And with one fell swoop, "isolation" was crossed off my h/c bingo card! Huzzah!
2000 (Alex has been in the room for two hours.)
The cell is nine paces long and eight paces wide. The only light is provided by a painfully bright lamp screwed into the wall; there are no windows. There's a mattress in one corner, and a hole in another that serves as a toilet. Alex very briefly considers whether that could be an avenue of escape, but it's far too small for her to even consider fitting through. And despite a thorough search of every inch of the walls and floor, she doesn't locate any useful cracks to indicate some sort of escape route.
She's wearing her own clothes, but they've been completely stripped of gear. The only trick she has left is a bit of wiring in her bra that she could use as a lock pick, if there were anything resembling a lock around.
This side of the door is just a line of cracks in the wall. Alex sits back on the mattress and waits.
2300 (Alex has been in the room for five hours.)
Several hours later, she blinks awake and realizes that someone had been in while she'd nodded off. A bowl of watery soup, a spoon, and a water bottle lie in the corner next to the door. She eats the soup and tucks the water bottle, unopened, underneath her mattress for later, in case this is the only meal she can expect.
As much as she'd like to stay awake and sort out her options, she can feel the exhaustion settling into her bones. The short, unexpected nap had barely made a dent in the deficit of sleep she'd built up in the past few days of cat-and-mouse leading to her capture, and so, with a sigh, she settles onto the mattress and surrenders to it.
0600 (Alex has been in the room for twelve hours.)
She wakes up to find a fresh bottle of water next to her refilled bowl of soup. Rather than sit around uselessly, she runs through a series of exercises to wake herself up: push-ups, sit-ups, running in place, just about anything that comes to mind. It uses energy and water, but it kills time she'd otherwise spend staring at the ceiling uselessly. Anything to keep herself distracted is worth it, at this point.
Afterwards, she stretches and stares up at the light on the ceiling. It hasn't so much as dimmed since she woke up here.
1400 (Alex has been in the room for twenty hours.)
When she opens her eyes, the old soup bowl has been replaced with a fresh one, and yet another water bottle sits next to it. At the very least, she thinks wryly, she can feel fairly confident that neither starvation nor dehydration are likely to be found in her future, though with the current lack of variety, she can't rule out scurvy. Still, she stashes this water bottle away with the other one, just in case. The soup is enough to slake her thirst for now.
The constant, unending brightness of the room is giving her a headache. She shuts her eyes and imagines the friendly darkness of her bedroom, James' warm body next to hers.
2300 (Alex has been in the room for twenty-nine hours.)
When she next cracks her eyes open, her head is pounding. She feels nauseous, and wonders if she's been poisoned or just ill from the headache behind her eyes. A little of the soup and half the bottle of water calms her stomach, at least.
She manages another set of exercises to keep herself from stagnating, but it can only kill so much time. It feels like she's been here at least a day, but without any markers like a window or a watch to measure it, she can't be sure. She collapses onto the mattresses and goes back to the only place left to her.
0800 (Alex has been in the room for thirty-seven hours.)
She's crying. She can't remember starting it, and she doesn't even know why (she's uninjured, she's fed, there's no reason to think she's in any specific danger), but all of the sudden she is and she can't stop. It's disgusting and stupid and her sobs and heavy and painful like vomiting, but even though she tells herself, sternly, this isn't who you are, this is beneath you, she can't stop.
(When she's done, she feels a little better, and wholly shattered. The mattress has already begun to feel like the most comfortable thing she's ever touched.)
1400 (Alex has been in the room for forty-three hours.)
"This was supposed to be our goddamn vacation!" she screams, and aims a punch at the wall, putting all the power she can muster behind it.
Her thumb was tucked into her fist. The bone breaks. It feels nice.
2100 (Alex has been in the room for fifty hours.)
She's curled up with the pain in her hand. It's like an old friend, something to keep her company at last aside from the silent, invisible sentinels that keep her supplied with soup and water. Whenever her thoughts drift towards the silent hours ahead and behind her, she flicks her thumb and lets the pain overwhelm her.
She's already given up wondering if MI6 or SAS is looking for her. It just hurts to think about.
0500 (Alex has been in the room for fifty-six hours.)
"Alex," he says, softly.
She twists onto her side restlessly, trying to ignore him.
A hand touches her face. "Alex, honey, you need to wake up. Please."
She flinches away and screws her eyes tight. The light punches its way through her eyelids; she smothers her face in the mattress.
"Alex!"The voice snaps. "Goddamnit, look at me when I'm talking to you!"
Reluctantly, Alex pries her eyes open. Ian Rider stares down at her, arms crossed, somewhere between concerned and just pissed off. "I promised I'd take you climbing today. Now get up, or we'll lose all the daylight."
"Go to hell," she spits out, and twists back over into the mattress.
The room is silent. Its only occupant falls back to sleep.
1300 (Alex has been in the room for sixty-four hours.)
Somehow, the short trip to the door to retrieve her soup and water seems too far to be worth it. She can still feel the stashed water bottles under her mattress, but it seems stupid now, like the sort of thing a child would do. This long in, she knows she's not here for a reason. This isn't interrogation. This isn't revenge. She's just a toy tucked away in a box. Sooner or later, they'll forget she's here, and she'll die, here in this brightly-lit coffin.
1600 (Alex has been in the room for sixty-seven hours.)
The door opens, and a man enters the room. He surveys the situation quickly and kneels beside Alex's body on the mattress. After checking her pulse, he nods once, sharply, and carries her away.
2 A.M.
The first thing she realizes is that there's a blanket wrapped around her. It's new, and that alone is enough to entice her eyes to open. Instead of the harsh, unforgiving brightness of her cell, she finds a blissful darkness only interrupted by the soft light of the moon. She can only just make out the outline of a person sitting next to her bed; after so long in the unending light of her cell, her night vision's almost completely shot. She edges towards it, careful to not make any noises. Rather than waste time trying to work out who it is by her incredibly shoddy sight, she extends a hand to brush over his face lightly.
The man wakens immediately, one hand snapping up to clasp hold of her wrist. A voice swears, and suddenly the bedside lamp is turned on.
"James," Alex whispers, voice hoarse. Before he can react, she throws herself at him, overwhelmed by the need to see and smell and feel him after so long alone in a painfully bare cell. He catches her instinctively and wraps her in a firm embrace that she couldn't get out of even if she wanted. If this is some sort of delusion brought on by sensory deprivation, she doesn't want to be sane again.
"I ought to bring you up on charges," he says, the words rumbling deep in his chest. She presses her ear against it, listening to his heartbeat. This is real, this is real, this is real. "Disappearing like that. You'll make the government think you're trying to desert."
She laughs, the noise muffled by his shirt, and even to herself, it sounds pathetically close to hysteria. "I promise if I ever desert, I'll take you with me."
He squeezes her shoulder. "That's more like it."