Olivia changed the password so I'm posting this under my own name. Enjoy. Obviously I'm done with APR's stuff.
A Slip of the Tongue – Final Chapter No Epilogue
Trauma Therapy Center
Office of Dr. Marian Harper
"So, do you love him, Agent Cain? Do you love David? He doesn't seem to think so. In fact, his obsession over not being loved seems to have made him paranoid and indecisive, not something the General wants in her Intersect Host."
"I love David more than anyone or anything. I try to make him happy and content with our new situation. I know he misses the 'old life' but neither of us are physically able to perform field work, me for obvious reasons."
"What is the prognosis on your vision, Agent Cain?" She wondered how much of the wife's reluctance to admit her feelings was due to her own fears of being 'replaced' in his life by someone 'whole'.
"Total blindness in the left eye within months. Too much nerve damage and it's just a matter of time. I can't qualify for active service so I'm arranging a transfer with the General to be his 'bodyguard'. It's ironic, isn't it? I'm right back where I started, withholding my feelings from my 'asset' and feeling like crap all the way around."
Dr. Harper took note of her last sentence. She had some research to do. Something was definitely 'off' with these two.
"Now, about the 'kissing' issue – is it true? You won't allow him to kiss you? My God, why not?"
"Look at me! It took almost 300 stitches to close up my wounds. Look at these lips – would you want to kiss someone who looked like they were a poorly reassembled jigsaw puzzle? I'm ugly and I can't stand the thought that when we're making love he's repulsed by my scars. He's seen me naked and the look in his eyes – pity and horror."
"So you think that by making him think you no longer love him that this will somehow make your relationship stronger? Are you whacko, Agent Cain? This is the formula for the destruction of a marriage – cut him off from what he needs now more than ever before. "
"I – he – once, when we were in Eden, he overcame his disgust for how I'd been damaged, but now, it's different, he's different. He ignores them, pretends I'm the beautiful woman he fell in love with. It's only a matter of time until he tires of pretending and wants 'real'. I want him to feel free to leave, that's all. If leaving me and being with someone makes him happy then yeah, it's worth it."
Marion handed her the box of tissues again. What a colossal mess she had on her hands.
NSA Temporary Facility
Baltimore, MD
David Crain parked his assigned vehicle in the underground garage after passing through a screening process that should have been in place at FT Meade. It was always on the appropriations budget but somehow never made it past Beckman's desk. There was always another toy or perk to be had. After all, agents came and went but the bureaucracy was permanent.
He was meeting with Selena Vargas and John Casey for the last time as their partner. Being the elite of the elite, they'd pulled a plum assignment – Western Europe – and were leaving.
A part of him wanted to go with them, to share in the risk, danger and adrenalin-fed life of a field operative but he knew he was no long top-drawer and had almost accepted his limitations – almost.
Casey had surprised him with a man-hug and a last head slap and Selena had cried all over his shirt. Finally breaking up the goodbyes, Casey said some snarky thing but then pulled Chuck aside.
"Listen, numbnuts, you better get your head out of your ass and man up and face the new challenges. Amy needs you now more than ever. She's the same woman she was back in Eden and you moved heaven and earth to 'fix' her, Chuck. Yes, Chuck, because that's who you really are down underneath all that agent armor – Chuck Bartowski. So listen to your 'inner-Chuck' and make this right. Fix her like you fixed Walker. Don't blow it, Moron!"
Casey left with Selena leaving David Cain with a severe identity crisis of sorts but a new determination to get to the bottom of what was wrong with his wife.
He attended a useless and boring department managers' meeting and said nothing, took no notes, ignored the others and just sat, staring out the window at Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
"Assistant Director Cain, are we boring you?"
The General's Deputy Chief of Staff interrupted David's musings. He like Cain but felt he was not cut out for staff work. He couldn't understand why the General had insisted on his appointment to a newly-created department, whose function wasn't even publicized, when there were so many other deserving managers.
"Yes, Colonel Dawson, as a matter of fact, you're conducting a real snore of a meeting and as far as I can tell, other than complaints about the temporary facility and jockeying around for better digs once the Cube is refurbished, very little actually gets done here. From now on, send my assistant an agenda and I'll decide whether or not to attend."
He walked out of the meeting, ignoring the eruption of bureaucratic prattle that he'd left in his wake. Meetings. Excuses to waste time and make points for the next round of performance reviews. None of them would last a week in the field.
Cain Residence
Hansen's Ferry, MD
He parked in his usual spot beside Amy's Camry. 'No one would suspect that the world's most deadly female assassin and her husband live here.
Amy was packed and ready to go. She loved going to the Farm on the weekends they could get away. She needed the time to talk with her mom and David loved being around the horses, especially old Hercules.
She and her mother talked about those things she never spoke of to her own trauma therapist. Her fear of losing her husband, how close they'd both been to dying and how she'd waited outside the quarantine room for some sign that he had been spared the virus. She even spoke of Bryce and her history with Chuck. Her mother never judged her and she loved her all the more for it.
She needed to talk to her about David's therapist's comments and concerns. She needed validation.
"Hey, David. I'm all packed. How was the Departmental meeting?"
"It was boring. I'm going to skip the next one if the agenda doesn't deal with anything germane to our unit. How was your DC meeting?"
"Boring. Useless. So, change clothes and lets get moving. We're on our time now and I'm looking forward to relaxing for the entire weekend."
She caught him looking at her and she sighed. She was wearing what she always wore when going out in public since the 'incident', a white long sleeved shirt and jeans and her boots. She exposed as little skin as possible anymore.
"David, I'm comfortable wearing this in public. Please don't look at me that way. Once we're in our own room I'll be much more comfortably undressed." She gave what she hoped was a saucy grin and carried her bag out to her car. She needed some distance right now.
Franklin Farms
Samson greeted Holly as he always did, acting like a puppy instead of an old dog and she acted as she always did, as if he was her puppy.
Chuck glanced over at the paddock but didn't see Hercules but figured the horse could sense the impending rain and had made his way back to the barn. The horse was blind, not stupid.
After the obligatory hugs, Libby Franklin grabbed her daughter and dragged her off for a 'chat' saying to David over her shoulder, "David, there's a sandwich in the fridge for you. Home made bread, too. You look like you're starving."
He smiled at her thoughtfulness. He was hungry. Losing a part of your stomach meant you ate smaller but more frequent meals. He was still below his optimum weight and she nagged at him good-naturedly.
Libby's 'Office'
"Okay, Holly. Spill. What's going on? You look like you're ready to break down in tears every time you look at him. Are you two having problems? I thought the Agency provided trauma therapy to the – the survivors."
"It's David. He's – he thinks I'm Heather. He thinks that I'm dead and that somehow Heather took my place. He told his therapist that I do things differently, say things differently and that – and that I don't really love him."
"That's ridiculous, Holly. I can see the way he looks at you. It hasn't changed just because you were hurt. And just how do you know what he told his therapist? That's privileged information. She could lose her license – "
"She called me and showed me recordings of his sessions for comparisons. She turned herself in to the Board but said it was necessary because of his 'deteriorating mental health'. He can't go back to field work. He can't pass the physical. Neither can I. That's not the point. He doesn't think I'm me and it's all my fault."
Libby made a gesture to her daughter to continue. She wondered if there was even the remotest possibility that –
"Holly, stand up and drop your drawers, young lady. I can settle this by – "
"MOTHER! I'm not baring my bottom just to prove I'm Holly. I didn't get drunk graduation night and go to Baltimore and get a tattoo on my butt. And besides, the Agency would have had it removed."
"Okay, then, tell me about David's concerns. What did he tell his therapist."
She listened to her daughter ramble on for about 20 minutes before she called a halt to the proceedings.
"Let me summarize: you won't kiss him because your lips are 'numb' but really because of this 'zing' thing. You don't tell him you love him because you want to make it easy for him to leave. You think that man who has already seen you at your worst will leave you for someone else and you're just getting ready for it?"
Her mother's voice had gotten progressively louder and more strident and Holly cringed and begged her to be quiet lest her husband hear them.
"He needs to hear it. He should know that what's driving him into clinical depression is the deliberate and misguided attempts by his wife to 'cushion the blow' for her when he leaves. Did I leave anything out?"
"It's not about me, mother. It's about David. It's all about him. I want him to be happy and he can't be happy with a wife who looks like I do. Please, you don't understand…"
He could hear them through the door even in the kitchen. He couldn't make out specifics but he did hear the phrase 'clinical depression' and that was enough.
He walked out to the car and took the bouquet of flowers and walked up the farm lane to the family graveyard. It sat on a hill and he'd been there before when they'd first come to the farm after her discharge from the hospital. His wife had laid a bouquet of spring flowers on Heather's grave saying that they were her favorite. It had become a ritual for him ever since.
There were graves dating back to the Revolution and he'd always found a profound sense of peace whenever he'd come here alone. Today there was no peace for him.
He knelt down and tossed aside the old bouquet and replaced with the new one. He decided that he'd plant some small perennials around her headstone so that she'd always have spring flowers after he was gone.
He ran his fingertips over the words chiseled into the dark granite.
Heather Marie Franklin
June 21, 1981 – April, 9, 2011
"They got the name wrong, didn't they, babe? I'm sorry, Holly. I didn't know for sure until recently. I suspected but I really hoped and prayed I was wrong but now I know I'm right. I miss you, Holly, so much and it's tearing me apart. No one will tell me the truth about what happened. They – they sent Heather to take your place. She was hurt so badly but they made her take your place. I worry about her. What happens when I can no longer ignore it and confront her? She's not strong like you were, she's fragile and she's been so badly hurt and this is all my fault."
It started to rain. He didn't notice. He was focused on talking to his wife. Raindrops mingled with teardrops until you couldn't tell which were which.
"Mom, where's David?" Her mother was making coffee while both of them waited for the adrenalin levels to lower to a point they could be civil. The argument had gone back and forth until both of the women had just talked at the other one, neither listening.
Holly was worried. "Do you think he heard us arguing?"
"Honey, I think they heard us in Baltimore. Go find him. He probably heard only the loud parts and he's probably analyzing the hell out of what was said and arriving at the wrong conclusion."
She grabbed two rain slickers from the coat rack near the door and ran out into the rain, pulling one on as she ran. She knew where he'd be.
She ran past the barns and the paddocks and up onto the hill where her ancestors were buried. The hill was dominated by a huge chestnut tree that had probably been there since the Civil War if not earlier and she could just make out the tombstones in the downpour.
She called out his name but she knew he couldn't hear her voice in the rain but she called out repeatedly until she made her way, slipping and sliding on the wet grass, to the top of the hill.
She found him, on his knees and leaning against the tombstone, sobbing. She knelt down beside him and covered him with the other rain slicker and just held him while he cried.
Finally, unable to listen to his broken words of love for the wrong woman, she told him to get to his feet before they both caught pneumonia and joined her long before their time. That seemed to snap him out of his grief long enough to stand. But she was unprepared for what happened next.
"Oh, God, David, I love you so much. Once I asked you to trust me and you did, and now I'm asking you again – 'Please trust me. I'm me and I've been a stupid idiot for not – "
He took her scarred face in both hands and kissed her ruined lips with such gentleness that she melted against him, ignoring the rain and how wet they were, and the she deepened the kiss until they broke for much needed air.
"Shut up, Holly. You talk too much." He kissed her again and her knees buckled, dragging them both down onto the wet grass with him on top. Another desperate kiss and a mumbled 'I love you, wife' and she was trying to rip off their clothes, ignoring the cold rain.
"No, Holly, not here, not when there's a soft and warm goosedown mattress in our room. Come, Princess, before we both freeze to death."
There was no more talk of 'pod people'. She'd given him all the proof and reassurance he needed.
6 months later
David snuck into the bedroom and quietly put his travel bag in the closet. He'd worry about unpacking in the morning. He'd been gone 2 weeks interviewing candidates for a program that utilized downloading techniques perfected since he got his first download. The mission-specific data was placed in short-term memory regions of the brain and was quickly forgotten thus negating the nasty possibility of capture and compromise.
He stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers and slid in between cold sheets and moved over and lay beside her. She still slept naked and was on her side, snoring softly. He wouldn't wake her. She needed to sleep.
He loved her. His wife loved him. It was that simple. Nothing else mattered. Not the facial or body scars. Out of habit, he caressed her bare buttock, fingertips tracing an old scar.
He whispered, "I love you, Heather," kissed her forehead and closed his eyes and was asleep within seconds, enveloped shortly thereafter by long toned arms that pulled his sleeping form close to her.
The blonde woman's eyes opened, one, bright electric blue and the other a sightless milky blue, and she smiled.
End.