She was in Syria, of course. Ground access for even the most hardcore journalists was difficult, if not impossible to come by, let alone the most enthusiastic of antiquities experts. However, this was no mere antiquities expert. This was the woman who'd talked her way into Iraq in the last year of her Ph.D., defying travel warnings, local attitudes, terrorist threats, and most of all, her supervisor in order to assess for herself the damage to the country's cultural heritage.

To say that Emma Swan was one hell of a woman was putting it mildly.

He stepped aside as a group of men carried their near-comatose friend out. He felt sorry for the poor sod but it was his own damn fault for challenging her to a drinking contest. Every postgraduate researcher in their department had known better than to try and match her drink for drink – or at least, they learned quickly. He'd discovered that early on over a bottle of the most god-awful moonshine, sitting on a truck bed in rural Azerbaijan.

Ah, the glories of archaeological fieldwork.

"Dr. Swan."

She barely glanced at him, accepting bet money and chatting with the disappointed onlookers in fast, fluent Arabic. It was only once they scattered that she granted him her full attention, smiling wryly as she pocketed the money. "Dr. Jones. I always knew our paths would cross again."

The warmer welcome should have tipped him off, honestly. Killian grinned. "Well, you know what they say love-"

He stopped short as a shot glass shattered perilously close to his head. "I wouldn't know what they say, since I haven't heard from you since graduation. What, you receive a British Academy fellowship at Cambridge and suddenly you're too good to keep in touch?"

"Swan, you know it wasn't like that," he said slowly, approaching her cautiously as she gathered up more empty glasses in a plastic crate. He really didn't need to be picking glass shards from his face. "Besides, you've a pretty prestigious fellowship yourself."

She snorted and pushed a blonde curl back from where it had escaped her headscarf. "Yeah, but the GHN isn't exactly paying me to do this." She jerked her head out towards the street. "Oh wait, they're not paying me at all."

"Hence fleecing the local men."

Emma shrugged. "I do what I have to, Jones. Social media monitoring isn't enough. The Internet is shit. My informants couldn't get me accurate reports on the level of damage to the sites and monuments, let alone an accurate site list. I need to be here, so here I am." Someone needed to compile a complete list of sites, accurately assess the damage, and recommend countermeasures so that the correct preservation procedures could be put in place.

"How are you getting your intel out, then?"

She slammed the container of glasses into the sink. "With difficulty."

"I could help with that."

"Yeah, I'm sure you could."

Killian settled next to her, hip to hip, mindful the way that she stilled ever so slightly before resuming her task. It had been like that between them from the beginning. Trigger to bomb and oh, how glorious the explosions. Perhaps that's why it had been so difficult for them to make it work. But they were kids then too, grad students with heads full of word counts, grant applications, fieldwork, conferences, and teaching. Other things had a habit of falling to the wayside.

He didn't admit to having too many regrets, but this was one. "Swan, you know I can."

Emma stopped and looked at him, really looked for the first time. She might not think highly of him at the moment, but he was a man of his word. "How?"

"A British Academy fellowship, a Cambridge postdoc, and a Leverhulme grant add up to lecturing posts, more grants, and most importantly, Swan, connections. You give me your information on site damage here, I promise I'll get it out."

"And what do you want in return?" she asked warily. Damn him for offering the one thing she really needed (well, an end to the conflict would have been preferable but she was nothing but a realist).

"Get me to the Forgotten Cities."

He wanted to get to one of her sites? "What do you want with the Ancient Villages?" She scowled. "Jones, I'm working to protect these sites from looters, if you so much as try one of your stupid little shenanigans, I'll-"

Killian sighed and quickly backed her up against the counter, noting that she still smelled like the sweetest kind of hell and yes, that fuse was still burning. "Swan, we both know that I'm not a looter. I've satellite images of trackways in the area and-"

"How do you have satellite footage of northern Syria?"

"Contacts," he reminded her pointedly. "I need to conduct a quick ground survey, that's all."

Emma pushed at his chest, the line between her eyebrows deepening when he wouldn't budge. "Jones, you got yourself here, surely you can get yourself to those trackways."

"Not easily. And I'll get the surveying done faster with another hand. Come on, Swan. We were a good team."

Her eyes softened, remembering months spent together on fieldwork and countless hours spent in the office, typing away like madmen and consuming record amounts of tea and coffee. She recalled another kind of partnership too, one of tangled hearts and bodies and oh, how she'd burned. "We were."

Killian's expression said that he was remembering, too. His gaze dropped to her lips and he moved in closer, his breath ghosting over her cheek, the proximity making both of them shudder. "We can be again."

He should have expected that right hook, too. It was still lethal. He rubbed his jaw gingerly and stooped to pick up his hat as Emma stalked past him. "Don't hold your breath, Jones. Just get my intel out and we'll call it a deal, all right?" Emma said as she strode out the door.

Gods above, he was still crazy about her.

Killian slammed the jeep's door shut and regarded the terrain with a critical and enthusiastic eye. "Let's find some trackways, eh Swan?"

Emma brushed past him, tucking her hair under a wide-brimmed hat. "Button up your shirt, Jones. Did you learn nothing from Kuwait? And I can't believe you've kept that damn ugly hat."

That was bullshit and they both knew it. She loved that hat. She loved him too, he just needed to get her to admit it. It was a good thing that he loved a challenge, and Emma Swan had been one – the only one – right from the start.

Please review!

Trackways are areas of the landscape that have been worn down over the years because of the movement of people and animals. They're not trails and they're not roads (no paving), and can be used to study things like interactions. Emma's work is based on a colleague who actually does monitor damage to cultural and historic sites in Syria (though not in Syria). If you're curious, you can read about her work here and here.