Perspective
Chapter 11: Second Nature
Summary:
It was the week after Valentine's and Gisele was with Han still at a safehouse.
When she accepted his invitation for Valentine's dinner she knew she had a window of days to be with him but she couldn't guarantee it so didn't tell him in advance.
Gisele slept well the last few nights, maybe the best she has in years, but not tonight.
Published on February 22, 2024
Follows Chapter 10: First Valentine's but can be enjoyed on its own
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Chapter 11: Second Nature
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It was the week after Valentine's and Gisele was with Han still at a safehouse.
When she accepted his invitation for Valentine's dinner she knew she had a window of days to be with him but she couldn't guarantee it so didn't tell him in advance.
Gisele slept well the last few nights, maybe the best she has in years, but not tonight.
And there she was beside Han in bed listening to him breathe as she'd woken up some time ago.
She doesn't think she'll fall asleep again so easily after watching the clock pass and part of her thinks if she leaves the bed he'll somehow disappear and this was all in her head.
She was used to late nights and night shifts, so much so that it was second nature.
Gisele kisses his cheek before she moves from the bed, as if to feel him one more time if this was it.
Gisele had debts to pay and things to make up for and staying dead was the best way to accomplish this.
She still remembers when she heard of Han's death.
It was a pain she never knew she could feel.
She tried to move on both in life and love.
And then Han was somehow alive and she couldn't quite believe it even after she herself was supposed to be dead.
But when they reunited she knew it was him and they still had something to hold on to after all.
And this was what leads her here.
From Central America to Mexico to LA to Rio to Europe to Hong Kong.
To London and Spain.
And two fake deaths later.
To Han.
And there was still more unknowns to go.
Gisele wants what she's doing now to be second nature, and to argue about their dinner plans like normal people and not the sporadic meetings at a safehouse but normal late nights where they can just talk.
Her attempted breakup or whatever you want to call it on Valentine's night was on a whim or maybe not as it was always looming from day one of telling Han that she was alive when she couldn't be for the rest of the world.
Because it's never been that way with them.
They met at a heist plan.
There first real conversation was sizing each other up
She sat on his lap as they kissed and he drove the autobahn.
They departed at another heist/government related work.
All that led them here.
She's on the last sip of her herbal tea when Han joins her in the living room, the low buzz of the TV keeping her company and attempting to lull her to sleep.
Gisele beckons Han to sit with her and hold her.
"Did you go to Letty's funeral?" Gisele asks caressing his arm.
"I thought about it," Han answers.
"I was thinking what if you did and I met you then?"
"That…" Han responds slowly, "Sounds nice."
Gisele didn't know where she was going with this or if there was a point to this or if it was just the lack of sleep.
Maybe she wanted to pick a fight and it was better than the alternative.
They were parting soon and if it was anything like it was on Valentine's she doesn't know if she can handle it.
Her next assignment was with Luke Hobbs who also knew she was alive for awhile now.
"I don't know who I was then," Gisele says, "but it does sound nice."
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YEARS AGO
"You did good," Mr. Nobody tells Gisele after the assignment's end.
She was part of an undercover sting for a drug bust.
This isn't how she thought she'd experience Central America if at all.
If so she figures it would have been in one of the beaches, perhaps in North or South America instead.
"It feels like I could have done more," Gisele dismisses.
"We have to take our wins in this life," the man says.
Gisele straps her bag to her motorcycle then checks to see if her helmet is in order.
Gisele knew the drill by now, the building was to be swept soon like they were never there.
They were in and out in months this time.
She wonders what the next one will be and how far she'd have to go.
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Author's notes for Perspective, Chapter 11: Second Nature:
I threw in the Luke Hobbs knowing Gisele is alive at some point because I think Gisele might show up in the Hobbs' second film as Dwayne Johnson said at one point that he wanted Gisele to come back in his spinoff film and I think the main films are crowded so maybe they fit her in if the planned Hobbs and Reyes films can make it work
Or Eteon's involved and we get a part machine Gisele or other things I maybe shouldn't share if I want to write more drabble one shot variations