"It's me," Hei called out before the door had even shut behind him. He turned the deadbolt and slid the security chain into place, then slipped off his shoes and hung his jacket on the peg next to Misaki's.

It had been a long, tiring night on patrol in a freezing wind. All he wanted now was a hot shower and then to curl up in bed next to Misaki.

He glanced into the living room. It was empty.

That wasn't terribly surprising; he'd noticed from the street that the bedroom light was on as well, so she was probably working in there.

But it wasn't like her to not answer him right away. She couldn't be asleep; she would have turned the light off first.

A pinprick of worry stabbed at his mind. "Misaki?"

"I'm in here," she called from the bedroom.

He relaxed at the slightly distracted sound of her voice. He could picture her in his mind, her laptop resting on her knees while she focused intently on the screen, only half aware of the world around her.

But something was still needling him; something was out of place. Wrong.

A knot of tension formed between his shoulder blades. He scanned the room again, more carefully this time. His hand didn't actually drift towards the knife that he kept at the small of his back, but the slightest sound or movement would have him drawing it in an instant.

His gaze swept past the bookcase beside the sofa and some subconscious signal sent up a warning flag. He locked his eyes onto the second shelf down: Misaki's criminal justice textbook was now shelved to the left of their Messier catalog rather than the right.

Hei crossed the room in just a few long strides and pulled the textbook from the shelf, rapidly flipping to page 201. His fake birth certificate was there, still pressed neatly between pages 201 and 202, along with Misaki's real one.

Despite the small sigh of relief that escaped him, he frowned.

Had he hidden anything else here? No, he didn't think so; and he was usually pretty good at remembering where he put things. So why had the book been handled if nothing had been taken? Misaki never actually used this textbook; that was why he'd chosen it for concealment of those sensitive materials.

Nothing had been removed…so someone must have taken a photo. Who? And why? Could someone from his past be on his trail again? It was too sloppy for a Syndicate-trained operative. Russian FSB, perhaps?

What else had been compromised?

Heart in his throat, Hei rushed into the kitchen and yanked open the utensil drawer. He felt blindly beneath it: the manila envelope that he'd taped to the bottom was still there.

Ripping it off, he could tell from the weight – or lack thereof – that it was empty.

Misaki obviously hadn't noticed that anyone had been in their apartment, or she would have called him right away. Certainly she would've sounded worried when he'd gotten home, rather than her usual distracted-by-work self.

Empty envelope in hand, he practically ran to the bedroom.

Misaki was already in her pajamas, sitting up in bed with her laptop in her lap. Her hair was down, draping across one shoulder and partially hiding her face. She didn't look up at his entrance, but rather kept her gaze focused on the screen and held up one hand.

"Misaki, did -" he began before his brain registered what she was holding in her hand.

His passport. Hers was resting on the folds of the sheet beside her.

"Oh," he said.

"It took me three tries to find the right hiding place," she said in tones of slight annoyance. When she glanced up at him, however, guilt was written across her face. "I'm sure I didn't get everything put back properly; I'm sorry. I just couldn't remember where all the different things were supposed to go."

The tension finally fled from his muscles, and his shoulders relaxed with relief. He dropped the empty envelope onto his bedside table. "That's okay. I'll fix it all tomorrow. You checked the book and the drawer – what else?"

"Underneath the sofa. I didn't take that envelope out; once I found it I could tell that the size was wrong for passports."

Hei settled on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss her; her lips were wonderfully warm, especially after spending all evening alone in the cold.

"Our tax forms are in that one."

Misaki gave him a wry look. "And why are we hiding those, again?"

"They have personal identifying information – an operative could wreak havoc with that."

"Hm. You would know."

"Ask me about Manila sometime."

Misaki snorted. "How was patrol?"

"Cold. I staked out the warehouse district until after one, but our guy was a no-show."

"Well, it was a longshot anyway." Misaki pressed a hand against his cheek. "Your skin is freezing; go jump in the shower and warm up."

Hei caught her hand and nibbled at the tips of her fingers. "I don't need a shower to warm up…"

Her eyes darkened and her breath hitched, but she drew her hand back and said with a teasing smile, "I need to finish this up. Go take a shower."

It wasn't until he was halfway through his steaming hot rinse that it occurred to him to ask the obvious question.

"Why did you need our passports?" he said when he returned to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. The passports were now sitting on Misaki's bedside table; she, however, was still focused on whatever she was working on with her laptop.

Hei dropped the towel and found his flannel pajama bottoms in the dresser drawer. Misaki still hadn't answered him. Tugging on the pajamas, he turned to see her watching him. Instead of the hungry gaze that she usually wore while watching him change, however, her expression was…thoughtful.

"What is it?" he asked in confusion.

Misaki set her laptop aside and hugged her knees to her chest. Her legs were bare beneath the pair of boxers – his boxers – that she always wore to bed.

"I was just thinking," she told him, smiling warmly. "If you'd told me two years ago, when we first started working together, that someday we'd end up here…I still can't really fathom it."

Hei climbed onto the bed and scooted over beside her. Misaki nestled comfortably under his arm.

"I mean," she continued, trailing her hand along the long scar that ran beneath his ribs, "that first glimpse I caught of you in the middle of that deserted street, in your black coat and white mask…you were so creepy, and a little terrifying." She squeezed his thigh. "And here you are now, in the flannels I bought you for Christmas. Not even the slightest bit terrifying."

Hei smiled. "What, they're comfortable. I only need to be terrifying to contractors." He paused. "Wait, what street?"

"In that industrial park by the river. Where your team ambushed us while we were escorting the forfeiter to headquarters, from the airport."

"When we grabbed Carmine? You were there?"

Hei had never gone anywhere near the cars, of course; his job had been to lure the MI-6 contractors away from Carmine. He had known that the escort had been comprised of both MI-6 and Section Four; that was the first time he'd run across either team. But at that point he hadn't known Misaki even existed, aside from seeing her name in a Syndicate briefing once.

Had she really been there that night, that close to him? What would he have done if she'd leapt out of the car to pursue him instead of that contractor?

Misaki snorted. "We were working with a foreign team to oversee the transfer of a highly dangerous contractor – of course I was there."

"Huh."

"Like I said. Crazy to think about, right? Two years ago I was trying to hunt you down; then I was wondering whether trusting you was going to turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life…and now we're planning our honeymoon."

"Yeah." Hei pulled her closer and rested his cheek against hers. "I still keep expecting to wake up from a dream. Wait, honeymoon – is that why you needed the passports?"

Misaki sat up straight, her eyes bright. "Yes – I've solved our honeymoon problem!"

"I didn't realize we had a problem," Hei said, bemused and immediately missing her warmth when she leaned over to retrieve her laptop.

"Of course we had a problem – where to go."

"I told you, I'm perfectly happy just staying home…" Hei hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her and the laptop back in close.

"I know. But if I'm going to take an actual week off from work, I want to go somewhere. I've never left the country before, and now I have a world traveler to show me the ropes – I intend to take full advantage of that."

"And like I said, anywhere you want to go is fine with me. You were talking about Seoul, right? Where's the problem?"

"The problem is Busan, and the raid on that secure compound you told me about. And the dozen other jobs you did while you were in region. I know it'll bother you, seeing all those familiar streets and having to be reminded of that time."

"I mean, of course it will, a little. But that happens here too. It's okay. I'm used to it."

"Yes, but it's our honeymoon. I want you to be completely happy and not think about any of that."

Hei kissed her forehead. "I'll be with you. I won't be thinking about anything else."

Misaki continued as if she hadn't heard him. "And we have the same problems with Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong. You vetoed Bangkok even though you won't tell me why –"

Hei shifted uncomfortably. "That's just…a bad idea."

"I hadn't even thought of the Philippines, but apparently that's out as well. And Xi'an is just going to be complicated, right now."

"Most of those places would be fine –" Hei began, but Misaki frowned.

"Hei, this trip is supposed to be about us. I don't want you to be haunted by bad memories on every corner, or to be constantly looking over your shoulder because you're worried about someone recognizing you. So I found a solution." She turned the laptop towards him. "Spain!"

"Spain?"

Misaki beamed. "I just booked the plane tickets to Madrid. You said you've never been to Europe before. And I've always wanted to see that part of the world. We can spend the week touring the country, see all the historic places and museums; maybe visit a few vineyards."

Spain. Hei knew nothing about the country. The Syndicate had never had much of a European presence outside of the UK. And given his background, they'd kept his posts largely confined to Asia.

He'd never heard much about Spain's intelligence system either; that probably meant that they didn't rely heavily on contractors. That was good. He could afford to be a bit more relaxed than usual in that case.

"What do you think?" Misaki asked, a note of apprehension slipping into her voice.

"I don't know Spanish," was the first thing it occurred to him to say.

She smiled. "I know – neither do I. We can learn it together; and we can make up the difference with English, I'm sure."

A country he'd never been to before, with no threats of counterintelligence looming over his head; no memories besides the pleasant new ones that he would make with Misaki….

He kissed her, as always touched by her thoughtfulness. "It sounds perfect. But what makes you think we'll have any time to see the country?"

"No time? We'll be on vacation; I promise I won't even check my email the whole week. I already have the first three days planned: Madrid, Toledo, Sevilla…"

Hei shut her laptop, hiding away the Spanish tourism website that she'd had open.

"I hope you found good hotels. Because we won't be leaving the room."

A smile tugged at the corners of Misaki's mouth, though Hei could tell she was trying to hide it.

"We won't? What will we be doing?"

He proceeded to show her, the chill of the night and the worry when he'd arrived home long forgotten in a blaze of warmth.

6