End Game
A TF2 Fanfic
Prologue: Helen
"Am I ever going to see you again?" the little girl asked tearfully. Her father knelt, pushing a lock of hair out of his daughter's face. "Mama says you're going away…"
"Yes." The military uniform was somewhat stiff, and he shifted uncomfortably. "I'll be home soon. Only a year." He said absently, more concerned with convincing himself than convincing his tearful daughter. The girl wiped her wide eyes with the back of her hand and the father smiled, weak but reassuring.
"O-okay." The child whispered. She turned her face away, hearing the nervousness in her father's voice. "I love you, Daddy." The man stood suddenly, turning his back on his child and his pregnant wife. He was too close to tears. As a man, as a father, as a husband, as a soldier—he could not show it.
"I love you too." He walked out onto the tarmac, not looking back at his family. Later he would regret this, and when gripped in the last gasps of life, he remembered this, the last time he saw his wife and his sweet little girl in the red coat. Poison gas was an unkind way to go, but he was simply one of many. His body was never retrieved—never sent home, either. It was ravaged by the fire and the mustard gas, gaunt from the lack of rations, chafed around the chin from the gas mask… The military never sent these corpses home, only left them to rot or reported them missing and had them buried in mass graves. There were too many dead boys and men and husbands and fathers, too many telegraphs to send home. Too many wives, too, who could not handle the telegraphs and leapt from bridges or, distraught and hopeless, like the mother of the red coat girl, who took the pistol of her late husband and buried a bullet deep in her chest, granting herself the quick death her lover never got to have. And then the red coat girl was thrown from hand to hand like a boat in a tempest, tossed by waves to uncles and aunts and older cousins and finally to an orphanage in upstate New York and raised there, lonely and bitter and unwanted. Too soon, she turned 18, turned loose, and ended up shivering under a bridge in Newark without a penny to her name. That was where she met Saxton Hale.
He'd seen her there and walked boldly over, and she'd instantly fallen for the brave Australian with the dazzling grin and the war stories. She'd never admit it, though. He'd took her to dinner, and soon learned that she was a no-nonsense sort of woman—perfect for the job he was looking for. Soon she'd been instilled with a vicious sarcasm as well as a love for cigarettes and tight dresses. She was no longer the little girl in the red coat, the bitter orphan, or the homeless hopeless bum. She was no longer Helen.
She was The Administrator.
…...
The Administrator watched the grieving Spy with a strange fascination. He had never been like this before. She didn't like it. Flipping a switch, her voice purred in his ear through an earpiece.
"Pick yourself up off the ground, will you? You're a pathetic excuse for a spy."
Spy stood, and for a moment Helen smiled, but she froze as she saw the look on his face. His mask still hid most of his face, but the Frenchman's face was contorted in inhuman rage. "Don't speak to me right now. I hate you so much." He snarled. "You don't know what I'm going through."
"You do know that I could kill you with a flick of a switch?" she said lazily, taking a pull from her cigarette and blowing a stream of smoke into the dim room.
"Killing me would be a kindness right now, mon ami." Spy growled. "Leave me to grieve in peace." He started to walk back to base. The Administrator bit back a stinging retort, her finger moving to the kill switch. Suddenly she paused, remembering her mother's despair and her suicide, and slowly her hand moved away, resting on the box of cigarettes instead. Spy was right. Killing him would be the kindest thing to do. Therefore, she'd prolong his life for as long as possible. It was simple, cruel logic. And for a woman like her, cruelty came so easily. She looked at the video feed for the RED base and frowned slightly, noticing that the Spy had joined the rest of his team.
"Miss Pauling?" she called sharply. Her young assistant appeared behind her.
"Yes?" Pauling asked, eyes wide, fingers clutching her clipboard nervously.
"Listen closely." The Administrator said, smirking and narrowing her eyes. "I have a plan. At the conclusion of this plan, we may need to look for some new mercenaries. Please compose job application forms and revisit our old lists of acceptable employees. Especially for the support classes."
"Yes, ma'am." Pauling nodded and rushed off, puzzled and a bit frightened. Helen watched the video feed of the REDs, plotting and planning just out of earshot and her smirk grew. This would be her crowning glory—the day she quelled a mercenary uprising.