NRPG: I pieced this together as best I could. I had it written last night, then the power went out, and I lost most of it. :( It was better the first time, but here goes.
BTW, since this is so long, I'll give you the gist of it, so you don't have to wade through it if you don't want to. This is the (probably much anticipated - ha) break-up of Zenya and Valery.
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[St. Vincent's Hospital]
(Before the explosion in Chris's room)
Walking down the hallway toward Valery's room, Zenya was thinking about all of the damage Rebecca had done. She was frustrated, tired of Rebecca's games, but there was little to be done about that at the moment. The idea of having to wait for Rebecca to make the next move wasn't sitting well with any of them, which was probably just what the govonka wanted. Keep everyone looking over their shoulders so they wouldn't see the frontal attack when it came. Well, she'd gotten her way so far, Zenya thought, but next time, they would be ready for her.
Entering Valery's room, Zenya found the room empty, the bed stripped and Valery's things missing from the closet. Considering the pleasure he had been taking recently in playing the invalid, she found it difficult to believe that he would check himself out and leave the hospital unescorted, but she confirmed with the nurse's station that that was just what had happened.
*****
[Zenya's apartment]
She didn't go straight home. There was no good reason for lingering elsewhere, but something had just told her to stay away for a while and she felt like being alone anyway. So she'd gone back to work for a while, avoiding the office in favor of the firing range. The agent on duty there had given her a rather strange look when she used a copy of the sketch of Amanda in place of a target, but she really didn't care. A picture of Rebecca would have been even better, but she settled for what was convenient. She felt a little better after that, too - good enough to wander through a bookstore for a while without once thinking about anyone named Cross or Ericsson. She bought a John Irving novel, in hopes that it would be better than the last one she'd read, and a couple of cheap paperback romance novels she would never admit to anyone that she actually read.
It was dark when she finally got home. The first thing she noticed was that the dishes she had left on the kitchen counter that morning had been put away, which was highly unusual. Nothing in the place ever got cleaned or put away unless she was the one to do it. Still, it didn't seem the sort of thing a hostile intruder would do, so she didn't worry about it too much.
On the way down the hallway, she glanced into the spare bedroom, which served as guest room, study, and studio. There was a large box which hadn't been there before in the center of the room, and stacked on top of it were several canvases and sketch pads. So Zenya wasn't terribly surprised when she went into the bedroom and found Valery packing a suitcase. She stood in the doorway for a few minutes, watching him take his clothes from the closet and struggle to fold them with his one good arm.
"Do you need some help," she asked finally.
Valery stopped what he was doing, but didn't turn to look at her. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Doesn't matter." She took the shirt he was attempting to fold out of his hands, folded it for him and put it in the suitcase. "Were you going to leave a note at least?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have someplace to go?"
"I'll find someplace."
Zenya nodded. Typical of him. No plan, no idea what he was going to do, always assuming that things would just work out somehow. "I see. You're that desperate to get away from me?"
Valery actually smiled, and not in a particularly sarcastic way, but in fact rather tenderly. "It's nothing personal. It's just time to move on. For both of us."
Zenya surprised herself by not quite knowing what to think. After all, this was what she had been waiting for, wasn't it? For him to take the step she knew that she didn't have the courage to take. The timing worried her, though. At least, that's what she told herself when she said, "What if I asked you to stay?"
"Why," Valery asked. "Because you feel guilty? Or that you have some obligation to me?"
Thinking about that, Zenya stepped aside and allowed him to resume his packing, lending a hand when he was having trouble with it. "Yes," she said finally. "I do feel guilty. And I do feel that I owe you something. But I also think that we've been together too long to just walk away without talking about it."
Throwing the last of his clothes into his bag, he turned to face her. Something akin to rage was showing on his face. "What is there to talk about? Everything that needs to be said has been said. Zenya, you let that friend of yours shoot me. And then when I was - justifiably - upset about it, who did you defend?"
"I told you�"
"I don't want to hear it. Maybe you can understand it. I can't. But it's in the past, I'm all right, and I'm not going to worry about it anymore. What was it you said to me when we were talking about Shayla? I mean Amanda."
"That we would find her."
"Have you?"
"Yes, but she got away."
"Good. Does it surprise you to hear me say that?"
Zenya shook her head. "No, but I don't understand it. You want to forget about it and move on. I want to see justice done."
"It's more fundamental than that." He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. "What good would it do if you caught her and sent her to prison? Or if she ended up dead? What would that accomplish? Would that make you feel any better?"
"Yes."
Valery nodded. "I thought you would say that."
"You aren't the only person she hurt, Valery. And what about the next person? Do you want that on your conscience?"
"That implies that I have some sort of control over what she does. Or that you do. But you're forgetting something. Do you have any proof that Shayla had anything to do with the others, Agent Lee's fiancee or that little boy? No, but in your mind, you've already convicted her. You're presuming her guilty, which runs counter to everything you claim to believe in. Tell me, do you believe in anything anymore?"
"That's not fair," Zenya said. "Whatever my opinion is regarding her guilt or innocence has nothing to do with how the case is handled."
"How can it not? You are part of a corrupt system. That I suppose I could live with. But you're just as bad as the rest of them, with no regard for anything but that precious illusion you call justice. Do you even know what justice is? Or do you make it up as you go along? Could you kill another person?"
Finally, an easy question, Zenya thought. "Yes. If my life or someone else's was being threatened."
"How do you know? Have you ever fired your gun at someone?"
"Once." That shocked Valery into silence. Zenya could only shrug. "I know what your next argument is going to be, Vasha. What gives me that right? What makes my life, or anyone's, more important that anyone else's. I can't answer that."
"Maybe that's because deep inside, you know you're wrong," Valery said.
Zenya shook her head. "No, I'm not. That's one thing I am sure of."
The sound of a horn blaring outside cut through the tension. "That's probably my taxi."
"I'll help you with your things." Zenya stood up and reached for the suitcase.
"I'll do it myself," Valery said, jumping up to physically prevent her from helping.
With one last glance in his direction, Zenya went into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the water in the tub. The hot water did nothing to relax her tension, and the silence only brought recent events into sharper focus. She knew that she should probably cry or scream or just get angry, but that would have to come later, if at all. If anything, she was just a little bit melancholy. It was the end of an era, a long chapter in her life, and it was best for everyone that it was over.