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jedibuttercupT; The Amateur (2025); Charles Heller & Inquiline. 200w, for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bethefirst.
Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing.
Title: send not to know for whom the bell tolls
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Spoilers: The Amateur (2025)
Notes: For the tenth round ofbethefirst: a missing scene from The Amateur, because I had just seen the movie, and that scene stuck with me. Titled from the poem by John Donne.
Summary: Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing. 200 words.
Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing. A little late, but then, that's not exactly a first for him, is it?
Sharing how she'd come to be Inquiline. Telling him that she'd stopped running. Crawling into his bed after they got Blazhic just to spend one more night unalone. Even back before London: sending him that tranche of very incriminating files about his own boss. She'd been telling him that she was already on borrowed time, and that helping him was her way of choosing something other than a long fall out of another window.
Guilt's not a rational emotion. But neither is the unexpected resonance that had brought them together in the first place: the ex-KGB officer's widow turned informant and the widowed CIA cryptographer turned vigilante. Charlie knows he can't let this fresh loss freeze him in his tracks; can't stick around to make sure she doesn't become just another Jane Doe. But there are a couple of things he can do.
He brushes a gentle hand over her hair, presses a grateful kiss against the crown of her head.
Then he gets out of the car to make sure her last gift-- and Sarah's-- isn't wasted.
(x-posted @ AO3)
bethefirst.Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing.
Title: send not to know for whom the bell tolls
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Spoilers: The Amateur (2025)
Notes: For the tenth round of
bethefirst: a missing scene from The Amateur, because I had just seen the movie, and that scene stuck with me. Titled from the poem by John Donne.Summary: Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing. 200 words.
Charlie's figured it out, what she'd been doing. A little late, but then, that's not exactly a first for him, is it?
Sharing how she'd come to be Inquiline. Telling him that she'd stopped running. Crawling into his bed after they got Blazhic just to spend one more night unalone. Even back before London: sending him that tranche of very incriminating files about his own boss. She'd been telling him that she was already on borrowed time, and that helping him was her way of choosing something other than a long fall out of another window.
Guilt's not a rational emotion. But neither is the unexpected resonance that had brought them together in the first place: the ex-KGB officer's widow turned informant and the widowed CIA cryptographer turned vigilante. Charlie knows he can't let this fresh loss freeze him in his tracks; can't stick around to make sure she doesn't become just another Jane Doe. But there are a couple of things he can do.
He brushes a gentle hand over her hair, presses a grateful kiss against the crown of her head.
Then he gets out of the car to make sure her last gift-- and Sarah's-- isn't wasted.
(x-posted @ AO3)
