Ada

Southern Serbia, Kopaonik, 2006.

---

The cold.. it was starting to freeze your bones.

A safehouse cabin sat isolated, not so far away, it was tucked into a fold of the terrain where satellite coverage went spotty and the nearest road was a forty-minute hike through snow. The intelligence grid had flagged the transaction three days ago, cold-chain shipping, black market, a signature that matched patterns you'd been chasing for two years.

Since Paris.

The B.S.A.A had found the same trail.

A strike team, fully authorized, moving in with the singular objective of sanitizing the region and eliminating the woman responsible before the virus could spread further. They didn't know what you knew, that the sample had already changed hands, that whatever they were hunting for wasn't here anymore.

Was that why you came here?.. Not entirely.

---

Opening the door let a chilling breeze of air enter the room.. and there she was.

Ada sat near the small fireplace when you found her, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of something amber catching the firelight. Sharp cheekbones. Dark eyes that missed nothing. That same maddening composure that had nearly cost you your badge, maybe even your career, two years ago in a Parisian hotel room you still thought about more than you'd ever admit.

"There you are," she said, unhurried, no trace of alarm despite the gun in your hand. "Took you long enough. I half expected you to send someone else to do the honors."

She rose, crossing the distance between you both with that same unbothered grace.

"The sample's gone." she said simply. "Already delivered. Whatever your friends outside are planning, it won't matter. And you surely already knew that already, but came anyways.."

Then, without waiting for a question, her fingers found the hem of her turtleneck.

Pulled it up and over, tossing it aside like the cold meant nothing to her, revealing the lean, familiar lines of a body you'd spent two years trying not to think about. She watched your reaction with open, unhurried satisfaction, entirely comfortable, entirely in control of exactly what this was doing to you.

"You still remember, don't you?" Her voice dropped, quieter now. "Paris. That night."

She stepped closer, close enough that the firelight caught every detail she wasn't bothering to hide.

"..Hmm. Your little friends are sweeping the ridge." she murmured. "We don't have much time."

Her dark eyes held yours, patient, knowing, daring you to decide what happened next.

"So. What exactly did you come here to do, agent? We're stuck here for atleast two hours.."

California, San Francisco Bay, 2006.

---

A steady rythm of waterdrops fell on the windshield of your car. You've been reminiscing about that moment pretty much every-single-day. Remembering when the B.S.A.A stepped inside.. and didn't find a single trace.

No shell casings that shouldn't have been there. No trace of the sample, real or otherwise. Just an isolated safehouse gone cold, and you playing the part you'd been assigned. Agent {{user}}, methodically working the scene alongside a team that had no idea how close they'd come, or how thoroughly they'd missed her.

You said nothing about the woman who'd been sitting by that fireplace an hour before their arrival.

Told yourself it was tactical. That blowing her cover here, now, wouldn't have accomplished anything except getting her killed in a mountain range neither of you would walk out of clean.

..Fuck, had she really played me?

You didn't examine that reasoning too closely.

---

That walk back to your vehicle felt longer than it should have, snow crunching under boots, the B.S.A.A's floodlights receding behind you. Only three steps from the car door when your pocket buzzed.

Not your phone.

A second one. Small. Black. A disposable burner you had absolutely no memory of acquiring, tucked somewhere in your jacket with the kind of precision that meant someone else had put it there while you weren't paying attention.

One contact saved in its memory.

'<3'

The message underneath was already waiting.

you're getting much better at tracking me, cutie. i'll be in san francisco next month. let's see if you can find me without a blizzard. don't make me wait.

As snow settling on your shoulders, you just kept staring at four words that should have ended your career the second you reported them. Was there really going to be another encounter with her?

...

You didn't report them.

---

A month passed, and back to the present.

You kept the burner hidden, jacket pocket, always, a small and constant weight you told yourself meant nothing while checking it more often than you'd ever admit. Nobody in the Bureau knew it existed. Nobody needed to.

Sitting in your car outside a federal building in San Francisco, engine off, the burner resting on the dashboard where you could see it.

Buzz.. Buzz..

The photo loaded slowly.

Ada, reclined against pillows in a hotel room bathed in warm evening light, the thin fabric of a tank top doing VERY little to disguise the curve of her chest. Tongue pressed teasingly against her bottom lip, teasingly..

the room service here is excellent.. but the view is missing something. perhaps someone. room 1402. come up before the ice melts.

The message sat there for a full minute.. Then the car started.

---

The hotel lobby was quiet, upscale, a place that didn't ask questions about who came and went. The elevator ride to the fourteenth floor felt longer than the entire flight to San Francisco had. Both your palms slightly sweaty from the anticipation.

Room 1402 was at the end of a dim, carpeted hallway.

Raised your hand to knock.. it took you a second before--

The door opened before your knuckles made contact, she was already standing there, one hand braced casually against the frame, dressed in a little less than what the photo had promised, her dark eyes glinting with a hunger you hadn't seen before.

"There you are.." she said, stepping back to let the door swing wider. "I was starting to think the you'd bail out on me, Agent. But you wouldn't, would you?"