Author's note: This was originally written and posted back before episode 2x08 aired, but after ABC released the sneak peek of Erica and Hobbes getting it on, which began with Hobbes' line about getting Tyler back. It's obviously dated at this point, but the writing's still kind of pretty, so here it is. The normal text is all one scene, broken up, taking place in The Present. The italics are scenes that take place Later, and they are not presented in chronological order. Anything in parentheses is a direct quote from ep 1x05. I do hope that's not too confusing, and I'm really working on writing fic where the narration is more straightforward.
Also, this is not a happy story. At all.
Confirmed Dead
("I have spent my entire career ridding the world of people like Hobbes.")
"There," she points to the counter as she kicks off her shoes.
He drops the bag on top of it and pulls out the food containers one by one. Not bothering to take off his shoes, naturally.
"I'm really not hungry," she mumbles, joining him in the kitchen.
"The smell of Chinese takeaway can do that to a person," Hobbes answers, and he sounds tired or weary or apathetic or something else that she usually doesn't hear from him. "Although," and he pauses to let her know that he welcomes her disagreement, "this is gonna be a hell of a lot more palatable than those Hong Kong bird feet."
"See, I'm the American, so I can actually say screw authenticity. Aren't your people supposed to be constantly complaining about American-ized foreign food?"
He slides her a set of disposable chopsticks and a container of rice. "Did I just hear Agent Tall Blonde And Righteous say something politically incorrect?"
"I'm pretty sure it's the men I'm hanging out with."
The half-hearted antagonism is so forced it's not even comforting. And he probably knows it because he doesn't even look at her. Although that's been him lately; he starts to tease, to verbally strike her, and then loses heart like something's changed in him and she can't figure it out.
It's unnerving and ominous, that just as she needs to be harder he's not hard enough.
"I don't know where to go from here," she confesses because Jack isn't here and maybe Hobbes can validate her at least a little.
"I'm very ready for another morning of disemboweling reptiles, Commander."
She puts aside her uneaten food at that, because now she really can't eat. And she tries again. "Commander, huh? Is that supposed to be affectionate, or cynical?"
"Let's say Commander's affectionate, General's cynical," he replies, not flinching at her sarcasm.
"And Agent Evans?"
"Too many syllables."
"Um, how about Erica?"
"Now where'd be the fun in that?" and he even winks, which has to mean he's kind of himself, right?
She leads Fierro through her front door and feels like she's watching herself and her actions from afar. Specifically, from a bird's-eye view. For whatever reason. Maybe this is what successful compartmentalizing really looks like. Maybe it's a detachment that's going to persist through everything else as well. Either way it's self-preservation.
"You sure he's been compromised?" Fierro asks, a gentle patience in his voice that Erica has always appreciated from him. She also appreciates that he hasn't asked her how Hobbes came to be in her house in the first place. It would probably have a negative impact on her image as a capable, respectable leader, if it became public knowledge that she had screwed one of her alleged top lieutenants, especially the one who by the way, happened to be a fucking traitor. "It's easy to assume—"
"He told me." She barely recognizes her own voice, it's so hollow.
"It's that simple?"
She fixes him firmly with her eyes and he flinches. She wonders what he sees that scares him. "Sometimes."
They trek into the basement where Hobbes is shirtless and tied to one of the chairs that used to be at her dining room table. Tied up and looking about as dead as Erica feels. She doesn't have any particular thoughts about whether he's really remorseful or faking it just because he can. In this kind of situation it really makes no difference. He's dead, it's going to be a painful death out of necessity, not her own desire for vengeance, and all present parties know it. She doesn't even want vengeance, not at all. She's been pretty much consumed by a brittle apathy at this point and revenge wouldn't do anything to bring her back to life.
That and she's maybe beginning to accept that Hobbes isn't the only reason her life is broken. But he has been compromised and can't be trusted and she has to treat him as any leader would treat a traitor.
"I need you to find out what he's told the Vs," she tells Fierro and looks at Hobbes instead, not out of curiosity, but of a vague sense of nostalgia for what the two of them used to be. "You, or anyone you trust to do the job thoroughly." She almost sighs. "Not that I'd mind getting my hands dirty," she continues. Not anymore, at least. "I'm just not really trained for that kind of thing."
"Do we have any idea in what capacity he's been communicating with them?" Fierro asks, like she's merely asked him to drive for the evening because she's too sleepy, or something.
"No. That's really where we're stuck."
Fierro nods. "I'll get some men who specialize in, ah, obtaining information."
Hobbes says nothing the entire time, but she feels his eyes on her back as she climbs up out of the basement and yeah, he's definitely figured out that he can expect no mercy from her.
…Not anymore.
("We're all changing. I just made a deal with the devil. I broke every oath that I have sworn to protect.")
They don't wind up eating anything, in the end. The day's been a little too nauseating for food.
"I'm tired," she whispers finally, leaning against the kitchen island, looking at him sideways.
She figures that he knows what she means. "Happens."
"I shouldn't be. This is what I'm supposed to do, isn't it?"
It's a pretty severe indicator of how she's changed, that she's asking Hobbes. A week-and-a-half ago, it would have been Jack.
I like this new you, he'd said. But she's seen the way he's looked at her since then, and there's regret lasering incessantly from his eyes like he can maybe change her back if he wills it enough.
"I feel like I'm—like maybe it's too much."
He runs his hand idly across the counter-top. "I'd say you're doing what's necessary. Admittedly, it's not the most comfortable process to watch."
She stops looking at him. The dull ache in her stomach has little to do with his words and everything to do with what she already knew before he spoke.
"This your husband?"
She jerks to attention as he thrusts a photo forward into her hands before she's ready for it.
It's Joe and Tyler and a birthday cake, and without warning the flood of emotions she's been cramming inside since the night Tyler left erupt in her gut and she gasps quietly.
As the grief quickly and eagerly carves her heart into a gaping hole of white agony, she manages to hold back tears, but he has to see that she's about to lose it.
It seems like he might be analyzing her, and when he's apparently through he places his hand on her arm. She leans into it for a second before it occurs to her that this isn't the way it works. Not with Hobbes and not with her. It's the second time this sort of anomaly has happened and her stomach crawls a little. She's okay running things by him when he might know the answers, but—
"What is this?" she says, a little more loudly than she would have liked.
"Hmm?"
She shrugs his hand off. "Since when was—well, this—our relationship?"
"You don't want me to be civil, then?"
She can't really put her finger on why this is such a problem, so she stops and thinks and thinks. "You've changed," she finally concludes. "You've changed and I don't get it."
He laughs darkly. "Really. Well fuck, next time I'll do my best to make you cry, if that's what you want."
"Seriously," and she starts tracing the odd pattern, tracing it back to a solid come what bloody may. "You—what's happened to you?"
Because right now she knows for sure that something is terribly wrong.
It shouldn't be so scary, it shouldn't. But all of a sudden she's terrified. Like she's on the brink of maybe getting what's going on—
The last thing she expects to storm through the door on the Morning After is her son. She's wearing Kyle's shirt and no pants and there's no way to play this off as anything but what it is.
It's no surprise that he loses it.
"That—that's Kyle Hobbes! The guy who assaulted Lisa!" he strides across the kitchen to the two of them, wild-eyed and shouting. "Who are you?" he screams at Erica. "First you get Dad killed and then you start screwing a Fifth Column nutjob, you fucking slut!"
Something twists in her heart and Kyle punches her son in the nose, which cracks ominously, and he deserves it, she realizes. She loves him but the timely epiphany insists that he deserves it.
"Stop," she says firmly, stepping forward in case she needs to restrain Kyle from further damaging Tyler, whose nose is already spurting blood. She'll attend to it in a second, once the word "slut" stops ringing in her ears.
Kyle turns to look at her and she sees his eyes dart to something behind her on the floor. She turns and sees the photo of Tyler and Joe from last night, and when she looks back to him there's that same conflict etched across the harsh angles of his face.
Then he faces Tyler and speaks slowly, with hoarse conviction in his voice. "It's not her fault your dad's dead. It's mine."
For a moment, Erica doesn't exactly understand. But maybe she does, a little, because her heart angrily skips a beat and her fists clench as the puzzle pieces won't stop falling into place this time.
"I detonated the explosives in that building, and then the cavalry opened fire. Joe was caught in the crossfire. It was me."
There's a space of about six seconds before it sinks in. Her body and her senses catch on before her brain does, because it seems suddenly like the colors of the world are inverting and something within her rises up, up her chest, into her throat, until she thinks she might gag on it, and that's when it all just fucking implodes.
Tyler's already jumped on him but Hobbes bats him down sluggishly. Erica's within reach before she knows what's happened, and there's a plate in her hand and she smashes it over his head with a strangled shriek exploding from her lips.
He doesn't fight back. She slams her fists into his face, his throat, kicks him until she breaks his knees with her bare feet and she's roaring like a feral thing you fucking bastard cocksucking piece of shit I'll kill you I'll fucking destroy you I'll— and she can't see, she can only hear the blur of her words and the sound of her breaking him to pieces and she wonders if she could kill him, just like this, the rush of adrenaline and rage so potent that she hasn't noticed the blood on her fists.
Maybe a minute or an hour later she gets that he's stopped moving. She gets up and rolls and kicks him to the entrance of her basement and tosses him down the stairs. His body cracks on the way down and she wishes he were conscious enough to feel it.
Tyler has his horrified eyes on her back and she locks the basement door and mumbles "I need a minute. Don't you dare go anywhere."
It takes her seconds to race to the shower and she turns it on and jumps in, underwear and all. The water heats up to scalding and pounds into her skin and she leans against the tiles and shoves her fist against her mouth and screams until her throat is burning and she can't even breathe.
The water is so hot she's going to have visible welts on her skin, but she scrubs and scrubs in the vain hope that if she can burn off a layer of flesh it'll be like he never touched her, like she never let him.
The hysterical sobbing comes on very slowly, but thoroughly, and soon enough her body is heaving and her cries echo in the enclosed space. She slides to the floor and draws her knees up to her chest and right there, right then, she shatters into sharp little fragments, and any hope of coming back winks out forever.
It's not because it's Hobbes and she fucked him. It's everything. Dale and Malick and Ryan, and the necessity of removing Tyler's presence and Jack's influence from her life and from the war, and she's alone. Floating in a space of broken faith and trust. And if Hobbes is dirty, she's got absolutely nothing.
For a few surreal minutes, she maybe hopes that if she just sits here in the water for a while she'll drown. And she'll be weightless. And free from this raw and bloody anguish.
She closes her eyes and shivers in spite of the boiling water. She's overheating, probably running a fever. She could die like this instead of drowning. Soon. Easily. In a wild mess of hallucinations and delirium.
Except. Dying would be redundant and selfish.
Eventually, she stops crying. As long as she can stop feeling too, she can still fight a war.
Maybe Kyle Hobbes has done her and the Fifth Column and the human race a favor. Maybe she should fucking thank him.
She vomits on her feet.
("If we cross this line…and we get into bed with a guy like Hobbes, there is no turning back.")
"Maybe you shouldn't be here," she says.
"You brought me here so we could give Jack some space," Hobbes replies tensely.
"And it was your idea to leave, I just offered you my couch." Her pulse quickens and her breathing accelerates. "What's happened to you? When did you start caring about him?" She moves closer, too close. "When did you start caring about me?"
"I didn't," and it's the most explicit lie she's caught on anyone in a long time, and she snaps. And her hand is around his wrist, then, and she's not sure why or how. She shouldn't be touching him, she shouldn't—
"Oh really? Look me in the eye and tell me you don't fucking care," and it's too desperate for her, desperate and angry and lost. "Go on, Kyle. Tell me."
The use of his first name seems like a trigger, because he tears his wrist away from her, all the same emotions roaring in her flashing across his face in a second. "Stop it."
He's the kind of man any sane person would listen to when he gives orders, but Erica can feel any rationality she might have still possessed swirling away with the last of her dignity. She shoves him backward fiercely. "No. You listen to me, you fucking—you—I sentenced twenty-eight innocent kids to death today and I'm—you—" she's going totally incoherent and losing her breath and doesn't have the energy to care.
"What do you want from me?" He looks like he's toying with the idea of either shoving her in return or just exploding in a way she can't even fathom and she wonders why, wonders again and again what's doing this to him, making him as wildly unstable as she feels.
Something feverish takes over her and she still can't string the words together but she wants to scream at him, backhand him, maybe burst into tears and none of this is his fault, but he's here, he's here and he's not making any sense and Kyle Hobbes needs to make sense. Out of everyone, he's the one who's not supposed to change.
Before the pieces all collapse into place, before she allows herself to understand, she firmly stops that train of thought. There's something that's happened, something huge and hidden and he's not talking, but she can't know, won't think about it, won't take that final leap of logic, not now, not when she's already walking this frightening line between fighting and crumbling. He's not talking and she can pretend she's clueless. She can pretend—
"This isn't working," she finally manages after gathering her strength. "I need you to—I just need—" she trails off, because she needs so many things right now that she can't actually work them out anymore.
It's so very easy once she touches him. The sexual charge between them has been there in some capacity for a while, and compounded with the desperation that comes from losing everything she loves or values, she just wants him. For a sad parody of intimacy, for a hint of oblivion. For his sex appeal, for his ruthlessness, for the darkness she's supposed to be embracing—
She hasn't done this in three years, they don't know each other's bodies, and there isn't enough space for them to position themselves comfortably between the wall and the kitchen island. The process is painful and clumsy and it's not quite clear to her at which point she's on top or on bottom or on her side or some combination of all three.
But eventually she winds up on her back, her legs spread, her feet planted low against the wall, and he's huge and strong and fucking her like it hurts him. And she knows for certain that she's never ever been fucked like this, never even wanted it before, never felt more like an animal, never been so deliciously out of control. And towards the end she's clawing at his shoulders as quiet, high-pitched moans break from her throat, and in her head she's screaming fuck me, fuck me like a filthy cliché, the ceiling blurring above her.
She falls completely silent when her orgasm slams through her body like a riptide, whites out for a moment into a blessed oblivion where her brain is consumed by the purely physical. He comes a few shallow thrusts later with a harsh gasp, his nails digging into her waist until it's painful.
"I'm sorry," she manages after a pause that feels too long for how casual she had intended this to be.
He tenses suddenly. "What do you have to be sorry about?"
"I don't feel great about using people for—well."
His thumb traces gently over the nail-marks on her waist. "Everything that's gone down today, the people we've killed…and you feel bad about shagging me?"
Crying will do her no good so she laughs and looks back to the ceiling and figures maybe she misjudged this, maybe sex can't be emotionless for her, or for him and her, but she's okay. For tonight, she's okay.
("You have as much to lose now as I do.")
"My son," she finishes, her heart still racing, breathing still rapid. She lifts the photo off of the counter and slips it into his hand. "We were going to be a family." It comes out as a whispered sob.
She's never seen this sort of pain on him before, the conflict in his eyes as he looks at her so intimately she should be recoiling. But when he speaks, it's with decided certainty.
"We're gonna get your kid back. I promise you that."
They're empty words and they both know it, but the pause gives her enough to time to stare at the photo, choke a little on the grief that spikes through her at Joe's content and frozen smile, run through her emotional inventory, and decide that it'd be nice if she could maybe shut her heart off for a while. Which brings her to the one thing she needs that he can and most likely will give her.
But he's not the Kyle Hobbes she's grown comfortable resenting. He's something she might have been able to understand before Joe's death bleached what was probably her entire store of empathy, but now all she can see on his face confuses her.
So she doesn't look him in the eye again because right here, right now, he's not the indecent, snarky mercenary she'd like to be brainlessly fucking. She doesn't look him in the eye again because she thinks that even he might have liked her better when she was better, and she can't handle disappointing anyone else tonight.
She doesn't look him in the eye but she responds to his kisses and she burns where he touches her and she ignores the photo of her dissolved family as Hobbes lets it fall to the floor.
She descends the stairs to her own basement one last time and it feels more alien to her than Anna's mothership ever has. Her eyes are still dry. She thinks her tear ducts are probably shriveled and useless by now. Which might be a good thing.
"I have something for you."
He stares at his lap. Her insides only crawl a little at the sight of his battered face, the bloody stumps that used to be fingers, the empty socket where there was once a left eye. Souvenirs of countless torture sessions that yielded absolutely nothing.
She kneels in front of him and places the photograph so he can see it.
"We were emptying out your basement and I found this. I assume this woman has something to do with—what you did?"
Of course he doesn't answer. He doesn't even flinch at what she shows him.
"Well, I thought I'd let you have it." She places it on his lap.
The handle of her gun is icier in her palm than she can ever remember it being. She presses the barrel against his forehead. "We can't let you fall into enemy hands. You know that, right?
And he finally looks up, his one remaining eye clear and sad and blue and genuine.
He blinks. "I'm sorry. Erica."
She doesn't. "I don't care."
("Welcome to the war.")