Title:Once a Predator
Rating:T
Summary:Post 309
Author's Note: This was my first Fiona fic and isn't entirely true to the canon character. But I prefer my Fiona to that dull, insipid woman on TV. My Fiona has backbone and she's not altogether content to let things lay either. Huge thanks to Delga who convinced me that this story didn't deserve to die on my hard drive!
The sound of high heels echoed across the quiet grid. Harry paused in his paperwork to listen to their unhindered progress toward his office. He didn't need to look up, instinctively knowing there was only one person on the Grid to whom such a tread could belong. A moment's dignified pause and tap at the door finally drew his gaze up from the papers he'd been painstakingly going over.
This wasn't going to be easy.
"Come in," Harry intoned, sitting back in his chair and pushing the paperwork aside.
Fiona entered swiftly, drawing the door closed behind her without a word. When she was done she paused again, staring at him across the room. Her expression was fixed. A cold, impenetrable mask clamped down on her emotions. Her body language was less inscrutable Harry noted as he took in the set of her shoulders, the languid posture of her arms and the slight curve of one leg. Her suit, silvery grey, accentuated her figure, silhouetted against the closed door. So prim and proper. The very paragon of a middleclass businesswoman. All this he took in with one knowing glance. Still she hadn't moved.
"And to what do I owe this most unexpected pleasure?" Harry asked archly. Each word weighted with enough sarcasm to make it more than abundantly clear that whatever it was, it'd better be a bloody good reason.
There was a tense, terse moment. Just as Harry was about to demand an answer Fiona moved. She strode purposefully across the room, giving him no time to voice any objections and slapped him square across the face. He had to be the picture of utter shock. He'd imagined an argument certainly, but to be slapped was something he'd of never predicted. Even from her. Turning he caught Fiona's eye, taken aback further by the fire he saw there. The spark of glee. Her hand rose up to strike him again. But then his hand reached hers first, his grip around her wrist twisting, forcing her back.
He rose to his feet, his cheek stinging from the blow. Harry struggled with his emotions, his furious gaze tearing itself away from her face just long enough to meet those of a handful of curious onlookers. The grid was quiet but far from deserted even as late in the evening as she'd chosen to stop by. Slowly, with exaggerated care and incredible self-discipline he turned them both around, until Fiona's legs caught against his chair and she dropped into it with a fleeting look of surprise.
He turned his back on her, every impulse in his body screaming at him to turn around, and walked with a measured pace over to the blinds. One particularly interested researcher withered beneath his glare before the blinds closed entirely. The moment they were hidden from view he turned back to find Fiona watching him guardedly.
"The first one's free," Harry said with a surprising lightness in his voice. "There won't be a second."
"Why?"
"Why what?" Harry smirked, "Why am I letting you get away with it? Why did I put Adam in a difficult situation? Why is the sky blue?"
"All of it," Fiona snapped. A flash of her anger showing through.
Harry sighed, choosing to sit before he began to pace he made himself comfortable in one of the chairs before the window. His back to the blinds he admired the woman before him. She sat stiffly behind his desk, her legs crossed and body turned away from him. There was an expectant look on her face as she watched him as closely as he eyed her. The irony of the turn around in their positions wasn't lost on him either. He stretched an arm out along the back of the chair and smiled thinly.
"It had to be done," he said with cold dispassion. "Adam did what was necessary. And he did a damn good job doing it as well. Sometimes the end really does justify the means. It's a sad, sorry little fact, but it remains all the same. And not that I need to justify myself to you, but I honestly think we did the right thing."
"And what about Adam?"
"What about him?"
"You really don't care do you?" she demanded, standing and moving around the desk so she could look down at him. "You've put him through hell these last few days and then you've packed him off home so it can all be forgotten about. Like it never happened. You opened up doors he's managed to keep locked for years and then expect him to just walk away from what's inside? He's a mess, and you don't care! No wonder Quinn went off the deep end!"
Harry was crossing the room before he even knew he was standing. His grip on her arm was painfully tight but she didn't flinch. Instead she stepped forward, daring him to attack her. He leant in to look her in the eye and ground out a reply between clenched teeth.
"You know nothing about Tom Quinn. And if you're here because you think Adam Carter is going to break because of this you're grossly underestimating your husband."
Neither of them moved, but there was triumph written across Fiona's face as he bit back on his temper. She'd baited him. Deliberately baited him into openly displaying his guilt over the matter and he'd fallen straight into the trap without a moment's hesitation. As he released his grip on her arm, he rolled his shoulders back and sighed.
"What now?"
Fiona leant against the desk and shrugged just a little. One shoulder rising slowly and dropping back down as she tilted her chin up. A small, quizzical smile caught the corner of her lips as she cast him a long sideways glance. She surprised him again, tugging gently on his tie as her gaze turned thoughtful. Whatever game it was she was playing, Harry knew he was already on the losing side. He'd given away the high ground the moment he let her get under his defences with the Tom reference. The moment she'd crawled under his skin. The question hung in the air between them and Harry began to wonder if she even knew herself what was going on.
Fiona Carter was a steadfast operative. She was a good mother and a loyal wife. But the woman behind the name was impulsive and wild. She craved adventure and the freedom to pursue it. She rebelled against the staid and instead danced along the knife's edge. Or at least she'd used to. Because Fiona Carter was a steadfast operative... but maybe there was a little of the wild in her still. She looked up at him and there was something in her eye that he couldn't place. Some unreadable emotion.
"Is there really a place for me here?" she asked quietly, her eyes dropping obstinately focussed on his tie.
Harry laughed as he finally came to understand what the whole visit was really about. He leaned in closer so that he could murmur in her ear. "You're bored."
She pushed hard against his chest, both palms pressed flat against the cotton of his shirt. Long fingers and ruby nails. Their heat was scolding. But he refused to move, scoring back cheap points that she'd taken so easily from him.
"You're a predator," Harry explained. His voice terse and low. "And now you've been caged. Tied down to a husband you fear is losing his edge and a child you no doubt love, very much, but never really wanted. You're living the quiet suburban dream. All you need's the damn dog. And it terrifies you."
"Stop it!"
"You're not pissed at me, you're pissed at him. I know you Fiona," he drew out the syllables of her name until he had her full attention. "When you were out in the field you were yourself, weren't you? You were the hunter. Skilled and predatory. That's what you are. Were. But now you're here. At home in a foreign country with a family you never expected to have. That wasn't part of the plan. You've fallen into the legend you made to escape. And now the legend's consumed you and you're stuck with it."
"Zatknis!" Her clenched fist slammed heavily into his shoulder, causing him to stumble back a step. Giving ground. There was menace in her eyes as she raised them to his face. Rage. She pushed forward pressing home her advantage with a vengeance as another fist landed against his chest.
"Nyet," Harry said softly, "ya ne mogu."
There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, her voice cracking as she spoke. "How dare you? You don't know me. None of you know me…"
"Anonymity's not quite the same when you're working with people day in and day out is it?" Harry asked, taking bother her hands into his with rarely seen compassion. "It's time to let go of the past, Fiona. It'll eat you away if you don't."
"I don't want to," she replied with unexpected candour. Her forward resting against his chest as she leaned into him in defeat. "I don't know how."
"You have to decide what's more important. Your individuality or your family." Harry explained, "I'll sign the transfer order tonight if that's what you really want. You can go back to Six and carry on out in the field. You can go back to deep cover. Or you can stay here. You'll be working with Adam again and at the end of the day you can go home to Wes."
She'd come to the grid because going home and playing housewife at the end of the day was the hardest thing of all. School open evenings and dinner parties, they were a kind of living hell which she endured because she had to. But they'd both known from the beginning that it wasn't the type of life that she wanted to lead. Fiona never once pretended that that was what she wanted. So it amazed her that Adam could be surprised when she didn't automatically jump at the chance of being tied down to one place, to having the closest thing to a nine to five job that she was ever going to come to.
That was why she'd turned up in his office instead of going home to her husband. Why she'd abandoned him to wallow in his own self-pity for a while. Because she was angry and she didn't know whom it is that she was most angry at. Adam for making her into the woman that she swore she would never be. At herself for secretly wanting nothing more than to lead that normal, tame life. At Five for giving her an excuse to play into that role. Or at him for putting Adam in a position where that safe life suddenly wasn't so safe after all and for showing her that there was still risk and danger out there.
"I…"
There was conflict written across all her features, and not just over the decision he'd placed before her. But whether or not she could trust him. Whether or not she could use him. All the things he would have once been asking himself if he'd been placed in a similar position. But she couldn't use him, not now he knew what her game was. He refused to be her ego boost. Instead he tried another tack, moving his hands up to gently hold her arms. Not threatening, just supporting. One step removed from the provocative.
"It won't change who you are," Harry said into the heavy silence. "Just because you cage the tiger, it doesn't mean she's any less wild."
"Wild card Carter?" Fiona asked with a half-hearted smile.
"The ace up my sleeve," Harry replied with a laugh. It was true. Everything he'd said and been the absolute truth, without his usual spin. He did understand her; better perhaps than she understood herself at the moment. She was a predatory creature, thirsting for the sort of adventure that made other people tremble with fear. It was what had allowed her to make such a name for herself in the service. It was widely known that she was capable of coping under the real strain. All he needed now was for her to understand that as well.
He watched as she almost physically pulled herself together. The compliment, as circuitous it had been, seemingly cheering her. She looked resolved. Determined. There was still something troubling her though and Harry had to suppress a sigh as she asked again,
"What about Adam?" Her equilibrium almost recovered in its entirety.
"What about him?"
She gave him a long withering look. "You're a very annoying man when you want to be."
"Why do you think they put me behind a desk?" Harry answered. "Adam will be fine. It'll just take him a little while to come back from the edge that's all. I used to drink. He'll probably brood. At least you'll be there to help him. Won't you?"
Fiona pulled back her hands, straightening her suit jacket with a sharp tug. When she met his eye again the cool mask of indifference had fallen back into place. She nodded once. Stoically. Harry nodded in return,
"Then go home Amelia. Go home."
Notes
Zatknis! – Russian; meaning 'Shut up!'
Nyet, ya ne mogu. – Russian; meaning 'No, I can't'
'Amelia' – Fiona's original name, as of 407. The name is canon, but absolutely nothing else is unless it's by some very freakish chance.