The cloudy-colored tea steamed and swirled in circles as I pushed the liquid around and around with the spoon. It was late afternoon on a damp, gray October day in Dublin and I was waiting for an associate to brief me on an upcoming mission. The bubbling nerves in my stomach were not from concern over the mission, but rather from the associate. She was…complicated. Fiona, or Fi as I'd started calling her lately, was my contact in the IRA. I should not be this nervous about meeting another operative, not after ten years in the spy business, but somehow with Fi everything was different. In her eyes I was Michael McBride, patriotic Irishman from Kilkenny. To those who really knew me I was Michael Westen, patriotic American spy from Miami…though I hadn't been home in almost a decade.

I had been in Dublin a couple months. Before that it had been St. Petersburg…St. Petersburg where I had met my fiancé Samantha. There had been a few documents that needed to be "liberated" from a government office for a project I was working on and another associate had recommended her. Samantha was an oxymoron of sorts. She was stunningly beautiful and she drew eyes like she was magnetic. Yet somehow she also managed to be invisible when she needed to be.

A closed door was merely a suggestion for Sam. The first time we met, Samantha pulled me in for the traditional European kiss on the cheek greeting. It was a truly frigid morning, just this past February. I had been wearing a full-length, down coat, but somehow Sam ended up holding my wallet when we pulled apart. She flashed it in my face with a smile. When we met for coffee later to debrief, we ended up talking more about life than about the mission, and then we ended up back at her place…not talking at all.

With Samantha things moved quickly. By the end of the month I was living at her place. The Baltic winter nights were warmer that way. It thrilled Sam to watch me put on a cover id. She embraced each and every one as if she were meeting me all over again. She was the first woman I didn't have to lie to about what I did for a living and she appreciated that she didn't have to lie to me either. We just had fun gallivanting together through the streets of the former Russian capital.

We were laying in bed one night when she proposed to me. Earlier in the day a job had gotten a little out of control and it looked for a minute like I was cornered. Sam was watching everything from the roof of the building across the street. I'd been teaching her how to use a sniper rifle and with no other available backup, this seemed like a good test of her new skills. Just as the thug kicked me to my knees, preparing for the execution, there was the whooshing sound of the bullet and then I was sprayed with his blood. When we met back at the apartment Samantha already had the shower running for me so it'd be warm.

She smiled brightly and looked me over for any sign of injury. She threw her arms around my neck and laughed. "How was I?" she asked excitedly.

"Your timing was perfect," I told her. "Is that for me?" I motioned towards the bathroom.

"Yes, yes. Get yourself cleaned up."

An hour later we were panting and sweating even though it was probably only 35 degrees outside and our radiator barely heated the corner where it sat across the room.

"I wish I could to do this every night for the rest of my life," she panted.

I laughed. "I think I could get on board with that idea."

She rolled over and looked at me. "Let's do it then," she breathed.

"What?"

"Let's get married," she whispered.

I eyed her carefully. She was suddenly serious, more serious than I'd ever seen her. All I could think to do was laugh. I pulled her into my arms and rolled her on top of me. "Whatever you want," I told her.

But then there was Dublin. When my work in St. Petersburg was finished, Samantha had moved back to Chicago and I went on to Ireland. The job there was only supposed to take a of couple weeks, but those weeks had stretched into months as jobs were want to do. There was a line I could use to call home, but I hadn't used it in a week. The work with Fiona was monopolizing a lot of my time. Thoughts of Fiona were monopolizing a lot of my time.

The tea warmed my body, but the air was still thick with moisture. She was down the street when I spotted her. She wove confidently through the school children, businessmen, and tourists. Fiona was smaller in stature than Samantha but with longer hair that hung down past her shoulders and fluttered independent of her will as the wind picked up.

She was outwardly the picture of femininity. Fiona was fragile and delicate looking…until you met her and found out about the guns, the bombs, and the attitude. I had been having crazy dreams lately. Most of them involved Fiona, myself, and very few clothes. I was starting to get concerned. Here I was, an American operative fantasizing about a trigger-happy IRA explosives expert, while my fiancé waited for me back in the US. It's not like Sam and I had set a date or anything, but still…there had to be something not quite right about what my subconscious was doing.

Fiona pulled open the door to the cafe and the chill settled back into my bones. I nodded at her and then buried my head in the tea again for warmth. She sat down with me and pushed a manila envelope across the table.

"These're the plans for Thursday," she said in a low, husky voice. Her eyes were sparkling at me and I had never felt the force of gravity as much as I felt it just then.

"Anything in particular that I should be payin' attention to?"

Now that she was inside, Fiona was absentmindedly unbuttoning the crimson wool cardigan she was wearing. "Just make sure that both of the managers have left before you start sneakin' around." She reached for my mug and took a long sip of my tea. "That's warm, but that's about all it's got going for it. I've never met an Irishman who'd take his tea in such a revolting manner."

I leaned in to grin at her, "There's nothin' wrong with my taste in tea."

She leaned in as well until we were actually quite close. She whispered, "When you've got more milk and sugar in the cup than you've got tea, then it ceases to qualify as an acceptable Irish cup o' tea."

I swore there was an actual, sparkling twinkle dancing in her eyes. All I wanted to do was lean in an inch more and lay my lips on hers. It would be so easy. Just a quick taste of something authentically Irish.

"If ya met my mother you'd see otherwise," I tried to convince her.

I thought to myself, 'If you met my real mother you'd stop this flirting and run for your life.' There were reasons why I didn't go home more than once a decade.

"Well perhaps I need to make you some real tea sometime, Mr. McBride, and teach you how to treat it."

"I may have to take you up on that."

"Tomorrow evenin' then," she said matter of factly. "Come by my place and I'll show you."

I was slightly taken aback, not expecting a concrete arrangement. "I…well…alright. See you then."

"Good." She grinned broadly, stood up and walked to the door. She looked back and gave me a little wave before disappearing onto the street again.

'This is bad,' I thought to myself. 'This can only be bad.' And yet for some reason, I couldn't stop smiling to myself.