Chapter two: don't put your heart in mortal danger (Song: 'The More you live, the more you love' by A Flock of Seagulls)

A shot rang out around the corner before any of them had a chance to see which way it was going. Adler felt his stomach flip, momentary panic that their best asset had been eliminated.

But there she was. Bell standing tall, Volkov's body lying on the floor, hand half risen to his neck to stem the explosion of blood that had come from the gunshot.

"Damn, Bell. Really made him pay for that kick."

"M16 would have preferred him alive, Bell."

Park was right behind Adler, and grimaced. She was angry at things not going her perfect planned way twice that night. But part of her was surely pleased; this proved their experiment was definitely working. Bell had been able to look her old comrade right in the eyes and hadn't hesitated.

"He deserved it," Bell said quietly. "Any information he could've given us would've been dubious. We'll find out his secrets another way."

"Well said." Adler said. "Come on, let's go."

They got out of the warehouse quickly. The car was waiting a just half a mile away, hidden behind some disused crates. No-one else seemed to be around; Volkov's men had either all been destroyed or they had seen a losing fight and turned tail.

On the way back, nobody talked much. Lazar was murmuring a little to Park, who was trying her best to be amused while still seething a little over Volkov. Adler checked his watch and glanced back through the windscreen every so often. Bell just leaning against the passenger door, and clutched her head.

"You alright?" Adler asked, catching sight of her mid turn.

She was either concussed, or getting flashbacks. Neither were great options. She looked up at him, her pupils very diluted. Afraid.

Adler put a hand on her shoulder.

"We're out of there kid, it's fine."

She put her hand on top of his, and squeezed it.

"I'm sorry I messed up. Kraus moved in on me like—"

Her sentence cut off, as he slowed the car down. Too many ears around, too much pride on the line, or the simile too painful. Adler wasn't sure. He noticed how small and cold her hands were, yet her long fingers held on so strong to him for a moment, like manacles binding her to him. And in spite of the cold he felt a hotness coming from her, a fire in that grip, seeking oxygen in his touch. It made him want to put his whole arm round her, let her flame suck him up—

The car started to judder and Adler quickly focused on changing gear.

Sims was waiting for them outside when they got back.

"You all right?"

"Adler pulled us out," Lazar said, holding the door open for park. "And Volkov was rubbed out."

"Out of where?"

"Warehouse. Minor kidnapping of Bell."

Sims eyes narrowed.

"How'd that happen?"

"Give them a minute to catch a breath Sims, Jesus," Adler cut in, slamming his door shut and throwing the keys at Sims. "Let's sit down and look at the evidence, then we can review."

They went inside. Lazar began making coffee, and took out a half bottle of whisky to sweeten his own. Park cleared her throat and looked at him pointedly, eyes flicking to another cup. Lazar looked momentarily confused, then grinned, pouring a splash into her cup too.

Adler lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Something inside him was feeling uneasy. He didn't like that little moment in the car. Or rather he had liked it; that was a problem. Sure, Bell was beautiful, but he wasn't an animal. He saw her as a tool, a weapon, a key. He'd seen her strapped to a table covered in her own blood and sweat, soiling herself, vomiting. He'd made her go through that. He didn't have the right to turn round and lust after her now. Even that was something too corrupt for him.

The coffee was passed round and Adler gulped his down, ignoring the burning in his throat. Bell held hers tightly, warming her hands, and letting the steam weave its way round her face. She looked far away into the distance. Park was watching her, somewhat anxiously, probably wondering if there was something more than regular shock going on in her poor twisted brain. Woods was scratching his beard, washing out some blood from it with a wet towel, and occasionally his eyes would go from Bell to Park, wondering if he was missing something.

"So what happened in that apartment?" Adler asked. "How did he manage to get Bell?

"We nearly missed the mark," Park sighed. "We didn't realise he had a kid as well as a wife."

"But we didn't miss the mark," Lazar said, reassuringly. "We didn't. Bell got the briefcase and, though I'm sure she doesn't appreciate the headache, it all ended up fine."

"Damn," was Adler's only reply.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he spat on the floor and folded his arms, sitting back in his chair.

"Stings to think such a dickhead can have a nice house and home while threatening the safety of the free world," he said.

"You sacrificed your chance for that by defending freedom," Sims muttered.

"Don't remind me," Adler snapped, and pulled a face like he'd sucked a lemon.

It was a very rehearsed reaction. He'd practiced long enough, knowing it was what people expected if they dared to allude to his past. But he stopped caring long ago. He had not been a happily married man, never wanted kids for the world to ruin, and when the long overdue farewell came in 1971, he was mostly relieved. Julie, her heavy sighs and high-pitched whines, snotty tears and trembling pink lip— what could he do for her? He didn't get it. He wanted to be free, not caged in by sentimental cloying 'love'. The thousand and one ticket stubs from every movie they went to, bills from every diner they had stopped at for even two minutes, and the letters he had once enjoyed writing to her from Europe before he realised every single one of them was a lie. She kept a shrine to their love from the day it was born with a careless kiss below the streetlamp beside the Harold Washington Library. A love that Adler had never really deserved, a devotion he didn't appreciate, a feeling he couldn't return.

Julie had been good, wholesome and simple. She saw a handsome, strong man that looked like Prince Charming, and she was sold. For his part, he thought she looked like Snow White with her little pinched chin and cheeks. But she was much more alive than a cartoon. Her hair shone like copper, and her big brown eyes were like warm cocoa.

It was only when he came back from Germany that he noticed the changes. After a few days of the big smiles and bouncing on his dick any time he tried to have a conversation, she couldn't keep up the cute little housewife facade. Her hair became limp, her eyes dimmed, and every night she opened a fresh bottle of wine with the starters and finished a quarter of gin by dessert. He carried her to bed one night and she couldn't hold back the tears.

"I'm sorry I'm not enough. I tried to do everything I was supposed to…"

Her voice had broken mid whisper, but the words rang like cannon blasts in Adler's ears for many years after.

When he left for 'Nam, it changed her again. She became harder. More frantic in her attempts to pull him back. She would not accept defeat; she was going to win him, pin him, regardless of how much misery it caused them both. Then, when he came back, something made her break. She begged him for a baby for the hundredth time; he told her he couldn't have one. He revealed the extent of his injuries. The face had already been a tough blow, her handsome prop no longer serving its purpose— this rendered him utterly useless. She loved him for real, enough to make her decision painful, but the pain had already been too much to bear that filing the divorce was just a little paper cut.

So there went Adler's marriage, his only true supporter, and his literal home. He moved to Hopewell, VA; got a dog almost straight away; paid an old widow to housekeep and walk Bronson (the dog); and he got the fuck on with life on his own. It didn't suck too much. Last he heard of Julie, she'd married an older man with two sons she could play Mom with. A nice simply, happy ending— still, less than the fairytale she deserved, that one he couldn't deliver.

The rest of the team had dispersed, occupied by the information they had acquired from the briefcase, and leaving Bell sitting a few feet away as Adler fell into his memories. Bell pretended to be looking at some notes, but Adler could see her eyes flick up at him every other minute. He wasn't going to say anything about it, until she did. She would lay off after a while; she was a hot-headed, cold-blooded agent. Not the kind to run over, put a hand on his shoulder, and baby voice him into telling her what was on his mind. He wouldn't tell her anyway. He knew little about Bell, and didn't care to know more than he needed to; she needed to know him even less. But he was supposed to be her former ally, friendship forged in Napalm flames, and maybe this was a moment to play into the illusion.

"Spit it out, Bell. What's on your mind?"

Her hair flipped over her shoulder as soon as he spoke and her eyes widened, like she was caught in headlights. Then they narrowed and she smirked.

"Nothing you'd be able to decipher," she said, in her porcelain voice, sharp and clear as a ring of her namesake.

Why had she looked so startled? Adler wondered if sometimes she forgot she knew him, and the real her— buried somewhere deep beneath the Americanised facade— thought she was stuck in a terrible nightmare.

"You're giving me the eye, Bell," he said, taking the option of building some fake camaraderie. "That eye I know too well. You want to psychoanalyse me, huh? Read my horoscope and tell me the stars are black over me today, but they might be blue tomorrow if I just give them a chance."

Bell raised an eyebrow.

"You know, stars are much more complicated than that, Adler. If I believed in that dirt, I'd be mortally offended."

She talked so fine, sometimes. Too elegant to swear, or something. It was kind of cute, although it seemed an anomaly with her profile.

"Alright, alright. You can have half the scoop. The past is on my mind, not much of a change from usual."

"Which part of the past?"

"The part I don't talk about."

"Useful."

They stared at each other. Bell's dark blue eyes glittered, and she seemed to look right through him, x-raying his soul. He didn't like lying to a pair of eyes like that.

"Life before the war, before I moved to VA. I wasn't always a sad bachelor, you know. Remember my wife?"

Bell picked her thumbnail.

"I never wanted to ask," she said. "It's your personal life."

"Well, I had a wife. Then I didn't. I sometimes remember how that happened."

Bell gave an emphatic nod, and continued fiddling with her hands. She took her time replying, quietly clearing her throat and breaking off a couple of times before she had the confidence to speak above a whisper.

"I… I sometimes think I hate my own past so much, I don't remember any of it. I can't say I know how you feel, but maybe part of me does."

Something caught in Adler's throat. There was sadness but more importantly sincerity in her choking, quiet voice. He had been so adamant he didn't want to know anything more about her— no point humanising his lab rat— but now he wondered.

"Well, we have to hope the present is somewhat better. Right?"

Bell fixed her frown and smirked.

"Stuck in a damp warehouse with you?"

Adler stubbed out his cigarette.

"Of course, with me. That's the dream."

"Whatever you say," she snickered. "I guess I need someone to steal smokes off."

She reached over and took one from his packet before he could stop her.

"Got a light?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You're one to watch."

Adler's lighter clicked and he held the flame steady in front of her, till smoke curled round her pale face, creating a mirage of her in front of him. A ghost, which in a way was exactly what she was. Why be concerned about her life before when she had a new one, however hollow, now?

Yet he wanted to know the real Bell. It was only to make sure she was a good choice; it wasn't personal. He just wanted more knowledge, to make their relationship more believable, to keep Bell invested in the illusion. To stop her starting to question too much. The day before Berlin she had been commenting on his scar; asking if she had heard it right when Adler told her in the bar last year that he had been stabbed by a Soviet. He told her it had been much less glamorous than that; only been mauled by a tiger.

Adler hadn't ever put that in his repertoire of memories.

It made him wonder if Bell's mind had begun inventing from his prompts; maybe she had known something about him before her capture, and it was slipping through? He wanted to know that too. It meant digging, just a little bit, and he knew where to get started.

Adler pulled out his cell and snuck outside to the back of the warehouse.

"Hudson. What do you know about the real Bell?"

"Why—"

"I think it's relevant for the intel we gathered from Kraus. Especially now we lost Volkov."

He heard a sigh.

"Wait for it to come in the mail, I have better things to do than that right now. What did Volkov give you?"

"Park is sending it over now. I think there's something bigger he was involved in than just pea shooters. Her and Bell are gonna look through the list and see if there's anything hidden in there."

"Get to it, Adler. I hate to say it but I think you might be right."

The phone clicked off. Adler's heart skipped a beat, adrenaline and nicotine kicking in, and he pulled out another cig. Time to get to work.