Alright, first and foremost, thanks so much for checking the story out: I really hope you like it!
Disclaimer: Jason Bourne things don't belong to me. Lyndsi Stonem things do.
Chapter One.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
There was no one watching her, no secret room hidden on the other side of her mirror and she knows it. But Lyndsi Stonem still taps her fingernail on the glass, leaving it to rest just underneath her reflected eye; doesn't keep her from leaning forward so that her nose is almost touching the surface of the mirror and turn to look at where the dirt caked nail met cool glass, expecting there to be a space between the tip of her nail and its reflection. She rolls her lip between her teeth and lets her hand fall limply to instead rest on the counter beside her.
The only sign of how long she has been sitting in her sink, leaning in as close to her mirror as she can go without her eyes crossing, is the amount of cramping that she feels in her legs when she shifts. Lyndsi leans back carefully, far enough to open one of the drawers under the porcelain counter top and dig through it. Her fingers touch cool metal and she starts, almost losing her balance and tumbling backwards. Her fingers instinctively tighten around the object and she wrenches it out of the drawer, sending multiple black make up cases tumbling to the floor. The different colors turn her floor into either clown prostitute or a preschoolers prized project, but she just stares at the almost gun in her hands.
It has always been a strict rule of hers not to keep a gun in the bathroom for fear of mistaking it for her hairdryer and right then she makes the decision not to keep a hairdryer in her bedroom for fear of grabbing it in place of her gun. She shoves the hair dryer clumsily back into the drawer and pulls out the remaining make up cases, unwilling to get out of the sink to pick the ones on the floor back up.
Make up has never been a priority, but now she applies it carefully and as seamlessly as possible. She doesn't need it and doesn't like how it feels to wake up after falling asleep with it on, which she does without fail. But the colors offer her a mask to hide her emotions behind. The cover up hides any sign of weakness, be it the dark circles beneath her just as dark eyes that are the only things she ever has to show for a night of fitful sleep filled with nightmares of gunshots and news reports or bruises on her shoulders from clumsy sprints through crowded streets, following the ghosts of a past that wasn't hers. The color Lyndsi blends into the tan skin around her eyes and along her cheekbones helps her to blend in, makes her feel as if she's blending all of the different parts of her life together in a way she'll never actually manage.
Her lips are cracked and there is a cut near the edge that gives her a sting of pain whenever she runs her tongue over it. She does it once, just because, and delights in the shiver that runs down her back.
Lyndsi slips from the sink and steps over the mess on the floor, thinking of the plush white carpet she had in her room after deciding that she didn't like the creaking of the hardwood floors that had been installed when she'd first stumbled upon the house. She's almost to the frame of her door when the thrown open window at the end of the week distracts her and she walks towards it. A light breeze blows the sheer white blinds around like ghosts, softly whisking on the walls. They're cool and despite the warm sunlight filtering through the glass, they send shivers down her arms as they hit her when she comes into reach of them to lean her elbows on the sill and look out. The Obelisk is clearly visible, shooting into the bright blue sky high over rooftops as a beacon, a landmark, Buenos Aires's own Eiffel Tower. He is out there somewhere. She just has to find him, talk to him. Make him understand.
Something is buzzing when she walks into her room and she eyes her bookshelves, mentally marking the books that she doesn't care about and probably won't ever read again, the ones that she was willing to use to kill a bug with. There's a movement in the corner of her eye and in the time it takes her to react to what exactly was going on, she almost lets her phone vibrate off of the table she had placed in the middle of the room to change a light bulb a couple of days ago and had yet to bother moving it back under her windows, where it belongs. Lyndsi almost falls over the table when she grabs for the phone, pinning it just before it reaches the edge. She waits for a ring or two, taking deep breaths to appear calm but a glance at the caller ID tells her it was unnecessary. Lyndsi wasn't the one that had to appear in control for calls like this and she stalks back across the room as she chooses to accept the call but doesn't immediately answer it. She waits until she finds one of her long white shirts before lifting the phone to her ear.
"Hello?" Her voice is high pitched and almost constantly teasing in a way that she knows is a sharp contrast to her sadistic and cruel personality.
Confirming her suspicions, the man on the other side of the line is by far more exciting than she is. "We've found him," The thick Argentinean accent makes the words almost impossible to understand, and even though she does, Lyndsi doesn't react. She is unwilling to believe that it's true and go straight for the chase with the same excitement as before, instead reigning in her emotions in for the moment until she was sure.
With or without make-up on, Lyndsi Stonem had always thrived on repressed emotions and she is unwilling to believe that after three months, a length that is either far too long or far too short depending on how one looks at it, her search is over. She pulls the shirt over her head while making a noncommittal sound into the phone and continues digging through the dresser for a pair of black leggings.
"He was spotted on the east wharf at the Rio de la Plata," the voice continues, something a lot like excitement trailing off so that it almost turns into a question at the end. Lyndsi bites down on the edge of her smile as she does nothing to assure him that it was probably true or to tell him that it wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't him, they would just have to sit tight until he surfaces. He has to, sooner or later, even if it takes her on a tour of Argentina, maybe even the world.
When she reaches out to grab her black vest from where it is hanging on one of her crystal drape holders she notices the way her hands are shaking and she freezes.
Light after light hit her square in the face, all the same dulled and unremarkable yellow. In the distance, there are more lights than there are cars and the new lights flash white-blue-red, white-blue-red. She can't hear the sirens yet, but they're close enough and she swears. She tightens her hands around the steering wheel, digging her nails into the soft leather, to still their shaking. She prays that traffic doesn't slow and changes lanes as soon as possible, glancing over towards the simple steel railing that was the only thing between her and the worst idea she has ever had.
It was not the perfect exit strategy, not well thought out by any means, but she was never the greatest at thinking on her feet. And how was she supposed to know that Pamela Landy was going to go whistle blower, anyway? She knows that they're still looking for her back in the States– there is no such thing as a suicide, not when the victim was to undergo investigation for her participation in a major government agency and especially when her body was never found.
Her stomach heaves at the thought and she feels like she's not getting enough air, like she's drowning and can't get her seatbelt undone and she's remembering all of the warnings about water pressure and it's not helping, but Lyndsi isn't willing to gasp for the breath she needs while on the phone. She closes her eyes and remembers that she's on solid ground. She keeps breathing regularly until she gets to ten and then opens her eyes. She's standing at the right angle to see a slight reflection of herself in her windows and Lyndsi smiles, all confidence, back towards herself and quickly finishes buttoning the black vest.
"You'd better be fucking sure this time," she warns conversationally, shifting the phone to her other ear as she begins walking down the hallway, slipping her feet into her black flats as she walks.
She straightens back up and bounds down the stairs as she continues, sickeningly sweet, "Because if you send me on another phantom chase, you'll be dead before you know that you were wrong." She waits patiently for an answer and gets it in the form of a hitched breath and the click of the receiver as if they were scared she would say something more. It makes her smile as she pushes out into the bright sunlight and sets off through the finely architected streets.
The cab moves along at a steady pace, surprisingly efficient over the notoriously uneven and crowded Argentinean streets. The sun is hanging high in the sky outside the clouded window, the light filtering in as if it were first having to pass through some sort of baking sheet. Lyndsi hasn't taken a cab in a long while, preferring the subte or walking to cars. The streets were normally crowded, traffic backed up for sometimes blocks, not to mention the fact that many of the streets were pedestrian only, the cabs themselves were normally dirty and she has never been able to do very well when it was only herself that she had for company.
She would normally have made the short walk to the east wharf, but today is different. She can't be bothered with the time it would take. Jason has eluded the world's most elite agencies for several years and Lyndsi wasn't about to just let him disappear while she has the chance to meet with him. Any extra time she could peel off between
Lyndsi presses her spine back against the leather seats, using the back of one hand to push a strand of shining brown hair from in front of her face and leans her forehead against the window. She watches the buildings and the people and the statues and the lampposts breeze by, seeing but not really comprehending what any of it is or what it means. Every once in a while she flicks her eye to the driver's rearview mirror, normally choosing to ignore the only other person in the car at all costs, and can see the Obelisk behind them, still there, still sturdy, still pointing straight into the air. It was a constant in Lyndsi's life, and if anyone had ever told her, seven months ago, that a stone monument would be a focal point in her life she would have laughed at them.
Now she isn't so sure.
Before her, if she tilts her head in just the right direction and the buildings end at just the right times, she can see the waters of the estuary, the bright sunlight reflecting off of it in shimmering diamonds. She waits until she can see it more consistently, waits until the salt stings at her nose through the window opened to allow the smoke from her cigarette to flow out the window and she can taste it on her tongue to stop the cab. She pays him and exits.
The sun is high in the sky, signaling the time as being just past three in the afternoon. A light breeze plays with the leaves of the trees lining the path heading for the coastline and keeps the heat at bay. She pauses to get her feet under her, to imagine herself from the air and remind herself how to get to where she needs to be under the pretense of pushing long strands of her brown hair behind her ears. All around her is a plethora of voices and languages and life and Lyndsi is content to walk along unnoticed amidst it all.
Even after months in Buenos Aires, Lyndsi knows how to play the part of a tourist and she does it well. She knows what places she should stop to admire, when she should start to dig in her purse for her camera and when she should stop and worry and look at her map. She knows what sort of places she should frequent, even if the food was grossly overpriced and she even knew how to chop up her normally flawless Spanish when she 'mistakes' tourists for locals, even though the real tourists stand out as clear as a sore thumb on a clown hand. Then she laughs nervously, brushes it off, and continues down the streets.
Sometimes she's a North American tourist with a different name and a different story for everybody she comes in contact with. Sometimes she pretends that she's just another student in Argentina for university, sometimes as a marine biologist, sometimes as a cultural analyst.
She can fool anyone; can make anyone believe just about everything and anything she says. It's always been enough for the people around her, but it has never been and probably never will be enough for her. It's always enough to throw off her step just that much or make her analyze those around her a bit too closely, a little too critically, sometimes.
Lyndsi knows and can say, without a shadow of doubt or a feeling of self pity or feeling that she was putting the blame on some one else, that her critiquing nature came from her profession.
Sometimes she had hated the CIA. Everything about it; working there, the people, what it stood for and what they did there. Sometimes she had considered quitting, walking away from everything she had done. She hated the way, even though she had only ever been a psychological analyst, that there had always been an endless sea of mail going both in and out of her little steel mailbox just inside the building, all of the envelopes filled with anything but good news and not one of them read by anyone but Lyndsi. She always wonders what it would have been like to have a job that you could walk down the hallways of your building without a gun or without an armed guard, not having to worry about the glass one-way mirrors breaking when one of the assets that they were creating broke into just as many pieces as the mirrors.
Unfortunately for her, they never broke that simply, that cleanly. It was always a messy event, watching a person fall to pieces in front of you without really falling apart. They were created to be weapons and stayed like that no matter what she did to try and figure out what was going on inside their heads. She witnessed their breaking first hand, probably more personally than anyone else. It was obvious when someone who had always been, at the very least, cordial to you suddenly stopped talking and would hardly even look at you.
She hates that she had never really felt like a psychologist. She hates the way that the office she had always dreamed of was nicely decorated and that her dream office and her dream job, which was located in a room more like a hospital room or a jail cell didn't match up.
She hates that her dream job wasn't actually her dream job and she never did anything to change it.
Lyndsi still wonders what it would have been like to have an office with a bookshelf, a desk, a couch, four clients a day that would talk to her rather than just stare, a mousy receptionist that would both respect her and be someone that Lyndsi could unload her own problems to after a long day of listening to other people's without break. She may have even had a social life that she could go home to or go out with after her long day at work was finished. She might have even gotten herself a clip board and a pair of glasses that she didn't need to further fit the image because she wouldn't have had to have worried about one of the assets or her patients getting a hold of either one of them and using it as a weapon.
Lyndsi hated the CIA and she still does, but she also knows that it has made her who she is. And for that, she will never love any thing more.
When she reaches it, Lyndsi steps onto the wharf confidently, starts walking towards the very end as if she were meeting someone there. She's scanning the crowd but not too obviously, eyeing each person carefully.
She has never seen him in person before, only in the pictures put in his files and passports and even those, she knows now, were outdated. She doesn't count the shadow on a video feed from some bank that someone was convinced was him as seeing him because she had only seen a flash of the tape, the low quality, black and white tape, before she had been shoved out of the control room by one of the other agents. She had never been trusted enough to be one of the people brought in to try and bring Bourne in, she had never worked at Blackbriar long enough to get that sort of seniority.
But when she sees Jason Bourne she's knows it's him and she starts with his back because it's the first thing that she sees.
He stands quietly to one side of the wharf and she watches him from further down under the pretence of taking a picture of something just above the surface of the water underneath where his hands dangle over the railing. He slumps over, most of his weight put on his elbows and those on the wooden wharf railing. She waits for the wood to give out, waits for a charred hole to form from the sheer intensity that he's staring at it with.
Jason Bourne is the biggest mistake that the Central Intelligence Agency has ever allowed itself to make and it's – he's – somewhere between awe-inspiring and terrifying. Lyndsi clenches her hands into fists at her sides.
"Jason Bourne…" she purrs, her voice low in her throat. Jason turns and stares at her and she grins slowly. "I've waited a long time to meet you." She has a sudden thought and unclenches her palms and runs them down the sides of her legs. "Unless you're going by David now," She pouts the slightest bit and leans forward, as if to tell the assassin a secret. "He's not quite as much fun as Jason."