Chapter Text
I'm setting fire to the life that I know
Let's start a fire everywhere that we go
We starting fires,
We starting fires till our lives are burning gold
Till our lives are burning gold
BURNING GOLD - CHRISTINA PERRI
Tower Bridge has certainly seen its fair share of moments. Declarations of Love, proposals, fights, even suicides. There’s never been a moment though in which a MI5 operative turned MI6 operative turned dumpling maker and a wannabe retired Russian assassin walked away from each other for good just to find out they actually couldn’t walk away from each other.
So they walk back. Slowly. They stop at maybe three feet from each other, and it’s the weirdest thing because it’s like they’re two people meeting for the first time. Their glances are shy, four hands fidgeting and two sets of eyes looking at the ground. They look like two idiots, really. Maybe They are.
Eve talks first, because she’s not accustomed to seeing Villanelle like this, like she doesn’t know what to do with herself, and Eve feels like she’s going to crawl out of her own skin if the moment doesn’t stop right now .
“So, what now? The walking away thing didn’t go very well.”
Villanelle’s eyes shoot up, white teeth worrying her bottom lip. It’s like a whole layer crumbled down from her during their thirty seconds attempt to do the right thing . But was it really the right thing? Eve asks herself. Was it the right thing when it felt so wrong that she thought she was going to puke, right there, on Tower Bridge? She didn’t puke when she slaughtered Raymond with an axe, she didn’t puke when Dasha pitchforked Niko through the neck, but the thought of never seeing Villanelle again made her whole self ache in a way she never experienced before. So, maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do after all. Eve’s musings are suddenly interrupted when she hears Villanelle talk.
“What do you want to do?” She asks in a small, insecure voice, and God, Eve wants nothing more than wrap her arms around Villanelle and never let go. She doesn’t ever think her next words, they just tumble out of her mouth without any kind of filter.
“Anything that doesn’t involve us never seeing each other again?”
Villanelle smiles then and it’s not her usual confident, cocky smirk. It’s a gentle upturn of lips, like she’s not quite believing what she’s hearing.
“We could walk away together , then. If that’s okay with you. ”
“Like Thelma and Louise?”
“I thought you didn’t want us to do that.”
“People change.”
They’re properly smiling at each other now, with mouth and cheeks and eyes, and it’s so, so good. Eve thinks she’s feeling something very similar to happiness in that moment. She hasn’t felt happiness in a really long time, she realizes.
“We can’t stay in London, it’s too dangerous.” Villanelle is suddenly serious again. “The Twelve will come after us if they already aren’t. We need to run.”
“Wait, why would they be after you? Aren’t you still supposedly working for them?” Eve asks, puzzled. The last she knew Villanelle had earned a promotion, so her job with the Twelve surely was going well? But then she suddenly remembers Villanelle’s words at Paul’s.
“Helene. Ex-boss. Very toxic workplace.”
She takes in Villanelle’s suddenly sheepish demeanor.
“What did you do?” Eve asks, voice raising and alarm creeping up.
“Uh, well. I may have resigned in, ah, a spectacular fashion?”
“Oh God. Do I even want to know?” Villanelle winces, and her voice it’s a good three octaves lower than Eve’s when she answers.
“Do you remember the party crasher?”
“The girl in the ballroom?”
“Yes. She asked me to go with her because Helene, the Twelve woman, wanted to see me. I kicked her on the tube rails. While the tube was coming.”
“Oh.” Okay, that sounds a lot like a resignation. That also sounds a lot like they’re really, really in danger now.
“Let’s go then.” Villanelle says, and it all happens really fast from that point.
Villanelle grabs Eve’s hand and starts walking swiftly in the direction the Asian woman was going during their botched attempt at perpetual separation. Eve’s legs are shorter, and she has been feeling so old and tired lately, but in the last 24 hours it’s like new life has been breathed into her. She matches Villanelle’s stride with almost no trouble, her body functioning on adrenaline, and fear, and something else she can’t really understand right now but that just feels so liberating .
They reach London Bridge Station without stopping to pick up clothes or anything else because, by now, it’s entirely possible that The Twelve have already raided Villanelle’s room at The Waldorf Hilton, and Eve has been sleeping at Jamie’s for a fortnight now. If she was to present herself at his house with Villanelle in tow he would probably have a stroke right and there.
The worry about their hasty get-away must show on Eve’s face because Villanelle squeezes her hand then, shoots her a small smile and says:
“Don’t worry, I have money with me. I will take care of you.”
It’s funny, really, how things already said in the ruins in Rome now feel so similar, and yet so different. Like in the time it’s passed between the two statements they’ve somewhat acquired a different meaning. A deeper one.
“Did you already know you were going to flee?” Eve asks then, because it downs on her that the mustard colored cape Villanelle is wearing looks a lot like travel attire.
Villanelle stops dead in her tracks and drops Eve’s hand. Eve misses the contact immediately.
“I was supposed to go with Konstantin. To Cuba.” The blonde woman says, her eyes struggling to meet Eve’s. “I changed my mind at the last minute.” She adds.
Eve feels a lot of things then. Betrayal, at first, because really Villanelle was going to go and leave her behind? Then she feels relief, because obviously she wasn’t able to do that, just like Eve. Then she feels sadness, because she realizes that the reason why their encounter in the ballroom (that clumsy, absolutely unskilled attempt at dancing) was filled with so much uncharacteristic vulnerability from Villanelle was because she probably thought that they weren’t going to see each other again. Eve then mentally high fives herself for whatever thing she must have said during that awful waltz because it made Villanelle change her mind about leaving her, and that’s everything .
Villanelle must see the cogs whirring in Eve’s brain, because she talks again. Or, she starts rambling.
“I didn’t know…that you would have been willing to come with me. If I had known, I would have made other plans. You did say no to Alaska though, and it was not so long ago, and you attacked me on the bus. Well, okay, you also kissed me on the bus, and we absolutely have to talk about that, but then you also headbutted me so I thought that maybe it was just a diversion move? And then a lot of things happened and we never saw each other again until two days ago, so…”
“Can you shut up for a second?” Eve interjects. It’s brusque, and maybe rude, but it does the trick because Villanelle abruptly stops talking.
Eve takes a breath then, and speaks.
“You don’t have to justify yourself. You said you wanted out, and leaving was the only option available. Given our history, I understand why you would have thought that I didn’t want to come with you. Hell, I didn’t know I wanted to come with you until fifteen minutes ago. So, everything’s fine. Well, not fine fine , since we’re being chased by an International criminal organization and the possibility of being murdered it’s really fucking high, but still. We , are fine.”
Villanelle smiles then, a real smile that takes over her whole face and Eve feels like she’s looking directly into the sun. It’s blinding, and breathtakingly beautiful, and it’s probably going to cost Eve the last crumbles of her sanity but in that exact moment, Eve finds out that she really doesn’t give a damn. Her own smile mirrors the younger woman’s.
“Let’s go then.” Villanelle says, extending her left hand. Eve takes it without second thoughts, and they walk together to the ticket office.
Villanelle is thoughtful for a minute, looks up something on her phone, then speaks to the bored looking woman sat in the cubicle with a perfect cockney accent.
“Excuse me, we would like two tickets for Holyhead.”
“That would be 154.37 pounds.” The lady answer, unfazed.
Villanelle extracts a wad of cash from the pocket of her coat and gives the woman two 100 euro bills. There must be at least a hundred more of them in the roll Eve just saw. Ten thousand euros. Villanelle was walking around with ten thousand euros in her pocket. Eve feels like laughing at the absurdity of it, but that would probably attract unwanted attention from people, so she forces herself to keep her mouth shut.
Villanelle pockets the rest and takes the tickets, giving Eve her own. Then she makes a strange face, rummages again into her pocket and re-takes out the bills. She starts counting.
“What are you doing?” Eve asks, puzzled.
“Shh, I am concentrating.” Villanelle counts fifty perfectly crisp 100 euro bills, then hands them to Eve.
“What? No. You are the money keeper.” Eve tries to object.
“What if we’re forced to go separate ways? You have no money with you. It’s like being dead.” Villanelle says, her expression very serious.
Eve takes the money with trembling hands and puts it in the hidden pocket of her bag. She must look uncertain about the whole ordeal, because Villanelle speaks again.
“I don’t want us to be separated, especially now that we are fine, but I have to think about all the possibilities.”
“Okay. Okay. Thank you.” Eve says, marginally relieved. Then she realizes their destination.
“Why Holyhead? What’s in there? Wait, it’s in Wales, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is in Wales. I am sure it’s a lovely town, but we’re not staying long there.”
“Where are we going from there then?”
“There is a ferry. It will take us to Dublin. Then we will see.”
Dublin. In Ireland. Eve has been once to Dublin, with Niko. It doesn’t feel like a lifetime ago, it really does feel like an entirely different lifetime.
Eve is once again taken away from her own thoughts by Villanelle’s voice.
“We need to board the train now, it will leave in ten minutes’ time.” She starts walking and Eve follows her, not doubting Villanelle’s choice for even a second. Trust , that’s what’s she’s experiencing. That was the unidentified feeling she had on the bridge, when she started walking alongside the younger woman. Six months prior she would have laughed at the thought of trusting Villanelle again, her shoulder aching from a bullet wound and her heart aching from something she hasn’t still recognized fully. But now, Villanelle is all she has.
They board the train and find their seats. It’s a twelve seats carriage, but at 12.04pm there’s no one else in there, except them. The journey from London to Holyhead will last 5 hours, so they’re bound to get in Wales at sunrise.
“I think you can take the two seats opposite me” Villanelle says “Like that you can lay down and get some rest. The ferry trip tomorrow morning will be shit, so it’s better if you get some sleep now.” She adds, matter of factly.
“Are you going to sleep, too?” Eve asks. She’s so tired, she hasn’t slept in two days and the idea of five blissful (at least she hopes) hours of sleep looks really like a God’s gift.
“No. I have to keep watch.” Villanelle says. She must notice Eve’s frown, because she smiles warmly and adds “Do not worry about me, I am used to this. I once forewent sleep for four days straight. I will be fine.”
Eve doesn’t doubt her for one second, but still she finds herself wanting to know more about the creature in front of her. She always thought she knew so much about Villanelle, just to find out that she really didn’t know shit.
“When was this?” Eve asks then.
Villanelle ponders her response for a moment, then seems to decide on the answer.
“During my training with Dasha. It was an endurance test.” Her words are flat, devoid of any emotion. She’s simply stating a fact. Eve doesn’t doubt her answer for a second.
I broke her back, I gave her wings.
Eve remembers Dasha’s words at the bowling alley. She wonders in how many ways Villanelle had to be broken in order to become that perfect killing machine the older Russian assassin babbled about. She almost feels ashamed because there was a time, when they didn’t know each other, in which she too thought about the nameless, faceless assassin as a perfectly functioning death sentence. Not anymore now. Not anymore.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
For the fourth time that night, Villanelle’s voice brings Eve back from the incessant train of thoughts in her mind.
“You really should sleep. You can ask me more questions in the morning, I promise I will answer all of them.” She says, almost reading Eve’s mind and sensing her need of knowledge. There’s a small smile tugging at her lips, a content one. She looks young, and almost carefree.
Eve takes off her coat and bunches it on one seat as a makeshift pillow. She lies down on the two seats. They’re hard and fucking uncomfortable, but with how tired she is she is absolutely sure she will be asleep in no time.
“Okay. I guess I’ll sleep then? Call me if anything happens. You can shake me awake, I’m a heavy sleeper. Oh, and kick me if I snore. Not too hard, maybe?” Eve is babbling, she knows it, and Villanelle knows it too because she’s suddenly looking really amused. The thing is, sleeping in front of a very awake Villanelle is a million miles away from Eve’s notion of comfortable .
Or maybe, Eve is just feeling very vulnerable all of a sudden.
Villanelle rises from her seat, and says:
“Lie down, I promise I will behave. No funny business, cross my heart.” She then proceeds to unfasten the laces of her coat.
“Why are you up, what are you doing?” Eve says, and she’s suddenly panicking even if she has no fucking idea why.
“Sleeping uncovered is shit. You will get cold. I am giving you my coat.” Villanelle has discarded her coat revealing a total black ensemble underneath, black skinny jeans, black boots and a black shirt buttoned all the way up. She drapes the coat over Eve’s form, then plops back gracefully on her seat. She takes out her phone and starts looking something up on it, in fact ending their conversation.
“Thank you. Goodnight Villanelle.” Eve says, the fight leaving her in a rush, because Villanelle’s mustard coat is in a really hideous color, and it’s amazingly soft, and it smells fantastic. Well, it smells like Villanelle. Eve’s eyelids feel so heavy, and the smell surrounding her it’s like a sleeping potion. In her almost dreamy haze Eve lets herself wonder for a moment how would it be to be surrounded by the woman herself, and not only by her coat. Eve will take this, for now. It’s already more then she has ever dared herself to hope. She misses the soft “Goodnight Eve, sleep well” that Villanelle says to her just seconds after.