Chapter 2 #2
"Like this?" Her voice is steady despite what I can see happening to her pulse.
"Exactly like that." I don't step back. "Try again."
Next magazine groups even tighter. She's a natural, or her father was a better teacher than most. When she empties the last round and sets the weapon down, I'm still standing close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.
"Micah." She turns, bringing us face to face in the narrow shooting lane. "What are we doing?"
I don't have an answer. I'm keeping things undefined because definition requires promises I'm not sure I can keep. I'm waiting for her to be brave enough to ask for more, terrified she'll actually do it.
"Right now?" I reach up, tuck hair behind her ear. "Shooting."
"That's not what I mean."
"Yeah. I know."
Sarah holds my gaze. "Your deployment's coming up."
Soon, but who's counting.
"Yeah."
"And we're still..." She gestures between us. "Whatever this is."
"Does it need a label?"
"Eventually. Yes."
I should tell her how I feel. That everyone leaves when the silence and the fear get too heavy. That she deserves someone who can promise tomorrow instead of maybe.
Instead I kiss her.
Sarah goes still for a heartbeat, lips parted in surprise beneath mine.
Then her hands fist in my jacket and she kisses me back with enough force to make me take a step back against the range divider.
The months of tension and want and measured distance collapse into something raw and desperate.
Her mouth is soft and demanding at the same time, and I slide one hand into her hair while the other finds her waist, pulling her closer until there's no space left between us.
She tastes like the coffee we had earlier and something uniquely her, something I've been thinking about for weeks.
Heat floods through me when she makes a small sound in the back of her throat, and my brain shorts out on every reason this is a bad idea.
The cool metal of the divider presses against my back while Sarah's warmth burns through the front of my shirt, her fingers gripping my jacket hard enough that I can feel the pull of fabric across my shoulders.
When we finally break apart, her breathing is ragged and her lips are swollen and I want to spin us around, press her against the divider, and find out what other sounds I can pull from her throat.
"We should talk," she says, voice unsteady.
"Yeah."
Leaving the range feels like surfacing from deep water. We don't speak as we collect our gear, sign out at the front desk, walk to my car through late afternoon sunlight that seems too bright after the indoor range. The drive back toward DC stretches out in silence heavy with everything unsaid.
I park outside her apartment building, kill the engine. Neither of us moves. Headlights from passing cars sweep across the windshield while we sit in the darkness.
"I'm scared," Sarah says finally. "Of this. Of caring about someone who disappears into classified operations where I can't reach you."
"Yeah."
"My dad..." She stops, starts again. "Deployments destroyed him. Piece by piece, until there wasn't much left. I watched it happen and couldn't stop it."
"I'm not your father."
"No. But you do the same work. Worse, probably, given Special Activities Division's reputation." She looks at me. "And I'm terrified that one day you'll leave on assignment and not come back."
She's right to be scared. My job has a mortality rate most people don't survive long enough to retire from. Every operation carries risks that no amount of training fully mitigates.
"I can't promise I'll always come back," I say quietly. "That would be a lie."
She nods.
"But I can promise I'll do everything possible to make it back. To you."
Sarah's quiet for long enough that I think I've miscalculated. Then she reaches across the center console and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
"Okay," she whispers. "Okay."
More time passes. We have more stolen moments between assignments. We're still undefined in official terms, still maintaining professional distance at work, still terrified of demanding more from each other. But in the quiet hours, I stop preparing for her to leave and start hoping she'll stay.
Then orders come through for deep cover infiltration into Committee operations in Eastern Europe, extended deployment timeline, possibly longer. The orders specify no external contact, no communication protocols, complete operational silence until extraction or mission completion.
There will be a long silence where Sarah won't know if I'm alive or dead.
I tell her over dinner at the same restaurant where we had our first unofficial date. I watch her process the information with the same analytical precision she applies to intercept data.
"How long?" she asks.
"Extended timeline. Could be longer."
"Communication blackout?"
"Complete."
Sarah nods slowly, face neutral. "When do you leave?"
"Soon."
She picks up her fork, cuts into her meal with mechanical precision.
She chews and swallows like the food isn't tasteless.
The restaurant continues around us—other diners maintaining their conversations, oblivious to the fact that my world is contracting down to the woman across the table who's trying very hard not to fall apart.
"Sarah."
"I'm fine." But her voice cracks slightly. "This is the job. I understand the job."
"Understanding doesn't make it easier."
"No. It doesn't."
We finish dinner in near silence. I pay the check, help her with her coat, walk her to my car through cold February air that burns in my lungs.
Outside her building, I kill the engine. Neither of us moves.
"When you come back," Sarah says quietly. "When the timing's better. We should figure out what this is."
Not if. When.
"Yeah. We should."
"Promise me you'll come back."
I can't. We both know I can't. But I reach across the console and cup her face, thumb brushing across her cheekbone.
"I promise I'll try."
It's not enough. We both know that too. But it's all I can offer.
Sarah leans into my touch, eyes closed. "I'll be here when you get back."
"You don't have to—"
"I'll be here, Micah."
Before long I'm on a transport to Romania with a new identity, backstory, and mission parameters that require complete immersion in Committee operations. No external contact. No backup. No extraction protocol unless the mission is compromised.
It means extended silence while Sarah waits and wonders if I'm alive.
I tell myself she'll be fine. She's strong, capable, used to the demands of intelligence work. She'll focus on her job, maintain operational security, maybe move on to someone who can actually promise tomorrow instead of maybe.
Sarah doesn't move on easily, though. She'll wait, same way she waited through our entire relationship while we were both too terrified to ask for promises.
Deep cover work moves faster than anticipated. I make initial contact with Committee operatives quickly. Before long I'm running weapons shipments through Bucharest and Prague. I earn enough trust to access their communication systems.
Sarah's intercept analysis was right. Committee leadership is consolidating power, expanding operations, preparing for something big. I feed intelligence back through orchestrated dead drops, coded messages that make their way to Langley through cutouts and intermediaries.
Time stretches on. The mission's too valuable to abort. Their networks are opening up, revealing structure and operations that could cripple their entire Eastern European presence if we play this right.
Weeks become months. Winter becomes spring becomes summer. Sarah's waiting for me to come back, counting days that stretch into weeks that stretch into silence so deep I can barely remember what her voice sounds like.
Committee leadership trusts me now. I'm running operations, coordinating shipments, sitting in planning meetings where they discuss expansion into new territories. Every week brings intelligence that could save lives, dismantle networks, cripple their infrastructure.
Every week I stay is another week Sarah could think me dead.
I feed more intelligence through dead drops. Financial networks. Leadership structure. Everything Langley needs to take them down when the time comes.
Just a little longer. Just until we have enough to destroy them completely.
Sarah's still waiting.
I promised I'd try to come back. And when I do things will change.