Disclaimer: I own none of Bourne, alas. No characters, no storylines, no hot actors. Bugger. They remain exclusive property of authors, directors, producers, movie execs and wives.
AN: Set at the end of The Bourne Supremacy, just after Jason breaks into Irena Neski's flat in Moscow. One-shot. Complete. Reviews welcomed, muchos. Hope you enjoy.
It Changes Things
He bled on the carpet. That's the only way that I know I'm not crazy. That I didn't dream the whole thing up. He bled on the carpet. Not much. Not more than a smear really, probably from his shoe. I remember that. He was dishevelled to say the very least, and despite the freezing weather outside and the lack of heating in the commissioned flat, he was sweating. Pain will do that to you, I guess. I wonder if my father sweated before he died? I wonder if he suffered? I tried – try – not to think about that much. Although though now I know the truth, I realise that it would have been quick. He probably didn't even know what was happening. Bourne may have been a killer, but he didn't seem cruel.
I learned his name two weeks after he came. It was in the paper, third page, half the space dedicated to a story of the American CIA crumbling from within. There was a tiny picture, and the article posed some open-ended questions about the fate of the man who exposed the corruption. It was grainy and pixelated, but there was no mistake. It was him. The man who sat in my living room, who bled on my carpet and told me that he had killed my parents. That my mother hadn't killed my father, then taken her own life. Looked uncomfortable, upset even, and apologised. The man who had turned my life upside down and then came and turned it upside down again. Which equates to it being the right way up, I suppose. Although sometimes I wonder.
I was going ok. I was moving on. It was hard, being orphaned and growing up alone, but I was making it. I hadn't been using in over a year, and I was just starting to get back on my feet again, financially at least. I was coping, but inside I was still the same, carrying around an egg of sadness that filled me up and meant that I didn't smile much, really, anymore. I had stopped being angry, at least. Sometimes there was such a fury that raged inside I didn't think I could contain it, but I'd moved on from there. Then I had just felt bitter and cheated, and mourned for what could have been. And then he came and everything I ever felt changed. Bourne was right. That knowledge – it changed things. He came and left me with the truth. And instead of all that anger and hurt, I felt guilty. So overwhelmingly that for hours after he left, I sat in the chair and didn't move. How could I have thought my mother could do such a thing? The woman that had patted my head, kissed my goodnight, who would have taught me about boys and make-up and doing my hair and taken me shopping, how could I have think that she had been so selfish, to kill my father and take her own life? How could I? The questions drummed a pattern into my brain. All those years of wasted anger, directed at my poor mother, a victim. I had hated her, someone who loved me, someone who wasn't to blame.
I thought I would have felt relieved. Before Bourne, if someone had told me that there had been a mistake, that my mother hadn't done what I thought she did, I thought I would be so happy. But then there was Bourne, and all I felt was this horrible heavy guilt. I couldn't do anything, I couldn't think of anything but how undeserving of my hatred my mum had been, of all the times I had cursed and wished she was alive so I could kill her myself. All the times I had tried to understand or sympathise, but just ended up so confused and wronged I went and got high. I crawled from the chair, too weak to stand, and into bed. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I cried for myself, for my mum. For my dad, for all the things that could have been. I begged for forgiveness, for understanding, even though I had not given any. I cried and cried until I was sick and then eventually, eyes almost swollen closed, I fell asleep. So exhausted with emotion, I slept completely until the midday sun worked its way across the room to shine half-heartedly on my bed.
I woke. And I thought this day would be a continuation of the one before, too steeped in sadness and the past. But, it wasn't. I felt oddly light, and as I looked at the picture that had rested on my bedside ever since I could remember, I knew she knew. My mum's eyes, she didn't blame me. She loved me, and she understood. And my father the same. They didn't blame me. I scrambled out of bed, desperate to know that it was real and that it wasn't some hallucination. I crossed the room to his chair where he had sat just the day before. There was no sign he had been there, no crease in the cover, no dent in the cushion. But then I saw it. A crimson smudge on the cream that could be nothing else. It was true. He was real. I practically ran to the kitchen drawer and scrabbled around, and finding the box cutter ran back to the spot and hacked the square out. It was amazing, a miracle.
I keep it with the photo now. So I know that there is no doubt, and that I will never forget. And it's hard sometimes, but I know that it is ok. It'll get better. Like Bourne said, it changes things.
I can smile now. He bled on my carpet.