch up with him. He pushed him once on the shoulder, getting him to

"You didn't need to shoot him in the stomach to secure the place—"

A near miss— he ducked just in time to save himself from the fist swung at him. Tony grabbed him by the bad shoulder and slammed him into the wall.

"You don't get to tell me what I need to do."

John reacted accordingly, ducking under him and retaliating— He waited until Tony had turned around before punching him in the jaw.

"It was completely unnecessary, Tony—"

Tony had tackled him to the ground; both were conscious of their bodies and strengths, but Tony was still in better shape. He landed a solid blow to the left side of John's jaw, and, with a knee pressed into his stomach, leaned close to him. He spoke in a low growl:

"Yeah, and you know all about necessary, don't you?"

John struggled against the weight Tony was putting on him— he wasn't hitting him anymore, but that meant little, as it looked as if he might start up again at any moment. He met his eyes, comfortably meeting the burn in the other man's eyes with his own.

"I don't regret killing him. I'd do it again."

Wrong answer. Tony hit him again, and John felt a sickening crack at the base of his nose. Blood spurted out as John swore in surprise— Tony had been surprised, too, it seemed, because he removed his weight from John's stomach, and didn't try to wrestle him back down when he went to stood up.

Nasally, blood running down his face, John gestured madly around.

"Well, what was I supposed to do? Let them cart him away? How long would it take for him to get out? Because he'd get out, he'd be back on the streets, you know that. Maybe you don't, but I do— How could I sleep if I knew he was out there? Every time I see some bloke in a well-tailored suit or a text from an unknown number, right back in the same place. It needed to happen."

He could taste the blood as he spoke, filtering into his open mouth— he spat it out, red stains on the ground.

"It was him or me, and if it was me it was going to be a hell of a lot more people that I care about too. I don't really care that you're upset that you'll be working this job a little longer than you wanted. You'll be back onto the next one in no time."

Tony got to his feet. John was sure he was going to be punched again, but instead, Tony started laughing:

"Three months. They said this damn thing would take three months, tops. They said it'd be quick and painless, just like the old days."

Old days. Retired. Of course— wouldn't risk settling down, having kids, unless he wasn't. Money was too good. Three months, tops.

"Do you know how much changes in two years? My youngest took her first steps two days before I left. She's writing me letters now. I don't get to see any of that, and that's your fault."

"Not mine, Tony. I'm not the one who lied to you. It was never going to take three months."

"It wouldn't have taken three years, if it weren't for you. We wouldn't have to scour the globe paying off criminals and buying their loyalties from a dead psychopath. We could have let the government do what they wanted to without us."

"That's what we're doing? Just— paying them off?"

"What did you think we were doing? Tackling the world's evil, country by country, locking up world's most wanted? It's more profitable to keep them running under our support."

John gaped.

"More profitable to let Moriarty's— his entire— empire run as if he were still alive? What was the point of going after him, then? What was the point at all?"

Tony laughed again— it wasn't the laugh John had grown used to, warm and friendly. He was mocking him.

"If he's not getting the money from all of his crime rings, then it looks like we are. America, England. Whoever else is in on it. Did you think you were being a hero, when you shot him? You were creating a job opening for the most lucrative position in the world. Now they'll just put some puppet up there instead, someone they trust to report back to them. It's exactly what they wanted you to do."

"I know it was. Well— kill him, at least."

"Well, looks like they found the right man for the job, then. Our hero, Captain Watson, always there to save the day and kill the bad guys."

They stood by each other, tense— neither knew if the other was going to attack again for a long few moments. John wiped the blood from his face onto his sleeve, spit more out. He'd need to go to the hospital, he knew that much.

Tony scowled. Itched the back of his head— it was the signal they'd decided on, shoot. It was the first thing that John could think of and it wasn't comforting.

"We're done here, We got what we needed. I don't know when they'll call you. I'd leave Perth by the end of the week."

And he turned, and continued the way he'd been going.