Title:I Don't Love You [But I Always Will]
Genre: Tragedy
Warnings: Deathfic
Words: 1000 (10 segments of 100 words each)
A/N: With the death of 2012 last night, everyone gets to have a little bit of deathfic for the new year. A huge thank you to Faye Dartmouth for beta-ing this. The title is from the Civil Wars' song 'Poison & Wine'
Summary: Sooner or later, luck runs out for everyone.
I Don't Love You (But I Always Will)
Fay doesn't love Michael. And the ODS routinely drives her insane.
She tells herself this frequently.
But every time there's a memo about a compromised agent, or a report about a death in the field, Fay feels her heart jump into her throat. She intercepts every file before it hits Higgins' desk, just to make sure...
It's never Michael, or his team. The bastard is lucky, she remembers, while assuring herself that the emotion she's feeling isn't relief.
But sooner or later, she knows, luck tends to run out for everyone. So she checks, and she waits, and she prays.
-o-
One day, a call goes right through to Higgins. She sees him and several advisors retreat into a conference room, but when she goes to follow, Higgins shakes his head, his expression unusually somber as he closes the door.
Fay feels her stomach drop.
She hopes and she prays but she's never seen Higgins with that look on his face before, and now she's afraid.
She's afraid that what she suspects is right.
Fay can tell herself she doesn't love Michael, but she can't pretend that she wants him dead.
But the universe may be done listening to her wishes.
-o-
When Higgins asks her if she's sure, she nods.
She needs to see it.
The video is grainy, but she recognizes the ODS' faces as their captors rip the hoods off their heads. She inhales sharply. Some terrorist monologues, and normally Fay would be listening and trying to decipher some intel, but all she can focus on is Michael's pained expression; his face is bruised, but unmistakable, and he looks straight at the camera.
Straight at her.
She knows the tape has been recorded long before, but she still holds Michael's gaze, not looking away.
Then the men open fire.
-o-
She can't look away.
Not when Casey twists around with a snarl, only to catch a hail of bullets across the chest.
Not when Rick screws his eyes closed and mouths the words to a prayer that's abruptly cut off by gunfire.
Not when Billy cries out in despair at the sight of Malick and Martinez, then jerks violently as he takes a shot to the head and folds limply to the ground.
Not when Michael falls, lying lifeless on the concrete, glassy eyes still staring directly at the camera.
Then the tape ends, and she finally lowers her head.
-o-
Higgins gives her as much time off as she needs, and a hug. It's a strange thing, but she's too numb to appreciate it. She doesn't remember getting home from Langley. It's like a bad dream that she's floating through, disconnected.
(And if she closes her eyes, she can still see the haunted look in Michael's.)
Adele comes over and Fay sits on the couch with her, holding the other woman as she sobs, eyes red and face blotchy from weeping. She should probably be crying too, but she's not sure she can.
If she cries, then this is real.
-o-
She comes back to work two days later because she feels useless sitting around in the dark in her apartment. She walks by the open door to the ODS' office, where someone has set up little votive candles on each of their desks.
It's a nice gesture. Casey would nod stiffly in approval; Rick would be touched; Billy would smile and crack a joke about the candles being brighter than any of them; and Michael would have scoffed and found the whole thing idiotically sentimental.
But they're all dead in a basement in Iran somewhere, so it doesn't really matter.
-o-
Fay and Michael are divorced, but she's still somehow his widow at the funeral. There are no bodies to bury, and no names that can be recorded. There are simply four markers devoid of names and dates, positioned over four empty graves.
Higgins actually says nice things about the ODS. Adele tries to speak but breaks down halfway through. Blanke reads a surprisingly solemn and appropriate ode. A few family members attend; a woman who must be Rick's mother, she thinks, and Michael's sister, who won't even look at her.
Everything is empty, she realizes. The graves, the headstones...
Everything.
-o-
The ODS' office remains empty. After two weeks, though, she overhears Higgins discussing new hires with HR.
"I thought you hated the ODS," she says darkly.
He flinches. "I may have had reservations, but they were a uniquely effective team. The Agency needs that."
"You can't just replace them," she points out.
He nods solemnly. "I know. But the department can live on."
She walks back past the office and thinks that whatever new team Higgins brings in, they won't ever be as good as Michael and Casey and Billy and Rick.
The ODS are dead.
(Long live the ODS.)
-o-
She hasn't rewatched the grainy execution video, but she doesn't have to. It's burned into her mind, and she relives it every night.
In some of the dreams, she's there, in the room, right before it happens. She sees Michael and she thinks of all the things she needs to say; the apologies and the grievances and the confessions.
She opens her mouth to speak, to tell him, but before she can form the words, the shots ring out and Michael falls to the ground.
When she wakes, trembling, she can still hear the echoes of gunfire in her head.
-o-
She goes into her closet and gets out a small shoebox, opening it on the bed. It's full of old keepsakes she never got around to throwing out; a bottle of her favorite perfume; her engagement ring; the lone snapshot taken of her Paris wedding, with her and Michael grinning together on top of the Eiffel tower.
Fay stares down at these things in her shaking hands.
She didn't love Michael, she would always remind herself.
Except that's always been a lie.
And clutching the trinkets that are all that's left of him now, she feels the tears finally come.
-o-