A/Ramble: now, as I was saying, cause I'm sure you've come straight from the prologue, this was written before the prologue. So this and the epilogue will have the following slightly poetic style. I believe the new word for that is 'swag'. Poetic swag? No. Just... no. Anyway, welcome to 'Vodka and Red Wine', abbreviated from now on as VRW. I do hope you enjoy this, I know some of you have been waiting a while for it. I really don't want to disappoint you. I'll shut up now. Enjoy!
~ Vodka and Red Wine ~
3rd August, 2004
Washington DC
She runs because it's the only way she can escape this feeling of utter entrapment.
She is not free.
Even in her picturesque abode, with her fiance, Sam feels older than she should. Every morning is a birth into emotional asphyxiation. Out here, she knows the man she associates with her home is becoming unbearable. It's only during these moments that she allows objectivity to bleach her perspective, lest she becomes trapped in a world of her own making where figments of her idealistic imagination roam freely. She's not willing to put any labels to it, since it may define her failure too clearly. In her profession, she feels the lack of challenge in abundance. There's nothing she wants to latch onto; nothing that captures her attention.
Her feet pound onto the unforgiving pavement and she relishes the sharp burn of the frosty morning air down her throat. The world around her spins in streaks of charcoal, khaki, and cerulean. This is when she takes some semblance of control. Where she can dictate every movement and - barring divine intervention - guarantee the outcome. She can run fast or jog slowly; she can deviate through town or the park; she can even dodge and skip every crack in the cement should she desire. For this gasping sense of liberty, she'll forgive the cold temperature.
It's only when she's run herself to exhaustion, when she's lying on her porch, or living room floor, or sitting beneath the stinging spray of her shower that she feels alive; the hammering in her chest and molten blood coursing her veins. She feels it. She's able to appreciate the heavy air flooding her lungs like cold water to burning skin. That is, until Jonas appears.
He isn't controlling in the traditional sense or overly demanding. But she does feel far too needed. Despite the way he makes her feel like he depends on her, she's acutely aware of his ability to manipulate. She knows, in reality, that she's been trained to depend on him on him over the course of their 'relationship'. He needs her to be a certain way. For all her confidence and military training, she continues to strive to fit into his definition of what she ought to be. It's only now she's notices how often his opinion is the only one that matters. That should have meant something to her by now. Pitifully, she's in such a situation that she ignores the alarms such a realisation would set off. They do not set off either the fight or flight reaction. But she's waiting for the sign.
She is a runner. Waiting in suspense at the starting line for the thundering crack that signals her chance to flee. Where she'll run, she doesn't know. To some place, some time, someone that everything this point in time isn't. She hopes the directions will come with the starting gun.
For once, she'd like to depend on someone upon her own accord.
She's enough of a feminist to want to stand on her own two feet, but dreams of a relationship where the dependence is mutual, yet not debilitating. They would be able to function normally by themselves, be whoever they wanted to be and when the situation necessitated... lean on one another. Confide in one another. Protect and angst over the other's well-being.
She's not sure how far she's run today, but by the burn she feels in her straining muscles and the invisible chain constricting her chest, it's farther than usual. Her house is in sight and though her interest is peaked by the very official looking black sedan parked out the front, her pace neither falters nor increases.
As she approaches the driveway, one of the back doors smoothly swings open. Now she permits herself to slow to a walk, her eyes critically taking in the United States Air Force Major standing before her with a very thick folder in one hand bearing the distinct 'CLASSIFIED' stamp.
"Major Carter." He greets her without a smile; there isn't a hint of uncertainty or query in his slightly gravelly, but strangely pleasant tone. She doesn't expect him to question her identity. The Air Force makes it their personal business to know every intimate detail about her life.
"Major Paul Davis." He offers his free hand to the open door. Strangely, it's more appealing than the prospect of passing the threshold of her own house. "Please." His manner is courteous and respectful, but she knows it's part of wearing the uniform.
She slides in anyway.
She expects the car to commence pointless laps around her block and allows the inappropriate disappointment to fester, but never be seen, when the driver steps out.
"I'm here to inform you of your new assignment. You're to be deployed to Russia for an indefinite period of time."
Russia?
"I'm not officially permitted to tell you that this assignment is non-negotiable. I can, however, tell you that this is of the utmost importance, and a matter of national security. Particularly to the scientific branches of defence."
Your country needs you. The age-old aphorism sold to millions of servicemen to make them snap to attention and swear their lives to Uncle Sam. The good Major continued;
"This may be difficult, but I'll need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I can give you any details of this assignment."
At this, he carefully pulls a crisp sheet of paper from the folder and produces a pen from beneath his jacket. His offering of both was about her accepting the assignment, rather than learning more. Sign her life away... or sign onto a new one? It's the whistle calling her to the starting line.
Take your mark.
"Will you accept the assignment?" He asks, tilting the pen towards her enticingly. No bull. He expects her to decide here and now. That decision comes to Sam easily and she's not ashamed about it. She takes the pen.
Run.
~ SJ ~
The snow on the screen flickers and spins before his drying, unrelenting eyes. If not for the television so faithfully comforting him in the piercing silence of his house, the room would be an abyss. A brown glass bottle of beer hangs over the edge of the worn sofa, clinging only to the oil and grease on his fingertips. This is his ritual. The time he dedicates to a God he's still trying to decide if he believes in.
He did terrible things before Charlie. He's still doing terrible things in this non-life after his son's tormenting death. Answer the call. Covertly take out an enemy to save the great Red, White and Blue, and the peace of mind of its citizens.
Jack has learnt to put his faith in the orders. Trusting that what he's doing is worth the cost of his soul. He'll go out and complete a mission, but as it has been for the last nine years, he doesn't care if he comes home or not. His perception of time is decaying with him; every day and every mission bleeds into the next and into the previous.
Every night he weighs up possibilities in his mind. Not the alternative outcomes of the accident that took his little boy, but whether there was a reason for it. On one hand, he hates the higher power that took his son. Some nights he'll scream to high heavens and destroy parts of his house in pure rage. On the other, he consoles himself knowing that it may have been Charlie's time. Early as it was, if it wasn't his gun, it could have been something else.
Other nights, he denies the existence of that higher power completely and accepts the incident as something that just happened. That it really was an accident that had no significant effect on the operation of the Universe. But sometimes he can't believe that.
Tonight, he wonders if he'll ever find something to pull him out of this ritual. The proverbial voice telling him it's okay; that he's forgiven; that he is loved and allowed to love again. In this silence he wonders if he could hear it. Maybe he had sunken too far below the cloak of his dark thoughts to recognise such a thing.
On the table in front of him is a manila folder containing his next assignment. Russia. He doesn't care where he goes anymore, or for how long. He'll arrive on base ready for action. There have only been a handful of occasions in the past when he was called upon for bodyguard work; it generally isn't offered to full-bird Colonels. The human shield. It seemed fitting for a man that didn't care for his own life and would only be able to justify his suicide if it was to protect someone else.
He's considered taking his own life, but it would be an insult to Charlie's memory. The only axiom that keeps him here. But even that doesn't stop him from accepting the most dangerous assignments available or taking risks he really shouldn't. Somehow, Jack always comes home. He's been left for dead before and it's only his need to make his peace with the man upstairs that lures him back. Just one more night of staring at the snow and maybe understanding where it all went wrong.
Jack continues to stare at the television set, blindly lifting the bottle of beer to his lips to finish the drink off. He shifts his leg and the minute snapping of dying arcs of static electricity beautifully, divinely and captivatingly, illuminate his battered flesh. He presses the button that's been teasing his finger for the last few hours and says the same thing to the God he may, or may not, believe in that he says every night.
"Amen."
~ SJ ~
Beddy boo's for Grimmy goo! Goodnight!
