FicWad

The first time I saw your face
There was a fire in your soul
I felt that first embrace
As a fire in your soul

"You look absolutely stunning." Julius blurted out against Delilah. Not only because he wanted to flatter her, make her feel comfortable, more relaxed before he questioned her. Also because she really did. She had the charisma of a fridge, but couldn't have looked more elegant and desireable.

Julius spontaneously offered her an arm, while the three of them entered the restaurant. A waiter brought them to an table, Ursula hadn't arrived yet. Julius wanted to pull out Delilah's chair for him, but was too slow. The waiter did it and got thanked by a gracious nod of the head. For some moments, the three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. None of them knew how they would go through this evening, after so many years of silence. Luckily, the waiter turned up again and asked if they wanted something to drink.

By the time they received their menus, Ursula arrived as well. "I'm so sorry." She hastily whispered, while sitting down. "The taxi didn't show up."

"It's alright." Her tablemates immediately assured her. "Which hotel are you staying in?"

And before anyone could stop them, the four of them had rolled into an enjoyable conversation about their previous and present lives. Even Delilah participated, and although it felt fake at first, it seemed as, throughout the evening, her wall was breaking. Her friendlyness became genuine, her questions became interested. She listened, and commented every once in a while, even asked a few questions.

But never she spoke about her life. And the others now knew better than to ask.

Haven't seen you in a long long time
Except maybe in my dreams
But nothing's ever yours to keep
Nothing's ever as it seems

Delilah made her last bite of Guvetsi dissappear in her mouth and swallowed it. "My God, Nosey, I swear, this is the best food I ever ate, really!" She told him smiling. Sitting opposite her, he bent forward and smiled at her honesty. "That's nothing you've got to tell me, but the cheff!"

Ursula and Julius smiled when they saw Delilah chuckle. Yes, chuckle! She finally started to look like the old Dee again. She was friendly, she was laughing, she showed interest, and even, sometimes, emotions. "Make sure I'll tell the waiter to compliment him!" Delilah answered Nosey.

Their conversation paused when all four of them drank from their wine. Julius looked disgusted. "Daim, Nosey, no matter how good your dance moves are, I'll never let you order wine again! This tastes like dead wood."

While Nosey played being offended, Ursula stood up for him. "Mind telling us how it comes you know how dead wood tastes like, Julius?" She asked winking. It took them some moments, but the whole table burst out laughing at the comment. The sign for the waiters to come and pick up the empty plates.

Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight
Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight

While Delilah was thanking the waiters for the delicious food, a little music began to play in Nosey's bag. He himself looked around confused, untill her realised it was his own mobile phone. Taking it out, he checked the caller and his expression immediately changed. As if he cherised the phone now. "Excuse me, I've got to take this."

When his tablemates signed him that it wasn't any problem, he took the call. "/Cou-cou, ma belle/. Yes, love. How are you? Missing me?"

Delilah, Julius and Ursual were shocked. Nosey hadn't mentioned a single word about a possible love in his life! Now they thought about it, when the three of them had admitted not having any love interest at the moment, Nosey had quickly changed subject. None of them had attached attention to it, then.

The conversation was a rapid talk in English, mixed with a lot of perfect French. "What time are you arriving tomorrow. /Seize heures/?" Nosey quickly looked up and checked his friends. "Would you mind meeting my friends later? I'm sure they'd like to meet you." He quickly spoke then. "Okay, I'll arrange a /rendez-vous/, then. /Je t'aime/. See you tomorrow. /Bisous/. He hung up, and raised to meet his friends shocked looks.

Without any questions, Ursula bent to the side and pulled Nosey's left hand above the table. Around his ring finger, a black tribal ring was... tattooed?

"Well... erm... We didn't want real rings?" Was all that Nosey could stutter shyly. "I'm sorry guys, I know I should have told you before, but I wasn't sure how you would react."

"Wow, congratulations! You didn't have to hide! Where is she now? Who is she? When do we get to meet her? For how long have you been married?"

All sorts of questions, mixed with congratulations, were thrown at Nosey, who, cleary on a pink cloud, answered them with confidence.

"We married 4 years ago. I met her when I started the dance-studio. She's a lawyer and arranged my papers. She made sure the government paid the most expensive parts of the bussiness. We immediately fell in love." He said it with a mad smile on his face. "She works for an international company now, and she's the best. She has been in South-America for the past few weeks, but she's flying back now. So if you'd like to meet her tomorrow..."

"Sure! We'll be there!" Delilah and Ursula said in union. "Does she know about your past?" Julius asked more concerned.

"Parts of it, enough to know the basics." Nosey said shrugging. "She the luck of my life. My golden ticket."

Not even Delilah could deny that she felt something sting in her heart when she heard those words and saw the completely happy look on his face.

If she only knew, that she was meant to destroy his luck.

The first time I saw your face
There was a fire in your soul
I felt that first embrace
As a fire in your soul

A few hours later, the four of them had already finished their coffees and had started drinking cocktails. Their entertained conversations were full of jokes, laughter, and happiness. Nobody who saw them like that, could possibly guess that untill the day before, they had been seperated in the most cruel way.

Ursula suddenly sighed. "Look at us, sitting here." She said. "Who of us could have guessed that in the last years?"

"Surely not me!" Julius answered, immediately followed by Delilah and Nosey. "You can almost call it a gift, what happened to us. And yet, it was the most terrible thing that could happen..."

Everybody nodded their heads, and Ursula seemed to really turn angry by it. "If I once find the bastard who did that to us, I swear to you all, I will kill him, even if it is with my bare hands. I would..."

"No, you wouldn't." Delilah had interrupted her. Again with the ice cold voice they hadn't heard in the past hours and of which they had hoped it had entirely vanished.

Taken aback, Ursula fully turned to her. "Oh no? And why not, miss Icequeen?" she blurted out.

Delilah bowed her head, apparently out of shame. "Because killing someone isn't as easy as the innocent think it to be, both physicall and mental. I can know... It's my job."

Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight
Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight
Rolling over, rolling over

The silence dropped as a bomb. Julius' mouth fell open, Nosey felt tears sprung in his eyes and Ursula didn't know where to crawl from shame. Ignoring the reactions, Delilah placed her elbows on the table and laid her head on one hand. With the other hand, she took the straw in her cocktail and started twirling it around. "What I'm going to tell you now, I've never told anyone before. And I'm not suppossed to, too."

"When I left Canada, all those years ago, I took the bus. I had a few of my spare passports in my bag, and couldn't decide where to go to. So I randomly picked one passport out. It was the Russian one.
I took the bus to cross the American-Canadian border, and in America I took the plane to Moskou. From there on, I moved to Archangelsk, in the Northwest of Russia. I was sure nobody would find me there. I was so sure of that...
Three hours after I arrived in a small motel, I already heard knocking on my door. Two men told me to follow him; if I wouldn't do it, I would die. So I followed them and stepped into the large limo that was waiting for them - and me.
They declared that they were officials from Russia's most secret agency. So secret, they don't even have a name. Actually, they're just rental killers for the government and every big bussiness leader that wants to hire them. They ended by telling me that I had two choices: join them or die.
I seriously thought about dying. They excused themselves for the hard choice, and promised me a soft death if I would prefer that rather than joining them. I didn't have anything left. I had just left my friend, my only family, my life behind. But still, somewhere deep inside, I was afraid to die. Because dying was definitive. If I died, there was no chance I'd ever see you guys again. I would be dead, but if I was alive, there was always the chance I'd see you guys again...
I accpeted their offer."

At this time, Delilah stopped to drink some from her cocktail. Telling the story clearly did more to her than she wanted to admit.

"They brought me to St.-Petersburg, where their private school was situated. I got an extremely luxury studio and a car, and if I needed anything I just needed to ask. The only thing they wanted from me that time, was to attend school.
I did go, off course. It always reminded me of the Academy training, but this was harder. You were trained to kill at the Mariana. So I let them train me to be the perfect rental killer. No emotions. Emotions are bad. They distracted they make you weak and a failure. You're nothing when you feel something.
Believe me, when that's drilled into you, you start believing that."

On that point, Delilah couldn't go on. She hid her eyes with one hand while she quickly told the ending of her story, leaving out big parts.

"I graduated after 4 years, being the top of my class. I got the job with the agency and a licence to kill. God, now I really sound like James Bond. Well, they sent me all around the world to test me on my flexibility. In the end, I proved worthy and they let me pick between some cities. I chose Knokke-Heist, in Belgium, because it's next to the sea. They gave me a loft with a view of the sea, and the car which you've already seen. Plus all the devices I needed to contact them, get my assignments, do them, and report afterwards. That's about it, that's all you have to know."

She had stopped trying to hide her crying. The others understood now how much it did to her, if she was crying. It made her believe she was a failure...

"If you tell someone, I have to kill you. I'll see you tomorrow." She quickly whispered through her tears. Before anyone could do anything, she had grabbed some money from her bag and laid it on the table. She stood up, and with the speed of light dissappeared through the entrance door.

Ursula, Julius and Nosey couldn't do anything else than to stare at eachother, not knowing how to react on everything they had heard - and seen.

"Well..." Julius finally managed to say. "It's wasn't quite what I expected to hear..."

Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight
Oh darkness, oh darkness
Roll over me tonight
Rolling over, rolling over

-#-#-#-

Don't worry! This isn't the whole explanation, you'll get more in the next chapter! I've got the feeling that this chapter is a bit longer than the previous, and in general, I'm quite happy about it. I was planning on adding a LOT more, but I decided to seperate it and add it to the coming chapters. I hope Dee's story wasn't too long and/or boring. Admiral Freebee is, again, a belgian group that bring alternative rock. I'm not a really big fan of them, but I appreciate them and especially this song.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Was this update fast of what? Thanks for everyone who encouraged me with the previous chapter! You're in my heart!

Ciao! Xxx-Tisia