Author's note: Many thanks to everyone who's left a review on any of my previous fics. Your thoughts are encouraging, helpful and altogether awesome. Also, another thank you to everyone who reads my stories, and a special one to workerbee73 who rec'ed me and made my week.

The day you meet a man, she was told, that doesn't want you, fear you, or both, your work with us is done. In other words, a barely veiled threat: don't lose your edge.

She took it more literally, considering it first an exit clause, eventually evolving to become a challenge (find that man, if he exists). But now that day had come, and she found herself staring into the abyss with more hesitation than she would have expected.

The man in question smirks, a gentle reminder that they don't have all day. "Scared?"

Her pride, more than anything, answers for her. "Hardly," it says, irritated he'd ask, and she jumps.

"How did it go?" he asks when she resurfaces from the war room.

"Fine," she answers, deliberately vague. They can hear her, and there's no sense in lulling him into a false sense of security. He'll catch shit for bringing her in for sure. "Just a heads up though," she adds, "they've assigned you a new charge and she's standing in front of you."

He doesn't look altogether surprised, but a look of discomfort flashes on his features and she pounces on it.

"Scared?" she taunts.

He feigns ignorance. "Of what?" he asks.

"Being my full-time baby-sitter."

"It might shave a few years off my life," he admits. "So be gentle. I don't want to die young."

For her first mission with them, they fly economy.

"Unbelievable," she says. They're at the airport, and she's pacing to work off nervous energy. "What's to stop some idiot from sending someone on the plane to take us out? The cabin's going to turn into a mass grave by the time we're done with it, and I'd just like to see them try to cover that one up."

He's reading a paper, apparently not at all put off by their travel arrangements. "Scared?" he asked.

"Yes," she snaps. "Of deep vein thrombosis."

The plane lands in Manila without a hitch.

He brings everything he needs in a carry-on, but he sticks around anyway, waiting for her bag to come down the conveyer. It comes tumbling out after a couple minutes and she grabs it on an upbounce. She nods tersely at him, and says "See you in a week," but he stops her, his hand on her duffel.

"Look, I know at the end of the day, you'll do what you want. But if it makes a difference, I'd really prefer it if you didn't screw me over."

She knows what he's saying. Don't fuck up, don't turn on me, please don't run off. "What do you mean?" she asks anyway.

He sighs. "Let's just say I know a sure thing when I see one, and at present time, that's not a term I'd use to describe you."

She has no malicious intentions, but relishes the upper hand she has in this situation. Old habits and all. "Guess you'll just have to trust me. Scared?" she leers.

"Terrified," he says grimly. "But I've been taking stress management classes back at HQ, so I won't be losing sleep over you."

"God forbid," she mutters.

It's 7 days (and 21 hours after their designated meet time) when she sees him again, sweaty, dirty and cocky as fuck. He lets out a whoop before collapsing in a chair. "Nothing like a really good gun fight to make you feel alive," he says, all blissed out.

She gives him the hairy eyeball. Hey, shit happens, she'd be the first to tell anyone. But on a routine mission like this, only a rookie could be reasonably excused for showing up more than a few hours late. And based on his demeanor, his tardiness was entirely preventable. "You've been drinking," she states flatly.

"You," he says, pointing to her shoulder, "are a genius."

She and her shoulder elect to remain silent.

"I had to," he continues, in the absence of feedback. "Not that I can't handle myself fine, but the thought that my partner could run out on me at any moment, leaving me to fend for myself, is enough to drive a man to drink, don't you think? And don't forget, I'd get my ass handed to me once I got back. As if once on her behalf wasn't enough."

She feels a little guilty. His time in the war room must have gone worse than she thought. Still, "the least you could do was check in. You know, like 'hey, I'm fine, and off to get plastered, so see you in a few.'"

"I'm touched," he muses after a moment. "I didn't think you cared."

"My concern is entirely self-seeking," she says, voice stern. "If you go missing, I'm the prime suspect. And I'm not entirely convinced they wouldn't just frame me for it anyway."

"So you must be glad to see me then."

"I would have been, if this was yesterday. Another three hours and I would have just taken my chances."

"You didn't have to wait for me." This was untrue. For the most part, if you left as a pair, you were expected to return as one too, but she runs with it anyway.

"And just what was I supposed to say when I got back? That I lost my handler somewhere over the Pacific?"

"Were you scared?" he asked, (barely) suppressing a grin, and she, in turn, has to (barely) suppress her urge to hit him.

"I was impatient," she corrects him, enunciating the last word. "You should be insulted if I didn't think you could make it out of this training exercise alive."

She can see on his face that he's fumbling with a response to that. "Thanks?"

"You're welcome."

"Um, it was a real mission," he clarifies.

She's going to have to give the moron a one-time pass for thinking he needs to explain this, only because he's so obviously drunk. "Was it? Cause it was so easy it felt like a joke."

"You know, there's such a thing as being too confid-"

She cuts him off. "Shut up. And next time you go engage in off-duty drinking, you bring me along." she orders.

"Yes ma'am."

True to his word, he takes her out drinking once they're back, at the kind of establishment where she sticks to the floor when she walks and the upholstery stains are questionable (and in some cases, still damp). The kind of place she figures he feels right at home. He waves down a member of the waitstaff as soon as they get in, and whispers his order in the waitress's ear, obviously familiar with her.

They head to a booth in the back, and slide in across from each other. "This place is disgusting," she says, with as much dignity as she can manage when her wrist is sticking to the table by the remnants of a spilled appletini. She suspects she's sitting in a dried vomit stain.

"Oh sweetheart," he says (and does he ever do sincerity well), "this is where I bring the girls I really like."

"Small wonder you're still single," she grumbles, trying to peel her arm from the table.

"You haven't seen my A game yet."

The waitress returns with a stack of shot glasses and a bottle of vodka. He lines up the glasses in two rows and starts pouring.

She's unimpressed. "This is what you call your A game?"

"No, this is unrelated," he says, unfazed.

"You really want to play this with me?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"No. But you don't look like you have a death wish either, and yet, here we are," she motions to the tiny glasses.

"Stop stalling."

"You know back home we're raised on vodka from childhood in the place of milk, right?"

He stops at this. "I forgot about that."

She raises a shot to her lips. "Scared?" she asks.

"It doesn't matter," he says. "We've gone too far to turn back now."

Three hours later, she catches their reflection on a mirrored panel across from her. She had crawled over to his side of the booth at some point (she doesn't remember when) and now she's leaning with her back against his side, her head tipped back to rest on his shoulder, left hand playing idly with the empty shot glasses. He's drinking straight out of the bottle, with one arm resting along the top of the seat, and his cheek against her head.

Damn, she thinks. I might really like this one.

In other news, she thinks she may have defected under false pretenses. Because she doesn't think it's her imagination when he turns to kiss the top of her head, in between swigs of straight vodka.