Someone Else's Story
AN: For the July week 1 competition of SpyFest 2016. The prompt was "A song to remember". Ergh, I've been so busy, and ended up writing this while everyone else was in bed :P So, apologies for incoherence... The story title is the title of a song from the musical Chess, but the story isn't consistent with that song's themes. I've tried to put in as many lyrics to some of my favourites songs, so I hereby disclaim that everything isn't mine. Except the assembly.
The Jardin des plantes de Montpellier is one of the oldest botanical gardens of France; the University of Montpellier one of the oldest in the world. The agent standing in the gardens was young, though his eyes seemed unnaturally old as he watched the French students laugh and talk.
His hair was black, but not a disguise – no need for one. His targets wouldn't recognise him, though the youth he watched probably would if he came any closer. The boy with the blond hair – man, now, legally, finally – had an unconscious broad grin across his face as he toasted his classmates with an invisible champagne glass. In Parisian-accented French, he saluted the sun, the snow, literature and love. The girls around him giggled.
"You can get what you want, or you can just get old," he cried, enlivened by dappled light.
Tom, watching, smiled. He wondered whether he would look old to them. Sometimes, in the field, he looked in the mirror and wondered whether the fine lines under and around his eyes were his or the disguise. He hardly ever got close enough to people his age to check. When he did, he only looked to track their movement for the tell-tale hummingbird flicker towards a weapon.
You'd think that, as a spy, he'd live the silent life in the shadows, or with the crash, boom, bang of explosions and guns. But over the years, Tom had realised you could tell a man from what he had to say. Some careful prompting, a deepening of trust, and people would tell him everything. That was why MI6 had employed him. Why Alex had trusted him. No-one likes to be alone.
"You're my best friend."
"Thanks," Tom bats his eyelashes.
"No," Alex says, and the look he gives makes Tom's smile dim. "I'm sick of mission," he says.
"Then run away with me," Tom pleads. "Fuck MI6 – we can get new identities or something. Right now? This is it. This is our chance. Right now, we have the chance to turn the pages over. Blunt's gone – it's the perfect time to leave; while they're too busy with their own business to come find you. Come on! If they find us, I'll threaten to go to the press. Why not, eh?"
Alex is silent. "I didn't know you wanted to be a journalist," he says in lieu of anything that he feels.
Now it's Tom's turn to give him a look. "Look," he says. "This whole damn world could fall apart. Someday it'll all be over, and I don't want to see you smiling as the shit comes down."
"I won't — "
"Anyplace is better."
Alex doesn't want to argue, not with Tom, but his face says it all.
"Why not?" demands Tom.
"I just – I just don't think it'd work," says Alex. "Out there… There's no chance for us. It's all decided for us."
"By whom – by MI6? You always have a choice. You can decide against following their decision." He hopes he's right. He just doesn't want to see Alex to continue as he is. "Jack's gone – sorry – the only real hold they have is on you yourself. Your – your selflessness."
"What about you?" says Alex.
"They can't kick me out of the country – well, they could, but then I'd go to Jerry, in Italy. I don't mind where life takes me." Of course, they could hurt him, or ruin his life, but Tom has to trust that they won't. Part of life is trust, and Tom doesn't think MI6 would go that far in petty revenge. "If the only hold they have is on you," he says, "then you will always have a choice." He doesn't mention that the choice may be terrible. To Alex, at least. He's never said as much, but, deep down, Tom believes that blood dries up like rain. Maybe that's what makes him so good at his job.
"But what if I'm the best person for the job?" Alex has caught on. Tom should have known he would. "If everything gets turned around… I will risk my neck again."
Tom has no choice but to say what he feels. He owes Alex that much, and Alex is his best friend. "You do what is best for you. There's no guarantee that they couldn't do the job without you – no matter how much you think you're needed. If everything goes wrong, just like predicted, then that's no fault of yours."
Alex smiles without his eyes and Tom knows he's said the right thing. He has always been the foil to Alex's nobility, and Alex knows it. That is the mutual agreement of their friendship.
In a world without MI6, without lying uncles and false businesses, it is easy to be noble and bright. The world has only one sweet moment set aside for morality, sometimes fleeting, sometimes enduring, until that moment is swept aside, sooner for some. Tom's moment was lost when at age six, he woke to find his parents throwing plates at each other, and his teenaged brother packing his bags to leave forever. Alex's moment passed when he was fourteen.
An adult would say eight years was hardly an impact, but the differences between Tom and Alex spoke otherwise. Rebellion was Tom's way of life; Alex only rebelled when instructions interfered with his generous morality, which he had managed to retain. It was always Tom the jaded, Alex the noble.
Now, before him, Alex the student crushed mint leaves for a girl who had entwined her arm with his. The girl leaned sideways on Alex to smell the mint better. Alex said something, and she laughed.
Tom turned and located his target again. The woman hadn't moved from where she studied citruses in a greenhouse. His partner had met her earlier in the week, at the university. It should have been Tom, but he'd had a cold which prevented him from thinking straight. He wouldn't have been able to pay attention to what she said but, more importantly, he might have made a mistake and walked into Alex.
Impulsively, he glanced back at his old friend. His group had also halted for the moment, and seemed to be discussing where to get lunch. Some of them mentioned a student café that Tom, wrapped in a scarf and doped up on cold medication, had visited – his partner had insisted he make himself useful, even if he found it difficult calculating two by two. Others argued for a picnic with produce from a nearby market. 'In winter?!' seemed to be the main protest.
Eventually, the group deferred to Alex and the girl with him. Of the group, they were the only ones who spoke French without foreign accents.
Tom looked again to his target. If he had met the woman as planned, maybe this mission would have been easier. It was difficult to get near to someone without knowing them; that was one of the main rules in his job. But all the information had been gotten by his partner, earlier. All that remained before they flew out was Tom's final errand while his partner waited to get them out of the country and back home.
He began to walk towards the woman among the orange trees.
Alex asks Ben to hack government records and erase him. In his place is born Alec, Frenchman, who has come over to England to study at an English sixth form college, and then university. He and Tom rent a flat under Alex's new name, and enrol together. Alex in Modern Languages and – for kicks – Maths; Tom, not really knowing or caring, enrols in some beginner language courses, and International Relations so he can provide an evidence-based argument for Alex against working for MI6 if they find him again. And a little bit because he's actually interested.
When they're not studying, which is mostly on weekends and the middle of the week, they play video games. Mostly shooting games, because it's hard to find two-player games that aren't racing games. Ironically, Tom has a much higher score.
One day, they're walking in London for some reason or another. "Do you remember when we met?" Alex asks. "I was standing; you were there," he points.
Tom remembers, but he wishes he didn't. "You saved me," he acknowledges.
"In a way," Alex says, "I also saved myself. If I hadn't been there, we wouldn't have become friends, and then I might still be with MI6." This mood has been hanging around him all week, and Tom is sick of it. Yes, it is good that Alex is free of MI6. Yes, Tom is glad that his best friend has a good life, now. But Tom was with his parents for fifteen years.
He does well in his classes, and is offered a place in Oxford. Alex, he finds out, applied both to English universities and French universities, and is offered places in both countries.
"What are you going to do?" Tom asks Alex.
Alex looks up over his cereal. "I don't know," he says. "I was thinking, maybe I'd accept the place in France. Get further away from MI6, and everything."
Tom feels like Alex will never be free of MI6 if he keeps thinking of them. He says something along those lines, but his brain is so disconnected that he doesn't know exactly what his mouth says.
His best friend frowns. "I've paid my dues time after time," he says. "And now, I think I'd like to go to France and try something new. I want to teach English and Maths to students, not – not stay in this country and work for the people I've had to save, always with the worry of being found and used by MI6 again."
Tom puts down his coffee. "I've had my share of sand kicked in my face and I've come through," he says. "You don't see me avoiding London just because my parents live nearby."
"Your parents don't have the resources MI6 has."
"It's been two years! We haven't been exactly subtle. If they were going to use you again, don't you think they'd have found you by now?"
"It's because I got us out of their system, because I organised our escape with Ben! If I weren't so good at hiding, then of course they'd have got me. And going to France is going to help further."
"It might help you," says Tom. "But it won't help me. If you're so smart, then tell me: why are you still so afraid?" He doesn't say that he's afraid of being left by Alex again. Alex didn't have time to be lonely, to miss Tom; stuck at school, Tom had all the time in the world to miss Alex. He doesn't have any other friends.
Alex doesn't have an answer. After graduation, he packs his bags and moves to France.
It gets worse when, visiting during the summer, Alex learns that Tom in continuing to study International Relations. "Why," he says snidely, "I never took you for a banker."
"I'm interested in being a diplomat," Tom says calmly. "Seeing the world and getting paid for it. Why, what are you studying?"
"Education, like I told you."
"And how's that going?"
"Very well."
When Alex is sleeping in his guest room, Tom goes for a walk in the streets – a habit he had as a teenager. When the house is either filled with shouting or dangerously quiet during the day, the night is yours alone. He never walked anywhere and never sought shelter at Alex's house; just walked.
Ben caught him, once, when he was visiting to organise Alex's escape from MI6. He asked what Tom was doing strolling around close to midnight.
Tom had shrugged. "I'm walking down this empty road to nowhere." He has always been dramatically poetic at night. Maybe that's why he likes to be alone.
Somehow, Ben understood. "I never knew what to do with my life," he admitted. "My parents always told my brother and me we'd amount to nothing." He snorted. "I was good at fighting – a teacher told me I was either going to jail or going to join the army. I asked which was better. He said: you get three meals, a bed, and air-conditioning in prison; but you get the same plus weapons, free travel and independence in the army. So that's how I got here. Still not sure I understand this role I've been given."
Tom follows Ben's advice, when he visits the careers fair at his university. There is a stall for careers in intelligence, and in the military. He visits it out of curiosity, and as some private amusement.
Afterwards, he walks away. It's slow and almost unnoticeable, but he finds himself considering his life and future in a new light. When he thinks he's got his mind settled, he tells Alex the day before his best friend returns to France.
This leads to the biggest fight in their friendship.
"I sleep with the scars I wear that won't heal," Alex hisses.
"I have scars, too," says Tom. "I don't mind them. They're part of me."
Their argument continues for at least a couple of hours, in which Ben enters, listens for a while, and then leaves again. The problem is that Alex wasn't really cut out for this job in the first place. Sure, he has the skills, the intelligence; but not the mindset, the cynicism paired with empathy. Alex is… too noble. Tom may act like an idiot sometimes, but he can deal with life without the luck of the devil ensuring he scrapes through. Everything he's ever done has been painful, clawing his way onwards through barbed wire and bricks.
Afterwards, Ben tells him that he thinks Tom has done the right thing. And then he tells Tom that they're going to be partners.
Alex breaks ties with Tom, citing some reason about not wanting to be connected to MI6 in any way.
Tom misses Alex, but he loves his new job. Sure, it's not all suits and luxury cars, and sure, the world doesn't know what he's done, but he and Ben and their bosses know, and that's what matters. It's like the approval he never got from his parents. He doesn't mind the violence, or the danger, either; he and Ben are used to it. Really, to look beyond the glory is the hardest part.
Tom tried to hide his triumphant smile as he exited the greenhouse, surreptitiously wiping the doorknob of his presence. He didn't register the hummingbird flicker of dark brown eyes from the blond ten metres away, the glance over the slight bulge in Tom's jacket. They walked in opposite directions.