Fic: How to Survive a Recession (Epilogue)

[piecesof_reeses]

Every evening, Victoria Asher checks her mail at precisely 5:30, right after she gets home from work. She usually trashes all of it; no one uses snail mail anymore, so it’s all just junk.


This evening, she almost throws all of the mail into the recycling bin without looking, but a slightly dented corner of an envelope catches her eye, and she pulls it out of the pile. Her name and address is handwritten on the front, and there’s no return address.


The slanted, cramped handwriting looks slightly familiar, so Victoria slides her finger under the flap to break the seal, frowning to herself. Maybe it’s an extremely early holiday card.


But no, there’s a letter inside, a handwritten one, and Victoria blinks down at it, thrown. She hasn’t seen a handwritten letter in years, probably. It half looks like it belongs in a museum, or like its delivery to her was delayed by a decade.


Intrigued now, she quietly walks over to the couch, sits down, and begins to read.


My dearest Vicky-T, it begins, and Victoria starts smiling automatically, the corners of her lips tugging irrepressibly upwards. She knows who this is.


Times are pretty good, it continues. I know you probably think I just made a stupidass choice, running away with some fugitives when I wasn’t even involved in the crime. But running from the authorities really isn’t as bad as the movies make it out to be. It’s not like we’re top priority. I mean, it was just a simple scam. Anyway, we’re keeping a low profile, in case the police are still looking for us. But it’s pretty awesome, just surfing the waves, drinking with Bilvy, and trying to lose Dead Eyes.


Victoria rolls her eyes to herself; Gabe probably thinks he’s being incredibly clever by using these code names. Quickly, she flips the envelope back over and scans it, before grinning. It was postmarked in Hawaii.


I almost succeeded in losing him a few times, too, the letter goes on, but Dead Eyes always seems to catch up, and anyway, Bilvy pouts if I tell him the wrong directions too many times in one day.


The sunshine’s fantastic here. Bilvy got horribly sunburned the first few days because he refused to use sunscreen, but now I just put it on for him, and that’s much more fun, if you know what I mean. ;) You wouldn’t believe the prices around here; apparently, the recession has put quite a dent in tourism, and now the people here are desperate for any customers. So our money should stretch pretty far, and if not, we can always sell Dead Eyes. I’ll just tell Bilvy he was eaten by a shark.


Give the others a fangs up for me, and remind Pete that he still owes me last month’s paycheck. I’ll come to collect it, one day.


Take care of yourself, Vicky-T.


And then, at the very bottom: Love, The Cobra.


Victoria sits there for a few moments, savoring the feel of the letter in her hands. And then, still smiling, she gets up and runs it through the paper shredder.




End.



________________________________________________________________________
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm very sorry if my villain!Alex made anyone upset or uncomfortable. I'm sure that he is actually a very sweet person, and that he just saves his most annoying thoughts for public forums like Twitter. :D


All feedback is very much appreciated! ♥