The last 48 hours had felt like a lifetime. I'd narrowly escaped two explosions, fled from the cops, slept in a car, fled from the cops some more, been kicked in the head, jumped down from a roof, crashed a van head-on into an ambulance vehicle and finally had been arrested despite the aforementioned efforts.

I was dead on my feet and I could have slept standing up, but as a spy you have to be on constant alert, and my instincts told me not to trust just yet that it had been management who had got me out of prison only a minute after I'd been put there. They'd put me in handcuffs and chains and hooded me with a burlap sack like I was a candidate for Gitmo and was management really that paranoid after I saved the old man's life today?

As an operative you know that securing a prisoner like that is just as much about security as it is about intimidation. Make a person feel helpless, powerless and out of control and you'll easily get him to do what you want. Another way to demoralize a captive is to keep him waiting and let him wonder what next steps you have in store for him.

They kept me waiting. My guess was that it had been at least an hour since they'd shoved me into this room, sat me down on an armchair, removed the chains and sack they'd put on me and retreated too fast for me to pick up anything. It could just as well have been 30 minutes or 3 hours, I had lost track of time. I had also not the slightest idea where I was, who brought me here or why. As a spy, this is a worst-case scenario.

The room I was sitting in didn't give anything away. It could be anyone's living room or an old-fashioned office or maybe even a hotel room, I couldn't tell. I considered searching the room, but I knew looking for an exit would be futile. Most likely this was a test, with someone observing me and I would just waste energy and find nothing, so I stayed where I was. I was done taking tests and playing games.

I tried to focus, think through everything that had happened, see if I had missed something relevant, but came up blank. There had been nothing I could have done to save Gilroy, I had kept Simon as close to me and as much under control as possible, Sam and Fi had succeeded in finding and disarming Simon's bomb and I had kept them both out of this mess as best as I could. There was nothing I would do differently given a second chance, except maybe getting my mom out of town in time.

I was wondering what the FBI had done with her, and I was wondering what had become of the FBI at all. If it was management who got me out of prison, chances were that they'd silenced the Feds and the hunt was over. If I was held by anyone else, I'd sooner than later become a member of the FBI's Most Wanted List for escaping them and I'd be on the run for the next couple of years. In that case, they'd most likely arrest my mom or keep her under surveillance in case I tried to contact her. Despite what she thought I trusted her, but I wasn't too sure she could withstand the psychological games I knew they would play with her. If they hadn't done that already.

I breathed in sharply and tried to stay calm as a wave of anger rushed over me at that thought. I needed to focus, think about the here and now, not about what I couldn't do for my mom. I took another deep breath and rubbed my eyes. I didn't dare close them because I wasn't sure I wouldn't fall asleep immediately. Sam and Fi would take care of mom, I told myself, they'd keep her out of trouble.

Briefly I wondered who kept me out of trouble when I got clear of this situation and within reach of Fiona. Just this morning I had promised her and Sam that we were in this together and only a couple hours later, I had left them behind to take this on alone. I knew that Fi would gladly have shot Simon for me, but then she would be the one on the run from the FBI and that was definitely not an option I would have considered. I knew that Fiona was angry at me and I knew that she was angry because she was afraid of losing me, but I was just as afraid of losing her. Or Sam. Especially when they were trying to help me and I had no doubt that they were right now trying to figure out how to do just that.

I appreciated the support and the loyalty I got from both, Fi and Sam, but I didn't want them to be in danger because of me. Fi would jump to my rescue at the next opportunity that arose, never mind how improbable and dangerous, driven by her anger and her Irish stubbornness. Sam was more pragmatic, he understood that something like this could happen, that he could not prevent it, and I knew that he'd still do everything in his power to find me. I tried to think of where Sam and Fi might be hiding and wondered if Sam still considered the emergency-emergency spot secure or if they'd had to find a new safe house.

At this point I noticed that my thoughts had drifted even further, that I was not at all focussing on my situation, but by now I was too tired to care much.

I remembered the day we had set up our emergency system. It wasn't too long ago, a couple of days after I had shot Strickler and after we'd rescued Fi from her IRA friends. We should have set up an emergency infrastructure way earlier, but sitting in my mom's living room that day, with Fi curled up in my arms and Sam sitting right next to me, discussing and planning the backup system had given me a sense of security. A security that I knew didn't exist, but that I longed for more than anything right now. A security that I didn't want for myself but for the people I cared about.

I could nearly feel Fi in my arms, like I had held her that day, wounded but safe. She had still been weak from the injury, though she'd disagreed fiercely and when she'd refused to rest after we were done planning, I had picked her up from the couch and carried her to my old room where mom had made her stay. She'd been asleep the moment I had put her down on the bed, and I had pushed a lock of hair out of her face and pressed a small kiss on her forehead.

I imagined I could feel Sam's hand on my shoulder as he'd passed me a bottle of beer, after I had returned to the living room. He had squeezed my shoulder lightly and in a reassuring way that meant that we were in control of the situation. But now, all of a sudden, he put too much pressure on it, squeezing my shoulder so hard that it hurt, an intense pain radiating down my arm and into my chest and back and I awoke with a start.

I gasped for air and blinked furiously, feeling completely disoriented, until after a couple of seconds it all came back in a rush: Gilroy, Simon, Management, the FBI, the arrest and this set-up room. I blinked some more, my right eye was nearly swollen shut by now, and when my vision cleared, I was staring directly in the eyes of--

~fin~