Author's Note: So this a little different from just about every other fic in the fandom; you'll see what I mean when you read it. I don't know if I should continue along this vein, so your input would be appreciated. I'm not going to rewrite each episode in its entirety, although I haven't decided which scenes I do want to show. I think so many of them would be interesting from this POV. If you have requests for scenes, I'll certainly consider them.
I want to branch off from cannon eventually, adding new scenes and driving deep into Rinch territory, but I wanted to see what you guys thought. ^_^
When you find that one person who connects you to the world, you become someone different...someone better. When that person is taken from you...what do you become then?
I try to find that answer in a bottle of Pure Rye whiskey, but I'm almost to the bottom of this one, and haven't found any answers yet. Maybe the next one. At least it dulls the pain, quiets the mind, and when sleep comes, maybe it will keep the dreams at bay. The gentle rocking of the subway train is almost enough to put me out, but I'm not alone, and the presence of other people keeps me on edge. They feel harmless enough; the three gang-bangers standing at the edge of my perception are just tired and bored.
Then the door to the car opens and trouble shows up. I don't have to be close enough to sense their emotions to know that they think they're hot shit and are looking to prove it. I try to ignore them as the lead dickhead goes toe-to-toe with one of the three, a kid flashing a pistol tucked into his pants. Damn, I don't want to get shot tonight.
The three are smart enough to walk away, though, leaving dickhead and friends to enjoy their spoils. Which apparently includes me. He approaches, radiating contempt and amusement, and I know this isn't going to end well. For him. He takes the bottle of whiskey tucked into my coat and I grab his wrist, my reflexes dulled a little by the alcohol, but my grip on his arm is tight enough to serve as a warning. He's unsettled and I let go, point made. He can have the bottle, though I doubt he's old enough to drink it.
I draw a shuddering breath as his unease turns to anger, a hot feeling against the inside of my skin, his contempt slippery as fresh mucus. He sets the bottle down; his friends come closer. I can feel all of them, their emotions like a cloud of gnats around my head, buzzing in my ears, making it hard to breathe. One of them lifts his shirt, going for the gun tucked into his pants. Stupid kids; it's a wonder they don't shoot their balls off.
I break his arm. One gets a knee to the gut, another an elbow to the face. Anger turns to confusion, pain and fear bleeding through, cold and sharp, like vinegar. I grab Mr. Bravado by the throat - Anton, I think they called him. Touching his skin, making physical contact with him, his emotions threaten to overwhelm me, like parasites invading my body. My chest constricts as he stares up at me, eyes wide, his fear so strong I can taste it - fear, shock, anger, regret, but no remorse. He wishes he hadn't fucked with me, but he's not sorry he did.
I shove him to the floor and let go, breaking the connection. My head spins and I stagger, the pounding at my temples having nothing to do with the booze. Coming down from an emotional high is always disorienting, which is why I try not to make contact with people. Sometimes, however, it just can't be avoided. I sit back down in the hard plastic seats, pick up my bottle, and finish what's left as my would-be assailants writhe and moan at my feet.
The cops are waiting when the train stops - someone on one of the adjacent cars must have called. I try to leave, but they stop me, they try to send me to the hospital. I don't need medical attention, and I don't need their pity, thin and sour in the back my throat. I just want to leave. There are so many of them, so many emotions, a jumble of noise in the back of my head, and have to tune it out, tune it all out. I let them put me in the back of a police car, let them take me to a station, where it's quiet, at least.
They don't arrest me. They put me in an office, they give me water. I want something stronger, but I drink it. They're going to lift my prints off the cup, but I just don't care. I'm tired, so tired of everything.
A woman comes into the room, a detective, introduces herself as Carter. The minute she comes into range, I feel myself relax a little. She's curious; she hasn't already made up her mind about me. I feel sympathy, but not pity. She's trying a little too hard to be chummy, but there's an honesty in it that I can't completely condemn. This is her job, after all. And just like I expected, she walks off with my fingerprints. It won't be long now.
When the door opens again, it isn't for Carter, but some square-jawed lawyer with a six hundred dollar haircut who seems to think I have a diamond mine hidden in my beard. I don't know how else he expects me to pay him. I'm not going to argue, though, and we walk out of the station together. I thank him, but receive no emotional feedback from him. It's like he doesn't care, a feeling which is confirmed when he walks away without a word.
Waiting for me are two more men in nice suits. They give off the same emotional vacuum - they're just muscle, hired to do a job and paid enough not to care what it is. I consider walking away - the tall one has a couple of inches and fifty pounds on me, but neither he nor his friend are armed - but now I'm a little curious. I get in the car.
They take me out to Roosevelt Park. It's just after dawn and I'm starting to sober up - two events that I rarely am conscious to enjoy, and I remember why that is. The wind off the water is cold as I climb out of the car and walk toward the lone figure standing near a park bench. He glances over as I approach.
He knows my name. Not my real name, of course, but the one that I've come to answer to most readily. It's enough of a surprise to stop me before I can get close enough to read him. He knows other things, too, things no one should know, and I don't like it. He doesn't look like an operative, but they'd be sneaky like that, sending someone who doesn't fit the profile. I walk closer; I need to know what he's feeling.
He raises a hand, like he's motioning me back, but he's not looking at me. I glance behind me, at the hired muscle who had been moving to intervene. They stop, but they don't look happy about it. I draw within range and am staggered by the wave of emotion that rolls off of him. I can't remember ever having met anyone who appeared so calm, yet hid such a storm inside them. It's a little hard to sort everything out, and I can only stare at him as he continues to speak.
He's nervous, a faint, tight vibration along the surface, but under that is a mix of desperation, grief, guilt, and shame. There's a secondary blend of frustration and anger, the kind I've learned to associate with pain of a physical nature, and almost lost within this raging tempest, there shines a faint beacon of hope. It's a strange emotion - hope. It sings, it dances, it burns brightest when the darkness is at its worst, but it's so fragile, it can be snuffed out so easily. What gives this man hope, in the face of everything else churning inside him? It intrigues me, as puzzles often do.
I'm fairly certain that he's not from the Agency, although that is only one kind of comfort. I still don't know who he is. His little spiel is very convincing, especially since I can detect no deception in him, but I'm not really interested in a job. Drinking myself to death sounds like a much better plan. Still, I get back into the car with him - it's a long walk back to the city and the wind is cold.
He moves with a limp and carries a tightness through his shoulders and down his back - some kind of neck injury, spinal and nerve damage, muscle scarring, maybe - and sits stiffly, though that may a symptom of his anxiety. It's greater now that we're in the confined space of the car and he makes no attempt at conversation on the drive. Neither do I. I'm distracted enough by everything he's feeling, that tiny spark of hope flaring bright as the sun, only to be damped down by doubt.
We arrive in the heart of the city, the sidewalk crowded as we exit the vehicle. He starts spouting data and statistics, like I need to be educated on what a dangerous place New York City is, then he delivers the punchline - that he alone, out of eight million people, knows what happens next. He points out a woman, tells me she's involved in something bad, and wants me to follow her. This is one of those times where common sense takes over, because even though it doesn't feel like he's lying, I can sense that he's not telling the whole truth.
I decline his offer. I'm even polite about it, until one of his bodyguards tries to stop me from walking away. There's a smug confidence about the man, no concern, no doubt. He thinks he knows me, knows what I'm capable of. He doesn't know anything. I don't hurt him too badly, but he and his friend are going to have matching headaches for the rest of the day. I disappear into the crowd, confident that it's the last I'll ever see of the mysterious Mr. Finch.
Manhattan is a good place to hide, but now that the cops have my prints and know my face, it's time to give up the homeless disguise. I was getting tired of the beard, anyway. I get a room at a cheap hotel and pay a visit to a nearby convenience store. And a liquor store. A shave and a haircut later and I can recognize myself again for the first time in over a year. Not necessarily a good thing, but that's what the whiskey is for. I nearly finish the bottle before I pass out.
The shrill ring of a phone jars me back to consciousness, like a knife in my skull. I reach for it, but something isn't right. My left wrist has been bound to the headboard, my fingers cold from lack of circulation. It's been a long time since I've woken up in a situation like this - disoriented, in a strange room, tied up - but the skills, the training that I've tried so hard to forget, it's like a reflex. I pick up the phone. The voice on the other end is familiar; it takes only a moment to place it. Mr. Finch sounds desperate, much more so than yesterday, or perhaps it only seems that way since I can't feel him. He hangs up and I'm left just as confused. I try to free myself, and then the screaming starts.
A woman screams in an adjacent room; a man tells her to shut up. There's crashing and thumping. Someone is being killed. I pull against the plastic restraint until it bites into my wrist, but it's not going to give. My heart is pounding in my throat. I look around; there's a mirror beside the bed - glass. I grab the lamp and swing it. The mirror shatters. The glass cuts into my hand as I saw through the plastic, but I barely feel the pain. Adrenaline is a wondrous thing.
The screams are growing short, ragged gasps punctuating the silences between. I can hardly breathe. I cut myself free and lunge across the room, jerking open the door between the adjoining suites. Throwing my shoulder against the inside door, it bursts open and I stumble, falling to the floor. The gasps and cries are right there, but I can't feel anyone. The room is empty.
I raise my head and find a speaker sitting on a table; it's a recording. What the fuck? I scramble to my feet. There's an open door leading to another room; I can see someone sitting in a chair. I check the corners as I enter the room - there's no victim, no assailant, no bodyguards, just the mysterious man with the peculiar offer. He turns in his chair to look back at me, expression unreadable and emotions almost unbearable. I've only ever felt desperation like this from men pleading for their lives.
He tells me about the recording, the victim, and the guilt that bleeds from him is almost choking. Who is this man? What does he want? How does he know? Then he mentions Jessica. His words sting, like grinding sand in an open wound, and I don't think, I just throw myself at him, grab him by the shoulder of his suit jacket, my forearm across his throat, and I shove him backward, slamming him up against the edge of the door frame.
His fear spikes through me, sharp and acidic, my heart racing, face contorting as he grabs my arm, skin against skin feeding his surprise and panic right into my chest, making it hard to breathe. I could kill him, I could crush his windpipe and watch him suffocate, but he speaks of truth and lies, he offers promises I know he can't keep, but I feel no deception from him. He believes what he's saying.
He seems to know me so well; how can that be? He knows why I joined the service, why I went back after 9/11, what drove me to join the CIA, what kept me in so deep for so long, even after the doubts began. I wanted to protect people, trusting that my superiors wanted the same, a betrayal that cost lives and nearly destroyed me. I feel his grief and guilt, desperation and fear, and I let him go. I can't think straight with all his emotions in my head.
I sit down before I fall down, my stomach heaving, and this time the hangover is at least somewhat to blame. It doesn't help that my body is still reacting to the foreign emotions, trying to slough them off like an old skin. I try to focus on something tangible and immediate - I study the reel to reel electronics on the table in front of me. It's a wiretap recording, probably NSA or FISA, and I glance over at the enigmatic little man. I tell him that he's not government, but I'm not really sure, not until he confirms it.
It's harder to sense him now, all the bright colors and vivid tastes and smells and textures of his feelings are muted and dulled by pain. He moves stiffly, cautiously, taking one slow step after another. I hurt him. I could have killed him. He sits down near me and shows me that woman's picture again - what was her name? Hanson or something. He speaks with the utmost conviction and I find myself wanting to believe him. A chance to be there in time, to stop crimes before they happen, to protect people...
I regard him for a long moment, wondering if he really understands who I am, what I've done. He seems to have a lot of information, but does he really know what it all means? I am not a good man; I am not a hero. I have done things that can never be forgiven or atoned for. Does he know that? Does he know that he's sitting in a room with a monster?
This ability that I have is something that I shared with my paternal grandmother. She called it empathy and taught me how to use it responsibly, not that I always have. Most of the time, I try to suppress and ignore it, but I can never make it completely go away. I can always pick up overflow emotions, the strong feelings that spill out of people in close proximity, but when I try, when I really focus on someone, I can reach deeper, I can sift through the myriad of ever-changing emotions that float beneath the surface, flitting through the sub-conscious. I do that now, like reaching out a hand to him.
What I find surprises me. He is many layers of the same elements - desperation, guilt, shame, remorse, anger, frustration, fear...and that tiny light of hope, flickering, wavering, like a living thing just clinging to life, fragile as the frost on a spider's web, as though at any moment it could crumble and cease to exist. I find almost nothing that he isn't consciously feeling. He must exhaust himself.
"All right," I tell him, looking back down at the picture, "I'll do it."
I draw back, raising my metaphysical walls again as that dying ember of hope explodes like a supernova inside of him, for a moment so blinding it eclipses everything else. Relief is the first thing to bleed though, such overwhelming relief, and gratitude, and joy. How can he feel so much and never let it show?
In addition to a couple of aspirin, he gives me time to shower and get dressed, and I use the time to consider everything he's told me without the distraction of another person's emotions in my head. He's obviously rich. Intelligent, too, probably bordering on brilliant. His desperation and relief speaks of an emotional investment, but I didn't get the impression that he knows that woman. Recognition always comes with a visceral, emotional label, but I'd felt nothing from him. So why does he want so badly to protect her? And what makes him think she's even in trouble? A list? What does that even mean?
This is too much of a puzzle for me to walk away. I need answers, and he's the only one who can give them to me. So I'll take the job, I'll follow the woman, and if I don't like what I find, if he's lied to me, if he's using me...I'll kill him.