Reunion
A/N: It occurred to me that in all my Bourne fanfics, I've never really touched upon the ambiguous Bourne/Nicky relationship. So here's my take on it.
David Webb walked into the park cautiously, even as a part of him was scanning his environs, looking out for any potential assailants. He may no longer be Jason Bourne, but for better or for worse, he was still a part of Bourne's shadow world and it would be folly to ignore the instincts Treadstone had ingrained in him so deeply.
Having ascertained that there was no one in the immediate surroundings who posed a threat, he made his way to the rendezvous point. Pamela Landy was there, as she promised she would be, holding a blue manila envelope in his hands.
"Good to see you again, David", she said with a brief smile, and yet the expression on her face conveyed the fact that she had little time for idle chit-chat. David was only too glad to oblige by getting to the point. "You've found her?" he asked. Landy sighed, "Actually, to be more accurate, they did".
David felt the panic and anxiety swell up in his chest, but he controlled his tone when he asked, "But how? She was completely off the grid...at least, that's what I told her to do". "Well, she wasn't you, David", Landy said with a sad smile. "Fortunately, at the moment she is relatively safe, but chances are she won't be for long. They zeroed in on her in Marseilles about a week ago. The Blackbriar unit we neutralised in Geneva was one of the few we knew of that was still functioning, though there are possibly others. In any case, they had a list of targets to be eliminated, a list issued by Vosen just hours before his arrest. So far as we can guess, there hasn't been any movement on any of their missions. We can assume they're probably lying low for a bit, waiting till the heat dies down on the scandal here at home. But we found out about at least three assets who are currently positioned close to where she is and who might, at any moment be assigned to eliminate her. The details are in the envelope", she added, handing it over to him.
David, taking the envelope after a moment's hesitation, asked, "Why can't you'll just pull her out of there?" "Because I can't really risk doing anything overseas with the people I've got, not when a life is at stake. Who knows where the rot ends? Who knows how many people, even in my investigation team, are on Blackbriar's payroll? I just can't take any risks. Besides, let's face it", Landy added, "If anyone has a chance of dealing with those men, it's you".
David couldn't honestly disagree with her. Once more, as it so often had recently, the vivid image of Desh's blood-soaked body lying in a bathroom in Tangiers came to mind. Yes, Landy was right. If anyone had a chance of saving her again from a situation like that, it was him. Or at any rate, the man he had been.
"I'll take care of it", he said to Landy and nodded. "But I just want to know...when I find her, do I bring her back?"
Landy remained silent for a few moments and said, "That...would be nice. Though of course, given the risks involved, it would have to be her choice and her choice alone. That said, we do need a willing witness who was on the inside in the upcoming hearings"
"I'll try to convince her. I owe you that much", said David. "You owe me nothing, David", said Landy. "I'm just doing my job. If you owe anyone anything, it's her".
"Yeah", David said, thinking to himself that if there was indeed anyone he owed anything to at this moment, it was Nicky Parsons.
After his ten-storey plunge into the East River, David Webb was officially declared missing presumed dead, though nearly everyone involved in making that decision knew, or at least felt, differently. This was hardly surprising, considering they were talking about a man who had cheated death far too often before.
David, understandably, decided to lie low. He'd been on the move since the day Marie was gunned down in India and he needed time to recuperate. So he rented an apartment in a slightly less conspicuous part of Washington DC and spent his days contemplating not the future, but the past.
The answers were all there now, the one's he'd been looking for since the day he'd woken up on that boat in the Mediterranean a lifetime ago. His encounter with Hirsch had served as a catalyst, unlocking the secrets of his mind, his memory. And yet, the sense of closure, of completeness, he had long yearned for...he had perhaps not achieved. True, he remembered David's Webb's life, bore David Webb's name and possessed David Webb's identity once more, and yet 'David Webb' seemed at times to be even more of an enigma than Jason Bourne had been initially. Webb seemed almost to be a lost appendage sewn back to his arm hastily; one which he was able to use, but with which he did not feel any real connect. He supposed, although the answer did not particularly appeal to him, that the reason was simply that David Webb was beyond repair, after all he'd been through. Irrevocably damaged by Hirsch's mind games, and forever destroyed by a crisis of conscience, the bullets of Wombosi's bodyguard, and the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. It was an answer that scared him on some level, terrified him even, because it meant that despite all his efforts to the contrary, he still lacked an identity. True, he had embraced the Bourne identity in order to survive, but he had relinquished it at long last in favour of David Webb. In favour of a man who probably did not exist anymore, except in flesh. Which, in essence, made him...a nobody.
It was during these dark bouts of brooding that he sought to divert his thoughts to someone else, someone who was inextricably tied to his past, both distant and recent. Nicky Parsons. Since the day she'd uttered those enigmatic words at the cafe in Madrid, he had been desperate to know what she had meant. What had they meant to each other? Were they possibly more than handler and agent? He had been bursting with questions, but he had restrained himself. They were on the run, the present was dire enough...there was no need to dwell on the past. And yet, now, he remembered everything about her, about how things had been between them...and it wasn't exactly what he'd expected. And weeks of contemplation led him to the conclusion that it simply wasn't enough for him to know...in order to truly seek closure in the matter of that particular relationship, he would have to meet her face to face. And now he had a chance to do that. Unless they got to her first.
It was the walk that had given the asset away.
David had arrived in Marseilles late afternoon, flying in on the new US passport Landy had given him. At the arrival gate, as he'd been previously alerted, a man unobtrusively dropped car-keys in his coat pocket as he brushed past him. The Chevrolet it belonged to contained a Glock pistol in its glove compartment, as well as a list of 'safe' hotels and boarding facilities. Having installed himself in just one such location, David set off on his way to meet Nicky. Along the way, he passed the waterfront and couldn't help stare out for a few minutes into the vast expanse of the Mediterranean Sea, the body of water which had arguably made him what he was today. What that was, or rather, who that was, he didn't know.
The sights and sounds of Marseilles were familiar to him and brought to mind recently restored memories of the ill-fated Wombosi op, when he, as 'John Michael Kane', had prowled these very streets, preparing for a mission he would never complete. As he was lost in thoughts of the past, his mind snapped back to the present when he his eyes picked out something oddly familiar from the crowd in front of him.
The way the man moved, with a fluidity that belied the immense concentration and premeditation that preceded every infinitesimal move, was the first sign. Webb was familiar with that walk; Jason Bourne had moved similarly back in the day. The stone-cold expression on the glimpse he had caught of the man's sunburnt face was the second clue. And when Webb, following the man unobtrusively, got a good look at his face, all his suspicions were confirmed. This was the asset, one of the three whose photograph and details were in the intel Landy had given him. This one's code name was Rocke, the asset who had been stationed in Greece until that unit had been compromised by the papers Landy had brought before the Senate. David did not for a moment doubt what this man's purpose here, in Marseilles, was.
He knew he had to get to the man and neutralise him fast.
So he followed the man and found the apartment he had rented. It just so happened that Rocke's apartment was just across the street from where Landy's intel said Nicky was. David did not believe in coincidences of this kind. He made his way to the door of the man's apartment stealthily. He picked the lock using a device he'd purchased from the black market upon his arrival in the city and crept in silently, his gun out. He had mentally resolved not to kill, except as a last resort, but just to neutralise the asset non-lethally, perhaps even reason with him as he had done with the one he'd met on the rooftop of SRD.
Unfortunately for Webb, Rocke had seen him coming, had noticed the former Treadstone operative following him, and had laid a trap for him. The baseball bat lashed out at Webb's gun hand, knocking the weapon away. It took but an instant for the adrenaline to rush into Jason Bourne's brain. Bourne retreated his right hand and lashed out with his leg, striking Rocke in his stomach. He followed on relentlessly with a similar barrage of attacks, using his arms and legs as weapons, trying to inflict the maximum possible damage and pain on his opponent. For his part, Rocke proved to be exceptionally well-trained in close quarters combat himself.
The two men fought for over five minutes, like gladiators in the Colosseum that was Rocke's small apartment, which soon turned to rubble, with broken glass and plaster falling everywhere. The baseball bat had fallen to the ground, when Bourne had dislocated Rocke's shoulder in one violent move, but Rocke had slammed the side of Bourne's head with a powerful blow, had strangled him for a few moments during which Bourne nearly passed out. and pushed him against the wall, pinning him with his legs, while he reached for a knife from his belt, with which to slit his enemy's throat. Bourne however, using breathing exercises he had long ago mastered during the now-remembered days of his training, had reoriented himself to an extent and decided that now was the time to retreat to his last resort. Even as Rocke's knife slid slowly towards his throat, Bourne grabbed either side of Rocke's head and twisted it in one powerful move that broke the asset's neck even as his arm short forward with momentum. Bourne had ducked as the dead man's knife struck the part of the wall against which he'd been moments ago, and he kicked the corpse of him.
He panted for a while, gathering his senses once more. True, he had been out of the field for a while, and yet he was astounded by how swiftly the Bourne identity had re-asserted itself, as though it had never gone. Jason methodically scanned every inch of the apartment, discovering a secret stash of weapons, money and passports. What interested him the most was a file containing information on Nicky Parsons, who was to have been Rocke's latest victim, as he had suspected. Bourne burnt the file using a cigarette lighter he always carried with him; then cleaned up all the blood and gore, stuffed the body away in a closet, cleaned himself in the bathroom and changed into some of the dead man's clothes he'd found in a wardrobe. Giving himself cursory treatment with a first aid box he'd found in the closet where Rocke now lay, he walked out of the apartment, careful not to be seen by anyone, into the Marseilles sunset.
His task was accomplished. He had saved Nicky from certain death yet again. Now , all he had left to do was to find her and gain at least a shred of the closure he had long desired.