Fidelity
by firechild
Rated T
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
Warning: drama, vivid imagery...
A/N: This was meant to be a much longer story, the idea of which was born shortly after the airing of the s3 finale, but as much as I've wanted to write it, other things have called for my energy this summer, and I have yet to conquer my laziness in free moments, so for the moment, this is it. If anyone wants to know the rest of the story, let me know, and I may buckle down and write it.
A/N 2: There is a second, and at some point there will be a third and fourth.
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Don rubbed his aching knuckles, his mind still reeling as Megan pulled the Grand Marquis out of the parking garage adjacent to the prison. He almost asked if he was sure, but then he remembered the look in her eyes, the look in his eyes, and his jaw snapped shut with the click of teeth as the memory brought back the mind-bending confusion. He didn't like confusion--it left him feeling hapless, and Don Eppes didn't do hapless.
"I'm sorry that it had to be this way." Her voice was low, filled with regret and discouragement, and it was then that he realized that she felt helpless, and Megan Reeves didn't do helpless.
"It..." David had to clear his throat and try again, and whether he was just hoarse from shouting or much closer to breaking than Don had ever seen him, the older agent couldn't tell. "It's not your fault. You didn't plan... this. You had to agree to it--you didn't have a choice." He glanced down at the dark skin of his hands and seemed to notice the blood for the first time. Not thinking clearly, he distractedly wiped his hands on his shirt, smearing the red of dead dreams and dying brotherhood over the pressed white fabric. Even after his knuckles looked dry, he kept rubbing them on the shirt, unable to look at his hands for more than a moment without turning away in disgust. The perennial Boy Scout of the team felt dirty, and David Sinclair didn't do dirty.
The three were quiet, all wishing for some escape from their churning thoughts and churning guts, until Megan eased the car off of the highway and stopped at the bottom of the exit ramp; a right turn would take them back to the office, back to the paperwork and the departmental reviews and the pitying stares from people who thought they knew them but could have no true idea of how they felt now, who thought they'd known him but had no clue of what their former coworker was really capable. A left turn would take them toward their apartments, toward food they didn't have to pretend they could taste and beds that wouldn't care how many hours their owners tossed in an exhaustion too deep for sleep or how many pills finally brought on that sleep. Straight ahead lay familiar streets with familiar houses and the comforting smells of chalk and wood polish, and farther down the highway... escape; freedom from the questions and the stares and the suspicions, freedom from the whispers and the recriminations and the reality that the three now had to live with, the reality that he now had to die with.
Don thought of that familiar house, of the two men he loved more than life and who loved him unconditionally, thought of the pain he'd brought home with his bombshell about a mutual friend, thought that the newest twist should bring relief but would only drive the knife in deeper. He wanted to go to them, wanted to tell them, needed to share this with them, not just because they had a right to know but because he needed them now even more than he had when this had started, but he knew in the end that he wouldn't, that he couldn't. He had done such huge wrong, he had made such a colossal mistake, but he had been right about one thing--at this point, that truth, that knowledge could only harm them. Don made a low sound in his throat as his mind threw his words back at him. "One man dying for this, we can afford--it's done, it's already in the bank; collateral damage, that would be unconscienable. Think about it, Eppes--I'm the logical solution; I've got no one to leave behind, no one to care that I'm gone. Better me, better to accept it, than to risk anyone else." Don hated himself for knowing that he'd been right, that even Don couldn't ignore the simple math.
He hated himself more for his impotence, for being so desperate to find a way for the one to equal more that it did, for that single life to be worth as much as his own; he'd lay down his life for him even now, maybe especially now, but he knew that he couldn't, that no act of heroism could save the day this time. There was no bullet to take, no nick of time to make, no pattern to follow, no paper trail; he was the protector, the leader, the big brother, but he couldn't make it right this time, couldn't fix it, couldn't save them from what he was and what they could not be.
They'd sat there so long that several vehicles had started to honk impatiently as they'd explored their options. Home offered privacy, highway offered freedom, work offered anger and haplessness and helplessness and dirtiness and the blood of a lamb offered to no god; nowhere offered hope. The three agents looked at one another and then, with a sigh, Megan turned back to face the wheel and eased the car through a right turn. They couldn't go home, they couldn't escape, they couldn't give up. They might not be able to solve this case, they might not even ever understand just what this case was, but whatever they might or might not do, they were nothing if not loyal; hope had turned to ashes, but where faith had gone MIA, faithfulness was all they had left to them. They would not leave a man behind; they would not meet this challenge with betrayal.
Because Colby Granger didn't do betrayal.