Title: The Thrill of Destruction
Author: MelWil
Fandom: Spooks
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 4.1 I suppose. Don't spoil me past 5.2 in the comments
Summary: Sam refuses to fall
There were days when she wished she'd never left. Those were the bad days, the days when nothing worked, and the world seemed to be falling apart around her. On those days she remembered what it used to be like – the excitement of trying on new identities, the camaraderie of the people in the same desperate situations. On those days she would have gone back in a second.
But then the gun shots reverberated in her head, and she felt Harry's hand gripping her chin, and she realised she'd left just in time.
It was destroying her, the service. It was destroying all of them, piece by piece, and none of them even realised it. Or, otherwise, they did realise it, and they accepted it, embraced it, walked forward – hand in hand – into the dark with it.
In some ways they wanted destruction.
Destruction gave them excuses, gave them a reason to be as dysfunctional as they all seemed to be. Destruction allowed them to drink, allowed them to sleep with the people they shouldn't touch. Destruction allowed them to excuse themselves when it all got too much.
Sam hadn't been brought up that way.
She wasn't going willingly to the alter of self-sacrifice. She wasn't going to die in some blaze of glory or be drummed out in some righteous cleaning out. That wasn't why she joined the service.
Sure, she missed it, occasionally. She missed the people, the drinks at the George, the relationships that always bubbled and never came to any sort of conclusion. She missed the feeling that she'd achieved something at the end of the day. She missed the excitement.
But there were more important things than the thrill of the chase.
She wanted to hold herself together.