It was utterly silly and misleading, but as soon as Grace set foot inside Darius' private jet, she felt like she could finally breathe again, as if she was home already, back on American soil and safe. Which they weren't, not quite yet.

The Russian government had given them permission to leave, but until they were out of Russian air space, things could still go sideways. Politicians tended to be as temperamental and moody as teenagers and nothing was written in stone... or paper, for that matter.

They had Defense Minister Toporov's word, of course, but then again, this was the same man who had forced them to drink a really shitty version of LSD as some kind of loyalty test only to get them talking.

Grace's mind was still racing with everything that had happened in the past forty eight hours. Being hunted by the police. Getting captured and drugged by force. Achieving the impossible and actually manage to convince the Russians to, not only believe in what was truly at stake for the world, but actually joining forces with them...

And Katya... God! If they hadn't come searching for her, if Grace hadn't told her about the asteroid, if, if, if...

If Darius hadn't stopped her from touching her friend, Grace would be dead as well. She shivered, hiding the delayed reaction by fussing with her seatbelt.

Darius didn't seemed to notice, lost in his own thoughts, looking out the window as the jet started taxiing towards the runway.

Grace envied his ability to appear unfazed by everything that almost happened to them, everything that had happened to them, acting like this was truly a mere business trip. He had saved her life twice in as many days and she couldn't even bring herself to say thank you.

"How did you know about the polonium?" Grace found herself saying instead.

Darius blinked, eyes struggling to focus as he seemingly forced himself to return to Earth. "Hum?"

She cleared her throat, realizing by the sudden roar of the jet engine that they were about to take off. "Katya... you took one look at her and knew that she had radiation poisoning," Grace pointed out. "How?" In the grand scale of matters, it was something inconsequential, a trivial detail so small that shouldn't have even registered. But it was bugging her mercilessly. Ordinary people did not spot radiation poisoning with one glance and, granted, Darius Tanz was hardly ordinary, but still...

"Alexander Litvinenko, 2006," Darius supplied, knowing that the name was all she would need to form her own conclusions.

Grace shuddered again, not even bothering to hide the reaction this time around. She remembered the story all too well, surprised at herself for failing to make the association before.

The former Russian spy, working for MI6 at time of his murder, had been poisoned by that very same radioactive substance, supposedly by order of his own government.

"They used tea then as well," Darius went on, a forced smile on his lips. "I guess we got the fun version of their Earl Gray."

Grace knew he was being sarcastic, but still the words left her mad as hell. There had been absolutely nothing funny about the whole series of events that started with them being coerced to drink an unknown, potentially dangerous, substance and ended with the two of them...

The shudder that coursed through Grace's body then had little to do with fear or grief, all too warm and pleasant to even be called a shudder. Warm and pleasant, as she had felt waking up on that sofa, Darius body cocooning her and his arm draped around her, making her feel safe and wanted in the same breath.

She felt her cheeks heating. "I... er... the bathroom?" Grace quickly covered, hastily making her retreat before he could catch her reddening face.

"On the left, just before the cockpit," Darius pointed. "There's a shower... fresh clothes too, if you want them," he added, avoiding her gaze.

Grace stared at him for a second, the fluster on his cheeks and the shy tone in his voice catching her by surprise. She had yet to witness a shy Darius and wasn't really sure if that was what she was seeing. Either way, it was entertaining.

Making her escape, Grace slipped into the bathroom, planing on doing nothing more than washing her face and maybe -just maybe- getting a grip on herself. Her bag with a change of clothes and her toiletries was lost somewhere in Moscow and, no matter how desperate she was to rid herself of the stench of the last two days, Grace wasn't quite ready to return home wearing Darius' clothes.

The jet's bathroom was, as most things the billionaire owned, elegant but functional. And as big as the bathroom in her own bedroom.

Grace eyed the clear glass shower stall and found herself aching for a bath. Her clothes were wrinkled, her dress had a tear and a coffee stain and her hair felt so tangled that it might actually eat her fingers if she were to try and comb it.

Nested beside the bathroom sink was a wooden sliding door. Out of curiosity, Grace pushed the handle and peeked inside. A closet, possibly where she would find the promised fresh clothes Darius had mentioned.

Throwing another glance at the enticing shower, Grace slid the door open. The top shelve had a collection of white, fluffy towels. Beneath it, a panoply of clothes hung from a rack.

Only, not all of them were men's clothing. To her surprise, Grace found herself staring at a selection of female clothing that was so close to her style and personal taste that she could fool herself into believing that she was looking at her own closet.

Suspicion grew inside her chest, making her heart beat faster, as Grace snatched a pair of blue jeans from the hanger. Deep within her soul, she knew that she would find the number to be a perfect match.

Anger bubbled quickly to the surface, a tsunami impossible to contain. After having her privacy and safety threatened and invaded almost non-stop for the past two days, a closet filled with clothes specifically bought for her was a little too much to take in stride.

Grace stormed out of the bathroom, holding the jeans in her hand like a weapon, ready to shoot and tear down Darius pretentious little head and chew it.

"How dare y-" she started, only to have the rest of her acerbic speech evaporate like steam from her mouth as she took in the sight before her.

Darius was sound asleep.

Grace grit her teeth, resisting the urge to snap him awake so that she could fight with him. Her good sense, however, managed to find a breech in her anger and gave her pause.

'Don't worry. I don't sleep', she remembered Darius telling when she had pointed out the single bed in their hotel room. Which, for all she knew, could be a complete lie.

The dark bags Darius usually carried underneath his eyes, however, seemed to attest the truth in that statement on a daily basis.

Well, it wasn't as if her nights had been restful and filled with sweet dreams every since Grace had found out that the Human species had its days numbered, but the bags under Darius eyes' were older than that. They had already been there the first time she had met him.

Feeling slightly petty for even considering waking up the sleeping man just so she could lash out, Grace sheepishly returned to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

Maybe she was just being silly, allowing for the events of the past days to color her reading of the situation. Grace knew that Darius was a man who liked to prepare for every possible outcome. The hanged clothes meant nothing more than just that: him, being a well prepared freak.

Just like Darius kissing her in the train station had been nothing more than a diversion to distract the guards. Or a good excuse to so something he all but confess wanted to do for a long time.

Deciding that she was simply over thinking things, Grace stripped out of her black dress and tossed it to a corner before stepping in front of the mirror. She pushed her bangs out of the way, just enough to look at the gash on her forehead. It had stopped bleeding shortly after the explosion, but the skin around it had turned a vicious shade of purple that would soon make it really hard to keep it hidden behind her hair. How was she going to explain that one to Zoe?

The bruising on her right shoulder, the one where she could distinctly see four finger-shaped marks, from when Darius had pulled her away from the exploding car, that one Grace wasn't even going to try and explain. All she had to do was not wear short sleeves for the next weeks. Or get naked in front of anyone.

Harris.

Did it count as a betrayal to kiss another man under the influence of drugs? Or was it the fact that, apparently, she couldn't stop thinking about it that counted as the real cheat?

Grace closed her eyes, pushing her mind towards the man she loved and secretly dated for over a year. Warm, dark eyes filled her thoughts, but to Grace's surprise, they weren't Harris' eyes. There was a twinkle of amusement, a promise of mischief in them that the former military man had never possessed. Her blue eyes snapped opened, finding herself staring at a face consumed by guilt and desire.

"You're just tired, Grace," she told herself, shaking her head. "Tired and, possibly, hormonal, that's just it."

A bath would do wonders about at least one of her problems.

000§000

For a man who never slept, Darius certainly was playing catch up on their journey back home. Certainly the lull of the jet engines was relaxing and sleep inducing, but Grace was too wired to close her eyes.

Not even the warm bath had managed to shut down her brain. There was too much to be done, too many things to organized, too much that could still go wrong and put everything in jeopardy.

Before she started to actually pace the jet up and down the aisle, like she was itching to do, Grace moved towards one of the seats.

There were four individual seats on the plane, a large one that seemed to serve as bed and a table on the other side, complete with chairs for eight.

Grace hesitated for merely a second before taking a seat next to Darius; she hated flying backwards.

The downside of her choice, however, was that it placed her really close to Darius. And the closer she got to the man, the more her turmoiling feelings demanded to be addressed.

She was in love with Harris. Of that Grace was certain.

The government man made her feel safe and protected. He was dependable and constant, a supporting rock in her life.

Harris had been there, right at her side when she had gone through the whole mess of her divorce. He had been the one who reminded her that she was an intelligent woman with value on her own and that she was worthy of being loved.

Darius... was a refined version of her ex.

Grace looked at the man at her side, studying his sleeping face. No, she wasn't being fair.

Darius was nothing like her cheating, scum bastard of an ex-husband, because he had a sense of honor and higher standards that not even his sarcasm and witty remarks could mask. However, there was something in the billionaire that reminded Grace of her ex-husband, back when they were both teenagers and had started dating.

He made her feel alive.

Taking advantage of her traveling companion unconsciousness, Grace stole a moment to actually look at him. It was a gaze that he would certain read as predatorily, if he'd been aware. Which, fortunately for her credibility and self-esteem, he wasn't.

Darius was fit. That much Grace had been aware from the first moment they had met, unconsciously taking notice that he had the body of a swimmer, lean and agile in a way that someone spending too much time at the gym failed to achieve.

He also had a long neck. For some reason, that was something that Grace had always found attractive in men. Long, elegant necks.

With his head resting against the side of the plane, the right side of Darius' neck was well on display, showing his tanned skin and...

Grace leaned closer to get a better look, thanking the fact that, apart from the two pilots at the front, there was no one else on that flight. Yup, there is was, a small patch of purple skin on Darius neck that, no matter how many twists and turns of English she gave it, could only be called one thing: a hickey.

Grace flushed red in embarrassment, knowing without a shadow of a doubt who had been responsible for that, even if she had absolutely no recollection of doing it.

Darius was also hot.

And Grace didn't meant that in a hormone-driven way. Well, he was certainly an attractive man, but the closer she got to him, the more Grace could feel that Darius was actually burning up.

She reached out, holding the back of her hand against his forehead, confirming her suspicions. "Darius," Grace called out, slightly concerned about the fact that the, usually very alert and always aware man, hadn't reacted to her touch at all. "Darius, come on!... you need to tell me what's wrong with you," she pleaded into deaf ears.

Grace's mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario that she could summon, thinking that he was hurt and that, for some macho, weird, retarded reason that completely escaped her, had failed to mentioned it to anyone.

She remembered very vividly the car, exploding so close to them that she could still feel the heat against her skin; what was even scarier, Grace remembered the feeling of Darius body, pushing her against the ground and using himself as a shield to protect her.

What if there was some piece of shrapnel inside him? Even a scratch could be deadly, if infected and left untreated.

Or maybe he had hit his head harder than either of them had realized and had been slowly bleeding into his brain for over a day...

Growing more and more scared at the lack of response from Darius, Grace started to pat him down, searching for undetected wounds. His arms were clean, that much was easy to see in his short sleeved shirt, as Darius had taken off his jacket as soon as they had boarded. But everything else was hidden from view.

They had spent over a day running from the Russian police and she hadn't noticed anything off about him, so if there was a wound, it had to be small and somewhere under his clothes.

Without giving it a second thought, Grace pulled his shirt up, certain that she would find some horrible wound on his back. Of course, with him sitting down, there was only so much of Darius backside that Grace could check.

"There are certainly far less enjoyable ways of waking up," Darius suddenly voiced, his words slightly slurring. "It's just the why that I can't quite figure out..."

Grace nearly jumped off her seat, her hands pulling away from the feverish man as if he were actually on fire. "Darius!"

"That would be me," he replied groggily, leaning back against his seat without bothering to pull down the shirt she had unsettled, his eyes slipping closed. "Not that I mind... but why the gratuitous groping?" he asked, a flirtatious smile finding its way into his lips. "... and, more importantly, can I return the favor?"

Grace stared at him, trying to decide if this was the fever, a brain injury or just plain Darius. "You're burning up," she informed him, because clearly he wasn't reaching that conclusion any time soon on his own. "You need to tell me where you're hurt," she demanded.

It was more than obvious that Darius wasn't thinking straight as he forced one eye open to stare at her in confusion. "I'm not hurt," he declared after a brief, slightly loopy, introspection. "You're hurt," he concluded, his eye fixed on the bruise adorning her forehead.

Darius raised his hand, an awkward and uncoordinated movement that was probably meant to reach her injury, but ended somewhere in the vicinity of her neck. Grace jerked back, easily grabbing his hand and pushing it against his own forehead. "You're running a fever... can't you feel it?"

The billionaires eyes crossed over the bridge of his nose, trying to follow the path of his own limb, in a way that would be endearing, if it wasn't for the fact that he was sick. "Oh!" he let out, looking as if he'd solved a complicated problem with the simplest of solutions. "No worries... That's just the drugs," he let out, turning on his side, perfectly content with going back to sleep now that he had found the answer to the problem at hand.

Grace blinked, wondering of she had heard wrong. What drugs? Did he meant the 'tea' they had drunk? She felt perfectly fine, with no residual effects other than a mild headache. In all honesty, she'd been hungover worse than this. "What do you mean 'the drugs'?" she demanded, shaking him awake once more. "Darius! What do you mean?"

Darius rolled his head, looking at her with a hint of annoyance. "I don't usually react well to... recreational drugs," he explained, a sly smile telling that he felt really pleased with himself for coming up with that term. "It will pass, don't worry. Just be a dear and call Lazlo. Tell him to pick us up at the air strip, will you?"

But the thing was, she was worried. Even more so now, that she could see that his brain was slowly being cooked by his fever and making him forget important things, like the fact that his best friend was dead.

Damn! The world needed that brain... and she needed him alive and well! What the hell was she supposed to do if he started to convulse? They were flying over the damn ocean, it wasn't like they could turn around or pick a spot to land and take him to the hospital. No... it was up to her!

Finally knowing what to do, Grace got to her feet. "Come on," she pushed, forcing Darius awake once more and pulling at his arm. "Up you go," she cooed, feeling like she was talking to an oversized five year old.

"Where are we going?" he asked, slowly pushing to his feet. The trust in his voice made Grace's heart ache fiercely, mainly because of what she was about to do.

"Come on," she said with a forced smile, pulling him towards the bathroom. "I wanna... show you something."

And he went, even if a bit unsteady on his feet, his right arm draped over her shoulders and a loopy smile on his lips, happily to follow her to the end of the world.

Which was nice to know, since that was basically what she was doing: following him to the end of the world, trusting that he would be the one to stop it. But for now, she needed to get his fever down.

Stepping into the jet's bathroom, Grace led Darius to the toilet, pulling the cover down so that he could sit. "Stay here for a minute, ok?"

He just nodded, looking around as if trying to figure out where he was, arms wrapped around his shivering body. "This is a bathroom," he finally concluded, his nose wrinkling in deep thought. "My bathroom... why are we in the bathroom?"

Grace didn't reply. She was busy getting the water's temperature just right, not too cold but cold enough that it would make a difference.

"Are you going to take a shower?" Darius concluded, hearing the water splash against the floor. "I should probably go..."

"No," Grace called out gently, grabbing his arm before Darius could make his escape. "You're taking a shower, because we need to get that temperature down, ok?"

The feverish man pulled his arm away, shaking his head. "No, not ok... too many clothes for a shower and it's too cold to get naked, so... no!"

Grace had to smile at his bullet-proof logic. "What about a dance?" she asked, feeling like she had just had her own moment of brilliancy. "You like dancing, don't you?"

Even though her memories of their time after the 'tea' were a bit fuzzy and with the foggy consistency of a dream, Grace clearly remembered their drunken confessions and dancing. She would never forget dancing Darius.

Darius smiled at her, that gentle and sweet smile that he seemed to reserve for a limited number of people. "I love dancing," he confessed yet again. "There's no music," he added with a frown.

"I'll sing for you," Grace quickly offered, kicking off her boots before holding both his arms. The only song that she could think of was a lullaby that she had sung for Zoe perhaps a million times, so that was the one she started to hum.

Slowly, arms around each other, the two of them started to move side to side, around and around, with every singing note coming closer and closer to the open door and the stream of water inside the shower stall.

The water hit her first, a tepid temperature that Grace could barely feel over her clothes. To Darius' burning skin, it would probably feel like a bucket of ice.

Which would explain why he yelped and whimpered, just before his knees folded like wet noodle.

Unable to catch the tall man's weight, Grace crashed to the shower floor with him, socked feet slipping on water, a tangle mess of limbs and wet clothes.

"Shit!" Grace let out as soon as she got her breath back. From the way her elbow was aching fiercely, there would be a new bruise there, to add to her growing repertoire. But, somehow, Darius head had ended on her lap, so there was a silver lining in there...somewhere.

"Aah-u..." Darius let out slowly, teeth clattering loudly, his eyes slammed shut. "That's bloody co-old."

Grace pursed her lips, holding him closer. "I know... I'm sorry," she whispered, gently pulling his wet hair away from his eyes. "I just need you to hold on for a little bit more, ok?"

Darius nodded, snuggling closer to her, instinctively seeking out her warmth. "A-apart from the free-eezing bit, I-I kind oh-of like it he-here," he added with a smile.

"Shut up," Grace told him without heat. Truth was, apart from the being sick as hell bit, she kind of like it too, the feeling of his head on her lap and carding her fingers through his hair.

000§000

Darius woke up with a painful jolt, snapping up until an arm across his chest stopped his motion. A woman's arm.

Slowly taking in his surroundings and the loud engines, it was easy enough for him to realize that he was on his jet. From there, it all came rushing back.

The trip to Russia with Grace, the murder of the ambassador, running from the Russian authorities, being caught, the tea...

Damn! The tea!

That would explain why he ached all over...

What Darius could not explain was why he was lying down, why Grace was deeply asleep next to him and... why was he wearing different clothes?

"I asked one of the pilots to help me," Grace voiced, answering at least one of his unspoken questions. "Although, I must say... that's quite an... interesting tattoo," she added with a amused tone.

Darius smiled, turning just enough so that he could catch the playfulness in her blue eyes. "If I did possessed one," he called out her bluff, "it wouldn't be anywhere my pilots would catch," he added with a mischievous smirk.

Grace's laugh was contagious, even as she pushed herself up, breaking the comfortable and warm embrace he'd woken up to.

"I see you're feeling much better," Grace pointed out, one hand unconsciously reaching for his forehead.

Darius closed his eyes as her fingers made contact, cherishing what could very well be their last moment of intimacy. Once they were back home, everything would change. "Yes... sorry about the scare."

"Darius, we'll be landing in two minutes," a male voice announced over the intercom.

As if suddenly growing conscious of her own fingers, Grace pulled back, tucking her hair behind her ear instead. "You really are willing to do whatever it takes, aren't you?"

Darius blinked. He was feeling quite tired and his brain was still sluggish in a way that he found most aggravating "W-what?"

"There was every chance that the tea they brought us would be poison, or, at the very least, drugged," Grace went on, slowly giving voice to her fears. "And still you drank it."

"So did you," he pointed out rather childishly. "What choice did we have?"

Grace bit into her lower lip, probably eager to point out that he was an idiot, even if, deep down, she knew that he was right. "There's always a choice, Darius," she whispered, her voice breaking down as she stared into his eyes. "I need to believe in that."

"If the choice is giving up," Darius said, pulling further away from her, "then it's not one I'm prepared to make... not when the fate of the world is at stake."

Grace could only stare at his retreating back, words failing her. The gentle jolt of the jet's wheels touching the tarmac sent her racing heart to the vicinity of her throat. She swallowed it down, pushing back the tears pooling at her eyes. "That's what I'm afraid of," she let out, her whispered words lost amidst the noise of the landing plane.