A/N: I'm sorry if it's been awkward to follow the "parts" of this story. I decided to forego 'chapters' in favor of 'parts' in case I decided to just end this series of stories. I've had a few questions on it so I thought I'd validate my reasoning. There's more pressure with a multi chapter than one that can stand by itself as a part. FYI: I know nothing about technology, or medical jibberish either, so if you do, congrats, try not to make too much fun of me for my obvious faux pas. I'm not sure how long someone can survive with a punctured lung, but I sure hope it's 5+ hours. Mei Chen was harder to write here; I don't necessarily think she's 'in love' with Gabriel in the conventional way, but that it's the kind of love you have for someone who's exactly like you and makes you less alone? She's obsessed, for sure, and the Adam and Eve comparison is kind of what inspired this story to begin with. I'm just unsure what kind of 'love' she has for him. That's why this final part has been harder to write without it being utterly out of character. (If I Lose Myself lyrics by One Republic)
The Absolution
I stared up at the sun
Thought of all of the people, places, and things I've loved
I stared up just to see
With all of the faces, you were the one next to me
You can feel the light start to tremble
Washing what you know out to sea
You can see your life out of the window tonight…
XOX
Riley came to slowly, head heavy and vision blurry. She tried to move her wrists but they were bound to the chair, as were her ankles. She was neither blindfolded nor gagged, which meant Mei Chen was either stupid, or she was being held somewhere relatively off the grid and away from prying eyes.
It didn't make a whole lot of sense security wise. She was resourceful, and could eventually break through the bonds with a little maneuvering and some time. Riley shifted her body weight, attempting to slide the chair closer to the entrance. The immediate, blinding pain forced a breathless scream from her. Her broken ribs. Her punctured lung. She shuddered; judging by the pain and the rate at which her jagged breathing came, she didn't have a whole lot of time. Of course, this wasn't exactly a delicate situation.
She sucked in shallow breaths, forcing back tears and decided to focus her attention on her surroundings. There were no windows in the gray cement block room. The door was open though, leading out into a larger area, maybe a waiting room. Blue tarps hung haphazardly, creating pathways outside the room she was in, and empty cardboard boxes lay flattened along the walls next to yards of rope and dust covered tools. This place, whatever and wherever it was, was certainly abandoned.
"I was wondering when you'd wake, Agent Neal," said Mei Chen from the doorway.
Riley couldn't respond, gasping for air.
"That punctured lung must suck right about now. Did you hear that Gabriel? You may have a less than the five hours I gave you if her health is any indication."
"What…are you talking…about," Riley wheezed painfully.
"I've set up a little game for Gabriel. I wanted to see how well he works under pressure, show him the different ways he can use the chip. I wanted to test the power of his choices. I want to know what he's willing to sacrifice for the greater good Agent Neal."
"Don't….understand."
Mei Chen approached her, leaning against the table in front of Riley's chair. "I've given your…asset…five hours to choose which one of you lives, and which one dies. Smile for the camera, Gabriel's watching."
XOX
The scream stopped his heart cold. Riley's scream. He didn't know she was injured, not to that level. She wouldn't have long if he couldn't find her, and he was already down two hours.
"Gabriel…Gabriel, can you hear me?" Lillian questioned sternly. He sighed, pushing the answer button on the video chat in the car. Some things were still automatic. He figured that was why he still had a cellphone, if only to keep up appearances in public.
"What, Lillian? Call to plead with me to back down? Tell me not to try to save them? Both of them?" he ground out, turning left. Mei Chen was in a proverbial dead zone, but she was broadcasting the camera feeds to him somehow. It was piggybacking on a signal from an internet café that he managed to triangulate to a rural area outside the city. It was mostly backwoods country now, and he was pulling up any recently abandoned buildings and foreclosures in a forty-mile area while breaking every speeding law known to man.
"Gabriel listen, about Amelia…I couldn't tell you. They went over my head and my orders were not to disclose anything about her survival to you, in particular. They only found out recently themselves, and they're hell bent on trying to bring her in," Lillian tried, exasperated.
"So you can't tell me, but Riley's cleared to know?" He declared sharply.
"Riley's clearance in this matter is higher than yours Gabriel. She's your protector, I told her so she could do her job," Lillian responded firmly. "After the vanishing act you pulled when Amelia died, the CIA was a little wary to tell you she was still alive."
"Oh, but I thought Riley's job was to distract me, I think that's what she said. How long did it take you to come up with that plan Lillian? You had to know she wouldn't do it, that's not who she is," Gabriel bit out, eschewing the notion that it was just the CIA that didn't want him to know of his wife's sudden resurrection.
"No, it's not something she would do knowing Amelia was alive. But if she hadn't known, or told you, Gabriel, what would you have done then? Was I so far off?" Gabriel was silent. He couldn't deny what was happening, but he wasn't giving her the satisfaction. "I'm not dim, Gabriel. If you think I don't see what's going on then you've seriously miscalculated your feelings. Now, I'm not going to tell you to back down because I know that's futile. I do have Nelson and Jameson working every angle on this, and we've got back up on standby."
"Are we finished then? I'd like to get back to finding my wife and my friend, if you don't mind."
"Gabriel, a word of advice," Lillian said quietly. "I've kept the chatter to a minimum, no one knows that anyone other than Riley has been taken by Mei Chen, this team included. If you'd rather it be kept that way, I'd be quick to free her, if you get my drift."
Gabriel nodded. His reunion with Amelia would have to be short, and if anything, bittersweet.
XOX
"So what's…your big plan?" Riley winced. She'd managed a position that kept her breathing, for now.
"Don't bother, you won't live long enough to see it through," Mei Chen answered her plainly, an air of boredom coating her voice.
Riley swallowed, trying again. She had to provoke some kind of reaction, otherwise she'd never get a layout of this floor. "Gabriel will never love you, Mei Chen. How could he? You're insane. And that you think you could be some kind of Eve for him? Being rejected once, that hurts. But you've been rejected by him twice now," Riley threw at her viciously.
Mei Chen eyed her curiously, before she reached out and grasped Riley's throat roughly. "Who ever said I wanted him to love me? Gabriel and I are the two most unique and powerful human beings in the world right now. Think of the things we could do together, what we could discover, what we could be. Think of what we could create," she added with a twisted smile. Riley choked violently. "Whereas you, you're ordinary. There's nothing special about you, Agent Neal. You're just his shield, and I'm sure that serves him well. But with me, he wouldn't need you. There'd be nothing we couldn't stop, and nothing we couldn't start. It would be wise of you to realize I could crush you right now, and the world wouldn't miss you."
Mei Chen released her, but grabbed the chairs back with both hands, dragging her out of the small cement room. It was definitely a waiting room, Riley observed as much as she could, gasping for her rapidly depleting air. Clear plastic tarps covered a few sad, lingering chairs and glass paneling separated what looked like the reception area. There was a couple remaining desks pushed off to the side with phones disconnected and stacked on top of them. A jail cell was built into a tiny corner. They were in an abandoned police station, a small town one at that. How poetic.
Mei Chen stopped abruptly, letting the chair teeter precariously before Riley used her weight to steady it. She moved to the door that closed off another room, an interrogation room to be sure, adjacent to the one she'd been in and swung it open, reveling in her own plan.
"He'll never love you either," Riley knit her eyebrows together as Mei Chen moved into the room, and the sound of another chair being dragged resonated like nails on a chalkboard. She didn't pull the woman out into the waiting area like she had Riley though, simply pulling her into Riley's peripheral instead. "Not while she's alive."
Riley's eyes went wide as she gasped. "Amelia?"
XOX
"I think it's time we raise the stakes Gabriel, don't you think?"
Gabriel's jaw clenched as he violently pulled the car over to the shoulder of the endless dark road. He got out of the car, allowing the chip to render the live camera footage in an attempt to glean any sense of their location. "Leave them be, Mei Chen," Gabriel growled.
"You only have an hour left Gabriel, you're running out of time. She is running out of time," Mei Chen responded, and an image of Riley's gasping form flickered cruelly in front of him. "Your wife is fine. She's still sleeping off the drugs. But it seems she has a better chance at survival then your partner. Perhaps I should even the odds, give you some…motivation."
Mei Chen toyed with the small knife she pulled from her belt, placing the thin, sharp blade to Riley's weakly pulsing throat. "Or, I can just make the decision easy and end this now."
"No!" Gabriel shouted. "Don't touch her!"
"Fine," Mei Chen answered with annoyance, walking purposely to Amelia. She flipped the knife over in her hand, stabbing it into Amelia's right shoulder, just below her collarbone. Amelia's eyes flew open, her scream piercing the still, silent air. "Your wife it is."
Gabriel felt the oxygen leave his lungs, powerless to do anything from where he was. "If you kill them, I swear I will hunt you down and rip that damn chip out of your head myself!" He yelled.
His gaze drifted from Riley to Amelia, the impending dread seeping into his soul. He had no doubt Mei Chen would kill one if not both of them. She'd proved her point more than once. Something about Riley caught his eye; her fingers were moving in patterns. It took him a moment to realize she was signing. It shouldn't have surprised him really, she spoke fluent Mandarin, Spanish, and Arabic, so why not sign language?
Smart ass, he thought fondly.
He could at least translate the letters without the chip: JAIL was all she spelled over and over again. Gabriel shook his head, speeding through the foreclosures again.
There. A police station outside of a less than prosperous town had been shut down, and the small force had moved to a larger outpost in a neighboring town that would aid all the nearby rural areas. He had a location, not twenty minutes away.
Mei Chen's voice broke through his thoughts.
"You have fifty minutes Gabriel. Or I decide," She said, blacking the cameras out.
XOX
"Amelia, are you okay?" Riley called over to her partner's currently undead wife.
The dark haired woman looked up weakly, the knife still jutting out of her shoulder. "I've been better…and I've been worse," she laughed oddly, grimacing.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," she replied bitterly. Mei Chen had left them for the time being, probably to figure out the best way to kill them or provoke Gabriel into choosing. Riley wasn't stupid; if given the choice, if he truly had to choose, if he didn't get her message, she had no doubt he'd choose his wife, and rightly so. In the grand scheme of things, Mei Chen was right. She didn't matter. She was replaceable, like a broken Barbie Doll. Head fell off? Buy a new one. If she died, they'd assign him someone new and she'd be another name on a wall somewhere.
"Thank you," Amelia said softly.
Riley glanced up, wriggling her wrists against the bonds, trying to loosen them. "For what?"
"Not shooting me, in that hospital. For getting Gabriel out of there," she answered. Riley realized she heard shame in her voice.
Riley swallowed. "Don't thank me. Whether you're a terrorist or not, I would have shot you if there hadn't been another option."
Amelia nodded. "I have no doubt about that. You don't much care for me do you," she said tiredly, not as a question but a statement of fact.
"I don't know you enough to have an opinion. I do care about Gabriel, and I know he still cares about you, and that's enough for me. But if you're a danger to him, have no doubt I'll kill you," Riley replied evenly, taking a shuddering breath. "You don't know what you did to him. He spent six years looking for you, so desperate he…" she trailed, stopping herself before she revealed that secret.
Amelia finished for her. "So desperate he let the government put a chip in his head? I heard the Asian girl talking about it, not that I didn't have my suspicions something was going on. Word travels, and my…Gabriel is less than subtle. Look, after everything…I couldn't go back. I told him that could happen, how lost I could get. He didn't believe me. He thought words would magically fix it, that love could fix us, and that just isn't true. I know too much, and I've seen too much. Our government would never let me go, you know that. And what about Gabriel? What would they do to him? Married to a traitor?" she scoffed. "It was better he think me dead."
"Maybe. But how could you leave him like that? You knew he'd never give up," Riley breathed heavily, finding air harder to pull into her lungs.
Amelia looked down, swallowing hard. "It was easier to leave him than I thought. I do love him, you know. I always will, but it's…not enough. He was always a romantic, he wanted a fairytale…and I can't give him that," she said simply. Riley glared at her for a long moment.
"You should have tried," she whispered, and Amelia nodded.
"There's a lot of things I should have done," Amelia added ruefully. "You'll take care of him?"
Riley didn't answer, just pulled harder at the bonds, gasping as she managed to free one of her hands. She made quick work of the other wrist. Then she heard the click of heeled boots behind her.
"Smart," Mei Chen said darkly. "But I can see you, everywhere. You're truly a pain, Agent Neal. I really hope he chooses his wife, because the pleasure I'll get from killing you will be extraordinarily satisfying."
Mei Chen grasped the chair, dragging her back to the room she'd been in and slamming the door. Despite her freed arms, Riley realized she couldn't unbind her ankles. If she leaned over the broken rib would drive itself further in, and she was already seeing bright spots in her vision.
"Gabriel…hurry," she gasped, hoping he'd gotten her message. The spots melded together into one giant blur, and once again, there was only black.
XOX
The small town police station had been foreclosed upon eight months ago. Foreclosure signs hung in the windows, some of which were shattered with graffiti tattooing the old red brick exterior. It had probably been a stately building at some point, but both the economy and vandals had ruined it.
Gabriel parked the car a little ways down the deserted road, scoping out the perimeter. Mei Chen certainly had cameras directed to the outside, so sneaking in was probably futile despite his best efforts. May as well make his presence known then.
He'd contacted Lillian and let her know he found the building, but he'd asked for discretion regarding back up. The last thing he needed was a tac team getting Riley killed because they were gung ho in capturing Mei Chen. Lillian made her sentiments known, giving him a head start to free Amelia before she'd send a team in. Gabriel hoped she would keep her word.
Gabriel tried tapping into the camera feed as he walked, but Mei Chen wasn't having any of it. His time was running out and she was playing games.
"So, you found us," Mei Chen's cool voice flickered through his mind like a broken radio signal.
"You're not as good as you think you are," he said evenly.
"Well I'm sure your partner helped you out a little. Clever, signing to you. It's too bad she's such a pain; if she weren't so loyal I'd probably keep her around. A brain like that can be useful, even one without a chip. Course, I don't think she'll be helping you much anymore."
Anger coursed through him. "What did you do Mei Chen?"
"Nothing. But now that you're here, you have a choice to make. Who will it be Gabriel? Your beautiful wife, or your devoted partner?" Gabriel pushed open the front doors, gun raised as he skirted along the dark walls. "Personally, I'm partial to your wife. She's far less…irritating."
"You're just mad Riley ruined both of your attempts to convince me to join your side," Gabriel said, a touch of dry humor in his tone. He climbed the flight of stairs.
"Your delaying is not helping your situation Gabriel. Choose, or I choose for you," She replied sharply.
The two rooms that held the two important women in his life overwhelmed his vision, startling him from the blinding dark he was walking in. His heart clenched painfully. Riley was pale and limp, passed out in the chair she was bound to. Her arms had been freed by her own doing he was sure. Always a trick up her sleeve. He zoomed in on her neck, noting a barely visible pulse. Delaying wasn't helping Riley either.
"Why do you want me to choose so badly Mei Chen? What do you get from this?"
Gabriel stood on the second floor landing, edging toward the reception door. There was no light, but Jameson had secured a satellite slated to be overhead in two minutes. He didn't have that long.
"Vindication, Gabriel. Proof that even the cleanest hands can have blood on them."
"But why theirs?" He whispered bitterly.
"Because choice means we're not machines, Gabriel, and unlike me, you have never had to make such a choice," Mei Chen answered, a cruel reality marking her tone.
"Sounds like a whole lot of crappy family backstory no one wants to hear about," Gabriel swallowed. "I can't choose Mei Chen, you know I can't."
The satellite locked in place, and Gabriel used it to scan for heat signatures. He blinked. Only two bodies were present, and both were still warm.
She laughed, and the sound turned his stomach. He pushed through the door, gun ready, searching the reception area. Mei Chen was nowhere to be seen but the two interrogation room doors stood eerily ajar in the dark. In the center of the room on a chair sat a bomb, ticking down five minutes. "I didn't think you could choose Gabriel. It's not in your nature. Consider this plan B. I'd hurry if I were you."
Mei Chen severed their communication after that.
Gabriel set a five-minute countdown in his head.
"Dammit," he bit out, making his way into the room that held Riley first, holstering his gun. Clearly Mei Chen hadn't wanted to make this easy, and the footage he'd been seeing was on a loop. She'd been bound again; he pulled the knife she kept in her belt, surprised Mei Chen hadn't found it, and began cutting through the duct tape and rope with urgency.
Riley's eyes fluttered when he tore the tape from around her arms. "What…took…so long?" she stuttered, wheezing. He put his hand on her cool cheek.
"Couldn't figure out what to wear," he said, echoing a joke from long ago. The last time she was kidnapped. She caught the hitch in his voice, and knit her forehead in confusion.
"A…melia?" she tried. He cut the binding from her ankles, freeing her completely.
"Don't know," Gabriel said, gently gripping under her arms and lifting her up from the chair. "Came here first."
"Why?" she gasped painfully.
Gabriel opened his mouth to answer, but Riley screamed out in pain halfway out of the chair, a cry that curdled his blood as rage coursed through him. He carefully pulled her up into his arms as she sobbed breathlessly, green eyes rolling back into her head. He had to get her out. They were running out of time.
Two and a half minutes left.
He set an unconscious Riley against the doorjamb to the other interrogation room gently, leaning her head back against the jacket he stuffed behind her head. "You'll be okay, just stay with me," he said urgently, slapping her cheek with just enough force to make her groan. Her eyes fluttered open for a brief moment before falling closed once more. "I'll be right back."
Gabriel turned into the room, feeling rooted to the ground at the sight of his not so dearly departed wife. "Amelia," he said, still awed by her very alive presence. He winced at the knife in her shoulder.
"Gabriel," she sighed warily. Almost as if she didn't want him to know she was there. As if he was bothering her in some way.
"What, no 'hey honey, how are you? Oh, by the way, I'm alive!' What the hell Amelia? I buried you, what I could of you, anyway. And here you are, living and breathing, a goddamn miracle! A phone call would have been nice, or hell, a text, come to think of it. But no, my boss holds the information hostage because she thinks I can't handle it and then you show up in a video where I'm supposed to choose who lives and who dies because a psycho bitch is obsessed with me! Why didn't you tell me, or try to reach me, somehow? Don't you think you've betrayed me enough for this lifetime?"
"I didn't have a choice," she hissed.
He laughed sardonically. "Yeah, there's a lot of that going around lately." Gabriel shook his head, reading the countdown and knowing he had to hurry this up.
"Then why did you come for me?" Amelia demanded, curiosity getting the better of her. Gabriel crossed the few feet between them, kneeling down to cut at the rope that bound her to the chair with Riley's knife.
His blue gaze met hers, and for the first time he felt…nothing. No desperation, no adoration. Only an empty ache for a memory that was no longer tangible. He blinked. "I didn't come for you," he answered honestly, surprising himself. His eyes flickered over to Riley's unconscious form slumped against the doorframe.
Amelia followed his gaze with a heavy acceptance. "I see," she said softly. Regret filled the lines of her pretty face despite herself. "I never wanted this, you know. I didn't want to become this person in your mind. It's part of the reason I couldn't come back. It's why I faked my death. I couldn't let you live with what I'd done, Gabriel. It wasn't fair for you. It never would have been the same."
He cut through the bonds, freeing her arms and waist. Amelia brought her hands up, cupping his face. He stopped his movements despite the war he was fighting with the countdown clock. "No matter what I did, no matter what they tell you, or what you think of me, you'll always be my compass," she smiled, small and sad. She'd already lost him. She'd fight for the last pieces she could salvage of their once great love.
Gabriel sighed, gripping her hands and pulling them away, setting them in her lap. "But you're not mine, anymore," he admitted apologetically.
She nodded as a tear fell. He cut away the rope at her feet and she stood, embracing him. He tensed, loosely returning the embrace before she pulled away. "I hope someday you can forgive me."
Gabriel looked away, focusing on Riley before he turned back to Amelia, hands flexing. "Leave, Amelia. Get out of here, and go far away. Go somewhere where there are no cameras, no communication, no cell phone towers or GPS. Go somewhere I can never find you, because so help me if I can I'll lead them to you. I don't want to find you again, you understand?" He commanded fiercely.
Amelia read between the lines. She reached up, kissing the corner of his mouth quickly. "I didn't mean it, you know, at that hospital. I still loved you."
Loved. Past tense. Her voice told him differently. She still loved him and he knew it. She was letting him go, like he'd let go of her somewhere between the hospital a year ago and the abandoned building they stood in now. He grinned warily.
"I know."
She turned a corner and disappeared.
He hoped it was forever.
XOX
Riley blinked, hearing the steady, high-pitched beep of something near her. "C'mon, gotta get outta here before it's too late," she heard Gabriel rumble close to her ear. He scooped her up again, and she was doing her best to keep the searing pain from bubbling to the surface as he ran down the stairs two at a time.
The beeping grew distant. She heard someone screaming over the obnoxious sound.
She didn't realize the scream was her own.
Her screaming was drowned out moments later by the boom and crash of thousands of bricks and glass raining over them as the dark sky above her glowed firey orange.
She was pitched forward and landed, hard, on the cool, damp grass. She looked up, dazed, and watched the tiny, mesmerizing sparks dance around her.
She heard her name being called, but it was too far away.
Someone was pushing on her chest. Someone was kissing her.
Riley decided, after all she'd been through in the past few hours, days, and years, she earned the right to sleep for a little while.
So she did.
XOX
Everything was blurry. Her dreams were scattered, full of compasses that only moved when Gabriel was there, until they'd change into a constant fall through a window on an endless loop, and then finally a beautiful woman that vanished like a magician performing her final act glimmered behind white sheets telling her to take care of him.
Sleeping did her more harm then good when she was like this. It only happened when the man in the chair pushed the button down and suddenly she was swimming in dream minefields again, trying desperately to swim to the surface.
"She has to stop fighting the morphine. She hasn't calmed down since you brought her in," The doctor commented, frustrated. "She can't heal this way."
"Yeah, well, you tell her that," Gabriel snapped. He knew the doctor was right, and only doing his job. Did she have to be so stubborn?
"You work closely with her, correct?" Gabriel nodded, knowing that was an understatement. "Try talking to her. Your voice could be a calming device. Talk about the weather, or what you did yesterday. It doesn't matter what she hears as long as it comes from someone she knows."
The doctor gave him a weak smile before he left, leaving them in perpetual silence.
"Look at us," Gabriel started, gently taking her hand. "What a pair. Round two of hospital bed confessions it is, I guess. Where should I start? Let's see, Lillian won't be taking your job away anytime soon. We had a little…heart to heart, if you will. She appreciates her own position too much to interfere with yours. She learned a lesson on why it's never good business to blackmail the friend of someone with a super chip in his head. Sometimes the things I can find, the things I know, scare even me," he laughed humorlessly. "I…I let Amelia go, literally. I told her to leave, to never come back for her own sake. That's the hardest thing I think I've ever done" he sighed, massaging his forehead. I'm sorry for what I said…or almost said that night. You didn't deserve that from anyone, especially me. You're my friend first, my partner, and I should know better. I should have trusted you. I went to apologize, that's how I knew you were gone. I couldn't leave it that way. Too much said and unsaid. That's how we are though, isn't it?"
She moved restlessly, drugged to the heavens and unable to find respite. She'd never get better if she kept trying to fight whatever fought back. But that was her nature, and he knew it.
The idea came to him, and before his mind realized what his body was doing he was already moving hers over carefully, shifting to sit on the bed next to her. He avoided the IVs and her left side, but put his arm around her and brought her head to rest against his shoulder. He brought up her vitals and X-rays with the Chip, viewing them for the millionth time in four days. It took a little while, a half hour at least, before her heart rate slowed to a steady blip and she allowed the pain medicine to do its job properly.
"Maybe when we get out of here, we can try this honesty thing out. We can leave Lillian and Mei Chen and Amelia out of it, and it can be just us. What do you say?"
Only the steady blip of her heart monitor answered him.
XOX
Riley spent two more days asleep in the hospital, recovering. On the third day she woke, groggy and confused more than anything. Lillian greeted her curtly on that day, letting her know Mei Chen was priority one on their "nonexistent" list of enemies. As if she didn't know that.
"What about my job?" she questioned, head held high despite the dizziness that accompanied it.
"It wouldn't do to assign someone new to Gabriel at this juncture," Lillian stated stiffly. Riley looked at her strangely. Not a week and a half ago the woman had all but told her she wouldn't find work at McDonalds if she didn't comply, and now she was getting off with a stern warning? Riley pressed for details but Lillian refused to elaborate.
Gabriel has something to do with this. She knew it in the back of her mind.
Nelson and his father came later in the day; Dr. Cassidy happily set a vase of what were possibly the ugliest yellow flowers she'd ever seen on the table next to her, and she could do nothing but smile and compliment them. Nelson spoke rapidly about one of his new inventions, most of it going over her head but she guessed it was something akin to the toy drone plane Gabriel had crashed into the side of a soldier's head awhile back. Their excitement wore her out quickly.
If she were less drugged and more alert, she would have seen all the babbling conversation and ugly flowers for what they were.
A distraction.
It wasn't until she woke with a start hours after the Cassidy's left and saw a concerned Jameson tapping the chair nervously that Riley realized something was wrong.
"Where's Gabriel?" she breathed, panic in her voice. There was no reason she'd receive this many visits in a day. Gabriel was usually the only one to ever greet her in the hospital after she'd been injured in some way or other. And Jameson wouldn't look her in the eye. "Jameson…"
Jameson sighed. "After he checked out of the hospital yesterday…he went off the grid."
"He's missing?" Riley choked. The last time he'd vanished his wife had 'died.' To her knowledge, no one was dead. She knew she couldn't ask Jameson if Gabriel's disappearance had to do with Amelia or not. Lillian made it clear only the three of them and 'select members of the CIA' knew about her spontaneous resurrection.
"Once he was cleared, the doctors said the last thing he did was see you and then he just left," Jameson deadpanned. "He turned off the tracker in the chip."
"Great, I'm comatose for a week and you manage to lose a whole man, one that's my responsibility," Riley grumbled, knowing somehow this was going to be her problem. "Lillian sent you to get me out of here."
Jameson shrugged. "You're being discharged today."
Riley finished his sentence for him. "And Lillian needs me to find Gabriel."
"You're the only one that can find him…and you know it Riley."
She eyed Jameson for a long moment, trying to figure out if his statement was a compliment or a warning. Riley huffed, shaking her head. "I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."
XOX
Riley had Jameson drop her off at her place, but insisted she'd be fine on her own when he asked if she needed anything else. Fortunately for her, the puncture hadn't been severe, no sucking chest wound thankfully; both the ribs and lung would take time to heal. She took the stairs, stopping halfway up to catch her breath. Her lung still burned and her ribs screamed at her. It would be awhile before she'd be one hundred percent.
Her apartment looked the same as it had the night Mei Chen took her. Her mail was still splayed across the floor and droplets of her blood stained the surrounding area. She sighed. It probably wasn't the best idea to put it off, but she couldn't bring herself to deal with the state of her apartment along with Gabriel's disappearing act.
Instead she decided to shower and change into something less…hospital grunge chic. She felt more human once the hot water hit her skin, relieving the ache in her chest. Some of the kidnapping was fuzzy. She knew Lillian would undoubtedly give her the third degree about Mei Chen and Amelia and everything that had gone down. Of course, anything after Gabriel came running was a blur of fire and orange sky and shattering glass.
Riley pulled on dark skinny jeans, grimacing the whole time, and a gray tank. The best course of action was to check Gabriel's apartment first for clues, as she had the last time. Riley grabbed her keys and her phone, locking her door behind her before heading over to Gabriel's place.
"Where are you this time, Gabriel?" she asked aloud, standing in his empty foyer. She put a hand over her sore ribcage as if she could push the pain away. "I could really use you right about now."
Riley moved to the couch. She didn't have the energy to search for him this time. He'd have to come to her.
"I'll be waiting."
XOX
Gabriel tilted his glass, following the pattern of condensation with the bottom of it. By now Lillian had figured out he turned off the tracker. By now, Jameson was probably heading a massive search party to find him. He snorted. Good luck.
Was it so much to ask for a moment's peace? He'd had to let go of his wife for the third time now, and it nearly came at the price of Riley's life. That thought made his stomach twist.
Mei Chen would pay for everything she'd done, that much he could promise.
His grip on the glass tightened. He chipped the hospital records, sifting through the electronic files until he found Riley's. Gabriel had cringed the first time he read her file. Of course it was an invasion of privacy, but he'd been curious after Lillian had told him of her heroism that first day. She'd been stabbed multiple times in the stomach, arms, and thigh, the last of which barely missing her femoral artery. Shot several times throughout her career in various places, concussed, lacerated, had many bones broken and rebroken, exposed to a deadly virus (his fault, but he'd lost count of what was because of him and what was of her own doing), and given the explosions they'd encountered, he could add burned to the list as well. Without realizing, he'd even gone back further to the bruises and beatings disguised as childish accidents from her mother's deceased boyfriend. And she still stood, proudly at that.
She was truly stronger than any person he'd ever known.
Something in the file caught his eye. She'd been released earlier that day.
"I'll take the check," Gabriel called out to the bartender, throwing back the rest of the bourbon.
XOX
Riley hadn't been at her place. Lillian probably had her out searching for him, and that wasn't winning Lillian any proverbial redeeming points. Though she had warned him to let Amelia leave as to avoid the CIA, so there was that. Sometimes he couldn't understand her logic. She wanted him to be happy, focused, human, but only when it suited her.
Gabriel turned his key, pushing his door closed behind him. He stopped at the sight before him though, heart clenching.
"Riley," he said to himself. She slept soundly on his couch, face contorting from time to time in pain. Gabriel made his way to her quietly, sitting on his coffee table across from her. "Getting used to talking to you when you're sleeping. I'm…sorry, for all of this. You deserve better than any of this. She should have come after me, not you," he dropped his head into his hands, wondering where everything went wrong. But he knew when it did, and he knew when it all changed. The day he met her everything in his life...jumpstarted. For the better.
He sighed heavily, lifting his head. His clear blue eyes met her bright, shining green ones. "Hey," he whispered, somewhat startled.
"You weren't missing," she said in quiet observation. He shook his head. "And you didn't do this to me, Gabriel. Mei Chen did. I won't let you blame yourself for this." He shook his head, the look on his face grim.
She smiled. Gabriel hadn't realized how much he'd missed her.
"I heard you, when you were talking to Amelia," she said quietly, gingerly pushing herself into a sitting position. Gabriel looked away when she grimaced and her hand flew to her ribcage. "You told her you weren't there to get her? I just thought…"
"That I went for Amelia," he finished. She nodded once. He looked at his partner's pretty face for a long moment, analyzing her elegant features. Wide, expressive emerald eyes, delicate nose, full pink lips, high cheekbones and perfect, cream colored skin framed by long, raven colored waves. For someone so beautiful she'd sure picked a horrible day job. He hated himself in that moment; here he was, his brain wishing something better for her while his heart wanted nothing but to keep her close. "I thought I would too," Gabriel laughed, but the sound was hollow. "And then I realized something."
"What did you realize?" Riley questioned carefully. He shifted, his knees knocking into hers.
"She wasn't the one guiding me home anymore," he answered, feeling her hand reach out and curl in his. "She stopped…being my compass a long time ago. There's a part of me that will always care about her but it's different now. It's a different kind of love."
"I'm sorry I kept it all from you Gabriel. Maybe you would have had more time with her…" Riley started but he held up a hand, silencing her.
He chuckled a little, shaking his head. "You're really missing my point Riley. I let Amelia go. I let her go because you were more important to me," he swallowed hard. "You are more important to me."
Riley's eyes widened infinitely larger than he thought was possible. He could see all the emotions and scenarios flicker across her face in rapid succession. Gabriel tugged on the hand she'd wound into his, easing her up to stand in front of him. Her breathing came in uneven beats, flustered at the lack of space between them and all the words he'd thrown at her.
"Gabriel," she said softly, knowing and not knowing where all this was going.
His hands moved, loosely grasping her bare upper arms before he slid them down to her hands, raising goosebumps on her flesh. "I started something I didn't get to finish that night," he replied, dropping her hands. "I don't like leaving things unfinished."
All she could do was nod ever so slightly.
One hand wound its way behind her neck, into her hair. The other rested on her hip, pulling her against him firmly. His lips met hers in a chaste, searching kiss. He pulled away briefly, seeking permission. But her eyes remained closed and a small smile lit her face. That was as good a sign as any for him.
He pulled her impossibly closer, no longer holding back the passion he felt for his beautiful protector. She sank into the kiss; hands grasping the thin fabric of his shirt, a small moan escaping her lips when he pulled his mouth away, teasing her, before returning once more. His arms wrapped around her lithe form, running the length of her back and under her tank, seeking the warm skin beneath as she opened up to him, the kiss becoming feverish and demanding.
It wasn't until her body spasmed and she yelped in pain that he realized he was hurting her. Gabriel pulled back abruptly but she held him in place, smiling apologetically, shaking her head. "They just had to kick me in the ribs," she laughed, breathing hard. Gabriel grinned, resting his forehead against hers and catching his own breath.
"I really, really, hate Mei Chen," he responded cheekily, catching her lips in a quick, knowing kiss. Once he had a taste he couldn't get enough.
"So this is what I've been missing."
Gabriel held her close, drawing circles on her back with his thumbs. He leaned down to whisper into her ear, "You don't know the half of it."
Riley flushed brightly, glowing from their makeout session. "Guess I'll just have to wait and see."
"I'll say," he replied with a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his handsome face. "Here's hoping those ribs heal fast."
She punched him half-heartedly in the shoulder, rolling her eyes.
"Again with the punching. What did I say about damaging the asset?"
Riley scoffed, pulling him with her to the kitchen while throwing a seductive look over her shoulder. "Wait until these ribs heal, we'll see who can do the most damage to whom then."
He stopped, blinking hard to clear the sudden, not unwarranted image that formed in his mind. "I believe that's a challenge Agent Neal. I accept."
She bit her lip, looking coy. "I sure hope so after that…display."
"Good thing your job requires you to be with me most of the time," he smiled impishly.
She looked up at him curiously, crossing her arms over her chest. "Yeah, about that. So, I still have my job. Care to shed some light on that?"
Gabriel shrugged. "I made Lillian an offer she couldn't refuse."
Riley laughed. "You blackmailed her, didn't you?"
"Hey, it came from good place."
She shook her head, scolding him good-naturedly as he opened the fridge, pulling ingredients out left and right while she perched on one of the stools.
Gabriel decided if Riley was the trade off he got for being a man with a priceless government chip in his head, alone in the world and fighting to keep his humanity, then it wasn't so bad.
He had a woman he loved, who would always guide him home.
She was more than a compass, he knew that much.
She was his north star.
XOX
If I lose myself tonight
It'll be by your side
If I lose myself tonight
It'll be you and I…