A/N: Eek. I'm glad you all liked the first chapter! I am enjoying writing this (like always, haha). I'm liking getting to play with timeline a little more than I usually do, though.

Hope you enjoy this one, too!

Before Extraction – 48 Hours

"Doctor, hm?"

The British voice startled her and she turned around, her drink in her hand. "Hm?" She said out of reflex, then nodded and smiled, "Oh, yes, Dr. Eleanor Morgan. And you are?"

She extended her hand to the woman, and the other one shook it as she answered, "Julia Barnes," she said, "What brings you here to London?"

"The conference," she replied, squeezing more tightly around her drink—a shirley temple in a nice glass—as she tried to not lose eye contact with Julia while also trying to keep her eyes on the room. Her diplomatic credentials draped over her neck, the ones that also said "Dr. Eleanor Morgan," and she finally looked casually to the right to see her target. The name tag said "U.S. Cultural Envoy" right underneath her name.

The earpiece felt heavier as she waited for Julia to leave or something, but she looked back at her again, "And you?" She asked, trying to move the conversation along.

"Conference as well," Julia said, sitting down and ordering a drink.

"Well," she said, noting that she was setting up shop, "It was nice meeting you, but I need to go talk to someone."

Julia didn't even ask who she was talking to, and she'd suspected the woman was already drunk. She blew a breath out slowly as she moved through the crowd, carefully holding her drink. The keynote address was tonight, and they'd been tipped off that Fadi Al-Hariri would be here to support his brother.

The hotel had no idea that there was an active member of a terrorist group walking through its grand ballroom, but she knew, and so did the people waiting for her in her earpiece. "Eyes on Jackal," she murmured, not moving her lips as she spoke lowly. "Moving south toward east exit."

Just as she said that, though she was definitely far enough away for him to not hear her, he turned as though he'd heard his name. She paused, but only briefly as to not look suspicious. She tipped her drink back and continued to make her way through the crowd, pretending as though she were moving toward the left side of the room as Hariri stood in the middle by the doors. She swayed a little, even, to make herself look a bit tipsy.

This wasn't her first rodeo.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him and another man moving toward her, and her pulse quickened just slightly. "Dr. Morgan, isn't it?" She heard, and she stopped in her tracks and looked back, pretending like she didn't know where the voice had come from.

"Dr. Morgan," he said again more firmly, and she finally let her eyes plant onto him.

"Oh," she said, a lighthearted voice coming out of her otherwise tight throat. "Mr. Al-Hariri, I'm surprised you know who I am," she said politely, giving him a warm smile as she lowered her glass down in front of her hips, holding it firmly.

He tilted his head and the way he smiled down at her with one eye squinting just slightly made her feel uneasy, "You've been observing the room all evening," he said coyly, looking around at the other man standing not far behind him, "A diplomat, yet you do not seem to be interested in diplomacy."

She lowered her head, trying to show a sign of submission as she smiled, "I'll admit," she said, "I'm not feeling very well tonight—I was hoping this would maybe fix things." She said, bringing her drink up and sipping down the rest of it so he wouldn't know it was a shirley temple.

"Besides that," she continued, realizing he wasn't seeming to buy into her act, "I find these events to sometimes be dreadfully boring." She admitted it like a secret, but then acted like she just remembered his reason for being here—his brother. "Great for the people being honored," she said with her eyebrows raised, "and while I'm happy for them, I do get a little more entertainment people watching rather than listening to another lecture on tariffs." She smiled again, trying hard to bring the sale home this time.

And when he smiled, she thought that her efforts may have worked. "Perhaps you would care to join me for a drink, Eleanor?" He asked, smirking a little as he perused his eyes around the room before letting them land back on her, "I'd love to hear your thoughts on the people you've observed tonight."

She hesitated for a heartbeat. She knew it was only one heartbeat because she felt it pound against her throat.

Turning him down would raise suspicion, and getting closer to him was exactly what she needed anyway. She considered the blueprints of the hotel briefly, flashing them in her mind. "I'd be delighted," she said, setting her glass on the table near the exit and swiftly removing her earpiece at the same time, setting it there, too, as the two men were turned away in front of her and leading her out of the ballroom. For big returns, sometimes you have to take the big risks.

Her heels clicked against the floor once they were outside, and she marveled once more at the marble flooring in this London hotel. It certainly was one of the more beautiful hotels she'd been to during her career and otherwise, even. She began thinking about how she could plant the tiny device—the one stored away safely in her nametag currently that functioned like a sticker. She eyed the briefcase in the other man's hand, and then eyed Hariri's jacket and wondered if she could possibly make a move to put it on his body—that would be even better.

As she was thinking about her next steps, he stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway, turned to face her with a grimace, and stepped toward her in an authoritative way with his hands in his pockets, "Tell me, Dr. Morgan," he murmured, eyeing her body first. She held back a shudder as he paused at her chest, and she could almost feel him undressing her. She steadied her breathing, keeping it perfectly normal, "Do they teach you how to lie this well at the Embassy? Or is that a skill you have picked up elsewhere?"

She felt the ice shoot through her veins where there should've been blood, but she made every possible effort to show no physical response whatsoever. "What do you mean?" She asked, tilting her head and furrowing her brows, "I—"

Hariri chuckled and leaned in to her ear, his face moving the hair beside her cheek and causing her skin to feel ticklish. She hated it, but the way his hot breath felt against her skin made her want to shudder, and she hated how biological responses work. This was no sensual potential, this was a threat potential, and her body was not differentiating between the two. She kept her face there, though she wanted to turn away and punch him.

"You might want to tell your friends at Langley they're not as discreet as they think," he whispered, and the chills ran down her arms.

The room seemed to shrink, and all of her physical training kicked in over the mental side. She glanced over his shoulder at the man closing in on the two of them, and then another coming through the double doors with his eyes on her.

"I think you have the wrong idea," she whispered as she ran through the hotel routes in her head that she'd pre-studied.

"Oh," he said, "I don't think I do. I'm afraid the party's over for you," he whispered, bringing his hand to touch the back of hers, "Dr. Morgan."

She didn't wait for him to finish before she took off running. She slipped back into the double doors and burst through the crowd, trying to lose the three men along the way. People were grumbling as she pushed through them, but she didn't care—she was just trying to get to the exit where she knew Hariri couldn't get a car to in time.

Suddenly, as she was about halfway through the room, she remembered her earpiece. She made a giant circle and ran to the edges, hoping to lose them even further by maneuvering like this, but she was scared to look back—she just kept going and grabbed at her earpiece. "Cover's blown!" She said into it, "Extraction now!"

She kept running and running and her feet were tiring out, her ankle twisted at one point and now it's throbbing, and she's still running through what felt like a thousand people and a mile-long ballroom to the exit. She pushed through the double doors and made it out to another long hallway, and she heard the sound of her heels clacking again as she pushed forward. When she didn't hear footsteps behind her, she paused quickly and ripped her heels off, throwing them to the side before running again.

Then she heard the footsteps behind her, and then when she turned the corner, she ran into another man. The sudden blow knocked her backwards and she stumbled just slightly, but so did he—he hadn't been expecting her to round that corner any more than she'd been expecting him to be running there. She looked at him for a moment and realized he's a security guard, and she felt confused suddenly as to why he would be running, too. But she took off again just as he grabbed for her.

As she continued to sprint down this hallway, knowing she needed to make another right and then two lefts to get out of the hotel to the exit furthest from the parking lot, she felt a sudden pain in her back and she fell forward. Her body tensed up as she quickly recognized something from her CIA training days—the prongs of a taser.

She tried to hold back a whimper as she laid on the ground, tried to her will her body to not fail her now and to get up and keep going, to find the exit, to just go. But she laid there in pain, her vision blurring as she tried to pull her legs underneath her when the sound of more footsteps jolted her out of her misery for a moment. Maybe not out of her misery, but instead it just pumped her with a new rush of adrenaline.

But they were already on top of her by the time she staggered to her feet, grabbing her arms and forcefully pushing her forward to walk with them. She wanted to cry out in pain, wanted to scream for someone to help, but she knew there would be no one around to hear her, not even in her earpiece.

However, she hoped that when Hariri was whispering in her ear and making the hair on the back of her neck rise that she got the sticker off her nametag and stuck to the hem of his jacket in time and without anyone noticing—and she hoped even more desperately that Langley would tap into it at some point and find her whereabouts.

Before Extraction – Two Months

Chop, chop, chop.

Her motions are methodical as she cuts into the carrots, sliding the slices to the side as the pot on the stove next to her warms up. The water was just starting to steam, and she had a lid prepared for when she put the carrots in—something she'd learned watching Food Network, how to steam carrots.

The Peter Frampton cassette tape she'd put in before starting her dinner was already to track seven, but she'd skipped the first two tracks—she never cared for those two songs much. Her music for the evening started off with his song "Show Me The Way," and she slid herself in her socks from the living room where her carpet ended to the kitchen.

She didn't dare sing, but she whistled along with Peter, something she'd done ever since this record first came out when she was eight years old. Now, she's twenty-four and feels the lyrics a little more deeply than she did as a young girl, but nonetheless whistled them instead of putting herself through the torture of hearing her voice try to sing.

"Baby I Love Your Way" came on as she scooped the carrot slices up into her palms and laid them in the sizzling water. Peter got through the first verse and into the chorus, and she felt herself humming along to the words.

"But don't…hesitate…'cause your love…won't wait…"

She swayed along with the music as she placed the lid on the pot, and a pang in her chest hit her too hard—she suddenly, desperately, wanted someone to dance with. She laid her hands on the oven's handle and rested there for a moment, not humming, not whistling, just listening to Peter and imagining herself dancing around this tiny, old, D.C. kitchen with some tall, beautiful blonde-haired man.

Her high school boyfriend was blonde, too, and she just adored the way he looked. She didn't, however, adore the way he kissed her best friend at her graduation party.

The carrots began to sizzle, too, along with the water, and she looked into the pot for a couple seconds before moving to place her chicken breast in the oven. Though she'd learned from Food Network how to cook those carrots, she hadn't yet learned that she needed to space her cooking out—the chicken should've gone in long ago if she wanted to eat it within the same meal as the now-steaming carrots.

She turned around after putting the chicken into the hot oven, setting a timer she kept on top of her stove. Peter continued to sing.

"I can see the sunset in your eyes."

She leaned against the oven door, her hands resting behind her there as she closed her eyes and let the lonely feeling wash over her.

Sometimes she regretted choosing the career she did, but only rarely. Most of the time it kept her busy, something she'd wanted ever since her parents had died.

One day after they died, she immediately started finding ways to keep herself busy—she'd go out and wash the horses down or clean the already-cleaned stalls. She'd wash her uncle's car when they arrived to temporarily live in the Adams' house while they got everything taken care of—switching schools to the county her aunt and uncle resided in, selling this house, selling Ben and Suzanne's stuff. She would even offer to help Will with his homework more often than not, something she'd typically hated doing because it usually ended up that she would do it all for him.

And ever since then, the busyness avalanched into something busier, and she took a harder dive into school after her aunt and uncle put her in boarding school. She wanted to be the best, and being the best at Houghton meant having to put in double the work she'd been putting in at her public high school. By her junior year, all the teachers knew her by name—either because of her outstanding academic work or because of her volunteer opportunities or because of her being on the front page of the school paper multiple times for the debates she'd won. Her senior year, she'd dog-sat for two of her teachers while still maintaining a perfect grade average and winning the national debate championship with her partner. Her team, also, came in first that year.

After school, it was UVA, and she'd dove headfirst into that like everything else. And then when Conrad recruited her for the CIA, it was headfirst into that.

And sometimes it's dizzying to go headfirst into everything all the time. Sometimes, she just wants someone to hold her, stop her from the dive, and tell her she doesn't need to keep herself busy because she has someone to lean on.

But that's not the case.

She turned toward the oven again and started stirring her carrots, trying to shake herself free from those thoughts about wanting someone and wanting them to stop her. This was all she had—work, success—and if she didn't have it, she may have just disappeared into thin air. At least, that's the way it felt on nights when she wasn't dancing alone in her kitchen to Peter Frampton.

When she put the lid back on the carrots, she heard a knock on the door and glanced at the clock on the wall—7:58. She briefly wondered who would be coming this late, and then decided it was probably Isabelle.

She looked through the peep hole of her door and realized it was Conrad, and she furrowed her brows and opened the door up. "Conrad," she spewed. She had definitely not been expecting him—especially since she'd just seen him an hour ago when leaving Langley. She'd told him bye, even, and they briefly discussed that married life was treating him well—he and Lydia both.

He shouldn't be here, now.

"What brings you here?" She asks, trying to play off the fact that she'd come across so brusque before.

"I need to talk to you about something," he said, briefly looking past her shoulder. He knew she was alone—he knew that she never had anyone here. She's not sure why he even looked.

Then she realized she's standing with the door open and speaking to her boss over the threshold, "Come in," she said quickly, moving out of the way and letting him walk inside. He took his coat off—a chilly night for it being late April—and he held it against his body and took a deep breath as the door shut.

"Everything alright?" Elizabeth asked as she walked around to the front of him, folding her arms uneasily over her chest.

Conrad turned toward her, looking away from her simple apartment—the dining room had a set of four chairs around a small, round table, her living room furniture was pieced together from estate sales she'd been to, and her carpets were old like the rest of the little house. But it was hers—even if she did only rent it. "I need to be straight with you, Bess," he murmured.

She watched him carefully now, afraid that the rumors were becoming true about them—everyone at Langley had been saying that Conrad was into her, and now she's invited him into her home and feels like she maybe has had her trust broken. She had never put any stock into the rumors—Conrad was a good friend who also was her recruiter—she'd known him for a few years now and never felt uneasy around him.

Until tonight.

"We've got a mission lined up," he said, and she breathed out quickly, "I need you on it. It's high-stakes, and you'll be the one on the ground as a diplomat."

"Where?" She stumbled out.

"London," he answered, his voice low. "But it may take you to Kuwait, depending on how quickly you can eye your target and get ahold of him. You'll be following his brother around first—he resides in London and—"

"Are you talking about Fadi Al-Hariri?" She asked, interrupting him as she relaxed her torso slightly. Shop talk was much easier than thinking he was into her.

He smirked, "I love that you do your homework," he said, and she knew then that she was right, so she smiled and looked down. "You'll be a diplomat over there, a cultural envoy."

Just the mention of a mission had gotten her heart rate back up from feeling like it had been treading through sludge over by the oven when Peter Frampton was singing a love song, a love song with love that she knew she'd never experience. Immediately, her mind was spinning.

"There's an arms deal going down," he said, "And we think it'll happen in London when Hariri visits his brother, which he does frequently."

"What does the brother do?" Elizabeth asked.

"He's in education," is all Conrad said, and Elizabeth didn't ask. She knew she'd be briefing his files.

Elizabeth took a breath, "When do I leave?"

"Three days," he said. He furrowed his brows then and looked around the room again, "Is something burning?"

"Shit!" She spit, "My carrots!" She rushed into the kitchen to find her carrots had lost all their water and were, indeed, burning. She turned the burner off and moved the pot to the side so that they wouldn't cook further, and then she peeked in the oven to see the chicken was still raw. She growled as she closed the door.

Conrad was quietly snickering behind her, but when she turned to see him, he stopped. "Lydia and I would be glad to have you over for dinner," he said.

She shook her head defiantly. "I'll get Chinese," she murmured, "Thank you though."

She thought about the empty Chinese carton in the trash can from the leftovers she'd finished off yesterday, and her stomach almost lurched—she's lived off Chinese so much since moving here. It was the closest thing to her and easy and cheap.

As he walked to the door, he turned to her, "Thank you for letting me count on you, Bess."

"I won't let you down, sir," she said, folding her arms over her chest again and giving him her best smile.

He walked through the doorway and she locked it behind him, then she turned and looked back into the kitchen at the sad state of her dinner she was attempting to cook. That night, she just couldn't shake the loneliness she'd felt, the one that crept up her back while she'd been cooking and swaying to Frampton, the one that only seemed to be able to be relieved by another man's arms. But in her line of business, there wasn't any room for someone to get that close to take the chill out of her.

Just like that night, Conrad had swooped in to let her know she'd be gone in three days to another country entirely. And then, even, maybe another country after that. There was no room for someone to get close, how could she let them? She had pushed that part of herself away long ago, deep down inside herself. She hadn't even been sure it existed until that moment with Frampton. But at twenty-four years old, with her parents gone and Will abroad studying, those feelings of loneliness still managed to sneak in.

She cleared her throat and shook the thoughts away, turning the oven off and grabbing her coat to go get her third round of Chinese food this week—and it was only Thursday.