Chapter Text
It’s not often the doorbell rings unexpectedly.
Gemma’s doorbell ringing typically signals one of a few options. Sometimes, it’s the postman leaving a package Gemma has ordered (online shopping is her worst vice). Sometimes, it’s one of the neighbors to ask if Gemma will water their plants while they go away (of course she will!). Most of the time, when the doorbell rings, it’s a colleague or a girlfriend Gemma has invited over, so she has someone else to share her baked goods with, and so Pompom can see another human from time to time (he does love her, but everyone needs variety, even cats).
It’s even rarer that the doorbell rings ten minutes past midnight.
The first ring wakes her, though Gemma assumes she must have dreamt the sound, and rolls over, trying to go back to sleep. The second ring comes about a minute later. The third, about ten seconds after that. At least it’s not a school night. She rolls out of bed and reaches for a bathrobe, which she knots tightly as she slips down the stairs. She tries to tread lightly so as not to wake Pompom, but the bell must’ve done it – he’s already waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, eager to see who the visitor is.
As a woman living alone, Gemma is not oblivious to the dangers of the world; in fact, she’s experienced a few brushes with death, herself. Not that the neighbors would ever believe if she told them. So when the doorbell rings unexpectedly, she’s wary.
“Don’t worry,” she murmurs to Pompom. “I’ve got pepper spray just here.” She keeps a canister on the small table by the door, so she remembers to take it when going out, but it’s also easily accessible in case a murderer should show up on her doorstep.
Gemma takes a deep breath, unlocks the deadbolt, and pries the door open slowly to get a look at who has decided to drop by at midnight.
“Eve!” squeaks out of her mouth instinctively, before she even processes the sight. But there she is – Eve Polastri. Niko’s wife. Gemma met her twice, two occasions she recalls quite distinctly. She hasn’t seen Eve in the flesh since then, but has to admit Eve has crossed her mind a few times… rarely in a pleasant context.
The other person at the doorstep is quite familiar to Gemma, as well. How could she forget the woman who threatened her life and locked her in a storage unit? Villanelle. That’s the name, she knows it, though she can’t bring herself to say it aloud so easily.
“Wonderful to see you, Gemma,” Villanelle answers with a bouncy tone. “May we come inside?”
Gemma grasps the door before her like a shield. Her gaze flicks between Villanelle and Eve. One cheery, one sulking. Neither offers anything in the way of further explanation of why they’re together, or why they’re at Gemma’s after midnight, or why they’re at Gemma’s at all.
After a few seconds, Eve turns to Villanelle. “Told you,” she mutters. “This was a stupid idea. Let’s get out of here before the neighbors see.”
“I… Um…” Gemma stammers. “I’m a bit asleep on my feet, that’s all, but of course you two can come in.” The words come out of her mouth by force of habit. It’s not polite to leave visitors out on the doorstep, so late at night.
The oddity of the situation brings the persistent feeling that she’s still dreaming. And if it’s a dream, there’s no harm in letting them in. It wouldn’t be the first time either of these women had appeared in Gemma’s dreams, she has to admit… Each of them had a sort of profound effect on Gemma’s life, considering how little she’d seen them, before. So it made sense that they snuck into her subconscious. Unresolved feelings, or a lack of closure, perhaps. Maybe inviting them in for some midnight tea in a dream was her subconscious’s way of manufacturing that closure.
Gemma swings the door fully open to allow them in. She pretends not to notice as both Eve and Villanelle’s eyes obviously drop to her stomach. She steps aside and ushers them in, pulling her robe tighter, as if that will hide the curve of her belly.
“Kitchen’s that way.” She points. “I can make you a cuppa, if you like.”
“Shall we take off our shoes?” Villanelle asks.
“I don’t mind either way.”
Villanelle kicks off her shoes – expensive-looking black boots. Eve leaves hers on. For the first time, Gemma makes note of their clothing. Villanelle’s got a striking mustard-yellow sort of cloak on, though she’s untying it at the moment, and hangs it on the coat rack by the door. Underneath, a black sleeveless sweater. Eve’s in a simple winter coat, which she appears to have no intention of removing.
Gemma leads the way into the kitchen, and the others follow. Gemma, Villanelle, Eve, with Pompom bringing up the rear. An odd little train.
While the kettle rattles away, Eve and Villanelle make themselves comfortable at the kitchen table. At least, Villanelle looks rather comfortable stretching out and putting up her socked feet on one of the other chairs. Eve looks ready to bolt at any moment. They aren’t very chatty while waiting for the water to boil.
After placing a cup of tea in front of each of them, Gemma goes to the last free chair and pulls it out, far, then perches on the edge. She waits for one of them to speak.
She waits a long time.
Finally, Villanelle breaks the silence. “How far along are you?”
“Erm,” It takes a few moments for Gemma to find the answer to the simple yet unexpected question. “Twenty-nine weeks.”
Villanelle smiles then bends over her tea, letting the steam waft into her face.
“Is there a man?”
Eve’s question, also simple, sends a chill down Gemma’s spine.
“Obviously there was a man, at some point,” Eve goes on. “I guess I mean to ask, are you with someone… Is there anyone else here?” She gestures towards the ceiling.
“No,” Gemma says quickly. “It’s just me and Pompom.” At the sound of his name, the cat pads over and nuzzles up against Gemma’s leg.
“Alright.” Eve seems satisfied at this answer. Villanelle looks up from her miniature steam-bath, and gives a little nod to Eve. Though tiny, this clearly loaded gesture sends Gemma over the edge.
“What’s going on with you two?” The question that’s altogether too much and not enough.
“Nothing,” Eve responds, almost instantly.
“We just need a place to stay for a little while.”
“You want to stay here?”
“Lay low for a little while. Not long,” Villanelle says, eyes widening. “Just two, or twelve weeks.”
“And you came to me. Of all people.”
Eve and Villanelle exchange a knowing look. An oddly knowing look. Of course, it’s odd that they’re here at the same time, together, at all, but then again, based on what Niko confirmed, is it that odd?
Gemma lays her palms on the table. “Are you in danger?”
“No…” Eve says. “It’s more of a… complicated… It’s hard to explain.”
Hard to explain, indeed. The wife of her old coworker, her friend… and, perhaps in some ways more than a friend… shows up on her doorstep at midnight, along with an assassin, (yes, assassin, Niko confirmed as much!) who met Gemma in disguise one night and later nearly killed her and Niko. No danger at all. Does Eve think she’s a total idiot?
“Do you think I’m a total idiot?” Gemma covers her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Villanelle laughs, while Eve stammers a series of syllables that are not, in fact, words of the English language.
“Look. You don’t need to go into details, not right now… But if you’re in trouble…” Gemma bites her lip. It’s risky, but… doesn’t she owe Eve, even if Eve doesn’t know it? “You can stay here for a bit.”
* * *
Gemma has always loved playing hostess, it’s true. For his part, Pompom is incredibly excited at the prospect of overnight visitors, which makes sense, since Gemma hasn’t had anyone stay in… how long has it been? Her parents were in town around ten months ago. Before all this started… before she’d met Villanelle and Eve.
They’ve still offered no formal explanation for why they’re together or what brought them to Gemma’s house, which leaves her to speculate on her own while she makes up the guest bed. If she strains her ears, she can hear them conferring in hushed tones downstairs, but it’s rude to eavesdrop, and besides… she can’t quite make out the words anyway.
Gemma’s left to privately speculate on what brought Eve and Villanelle to her. She recalls the day she met Eve. Which, oddly enough, happened to be the day she met Villanelle. The two incidents live rather separately in her head, since it wasn’t until several weeks later, in the storage unit, that she learned the true identity of “Kim”, the suspiciously friendly new teacher she met in the stairwell.
Gemma’s making up the guest bed to host an assassin. As if this isn’t strange enough, this particular assassin, aside from one particular occasion when she locked her and Niko in a tiny room with no way out, has been rather kind to Gemma. The situation is certainly bizarre enough to be a dream, and yet the longer Gemma’s on her feet, the less she can cling to that belief. Perhaps the most alarming part of this non-dream is that Gemma is significantly less bothered by the assassin’s presence in her house, than by Eve’s.
Eve, who didn’t seem to be a big fan of Gemma’s before, and now…
Gemma shakes the thought off as she smacks the pillows together to fluff them properly. As she places them back at the head of the bed, she hears the creak of footsteps treading up the stairs.
“Cute.” Villanelle says as she takes in the guest room.
Eve grunts something that sounds like, “ruffles”, then steps inside and tests the springiness of the mattress.
“I made up the bed, you should be comfortable here.” Gemma’s about to head for the door, then freezes.
She’s just offered two adult women one bed. Albeit a queen-sized bed, but with no prior indication that they’d care to share it. Too late, Gemma’s past-midnight brain realizes she for some reason assumed Eve and Villanelle are a couple.
“Couch!” She squeaks, a bit too loud.
Eve and Villanelle stare blankly at her.
“I can also make up the couch if you’d like. For one of you…” Gemma’s face warms with embarrassment. Why on Earth would she put herself in this situation? Why did her brain leap to the conclusion that she was welcoming a romantic pair, when in fact she’s acutely aware that Eve is already married, even if that marriage has been strained at times…
A small voice in the back of Gemma’s mind reminds her exactly why she believes they’re a couple. A fantasy. A dream that occurred once but never left her memory. Fervent touches in a stairwell, words exchanged that clearly had meaning to each other… She shakes off the memory. It was an unwanted dream, something clearly not sparked by reality. And certainly not a fantasy she’d revisited, once, or maybe twice since.
Eve and Villanelle exchange a look.
“I call dibs on the bed.”
“What?!”
But Eve’s protest is too late, Villanelle is already flopping onto the mattress. “If you wanted it, you should’ve called it.”
“I’m twenty years older than you, I shouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.”
“Well, I am sleeping in the bed. It’s up to you if you want to join me.”
Gemma decides to exit gracefully from the tension thick in the air and find sheets for the couch.
* * *
Back in her bedroom, Gemma is exhausted yet unable to fall asleep. Maybe she is asleep, after all, if this is all a dream.
She leans over and opens the drawer on her nightstand, pulling out the small notebook contained inside. She opens the cover. Words. If she can read her dream journal, that’s a sure confirmation she’s not dreaming right now.
Gemma is able to recall her dreams almost every night, thanks to actively practicing writing them down in her dream journal each morning. She picked up the habit from a lifestyle guru on some Facebook video, and thought it cheesy at first. Over time, she found it helped her to sort out her head first thing in the morning, so she kept it up.
Truthfully, there’s another reason Gemma has always been interested in dreams. In recording each one, she hopes that she won’t miss any detail, should one of the dreams be significant, as they have been for lucky few individuals, those who have a perfect fit, a destined love, another half waiting for them somewhere in the world.
The day you meet your soulmate, they shall appear in your dreams that night. So the saying goes. The phenomenon is rare enough that not everyone believes in it, and Gemma might not believe in it either, if not for her parents so often recounting the tale of when they realized their soulmate connection. The mere affirmation of the existence of soulmates is a comfort, as is her indulgent and unfounded belief that it might somehow run in the family, but if Gemma’s honest with herself… She’s rounding the corner on her thirties, single and pregnant. If she hasn’t met her soulmate by now, she probably doesn’t have one. Like most people.
It’s a blessing to be average, her grandmother used to say. Everyone wants to be special, but those who stick out get cut down to size. Gemma loved her grandmother very much. For that reason she hadn’t done much to renovate or even redecorate the house, so the space felt like it still had a bit of her grandmother in it.
She stows the journal back in its drawer and turns off the light.
As she curls on her side, and reaches for the extra pillow to tuck under her belly, she hears faint strains of conversation drifting through the wall from the guest bedroom. She’s not endeavoring to eavesdrop, but some words make it through clearer than others.
Paul… Barcelona… Train… Dasha… Twelve.
The phrases remind her of a particular entry in her dream journal… Not that any of it’s the same, but it fills her with a sense of deja vu… Before she can examine that thought too much, she drifts off to real sleep.
She doesn’t dream.
* * *
Gemma tiptoes down the stairs the next morning (much as she can; she doesn’t have many tiptoeing days ahead of her in this pregnancy, it seems), to find Eve curled up on the couch. Something must have happened after Gemma fell asleep, then, that made her end up downstairs.
She finds Villanelle awake in the kitchen, helping herself to some oatmeal and bananas. “Good morning,” Villanelle says, mouth full. “What are your plans for this fine day?”
“I have to go out, I’ll leave you a spare key if you need it… I’ll be gone most of the day.”
“Where are you going?”
“Doctor’s appointment,” Gemma says. “Then shopping. Need to get some more food, if there’s three mouths to feed for the foreseeable future.”
“You mean, four.” Villanelle raises an eyebrow.
Gemma forces her brightness up a notch. “I was wondering if you could tell me what Eve likes. I’d love to make her feel welcomed, you know?”
“You want Eve to feel ‘welcome’.”
“We don’t exactly have the most uncomplicated relationship.”
“What a long way of saying you wanted to sleep with her husband.”
“Shhh!” Gemma leans in close to the table, frantically hushing Villanelle. It’s not so much that that information is a secret, but that she doesn’t want Eve to wake to that. “Look, can you tell me what she might like for dinner?”
Villanelle has to think about it for a minute. “I don’t know. I don’t think Shepherd’s Pie would suit the mood.”
Gemma’s chest tightens. Her breath comes shallow. “I want the recipe to your Shepherd’s Pie.” That one phrase brings it all flooding back. She’s sitting across her kitchen table from the woman who held her at knifepoint and left her for dead.
“Not spaghetti.” Villanelle suddenly shatters the illusion. “You can’t make Eve spaghetti. I want to make Eve spaghetti.” She’s so full of consternation over pasta, it’s almost impossible to believe she’s a killer.
“Okay…” Gemma says, standing. “I suppose I’ll just get a chicken or something, then.”
Villanelle looks up at her, eyes wide. “Can you also get spaghetti?”
* * *
When Gemma returns, bags slung over her arms, both women are waiting for her. Villanelle helps Gemma unpack the groceries while Gemma cooks. It’s an odd sort of family dinner. They eat mostly in silence.
“So you had a sudden urge to be a mother, is that it?” Eve says. “Single mothering is in these days.” She speaks the question down at her plate, avoiding all eye contact.
“Not exactly,” Gemma says. “It wasn’t, erm, my plan.”
“How was the doctor?” Villanelle asks.
“Fine.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“No.”
“Old-fashioned, eh?” Villanelle chuckles.
“You could say that.” Gemma just wishes they’d get off the subject. Surely there must be anything else to talk about. Since everyone seems to be mostly finished, she rises.
“How about dessert?” Gemma says. “I’ve got a bit of cake left from the other day. Do you like chocolate, Eve?”
“Why are you being so nice?” Eve’s eyes narrow.
“I have the cake to spare, it’s really not a big deal,” Gemma replies with a nervous laugh.
“Not that.” Eve gestures around them vaguely. “All this. Letting us stay here, no questions asked.”
Gemma’s blood goes to ice. It was unclear, before, if Eve knew or not, since Eve seems to be a generally prickly person as far as Gemma can tell. Now, it’s becoming quite evident that Eve does not know. Apparently, Niko never told her before he moved back to Poland…
“I was brought up that way.” Gemma waves a hand and smiles, acting unnaturally natural.
“Any normal human would’ve kicked us out by now,” Eve says, rising from her chair and stalking closer. “No one’s this accommodating, or this stupid. Not even you.”
Gemma has to admit, her ego bruises a bit at that one. “What are you saying, Eve?”
“Innocent act won’t work on me; I’m intimately familiar with the signs. You’re hiding something.”
“Eve,” Villanelle cautions, from her seat.
“No, it’s alright,” Gemma says. Her pulse accelerates, and a surge of adrenaline rushes through her. She wonders if the baby can feel it, too. “Eve’s not entirely off base, there.”
“Ha!” Eve points. “I knew it. Are you with Carolyn? Or the Twelve? Who’s paying you?”
“What? I don’t know who any of those people are,” Gemma says.
“Don’t play dumb now.”
“I’m trying to tell you something!” Gemma snaps. “I… I slept with your husband.”
Eve doesn’t move a muscle. It’s like she’s buffering. Meanwhile, Villanelle lets out a hoot of a laugh. “No kidding! You sealed the deal after all?”
Eve closes her eyes, a strange calm on her face.
“Eve? Did you hear what I said?”
“When?”
“What?”
“When did this happen?” Eve says. “When he stayed here? Were you and Niko lying to my face?”
“No! I would never,” Gemma says.
“Then when? Was it after we sold the house?”
“Er…” Gemma says. “Probably a few months before that…”
Eve opens her eyes, and her face finally twists into anger.
Too late, Gemma realizes she’s an absolute flaming moron, and her hand subconsciously went to her stomach. But Eve would’ve gotten there eventually, regardless.
“No,” Eve says. “No fucking way.”
“That’s Niko’s?” Villanelle exclaims. She looks back and forth between Eve and Gemma, enraptured, like she’s watching a movie.
“It was a terrible mistake we made in dire circumstances,” Gemma says. “And at first, I didn’t even… I wasn’t going to… He was married– Why am I even– You know that, God, I’m stupid, and anyway, I kept thinking about how could I possibly tell him, I mean, he was in a fragile mental state after what happened to him – to us–” Gemma pauses, her words choking off as she feels Villanelle’s gaze heavy on her skin. “More than that, I couldn’t say anything because… because I thought you two might still work things out, and well…” Gemma gestures at herself. “This would probably not help the situation.”
Eve has gone quiet again. Frighteningly quiet. She paces back and forth for a few seconds, then pauses and leans against the table. Villanelle, who has finally decided to honor the gravity of the moment, scoots over and puts her hand on Eve’s, but Eve slaps it away.
“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out,” Gemma says quietly. “I came up with so many different ways of how and when to do it. Suffice it to say this wasn’t any of the plans.”
“You had seven months,” Villanelle points out ever-so-helpfully.
“I wasn’t sure if you and he were still together…” Gemma nervously taps her fingers together.
“No,” Eve says, her voice low and gravelly. “We are not still together.”
“Oh.” Gemma says. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.” She pauses. “It’s the least I can do.”
Eve doesn’t respond, only puts her face in her hands.
Gemma’s always had a habit of babbling to fill silences, which doesn’t let her down in this most awkward silence of her life. “You wanted to know why I’m accommodating, that’s it. Cards on the table. I’m a terrible whore, and I’ll be trying to make up for it for the rest of my days. And I hate to ask, but maybe, erm, once you’ve got a moment, you can get me an updated number for Niko, so I can have an equally terrifying conversation with him?” she squeaks. “I haven’t been able to get ahold of him, since he left St. Theobald’s and went back to Poland…”
Eve finally lowers her hand. Her face is scrunched up and her eyes are shining with tears. “He’s dead, asshole.”
Then Eve’s gone. Out. The door slams behind her.