A/N: This story was written for a contest on GaiaOnline. It tells of what happened after the 'happily ever after'. I wrote of Snow White and set it to modern day, modelling the story to the theme of the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Enjoy! Please, R&R.

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“We’re not really supposed to be here,” Charles Charming said

“We’re not really supposed to be here,” Charles Charming said. His hands were folded on his lap and he was starting intently at Dr. Mends. “It was a simple misunderstanding.”

“No,” Neva Charming corrected him. “You just got a little over-competitive and lost.”

Charles pursed his lips together tightly, forcing control upon himself. “I didn’t lose. But, yes, I was a bit competitive.”

Neva ran her hand through her long, shiny black hair. Her skin was pale as snow and her lips as red as an apple. She wore no makeup. “I don’t understand,” she began, “how you did not lose. You must have lost; you came in second place and were given the second place prize.” Her eyes went to the doctor. “Four sessions with you.”

“You didn’t have to come, you know,” Dr. Mends said, his hands stroking his small, beard.

“Yes, but you don’t just give up a prize,” Neva said monotonously. “That would be…incorrect.”

Charles shifted in his chair, crossing his legs. “It wasn’t that though,” he said. Neva’s eyes shot toward him. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “We decided that we might come in for a…physical…”

“A physical examination?” Dr. Mends repeated. “I’m a marriage counsellor.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Neva told him, crossing her legs as her husband had. “To see that we’re healthy and— yes, to see that we’re healthy.”

Dr. Mends nodded, sitting further back in his chair. “How long have you been married?” he asked.

“Three years,” Charles answered immediately.

“No,” Neva said, making no effort to hide her vexation. “It’s been four years.”

“About three or four years,” he said with a sense of finality. “But, yes, we’ve just come in for a check up.”

Dr. Mends scrutinized both of them, taking them in. Both were young yet, most likely close to their thirties. Charles wore a suit—a sign to the doctor that he must have a white collar job. Neva wore a casual sundress. Perhaps a stay at home mom? “Do you have any children?”

“No,” they answered at the same time. Neither looked as if they were willing to discuss it, so Dr. Mends let it go.

“On a scale of one to ten, and answer instinctively, how happy are you in your marriage?”

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

They had responded at the same time and both looked at each other perplexedly.

“Now that I think about it…I’d say an eight. I was just thinking of the number seven and it’s my favourite number…” Charles began to correct himself.

“No, it isn’t your favourite number,” Neva stated in a tone that made no room for argument. “Do you mean one being completely depressed and ten being happy?”

“Yes,” Dr. Mends replied.

“Eight,” they said in unison. The doctor noted that they did not need to count. They did indeed have chemistry, but maybe not the right kind for marriage. They seemed more like, and he thought it weird to think so, business partners.

“On a scale of one to ten, how happy would you say your partner is?”

“Eight,” Neva responded immediately. She looked at Charles. “Well?”

Charles uncrossed his legs and scratched his forehead. “Are we allowed fractions?”

“Whatever is instinctive,” Dr. Mends and Neva said at the same time with their eyes on Charles. It was beyond Neva’s control to add, “Listen or we won’t get anywhere.”

Charles glared at her from the corner of his eye and squeezed his folded hands together, his knuckles turning white. “Alright, then. At the same time?” He looked at his wife. She nodded.

“Eight.”

“Sex?” the doctor continued.

“Female.”

“What? I don’t get the question.”

Dr. Mends sighed. “I mean, how often do you have sex?”

“That’s a little personal,” Neva said tightly, embarrassed about her previous answer.

“Is this still a scale?” Charles asked. “With one meaning no sex and ten meaning twenty-four-seven? Like all the time?”

“Zero should be no sex. But I’m going to go with a five. Average, you know?” Neva said.

“No, this isn’t a scale. How often do you have sex?”

The couple sat quiet and quite still, thinking, maybe. The dominant expression present on their faces was incredulity. After a while, Charles said, “No comment.”

“How did you first meet?”

“She was in a coffin and, when I first set eyes on her, I fell in love,” Charles replied. “People called her Snow for her skin is as white as—”

“No, that’s not when we first met. It was four years ago in Paris—”

“We were in Barcelona.”

“Right,” Neva agreed sharply. “Four years ago in Barcelona.”

“About three or four years ago,” Charles stated. Neva looked at him and he looked at her. Dr. Mends thought that, for the first time, Charles and Neva looked like they might have been in love.

&&&

“What’s happening?” Charles asked the bartender in Spanish who, despite the pandemonium around him, was calmly washing glasses. Charles was clad in his usual suit and he sat comfortably at the bar.

The bartender was aged with deep wrinkles on his face and small, blue eyes. He squinted, making his eyes barely visible beneath his old skin. “The bounty hunter’s been ‘round here and killed a woman.”

“The Queen’s hunter, you mean?”

“The only one I know of. He wasn’t Spanish, I know that,” the bartender said, putting a glass down. “Word is the police, who don’t have a clue what he looks like, are taking all the single tourists to be questioned. You alone?”

Charles looked around. He couldn’t be taken in; he had a job to do. His eyes focused on the doors as another woman walked in. Her skin was white as snow. She wore clothing clearly bought cheap. He noticed the bottom of the skirt she wore was ripped. A tramp, maybe? His eyes locked with hers. He barely noticed a policeman walk in behind her.

“Are you alone?” the police man asked her.

“Oh, no.” Her eyes looked back to Charles. “My husband’s just over there. We’re here on our honeymoon, you see.”

&&&

Charles and Neva ran into an alleyway, just in time to not be seen. They’d have to leave Barcelona soon, the police were now after all the tourists. Though, it wasn’t as if they were to be put in jail, only to be questioned. The only one to be put in jail would be the bounty hunter, Queen’s orders or no. But they both had a job to do.

Their breathing was ragged and fast. They looked at each other and smiled. Finally, their breath was caught.

“The Queen’s after her stepdaughter,” Charles stated. “It’s been about a year now. That bounty hunter’s killed the most in the past year that he has in the span of a decade. But he keeps messing up— mistaking the wrong girls for the stepdaughter. The CIA and FBI won’t be too happy about the Spanish police getting involved now, I’ll tell you that. Water?” Charles pulled a bottle of water from his trench coat pocket, opened it and passed it to Neva. Neva took a sip, her green eyes never leaving him as she did so. She passed the bottle back and watched him still as he took a sip.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

Charles wiped his mouth on his sleeve and smiled. “That’s the gossip.”

&&&

“You one of those creepy stalkers?” Neva asked. She was walking back to her hotel, confident that the police had quit their searching and off the streets. Charles walked to the right of her, feeling the same confidence.

“No, we must be staying at the same hotel,” he stated. “You are staying at a hotel, right?”

“Yes,” Neva replied, not sounding one bit offended or aware that she was wearing clothes resembling rags.

A faint noise grew louder and louder behind them, as if it was coming closer and closer. Charles looked to the street behind them and in an instant he began to sprint, grabbing Neva’s arm and dragging her along with him. But he wasn’t pulling her for long. Soon enough they were running at the same pace. Charles looked at her in disbelief. Neva looked back at him and merely smiled.

&&&

Dr. Mends raised his eyebrows. “And was that a brief meeting? Did you just say you were husband and wife and, once the police had left, did you go back to your own lives?” The couple had not told him of their getaway from the police nor did they plan to. It would ruin everything.

“No,” they replied together.

&&&

“Now I’m positive you’re stalking me,” Neva said, looking at the seat she was to occupy on the plane. It was much less suspicious if she travelled commonly and in the regular seats. She would have no trouble affording the first class seats, but it all had to do with being inconspicuous.

Charles looked up at the familiar woman. He sat by the window. It was a small plane with only two seats on each side. “Stalking?” he repeated. “I think this is a mere coincidence.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, sitting down in the seat beside him. “Heard any gossip on the bounty hunter?”

“He’s headed to Japan.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I bet she was right under his nose the whole time.”

&&&

“I had a near-death experience— or, really, I was dead. Poisoned,” Neva, ironically, chuckled. “Some women can’t hold their arsenic.”

“You weren’t poisoned with arsenic, dear,” Charles said.

“I was referring to that song in Chicago. There’s that one line, ‘some men can’t hold their arsenic.’”

Dr. Mends was confused. “So, how are you alive now?”

“As I said before, I saw her in her coffin and fell in love with her. I was at the funeral home for…well, my friend asked me to come,” Charles explained. “I saw her in the coffin, fell in love right there and kissed her. I wanted to kiss her before, when I first met her and we talked on the plane, but I didn’t.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” the doctor stated.

“I told you. I kissed her.”

At the expression of further bemusement, Neva simply said, “Don’t ask.”

“We got married after that,” Charles said. “Our honeymoon was—”

“I remember going to a carnival on our honeymoon. Where was it again?”

“I was just getting to that.”

Neva laughed gently. “Charles is a little…slow to say things sometimes.”

The love Dr. Mends noted before had vanished in this simple, short conversation.

&&&

“Step right up! Try your luck!” the barker at the carnival hollered. “Shoot the targets! Win a prize! Only a dollar!”

Neva touched Charles’ arm and gently pulled him over to the stand. “I’d like to try this,” she said, smiling lightly. Charles put a dollar on the counter before the barker. The barker handed the rifle to Neva, who held it carefully in her arms.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Wow there! Only three shots!” the barker cried weakly. Neva had almost shot him several times. She chuckled a bit and put the rifle down.

“I’ll try it,” Charles offered, putting another dollar down and taking the rifle. He held it as she had, which was the proper way.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three plates, shot right dead in the middle fell to the ground. The barker looked impressed, taking a stuffed bear from the prizes shelf and handing it to Charles.

“For you,” Charles said, handing the bear to Neva. But Neva pushed it away.

“I think I’ll try again. I don’t think I was holding it right,” she said. Charles put another dollar down and the barker handed her the rifle once more. This time she held it with only one hand, arm outstretched and one finger on the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

Four plates fell to the ground in those two shots. Neva looked at Charles coyly as she asked to move onto the next round. When they left the carnival, Neva had two large stuffed animals, one of which Charles carried.

&&&

“How much do you two trust one another?” Dr. Mends asked.

“One to ten?” Charles made sure.

“Yes.”

“Six and a half,” Neva replied.

“Five,” Charles replied. They did not look at each other.

“Do you have any secrets?”

“Everyone has secrets, Dr. Mends,” Neva stated.

&&&

Neva danced with a very tall man wearing a big fur coat in the centre of the dance floor. They were close, almost too close for comfort; but if it were so, they did not show it. The music was beating loud, so loud your heart beat hard while you simply sat. It was a kind of music you danced close to, and Neva and this man made themselves no exception.

“I really like you,” the man spoke in her ear in a deep voice that was heavily accented. He was German, maybe.

“Do you, now?” Neva had to shout. She was much shorter than him and could not easily reach his ear.

He bent down to speak again. “Do you like me?”

A glint of mischief was in her eye as she spoke next. “Let me show you.” And suddenly her eyes were shut she was kissing him. It was a long kiss and a deep one, enough to keep him distracted. Once she was sure it was safe, when he returned the kiss, she opened her eyes and felt around for something. If he noticed, he would simply think she wanted him. She found the pocket wear he kept his wallet and took it out, hiding it behind her back. She stepped back. “Excuse me a moment, please.”

He nodded, still dancing and then she was gone.

Neva opened the wallet in the secretion of a bathroom stall. The man was Adalrich Randal, the man she had been looking for. Not that she hadn’t known before; already shown a picture of who her next victim was from the corporation. But now she had his identity in her hands. Her fingers hitched up her dress to reveal a gun strapped to her leg. She loaded the gun, put the wallet in her bra, and headed back out into the club.

From the bathroom entrance, she took her aim and, with a gun shot, a thud and several screams from the people around him, he was on the ground and dead.

&&&

“Well, he’s dead. That’s the one sure thing I can get from the tape,” Freddie stated, looking puzzled at the screen. They had viewed the video over and over. All the security cameras had seen was him, making out with a woman and suddenly the woman had disappeared and he was shot not long after. They couldn’t follow where the woman had gone; she was short compared to the others in the crowd.

Charles had his hand on his co-worker’s shoulder. He sighed and looked down. “Randal didn’t have his wallet on him either, which is strange. He needed to show ID to get in.” He leaned back and stretched upward.

“God, I hate short people,” Freddie sighed, rubbing his eyes. It had been six hours since Adalrich had been shot. “This is going to take some serious brain power.”

“It’s in the job description, Fred,” Charles said, grabbing his coat. “I’ve got to go now. Neva and I are meeting my parents for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, fun.”

&&&

It had been a quick escape, but Neva had made it home just in time, five minutes before Charles had. Both of them, they realized, were late for everything. Though, they usually arrived after rushing at about the same time. They’d set a time and expect the other to make it there at least an hour later. It wasn’t a very reliable relationship they had formed, but it suited them.

When Charles entered, she had just slipped a sundress over the tight black dress she had been wearing to the club. There wasn’t time to take that off too.

They both ran to the car, already very late to Charles’ parents’ house.

“What did you do today, sweetie?” Neva asked innocently, placing her hand lightly on his knee.

“I made a few sales. The paper company’s booming this time of the year, what with school starting and everything,” he lied. “How was your day?”

“Very good. The bakery was busy as well. Though, it usually is. We’re busy all year round,” she said with a hint of malice. Together, they were the most competitive couple one could know. Charles’ eye twitched. He had lost, even though both of them had lied. And, deep down inside, they both knew what was said about the other’s day was, and always would be, a lie.

&&&

“Oh, my!” Mrs. Charming exclaimed as she dropped a napkin on the ground. She and Neva were setting the table. Charles sat not far away. He could see them clearly. He wanted to, to see if Neva were indeed a match.

“Let me get that, Mrs. Charming,” Neva offered, bending down to pick up the napkin. She was startled when a wallet dropped out from her bra. It fell and flipped open, becoming plain for both her and Mrs. Charming to see. Charles stood up and began to walk to see what had fallen.

Neva looked at Charles out of the corner of her eye as she hastily scooped up the wallet, putting it in the pocket of her dress. But he had seen, she felt that and was positive.

&&&

“So, what do you think of Dr. Mends?” Charles asked at dinner after their session.

“He’s a nice man,” Neva said.

They sat in silence, simply eating. They’d steal glances at each other, nervous and accusatory. They didn’t really trust each other.

“The meal’s good. Do anything new to it?” he asked, finally, to break the silence.

“Added mashed potatoes?” she responded shortly. She did not like that he spoke only to fill the silence.

“Sorry. I must have forgotten the taste of it all.”

“We had the same meal two days ago.”

“Minus the mashed potatoes.”

Neva glared at him.

&&&

The door to Dr. Mends’ office creaked open and Charles walked in, taking the same seat he had taken the day before in their session. He sat, staring at the ground, waiting to be asked a question.

“Are you here alone today, Mr. Charming?” Dr. Mends asked.

“Yes.”

“What is it you want to talk about?”

Charles breathed in, as if about to speak, and let it out. He waited a bit longer, forming his words in his head before he said them. He didn’t want to sound crazy.

“I love Neva, you know. Neva is the only one I’ll ever want to love…” he trailed off.

Dr. Mends waited to him to continue.

“But…sometimes I find her so difficult. I won’t lie, it’s sexy that she’s competitive but sometimes…sometimes…it’s so annoying. I feel like, you know…” Charles made the action of slicing his neck off. His eyes widened suddenly and he looked up at the doctor, frantic to explain himself. “I mean, I’m not suicidal or homicidal or however you took that, it’s just…”

“That’s normal, Mr. Charming. But, I do hope it’s only in your thoughts and that you are not…”

“No! I’d never hurt Neva!” Charles exclaimed, standing up. It seemed that was all he wanted for he walked out the door as quickly as he had come in.

&&&

The house had been torn apart of anything that might have been his wife’s. Charles looked around, feeling empty inside. She had left him.

His cell phone rang and he answered immediately, not one for letting the phone ring for too long.

“You’d better come down here,” Freddie said in his ear. “You’ll never guess what your next mission is.”

&&&

Neva’s phone rang and she, like her husband, answered it immediately. The ringing was annoying in her ears and gave her an instant headache.

“Hello?” she answered.

“You left me,” Charles’ voice stated.

“Yes, I did.”

“Can I meet you for coffee?”

Neva didn’t respond right away. She knew what he might do if she were to meet him. She knew his mission, for hers was to kill him. And neither could refuse their missions, not without a consequence. That consequence could be much more than a simple slap on the wrist.

“Should I be armed?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know, should you?”

With that, Charles hung up leaving a very confused Neva. She wanted to go. But, could she?

&&&

“This is awfully— barren,” Neva said as she entered. Charles was the only one in the Second Cup he had wanted to meet her at.

“It’s eleven o’clock. Of course it’s barren,” he replied.

“How did you…?” She needn’t finish her question. He was about as capable of breaking and entering as she was and she knew it, despite the fact that she had tried to keep this suspicion as far from her thoughts as possible.

“So, you work for the CIA?” she asked after she had gotten her coffee. She now sat before her husband, perhaps soon to be ex.

“Yes. And you work for an organisation of its own making. We at the CIA call that a mob,” he said. “I would never have guessed that my wife, fair and fine Snow White, was part of a mob.”

“We’re not bad people.”

“Those ‘dwarves’ are.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“Yes, I would.”

There was no argument there. Charles actually would know. The dwarves made up a small mob of their own; a mob within a mob. Neva was a disgrace to her stepmother for being affiliated with such a gang. It was no wonder she was wanted dead.

“Well,” she began, pulling a gun from her boot. “You might as well shoot me now.” She pulled another small gun from her bra and another from her leg where it was strapped along with a knife. From the bun she wore in her hair, so big due to its length, she pulled out a needle with some kind of paralyzing drug in a vile taped to it.

“What?” Charles asked, confused. He, too, pulled out a gun. But that was his only weapon, unlike his wife who had, indeed, come for battle.

“I can’t do it. I can’t kill you,” she sighed. “I might not show it, but I love you too much.”

Charles examined the gun in his hand. All he needed to do was pull the trigger and his mission would be complete. In one instant, his wife would be dead. Cold, lifeless with blood spilling from the wound he could make in her chest.

“Go on, shoot. It’ll take one second,” Neva challenged as if reading his thoughts.

He looked at her with wide eyes, placing the gun on the table. “I can’t.”

&&&

Charles and Neva Charming smiled as they sat together, hands joined. There had been progress, Dr. Mends could see as they sat in his office.

“It’s been four months since I first saw you two. I’m glad you’ve finally decided to come back,” he stated. “And together this time. I see there’s been some progress.” His eyes lingered on Neva’s pregnant stomach, which had only began to show the first signs of swelling. Though, it was painfully evident on her slight figure.

Charles smiled at Neva and she smiled back. “There has been a lot of change. We’ve decided that, instead of keeping secrets, we should be open about our lives to each other.”

“I feel like I know Neva so much better,” Charles put in. “I’m seeing her again and I know certainly that she’s the only woman I ever will be in love with.”

“That’s very good, Mr. and Mrs. Charming. Now, as all checkups go, I’ll be asking you some questions again.”

“We’re ready,” Neva said confidently.

“On a scale of one to ten, how happy would you say you are in your marriage?”

“Nine.”

“Nine.”

&&&

“That was…nice,” Neva said, walking up the steps toward the house after their session with Dr. Mends.

“Yes, that would describe it. Though I don’t like those scale questions,” Charles agreed, walking behind her to make sure she did not fall. She wrapped her arms around his waist as he made to unlock the door.

“Honey, what’s the date?”

“March 3, why?”

“I think maybe we shouldn’t go into the house today.”

“Why’s that?”

“Oh…it’s just a hunch.”

And so Charles locked the door once again and the couple walked to their car. As they drove away, an explosion sounded behind them. Charles stopped the car and quickly turned around to see what had happened. Where their house had been was a pile of rubble; it had been demolished. He looked expectantly at Neva, who merely shrugged.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d shoot or not.”

&&&

“And,” Dr. Mends continued, “On a scale of one to ten, how much would you say you trust one another?”

They looked at each other sideways before answering.

“Seven.”

“Six.”