Short-ish chapter. I wrote this and the next chapter on my ipad while I was tanning on the beach. Needless to say, it got me a sunburn on only half of my body. Oh well...

I'm hoping to be able to edit and post the next chapter before the end of the month. I just need some motivation. I'm a procrastinator, if you haven't already figured that out. Haha!

Hope you'll enjoy this. Reviews and criticism are always appreciated.

Kate woke up to the sound of Tony singing. She slowly opened her eyes and bit her lower lip. The pain in her arm made her wince; Tony noticed she was awake.

"I put two painkillers in the cup holder. Here's some water."

She nodded gratefully and took the two pills, swallowing them with a big sip of water. She patiently waited for the pills to kick in and after a few minutes she felt the drowsiness enveloping her, and had to blink her eyes a few times to regain focus. She studied the surroundings. Tony was driving through the winter landscape, probably heading north. She didn't recognize anything familiar.

"Where are we?"

Tony took his eyes off the road for a few seconds and turned to her.

"We're on our way to Long Island."

She looked at him questioningly.

"Long Island? As in New York State's Long Island?"

He nodded.

"The doctor said you need some time to recover. You need to rest. I know a place where we can stay."

She frowned.

"I don't need to recover. I'm fine."

He let out a small, teasing laugh.

"C'mon, Kate! You can barely keep your eyelids open. A little rest will do you good."

"Tony…"

"Besides, I could use some rest, too."

She rolled her eyes but didn't have the strength to argue. They painkillers were kicking in and she wasn't going to fight their effect. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with sleepiness.

"Whatever you say, bossypants…"

He smiled and kept driving. They weren't very far from their destination.

It took Tony other 40 minutes before reaching the gate of a big house in a small, deserted beach village, where it was obvious people only vacationed during the summer season. He got off the car and looked around; so many years had gone by since the last time he was there, maybe 20 or 25. He was just a kid, then. He unlocked the rusty lock with a key he found hidden in a plastic seashell under some decorative rocks, right next to the entrance. It was still where his mother had left it. He sighed at the memories that flashed through his mind and got back in the car where Kate was still asleep. He drove through the aged gates and the trees that had considerable grown taller since the last time he had visited. After parking by the small fountain in front of the house, he unloaded the few possession he and Kate had brought along and proceeded to bring them inside the house.

He was not surprised to see white sheets covering the furniture; it gave the house a ghostly look, one that didn't fit with the happy memories he had from the time he had spent there during his childhood. He knew for a fact that his father had hired a maid many years back to take care of the house and keep it in a decent condition even though nobody lived there, so he wasn't surprised to breath in the sterile smell of cleaning products that reminded him of a hospital room.

After making sure everything was in place, he walked out on the front porch, with the intention to wake Kate up. His brows furrowed when he noticed she wasn't in the car. He looked around, finding her after a few seconds. She was sitting on a stone bench, by the small lake in the corner of the garden, which had once been home to a small duck his mother had bought him at the town summer fair – the only pet his father ever allowed him to keep.

He walked towards her and sat down, facing the opposite direction. She turned her head to see him deeply breathing in the salty smell of the sea coming from the nearby beach.

"Whose house is this?"

He looked down and then turned around to face her. Shrugging his shoulders, he tried to sound casual, as if that place didn't hold any special meaning to him.

"It was my mom's…"

Kate felt the emotions coating Tony's voices and realized that anything she could have said to compliment the house would have probably sounded frivolous for a place that obviously meant so much to him.

"Oh…"

"You can ask, you know?"

She rested her head on his shoulder.

"It's okay."

He absent-mindedly started twirling around his fingers a stray lock of hair that had escaped her loose ponytail.

"It's just… I never talk about her. And sometimes it seems unfair to her memory."

Kate smiled sadly at him.

"It's not. Some people rather keep their fondest memories private so that they won't be spoiled. But if you ever want to share, I'll listen."

Tony closed his eyes remembering himself as a little kid, running around the lake while his mom sat on that very bench reading a book and looking at him lovingly.

"This is the last place I've seen her alive. She was already sick, but one day she just came to pick me up from boarding school and drove straight to this house, without saying anything to my father. We spent a week here, playing in the pool and resting under the trees. Then my father came; he drove me back to Vermont and my mom went back to Connecticut. She was hospitalized a few days later, and she died after a month."

Kate's eyes widened at the revelation. She knew Tony's mother had died when he was very young and that that event had affected him deeply, but she never imagined he would have shared something like that with her.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I really am."

He kept playing with her hair.

"She was sitting on this very bench while my father drove away with me in the backseat, begging him to let me stay. When I saw you from the house, sitting on this bench it felt… strange."

Kate straightened up and looked at him concerned.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to disrespect… I just got off the car to get some fresh air and saw the bench and assumed it was fine for me to sit here…"

He gave her a genuine smile and saw her relaxing a little.

"It's fine. Really. It's just that you reminded me of her a little, and that threw me off balance for a moment."

Kate lightly touched the bench they were sitting on with the tips of her fingers.

"It must have been hard to lose someone so important at such a young age."

Tony shrugged.

"We survived it, my father and I. We learned to cope in different ways."

"She would have been proud of you, you know?"

He grinned.

"Kate Todd just paid me a compliment! Miracles do happen!"

She smiled, rolling her eyes at his attempt to lighten the mood, but she played along.

"I blame it on the painkillers. They still haven't worn off."

He laughed standing up and taking her hand in his to lead her to the house. He stopped midway, a fond smile still playing his lips.

"My mom… She would have loved this: using this house as headquarters while on a mission to bring down dangerous terrorists. She always said this house needed an adventurous story."

Kate freed her hand from Tony's and turned around to look at the sun disappearing over the horizon, taking a deep breath that smelled like freedom, she allowed herself to feel carefree for the first time in a long time. An adventurous story, indeed.

She turned around with a content expression plastered on her face.

"Lets go inside. It's getting cold. I'm expecting you to cook dinner!"

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