VI: Rabbit Run

As the night went on, Yuri and Fiona talked, and laughed. By then, he was face down with her on top, her arms wrapped around him in what amounted to an affectionate full nelson. "So, I was telling you about the rules we have against men interrogating women," Yuri said. He took a swig from a bottle that was down to a third full. "Wanna know why? Sure, the women complained. A few times, we roughed up ones who turned out to have real connections. But the real reason is, our guys were getting played. The biggest was a senior officer, connected as a junction box. He was stone cold. He wouldn't just mess up the girls. He would throw them right back onto the street, no matter what they did. Then one night, they brought in a few girls, just to scare them. It turned out one of them was an operator, we never really knew whose. They said maybe it was a honey trap, but the fact is, he got left alone with her because he wandered in and nobody else was there to take up the slack. 75 minutes later, he did a rabbit run, shot two officers and ran over a third driving out of the base with her."

Fiona nodded at that. "Aw, I love a whirlwind romance," Fiona said. She squeezed his hand. "Were you going to ask if that was me?"

"Oh no, it was before your time," Yuri said. "Anyway, they caught her at the border. She'd already left him behind. She showed them where before they liquidated her."

There was a pointed silence. "That was cute, acting like you know my age," she said to fill the air. "You like to please, just like a puppy, you know they call you that." She considered an assortment of objects on the end table: A hand grenade, a 14.5mm anti-tank round, and a visibly leaking squirt gun. She picked the squirt gun. "You're my pokey little puppy, and you know what that makes me…" When he grunted in displeasure, she only pressed on. "You don't like when I call you that? What are you going to do about it… puppy? Do you want to call me something, puppy?"

He literally shrugged her off as he rose, and promptly lumbered for the bathroom. Fiona sighed and reached for her coat. It hung unfastened and untied as she pushed open the bathroom door. Yuri did not look up from where he hunched over the toilet.

"You know," she said, "most women would take this… personally. But I get it. The same thing happened to me, the first few times I had to do this…"

"First… few…?" Yuri murmured. He shook his head. "But it is not like that. To please a woman, or a man, even for that, I can tell myself it is for Yor, and I can do it. To hold and be held, after… I think of her, holding me when I had bad dreams. If I think of what we have done, and still think of her, and if I remember the dreams..." He shrugged as he retched.

Fiona leaned against the doorframe, pondering whether to exit the room. "I told you, I'm the one who can get it," she said. She leaned over and stroked his hair. "You tell yourself you can't do it, until you already did. Then you tell yourself there's something more, someone better, something that will make it all worth it, even if it's the one thing you could never have… Dammit, get outta my way."

He drew back as Fiona squatted beside him. Her arms drew tight over her abdomen as she gave a long spew. It was only as she looked up that she registered that Yuri had held her hair back.

"Gawwd, that wasn't even cute," she said as she scuttled back to the door. "Dammit, you are a puppy. And when I was as old as you're supposed to be, I was telling guys older than I am now that they were too young for me…"

She reached for him again. He looked back warily. "You want more?" he said.

She rubbed her temples. "I don't know, my head's so focked I can't turn off," she groaned. "Look, just come back to bed, all right? If you think about her when you're with me, why not just picture us… having dinner together? You're going to introduce us eventually, right?"

"You think you're the kind of woman I'd take home to my sister?" Yuri said, looking back.

She tensed, fully prepared to run. Still, she smiled. "I can be any kind of woman you want me to be," she said.

"You know what?" he said. "I think Yor would like you. You seem very different, you act very different, but I think you are not as different as you seem. Maybe, Yor is more like you than I have wanted to believe. You should meet, some day."

"I would like that," Fiona said. "Now, come back to bed."

As Yuri rose to follow, he said, "There is another thing… One time, Yor brought a puppy home."

She froze in her tracks. "Just stop talking," she said. "Look. That thing I told you not to do? You can do it now… this once. As long as you do one thing." She took his hand and led him away. In moments, he was burrowed under the covers, cuddling possessively.

"I could never do this with anyone else," she said. "The first thing you taught me was not to let anyone get behind me. Nobody unlearns a lesson like that. But for you, I can do it."

"Yes, I can see that now," came the answer. The voice was deep and firm, and that was enough.

"Twilight," Nightfall said, "I will never love a man the way I love you…"

VII: Flight Risk

Fiona stirred when she felt Yuri awake. "You're a light sleeper," he said, gazing at her in the light of near-dawn.

"So are you," she said.

Yuri looked at the clock. It showed 4:00 in the morning. "You might as well get up," he said. "It's only an hour till you need to leave for your flight."

Fiona shook her head. "I was never going to try to catch it," she said. She considered the clothes scattered on the floor, particularly the remains of her blouse. She also briefly examined the bottle, somehow empty. "If I don't make the rendezvous, they will send someone else or abort the operation. The only real deadline is to send an all-clear to my coordinator before someone comes looking for me."

She settled back under the covers, gazing at him. "You promised you won't lie to me, even if you can't tell me the truth," she said. "You know I can't lie to you. So tell me… Why are you doing this? Why are your people letting you do this? You must know I'm not betraying Twilight. Hell, how did you even know to ask for me?"

"There was a story we had already heard," Yuri said matter-of-factly. "It said that there was a WISE agent who was Twilight's lover, or in love with him. I had looked into it, and decided it was just a legend. Then one of our assets said there was a name. It would have been ignored, but I decided it was worth a chance. I told them I was the only one who could get close enough to be sure. I wanted to find out what kind of woman would love Twilight, so I would know something about him." He looked back at her. "What about you?"

"They wanted me to find out something about you," she said. "You and Yor. We really don't know anything. Even for what the war did to the records, the two of you are just a wall of gray. Even your birth dates are just numbers pulled out of some Party functionary's backside. They prob'ly didn't know anything either, or they at least wouldn't have been so half-arsed about it. I couldn't even tell you if I'm older than Yor…" She started to gnaw her own fist. "Ah, dammit, for all I know, you're younger than they say you are…"

"What about Yor?" Yuri said. "Why do your people care about her?"

Fiona ran through a dozen evasions. She did not realize she spoke out loud until she said it: "Twilight loves her!" She stared back at Yuri. "Yes, you know it's true! Don't ask me how or why, just believe me!"

He nodded. "Yes, I do believe it," he said. "I have felt that somehow, we shared something… So he, too, loves in vain, perhaps only from afar. I can see that he is honorable, for his own part, so he would not take the bride of another man. Neither would you take another woman's husband, even him, if you knew he loved her in return."

The clock showed 5, then 6. "There is one other thing," Fiona said. "What was that name you called me? Mor… Mr…"

"Hm… I must have said Morozka," Yuri said. "It is just a name from a story. She is Lady Frost, a fairy who brings the snow. It was a book my sister used to read to me…"

"Right, her," Fiona said. She pulled him to her. "Are you thinking of her now?"

"I am thinking she would understand," Yuri said. Fiona's one visible eye shot wide open as he held out the hand grenade.

"I should tell you a story about her," he said. "I told you, I used to have bad dreams. They were about bad men who came and took Mama. Then they tried to take me from Yor… She was there, but I do not remember what she did. And when I woke up, she would come and lie beside me, and she would tell me, if the bad men ever came, she would hold me as tight as she could, and they would never be able to take me away. I think even then, I knew what she really meant. And I told her, when I was old enough, I would hold her even tighter."

She allowed her to place her hand on the grenade. "That is how much Yor loves me, and how much I love her. Tell me, do you think you could ever love me that much? If they told you to abandon me, or betray me, if your people or mine were at the door, would you stay in my arms? Do you think you love Twilight that much?"

"No," she said. "But for you, or for him, I would try to buy you enough time to run."

"Good," Yuri said. He set the grenade back on the table. "Then we understand each other. You are not taking Yor's place, and I am not going to try to take his. We are only helping each other, as much and for as long as we can."

"What if the Unity Front got their way?" Fiona said. "What if we were on the same side?"

"Then we would be ordered not to fraternize," Yuri said. "But then, maybe we wouldn't be doing this at all."

"Yes, that could be nice," Fiona said. "Yes, I would like that." She kissed him. And for a while, there were no more words.