“Kat,” Rob said, first, and stuck a hand out automatically.
Kat looked at the proffered shake a long, flat moment before accepting it. Then he turned to Melissa. “Pongo called. Said you were looking for someone.” He produced a flash drive from between two fingers. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah.”
“You like burgers?” Rob asked.
Kat gave him another cautious glance, but finally nodded.
“Cool.” Rob walked around the car. “I’ll drive.”
Melissa was filled with a surge of warmth she was still getting used to. Rob would have been well within his rights to go to the captain and rat her out, the way she was doing things off-the-record, helping a criminal organization, running her own investigations. But he’d never hesitated for a second: had leaped right in as if her problems were his problems. Like he was herfriend, and not just a colleague.
Maybe some day soon, she’d figure out how to thank him properly for that.
For now, it was burgers and intel.
~*~
Raven woke to sunlight, rather than an alarm. And to the steady, rumbling snores of the body pressed all down her back, arm flung over her waist, breath parting the hair at her nape. She went from still half-asleep to downright giddy when she realized Toly was still here, that he wasasleep, and had been so all night. Unburdened, finally, or at least partway. Misha was still a problem, but one she was determined to worry about later, once she’d gotten some tea and breakfast and basked a little in the Morning After I Love You.
She sighed and relaxed deeper into the pillow. Heard his breath catch and then even out, his hand shifting against her stomach beneath the covers, sliding up to cup at her ribs and pull her in closer, an unconscious reflex. Early mornings like this, close and warm in bed, sunlight in stripes across the coverlet, the whole day stretched before you, were made for optimism.
The thump of footsteps in the hall arrived one second before the doorknob turned – shit, they’d forgotten to lock it! – and the door opened to admit Cass’s head thrust through the gap. “Hey, are you–” She started, and then fell silent, face going a kind of guarded-slack she’d seen on all their siblings at some point or other, Charlie most of all. A look that saidI’m surprised, but I’ll be damned if I let it show.A sort of absence of expression.
“Ew,” she deadpanned. “You guys are gross.” Her nose wrinkled delicately. “There’s breakfast or whatever, if you want it.” Back out she went, slamming the door with purpose.
Toly came awake with a startled snort. He bolted upright, and tossed the covers off. Raven rolled over in time to see him shove his hair out of his wild eyes with one hand, and withdraw an unsheathed knife from beneath the pillow with the other; the room filled with the quiet snick of steel leaving leather, and with the rough saw of his high-alert breathing.
He had no idea where he was, she realized. Had been launched awake in a way that suggested he’d trained himself to do that at the slightest sound. He’d reacted to the slam of the door – but not, she thought to the stir of her feet through the sheets, or her contented sigh a moment ago, the way she’d resettled in his arms. That spoke of trust. Of having dropped his guard around her. She found that more pleasing than she should have – just as she found his current panic sad.
Raven propped her head up on a fist and said, “Good morning,” while he was scanning the room.
His gaze went to the window, bare chest heaving.
Raven was afraid to touch him. She sat up – slowly. “Toly.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, absently, but then let out a deep breath and lowered his arm. “Yeah,” he repeated, more himself, a little sheepish, even, and reached under the pillow for the sheath.
Raven waited until it was safely away, and then scooted closer so she could smooth his hair behind his ear.
He turned toward her slowly, eyes half-lidded, gaze cautious.
Last night had been momentous, in its way, but the dark had been safe and enclosing. Things that happened at night always seemed to happen in a vacuum, outside of time, and daily life; beyond the reach of the mundane. The dark was for bold promises; the daylight for trying to keep them.
Sitting in the wash of pale morning sunlight, naked without any intention to act on it, Raven could read the samewhat nowon his face that she felt as a flutter of butterflies in her own stomach. She didn’t worry that he was going to take anything back – he wasn’t that sort – but she had the sense that she needed to take the lead here: to show him that she was committed in the daytime, in front of everyone, and trust that he would follow.
She leaned in for a kiss that he quickly returned with a small, pleased, surprised sound, and a gentle hand at the side of her throat, over the bruise he’d left there last night.
She hummed as she pulled back. “Breakfast?”
His smile was tiny, and wobbly as a new colt, but it was there. “Yeah.”
~*~
Rob’s favorite diner was tiny and cramped, but so loud, what with the clatter of plates, hiss of the flattop, and the shouting of proprietor and customers alike, that it was the ideal place to have sensitive conversations without eavesdroppers.
Kat jammed himself in the corner of the booth opposite them, didn’t order anything, and slid the flash drive across to her in a napkin. Melissa pocketed it before she picked up her burger. “You found something on him?” She wasn’t going to use Morozov’s name, not even here, where she thought they were fairly safe.
