Faster than anyone could possibly catch him, into the master bedroom where there are locks and chains and tough heavy things he can hurl against the walls and shatter into matchsticks. 

She lets him. Her hands itch at her sides. 

She lost control, that was far too much, she needs to leave. She needs to not be on this mission it's nowhere near worth it anymore. 

She gets up and makes the salve herself. Only bothers cleaning the blood off her hands and nothing else, so it doesn't contaminate anything. 

She lets him tire out, waits until the sounds slow in frequency and then stop completely. 

Opens the door slowly, moves gently, cannot speak for shame. 

Yeah, no, that door is locked and it's staying locked and if she tries to pick the lock or something he'll hold it closed hard enough to make the doorjamb creak until she goes away. 

He says nothing. He will not sob, he can't stop the tears but he can do that even if he has to squeeze so hard he might break something- 

-It iz not clear in fact if you are stronger than you are tough, if it will be any easier or harder for you to hurt yourself-

She's not coming in. It's done. 

She should just do her job. That's all he's going to do. 

It's very, very late at night when Shoaib receives a knock on the door. He's up immediately, naturally, and with a great deal of suspicion because no one should know about where he actually lives. 

Raina does. She's snooped. 

There are tears on her face, blood on her dress, her breath comes in great heaving sobs. 

"I have to- I have to go, I can't. I can't work the job- I miscalculated- Shoaib, he-" 

Damn. He really thought she'd fallen for the fake address. He lets go of his pistol. 

Somehow, Agent Khan is going to find herself sitting at his table holding something warm and steaming and very fragrant. 

It's a chilly evening, so naturally a regulation blanket has been acquired for the Agent's wellbeing. 

His voice is gentle, casual, but not much more so than it might be anyway on a good day. 

"Full situation report, please, Agent Khan." The familiarity is soothing. 

She tells him. She hates it, hates herself for not thinking of something else or something less painful or less harrowing for him, even as she tells Shoaib through sobs and tears and barely being able to breathe.

Each sip steadies her, just enough to continue. and when she reaches the end she can't fall silent. 

"I don't know how to fix him- He'll never forgive me; I'm compromised anyway I just- have to go. He shouldn't have to see me again." 

He was a little worried something like this would happen. 

He would be inclined to think that his fears were right - that this whole business was a dangerous distraction all along - but he's wiser than that, to seize on the first inkling that he was right all along. Fools who care more about flattering themselves than the truth get killed in the end. Khan's situation was genuinely a difficult call, and the Americans are supposed to be trained to withstand torture.

...Something else is going on here. 

He sips his own drink consideringly. 

"That is quite useful," he says finally. "Good work." In lieu of give her a hug, he will pour her more tea. He's not lying, he's very careful with his lies - the Americans are allies, yes, they are better than the alternative, yes, but there are not very many real friends in this game, and more information on Carter isn't nothing. And the clues on Lebedev... hmm.

It's time to make a call. Pull Khan and she might recover and go back to normal, but the mission is shot and relations with the USA might be in danger... No. She needs to stay.

He wishes he could tell himself it's definitely the best thing for her. It probably is, even! But that isn't, actually, why he's making this decision. If you're going to lie to everyone, you need to be very, very honest with yourself about things like that.

 "Agan isn't the first agent to suffer like this and he won't be the last. Give him some time, some routine, don't leave, that would only destabilise him even more. And it would put both of you in danger. We can manage this. Just another project complication. It doesn't actually hurt to have rumours go around that Agan likes that kind of thing, a lot of people like the ones he's pretending to be do. I don't know if you can fix him, Agent Khan, but I do know how you start. Go home. Do what you do best. Be yourself." 

She nods, more tears spilling from her eyes. She looks so small and fragile and breakable. Sometimes it's hard to forget that she's not really made for this life. She was made for pretty things and reading books and eating food with friends. And none of them have ever been so lucky.

She needs a hug. There's still blood on her dress. The blanket engulfs her. Her eyes look past whatever she's seeing

There's something almost indecent about seeing her like this. 

...

He moves silently and holds her, and says nothing. 

He's not sure how long he stays like that. It feels odd - off-script, out of line. 

When he sits down again, he could tell himself that she looks... better, maybe. Her gaze isn't fixed on nothing any more. 

"It's a different kind," he says quietly, "but this is not the first difficult thing you have overcome, Agent Khan."

The tears have been purged and she looks more steady. Her hands do not tremble when she reaches for the tea. 

It's always been one of her strengths. To allow herself to fall, to cry, to take a breath, and rise up with the same focus that's made her one of his youngest agents.

He pulled her out of an abyss and has seen more of her past than anyone else alive. He saved her. It's the first time he's ever mentioned it. She's been beyond grateful for him, she owes him everything, including her life. 

"It feels... harder. To know. To be awake for it." 

He's never before thought it would be a good idea to mention it. She seemed to benefit from having something else to think of, the work. 

Now... she's different, a little bit different. 

People do grow up, after all. 

"It does. But that doesn't mean it is harder. You will surprise yourself."

He scrubs his eyes - it's late, and he's not as young as he was, and this is not a conversation he had expected to ever have with Khan. "Sometimes, Khan, the only way out is through. Remember what I told you in training, about cover? You're going to slip, going to make mistakes, you're going to want to go back and undo them, but you can't. You have to go along with it. Easier to make people think they're right than that they're wrong. Same thing here - you can't undo it. You can't make it like you never hurt him, not even by running away. You have to make a world where he can live with it." 

Her eyes are big and wide as she looks at him. 

To create a world where he can live with it... She's supposed to be good at that, isn't she? He'd said as much, in some decidedly less pleasant terms.

But to be someone who can create a world like that, where he might feel safe again... it feels alien to be someone who might be capable of that. These are killer's hands, even if she was once a healer. 

He is hurt, like a wounded animal. He feels vulnerable, yes. He feels as though he can't trust her anymore - she wasn't allowed in. She must kneel to his level, speak soothingly, coax him out by showing that she is not a threat. 

By showing, maybe, that she understands. That she knows, even if she does not know everything, she knows that fear and the flash into the past that makes it so awful for her to be around people who handle her roughly.

She nods, standing. She wants to hide here, in Shoaib's surprisingly comfortable apartment, in his worn and well-loved blanket and his chipped mugs and surprisingly spicy tea.

But there is work to be done. 

It doesn't go well. 

When she returns he's-

There. Doing his job. He doesn't flinch when she comes in, his face is flushed a little pearly-red and his clothes are on a little awkwardly but his expression is neutral. 

He doesn't seem to see her as a threat. Doesn't look frightened around her. Doesn't look like much of anything around her. He says what he has to say professionally and he leaves crisply. He leaves crisply as soon as he can. But he doesn't run, doesn't move too quickly. 

He looks at her eyes but he doesn't really meet them. 

He won't speak of anything else. Trying to be soothing or gentle is like trying to argue with a stone wall. 

She is in the warehouse, waiting. 

For being apparently alone in a warehouse full of Yazmine's people - well, her business partners and clients and suppliers and hangers-on, at least - she doesn't look particularly nervous. Distinctly not nervous, in fact.

But she isn't lounging like a cat any more, either. There's a quietness, a stillness about her now, almost statuesque. 

She's in the cat's cradle, now. Raina has, on more than one occasion, been referred to as the alleycat. 

It's what Yazmin adopts here, amongst her men. Her furs look expensive and shelter her from the chill very nicely. 

Yazmin steps forward and sweeps up her hand, smiling, kissing the top with dew-soft lips. "Miss Lebedev; how lovely to see you again. Please, follow me."

Raina leads her into the artefacts storage, showing off the stranger things they've inherited from Usmaan, the things that make her feel like someone's - something's- gaze is pinned on the soft spot between her shoulderblades.

"Tell me, Madam, how is it that you came to be in this business?" Yazmin's voice is crisp as the air around them. She lingers over Lebedev's shoulder, smelling of orange blossoms and sandalwood. 

She turns her head a little towards Yazmine, smiling softly. She closes her eyes, pauses to savour that sweet-musky scent and the place on her hands where the other woman's kiss still wears her skin. 

It's so nice to meet a fellow player. She looks forward to seeing who wins. 

Perhaps they both will. 

But - she does have to set last night right. 

It should not be a problem. Cats can be forgiving, when there's enough in it for them.

And the girl has earned some trust, at least. 

"I suppose you could say I... married well. There are many powerful men in this world, than whom, I can take better care of their business - ah, this language is so strange sometimes, is it not?" She laughs lightly. "But perhaps you refer to these beautiful things." Her eyes are curious, a little exultant, and her voice drops. "How I know of them? Well. These things are secret, but I think you know now I can trust you. This world is very large, and very old, you know. There are many things the men of science cannot explain." Yet. "My family, we go back very long way. Remember teachings from older days, things out of books that were burnt. Scatterings. Old things the women learned in the snow at night in winter." In the stark archival lighting, her face almost glows, elegant cheekbones like a porcelain skeleton, beautiful and proud. "And a few, a very few, things from afar. My great-grandmother, she married a man who had seen the great Jingu temple in the Chinese jungles that they will tell you are only story. He knew many things. Told me, when I was a girl and he a dying old man, of these things." She raises a hand as though to trail fingers over a squat bronze statuette, but stops an inch short. "These are of an ancient cult, slaughtered by the British in their conquest. Not, ah, unpopularly, it must be said. They were not kindly people."

"The name, in English, would be, I think, 'White Lotus Order'."

A bell tolls somewhere in her consciousness, a door left ajar with the light on. It sounds familiar and unpleasant, like looking into a murky, glassy, black lake. No sight of the bottom or what lurks beneath it.

She wipes her face, hums with pleasure, drawing closer to Lebedev. "Tell me something I do not know, madam," she murmurs, coming close enough for her furs to brush against the front of Lebedev's breasts.

The tip of Yazmin's finger turns up her chin, the fingernail sharpened to a claw-like point. 

She half-closes her eyes, lets out a breath. 

"Mm."

For a moment she just allows the sensation to wash through her. The tension is delicious, the feather-light touch of the fur like electricity over sensitive skin, the delightful fire in the other woman's eyes. 

"Now you speak my language," she murmurs. "You do not know... hmm. You do not know that your mysterious weapon supplies come from Ivan Serov directly, it is his project. You do not know what he wants. You do not know that this is not a popular policy of his. And there are other things you do not know, more important things, I think."

Yazmin's fingers slip around her jaw and hold it in a vice-like grip as she bears forward, pressing her into the wall.

"If you have nothing for me, Miss Lebedev," she purrs, a cruel glint in her eye, "I may have to reconsider our partnership." 

"Ah!"

She lets her head fall back, eyes fluttering shut, and her hands come up to rest on Yazmin's hips as though to draw her closer - her touch is surprisingly warm, thumbs running up under the lining of her fur coat. 

Her breathing is faster now, green eyes glittering like snowflakes. 

"My dear," she whispers, "I have so much for you. Are you going to take it?"

Yazmin's laugh is dark, carried on a carrion wind, as she fastens a hand in that luscious red hair and pulls, harshly enough that the pain stays just this side of comfortable.

She's not someone who inflicts pain without reason. Usually.

But she cannot stop seeing the blood on Carter's back. The way his eyes look through her, the way he shook and didn't seem to realise he was trembling. The screaming she heard that she's not sure if he heard. 

This never makes it to her face, of course. All Lebedev sees is the exquisite half-moon of her mouth, glowing eyes that hold more suffering than she could know. 

She lets Lebedev see the monster. The slave. The nightmare.

The back of her hand strikes that porcelain skin, just hard enough to sting, not enough to leave a mark.

"I am not in the habit of being gentle." 

Her eyes glow in the half-light like a fire revealed, so alive, exultant. 

She is not afraid, she does not flinch, the blow makes her cheeks flush and the heat pool in the pit of her stomach. 

She stares straight at the monster and the slave and the nightmare and- she lights up with a smile, wonder in her eyes. Her fingertips find the hem of Yazmin's clothes, play light patterns over her skin that will make her shiver and erupt into goosebumps, beginning to play lower and lower. She moans, she laughs, "I knew you would not disappoint me."

And then all of a sudden her hands come up and fist themselves in Yazmin's hair and she kisses this fascinating woman fiercely, searingly, teeth grazing her gently as she tilts her head back-

It's over in a dizzying second, but something uncommonly warm remains on Yazmin's lips like honey. Galina's hair blazes red like sunset and her eyes green like the sea, colours richer and deeper than they were before. 

Her thumb sweeps across the other woman's cheek. The pressure on her jaw is delightful, the crescent marks left by those razor fingernails stinging wonderfully as she stares. 

"Well done," her voice is suddenly gentle. "But you have two hands. Like this..." 

She kisses her again.