nadezhda & ruslan vi.

Nadezhda

Early spring. The air is cool during the day, quite crisp at night. And it is night, now.

There was a hard journey, tense but -- luckily -- not too fraught. He knows there is a car waiting for him. He knows the kind of car to look for, the location it is supposed to be in, and the code phrase to use.

There is the dusky blue-grey Buick Riviera, parked in the shadows between shipping containers, almost invisible unless you're looking for it. And in the driver's seat, a woman in a light jacket, with red hair not quite to her shoulders, the neat bob matched by equally neat bangs.

Ruslan

There are precious few flights between Washington D.C. and Moscow, and most of the travelers are diplomats on official business or, in rare cases, state-sanctioned businessmen. There is no way Ruslan could have flown here; not with his ties, not with his purposes.

So it was a shipping freighter for him. Nearly a month at sea, much of it alone in the cargo hold, subsisting on hardtack, reviewing primers on American culture, listening -- late at night -- to the tiny transistor radio he brought with him. It reminded him of Nadezhda, or the girl she had been: with her chic haircut and her flagrant clothes and her sunglasses, walking down the street while he chased defectors.

He is still chasing defectors. That is why they have sent him here. His first mission.

--

The ship pulls into port and the great turbines fall silent for the first time in a month. It continues moving for some time still, both on account of its enormous momentum and because tugboats are maneuvering it into position. Even after it has been secured, it is some time yet before he can move. He must wait for the initial bustle to end: the ship's crew disembarking eagerly, the dock's crew coming aboard for initial inspections and comparisons. It is late in the day, though, and they do not make it as far as the main cargo hold. Soon enough the sun sets. The workers depart. Night falls, and a chill descends.

The pallid floodlights of the port do not quite reach the deck of the ship. He climbs out of the hold and throws the last of the survival biscuits into the water. A meager collection of toiletries and a blanket follows. Everything else he brought on board is on his back: two sets of clothes worn one inside the other, and the transistor radio tucked in his pocket. There will be no other trace of him to be found.

He keeps to the shadows easily, making his way off the ship, onto American soil. It is not terribly different yet. Aside from the signs in English, this could be any major port on the Baltic. He was given his instructions a month ago, and he has no choice but to trust them. He goes to the appointed place, at the appointed time. He finds there the appointed car with his appointed contact.

Without hesitation he pulls the passenger door open directly, gets in. He has changed his hair, sideparted now and no longer cropped quite so close. He is four years older and there are new lines on his forehead. He is a little gaunt after a month of dry rations.

"Did you have a nice weekend in the Appalachians?"

His English is flawless now. So too is his recollection of the code phrase.

Nadezhda

She recognizes him when he gets closer. He is still walking to the car, around it. Her entire body freezes; she stops breathing for a moment. She finds, when he opens the passenger door and sits beside her, that she cannot turn her head. If it were brighter, he would see that all the color has drained from her face.

Her eyes close when she hears his voice. It's been four years since she has heard his voice. The last thing he was saying was in Russian. And it was a goodbye.

It takes her a moment -- what is likely a tense, fraught moment for him -- to swallow, to wet her throat so that the words don't croak from her:

"You would not believe how cold it was," she says softly.

Turns to look at him, then. "Are you Michael?"

Ruslan

He knew it would be her. They told him it would be her, though not in so many words. They told him it was a trusted operative who had been there for several years already. They showed him a picture so he would know if the Americans set a trap for him. He knew.

The whole month over, he knew.

So now she has red hair, and an American accent. She has a Buick Riviera, a great big American boat of a car that the youths in Moscow secretly envy. She has the right words for him, and the right name.

He looks at her. Their eyes meet. They know each other, but then he blinks once, calmly, and looks through the windshield.

"Yes. And you must be Jane."

Nadezhda

They did not tell her it would be him. Of course they could not tell her it would be him. A whole month he was in a cargo hold, and she did not know.

She is looking at him, and those dark eyes of hers are not filled with tears, but four years ago, they were. Even then, though, she did not let herself shed them.

Then he looks away from her, and her chest caves in. She looks away, too, through the windshield, and, after a moment: she starts the car.

"That's what they tell me," she says breezily.

They can't tarry here. She drives away.

Ruslan

He is watchful as the car describes a wide circle and heads back the way it came. They have bought off the security guard at the fence, but even so Ruslan -- "Michael" -- bends down as they pass the booth. As she merges onto the Beltway, he adjusts his seat, buckles in, reaches down and turns the radio on.

American pop softly fills the car cabin. It is the sort of music he would have imagined her listening to, all those years ago. And as they drive, he reaches across the center console -- never taking his eyes off the road -- and takes her hand. Squeezes it in a silent little hello.

Nadezhda

Tires over gravel, and then tile on asphalt, and in due time they're heading to the highway to go west. They haven't reached the on-ramp, though, before he reaches for her.

She does not flinch. She does not react at all, physically. A moment later, she only says:

"I can't."

Ruslan

This bring his eyes to her, ever so briefly. Still a caress; not at all platonic.

"Who would see?" he says softly.

Nadezhda

"It isn't that," she says back. Now she does pull her hand away, slipping it out from underneath his, attaching it to the wheel. "Just... give me a minute."

She takes a breath, after that. Some time after that, really.

"It's about two hours' drive to your next check-in. Tell me if you need to stop for anything."

Ruslan

His hand loosens. She takes hers back. Both hands on the wheel. Both eyes on the road. His too, after a moment.

"I'm sorry," he says, not quite knowing what he's apologizing for. A few moments of silence.

"I was told everything I need would be provided," he replies. They are back on safe ground; back within mission confines. "Clothes, toiletries, personal effects, identification, papers. Even a car. But if not, then I would need some basic living supplies."

Nadezhda

"My guess is that that's what you'll get in in Richmond," she answers, with a small nod. Adds, with a touch of wryness: "Right now, you don't exist yet. I must be hallucinating."

She does glance at him, remembering when she came. It was different; she had a partner. She had a different cover. Even then, it was harder than she ever expected it to be.

Now she imagines what it is for him, right now, without even what she had.

Her eyes go back to the dark road ahead. They are on the highway now, and the sky is black, and the light-posts have some distance between them. The headlights of the Buick cut through it all in a hazy, pale cloud.

"I didn't know it would be you," she says quietly. Maybe as explanation.

Ruslan

"I knew." There is a note of apology there. "They showed me a picture of my contact, so I would know at once if someone else tried to pick me up. I knew it was you."

By day he would be able to see this strange new land. The lushness of its greenery, the wetlands and its branching rivers. The pristine blue skies and the grey clouds rolling off the Atlantic during the stormy season; the many and majestic monuments that pepper this, the seat of American power.

Right now, all he sees is darkness. And the road, impossibly broad and smooth and new, the asphalt laid only five years ago.

"I promised you I would come," he adds, softer.

Nadezhda

"I know," is all she can say. He can see the line of her face, the paleness of her cheek -- darker now that she lives here in this southern state, more worn from care and time than it was the last time he saw her,

at least in the flesh.

They don't head west for long; she takes another exit, another road, to go north.

"I just didn't know. Tonight, I mean." A low, shaky exhale; a laugh at herself. "I need a fucking drink."

Ruslan

"I know." It is not exactly an echo. It is an acknowledgment: that she did not know. That she needs a drink.

A brief pause.

"Can you stay tonight?"

Nadezhda

It wasn't just the one time that he asked her to stay. They had two weeks. And in those two weeks, they saw each other as much as they could, as often as they dared. And there was more than one night when he asked her to stay. There was more than one night when she asked him if she could, before he even got to it. They could ask each other for that, even if he could not ask her to give up her purpose, even if she could not ask him to run away with her. They could, at least, ask the other: can you stay tonight?

So the words echo in her ears. And they break her heart. And, oddly, they give her a bright, unfurling joy that pulses through her like a wave of light.

"We have... a great deal of autonomy here," she tells him. "More than you might expect. Definitely more than they would have told you."

A glance at him. "We are very trusted. And even so, when I picked up this car, I checked it for listening devices."

Theirs. Not the Americans'.

"I'm supposed to get you to Richmond, where you can pick up the rest of your cover, or at least enough to get you to the next link in the chain. But our people are patient. They won't be alarmed if we take a little longer than expected to show up."

There's a beat of a pause on her end. "Maybe we could stop on the way and get you a decent shower and meal. And a drink."

Ruslan

Autonomy. Trusted.

These are concepts that are nearly foreign to him. This decade has not gone smoothly for the Soviet Union. The tide seems to have turned after years of Soviet dominance. Despite a series of firsts in space, the American now had the upper hand. They are lagging badly in nuclear arsenal. And the Cuban Missile Crisis -- only very generous men would even call it a draw, and Russians are not generous.

In response, the training was ever tougher, ever more grueling and stringent. They were always watched. Their days were planned down to the minute. For four years he has been brutalized, physically and mentally, until every fiber of his being toughened into scar tissue. Even a month virtually alone in a ship's hold hardly fazed him.

And now he is here. Standing on American soil, breathing American air, speaking American English, preparing to embark on his first American mission.

And given autonomy. And trust. Enough that no one would be alarmed if he does not show up exactly when and where he is expected. That is what she tells him, anyway, and he has no reason not to believe her.

"I'd like that," he decides.

Nadezhda

It's quiet between them in the car while he mulls over what she says. What she offers. She doesn't interrupt his thoughts; she drives, and the noise of the road and the engine permeate the Buick instead of their talking.

She almost doesn't know what to say. The last four years her head has been filled with everything she could say to him, from profound thoughts to the minutiae of her mundane daily life, the masses of land in between the rivers and tributaries of her missions. Now he's here, and she wasn't expecting him, and every word that comes to mind seems like the wrong one to say.

So even now, she makes only a small noise of acknowledgement, and drives on.

--

In due time, they drive far enough along the highway that they see truck stops, gas stations, road motels, small towns and villages, not even big enough to be called suburbs. It's hard to say why she chooses the exit she does: maybe it's a number she likes. Maybe she knows that this motel is clean and that the restaurant in the lobby serves beer and a few bottom-shelf spirits.

But she pulls off, driving with the ease of someone who has been managing things like Buicks and Lincolns for several years now. Even with her vaunted status in Moscow, she only ever was a passenger, or a bicyclist at her most daring. Now she drives this car, which is fairly new, and does it with comfortable mastery/

She parks around the side of the motel and turns the car off, and the lights. It's silent now, with only the distant sound of the highway coming through the windows. After a moment, she reaches into the pocket of that light jacket of hers and takes out two small objects. Hands him one.

Puts the other simple gold band on her own left hand. The ring she gives him is a little too big; it is not meant for someone nearly starved from a cargo hold. She doesn't have to explain why: checking in together without the rings would not raise any alarms immediately, but it would make them more memorable. If anything happened, if anyone was questioned, a desk clerk would remember the unmarried couple before the husband and wife.

She doesn't look at him as she secures the band around her own finger. She doesn't speak to him as she gets out of the car, going around to the back to take out a medium-sized leather suitcase the color of caramel.

Ruslan

They have taught him to drive. But it is yet new to him and he is still careful and tense on the roads. He does not have her thoughtless familiarity, the movements that are by now muscle memory. He watches her, impressed, as she takes the sweeping turns of the highways; corners after a brief pause at reds.

As they park, he leans forward to look at the motel. It has some fanciful name perhaps meant to conjure up visions of faraway exotic beaches, but in reality it is a roadside inn for travelers, the sort of thing that has sprung up in the wake of those brand-new highways now crossing the country.

She has a ring for him. He takes it with just a beat of hesitation, sliding it onto his ring and flexing his fingers. It is a little large. He has been trained for these situations, and he is not surprised. Still, it gives him pause.

Enough that by the time he goes around to the trunk, she's already pulled the suitcase out. Now he is a little surprised. He takes it from her: "They told you to prepare this?"

Nadezhda

The doors of the Buick close heavily, with metallic thuds. The trunk closes the same way. He reaches for the suitcase and her heart pangs slightly, though her expression doesn't change.

She is remembering carrying something - she doesn't even remember what, now - to his apartment, and how he took it from her arms without a word, and how despite the things he would mutter in her ear when he was in bed with her, he was an unfailing gentleman towards her.

"They told me I would be picking up a man, so I brought a ring," she tells him. "I knew we would be traveling at night and, if something should happen, a suitcase would help our cover."

It is not empty. He can feel that. Of course not; if police stopped her and searched the car for some reason, an empty suitcase would be damning.

She breathes in, looking at him for a moment - an unintended but protracted moment - before she remembers herself. "When we go inside, it will look odd if I do the talking. We just need a room for the night. This sort of place makes you pay up front, but we don't have a wallet for you yet. Pretend you lost it. I have cash. Don't be too polite to the clerk.

"Shall we?" she finishes, nodding towards the office.

Ruslan

Again he looks surprised. In Moscow, he felt himself to be the more experienced of the two of them. She was still a trainee, after all, even if her mission was rarefied and dangerous. He was a hardbitten officer of the KGB, even if his tasks amounted merely to glorified bloodhounding. Here, suddenly, their roles feel reversed. She is so experienced already; has thought of everything, has planned for all.

He nods mutely. And, steeling himself for his first real interaction with the unsuspecting populace, walks with her toward the office. He is quite aware of every yard they walk. The changing slant of sodium lights. The buzzing VACANCY sign. The creak of the door.

The night clerk is young, sleepy, bored. Ruslan does not hesitate as he steps to the counter. "We need a room," he says, firmly.

The clerk looks up. Yawns. Pulls out a clipboard and goes over the ledger. "First floor okay?"

"I'd prefer second."

"Hotplate's broken in the only one we have left, but I can give you a five-dollar discount."

"That's fine. We'll take it."

"Room two-oh-five. It'll be ten dollars."

Ruslan reaches into his pocket for the wallet he already knows is not there, but he keeps up the act admirably -- pats his back pocket, then reaches his hand in. With increasing frustration, his front pockets. Then his breast pocket. "Damn it." He turns to Nadezhda. "Honey, can you...? I can't find my wallet."

Nadezhda

The tack he takes is firm, almost hard-bitten, his sentences short and to the point. She notes this; she adapts to it. So she is not the helpful wife. She is not cheerful. She is tired, and the more he searches his pockets the more annoyed she looks. She hides a roll of her eyes when he asks his 'honey' to give over cash from the meager allowance he gives her, digs into her purse, muttering "Fine, fine," and pulls out her pocketbook, counting out a five and five ones. She lays them down and puts her pocketbook away, mouth pursed slightly and motions terse.

So they are given a key on a diamond-shaped plastic tag with the room number on it, and Ruslan hefts the suitcase, walking out of the office so they can go out to the outdoor stairs. As they go, she speaks in a low voice: "I told you to make sure it was in your pocket before we got in the --"

Door has closed; they are out of sight. She stops talking.

"That was good," she says, as they approach and begin to climb the single flight of stairs. "You talked a little like a soldier, but for all he knows, you are one. Or wish to be one." She nods a bit. "That was good," she repeats, scanning the doors for 205.

Ruslan

It's one of those little motor inns where the rooms open directly to the exterior. They find stairs and climb them, and then he steps aside to let her go ahead with the key.

"Thank you," he says. "And my English. Adequate?"

Nadezhda

He knows this from before: he should expect honesty from her. She didn't lie to him in Moscow. She didn't dissemble or try to spare his feelings.

The key in the lock. She turns it and opens it into a dark room. "Yes," she says. "Clipped, though. Deliberate. It depends on the cover," she goes on, as she finds a switch, turning on a light, as he closes the door behind them, "but usually you'll want to be more relaxed with it. Lazy, almost."

The room is cool; it's only early spring, but in this part of the country even that is rather warm... during the day. At night, especially this late, the air grows brisk. The breeze of the bays and rivers makes the nights chilly.

Nadezdha draws the curtains closed over the window, then walks to the dresser, over which hangs a mirror. She doesn't take off her jacket yet, but she does reach up, removing a few hidden pins, then taking off the red wig, then the thin nylon cap. When her hair tumbles out it is still dark, mussed and unruly from being under the wig, but she's quickly finger-combing it, shaking it out, looking, once again,

very much like she would in the morning after a night with him, or waking up in the middle of the night beside him in that narrow bed of his.

Ruslan

He smirks a little as she goes ahead of him into the room. "You were the one that told me not to be too polite," he points out. "I thought that meant clipped."

He shuts the door behind himself. A light comes on. The curtains close. The room is small, but motor inns are a new phenomenon still, and this one is only a couple years old. Compared to the blank concrete walls and hard wooden furniture he is used to, it is luxurious. There is carpeting. The curtains only smell a little of smoke. The bed looks enormous to him, and very high. There are armchairs, and they are upholstered and soft.

There is insulation. And heating. It is noticeably warmer inside than out. After a moment, he decides to step out of his shoes.

"The red looked good on you," he says, careful to stay in English.

Nadezhda

She can't help but laugh a little when he points that out. A dry, huffed thing. "It's about nuance," she says, but she's not really arguing. She's almost agreeing: yes, she can be a bit of a perfectionist.

But he knew that, too.

From before.

--

If he sees the room as luxurious, he will be blown away by the bathroom. She finishes fiddling with her hair, which is only a little longer than shoulder length these days, and then shrugs out of the jacket she wore. Underneath she's wearing a pair of dusky grey slacks that rest daringly on her hip instead of at her waist and a ribbed cream-colored turtleneck. She wears a watch with a gold rim around the face and a fine leather band. She has little gold studs in her earlobes. Her eye makeup is smoky, her lips painted a pale pink. She steps out of her shoes, too, when she glances over and sees that he has.

And he tells her that the red looked good. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn't comment.

She doesn't say anything, in fact. It's like she can't, even now, even when they're alone, they're relatively safe, they're together. She has no idea what to say to him.

Again, she falls back on what is mundane, regular, grounded in life. She takes a breath, tells him: "Do you want a shower?" A beat. "Are you hungry?" She frowns, deeply, putting her fingertips against her brow. "I shouldn't have taken off the wig. I'll just put it back on if we leave the room, though. Do you -- is there anything you need?"

Ruslan

American life has suited her well. Even if not for their history together, he would appreciate her now for her attractiveness, her cosmopolitan air. He decides he likes the dark hair better, but keeps this to himself.

For all her experience and modernity, she seems rattled. She asks him a million questions. Frets about her wig. He half expects her to wring her hands. When she turns to him again he is quite close to her, reaching out to take her hands, still them.

"I'm starving," he admits. "I heard you can order food delivered to your door here. And that hotels have little refrigerators full of liquor. Maybe we can do that."

Nadezhda

He touches his hands. Draws them down from where she is fretting at her brow. Keeps them in his hands. She's unnerved by how much cooler to the touch he is than she remembers. She thinks of how he came over to this country.

Her eyes are unblinking, taking him in. She nods. "I'll order something. You should shower."

There's a small pause there. She doesn't take her hands out of his. "Even in motels," she says quietly, "the showers are very, very nice. You'll feel good."

She wants him to feel good.

Ruslan

A grin flickers -- a rare thing, perhaps, but not so rare during those two weeks they had together. All those secret meetings at his little apartment, letting her in the door only to sweep her up in his arms. A few times they didn't even make it to the bed.

"After a month washing at a cold-water mop sink," he says, "anything will feel good."

Nadezhda

Sometimes she showed up in the middle of the night from training: sweaty, her hair in a greasy ponytail, in shorts and sneakers and a t-shirt. Sometimes she looked like the daughter of a minister, fresh from a party. Most often, she looked just like a girl.

She's still a girl. A few years older, but still so young.

A smirk is his answer. "You don't know yet," she says, insistent.

With a beat of hesitation, she withdraws her hands from his. "Go. There will be towels. A little bar of soap. I'll call for food."

Ruslan

Her hands slip out of his. His fingers close on air, and his hands lower slowly to his sides.

"All right," he says, takes a step back. "I'll be out soon."

--

The bathroom is a minor marvel. By American standards it is not large. By his standards, it is enormous. There is tile on the floor, rather than bare concrete. Tile in the shower. An actual tub with a drain that opens and closes at the flip of a lever. A faucet that blasts out gloriously hot water. A drenching shower.

He strips off his clothes and steps into the tub. The heat, the steam, the blasting water, the little bar of soap: he feels clean to his pores, to his bones. Standing in that decadence, he tries to remember his mission, but the truth is he only ever had one objective. To come here. To see her again. It is fulfilled.

--

He shaves carefully with the disposable razor he found next to the soap and the toothpaste. He brushes his teeth, and then he puts on the cleaner of the two sets of clothes he has. Coming back out of the bathroom, he is flushed with heat. He is truly clean and warm for the first time in a month.

"Remarkable," he says, scuffing a towel over his wet hair. "Much better than a mop sink."

Nadezhda

It takes him some time to enjoy the true decadence of the shower. When he comes out, he finds a set of clothes from the suitcase on the counter beside the sink: men's clothes. They are a little large for him, but not by much. They're clean. They're remarkably soft.

She is waiting for him in the bedroom though, and the room smells of meat and fat and she is unpacking a rustling white bag.

Burgers. French fries. Two milkshakes.

She looks at him. Smiles. It fades for a moment.

"We aren't supposed to like it here," she confesses. She almost goes on, but stops herself.

She hasn't seen him in four years. She has no idea what he believes now.

Ruslan

She thought of everything. Even a change of clothes for him, which he accepts gratefully. The soft, clean garments feel new, too. The cut of the trousers is quite a bit slimmer than he is used to, even if the waist is a little large. The shirt is fitted, and designed to tuck smoothly. There are little buttons that hold the collar down, and the larger buttons that march down the front are subtly pearlescent.

Luxury. Luxury everywhere, even in the most mundane of things.

Especially in the food. Even if not for the month in a freighter's cargo hold, the rich smell of beef would make him salivate. She is unpacking what seems a veritable feast, though he knows from his training that this is considered casual fare in America. The famed 'fast food', which could be delivered like this or -- even more amazingly -- ordered from the comfort of your car and then delivered to you by bare-legged waitresses on rollerskates.

Too hungry for manners, he tears the wrapper off a burger at once and begins eating it on his feet. Only after two enormous bites does he think to look for a chair. There are two, clustered around the small table she's unpacked her food onto. He takes one. The milkshake is a miracle in and of itself. His eyes widen at the taste.

"I like it here," he says at once, unembarrassed. "Because you're here. I'd like it in a Siberian prison camp if you were there."

Nadezhda

It would, perhaps, all have more meaning if she knew it was him. She would have chosen the clothes more carefully. She would have stared at the ring she was packing to give to him before putting it in her pocket. She would have done something different with her clothes, she might have gotten a fresh manicure, she

is glad she didn't know it was him. If he hadn't arrived, if the mission had aborted, she would have lost her mind. Ignorance would have kept her calm if the worst had happened.

But now, that ignorance makes her anxious, makes her breathless, makes her terribly awkward in his presence in a way she never, ever was in Moscow. She was so confident, despite her youth. She was so fearless when she'd throw herself into his arms, kissing his mouth, wrapping her legs around him. She wasn't afraid of anything, even the life she was going towards.

This life. This life with its countless luxurious, its blatant consumerism and rabid individuality.

This life, which comes to him in a double bacon cheeseburger with a toasted sesame-seed bun. In a carton of golden, crispy french fries that are fluffy on the inside and just barely cool enough to eat. In a milkshake so thick you could turn the cup over, the smooth ripples of ice cream flecked with black from the vanilla bean, the whipped cream piped on top with a fat red cherry that doesn't even look real.

The food is greasy and hot and fattening and salty and it is, month in a cargo hold or no, some of the most decadent food he's ever eaten. And that is the word for it: decadent. Not fine, not cultivated, not curated, just... decadent. It is so much more than it needs to be.

Nadezhda sits down at one of the two chairs at the little table by the closed window, while he tears into that burger. She aches a bit, thinking how hungry he must be. How hungry he looks. If she'd known it was him she would have met him with food. She shakes that thought away: it is better she didn't know, even if she does not know what to do with herself now as a result.

Her burger is smaller, simpler. She has her own little carton of fries, and a milkshake of her own. It's chocolate. She is picking it up, wanting to tell him to try this one, too, wanting to take him to eat fried chicken and whipped potatoes with gravy, buttered corn on the cob, buttermilk biscuits as big as his fist, watermelon, peaches, food that seems to just erupt from the landscape and it's hateful inhabitants.

But:

he sits. He tells her he would be happy to be here, glad to be here, even if it were hell on earth.

She takes a quick, deep breath, and cannot help but hold it a moment. The air hits the back of her throat. Color climbs into her cheeks. She analyzes quickly: she knows she could tell if he were lying. If he were spying on her. If he had changed.

He is as honest as he ever was. Honest enough that she wondered if he would ever make it through the program.

Honorable.

Slowly, she exhales. A smile spreads over her face. "I like it here," she whispers. "I miss home, I miss my father, I still... believe... in what we're doing. But it makes me wonder why so many tolerate such misery back there."

She stops herself. The words tumbled out of her, pent up for years now. She glances away. Then she looks at him again. Smiles, again, gently.

"Eat. Try the chocolate. Then we can have a drink. We can talk."

Quietly, then, almost a whisper, she slips into Russian:

"I want to tell you everything."

Ruslan

Nevermind his own unabashed honesty; hers startles him. She was always such a firebrand. Such a true believer. He would've never thought she would admit such a thing. Not even to herself.

But she does admit it. To him. And after that initial beat he smiles back at her. They smile at each other over that little table, like young lovers, like fools. It is only momentary. She has more confessions, and their naked honesty is so much that he looks down at his burger.

She stops herself anyway. Stops, like putting her finger back on the crack in the dam. They eat in silence for a little while.

"I don't think we have a choice, at home," he says then. "We are a big country, but we are not rich the way America is. We have too much land, but not enough of it is farmable. The weather is too cold. We have plenty of coal and gas and oil, but these are resources that benefit the state, not the citizen. The vast majority of our people will always be cold, hungry and poor. But that misery has given us some of the greatest heroes, thinkers and creators to ever walk the earth.

"I like it here," he repeats, softer, "but I love where we came from."

He picks the cherry off the milkshake. Eating it, he can't help the smile that spreads across his face. As he lays the stem aside, he nods.

"I want to hear everything."

Nadezhda

She confesses and he looks down. She goes silent. There's a moment of coldness, of renewed wariness, until he answers her. He speaks of their people, of a dismal reality they both grew up with. He ends on a note that is, nonetheless, respectful if not positive. He says, having been here all of an hour or so, that he likes it. He says he loves where they come from.

Nadezhda does not answer that. She watches him in silence. She wonders what he will say in a year. She asks herself if she loves it here, or loves Russia, or both.

Or neither.

And she says nothing in response.

--

The topic shifts. He eats a maraschino cherry, which is essentially a fat piece of juicy, syrup-robed candy, and as he smiles, she smiles, too. She nods a little.

They eat their burgers and fries in relative silence, unless he breaks it. She pushes the chocolate milkshake towards him so he can try it. She doesn't suggest what they do next, she doesn't rush him through his meal. She waits to see. She watches him, perhaps more carefully than she ever did before.

Ruslan

Something has changed. A new sharpness in her regard; a reserve in her manner. He doesn't mention it. Not for the moment, anyway. He eats his food, which is so rich after a month of survival biscuits that he can't quite finish it all. He eats the meat out of the burger eventually, leaving a quarter of the bun. He eats most of the fries. He drinks most of the milkshake, trying a little of her chocolate one.

Leans back, stifling a belch. Wipes his fingers and his mouth on one of the flimsy paper napkins, then crumples it up. It, and the burger wrapper, and the carton that contained the fries go into the trash.

He looks at her, serious now. A few moments go by. Then he broaches it: "Are you worried again that I'm some sort of test?"

Nadezhda

Some of that tension does bleed away while they eat. It is not the same as lounging on his bed or couch eating frozen dumplings or having tea some morning, listening to the radio. She is not, for instance, wearing one of his old shirts and he is not smoking one of those slim contraband cigarettes they both liked.

But there's some of that, in this meal. A familiarity settles between them. Even if she cannot fully accept it, she does recognize it. She is grateful for it.

She finishes eating long before he does. She clearly has a penchant for the fries, and helps him with his, idly reaching over the table to pluck them from his carton. She doesn't ask. Despite her wariness, she does not seem to think he will be bothered. The first meal they ate together was from a shared plate. She remembers this, quietly.

Then he leans back. He has stuffed himself. She half expects him to be sick later, but thinks maybe it's worth it, for his first real meal to be so... American. For her to be able to feed him like this. It satisfies her. She hopes he isn't sick later.

She hopes that if he is, she can be with him.

He is looking at her, and she notices. Her eyes, unfocused, find his eyes. It's a silent sort of acknowledgement; it's something of an invitation to say what is on his mind, because something is clearly on his mind. And that is when he speaks. Asks her what he does.

Her brow furrows a little, but with ache, not anger. She shakes her head. "No," she murmurs. "I was at first, but only for a little while." A moment goes by. She does not look away from him this time. "I'm sorry. I..." she searches for words, something he rarely saw her do before. Always so sharp. So quick. Sometimes glib, sometimes outlandish, even careless seeming. Less of that, now. She takes more care to find her words, especially the difficult ones.

These are difficult ones.

"I know that I've changed," she tells him, finally. "I don't know yet how you might have. I'm...worried. But not that I can't trust you. Not that."

Ruslan

Things have changed. There are stilted silences between them; a gap of four years that will take time to bridge. Truth is he doesn't know if they have that time. If they will be given that time. He doesn't know where his next mission will take him, or hers.

He doesn't know who's at home with her now. If she was paired to that wolf she spoke of. If, in the meantime, a convenient fiction became a painful truth.

"I don't know either," he says at last. Clarification, "How I might have changed. It's harder to tell from the inside."

Another long pause. Then he asks it:

"Are you mated now?"

Nadezhda

That makes her smile: it's harder to tell from the inside. She knows that all too well, but it's more the fact that he says it, and the way he says it. The accidentally poetic turns of phrase he sometimes lets slip, revealing a mind more gentle than the life he lives, a wit more agile and creative than he lets most people see.

She remembers him.

Her smile fades, though. He asks her the question that's been lingering, one she's been waiting for. And she...

shakes her head. "No."

Then clarifies, herself: "I have a partner." A tilt of her head, a certain wryness: "Jane and Henry Baker of Woodland Acres, Virginia. He's a CPA and she's a homemaker and community volunteer."

Amusement, in most of that. Not a lot, but a touch of it, even more familiar. "But Henry... isn't a wolf." She takes a breath. "Leadership didn't like him trying to use his influence to arrange who I would be partnered with. Henry's just... a man. Not a bad man. He's dedicated. And we work well together."

That's all she says about Henry. No details about what their life together has been. No comment on how she does or doesn't feel about him. Just her watching him, then, with great care, going on to say:

"There's something I need to tell you."

The words have fallen very soft by the time she gets to the end of the sentence.

Ruslan

No.

He tries not to feel so glad. That fails, so: at the least, he tries not to look so glad. That fails too. His last resort: looking down at the milkshake he's nearly finished, taking the cap off, lifting it to let the last of it drain into his mouth.

She tells him her arrangement. A partner. Jane and Henry Baker. Woodland Acres, Virginia. It sounds so rustic, so pastoral. He imagines wooded meadows, turning streams. He knows enough about America to know they name things fancifully; he suspect it's probably a bland suburb of neat lawns and identical houses. Henry Baker is a CPA. Jane Baker is a homemaker, a community volunteer.

He smiles a little: "And a redhead."

And then he listens again. That leadership didn't like her father's attempts to meddle. He thinks, privately, that leadership probably sensed the implicit matchmaking and disapproved. Emotional ties were liabilities, after all.

Just look at how rattled she was when he stepped out of the past and back into her life.

Just look at how attached he is to her already. Still.

"Tell me," he says softly.

Nadezhda

She laughs at the redhead comment, adds: "That was just for tonight's pickup."

Jane Baker has dark hair. Jane Baker looks just like this. Just like Nadezhda. They could almost be the same woman.

But they aren't.

--

She goes on, and admits she has something she has to tell him. Something she thought of the moment she looked through the windshield and saw it was him. Something she thought of never telling him when he didn't really acknowledge her at first, and she thought maybe he was letting her know that whatever they had been before, it was over, it was forgotten, it didn't matter now.

Something she has been thinking of, tense and anxious and aching, for every moment since he got into that Buick with her. The whole drive. Telling him to pretend he lost his wallet. Ordering him a double bacon cheeseburger and a vanilla shake. Listening to the shower running in the next room. Laying out clothes for him on the counter.

Something she has been thinking of telling him for years, now. Almost every day.

And: something she was beginning to think she would never have the chance to tell him. Ever.

--

Nadezhda swallows, and then gets to her feet, her knees pushing her chair back a bit as she gets up from the table. She walks over to the dresser where she set her purse. The wig is gone: hidden away in the suitcase, perhaps. She gets out her pocketbook, and then she walks back over to him, opening it until she takes out a thin rectangle of paper. Holds it out for him to take.

It's a photograph. Black and white, with a slight vignette shadow around the edges, creating an oval around the image of a little girl. She's laughing. She's very small. Her cheeks have dimples, and her grin is toothy. Her hair is dark. Her eyes are colorless in the photo, but light. She is wearing a little shift dress of dark fabric with a white collar, knee socks, Mary Janes. Her hair is in curly pigtails with ribbons in them. She has her little hands together, not like she's praying but like she was clapping, or trying to.

Nadezhda takes a moment to gather herself before she tells him: "Her name is Lisa." A breath. "She turns three in May."

Ruslan

Ruslan's breath stops in his throat. The world constricts, focuses down to that little rectangle. The little girl, laughing as she tries to clap. So small. So pretty, with her dark hair, her light eyes.

His fingertips touch the edge of the photograph. Draw it near. He stares at it for a long time.

Then his eyes raise to hers. "Is she ours?"

Nadezhda

Just a nod.

She's struggling, though. She's worried.

She tells him: "I didn't know. I swear, I didn't even suspect until I was almost here. And I... I couldn't tell you in a letter."

Of which there were only two, in all this time. Of course she couldn't have told him.

Those letters were never private.

Ruslan

"Oh, Nadyuiska," he sighs, reaching across the small table to grasp her hand. He has forgotten his English. He has forgotten that he is supposed to speak only English, call her only by whatever name she gives him. "I understand. I am not angry. I do not blame you. It is only that I did not know. I could not ... help."

He is staring at the little picture again. A blurry little representation of the daughter he never knew he had. He finds he cannot wait to see her, smell her, feel her little hand in his. He knows it may not be possible; perhaps not now, perhaps not ever.

"Your partner thinks she is his?"

Nadezhda

No one has called her that in... well. In almost four years. Her heart tightens in on itself; her shoulders round down. She has deep, sudden desire to go home.

She is still standing beside his chair, so when he reaches out to grasp her hand, it comes easily to him. She is looking at him, listening to him forgive her, and listening to a language she's barely heard for all this time. A language she can't even speak to her daughter.

Their daughter.

Nadezhda decides to kneel beside him, rather than sit down across from him. He looks at Lisa, who has soft little hands and a wrinkle-nosed smile and his eyes. She looks at him, looking at the photo. And then he asks her a question she can answer, again without the expected pain.

"No," she whispers. There's a faint, aching smile on her lips. "I... tried to initiate intercourse with him, after I knew. I thought it would be better if he believed she was his - for her, at least. He responded by asking me if I was pregnant." A wry, but unamused little smile: "He is good at what we do."

Her hand comes to rest on his arm. She doesn't feel more daring than that. "He told me I was not the only one who left someone behind," she murmurs. "But he raises her as though she is his. Everyone - including the Center - believes she is his."

It goes without saying that Lisa believes 'Henry' is her father. She is not even three years old yet.

Nadezhda's voice is very quiet now: "He told me he would do for her what he hoped you would do for his child, if he could not raise her. He said it is what any comrade would do."

Ruslan

A faint smile flickers. Her hand on his arm at last draws his eyes from the little photo. He covers her hand with his. Somewhere, somehow, this triggers a faded memory: a long time ago, his hand covered hers just like this.

"I suppose it is too much to ask to see her."

Nadezhda

He can feel her lean in to that touch, small as it is, rather than retreating this time, withdrawn and almost flinching. That he is not angry with her or in shock, that he is not rejecting their daughter or suspicious that it is a trick, that he looks at her

the way he does now, the way he used to,

all of this is worth being grateful for. And she is. Deeply.

"I do not know," she whispers, still in Russian, though this is terribly dangerous, foolish, forbidden. "I... did not know it would be you tonight."

Her hand turns. She squeezes his hand, still meeting his eyes, her own earnest as they ever were just a few years ago, before we was truly a spy, before she was also a young mother living in some gentle suburb.

"I want you to see her. We will find a way. You may have to wait. I will need help from Henry. But we will find a way."

Ruslan

That smile fades a little; wariness at the edges.

"He can be trusted completely? It is one thing to have a lover back home; another to have him resurface here."

Nadezhda

"I only trust you completely," she answers him, immediately. "But I do trust him."

There is a moment, then.

"We are not in love, Ruslan," she says, whispering his name. "It is something very different."

Ruslan

"You and I?"

They are whispering out of some strange instinct. He is sure -- almost sure -- there is no one else listening in. No bugs in this random motel room. No listening devices buried under the carpet, or hidden behind the cabinet. Still, he does not -- cannot bear to -- raise his voice.

"Or you and he?"

Nadezhda

You and I?

Her hand leaves his arm.

Or --

And her palms come to his face, cradling his face more gently than anyone would think to touch someone like him. Like them both. He does not get farther than that.

"He and I," she says, heated, low. "He and I are not in love. It is nothing like what I feel for you."

She says it firmly, she says it passionately. She says it with pain, that he even had to ask. That she left room for the error, the confusion.

"If you are still mine," she whispers, though they never quite used that word, not with what they were facing. "Because I have always been yours."

Ruslan

Those words are scarcely out of her mouth he meets her furiously, bitingly in midair. He hasn't risen from his seat. He hasn't pulled her onto his lap. He leaned toward her, straightened his spine; it's a surge of motion, an uncoiling of tension long pent up in his bones and blood.

His hands grip at her hands, her wrists. Follow her arms up to her face, and then his hands are on her the way hers are on him.

"Always." It is a harsh whisper, barely there between those tearing, starving kisses. "Always."

Nadezhda

He makes her gasp. And it's been years now but she sounds the same when he surprises her, when his touch and his mouth turn almost aggressive and delight her. She leans into it, into his mouth, holding him closer. One hand falls to his chest, over his heartbeat, thoughtlessly.

She is leaning forward, close to him, when he stops kissing her for half a second. Her eyes flicker open, close again as he repeats the word. She sighs, burying her hands in his hair, shaggy after his journey.

"I missed you," she gasps back to him, rising up, climbing onto the lap he has not pulled her to, straddling him in that narrow, rickety chair. She doesn't grind on him, doesn't start unbuttoning his shirt. She wants to be closer to him; she gets closer to him mindlessly, like an animal seeking warmth. "I thought I would never see you again."

Ruslan

She starts to climb onto him. He grasps her in his hands, pulls her roughly onto his lap. Neither of them tear at the other's clothes, but his hands are all over her, pulling her close, closer, like he too suddenly can't bear that careful professional distance between.

When he sank into her car she thought he was giving her a signal: what was is no longer, and they are nothing to each other. But it wasn't that. It wasn't that at all. It was a necessary coldness, a moment of maximal danger; it was also, in some strange way, an act of honor. He had no idea what may or may not have happened in the meantime. He made certain assumptions based on what he thought he knew. He thought she would be married and mated by now, that the relationship would be real, and sanctioned by the Nation if not the Center; that she would be forever out of his reach.

He followed anyway. Because --

"I told you I would follow." He says it again like it is imperative that she knows: his word was his bond to her, and he would not break it if he could help it at all. "If it took me a hundred years I would have followed."

Nadezhda

Nadezhda wraps her arms around him. She buries her face against his neck. She smells like perfume, like America, but she still smells like herself. She smells familiar. So familiar it is hard to tell from his own scent, in a strange and inexplicable way.

She is breathing in deeply, inhaling him. He smells like soap and her laundry detergent and, more than anything, like himself. A smell she's missed, and one she feels has always been with her, always just at the edge of her senses. Every time she strokes his currently thick hair, she can release a slight waft of his scent. She keeps breathing him in.

Something about what he says makes her eyes drift open, though she doesn't lift her head from where she nestles it close to his neck. The way he says it, and the words he uses. She feels the truth of it down to her bones. She senses it like someone who has seen proof of their faith. It is profound, and not shocking at all. It settles into her, right to her marrow, in a way it did not in those two short weeks, or in the intervening years.

Holding her, he tells her he would come to her if it took a hundred years. And her heart, which goes momentarily still, knows that he would.

That he has.

He has always come to her.

--

She says nothing for a long time. She heard him; he can sense it in the way she relaxes, the way she holds him back. Her fingertips stroke his hair, the back of his neck. For a while, she seems utterly content to just wrap herself around him, smell him, touch him gently the way she has so often wished to.

She decides not to think, right now, about what comes next. About when they have to leave, get him to Richmond, get him settled with papers and all the rest. She gives herself a break, even, from thinking of how to find a way for him to meet his daughter, who is currently sleeping in a little bed in her little room, holding her favorite dolly, sucking her thumb.

After a while, she lifts her head from his shoulder. "Will you lie down with me, love?" she whispers, her fingers still slow and hypnotic in his hair. "We can just talk," she tells him, because she meant it: she wants to tell him everything, know everything about him.

A sly little smile, reminiscent of a younger version of her, spreads over her lips as she echoes him from years past: "I do not expect anything."

Ruslan

He laughs under his breath. "Oh, I remember where that led," he murmurs, and rises.

Lifts her in his arms -- like a bridegroom, a true romantic. Which he very well might be. Theirs is not an effusive culture, but they are romantics to the bone; grim, cold, fatalistic romantics with tales of doomed love and obsession. And this love may well be doomed. It hardly seems to matter right now. It has been so long, and he has crossed an ocean to see her again. He has crossed five years. A hundred lifetimes or more.

The bed would not be considered exceptional here, but to him it seems a cloud; far softer than anything he's ever slept on. He pulls back the sheets and climbs in after her, his shoes still off from his shower, his bare feet sliding against cool cotton. Lying on his side, he faces her across the clean white linens. It feels like half a betrayal to like it so much, but he cannot help it. Everything here is so ... much, on the verge of excessive. What was the word that came to her mind? Decadent: it is fitting.

Nadezhda

There is, in fact, now photographic evidence of exactly where that led.

Nadezhda just smiles, putting her hands on his face again, kissing him again. This time it's softer than the ravenous thing they shared just a few moments ago. It's slower. She is kissing him when he picks her up, his arm sweeping under her legs to carry her to a bed twice as large, if not more, than the one they shared all that time ago, whenever they could.

They can actually both fit into it without clinging together, but they don't spread out. Neither do they undress. They lie on their sides, facing one another, scarcely more than an inch or two apart. He can see how familiar this is to her, how unsurprising. He has no idea that this bed isn't as nice as the one she has at home, or that the linens aren't as soft.

But then: there is so much he doesn't know. So much she doesn't know about him, either. The intervening years have changed them both, body and mind. Their very existence is a secret now, their thoughts highly prized and deeply dangerous. He has no idea just how she comports herself with her partner, their daughter, the other volunteers, the mother's helper who comes by to babysit and clean up her surprisingly nice house.

She begins to tell him, though. Her hand on the sheets between them, likely held in his hand.

First, she tells him about her house. It seems a place to start. The place she describes sounds palatial. They have a yard and a flower garden. A flower garden. Almost no one in her neighborhood grows vegetables, because there is a fancy supermarket just a short stroll from most of their houses.

For a while, she tells him about Lisa: that she is very talkative, very curious. Always chatting or singing, even when she is just playing by herself and even when adults cannot quite understand her. She tells incomprehensible little stories, which she thinks are very funny. Her favorite color is yellow. She can count to four, and more if she uses her fingers. She is scared of the snakes at the zoo, but wants a puppy. She likes blocks more than puzzles and painting more than coloring.

She tells him she feels bad, though, berates herself for how indulgent her life here is, and how much she often finds herself enjoying it -- or worse, not even noticing it anymore. She says she's berated herself for it, even while telling herself it's necessary to assimilate, to blend in.

American wives want everything they see, she tells him quietly. They all watch each other, and if one has something the others do not, they all must get it. If they can not, then they turn on her. It is madness.

She admits she's never admitted it to anyone, hardly even to herself, but sometimes she has hated the USSR. And sometimes she hates America. Often, lately, she hates America. She tells him of a woman down the street with two sons, both in Vietnam. She has not heard from them in months. She does not know where they are. If they are alive.

Everyone is afraid of what this country is becoming, she whispers. They act as though they are not sure the world will be here when they wake up.

She tells him she's never said that aloud to anyone: that she likes it. She tells him sometimes she has hated the USSR, hated America, hated herself. She's questioned everything about herself for liking it here, even as she remembered how necessary it was to assimilate, to blend in.

She tells him that some days it scares her how easy it is to be two people, or twenty, or two hundred. She tells him some days it is impossible to remember how to be just one, though.

Ruslan

Despite his mildly risque joke, he's in no hurry. He has no end goals, no destination in mind. If nothing else, their five years apart have taught him patience, and that good things are worth waiting for. She is worth waiting for. He is happy to listen to her -- her house, her neighborhood, the impossible richness of the life she leads, which is not at all remarkable for America. Her neighbors, the life she pretends to lead; even those terrifying little confessions she's never dared voice before. And of course: her stories about little Lisa, whose favorite color is yellow, their daughter. He loves those stories most of all, and is utterly rapt. He wants to know how tall she is now. He wants to know if she has learned to ride a tricycle. Would she like a tricycle? He is given a stipend, and he will have a cover job; he could buy her a tricycle. He wants to know if they will teach her to play an instrument when she is older, or perhaps a sport or two.

He dares not ask if perhaps one day they will tell her who her father is. It is too new, too raw, too dangerous a subject to broach. The question burns in his heart, lingering and unanswered.

And, eventually, he tells her things too. He tells her how it took him two years just to be accepted into the illegals program. How he didn't dare ask too blatantly lest they suspected him of ulterior motives. How time and again he was passed over for young men fresh to the agency, who were more promising because of their youth and their naivete; who did not have so many already-engrained traits of which to be broken. How he finally proved his worth when it took it upon himself to go undercover, to follow a lead, to bag an opportunistic American oilman who'd hoped to strike it rich on Siberian oil, and turn him.

What followed then, he does not need to tell her. She knows what their training was like, the physical, psychological and emotional brutality that made them capable of withstanding any hardship; that made weapons of human beings. Or that was the idea, anyway -- but the truth is he did come too late to the program. He did have engrained traits, and ulterior motives. He had his love for her, and his desire to see her again.

This is his end goal. This has always been his destination. And now he is here, and they have given him a task, and soon enough he will have to begin.

But perhaps not yet. He has more freedom here, after all. He is trusted. They have made him strong and hard, and they have sent him to a weak, soft place to be the knife in the dark. It is all right if he does not make it to Richmond until morning. It is all right.

Nadezhda

Single agents like Ruslan are more rare in the program; they have a harder time building up a legend of citizenship. They are more noticeable. It worries her that he was sent here alone: she wonders what exactly his mission entails.

She does not think it is meant to have the longevity they are planning for her.

But Nadezdha doesn't bring that up. He is here now. He is asking her about Lisa, and she's telling him that she doesn't have a tricycle. She's telling him perhaps when he says he wants to get one for her, but there is something in her eyes that makes that noncommittal answer sound like a yes. She says Lisa likes to sing but hasn't shown interest in instruments yet, but they have none at the house and she is not going to school yet. She doubts Lisa will be interest in sports for some time, but that she runs and plays outside and skins her knees like other children.

She holds his hand close to the pillows under their heads and, with her other hand, strokes his cheek as he tells her about his training. He leaves out the details; she knows what they are. He mentions having his own ingrained habits and ideas. Strangely, it makes the corner of her mouth curve in an aching smile. This does not surprise her at all. She feels that she knows him so well, even now, that she could likely tell him what he wanted, what he felt was right to do, before he even got there himself. She finds herself using words like 'always' in her thoughts about him, as if she knew him for more than two weeks, as if she has known him for,

yes,

a hundred years.

Or more, perhaps.

--

Chief among his ulterior motives: this moment. This time with her. She knows he has to settle here, establish an identity, and that even the most short-term goals of the center take months if not years to build up. Assassins who show up one night, murder someone, and then try to blend back in to the populace are not quite the same as what they are.

She gets to the conversation she has been wondering about, now, though. She broaches it carefully, anxiously, but with more bravery than she had a few hours ago, when she thought he might not love her anymore.

It seems like a dim, absurd memory now.

"They sent you alone," she says, almost tentative. "What... is their plan for you?"

She knows he can't give her details. She doesn't want details. Targets. Names. Places. But even then, she realizes she's being evasive. She takes a breath.

"Do they want you to stay alone?"

Ruslan

His face changes, a subtle wince. It gives her the answer before he does.

"No. They have already assigned me a partner. I am to rendezvous with her in the Richmond safehouse, after which we will ... go house-shopping."

His fingertips touch her face, trace her cheek, her lip. His brow is troubled.

"I do not yet know if she can be trusted the way your partner can. I have only met her once, back home."

Nadezhda

With the word no, she feels her insides become cold. Not just cold, not frozen: hollow. A place where wind doesn't just whistle but howls. He is touching her face again, her mouth.

There are words, somewhere, that she could say, but they are nowhere near her. She finally gives up. She closes her eyes, exhaling slowly.

Ruslan

He winces in truth now. That gently grazing touch becomes something firmer; he rubs gently at her brow until she opens her eyes, wraps his hand behind her head to keep her near.

"It was the only way they would let me stay here," he whispers. "At first they wanted to send me alone. A spot agent. Mostly wetwork. But I told them I had invested too much, I was too damned good to be used as an attack dog. So they gave me a partner and embedded me in Richmond.

"I just needed to be as close to you as possible. For as long as possible."

Nadezhda

There's something animal - or childlike - about the way he rubs at her brow like that, wanting her to open up again. It's something primitive, that goes beyond any memory she has of him, any fleeting sensation of something other than memory. Something before words, at least the sort that humankind learned to write down.

Her eyes do open, but only reluctantly. It isn't that she doesn't want to look at him. It's that she can't bear to look at anything right now, want do anything but hide in a moment of darkness so that she doesn't collapse any further.

But he seems to understand even that, without any way he should be able to: he holds her tighter, closer, mercifully dark himself when she buries her face against his chest, her thick dark hair under his chin.

Everything he says is true. Everything he says is what she would advise, if she were in a position to do so. All the same: it takes her a long time to be able to say: "Maybe they will put you in Baltimore instead," she says, with a sort of bitter humor about it, "and then you will be closer."

Ruslan

He laughs, a soft little sound.

"You know, I doubt Center would care too much. Our cover jobs are portable. They only want us in an unremarkable suburb."

He wraps his arm around her. Holds her closer.

"This is more than we have ever had, love. It will be all right."

Nadezhda

She breathes in deeply. She holds onto him, her hand wrapped around his shirt. This is actually more hope than she had before: when she saw him alone she thought he might be, in fact, just here to kill and then be sacrificed. She thought he might be sent far, far away after they get to Richmond.

He will be a couple of hours away, at most. And he is right: this is more than they have ever had. And this is more than they ever thought they would have.

But he will have a wife. The Center will want him to have children with her. The complexity and pain of it breaks her heart anew, just like leaving him did. Just like seeing him again did. If she thinks too much on it, it spins away from her: if his partner informs on him. If he has children, half-siblings of their little girl. If either of them should die.

She nods, eventually. A small, short thing. She takes a breath, calming herself. Even though he only knew her a short time, he can tell that she has grown less volatile, less... well. Young.

Then she draws her head back, so she can look at him again.

"I love you, Ruslan," she says quietly. "Always."

Ruslan

His hand cups her cheek. It is warm now: warm from the shower, warm from the food, warm from being indoors, here, close to her.

He kisses her, and that is warm too. Warm and drenching, without a hint of lasciviousness.

"Always, Nadyuiska," he echoes, softly. "Always."