"After this next," he said, fever-hot hand clasping tightly to
hers as they walked, "it'll be better."  He didn't look at her, but that
wasn't an insult; his eyes, almost painfully blue, searched the street
subtly but constantly as they walked.  He wasn't one to compromise that
kind of watch for the sake of familiarity.  Instead, a fervent tone
underscored his words as well as eye contact could - and a rare moment of
plain emotion did far more.

	If she gave any overt sign of noticing it, though, she knew it
would end. So instead she shifted her hold a little on the bag of Chinese
take-out that occupied her free hand, plastic crackling and ruffling in
the wind, and let the tightening of her other hand on his pass as an
unconscious echo of the gesture.  They both knew it was more; that didn't
matter - what mattered was the mask, the game, the excuse.

	She was so tired of masks.

	It had been more than half a year since she'd heard anyone speak
her real name but him, and that rarely, even in privacy.  They could
never, after all, be completely sure.  Even the names they /did/ use for
one another changed all too frequently.  In the last six months, she'd
been Sarah, Jennifer, Melissa, Amy, Kimberly ... right now it was back to
Sarah again, and likely to stay that way at least for the next week.
Sarah she didn't mind so much, and it was in the ten most common girls'
names for a couple of years either side of her birth year.  So was
Michelle - but they'd made an unspoken pact never to use that one.

	"Quiet," he added after half a block of silence.  "Don't believe
me?"

	"Didn't realize you were finished," she replied.  "Usually you go
on for at /least/ ten or fifteen minutes before letting me get a word in
edgewise."  She loved to listen to his voice, though she'd never have
admitted it.  Sometimes he was the only thing that seemed to make sense in
this crazy country - after six years in England, America seemed too loud,
too gaudy, too different.  It grated on her now and then.  So did he, but
in an entirely more welcome way.  "Besides.  It won't be better, and you
know it.  We'll have to reorganize the entire business, get everyone used
to paying attention to a complete stranger - or, worse, someone they
already know and hate - and it'll still be three years before we're out of
the -"

	He stopped right there, on the verge of stepping into the
crosswalk, and timed the pull on her hand artfully to bring her around to
face him.  And now he /was/ looking at her, the brilliant clear blue of
his eyes burning the next word right out of her head, his left hand coming
up to rest high on her arm and bar the rest of the world away for a
moment.  "- David!" she managed to half-whisper, taken aback by the
gesture at all, let alone by its intensity.  "What, can't you wait till
we're inside?"

	He ignored the protest, leaning down to kiss her on the lips -
brief, but intense enough to leave her breathless.  She almost dropped the
bag of take-out.  Something in the back of her mind wondered whether he'd
be able to keep up that degree of focus later; the rest of her was too
busy either being stunned, or trying to figure out what had prompted it in
the first place.  He almost never kissed her where anyone else could see.
Almost never.

	"Three years," he murmured to her, "till our bit's done with,
yeah.  But it won't all be on us anymore.  Be able to rest up a bit
between times.  Have a little time to ourselves, catch up on the last few
years' worth of sleep -" his grin was sudden and wicked and her heart
leapt into her throat - "and not sleepin'... it'll make all the
difference, Kitty.  You'll see."  His fingertips drew light, warm lines
across  her shoulder, then lifted to trace over her cheek.

	Her heart almost stopped.  He'd said her name.  There, on the
street.  She could barely breathe; it took an effort to draw in air.
"You're out of your mind," she whispered finally.  "You really are.  Come
on - let's get back to the room -"

	He acquiesced silently, bending his head to kiss her quickly again
before glancing up and starting to snarl at the light for changing on
them.  She relaxed a little; that was the surly Englishman she knew and
loved.  (She'd given up trying to fool herself about what she felt for him
years ago; but that was another of the things they never spoke about.)
And she walked with him back to the hotel room without any more strange
behavior on his part.

	When they arrived - well.  The take-out was long cold by the time
they got around to it, but neither of them minded.  Nor was that the last
of the attention they paid one another.  He'd long ago set the rule that
one day a month they would do no work, honor no responsibilities,
acknowledge no emergencies - that one day a month they would reserve for
themselves; this one was as memorable as any.

	It was, in fact, more memorable than quite a few.  Not so much as,
say, the first time she'd invited him back to her room - but tonight,
every time he touched her, whether in the midst of sex or just handing her
a carton of rice, there was something of a promise in it.  Every time he
glanced at her, he seemed to speak silently:  it /will/ be better; believe
in it.  Believe in me, the way you believed it was worth coming after me
that first time, years ago, when you barely knew who I was.  Believe that
everything I've ever said to you, everything I've ever done or offered or
hinted at, is only the beginning.  Believe in what I haven't said.

	Every time he spoke her name, it was Kitty.  Never Sarah.  Never a
mask.

	Late that night, she nestled warm and secure in his arms, and
considered the evening.  It still seemed ... strange.  Their casual banter
had held a different tone, unaccustomed - if he'd been anyone else, she'd
have said apologetic, but not /him/.  He never apologized.  Certainly not
for simply being himself.  And when they touched ... the look in his eyes.

	Affection she understood, lust, pain, laughter, cynicism, hunger,
rare moments of playfulness, flashes of the fire of belief, the prized
instants when they were thinking together so much in tune that one would
speak the other's thoughts ... but this wasn't any of these.  Much more
like -

	"I'll make it up to you, Kitty," he whispered, drawing her gently
closer against his chest.  She could feel his ribs, could've counted them
if she cared to; ducking her head a few inches would've let her hear his
heartbeat.  "All of it.  I swear."

	- worship?  Yes.  That.

	And if he was setting masks aside ...

	She didn't think about it.  She couldn't.  It was too much to
encompass all at once, and in the morning there would be work to do again.
She only twisted in his arms, wrapping herself into an embrace about him
in return, and loved him as fiercely and silently as she could.  Perhaps he
could tell.  Perhaps he was only tired.  Either way, he said nothing more.

	"I believe you," she whispered silently, finally, and his hold on
her eased.  No, no more words.  They didn't need them.  And they drifted
off to sleep together, to dream perhaps of better times to come.

	If he had only lived - surely they would have come.  If only.
Instead, in the end, she turned their work over to a stranger, and made
herself one more mask, intending to wear it forever:  this one, out of the
only thing she had left of him.

	His name.