Killing Eve: The Real End

A Life Worth Living

Eve felt like falling into warm water. Like being buried in silk. Her face met Villanelle's like it was always meant to be there, her breathe slipping through her lips. They breathed each other in first, a soft inhale. The start of a tiny flame being born between them. And then all at once, the same way you fall suddenly into sleep, their mouths joined and the softness turned to fire, to a yearning so strong and a homecoming so right they had to hold each other down from floating.

In the middle of the road, they stood interlocked. Eve could feel Villanelle's strength soften as she held her cheeks. The same hands that pulled the trigger on Eve a year before. The hands that stabbed Bill. The hands that traced her scar the night before in the sleeping bag. They felt harmless, clean, perfect as they pressed into Eve, holding her steady. Eve felt a sting of wanting crash over her, down her back, her thighs. Before she knew it, they were walking forward, stumbling over each other, lips still pressed into one another.

When they parted, the intensity lingered in the air as they both breathed in. Villanelle's smile was childlike. Her eyes met Eve's and she slapped her lightly on the butt, giggles erupting as Eve opened her mouth into a happy scoff, returning the slap. They ran like two girls to the van, Villanelle biting her lip to keep herself from erupting into happy laughter. As Eve traversed the van to passenger door, Villanelle glanced up at her, and for a moment, their eyes locked, and Villanelle felt a familiar but distant feeling well up inside her. Catch me if you can. The van between them felt like an unbearable distance. All the times before that they had chased one another had been in vain with neither ready to be caught. To be held honestly and want it. This time, Villanelle felt, they were ready to run full speed into each other's arm, caught without fear or doubt. Villanelle stopped and for a moment her and Eve just looked at each other. She couldn't keep her smile in as she looked across the open doors in the van at Eve's perfect face. They stood like two deer in each other's headlights until Villanelle pounced around the front of the van, grabbing Eve by the waste at full speed and tackling her into passenger seat. Laughter pierced the air until their lips met again. Villanelle had never felt such comfort, to be held so tightly and fully. And by Eve. She had longed for this moment for so long, stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage, that she had forgotten what it would be like, this vulnerability. Eve pulled back and tucked Villanelle's hair behind her ears, her eyes not searching Villanelles face, but resting calmly on her eyes. They looked at each other again.

"What if we stopped."

Eve's brow furrowed in confusion as she looked up at Villanelle.

"What if we turned around. Right now. We could make it to the highlands by dusk."

"The twelve-"

"Yes, their meeting. It's our only chance to stop them." Villanelle mimiced the countless times Eve muttered the very same thing. "I know, but we will die. One of us will die. And it won't just end there, Eve. They will go on. They're replaceable."

Villanelle's eyes were fixed on Eve's, their arms still wrapped up on each other. Eve's eyes glazed over for a moment in thought.

"I want you, like this right now, but forever. I want to go live a life, like one I've never had before. I think you do too."

Eve's eyes were taught on Villanelle's.

"We can walk away right now. Eve, I thought I would want to possess you forever. Own you. But I look at you now, I feel your skin. I taste your breathe and I just want to be near you. Laugh at your stupid jokes. That's enough."

Eve's face was pained. Her eyes flashed through loss. The sharp pain of Bill, of Niko, of safety before the bomb dropped. Before chaos became normal. She also remembered the moments of warmth, of Villanelle beckoning her. Of Carolyn infiltrating her mind with cold, emotionless existentialism. Eve was scared of it all. And here, now, with Villanelle, the face who took all of normality away from her, she finally felt at home.

She knew what she needed to do.

But she also knew that the world was wide enough for her to choose happiness, to choose calm, to clutch onto her own joy. To let the bad guys go on doing bad. And let her move on. To Alaska. To shepherd's pie on Sunday's. To Villanelle every morning and every night.

"I know."

She pressed her palms into the heat radiating off of Villanelle's cheeks. Villanelle's eyes were wet. She fell into her embrace.

They turned the van around and drove to the next town. To start for the very first time the life they had longed for from the beginning.