"Disclaimer: It's fanfic, meaning I don't own anything or make any money off of it. It's a labor of love. Please don't sue me.

This story is rated T. Apart from some language, there's nothing here that wouldn't pass muster on an episode of The Following. If you're old enough to watch the Following, you're old enough to read this. However, it is The Following, so bad things can happen. Expect possible violence, dark themes, angst, and a certain amount of general awfulness. No serial killers, FBI agents, or small furry animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. And don't try anything you read here at home.

Epilogue - Ninety Percent Of Life

Juliana hadn't been sure what to wear this evening. Her meeting with Eliza certainly wasn't a date, but none of their previous meetings had been held in the private dining room of an expensive restaurant. Since it was a business meeting (Or so she assumed), she opted for business casual. She selected a chambray blazer, light blue shirt, long black pants, and dark blue pumps.

She gave her name to the maitre d' and was shown to a private room upstairs with dark wood paneling and a rectangular table with seats for eight. Eliza was already there, sitting at the end of the table studying a menu. She'd gone with a black cowl neck dress.

Eliza looked up from her menu and gave a smile somewhere between happy and predatory. "Come on in," she said. "Make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you," Juliana replied. She sat down across the table, and began looking at a menu. Places like this , she realized were well beyond her means.

"You did really well in Skopje," Eliza said. "And I thought you deserved a reward. I know you're something of a foodie, so I thought maybe you'd appreciate a night out."

"Thank you. I wasn't sure what this meeting was about, and I didn't expect anything like this."

"Working for me has its advantages. How was your flight home?"

"It was good. I thought we'd be coming home together. I was afraid something was wrong."

"Far from it," Eliza said with a smile. "I decided to unwind and spent some time with a man I met on the trip. He's in the arms business. He took me to a casino in Skopje. I didn't even know they had them. And we flew up to Prague for a couple of days. It's a beautiful city. Very romantic."

Eliza reached into her purse, which was sitting in the seat next to her, and produced a envelope which she handed to Juliana. "Here. Another payment. And more to come. You did a great job pretending to be management."

"I was scared of what you'd do if I let you down," Juliana replied.

"Good," Eliza grinned.

"Are you sure he bought it?"

"Not absolutely. Probably. But he won't see me again. He'll deal with you from now on. What would you like to have?"

Juliana scanned the menu. "Everything is so expensive."

"I'm in a generous mood. That doesn't happen very often. Indulge yourself."

"Is Mark back in this country yet?" Juliana asked, studying the menu.

"Not yet. He's in Bulgaria. He needs a little time after what happened, and we aren't ready to put that part of the plan into effect yet anyway. Losing Marta hit him pretty hard. She really cared about him, and he knew that. Stinnes and Kaminsky are still with him. We're setting him up with a new identity and a little money until it's time to come back here."

Juliana looked up from the menu. "May I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"You brought me along because you didn't want Mark to know you were behind the operation. But Marta had met you. Dealt with you."

"So?"

Juliana sat in silence.

"Go ahead," Eliza said. "I think I know your question, but ask anyway."

"Were you really planning to bring her here? If she knew who you were, then...I mean with all those bullets flying around..."

" You want to know if I would have betrayed Marta to keep my secrets."

"Would you?"

"No," Eliza said.

"Would you admit it if you had been planning to kill her?"

Eliza studied Juliana as if she were deciding where to make the first incision. "No," she said at last.

"Because I know some of your secrets too."

"Well then," Eliza said with an amused smile, "you had better hope that I'm telling the truth. Now what would you like to have?"

Juliana decided that it was pointless to try to read whatever was behind the impish grin on Eliza's face. She was committed now, and would just have to hope for the best. "The poached lobster, I think. With garganelli, pole beans, and minestrone. It sounds really good."

"So I hear. I'll have the grilled beef with shelling beans, olives, and peppers. I don't eat lobster."

"Why not?" Juliana asked.

"There's no humane way to kill them. I mean, they boil them alive."

"It's a big bug. A tasty big bug .You're not one of those people who believe that they scream when they put them in the pot are you?. Because that's a myth. It's just air rushing out from under she shell."

"They beat on the inside of the pot trying to escape," Eliza said. "That's not a myth. My Mom boiled one once. It drove her out of the kitchen."

"Besides, a lot of places don't even do that anymore," Juliana protested. "I read that they have a machine now that kills them instantly with electric shocks."

"They've invented a lobster shocker? Is this a great country or what?"

"It's a British invention," Juliana explained. "I watched you torture a man to death. And you won't kill a big bug?"

"It's a defenseless animal," Eliza said, in a cutesy voice.

"I swear, Eliza, I think you're just trolling me."

"Look, I know what I am," Eliza explained, "and I'm Ok with it. I like myself. But the fact that I'm a predator doesn't mean I don't have standards. Maybe that's how we define ourselves sometimes. By the stuff we just don't do. I'll call the waiter, and tell him we're ready to order."

II

They were approaching the front door to Karlino's, Sloane was looking at her smartphone, which had just beeped to announce a text from Chris.

"It's two drinks tonight,"Max said. "That's my limit. Cross my heart and hope to spit."

"It better be," Sloane said. "Because if it's not I'm gonna do something really drastic."

"Like?" Max asked mischievously

"Tell Ryan."

"Thanks for not telling him before. Look, I know I had a bad night. Things have gotten off to a rough start. But that changes, starting tonight. Because I'm going to make it change. I'm glad now that I came back here. Ryan was right. Going to LA wasn't the answer. I shouldn't be the one leaving. Mike left me, and that was his choice. I was ready to give up the Bureau so we could be together. He left anyway. I'm not giving up Ryan because Mike hasn't come back."

"You're sure about this?"

" Yeah. Well, mostly. To quote Woody Allen, ninety percent of life is showing up. Mike's not showing up. So I have to get on with life, the best way I can. I've got Ryan. I've got my friends, and I've got a great partner. And I'll meet new people here. Maybe even one of those four million guys. So I'm starting over. Tonight."

"Great," Sloane said.

"In fact,", Max continued. " Amy's going to be here tonight. With her fiancé, and one of those four million guys"

"Oh?"

"Yeah. She said his name's Tom."

They reached the front door of Karlino's. Max pushed the door open and stepped inside. Sloane followed, cursing under her breath.

Musical Fade Out - Maybe You'll Be There, by Diana Krall

======================== Notes =====================

The Lost Year:

One of the more thoughtful comments I ever ran into about The Following (And I cannot recall now where I read it), was that The Following was about how the villains succeeded and how the heroes failed. Maybe that applies in spades to The Hunting Of Men.

Part of the fun in fanfic is filling in gaps in the canon, and Season 3 of The Following had more of those than most shows rack up over the course of a long run. But just as S3 had a lot of gaps for a fanfic writer to play around with, some of those gaps present serous challenges when one tries to fill them in. As canon gaps go, Mike's year overseas is something akin to the Bermuda Triangle.

We were told nothing about it. The Lost Year was basically a plot device so that the showrunners could rip Mike and Max apart for the bulk of S3. No details about what he did or where he went or what happened were ever given. But we were told by Gina Mendez that Mike had been reckless and insubordinate, and because of this, she sent Max on a trip with Ryan instead of Mike.

What this seems to imply, at least to me, is that at some point in the course of the Lost Year, Mike got close enough to Mark Gray (Or thought he did), to endanger himself and/or someone else, and that he also violated orders. But we were never told any of the details. Obviously The Hunting Of Men is an attempt to fill in some of that rather large blank space in The Following's timeline, and to imagine what, exactly, Mike did that caused Gina to keep him in New York. It also goes a bit into how Mike broke off contact with Max long enough for her to become involved with someone else. If that aspect of The Hunting Of Men seems unconvincing, it's mostly due to my limitations as a writer, but maybe, just maybe, it's also because the Lost Year, when Mike and Max went from "Finally!" to not speaking, was one of the least convincing events in The Following's canon.