Author: Angela Evans
Email: Angel33296@aol.com
Feedback: Please!
Distribution: The golden rule – ask before you take!
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: "Almost Thirty Years"
Summary: Two people reflect on what happened to them in the season finale
Classification: Angst-y second person vignette
Kindred – allied in nature, character, or properties; i.e. – kindred spirits
You never tried sushi before. It was always something that seemed mysterious to you and you weren't sure you would like it. You're sure he's eaten sushi before. Probably a lot of times, in much fancier places than this. The beach house in Santa Barbara is nice, but it's not comfortable. It's too close to home, and even though you lost home, it's too close and that scares you.
This is only temporary, he assures you. Soon you could be living in Paris or Toronto or some big city in a foreign place far away from home. You like Paris. You went there for your honeymoon. You won't be going to Paris. Maybe Montreal would be nice. But you don't want to go to Montreal, you want to go home. But home doesn't exist anymore.
You look across the table at your dining partner. He's been through as much as you have – no, more – and he still sits there, calmly eating maki rolls with chopsticks. You never thought you'd be eating sushi with him in a beach house.
A roll slips from his chopsticks and falls into his lap. His face remains unreadable. You can't help it. You laugh.
"I'm glad you enjoyed that," he says soberly.
"Oh, Jack…" you take a deep breath, "It's just…" You don't know what it is.
"I know," he replies, his voice softening. "It's been a hard week on all of us. Sydney, you, me, Will, Arvin…"
Your smile fades at that name. "Arvin's had a hard time?" his name has a foul taste to it now.
"He's been through a lot, Emily, you know that. The choices he made were not easy ones."
"They weren't easy?" you hear yourself hiss. "Choosing to kill me to advance his standing in the Alliance seems like the easy way out to me."
"Emily," Jack says, a guarded tone in his voice. "Arvin's choices may not be ones we would have taken but they were not easy to arrive at."
You're angry because he's right. Choices are difficult. And Jack would never side with the man you both have come to revile. Jack is good, or at least trying to do the right thing, which is why you went to him for help. You trust Jack. Although you still found yourself wondering, at the critical moment, if the white powder was the sedative he'd promised or if Arvin had been more careful than you both had counted on.
But here you are, in a beach house, eating sushi.
With Jack Bristow. Arvin's friend. Laura's husband. Sydney's father. And your kindred spirit.
~fin~