A/N: OMG that episode! LOVED it! I saw the previews for the next episode but I'm gonna spin off and do my own version of their life on the lam bit; no assassination plot talk or anything like the preview advertises, just their life and their choices, and my assumption that his mom's a nurse (not sure if they ever mentioned what her job was). I should be done with this before Monday so it's pre canon. Also, just a side question…are we to assume Gabriel and Mei Chen did more than kiss in that render? That's what I feel like we've been lead to believe. Ew. The title comes from the same song by Coheed & Cambria. "The Crooked Kind" lyrics by Radical Face. I highly recommend this song, it's beautiful and eerie. (No copyright infringement, promise!)
The Running Free
XOX
Some get dealt simple hands
Some walk the common paths
All nice and worn
But all folks are damaged goods
It ain't a talk of "if," just one of "when" and "how"
So, collect your scars and wear 'em well
You blood's a good an ink as any
Go scratch your name into the clouds
And pull 'em all down…
XOX
"I know where we can go," Gabriel gasped, hand pressing into his bleeding side. Riley white knuckled the steering wheel, jaw set in a hard line.
"Where?" she breathed raggedly, half blinded by rage.
"His mother's house," Mei Chen answered in a bored voice. Riley wanted to strangle the indifferent Asian woman. Nothing seemed to affect her but Gabriel's opinion of her, and that irked Riley to no end. Mei Chen didn't care that the second bullet was meant for herself. Then again, she was no doubt used to being the center of an assassination plot by now.
"Is that true Gabriel?" Riley said, trying to rouse Gabriel as his eyes began falling closed. "Gabriel! Stay awake, stay with me!"
"Yes, yes, my mom…she's in the area…" he trailed. Riley pushed the gas pedal down. They were running out of time.
"Go straight for two miles, turn right," Mei Chen answered Riley's unspoken question. Riley glanced in the review mirror, catching Mei Chen's even glare. "I'm in his mind."
Riley turned back to the road. One day, very soon, she'd get her chance to smack the smile off the smug woman's face.
They made it to Mary Vaughn's residence unimpeded. They weren't circulating photos of them, for obvious reasons. But the shooting in the park would surely catch someone's attention.
"Help me get him out," Riley commanded. Mei Chen slammed the car door.
"This is where we part ways, Agent. I'd love to stay, but I like living too much to hang out with the two of you," Mei Chen said haughtily, turning her back on the pair.
"So much for the same side, Mei Chen," Riley called out, choosing Gabriel's life over cuffing the illusive woman. She wound his arm over her shoulders, trying to support his weight.
"Oh, we're still on the same side. I just prefer to take my chances on my own," she answered back. "Besides, if Gabriel needs me, he knows where to find me," Mei Chen smirked, taking off at a run.
Riley sighed heavily. She could add letting a murderer willingly go free to her growing list of felonies. "C'mon Gabriel, just a little farther," she said softly, half dragging him to the front porch. Riley pounded on the door unabashedly until a baffled older woman answered the door, an irritated expression lighting her face.
"What in the name of…Gabriel!" she shrieked, taking in her son's appearance.
"Mom, I need a favor," he rasped. She stood back, allowing them to cross the threshold. Riley immediately shoved the contents of the kitchen table to the floor, easing her partner onto its surface.
"What happened? What are you mixed up in?" his mother demanded, taking in the extent of the damage with a critical eye. Riley was a bit perplexed as the woman calmly analyzed the gunshot wound. "Get towels, from the bathroom," she said, looking warily towards Riley.
Riley hesitated, not wanting to leave him. Mrs. Vaughn shot her a piercing glare when she realized she wasn't moving, and Riley found her feet crossing the kitchen floor of their own volition.
She found the bathroom in the modest home quickly, pulling all the towels she could carry out of the linen closet. Riley stopped in the middle of the living room on the way back though, staring above the white brick fireplace. Gabriel wasn't kidding.
My dad was a folded flag on the mantel.
She looked away, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I've got the towels," she whispered. Her mother was a surgeon. She'd been lectured dozens of times on varying procedures. So Riley did what she could remember from her mother's lengthy speeches while Mary Vaughn went to work on her injured son.
XOX
Riley jumped when a hand landed on her shoulder. "Gabriel?" she questioned immediately, wide eyes searching for her partner.
"No dear, just me," his mother replied gently. "Thought you could use this."
Riley took the cup of tea gratefully. The kitchen was pitch dark; night had fallen, and they were still alive. "Thank you, Mrs. Vaughn."
"Mary," she said quietly, nodding to Gabriel's sleeping form on the table. "He'll be fine, but you won't if you try to keep yourself awake watching and worrying over him."
"It's my job," Riley said distantly. "My job to protect him."
"Oh, I've seen that look before, on his face, a thousand times. Saw it on his father's too. Look where that got him," Mary said, a hint of bitterness in her tone.
"He told me, I'm sorry," Riley added, the only thing she really could say to the woman who'd lost so much already.
"Thought he could change the world, save it, at least," Mary reminisced proudly.
"So that's where Gabriel gets his complex from then?" Riley chuckled. Mary nodded.
"Too stubborn for his own good, that one. You two seem to have that in common."
Riley smiled, sipping the cooling tea. Suddenly she frowned, looking back at the woman with a flushed face. "I'm…so sorry, I never told you who I was. I'm Riley Neal, I…work with Gabriel," she said quickly, trying to cover her hesitation.
"Don't worry dear," Mary began. "I'm smart enough to know not to ask questions."
"Thank you," she said again, exhaustion settling in as the adrenaline wore off from the day. Days? "We won't be able to stay long, just until he's able to walk. It's not safe for us here."
"I know that too."
XOX
Gabriel tossed and turned as much as he could on a kitchen table.
His dreams were filled with Mei Chen in her blood red dress kissing him back in the equally blood red forest, before she curled into a snake, choking the life out of him for denying her what she really wanted. What he couldn't give her, even in a render.
Her mocking tone kept winding around him, suffocating him, as her serpentine body did.
Can you ever share something like this with her?
He'd nearly asked who 'she' was.
But he knew whom Mei Chen meant. The one person Mei Chen really felt threatened by.
Riley.
"She can't be what I can to you, what I am to you," the dream Mei Chen hissed in his ear, morphing back into the woman. "She can never know you like I do, so…intimately…"
"You don't know me," he countered. "You know facts, fantasies, but it takes time to really know someone."
"And she's known you so long now," Mei Chen said. But this time it wasn't the dream version he'd animated. "Miss me already Gabriel? Dreaming about me? I'm flattered…"
"What do you mean, 'miss you already?'"
"Hm, haven't woken yet I suppose. Surprised you're still alive, really," she eyed his dream creation of her; a little bit severe, a little cold, a little malevolent. "Interesting, the way you see us. But are you forgetting? We were all thrown together on that very same day, Gabriel. As if by Fate. The difference is, she got to be by your side, while I got to be in your mind."
"What's your point?" he growled, surrounded by the suspended red petals and the real Mei Chen, taking on the appearance she had earlier, same blood red dress befitting the hidden temptress.
"Nature and Nurture, Gabriel. Think about it. Think about why you see me this way, as some kind of demon mistress incarnate, and her," Riley rendered before him, an extrapolation of Mei Chen's mind and not his own. Her dark hair perfectly curled, wearing a long white dress that pooled on the ground. "Like some untouchable angel."
He gave her a sideways look. "What are you playing at Mei Chen?"
Mei Chen's gaze was cool and curious. "Reaction." A gun formed in her hand and she moved, shooting Riley in the stomach, where the unknown assailant had shot him. He could feel the pain blossoming as both he and Riley dropped from the wounds in sync.
He screamed.
"Gabriel, Gabriel you have to listen! You have to stop fighting me!" Riley yelled, holding his shoulders back. His eyes flew open as he gasped for air, desperate to get up. The immediate white hot flash of pain at his violent movements left him dizzy and nauseous. "Gabriel?" she whispered softly.
His gaze began to focus as he forced the contents of his stomach to stay down. One hand remained on his shoulder while the other cupped his cheek, pushing back beads of sweat, or tears, he wasn't sure.
She did look like an angel to him, back lit by the sun pouring through the window, her hair a tangled mess and her face tired but hopeful. "I was worried," she said quietly.
"Worried? Hah, sure, if that's how you want to describe it," Mary laughed behind her, wringing out a washcloth and laying it on his forehead. "But how are you doing Sweetie?"
Gabriel blinked, confused. "Mom?"
"You asked me to bring you here," Riley said slowly. He tried to clear the cobwebs from his sluggish mind, nodding.
"No, you're right. How long have we been here?" he asked. Riley helped ease him into a sitting position.
"Two days. Longer than I wanted to be here, but you weren't waking up and I didn't have an alternative," she replied curtly. All business. "Do you think you can walk?"
"Don't know…maybe?" Something in her voice wasn't right. There was an underlying urgency hidden within. She was still trying to protect him. "Why? What happened?"
Riley looked away. Mary turned the TV on. "Our faces are everywhere. Our identities are public record. They know about you, Gabriel. I called Lillian by way of payphone yesterday; there are sleeper agents in Cyber Comm, in every department. That's who shot you."
His mother looked at him with a strange sympathy.
"Mom, I can explain…"
She held up a hand, silencing him. "She already did. I just wish…I just want the best for you." Mary Vaughn stepped forward, hugging her son for all he was worth. "But you need to go. I expect they'll be coming soon, either the government or these sleeper agents, as Riley says."
He smiled crookedly. "What, did you two bond while I was asleep?"
"Scared she showed me your naked baby photos?" Riley smirked teasingly.
"No. I was adorable," he lied.
"Maybe when you were sleeping," his mother added smartly.
"Thanks, mom. I thought at least you would be on my side."
"I'm always on your side, Gabriel," she said seriously. She turned to Riley, grasping her hands in hers. "I got what you asked for. And the bag is packed, so you two should be okay for awhile."
"Thank you, Mary," Riley smiled, but it lacked its usual dazzling quality. Gabriel was a little surprised when his mother hugged his partner so brazenly, and that Riley allowed it. Clearly he'd missed a lot the past two days. "For everything. You should be getting a call soon. They'll help you, keep you safe."
Riley turned back to Gabriel, determination setting her shoulders. "We need to go, whether you can move or not."
XOX
They switched vehicles three times in four hours, hotwiring each by Riley's hand just in case there was still a trace on Gabriel. Riley wasn't so sure Jameson was part of the team anymore after his last stunt, and that meant a stranger staring at a screen with no inclination as to what they could be doing to the pair on the run.
They had both the power of the United States Government and any foreign and domestic sleeper agents on a massive manhunt to find them, dead or alive. Her stellar career was a wash. By all rights, they could label them both terrorists and traitors to their country. He was a weapon, and she was aiding him.
And she still had no regrets.
"What happened to Mei Chen?" Gabriel asked to break the unnerving silence.
"She decided to take her chances. I wasn't particularly inclined to stop her. What's one more felony, anyway."
Gabriel sighed heavily. "Great. And all my firewalls are still down."
Riley's head whipped around so fast he thought she'd given herself whiplash. "What?"
"There wasn't any time for the Doc to repair the security measures…"
"Gabriel, do you have any idea how foolish that was!" she yelled, panic creeping into her normally placid tone.
"We had other problems, like not getting hauled in by our own people and dodging bullets!"
Riley was quiet for a long moment. "She was in your head wasn't she, this morning?"
He ran a hand through his hair. "Yes, she was."
"Did she have anything useful to say or was it a social call?" She asked, voice dripping with unadulterated sarcasm and contempt. She would never admit to Mei Chen or Gabriel, but she was curious about their renders together. She didn't have a right to be jealous, but it still tickled her mind, an itch utterly unscratchable.
"Does it matter?" he replied weakly, feeling the energy drain from his body.
She took in a deep breath. "No, I suppose it doesn't."
"Where are we going anyway?"
"To cash in a favor," she snapped. He didn't ask again, and the rest of the trip was spent in silence.
XOX
He blinked, taking in the sunny, suburban complex. He looked over at Riley, donning a baseball cap and oversized sunglasses like a celebrity incognito. She held out a hat to him as well, and he took it with an eyeroll.
"Now will you tell me?"
"Surprised you didn't figure it out yourself," she said smartly. Still angry.
"I'd like to save using the chip for a dire emergency."
She nodded, conceding his point. "Just follow me." Riley opened the trunk of the car, pulling out a duffle bag that belonged to him in high school. "We're gonna need this."
"My football gear?" he teased. She snorted, shaking her head.
"C'mon, we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it," she said, letting him rest a good amount of his weight on her as they approached one of the cookie cutter houses. It was a nice complex; all white brick with red doors and black shutters, sprawling green lawns and flower gardens. The kind of place he'd dreamed about back when he had a wife and a future.
Riley was knocking on one of the red doors before he realized it. When it opened, he knew he shouldn't have been surprised by the face on the other side.
"For reals, I never thought I'd see ya'll again!" Troy whooped, elated. "Step inside my office."
"You could have told me," Gabriel said, eyeing his partner who was basking in her own brilliance.
"But it's so much better seeing your reaction now," she smiled.
"Clever."
"All right, all right, I think I got everything you guys need. Drew took his wife out for a 'date night,' and my niece is at a sleepover, so we're golden. Bathroom is free, just try not to make too much of a mess."
"Got it Troy, and thanks, again," Riley said sincerely.
"Look, I owe you both, a lot. It's the least I can do for your pretty face."
Gabriel gave Troy a brotherly slap on the back. "Thanks kid."
XOX
"So, why are we trying not to make a mess in the bathroom?" Gabriel winced as they climbed the stairs to the second story. She guided him into the master bathroom, easing him down onto the tub's ledge.
Riley dropped the duffle bag on the countertop, unzipping it and pulling out the contents. "I had your mom pick up some things for us. I figured something would happen, but this is a bigger scale than even I prepared for. Our faces, our names, what we do, who we are…they're plastered on every television and right now we're anything but safe," she answered stiffly. "So, would you rather be black sapphire or warm espresso?"
She held out the two boxes of hair dye. "You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.
He sighed, pointing to the brown box. "Espresso it is," she said.
"What about you? Please, please, don't dye your hair blonde," he pleaded.
She gave him a funny look. "God no, I won't make that mistake again. I'll be black sapphire. You're also going to have to get used to these," Riley said, pulling out another box. "Pick a color, any color, that isn't blue."
Gabriel warily took the box, noting they were colored contacts. "Brown, I suppose."
He was taking this all pretty well in stride, she thought, knowing it would blow up in their faces soon enough. Riley huffed, setting aside the boxes of contacts and hair dye, facing him. "Look, Gabriel, I had time to come up with this and come to grips with it. I'm resigned to what we have to do, but…"
"But nothing, it's a better plan than I would have come up with. So let's just…get started, shall we?"
Riley nodded her consent.
It was easier to do Gabriel first. She trimmed his hair, colored it, and had him select his eye color of choice, handing him a new pair of dark wash jeans and a pale blue dress shirt. Then she sent him down to Troy. He wouldn't like her whole plan, she knew that, but they weren't left with many options other than life in prison or death.
She felt her heart lurch; trying to keep her head cool for Gabriel was taking its toll on her emotional state. She couldn't afford to breakdown now. At the forty five minute mark she washed her hair out, startled by the pitch blue/black color and ruefully picked up the scissors once more. She wasn't naturally a vain person, but she loved her hair. In a job like hers, it was something that defined her as feminine. She carefully cut off three inches, bringing the length to the middle of her chest, biting back tears.
Swallowing, she plucked the gray blue contacts from their curved beds and placed them in her eyes, flinching as she did. Riley dried and styled her hair with the travel size appliances and altered her makeup to fit her new image. She pulled on the simple navy sundress she'd had Mary pick up from a boutique in town and traded her ankle boots for brown leather flats.
She felt herself crumble a little when she saw the full effect in the mirror.
She was no longer Riley Neal.
Riley Neal was gone.
XOX
