Disclaimer:As always, someone else's sandbox. They just have better toys.
Author's Note: If you couldn't figure it out from the summary, this is a Webb/Mac fic. There you've now been appropriately warned, and if necessary may run screaming for the hills. If you're feeling adventurous and choose to stay, welcome aboard.
This fic was inspired by all that was left unsaid between Webb and Mac and the line from 4 solution, when Mac says in reference to their last talk at Manderlay that if she were to have that conversation over again she would ask different questions.
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Piazzo San Marco
Venice, Italy
2300 Zulu
How the hell did I get here? Mac asked herself, not for the first time that night, and she was betting not for the last. It wasn't that here was such a horrible place to be. No, there were definitely worse places to be than Venice at Midnight with the fabled dueling orchestras of St. Mark's square providing all the ambiance a couple could ever need. Even for a solitary woman with nothing but a tour-book and a cappuccino it had its own kind of charm.
Idly, she stirred her extravagantly over-priced drink and watched as an older man resplendent in Hawaiian shirt and camera equipment that proclaimed him as the quintessential American tourist, gallantly extended a hand to the twelve-year old girl sitting next to him. There proceeded a merry dance that involved much eye-rolling and coaxing and group encouragement from the other family members at the table, until finally the girl was on her feet, and being led to the open-area just beyond the tables. Mac tried not to stare as the man, so obviously the girl's father, proceeded to guide her patiently and with no little humor through an awkward waltz, tried not to note the embarrassed but pleased smile that played on the her face, as she made more of a show of reluctance than anything else, tried not to think about all experiences she'd never had. Tried and failed miserably.
As though drawn by the innocent, unfettered sweetness of the moment the two had created, other couples began to drift into the square—a pair barely in their twenties so ridiculously in love it could only be their honeymoon, a middle-aged slightly overweight couple pleasantly laughing and bickering even as they moved with the easy surety of long familiarity, two octogenarians barely swaying in time to music their faces the very picture of a contentment she'd never felt. So many couples . . .
A pair of college-kids traipsed by in a ridiculous parody of a tango. Mac dropped her spoon with a clatter and fumbled for her wallet.
She'd changed her mind. St. Mark's Square at midnight sucked. This whole idea sucked.
Harm had told her. Harm had warned her that this wasn't the right way to deal with things, that taking her ticket and their itinerary and proceeding on their carefully planned honeymoon through Italy alone was truly, monumentally stupid idea. But she'd done it anyway, hell maybe she'd half done it because he'd told her not to.
And of course Harm had been right.
"God, I hate it when he does that." Mac growled, only half-aware that she said the words out loud as she dropped a twenty Euro note on the table. Not waiting for her change, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, and began to move through the mass of tables, barely glancing up as she brushed past a man making his way towards the interior of the café.
"Scusi," they both muttered nearly simultaneously, and then he was past her, continuing on his preset trajectory without so much as a backwards glance.
But it was enough.
Enough to recognize the voice, the smell of him. Even after three years, the sense memory was as strong as it had ever been, as though in her frantic efforts to absorb as much of him as possible during that disastrous year of snatched moments and stolen time, she'd somehow etched him too permanently on her psyche to ever be erased, even by the acid of her own bitterness.
What the hell is Webb doing in Italy?
Because there was really only one answer to that question, her Marine instincts suddenly kicked in, and she realized she'd paused by the table a second too long, drawn too much attention to the moment. Bending her head on the pretense of rummaging through her purse, she made a bit of a show of finding some chap-stick, applied it, and dropped it back in her purse.
Then like she'd done all those years ago on the deck at Manderlay, she walked away without looking back.
----
He didn't watch her go, didn't need to, but he registered it, noted it, and mentally catalogued her path as she headed east across the square toward the Castello Ovest area, filing it away for possible later reference.
Later he might take the time to be surprised at the fact that Sarah MacKenzie-Rabb was in Venice, apparently alone, not a week after her wedding, but right now it was game on, and when things were moving, when he worked, Clayton Webb didn't get surprised, just adjusted calculations. So having taken into account the presence of one former Marine Colonel, factored her into the asset category for his ever present contingency plans, he let the thought of her go.
His eyes had been scanning piazza the entire time, flicking back and forth, noting every face as he waited for the man who was supposed to be his contact on this assignment. A vague sense of unease had plagued him throughout this entire mission. Oh it was a simple enough one—go to Italy, meet and greet one of the most prominent arms dealers still working in Western Europe, arrange a rather hefty purchase as the supposed Dutch middle-man for a group operating out of South Africa, setting up one of the larger stings they'd have in several years, and possibly permanently burning him for Western European work ever again.
"It's a calculated but acceptable risk, Clayton," Kershaw had told him, laying it out in cold, clean logical steps. But they both knew he was able to read between the lines. His usefulness in Europe was drying up, hell Europe was drying up. Sooner or later he was going to have to start taking assignments back down in South America or the Pacific Rim, start making use of those contacts he'd so carefully built during his exile, during his all too frequent trips away from Sarah, or finally pack it in. This mission and its likely outcome was Kershaw's way of an ultimatum.
They both knew what his choice would be. He'd started working with Galindez on his Spanish months ago. He and Costa were supposed to start on the Portuguese when he got back.
Which actually wouldn't be that long from now, less than twenty-four hours in fact. Everything had gone terribly smoothly, the meet, the evaluation, the preliminary buy, the final arrangement, all of it ticking along right according to plan . . . which was probably why he was so damned uneasy. Now all that was left was the information drop with the CIA courier, the redundancy plan in case something went wrong between now and his debriefing back in the U.S.
Like, oh say, two of Eytinge's men bearing down in your direction and no sign of the courier who should have been here two minutes ago?
Yup, that'd fit the criteria.
----
She was walking without really seeing anything, or paying attention to her route, just keeping to the main street in a kind of unconscious effort to keep from getting lost in Venice's endless maze of backways and ever-changing names. Without a destination, her normally purposeful walk had slowed to a near crawl, as every step took her a little further from the sounds of the orchestras, from the crowd of happy tourists, from the man she really didn't ever want to see again.
Of course he would be here. It was like some cosmic joke, fate mocking her with the reminder of one screw-up while she was trying to pick up the pieces of her latest catastrophe. She and fate were obviously not on the best of terms right now.
Which in the grand scheme of things, she thought was monumentally unfair. After all she'd given fate more than she had any living person, placed her trust in it wholly and completely. Spurred on by her intensive therapy sessions with McCool, by her final supposed willingness to choose something other than being alone, she'd given in to the path it seemed she was always meant to travel, the one she'd been destined for since a twist of kismet gave her the face of a dead woman.
And when she'd gambled her future on that same perverse imp, she'd done it with a free and easy heart, confident that the currents of destiny would take care of her far better than her own awful choices. After all, she'd chosen Chris, chosen Farrow, chosen alcohol, chosen Clay . . . it really couldn't be much worse.
And it hadn't been, at first. It had actually been heady and wonderful. Everything from the move to the London, to furnishing a place of their own, to the almost reverent love-making, it had been the most perfect time of her life. But the perfection didn't last, got eroded away by a hundred little things—by increasing tension with Mattie who saw her and her quest for a child as a threat to Harm's attentions; by Harm's ever-growing job responsibilities which took him far away even though he sat right across the kitchen table; by her slow-dawning realization that British firms, while more than willing to hire American Securities or Corporate lawyers, had very little use for a litigator with no experience in their procedures and the rather unhelpful specialization of U.S. Military law.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, the realities of a life she'd plunged into headfirst, without thought, caught up with her, stifling the happiness of the realization of her greatest dream, under the weight of so many other dreams which lay dead or dying. Until she'd stood on the platform in the bridal shop, watching the seamstress pin a woman she didn't know into a dress she didn't want to wear.
'Why do you always choose to be alone?'
She'd so wanted to prove McCool wrong, get the gold-star. Upon committing to the psychotherapy, she'd gone after it with the same intensity as she did everything, wanting to move to the head of the class, become the poster-child for the benefits of self-examination.
Somehow she'd bet going on her own honeymoon without a husband took her out of the running for that one.
Newly furious at having her trust so betrayed once again, she stopped in the middle of the street and threw back her head in challenge. "So what's next? Come on, I can take it."
"Sarah!"
Ask a stupid question . . .
She wasn't going to turn. She really wasn't. Except she already was, for the same reason she'd stopped to look for unnecessary chap-stick. Because at the end of the day, as much as she hated what Webb did, as much as his morally grey world made her skin crawl, she didn't want him to fail, didn't want him dead, and if he was chasing after her in the middle of an op that meant he needed help.
At least he damn well better need help, because she swore to God if he was kissing her like this for any other reason than the interests of National Security, she'd kill him. But even as his lips were expertly dredging up every long-buried memory, every instinctive reaction, setting her traitorous body humming in a kind of Pavlovian response to what that kiss always heralded, he maneuvered her deftly back into the shadows of a narrow back-alley, positioning his back to the street.
Moving his lips from hers to trail, little nibbling kisses along her jawline, he murmured, "Hello, darling, fancy meeting you here."
At the flippant greeting, her hands fisted in his shirt as she prepared to push him off her.
"Hit me later, Sarah. For now just lean back, think of England, and tell me who's coming across that bridge."
Despite the casual, almost lazy tone, there was no mistaking the underlying command in his voice, and the Marine in her reacted to it instinctually. Half-opening her eyes in what she hoped was a fair imitation of glazed passion, she tried to focus on the bridge just visible over his shoulder, as he moved his mouth over her neck to maintain their pretense.
"Young couple."
"Mm-hmm." His hands were moving behind her back, not on her, but doing something completely independent of the story he was weaving with the rest of his body.
"Family."
"Two men? Blonde and a redhead?"
"No, I don't-" Then she saw them, two well-dressed men, who were just a little too alert for tourists or locals, scanning the people ahead of them in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge. "Yes. They're just coming up the bridge."
"Anyone behind them?"
Mac felt her heart drop. Webb's hands, his whole body had suddenly stilled, coil-spring tension radiating through his muscles, and she knew, knew what he had been doing behind her back, what he was involving her in, dragging her back down into his filth simply because she was here, convenient. God damn you!
But her answer was already out of her mouth, even as part of her wanted to claw it back, "No, no one."
"The moment they're across, tell me and hit the ground."
She watched as the men came to the apex of bridge, still scanning the people, the doorways, eyes flitting to the shadows. Go away, she prayed silently, Turn back. And for a fraction of a second she thought they might, thought perhaps mercy had smiled upon her, but then one of the men shifted, his hand coming up to his hip in a move that stirred something visceral in the recesses of her combat trained mind, and suddenly she wasn't praying, wasn't doing anything other than counting the seconds, watching for their decision.
And then they were coming over, and her Hobson's choice was no choice at all. Clay and country over strangers and conscience.
"Now."
And she dropped, half-registering as she did so, Webb turning and raising the silenced-pistol he'd been assembling behind her back in one fluid deadly motion. Six quiet pops--Two in the chest, one in the head, knocks a man down and kills him dead--and it was done.
And her cursed gift of perfect time told her that from the moment he'd called her name to the moment the last shot had been fired, her world had spun out of control in less than three minutes flat.
Two more heads for Agent Webb's office wall, two more notches in a belt she'd never wanted to wear.
She told herself as Clay dragged her away, that they'd both had guns, that she'd seen them reach.
----
The gun went into the canal two bridges up, the silencer three after that. Damn. He was now officially permanently fucked in Europe, and he hated South America, and Eytinge was never going to make that sale, and he was dragging an irate former Marine Colonel behind him, who was about ten-times more likely to kill him than anything else Eytinge had up his sleeve. Damn.
He'd missed his turn.
Damn
The doubling back seemed to shake Mac out of the walking-coma she'd been in since the moment she'd told him to shoot, and she wrenched her wrist out his grip with enough force to have done serious damage to one of them if he hadn't let go.
"Don't touch me, you bastard." Her voice was raw, abrasive, like steel wool on new skin, and God, how he wanted to reach out to her, comfort her, but she'd never really taken comfort in his touch, pleasure yes, but comfort, not often. So he reached for her wrist instead, only to have her slap his hand away again.
"I said don't you fucking touch me."
Well that just wasn't an option because they needed to move, and he didn't trust her to follow him, so dragging . . . pretty much going to happen. Clamping his hand down on her upper arm, he hissed, "Curse later. Walk now."
She wanted to fight him, thought about it even. Not that he blamed her. He'd just given her a whole new set of nightmares to add to her collection, nicely gift-wrapped and guaranteed to last a lifetime.
He bet Harm bought her flowers and jewelry. You never went wrong with the classics.
"I swear to God, Mrs. Rabb, if you don't start moving I will knock you out and carry you to the safehouse, but you are coming. Later, you and Harm can fight over breaking my nose again. Sell tickets, make it a charity event for puppies."
"MacKenzie," her voice was flat, dead.
"What?"
"It's still MacKenzie."
"You kept your name, how very modern. Walk." That got her moving again for at least a few more blocks, and then she pulled up short again. At this rate they were either (a) get arrested by the police for disorderly conduct before getting to the CIA safehouse or (b) die of old age. He didn't relish the report for either.
"What now?" He practically spat the words at her.
"I didn't marry him. It's still MacKenzie because I didn't marry him."
Oh.
He blinked, all other thought momentarily wiped out by this revelation, and his heart did an odd little lurch that was halfway between a leap and just simply throwing in the towel. Why was she telling him this? Why was it so important to tell him this? Why in the name of all that was holy was she telling him this now, here? At the thought of exactly what here and now was, he blinked again and reset.
"I want my toaster back." And they were moving again.
"You didn't send us a toaster."
"You must have gotten at least three toasters, everyone gets three toasters, how do you know one of them isn't mine?"
"You didn't send us anything, Webb."
"Checked for my name, Sarah?"
"Yes." There was that lurch again. "I wanted make sure we sent it back to you . . . in pieces."
And throwing in the towel it was. His features tightening into what he knew from habit was a pretty inscrutable mask, Clay scanned the buildings until he found the number he'd been searching for.
Home sweet hell for the next twelve hours. Lovely.
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Thanks for reading. All comments and criticisms appreciated.
Panache