Even Death Can't Keep Us Apart

Chapter 8

"Would you press this for me? Thank you." James said, walk to Vesper's compartment. He knocked and entered her compartment, sitting across from her.

"Pick it up." He said, putting a gun on the table in front of her.

"I know how to use a gun. I'm a 00, as well, remember?" She replied, not touching the weapon in front of her.

"I know that, but you also said that you haven't been on an assignment in three years." He said.

"I did not say three years! My last assignment was only a few months ago." She said slightly offended, then an idea seemed to come to her, "What if I shoot you?" She said, a playful smirk on her red lips.

"Wouldn't be the first time you've endangered my life." He said, remembering their close calls in Montenegro. "Pick it up, please."

"Like I said, I know how to use a gun. I don't think I can forget in a few months. Christ, I forgot how stubborn you are." She said. She picked up the gun, and faster than James could believe, removed the magazine, removed the bullet from the chamber, cocked it, and shot the blank.

"MI6 doesn't teach that. Where'd you learn?" James asked, staring at her.

"My father. He was an avid hunter, and wanted his daughter to know how to protect herself, he taught me to shoot when I was eight. "

"I think I'll skip hand to hand combat." He said, smirking at her. Her lips quirked up into a slight smile.

"Who taught you? I don't believe MI6 taught you everything." She said, having the same look she had on the train to Montenegro on her face. Slightly judgmental, a bit curious, and entirely mysterious.

"You're right." He said, smirking at her.

"I usually am. Who taught you?" She said, a slightly smug smirk on her lips.

"The gamekeeper at my childhood home. My father died before he got the chance too." He said.

"How old were you when they died? Your parents, I mean." She asked, genuinely curious now.

"I was eleven. I don't remember a lot about it, just going with my aunt to claim their bodies." He said, looking as if he was remembering a detached memory.

"How much of them do you remember?" She asked.

"Not as much as I would've wished. I remember my father teaching me to climb, and my mother singing to me in French."

"Was she French?"

"Sort of, she was Swiss but spoke French."

"Mine did too, she was French. Taught me a little bit of it. After they died, I went to live with my father's parents and spent the summers with my other grandmother in France." She said.

"Can you still speak French?" He asked.

"Not as fluently as when I was younger, but proficiently. I still remember the phrases my mum used to tell me." She replied.

"What about you? How did yours die?" James asked her.

"When I was ten, a man came to our house, he shot my mother, and my father shot him, but he got away. Then my father put the pistol in his own mouth and pulled the trigger. He didn't know I could see through the crack in my bedroom door." She said.

"I'm sorry. That must have been hard." James said sympathetically.
She nodded in thanks, perhaps to ingrained in the memory to respond verbally.
"Would you like to join me for dinner tonight? For old times sake?" He asked.

That seemed to wake her from her thoughts. She appeared to think about it for a moment, before saying, "I think that would be lovely." Before adding, "For old times sake, of course." A smirk on her lips.

"7:30 in the dining car?" He asked.

"I'll be there."