Archive of Our Own

Fiona Frost had always treated feelings like a dangerous leak in a pressurized cabin.

Ordinary people had the space to be emotional. They kept old letters in dusty drawers or pressed flowers between the pages of books. They saved theater tickets and wore specific scents just because a lover had once complimented them. They could afford to anchor their hearts to objects without worrying about the cost of being compromised or killed.

Agents were meant to be lean. No attachments. No lingering traces. And certainly no gifts.

Fiona understood this. She knew it with the same certainty she used to strip a rifle in total darkness or memorize a target’s habits after a single glance. She could lie without her pulse jumping and smile at a man while mentally calculating the most effective way to snap his radius. Yet, there she was.

Alone in her apartment on Christmas Eve, she knelt by the bed and reached into the dark for the box she had tucked away weeks ago.

The room was silent, save for the slight groan of the floorboards. From the street below, the muffled voices of children rose up—off-key carols that felt intrusive. Fiona ignored the tightening in her chest.

Her fingers brushed the cardboard. She pulled it out slowly.

It was a plain thing, brown and devoid of any ribbon or label. Nothing about it would alert a search team. She lifted the lid.

Inside sat a hat. Dark wool, woven with careful stitches. It was simple and understated—the kind of thing a respectable man wore to blend into a crowd. It was the kind of hat Loid Forger would wear while walking his daughter to school. It was also something Twilight would never truly need, because Twilight functioned as if he needed nothing at all.

Fiona touched the brim with her gloved fingers. A foolish, reckless choice. She had bought it for him.

The realization made her feel exposed. Agents did not buy presents for their superiors. They didn't spend twenty-seven minutes debating between charcoal and midnight black because one felt too grim and the other too harsh. They didn't imagine a man wearing the gift simply because it was useful, or because he felt the flash of—no, because he recognized the person who gave it.

She pressed her lips into a thin line. It wasn't romantic; it was seasonal. A hat was a tool against the cold. That was the logic she clung to. But in the quiet parts of her mind that no training had managed to kill, she knew she just wanted him to possess something she had chosen.

She had never given her senior a gift before. The thought made a dull heat climb her neck.

Senpai.

The word felt undisciplined. Childish... But he had been her senior long before Operation Strix had molded him into a husband. He had been the man she loved before she understood that love was a slow-acting poison.

It had taken less than a minute to fall for him. She remembered the moment with a humiliating level of detail. She had been younger then, desperate to prove her worth to WISE. Then Twilight had walked into the briefing room.

He hadn't saved her life or whispered anything profound. He had simply entered with a file in his hand, entirely serene. He corrected a flaw in the map coordinates before the lead analyst could speak. He asked three questions that reframed the entire operation.

He was handsome, certainly. His blonde hair seemed to catch the light, and his eyes were a piercing green that made her feel as though she were being dissected. But it was his behavior that ruined her. When a junior agent dropped a folder, Twilight knelt, gathered the papers, and handed them back with a calm reminder: "Details matter."

Fiona had watched him and felt her world shift. A man who could be that dedicated to the mission while noticing the dignity of a trembling subordinate was more than competent. He was a standard she would never reach.

And then Strix began.

The admiration turned into a specific kind of agony. Twilight didn't just wear the mask of Loid Forger; he practically became him. He became a psychiatrist, a neighbor, a father. He wore the domestic life like a second skin. Fiona admired the sacrifice, but she hated the result.

She closed the box.

Standing up, she checked her reflection. Hair neat. Coat fastened. Face a mask of stone. Nothing visible. She picked up the box. She would deliver it. She had a professional excuse ready—a minor update on a mission file. The gift would be an afterthought.

By the time she reached the Forger residence, the snow was thick. The neighborhood glowed with gold light and paper stars. Fiona moved through the festive air like a scalpel through silk.

She knocked before she could talk herself out of it.

There was a flurry of noise inside. Small feet. A muffled laugh. Then the door opened.

Twilight stood there in a full Santa Claus suit.

Fiona’s mind went blank. For a second, she forgot her cover, her mission, and her name. The red coat, the white trim, the fake beard—it was all absurd. And yet, he didn't look ridiculous. He looked... warm "Miss Frost," Loid said, offering a practiced, friendly smile. "Good evening."

Anya scrambled to his side, her eyes wide. "Papa! The cold lady is here!"

Fiona gripped the box tighter. Yor appeared behind them, an apron dusted with flour, her hair slightly messy. "Oh! Miss Frost. Merry Christmas."

The three of them stood there in the doorway, framed by the scent of baked sugar and the glow of a real home. It was a fake family, a stage play, but the light was real.

"I apologize for the intrusion," Fiona said, her voice a flat, level chime. "I had an errand in the area." A lie. Twilight would see through it instantly. He knew when words were used as a shield. His eyes dropped to the box in her hands.

"That’s very kind of you," Yor said, her smile soft and genuine. "Would you like to come in? Loid made dinner, and Anya helped with the cookies."

"They're perfect!" Anya added, her face smeared with crumbs.

Fiona looked at Loid. The fake beard was slightly crooked. He looked like a man who belonged there. He looked like a man who didn't need a wool hat from a lonely subordinate.

In that moment, she realized she couldn't give it to him. Handing over that box would be like handing him a piece of her own heart and asking him to file it away.

She shifted her strategy. "The Christmas cookies are very sweet," she said.

Anya gasped. "They are not too sweet!"

Yor panicked. "Oh no, I knew I used too much sugar."

But Loid went still. Only a fraction. To anyone else, it was a weird comment. To a WISE agent, it was a signal. You are deep in the role. Carry on.

"I see," Loid said softly.

Fiona gave a stiff nod. That was all she could offer. Not the hat, nor the truth "I should go," she said.

"But you just got here," Yor protested.

"Other matters require my attention."

Loid looked at her, and for a fleeting second, his expression softened into something that looked like actual concern. "Be careful on the way home, Fiona."

"I always am."

She turned and walked away before the warmth of the hallway could reach her. As the door clicked shut, she heard Anya’s laughter and Yor’s gentle voice.

Fiona stood in the freezing hall for one beat, then another. She looked down at the box. The hat was still there. A sentimental, useless object for a man who already had a world of his own.

She didn't cry. She simply adjusted her grip and walked out into the snow, leaving the light behind.

The weeks following that Christmas visit dissolved into a mess of catastrophe.

That was the only way Fiona could categorize it. Loid Forger discovered that his wife was the Thorn Princess. Yor Forger learned that her husband was Twilight. What followed was exactly the kind of loud, bloody drama that should have resulted in a pile of bodies, scorched identities, and the total collapse of at least one intelligence network.

Instead, somehow, it resulted in love.

There was a chase between rival agencies. A private war played out in narrow alleys, safe houses, and corridors slick with red. WISE against Garden. Garden against WISE. The SSS circled the edges, catching scents of secrets they were never meant to touch. Orders were signed. Targets were marked. Triggers were pulled.

And then Loid and Yor, in a display of emotional recklessness that Fiona found personally offensive, decided that being on opposite sides of a global conflict mattered less than the fact that they wanted to stay together.

They even married. Officially, this time.

Romantic, some might say. Absurd, said the colder part of Fiona’s mind. But that cold voice had been growing quieter lately, a fact she resented more than anything else.

Yuri Briar found out eventually.

No one was entirely certain how. Perhaps he followed one suspicious movement too many. Perhaps the SSS kept records they should have burned. Perhaps obsession, when sharpened enough, became a form of genius. Regardless, Yuri learned the truth. He learned that his sister was an assassin. He learned that Loid Forger was a spy. He realized that the gentle, clumsy woman he adored had been standing in the middle of a war zone long before he ever noticed the ground unstable beneath her feet.

And then a State Security officer almost killed her.

Fiona had only heard the story in jagged pieces. A hallway. A botched order. Yor was wounded and exhausted, still trying to avoid killing men from her own country because some part of her still believed she was serving Ostania. Yuri had shouted for the man to stop. He had begged, then ordered.

The officer didn't listen. He aimed at Yor as if she were a traitor to be deleted.

So Yuri Briar raised his own weapon first and fired. He chose his sister over his country.

After that, everything became unstable. For weeks, WISE stayed in a state of high alert. Every file connected to Operation Strix was scrutinized. Every route was removed. Every asset was told to prepare for the worst. No one knew what Yuri Briar would do with the truth now that he held it.

He was SSS. He was Yor’s brother. He hated Twilight. He hated WISE. He hated Westalis as a matter of principle and Loid Forger as a full-time occupation. There were too many things he could burn down. Too many secrets he could drag into the light.

Then, one day, he appeared at Twilight’s side as if he hadn't spent the previous month as a massive security threat.

Fiona remembered the report word for word. Yuri had stood there, pale and vibrating with a barely contained rage, and said he would help. On one condition: WISE would ensure Yor’s safety.

That was the start of the arrangement.

Yuri Briar remained an officer of the SSS. Publicly, he was a loyal servant of the state. Privately, he became something far more volatile: a man with one foot in each world, passing information across the line whenever it served the only person he truly cared about.

His sister’s survival.

And somehow, through a series of inconvenient turns, Fiona became the person he reported to. Because she was disciplined. Because she was quiet. Because she could handle a meeting without turning it into a physical fight. Or so Twilight claimed.

Fiona suspected the real truth was that Twilight had learned that leaving Yuri Briar alone with him for more than three minutes guaranteed a high risk of property damage.

So Yuri reported to her.

In quiet cafés. In train stations. In the back rooms of shops that sold things no one wanted. He arrived with stolen files, memorized lists, patrol schedules, and the look of a man hand-delivering medicine to an enemy he wished would choke on the pills.

And Fiona accepted his reports with her usual mask.

At first, he was just an asset. A difficult one. A hostile one. A man whose loyalty wasn't to a cause, but to a single woman standing at the center of too many dangerous hearts.

Fiona understood that kind of loyalty... She wished she didn't…

Yuri Briar was exactly as difficult as the documents had promised.

He did not understand half of WISE’s procedures, and he had no interest in learning them unless they involved Yor’s safety. Every report he gave, every risk he took, every stolen detail he passed along came back to the same point. Yor. Always Yor.

He did not even respect the assigned meeting locations. That day, for example, he showed up at the hospital where Fiona worked, compromising the entire arrangement by simply existing in the hallway with his intense eyes, government coat, and complete inability to look harmless. Several nurses glanced at him. One whispered something to another. Yuri Briar attracted attention wherever he went. Fiona hated that.

They met in Twilight’s office under the excuse that Yuri was a patient. He sat stiffly in the chair across from her, jaw tight, hands clenched over his knees, and gave her what she needed: the location of an SSS operation scheduled for the following morning. That part was normal. Or as normal as anything involving Yuri Briar could be.

The problem came afterward. To avoid suspicion, they had to remain in the office for another ten minutes. So they sat there in silence. Yuri said nothing. Fiona said nothing. There was no reason to speak. Yuri Briar and Nightfall were not friends. They were not allies in any meaningful sense. They were two strangers forced into the same room by secrets.

Still, after five minutes, the silence became unbearable. Not because Fiona lacked discipline, but because Yuri had the unnerving habit of staring at people as if he were trying to decide where their lies ended and their bones began.

Fiona stood -It was a mistake- She walked across the office, needing movement, needing distance, needing anything other than sitting beside that suffocating stillness. Her eyes landed on Twilight’s white doctor’s coat hanging near the door. Loid Forger’s coat. Twilight’s disguise. Before she could stop herself, her fingers brushed the sleeve.

A small touch. Almost nothing. But her hand lingered, as if it were a sacred object, like the Holy Grail or one of the treasures that the Vatican kept

Behind her, Yuri stiffened. Fiona realized her mistake at once. She pulled her hand away. It was too late.

Yuri stood abruptly. “Miss Frost,” he said, grabbing his sweater from the back of the chair, “I have to go.”

Fiona turned, her face composed. “Of course.”

She followed him into the hallway, already preparing the usual exit procedure, the same clean little performance they always used when separating in public. But Yuri stopped suddenly. Then he turned to face her. His expression was sharp. Suspicious. Almost offended “Let me ask you something.”

Fiona lifted her chin. “Yes, of course.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you like Loidy?”

Fiona froze. “What?”

Yuri stepped closer. His voice dropped, but the accusation in it did not. “Do you like my sister’s husband?”

For one rare, terrible second, Fiona had no answer. No perfect lie. No cold correction. No controlled dismissal ready on her tongue. Only silence.

Yuri stared at her. Then his mouth twisted. “I’ll go,” he said coldly. “Your silence tells me everything.”

And before Fiona could recover, he turned and walked away.

The hospital corridor felt too wide, too bright, and suddenly much too loud. Fiona remained exactly where she was, her back straight and her breathing rhythmic, even as the sound of Yuri’s departing footsteps faded.

Her secret had been pulled out into the light by the one person who should never have seen it.

She returned to the office and closed the door.

Her internal system was screaming for a correction. She should have denied it. She should have laughed—a short, biting sound—and told him his imagination was as overactive as his sister’s cooking habits. But the words had died in her throat. For a woman who prided herself on being a master of deception, the truth had acted like a physical weight on her tongue.

She had spent years molding herself into the perfect partner for Twilight. She had studied his movements, his preferences, and his silences. She had convinced herself that they were two of a kind, two blades forged in the same fire.

He asked her again. And again.

In the days that followed, Yuri Briar became a constant, nagging presence. He was circling the topic like a hound that had finally caught a scent. Every time they were forced to coordinate, every time a file changed hands or a schedule was adjusted, he found a way to bring it back to the same question.

"Why do you like Lottie?"

They had to meet again at the central train station for work. It was necessary—another exchange of information that couldn't be trusted to a dead drop. Fiona had expected a quick hand-off, but Yuri was nothing if not persistent. He sat across from her at a small, unremarkable table, his posture stiff and his gaze burning with an intensity she was beginning to find exhausting.

"I have no reason to discuss my feelings with you," Fiona said, her voice tight with a fatigue she rarely allowed herself to show.

The silence that followed was absolute. The noise of the station—the announcements, the whistle of the steam, the rush of commuters—seemed to fade into the background, leaving only the two of them in a pocket of strained stillness.

Yuri leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing. "You can’t deny it. Not to me. Our jobs require us to read people, to see the cracks in the mask. I already know the truth. You might as well say it."

Fiona hesitated. She looked at the steam rising from her untouched cup, the grey light of the station reflecting in the dark liquid. For a moment, the wall she had built around her heart felt dangerously thin.

"I fell in love with him the moment I saw him," she said quietly. The admission felt like a physical weight leaving her chest. "He is a good man. I don't know what it was he did, or what he continues to do, but every day I think I like him more."

Yuri looked away, a flicker of genuine disappointment crossing his face, as if he had expected a more logical answer from a woman he had come to grudgingly respect.

"If that's true, you should move on," Yuri said, his voice flat. "Find someone else. Stop looking at my sister’s husband."

They both fell silent then. It wasn't a conflict or a fight; it was a simple, quiet conversation between two people who were both, in their own ways, remarkably lonely.

"Do not worry," Fiona said, her gaze returning to him. "I will do nothing against Yor. It is clear to me how much Loid loves her. I am at peace with my one-sided love. I want to be faithful to my own feelings, even if they are never returned."

Yuri let out a short, dry laugh that had no humor in it. "Keeping secrets," he murmured. "It’s something we do every day, isn’t it?"

Before Fiona could respond, the sound of familiar voices drifted toward their table. She straightened her posture instantly, her face settling back into its practiced, professional mask.

A group of nurses from the hospital was walking through the station, their coats buttoned against the draft. They spotted her and waved, their smiles bright and unsuspecting.

"Oh, Miss Frost! Are you heading home early today?" one of them called out.

Fiona offered a stiff, polite nod, the agent vanishing behind the role of the diligent hospital staff member. Yuri watched her for a second longer, a look of grim understanding in his eyes, before he turned his attention back to his own coffee. The moment of honesty was over, tucked away in the dark corners of the station along with the rest of their secrets.

Nightfall did not go out with coworkers. Fiona Frost did not either. It was one of the few things they had in common.

But Handler had been irritatingly firm about the matter. Fiona worked at the hospital now. Fiona had coworkers. Fiona was expected to behave, occasionally, like a woman with a normal life and not like a government tool.

So, on Valentine’s Day, she went out with the single women from the hospital to a bar filled with music, cheap flowers on every table, and too many heart-shaped decorations hanging from the ceiling. Fiona sat between Rose from surgery and Helen from pediatrics, quietly drinking while the others discussed their romantic disasters with increasing volume.

Married men... Cowardly men... Lying men… Men who disappeared for three weeks and returned with flowers as if they were a valid currency for forgiveness...

Fiona listened and drank. She had a reason… A very good reason, actually. The Forgers were adding someone new to their lives.

A baby… Fiona took another drink.

Of course Loid Forger and Yor Forger would survive secrets, assassins, spies, blood, betrayal, and international catastrophe, only to come out the other side married and expecting a child. It was absurd. A fairy tale written by someone with no respect for operational reality.

Fiona stared into her glass. Had Twilight known? That was the question that had been haunting her all day. Had he known how she felt? There were only two possible answers. The first was yes. Yes, Twilight had known, and he had simply ignored it. He had seen her devotion, her loyalty, the careful way she stood near him without asking for anything, and he had decided it did not matter. The second answer was worse. No. He had not known. But how could Twilight, the greatest spy in Westalis, fail to notice a woman in love with him? If he truly had not noticed, then perhaps he was the stupidest brilliant man alive.

Fiona drank again.

“Hey, Fiona,” Rose said, leaning over with a laugh. “Leave some for the rest of us.”

Fiona blinked. Only then did she realize she had already finished three of the six bottles they had ordered.

“I apologize,” she said.

“Don’t apologize,” Jazmin from physical therapy said, waving a hand. “I think every woman here has love problems tonight.”

Several women raised their glasses in tragic agreement.

Helen turned to Fiona with a smile. “So? What’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your problem.” Helen rested her chin on her hand. “Are you seeing someone?”

“No.”

That should have ended the conversation. It did not. Apparently, alcohol made civilian women fearless.

“Oh, come on,” Lilly from psychiatry said. “Everyone has someone.”

“I do not.”

Rose gasped “That means it’s worse. It means you’re suffering in silence.”

Fiona looked at her drink. Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps it was the terrible pink decorations. Perhaps it was the fact that Loid Forger was going to have a child with a woman who was not her “It is unrequited love,” Fiona said flatly.

The table went quiet. Then every woman leaned closer.

Fiona continued, her voice steady despite the warmth in her face. “I like him. Very much. I respect him. I admire him. I think he is brilliant, disciplined, kind in ways he does not even realize, and capable of becoming whatever the world needs him to be.” She paused. Her fingers tightened around the glass. “But he does not feel anything for me.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Lilly’s eyes lit up. “Is it that new guy who keeps visiting you?”

Fiona froze. “What?”

“You know,” Lilly said, grinning. “The intense one. Dark hair. Very handsome. Looks younger than he probably is.”

Fiona stared at her. “Yuri Briar?”

“Yes! Him.”

“No.”

“He comes to the hospital all the time,” Lilly said. “And every time he does, you two go into Doctor Forger’s office.”

Fiona sat straighter. “Yuri Briar is Doctor Forger’s brother-in-law. He works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so he only comes because—”

“I saw you two having coffee at the train station,” Kathy interrupted. Fiona’s mouth closed. Kathy smiled innocently. “I thought it was a date.”

“It was not.”

“You would make a beautiful couple,” someone said from the other end of the table.

“Imagine their children,” Rose added.

The table erupted. Fiona could not get a word in.

Yuri Briar… A date... Children…

The alcohol was clearly affecting them all.

Fiona drank again. “I have never been on one before,” she said eventually.

Alexandra from emergency care stopped drinking so abruptly that the ice in her glass clinked. “Really?”

Fiona considered whether she should be offended or flattered.

“How have you never been on a date?” Alexandra demanded. “You should be drowning in offers.”

“I do get offers,” Fiona admitted. That was embarrassing enough. “That does not mean I want to accept them.” And she never had. There were practical reasons, of course –Her work, her cover, her missions, her schedule, her lack of patience for men who believed buying dinner entitled them to her personality– But the real reason was simpler. Twilight.

For as long as Fiona could remember, she had only had eyes for him. She had imagined everything with him –Dates, marriage, retirement, aquiet life in the Swiss Alps, far away from codes and blood and false names, where Twilight would finally rest and she would be the woman beside him– A ridiculous dream, and a dead one.

Later that night, Roxane, the pediatric surgeon, returned to the topic with the confidence of a woman who had solved romance for everyone. “I think you should ask him out.”

Fiona looked at her. “Who?”

“The man you love.”

Olga from traumatology smacked Roxane lightly on the arm. “If your marriage is so perfect, why are you here drinking with a bunch of lonely women?”

Roxane frowned. “Because my husband is on shift tonight. We’re celebrating tomorrow.”

Helen sighed. “I would say he’s lying, but we all work at the same hospital. We know Doctor Richard is obsessed with her.” That was true. Doctor Richard and Doctor Roxane were a perfect example of the kind of open affection that made Fiona’s stomach turn. They looked at each other as if one of them had personally invented oxygen for the other.

Fiona stared at the bottle. She had never had that. Someone who loved her openly. Someone who made room for her. Someone who was not just the man she admired, but her friend, her home, her safest place to fall. Everything she had wanted Twilight to be for her, Twilight was becoming for someone else.

“He is one of the few men like that left,” Olga said. “At the hospital, I can only think of two. Doctor Weston and Doctor Forger.”

Doctor Forger.

Fiona’s grip tightened. And then they started talking about Loid. How polite he was. How attentive he was with Yor. How sweet he looked when he walked with Anya. How happy he seemed about the baby.

Fiona reached for another bottle. By the time she realized how much she had drunk, it was too late. Twelve bottles of aged scotch. That was her limit.

The rest of the night came to her in pieces. The street spinning beneath heart-shaped lanterns. Rose making bad jokes. Someone insisting they needed chocolate. Fiona standing inside a shop, solemnly paying for a box she did not remember choosing.

Then nothing.

What followed was a hangover—a brutal one.

Fiona woke up with a dry mouth, a thumping pulse behind her eyes, and the distinct feeling that something unfortunate had occurred. She sat up slowly. Her apartment did not appear destroyed. There were no unfamiliar men in it. No blood. No emergency notes from Handler.

That was a promising beginning.

Fiona took two ibuprofens, drank a glass of water, and went to work. Training handled the rest. Her posture remained straight. Her expression stayed calm. Her voice did not waver once, even when the fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor seemed determined to split her skull.

Inside, however, she was quietly alarmed. Fragments of the night before returned in flashes. Her coworkers laughing. Fiona stopped walking for half a second. When she saw the women from the night before, they only smiled at her from across the nurses’ station. Rose covered her mouth to hide a laugh. Lilly’s cheeks turned pink. Alexandra whispered something to Kathy, and both of them glanced in Fiona’s direction.

Fiona’s stomach sank. But none of them said anything, so perhaps the embarrassment had remained contained. Perhaps the worst thing she had done was drink too much and listen to women discuss love as if it were a condition everyone was expected to survive.

The day continued normally. By late afternoon, Fiona had almost convinced herself that nothing catastrophic had happened.

Then came her scheduled meeting with Yuri Briar.

The café was small and plain, chosen because it was busy enough to hide them and dull enough to be forgotten. Fiona arrived first, ordered tea she did not want, and sat near the window with her back to the wall.

A few minutes later, Yuri entered. She saw him before he saw her. He moved through the café with his usual intensity, dark coat buttoned high, hair slightly messy from the wind, eyes sharp enough to make civilians look away without understanding why. Fiona watched him approach. It was strange, she thought, how quickly one built an idea of a person. To her, Yuri Briar was obvious—difficult, hostile, reckless when it came to his sister, loyal to the point of stupidity. A man who made devotion look less like love and more like a fever.

But after listening to her coworkers talk about him, Fiona found herself observing him differently. Yuri Briar was attractive. Objectively. The kind of attractive that would make people look twice. The kind of attractive that, paired with all that intensity, probably convinced certain people he was mysterious instead of simply agitated. Many women would want to be near him. Wouldn’t they?

Fiona frowned faintly at the thought. She understood beauty. Of course she did. Beauty was useful. It opened doors, lowered guards. It was subjective, yes, but it could still be measured by reaction. She had simply never allowed herself to look at anyone else that way. Not while Twilight existed.

Perhaps that was discipline or madness; as Yuri spotted her and came toward the table, she no longer knew the difference.

He sat down across from her. For the first few minutes, everything was normal. He gave her information on a person of interest connected to an SSS internal transfer. She asked questions. He answered with short, irritated sentences. She corrected one inconsistency. He scowled but admitted the correction was useful.

Then, without warning, Yuri Briar turned red. Fiona paused. His ears flushed first. Then his cheeks. He looked away, jaw tight, fingers tapping once against the table before he forced them still.

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “Is something wrong?”

“So,” Yuri said. The word sounded painful. Fiona waited. “You like Loidy,” he continued, still not looking directly at her, “but you decided to confess your love to me.”

Fiona stared at him. “What?”

Yuri’s face darkened. “Do not make me repeat it.”

“I am asking because what you said made no sense.”

He opened his mouth, shut it, then reached into his coat with visible irritation. “A box of chocolates arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this morning,” he said.

Fiona remained silent. She had no idea why Yuri Briar was telling her this. “Does that have something to do with the mission?”

Yuri looked at her as if she had insulted him. Then he opened and closed his mouth several times, apparently unable to decide whether anger, embarrassment, or accusation should come first. Finally, he pulled a card from the pocket of his sweater and handed it to her. Fiona took it. The paper was pale pink. She opened it.

The message inside was poetic. It spoke of admiration. Of longing. Of a heart that could no longer remain silent. Of dark eyes and dangerous devotion. Of how love sometimes arrived disguised as irritation. Fiona read faster, horrified. The closing line nearly finished her.

Always yours, Fiona Frost.

She lowered the card. “This is not my handwriting.”

Then the memory returned. The bar. Her coworkers. The chocolate shop. A clerk asking for a name. Fiona, barely conscious and nodding, and Helen helpfully supplying the name Yuri Briar. Someone asking where to send it. Kathy chiming in with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Her face warmed, only slightly. “I feel very embarrassed,” Fiona said stiffly. “I may have had too much to drink.”

Yuri stared at her. “WISE lets its agents drink?”

“It was a social outing with hospital coworkers,” Fiona said, regretting every word as it left her mouth. “For the sake of my cover.”

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

“You work for the SSS and pretend to be normal around your sister. Do not lecture me on stupid cover behavior.”

Yuri shut his mouth. A small victory. Then he leaned forward. “Are you attracted to me?”

Fiona’s expression froze. “Our relationship is exclusively professional.” Yuri looked unconvinced. Fiona placed the card on the table between them as if it were evidence in a murder case. “This was a mistake caused by alcohol and civilian interference.”

“My sister saw it,” Yuri said.

Fiona stilled. “What?”

“She was in my office when the chocolates arrived.”

Fiona closed her eyes for half a second. No…

“She saw the box,” Yuri continued, miserable and irritated at once. “She saw the card. Then everyone saw it. My coworkers saw it. The receptionist saw it. Someone congratulated me.”

Fiona wanted the floor to open up. “Tell her you rejected me,” she said, searching for any way to strip away the unwanted attention.

Yuri looked at her. “No.”

“Why?”

Yuri crossed his arms. “Maybe it is useful. For appearances,” he said, as if the word offended him. “With Loid and Yor.”

Fiona stared at him. Yuri Briar was becoming a problem. Not because he was hostile—she could handle hostile. Not because he was reckless—she could predict reckless. But because every so often, beneath all the shouting and devotion and absurd hatred of Twilight, he said something almost strategic.

It irritated her. Yuri Briar was not a man; he was a puzzle someone had dropped on the floor and refused to clean up.

“You will not mention this again.”

Yuri’s mouth twitched.

Fiona’s eyes narrowed. “Briar.”

He looked away, still faintly red. Fiona hated that she noticed. She hated even more that some small, traitorous part of her wondered whether her coworkers were right about one thing.

Yuri Briar really was handsome.

Unfortunately.

Twilight did not ask her a single thing.

Fiona interpreted his silence in two ways. Either Twilight had nothing to say because he was entirely indifferent, or there was some other practical reason for his lack of curiosity. It was impossible for him not to know. If he hadn't heard the rumors through hidden microphones, he would have heard them from the persistent gossips at the hospital or directly from Yor herself.

As the weeks passed, her heart continued to break. Seeing no reaction from her senior regarding the idea of her dating another man was a quiet, constant ache. It felt exactly like the first time her spirit had been crushed at the very beginning of Operation Strix.

Women are accustomed to heartbreak; that was a truth they all seemed to share. It was a stark departure from the love stories usually read to them as children, where princes reciprocated every feeling and everyone lived happily ever after. As Fiona grew up, she realized how hollow those tales were. In the real world, the good people did not always win, and those in desperate need often went without help. Now, things were different—she was the one providing aid to the needy, yet she felt more adrift than ever.

Despite everything, a small, stubborn part of her had held onto a shred of hope. She had considered the possibility that Yor might have discovered the spy’s identity and was perhaps extorting him. But that delusion vanished quickly, replaced by a deep disappointment. Her heart fractured further whenever she saw her superior at the hospital or elsewhere, looking completely and undeniably in love with the woman.

She didn't want to be misunderstood; she had no intention of interfering. She wasn't going to declare her love for Twilight again. That moment had passed, even if the embers of those feelings remained.

All that was left now was the sadness and the hollow sense of hopelessness that follows a shattered heart. It was the kind of ache that made her wonder if she would ever be loved by anyone, or rather, if anyone would ever be capable of returning the depth of her devotion.

Despite everything, Fiona did not find herself becoming disillusioned. If anything, seeing her senior embody everything she had ever wanted with another woman only caused her feelings to surge. She didn't just admire him; she wanted to occupy the space Yor held. She wanted to be the one at the center of his focus, the one receiving that quiet, domestic devotion.

That resolve held for nearly eight months.

Fiona found herself at a vending machine in the emergency wing. Usually, she never left the psychiatric ward, but the machine there had malfunctioned, and she found herself in desperate need of coffee—simply to feel something. She was currently grappling with the reality that the person she had always loved had become a father the day before.

The child was a healthy boy, fifty centimeters long and weighing four point two kilograms. They had named him Alexander, after the blonde man’s grandfather. For a brief, flickering moment, the spy couldn't stop herself from imagining an alternate reality. In another universe, that baby might have been theirs. Perhaps, instead of a son, it would have been a daughter. She would never admit it aloud, but she had a soft spot for little girls.

She slid the bill into the machine, keyed in the code, and waited for the can of coffee to drop. Just as it hit the bottom, she felt an intense gaze on the back of her neck. She turned to find Yuri Briar standing behind her.

“Have you seen Yor yet? And the son of the love of your life?” Yuri asked, his voice cutting through the hum of the hallway.

“No,” Fiona replied. It was the truth. Her relationship with the Forger matriarch wasn't one of friends who visited during milestones. In fact, she was certain they harbored a mutual dislike born from that absurd competition for Twilight’s affection. She still wasn't entirely sure why she had been invited to the baby shower in the first place. “I work here. Have you seen him?”

Yuri looked at the products inside the machine, his expression a mixture of nostalgia and a quiet sort of grief. “I couldn't go in,” he admitted.

Fiona didn't truly want to dig deeper, but for the sake of her cover, she had to act like a normal person engaging in conversation. Silence would be suspicious. “Why not?”

“I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel like I was part of…” Yuri paused, and Fiona was certain he was going to say family. “It’s as if the Forgers have their own universe now. A place where I don’t fit. Yor has someone else, and I only have myself. What am I supposed to do now?”

“You already have what you wanted, don’t you?” Fiona reminded him. “Your sister is happy. You have a career. You have a stable job.” She let out a soft breath. “Why don’t you settle down?”

Yuri coughed nervously, shifting his weight. “How? Get married and have children?”

“No. I mean accepting that things are different with your sister. You should be grateful that you still have a place and a large family to return to.”

Yuri looked at her, his confusion evident. “What do you mean by that?”

Fiona sighed. She hadn't expected to be the one offering perspective. “I don’t know Yor well, but from what I’ve heard, she loves you dearly,” she said, her face remaining a mask of neutrality. “But she also loves Loid Forger and Anya. Why not try to enter that world instead of standing outside of it?”

Yuri went quiet, considering her words. He scratched the back of his head. “I suppose… you have a point.” He offered a small, unexpected smile. “You’re quite good at talking. And,” he added with a sharp tilt of his head, “you have terrible taste in men.”

Fiona frowned. He had been teasing her about Loid and Yor for months now, and the jab still stung.

Later, while heading to the human resources department to file paperwork for her false identity, Fiona passed the maternity ward. Through the glass, she saw Yuri holding the infant in his arms. But that wasn't all she saw. She saw the way Twilight supported Yor, the unfiltered affection in his eyes, and the way they seemed to exist in a bubble of warmth.

She spent the rest of her shift thinking about how badly she wanted that for herself. While she performed her tasks at the hospital, the image of that shared look between Loid and Yor played on a loop in her mind. It was a kind of belonging she had never known.

Eventually, Yuri approached her again, perhaps to offer thanks, but he stopped when he realized she was staring into space. He asked her what was wrong.

“I’ve realized that I’ve been a fool, and that they actually make a very good couple,” Fiona said. She kept her voice steady, but Yuri could sense the sadness beneath the surface. “I think I want to get over Twilight.”

A sudden, thick wave of guilt hit her. She felt her shoulders curl in, a rare lapse in her perfect posture, but she couldn't bring herself to straighten up. She felt weak and pathetic for even saying the words, especially to a man like Yuri. Talking about her feelings felt like a betrayal of her training.

Suddenly, Yuri reached out and wrapped his arms around her.

Fiona jumped, her body tensing in shock. She never received hugs. Physical contact was something she associated with combat or deception, not comfort. She didn't understand why he was doing it, and the sensation made her feel even more vulnerable.

She pulled away almost immediately, unable to endure the attention or the sudden warmth.

“I have to get back to work,” she said stiffly. Without looking back, she turned and walked away, leaving the SSS officer standing alone in the hallway.

Yuri asked to meet one day. It was a questionable request, as far as Fiona knew, since he didn't actually have any information left to share. Nevertheless, they met at a café.

“Yuri, why did you bring me here?” Fiona asked, her voice a flat line of curiosity.

He reached into a backpack that had recently arrived and began pulling out stacks of magazines—some recent, some clearly older.

Fiona raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. “What is this? Is the SSS starting a campaign against women’s fashion publications?”

Yuri shook his head vigorously, waving his hands to dismiss the idea. “No, of course not,” he said. “You told me you wanted to get over him. I just wanted to help.”

“With a pile of magazines?”

“It’s not about the magazines themselves; it’s the content,” Yuri insisted. He flipped one open to a page he had marked with a scrap of paper. The headline screamed in bold, pink letters: OPERATION OBLIVION: Say "Goodbye" and Live Your Life!

“This is ridiculous.” Fiona closed her eyes, crossing her arms. A faint, involuntary heat rose to her cheeks at the absurdity of the situation.

Yuri began rattling off arguments to convince her, his voice rising with that familiar, frantic energy. He spoke about psychological warfare, about the necessity of deprogramming the mind from a faulty objective. Eventually, Fiona relented just to make him stop talking.

“Look, it was difficult because most of these articles assume a relationship actually existed, but I think the principles still apply,” Yuri said. He pulled out a notebook filled with scribbles, cross-outs, and aggressive underlining.

Fiona leaned in and read the first rule. “Cut the movie scenes?”

“It means: Do not feed the character. If there was no relationship, then the version of him in your head is just an idea,” Yuri explained, leaning over the table. “Stop thinking that a simple 'hello' is a prelude to a wedding. Stop replaying moments that didn't happen.”

Fiona moved her eyes to the next point. “Zero Contact? I cannot do that. We work in the same hospital. We are occasionally assigned to the same tasks.”

“Fine, then reduce contact to Essential Interactions only,” Yuri countered. “No lingering. No helping him with his coat. No staring at the back of his head during lunch.”

The rest of the rules were the standard repertoire for the broken-hearted:

• Talk to others (even if it feels like a chore).
• Write down the feelings (then probably burn the paper).
• Allow for a mourning period.
• Meet new people and try new things.
• The 'New Look' strategy.

“No,” Fiona said firmly.

“Do it,” Yuri insisted, his eyes locked onto hers. “If you truly want to move past Twilight like you said, then treat this as your new mission.”

Fiona exhaled slowly. Yuri looked like an idiot, and the magazine advice was clearly written for people whose lives didn't involve state secrets or high-stakes espionage. However, she was an agent. If she was given a mission, she completed it.

She would do it. She would move past Twilight.

Fiona began her "Operation Oblivion" the following Monday. She treated the list not as self-help, but as a tactical blueprint.

She found that the "new things" part was the most difficult. In her pottery class, she stared at the lump of clay and realized she didn't know how to make anything that wasn't a weapon or a tool. It was frustrating. It was inefficient.

But, for the first time in years, when she looked at the clay, she wasn't thinking about the color of a certain agent's eyes. She was just thinking about the clay.

Yuri checked in on her a week later. He seemed oddly invested in the success of the mission, perhaps because it was the only thing distracting him from the fact that his sister was currently busy with a newborn.

“How is the mission progressing?” he asked, leaning against a pillar in the hospital lobby.

“I have made a bowl,” Fiona said. “It is lumpy and structurally unsound. But it is not about him.”

Yuri offered a sharp, brief smile. “Good. Mission accomplished for the day, then.”

Fiona watched him walk away. She realized that while the magazines were indeed ridiculous, having a "handler" for her heartbreak made the process feel less like a failure and more like a training exercise. She wasn't sure if she was "over" Twilight yet, but the ice in her chest was finally starting to feel a little less like a permanent fixture.

Fiona continued her daily routine, applying the same rigor to her personal life as she would to an infiltration mission. She avoided the hospital wings where Loid was known to frequent and declined any invitations that involved the Forger household. However, several boxes on her checklist remained empty: Meet new people and Try new things.

She didn't plan for it to happen at a convenience store at eleven at night. While she was evaluating the nutritional labels on vitamin supplements, a man who looked like he was made of granite and old leather stepped up beside her. He had a thick beard, dark sunglasses despite the hour, and a denim jacket with rusted metal spikes on the shoulders.

The man watched her with a lack of subtlety that was almost impressive. Fiona, instead of ignoring him as her training dictated, stared back, calculating his threat level.

"Wanna raid with a real man, doll?" the biker asked, his voice sounding like gravel in a blender.

Fiona recalled the rules Yuri had highlighted. Try new things. Meet different people.

"Yes," she replied, her brevity sounding like mystery to the man.

The man took her to a bar that smelled of stale tobacco, sawdust, and questionable life choices. It was a place where light was a distant memory and the music came from a jukebox that sounded like it was coughing up blood. His friends—a group of men with blurry tattoos and leather vests—greeted her with grunts that were meant to be welcoming.

Fiona sat on a sticky stool. The biker, whose name was apparently "Axe," draped a heavy arm over her shoulders and handed her a lukewarm beer straight from the bottle.

As she watched the men play pool amidst clouds of smoke and raucous laughter, Fiona felt a familiar pull. For a split second, she wanted the arm around her to have the familiar warmth of her senior. She wanted the conversation to be about geopolitics instead of the carburetor of a ’74 Harley.

Rule #1: Cut the movie scenes.

Loid Forger was not there. He was likely changing diapers or reading bedtime stories. He was an idea that did not belong to her.

So, Fiona forced a small laugh when one of Axe’s friends told a joke about a policeman and a chicken. It wasn't funny, but she analyzed the structure of civilian humor and replicated the expected social response. She tried to "enjoy" the roughness of the night. She drank the bitter beer and listened to stories about highway chases and broken bones. For a moment, she was just a woman in a bar, far away from the meticulous world of WISE.

The problem arose when Axe decided the "date" was going well. He leaned in, his breath smelling of onions and cheap malt, and attempted to kiss her.

Fiona’s instincts took over before her conscious mind could intervene. She didn't just push him away; she delivered a strong strike to his solar plexus. When his friends rose from their chairs with shouts of outrage, the "normal woman" vanished.

Fiona dismantled the room in less than three minutes. She used a pool cue to sweep the legs of a man twice her size and redirected the momentum of a flying glass to shatter against the wall. By the time she walked out, the bar was silent, and she hadn't even wrinkled her coat.

A few days later, she met Yuri at their usual café. After the exchange of SSS internal memos and patrol schedules was complete, Fiona cleared her throat.

"I have progress to report on the secondary mission," she said.

Yuri looked up from his coffee, curious. "Did you try the flamenco class?"

"No. I went to a dive bar with a man named Axe. He had spikes on his jacket."

Yuri stared at her, his cup halfway to his mouth. "You went... where?"

"It was an attempt to meet new people," Fiona explained calmly. "The evening ended in a physical altercation involving the entire establishment. I am banned from 'The Rat's Nest,' but I did not think about Twilight once during the combat phase."

Yuri looked absolutely stunned. He put his cup down with a clatter. "I told you to try new things, not to start a riot in a biker bar! I meant things like... knitting! Or joining a book club! Something that doesn't involve imminent danger!"

"You said it was a mission," Fiona countered, her expression stone-cold. "I applied the rules. I engaged with a civilian, I cut the sentimental 'movie scenes' from my mind, and I handled the threat when it emerged. I consider it a successful deployment of the strategy."

Yuri rubbed his temples, looking like he was developing a migraine. "You’re going to be the death of me, Frost. This isn't how normal people move on."

"Normal people are inefficient," Fiona replied, taking a sip of her tea. "But the strategy is working. The 'movie scenes' are fading."

Yuri looked at her, and for the first time, his gaze wasn't filled with suspicion or annoyance. It was something closer to sympathy. "Just... try a library next time. For my sake. I can't keep track of your 'new things' if you're burning down half the city."

Fiona nodded once. It was a fair point. Even so, she felt a strange sense of satisfaction. The mission was moving forward.

The following weeks proceeded smoothly. Fiona was enrolled in four different classes simultaneously, ranging from gardening to various other activities, and she was excelling in all of them.

Everything was moving according to plan until she encountered a situation she couldn't avoid. As she was leaving the hospital for the day, she spotted Yor Forger and the baby arriving to visit Loid. She watched as Yor approached him and gave him a kiss; they looked undeniably happy.

But it wasn’t their joy that startled her. It was the fact that the sting of pain never arrived. There was no nausea, no surge of hatred toward Yor. And that… that was fine.

She was at peace with the reality that Twilight did not love her, and that he loved another woman. She was even okay with the fact that she still harbored feelings for him. She didn't have to suppress them anymore; she just had to accept them for what they were. It meant Yuri’s instructions were actually working.

Fiona slipped out through the back exit of the hospital to avoid an encounter with her senior. Outside, she found Yuri seeking shelter from the rain under a shop awning.

“It seems as though you are following me,” Fiona remarked.

“In my line of work, I have to follow people,” Yuri replied. Fiona watched him, her instinctual paranoia wondering if he was playing both sides, until he added, “It’s a joke.”

“I saw Twilight and Yor,” Fiona began, turning toward him. “In the hospital. She went to see him.”

Yuri turned to face her. “And? How was it?”

“I felt nothing,” she said.

“Good,” Yuri said, reaching out to give her a few congratulatory pats on the head.

In that moment, she realized she wanted to be hugged again. She didn't know how to ask for it, so she remained silent, letting him touch her hair. She found herself longing for a gesture like the one he had offered at the hospital when she first admitted her desire to move on.

“Your nephew was there, too,” Fiona noted.

“I’ve been to visit. All he does is eat and vomit,” Yuri said, his voice a mix of nostalgia and genuine happiness. “I don’t understand why people have children.”

“To ensure the survival of the species,” Fiona answered. She paused for a beat before asking, “Do you ever want to have children?”

“Yes,” Yuri said firmly. “And they will be the best children—stronger and smarter than that chihuahua or Alexander.”

Fiona let out a small, rare laugh.

“Do you ever want them?” Yuri asked her.

“Yes,” she replied simply. She didn't offer the details—that she wanted a daughter, and that she would raise her with a firm hand but an abundance of love.

“They would certainly be as serious as you are,” Yuri said, laughing.

Fiona went quiet. A spark of irritation flared because he was already labeling her in such a rigid way. She did what she always did when she was annoyed: she prepared to leave. “I have to go.”

But the SSS officer stopped her. She was ready to snap at him until he spoke. “Wait, it’s raining.”

He called out to a boy nearby who was selling umbrellas. “Give me two.”

“Fifty Dalcs,” the boy said.

“Hey, don't take advantage of the situation,” Yuri grumbled, scowling at the price. “Whatever.” He reached for his wallet and paid. “Here.”

He handed her one of the umbrellas. It was bright red—her least favorite color. It reminded her of the shade of Yor’s eyes, her usual outfits, and the blood of her enemies. Regardless, she accepted it.

“I have money,” Fiona said, her voice returning to its neutral mask. “Let me pay you back.” She reached into her bag for her wallet.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing,” Yuri said, opening his own blue umbrella and walking away into the rain.

Fiona did the same, walking in the opposite direction without looking back. As an agent, she hoped she would never have to cross paths with Yuri Briar as a civilian again.

Operation Oblivion: Status Update

The next day, it rained again.

Fiona brought the red umbrella to the hospital. It was a practical decision—nothing more. The sky was dark, the pavement was wet, and arriving at work soaked would compromise the clean, respectable image of Fiona Frost, hospital employee. That was the only logic that mattered.

She ignored the fact that it was Yuri Briar who had bought it. She especially ignored the fact that, before leaving her apartment, she had paused beside the door and looked at the object for several seconds longer than necessary.

At the hospital, however, the umbrella betrayed her immediately.

“Oh,” Rose said from the nurses’ station, her eyes lighting up. “That’s new.”

Fiona placed the umbrella neatly into the stand. “It was raining.”

“It was raining yesterday too,” Lilly said, appearing beside Rose with the expression of a woman preparing to become a public menace.

Rose leaned against the counter, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone. “We saw you, with Yuri Briar.”

Fiona’s face remained a mask of composure. “That was a coincidence.”

“A very handsome coincidence.”

Lilly nodded solemnly. “You are simply having secret meetings with a handsome government employee.”

“I am not dating him,” Fiona said. And yet, as the words left her mouth, a very small part of her mind offered a quiet, treacherous thought. It would not be terrible.

No—that thought was unacceptable, absurd. Going out with him would be inefficient, dangerous, and embarrassing. Not terrible, the small thought whispered again.

Fiona picked up a file from the desk, her grip tight. “I have work to do.”

“Fine,” Rose said, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “But if you’re not dating him, you should date someone.” She snapped her fingers. “You should go out with Dr. Smith.”

“Dr. Smith,” Lilly added. “Emergency medicine. Tall, divorced, handsome. Very calm under pressure. I think he’d be good for you.”

Fiona said nothing. She knew Dr. Smith. He was competent, polite, and reasonably intelligent. He was calm and did not speak unless he had something useful to contribute. In theory, there was nothing wrong with him—which, according to civilian logic, seemed to be enough reason to recommend him as a romantic candidate.

Lilly laughed. “Come on, Fiona. One date.”

Fiona looked at the red umbrella sitting in the stand. The color was loud, almost aggressive against the drab flooring of the hospital.

Meet new people. Try new things. Cut the movie scenes.

The rules of her new mission were clear. If she was going to move past the image of Twilight, she needed to populate her life with different data points. She needed to prove to herself that her world didn't have to be a recurring loop of unrequited devotion.

“Fine,” Fiona thought.

One date. As a test. A controlled experiment to measure her own progress. Nothing more.

Dr. Smith was exactly as advertised.

He met her at a restaurant near the hospital—a place with white tablecloths, soft lighting, and enough distance between tables to ensure their conversation remained private. He stood when she arrived, pulled out her chair, and asked if she preferred tea or wine.

He was civilized.

Fiona sat across from him and observed him with the detached focus of an analyst evaluating a witness. His suit fit well. His smile was restrained. He did not overuse compliments. His posture suggested confidence without arrogance. His hands were clean, nails trimmed, no tremor. He maintained eye contact without staring.

Objectively, Dr. Smith was an excellent candidate.

 “I hear you work in psychiatry,” he said after they ordered.

“Yes.”

“That must be demanding.”

“It can be.”

“I imagine people underestimate how much discipline that requires.”

Fiona blinked. A reasonable observation. “Yes,” she said. “They do.”

The conversation moved easily after that. Medicine first, then hospital politics and emergency procedures. They discussed the inefficiency of certain administrative protocols. Then, unexpectedly, the topic turned to gardening.

Dr. Smith had a small garden behind his apartment. He grew tomatoes, rosemary, and flowers whose names Fiona recognized only because her recent classes had forced her to memorize them. He spoke of soil composition with the calm seriousness of a man discussing surgery.

Fiona found that she did not hate listening to him. That seemed important. When he asked about her hobbies, she remembered Operation Oblivion and chose the truth. “Pottery.”

His eyebrows lifted, but he did not laugh. “Really?”

“I have made a bowl. It is structurally unsound.”

This time, he laughed. A warm, pleasant laugh. Not mocking. Fiona studied it. She felt nothing—no discomfort, no revulsion, no attraction. Just recognition. A man had laughed. That was all.

The date continued well by ordinary standards. Dr. Smith was attentive without being invasive. He asked questions and listened to the answers. He spoke of his ex-wife without cruelty, which Fiona noted as a positive sign. He paid the bill without a performance and walked her outside beneath the restaurant awning.

The rain had stopped. The street shone under the lamps, black and silver. “I had a good time,” Dr. Smith said.

Fiona looked at him. “I did not dislike it.”

He laughed again. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” His smile softened.

That was when she realized he was going to kiss her. She could have stopped him. She had a full second—enough to step back or turn her head. Enough to make it clear that the evening was a social experiment and required no further escalation. But she did not move.

Meet new people.

Try new things.

Cut the movie scenes.

Dr. Smith leaned in and kissed her. It was gentle. Respectful. His hand did not grab; his mouth did not press too hard. He smelled faintly of sandalwood cologne and wine.

There was nothing wrong with the kiss. That was the most difficult part to process. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, yet Fiona felt nothing. No spark. No warmth. No sudden image of a future. Only the quiet awareness that someone’s mouth was touching hers, and she was waiting for it to end.

When he pulled back, he searched her face. Fiona arranged her expression into something polite. “Thank you for dinner,” she said.

His smile faltered, just slightly. “You’re welcome.” He was intelligent enough to understand the lack of reciprocity. That, at least, spared them both.

Fiona left with the red umbrella closed in her hand. Even though the rain had stopped, she gripped the curved handle tight as she walked through the damp streets.

The rule was wrong. Or perhaps not wrong, but incomplete.

She thought of Yuri’s ridiculous magazines and the underlined instructions. She pictured his serious face as he explained heartbreak like it was an enemy cell to be infiltrated.

Meet new people.

Try new things.

Perhaps civilians wrote those rules because they had no idea what else to do. Perhaps Yuri had believed them because, despite everything, he sincerely wanted to help.

That thought made Fiona slow down. Yuri Briar had wanted to help her. Badly, clumsily, annoyingly—but sincerely. He had gathered magazines, made notes, and followed her progress. He had scolded her for going to a biker bar as if her romantic choices were his own administrative burden. He had bought her an umbrella in the rain.

Fiona looked down at the bright red fabric. “That is not the mission,” she whispered.

A passing man glanced at her strangely, but she ignored him. As she walked home, she realized that the kiss had not made her think of Twilight.

It had made her think of Yuri.                                                                                         

Fiona Frost met Yuri Briar willingly. That, more than anything, should have alarmed her.

There was no urgent report to deliver, no stolen file to exchange, and no intercepted schedule that required immediate discussion. There was no mission parameter that demanded they meet in a public park under a grey sky, walking side by side along a wet path while the trees dripped rainwater onto the pavement. She had simply asked to see him. Because she wanted to.

Fiona did not examine that fact too closely. "I went on a date," she said, her voice a level chime in the cool air.

Yuri stopped walking for half a second, his boots skidding slightly on the damp gravel before he caught up. "With who?"

"Doctor Smith."

Yuri made a face as if he had bitten into something sour.

Fiona glanced at him, her expression unreadable. "You disapprove?"

He looked away, his gaze fixed on a distant line of trees. "Was it awful?"

"No."

That seemed to bother him more than a disaster would have.

They continued walking in a silence that felt substantial. The park was quiet after the rain; a few mothers pushed prams along the path, and an old man fed birds near the fountain. Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed—a sound so bright and careless it felt like a foreign language.

"It was a normal date," Fiona continued. "We discussed medicine. Hospital administration. Gardening. He grows tomatoes."

Yuri looked personally betrayed by the mention of produce.

Fiona ignored his scowl. "At the end of the evening, he kissed me."

Yuri’s entire frame went still. "And?"

"I felt nothing."

Yuri said nothing in return, but his grip on his coat pockets tightened.

Fiona watched the path ahead. Her voice stayed calm, but the words felt strangely difficult to push past her lips. "Once, during a mission, I had to kiss Twilight."

Yuri’s eyes darkened at the name, a flicker of irritation crossing his features.

"It was necessary," Fiona added, though she didn't know why she felt the need to defend a past operation. "A cover situation. I do not think he felt anything." The admission settled between them, colder than the damp air. Fiona kept walking. "But I did. For me, it was so intense that I could still feel his mouth on mine weeks later. It was absurd. But with Doctor Smith, there was nothing. No physical reaction. No emotional response. No lingering effect." She hesitated, her footsteps slowing. "I think… I was Twilight this time."

Yuri’s eyes shifted toward her, sharp and searching. "What does that mean?"

"It means someone kissed me, and I gave him nothing back."

For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence was different from the ones they had shared before—it wasn't a wall, but a bridge.

Then Yuri said, "If that is the problem, maybe you won’t feel anything with anyone."

He stopped walking. Fiona stopped, too. She had just enough time to notice the strange tension in his face—the set of his jaw and the color rising high on his cheekbones. He looked angry, not at her, but at some internal struggle he was losing.

Then Yuri Briar stepped forward and kissed her.

Fiona froze. Completely.

It was not like Dr. Smith’s kiss. Yuri was none of the things that Smith was. His kiss was abrupt, fueled by a clumsy impulse but far from careless. His hand came up near her arm, hovering without quite touching, as if he realized too late that he had crossed a line and didn't know whether to retreat or commit. His mouth was warm and firm—uncertain for one heartbeat, and then not uncertain at all.

Fiona should have pushed him away. She knew seventeen ways to disable a man from this distance. Instead, for one startling second, she did nothing. Because she felt it. The shock. The sting. The warmth. A vivid awareness of Yuri Briar standing too close in a damp park, kissing her as if he had made a terrible decision and intended to survive it through sheer stubbornness.

Then he pulled back. Fiona stared at him, her mind a chaotic blur of data points she couldn't categorize.

Yuri, infuriatingly, recovered his voice first. "Well?" he asked, his breath slightly uneven.

Fiona blinked, her internal processors lagging. "What?"

"What did you think?"

She continued to stare, her mask of stone finally cracking. Yuri’s face turned a deeper shade of red, but he lifted his chin as if embarrassment were a political enemy he could defeat with sheer volume.

"Now you have something else to think about," he muttered.

Fiona opened her mouth, but for the first time in years, Nightfall had no response ready.

"Fiona?" The voice called from across the path, and Fiona’s blood turned to ice.

Twilight stood several yards away, dressed in his civilian coat, holding a paper bag from a nearby bakery. Loid Forger’s face showed mild surprise, followed quickly by his practiced, careful politeness. Of course he would appear now. Not when she had spent years loving him in silence. Not when she had stood outside his apartment with a gift she couldn't give.

He appeared now, in the wake of Yuri Briar.

Yuri’s expression soured instantly. "Loidy."

Loid’s smile tightened by a fraction. "Yuri."

Fiona forced herself back into her professional shape. It was like rebuilding a collapsed structure with her bare hands. "Doctor Forger," she said.

Loid looked between them only once, but he was Twilight; one glance was all he needed to catalog the flushed faces and the standing distance. "I didn’t mean to interrupt," he said.

"You did," Yuri replied sharply.

Fiona shot Yuri a look. He ignored it.

Loid’s gaze returned to her. "Are you heading home? The rain might start again soon. I can give you a ride."

Yuri opened his mouth to protest, but Fiona spoke first. "That would be convenient. Thank you."

She did not look at Yuri as she said it. If she looked at him, she would have to acknowledge the kiss, and she didn't know how to do that yet. Yuri’s hands curled into fists at his sides, but he remained silent as Loid gave him a polite nod.

"Take care, Yuri."

Yuri smiled with all the warmth of a serrated blade. "You too, Loidy."

The drive was quiet. Not awkward, exactly, but filled with the hum of the heater and the rhythmic swish of the wipers. Loid asked about the hospital; Fiona answered. He mentioned Yor and the baby—Alexander was sleeping more, and Anya had declared herself an "expert older sister."

Fiona listened. She responded at the proper moments. She even smiled once. And somewhere between the park and her apartment, she realized something that should have devastated her: it did not hurt.

Sitting beside Twilight did not make her chest ache the way it used to. His hands on the steering wheel did not undo her resolve. His voice did not make her want to become sharper or more worthy. The wedding ring on his finger did not feel like a blade pressed beneath her ribs.

She looked at him and felt a quiet, tired gratitude. Gratitude for the years he had trained her, for the standards he had set, and for the version of herself she had built while trying to stand beside him. She had loved him. Maybe part of her always would. But that feeling no longer felt like a future; it felt like a room she had lived in for too long, and the air had finally gone stale.

Loid stopped the car in front of her building. "Here we are."

"Thank you, senpai." The word slipped out before she could stop it.

Something of the man behind the mask softened in his eyes. "You’ve been doing well, Fiona."

Months ago, those words would have been her entire world. Now, they were just a kind remark from a mentor. She nodded. "Good night."

"Good night."

Fiona stepped out and watched him drive away. Then, she touched her fingers to her mouth. Yuri’s kiss still burned there—a sting, a question, a wound made by accident but still very much alive.

Inside her apartment, she locked the door and sat on the edge of her bed. Now you have something else to think about.

"Idiot," she whispered into the silence. She wasn't entirely sure which one of them she meant.

Yuri came to the hospital the next day. Fiona saw him from the end of the corridor and felt her stomach tighten. Irritation, she told herself. Definitely irritation.

He stood near the vending machines, looking more nervous than any SSS officer had the right to look. "Miss Frost," he said as she approached.

"Briar."

They stared at each other. The kiss stood between them like evidence neither wanted to file. Fiona recovered first. "I believe you misunderstood something yesterday. You cannot simply kiss someone because you think it will solve a problem."

Yuri looked away, his usual fire faltering. "I know. It was stupid."

Fiona had expected a dramatic speech. She hadn't expected the quiet honesty. "It will not happen again," he said.

Something in her chest tightened. It should have been relief. It wasn't "I see," she said.

The hallway felt suddenly too bright, too public. Before she could say more, a familiar, sharp voice cut through the air.

"Fiona."

Handler stood at the end of the corridor, an unlit cigarette between her fingers. Fiona straightened immediately. "Miss Sherwood."

Yuri glanced between them. "Who is—"

"Leave," Handler said, her tone brooking no argument.

Yuri’s eyes sharpened. "Excuse me?"

Fiona stepped in. "Briar. Go."

He looked at her, and she gave him a small, nearly imperceptible shake of her head. Not now. He understood, though he clearly hated it. With one last suspicious look at Handler, Yuri turned and walked away.

Fiona watched him go. She shouldn't have, and Handler noticed.

"We have a situation," Handler said, her voice dropping. "The Munich kind."

Fiona’s blood cooled. Handler handed her a sealed file. "You leave tonight."

Fiona opened it just enough to see the first page: a new identity, travel papers, and a target profile. Duration unknown. A real mission. One that didn't care about red umbrellas or kisses in the park.

"Yes, ma'am."

Handler studied her for a moment. Then, dryly: "Whatever this is, finish it later."

Fiona didn't ask what she meant. She looked once down the corridor, but Yuri was already gone. Her lips still remembered him, but her mind was already moving toward Munich. For the first time in a long while, Fiona Frost didn't know which one felt more dangerous

The mission in Munich lasted three months. It was supposed to last two weeks. That was what the file had stated.

Two weeks to infiltrate a diplomatic circle, identify the courier, confirm the location of the stolen microfilm, and extract before anyone noticed that a woman named Clara Weiss had never truly existed. But missions rarely respected their own timelines. One week became two. Two became five.

By the second month, Fiona had stopped expecting Handler’s updates to include a return date. By the third, she had accepted the particular kind of silence that came with deep cover. No casual contact. No hospital. No WISE office. No reports from home unless absolutely necessary. No Twilight. No Yuri Briar.

At first, that should have been a relief. Yuri, after all, was not peaceful company.

He was intense. Irritating. Dramatic in a way he would have denied under torture. He had no respect for boundaries, procedure, or reasonable volume. He could turn any ordinary conversation into an interrogation, any concern into an accusation, any emotional moment into something loud enough to be heard in the next country. He was reckless. Immature. Unstable.

Too young. That was important, Fiona decided.

He was younger than her—enough for her to notice, and enough for her to use it as evidence against whatever had begun to grow in her mind. Yuri Briar was young in the most difficult ways: young in his certainty, young in his anger, and young in the way he loved without knowing how to make it gentle. He was the sort of man who would burn down a building to keep one person warm and then look genuinely confused when everyone complained about the fire.

Fiona did not like men like that. She liked discipline. Control. Men like Twilight.

The thought came automatically. Then, less automatically, she questioned it. Did she? Or had she only loved the idea of a man who never truly had room for her?

In Munich, Fiona had too much time to think. That was the trouble with long missions. The danger was not always the target, or the guards, or the locked rooms with hidden microphones. Sometimes the danger was an empty hotel room at three in the morning, when the city outside was silent and there was nothing left to do but sit with the thoughts she had been avoiding.

She thought of Twilight often at first. Out of habit. She thought of his hands on a steering wheel, his calm voice, and his careful praise. He had been the measure by which she judged every version of herself. But the memories no longer hurt in the way they used to. They had become distant, like archived files she could still access but no longer needed for active operations.

Then, without permission, her mind began supplying Yuri instead.

Yuri at the vending machine, unable to enter the maternity ward because he did not know where he fit anymore. Yuri glaring at a stack of romance magazines, as if heartbreak could be defeated through research and aggressive underlining. Yuri buying her the ugliest red umbrella in Berlint. Yuri asking if she wanted children, then immediately declaring his would be better than Anya and Alexander. Yuri kissing her in the park.

Fiona would stop there every time. She had kissed Twilight once for a mission, and she had carried the echo of it for weeks because she had wanted it to mean something. Yuri had kissed her for reasons she still did not fully understand, and the memory did not feel like a specter. It felt alive. Annoyingly alive.

She remembered the warmth of his mouth. The suddenness. The sting. The way he had pulled back and asked what she thought, as if he had just thrown a grenade and wanted feedback on the technique.

Idiot, she would think. Then, a few minutes later: I miss him.

That was the first truly unacceptable thought. Fiona rejected it immediately. She did not miss Yuri Briar. She missed familiarity. That was all. She missed having a contact. She missed a predictable source of irritation. She missed Operation Oblivion because it had given structure to a humiliating emotional recovery. She did not miss him.

Then she spent an entire evening wondering whether he had continued checking the hospital lobby for her.

The conclusion was inconvenient. By the seventh week, she stopped pretending the problem did not exist. By the ninth, she began classifying it.

Symptoms: Increased frequency of intrusive thoughts regarding Yuri Briar.

Observations: Unexplained warmth when recalling prior acts of practical kindness.

Physical markers: Heightened emotional response to remembered physical contact.

Desires: A persistent urge to report personal progress to the subject.

Secondary effects: Irritation at the lack of communication with the subject.

Diagnosis: Attraction.

She stared at the list for a long time. At the end of the third month, in a rented apartment above a tailor’s shop, Fiona finally admitted the truth. She liked Yuri Briar. Not because he was perfect—he was not. But he had seen her. He had seen her love for Twilight and had not treated it delicately; he had treated it as something real. He had pushed, mocked, argued, interfered, and then somehow stood beside her while she learned to survive it. He had not made her feel elegant or superior. He had made her feel less alone.

Loneliness was something Fiona had learned to respect. It was sterile. It was useful. It kept the hands steady and the heart quiet. Yuri Briar had made noise inside it. And now, in Munich, surrounded by false names and locked doors, Fiona wanted to hear that noise again.

She sat at the small desk in her apartment and watched the rain slide down the window. Munich was cold that night, though not quite like Berlint. Still, it was cold enough to make her think of a red umbrella.

“When I return,” she said quietly, testing the words in the empty room, “I will tell him.”

The sentence sounded absurd. Dangerous. Unprofessional. Human. Fiona folded her hands together on the desk. She would finish the mission. She would return to Berlint. She would find Yuri Briar—preferably somewhere private, secure, and free of hospital gossip.

And she would tell him everything.

For now, the admission itself was enough. She liked Yuri Briar.

Unfortunately, completely.

And when she returned home, she would tell him.

When Fiona returned to Berlint, Yuri Briar was nowhere to be found. That, more than the exhaustion of a three-month assignment, unsettled her. She had considered the likely scenarios too many times while in Munich.

She hadn't indulged in fantasies; Fiona Frost did not operate that way. She had simply mapped out the logic. She would return, reestablish contact with WISE, resume her position at the hospital, and find Yuri. Then she would tell him. Instead, she came back to a void. No Yuri at the station. No Yuri loitering around the hospital like an agitated security risk. Nothing.

Her apartment was exactly as she had left it: neat, impersonal, and silent. Fiona stood in the center of the room, letting the stillness settle. Then her eyes landed on the box beneath the bed. She pulled it out and lifted the lid. Inside sat the wool hat—the one she had once intended for her senior.

She waited for a reaction: grief, embarrassment, or nostalgia. There was nothing. Only a tired sort of clarity “It means nothing now,” she said quietly. She walked to the kitchen and dropped it into the bin without a second thought.

The following morning, she returned to the hospital. Her coworkers noticed immediately.

“Fiona!” Rose called out, rushing over. “You’re back!”

“I am aware.”

Lilly appeared behind her, grinning. “You look good. Do you know who kept looking for you? Yuri Briar. He came by several times. He was very intense about it.”

“He is always intense,” Fiona said automatically. She regretted the sentence the moment it left her mouth.

“He asked when you’d be back,” Lilly continued. “When we said we didn’t know, he looked like the world had ended.”

Fiona looked at her paperwork. A warm, nervous stir moved through her chest. He had looked for her. More than once. She ignored the feeling with professional dignity. “I have work to do.”

As she walked away, Rose called out, “If you see him, at least kiss him!”

Fiona did not turn around. She was almost certain the tips of her ears were burning.

By the end of her shift, the rain had begun—a steady, silver downpour drumming against the glass. Fiona headed for the exit, the lobby buzzing with the sound of wet shoes and opening umbrellas. Somewhere nearby, a radio played Stand by Me. The melody was soft, oddly warm, making the world feel briefly like a scene from a film.

She stepped out beneath the awning and looked toward the street. And there he was.

Yuri Briar stood on the other side of the rain, a blue umbrella held over his head. He was exactly the same: dark coat, dark hair damp at the edges, and that aggravated expression he wore as if emotional restraint were a personal insult.

The moment she saw him, her detached discipline—the second spine she had worn for years—simply gave way. For the first time in a long while, Fiona did not feel like Nightfall. She felt absurdly, helplessly young. She felt like a person who had missed someone more than pride could survive.

Yuri saw her. His eyes widened. “Fiona—”

She didn't let him finish. She ran. Fiona crossed the space between them with a speed that startled the bystanders. By the time Yuri registered her movement, she had reached him and thrown herself into his arms.

Yuri staggered back, his umbrella tilting as she clung to him. For one stunned second, he did nothing. Then his free arm came around her automatically. “Fiona?” he asked, his voice wrecked by surprise.

She didn't answer right away. She buried her face against his shoulder. He smelled like cold air and soap. He was real. Her heart, which had once beaten itself sick for a man who was never hers, now felt wild and bright for the infuriating man holding her.

“I looked for you,” Yuri said quietly.

Fiona pulled back just enough to look at him. Rain clung to his lashes. “I know.”

“You disappeared. You were gone for three months.” He searched her face with a kind of fierce confusion. “And now you’re doing this? Running at me in public like... like a person in love.”

Fiona’s grip on his coat tightened. She did not retreat. She did not reorganize the truth into something analytical or manageable. She looked directly at him. “I am.”

That shut him up.

“I spent three months thinking about you,” she continued. “At first, I found it humiliating. Then inconvenient. Then unavoidable. You are too intense. You are difficult, and often impossible to tolerate.”

His expression twitched. “That is a terrible confession.”

“I am not finished.” She drew in a breath. “I also missed you every day. And when I came back, I threw away a hat I once bought for Twilight because it meant nothing anymore. Because now... it is you.”

Yuri just stared. The blue umbrella trembled in his hand. The radio kept playing that aching melody under the rain.

“So,” Fiona said, trying to regain her mask, “if you intend to say something idiotic, I advise you not to.”

Yuri laughed. It was a disbelieving, breathy sound. Then he smiled. “I was going to say,” he replied, his voice unsteady, “that I missed you, too.”

It was so simple. Fiona looked at him for one long second, then leaned forward. This time, the kiss was on purpose. It wasn't an assignment or an imagined version of romance. It was real.

When they parted, Yuri looked as if she had altered the laws of nature. Fiona let out a small, rare laugh. He adjusted the umbrella, pulling her closer almost shyly. Above them, the rain kept falling, but for the first time in years, Fiona Frost didn't feel like she was standing outside a window, looking in.

She was exactly where she wanted to be.

Years later, Fiona Briar became part of the Forger family with a kind of inevitability that no one had properly planned for.

Not officially, at first. Officially, she was Yuri’s wife and Yor’s sister-in-law. She was someone who visited because her husband was incapable of staying away from his sister for more than three days without behaving as though the national infrastructure might collapse.

Unofficially, she belonged there.

She came for dinners, birthdays, holidays, and the ordinary Sundays that somehow became louder than celebrations. She helped Anya win card games with an alarming degree of strategy. She corrected Alexander’s chess openings before he was old enough to understand that most children did not receive tactical analysis with their snacks. She sat beside Yor while the children played and listened as the woman she had once envied asked for advice about hospital schedules, school forms, and how to tell if Yuri was overworking himself.

The answer was always yes. Yuri was always overworking himself.

Loid eventually stopped looking surprised when Fiona arrived with Yuri and began setting plates on the table as if she had always known where they were kept. Anya, now old enough to weaponize affection with terrifying exactness, began calling her "Aunt Fiona" before anyone had formally discussed it.

Fiona pretended not to care. Everyone knew she did.

One rainy evening, the Forgers’ living room was louder than usual. Anya had spread a board game across the floor, declared herself Supreme Commander of All Pieces, and accused Fiona of treason within seven minutes.

“That is not treason,” Fiona said calmly, moving her piece. “That is strategy.”

“You betrayed the peanut kingdom!”

“You left the east border undefended.”

Alexander, sitting cross-legged beside them, looked between the two with grave interest. Loid watched from the sofa with a cup of tea, visibly trying not to laugh. Yor had disappeared into the kitchen to check on dinner, and Yuri, naturally, had followed her under the excuse of helping.

He was not helping. He was leaning against the counter, watching his sister stir soup with the same intensity he used to reserve for interrogations.

“You’re going to burn a hole through my face if you keep staring,” Yor said gently while both Briars were in the kitchen.

Yuri blinked. “What? No, I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m just making sure you’re not tired.”

Yor smiled softly. “And you say you’re only visiting for ten minutes, but then you stay for dinner.”

Yuri looked offended. “That is different.”

For a moment, they were quiet. The sound of the living room reached them through the open doorway: Anya protesting, Fiona’s composed voice explaining rules, Alexander laughing, Loid murmuring something dryly amused.

Yuri’s expression softened before he could hide it. Yor noticed. “You look happy,” she said.

His face turned red at once. “I look normal.”

“No,” Yor said. “You look happy.”

Yuri looked away. Then, after a long pause, he said, “Sometimes I still worry.”

“About Fiona?”

He did not answer immediately. That was answer enough. “She’s…” Yuri frowned, searching for the right words. “She’s amazing. Annoying. Terrifying. Too good at everything. She still looks at a broken door and immediately calculates five ways to use it as a weapon.”

Yor steered the conversation with a quiet grace. “Fiona loves you, Yuri. She looks at you the way you used to look at me when you were little and afraid I would disappear if you blinked.”

“That is not romantic.”

“It is very Yuri.”

Yuri sighed, quieter now. “I just hate thinking that part of her might still look at him and wonder. Twilight was her hero for years. Her impossible spy ideal. And I’m… me.”

Yor stirred the soup slowly. “I understand. There was a time when I was scared Fiona would take Loid from me. I thought perhaps that world of codes and missions was where he truly belonged. But Loid chose me. Again and again. Even when I was afraid I was too strange, or too much.”

“You are not too much,” Yuri said fiercely.

Yor smiled. “Neither are you. Fiona loves you, Yuri. And Loid loves you, too—it’s obvious. He looks at you like a man who has finally found a home.”

From the living room, Anya’s voice floated in. “Aunt Fiona is smiling!”

Fiona immediately arranged her expression. “I am not. I am considering my next move.”

Yuri appeared in the doorway a moment later, still faintly flushed. His eyes found Fiona’s hand—the gold wedding band catching the warm light of the living room. Then his eyes met hers.

Something quiet passed between them. Not the feverish devotion either of them had once mistaken for love, but something steadier. Something chosen.

Fiona looked back at him, and for once, she did not feel like an outsider watching a warm room from the cold. She was in the room. She was at the table. She was part of the family.

Yuri smiled at her. Fiona, after a brief and dignified delay, smiled back. It was the most successful mission of her life.