A/N: Get ready, this is part 1 of 2 chapters I have written :) If you all leave me nice reviews I'll post the next chapter immediately after this! or the next day... depending on how much you want it ;)
Burning Bridges: Chapter 29
"Ugh, is this really necessary?" Alex glares at Birkhoff as he clasps a silver medical bracelet around her wrist. "Ow." She complains, rubbing the sore spot, she was still aching all over from her careless removal of her IVs and suffering from a few withdrawal symptoms. "Too tight." Alex grimaces.
"This," He eyes the shiny device, "My friend, is an alarm in case you try to run away again miss sneaky sneak."
"Keep me prisoner, why don't you?" She narrowed her eyes at the inscription around the band, trying her best to decipher the small print. "If lost, return to Watchtower." She reads, followed by a cell phone number to contact Birkhoff. "What is this? A dog tag?" Alex laughs.
"Sassy." Birkhoff smirks. "No, you like? I try to keep up with the latest fashion." He comments. "It doesn't clash too much with that watch of yours." Alex rolled her eyes, not even slightly amused. "Aw come on, lighten up Princess." Birkhoff stares at her. "You used to enjoy my witty humor."
Alex sighed, "I'm sorry." She paused and gave her old friend a sad look. She wished she could remember everything about everyone in Division but that seemed so unlikely to her. "I really wish I could remember you..." Alex tells him.
"It's okay." Birkhoff replies, although he felt a little hurt she wasn't the same old Alex anymore.
Alex continued to frown, feeling a headache again every time she tried to think too long and hard about her memory lapses. She stared at the watch Sean had returned to her and traced her fingers around the clock's hands, counting down the seconds.
She could vaguely hear Birkhoff talking to her but it sounded like gibberish. All she could think about was her father's watch now. She wondered where it came from but her mind was blank. Frustrated, Alex shakes her head, trying to forget about remembering. It was still painful.
"Alex?" Birkhoff calls her.
She looked up him, realizing a lot of time just went by with her being silent. "What?"
"Did you hear me? You just zonked out."
"Uh yeah." Alex tries to dismiss any awkward tension. "Bracelet good. Fashionable." She fakes a teasing smile. "Don't take it off."
Birkhoff narrowed his eyes, suspicious of her but he chose to move on now that he had her attention was back. "Okay Princess, you see this?" Birkhoff points to a sensor on the device. "This monitors your pulse and heart rate. It'll make a log anytime there's a spike so hopefully we can figure out your trigger words and control them." He paused again, looking back at her.
She had her eyes fixed on the tiny writing on her bracelet, running her thumb along the smooth metal, her mind clearly preoccupied again. "Alex!" Birkhoff shouts at her. He notices her distracted state and shook his head, this was starting to become a bad habit. Alex looked so far gone. "Are you even listening to me?"
Alex looked up him, snapping out of her intense concentration. "Watchtower?" She asks confused as she continues to play with the device. The name had been bugging her, she could've sworn she heard that reference before.
Birkhoff gave her a look, then decided to amuse himself. "Oh you know, the base of operations where a team of mighty superheroes gather to-"
"You're such a Nerd." Alex laughs. "Now I remember why."
"Hey!" Birkhoff glares at her. "You're the one who asked."
She smiles, thinking back. "Superman right?" Birkhoff nods, now she was showing signs of that bright girl he loved to tease. "Ha, I remember now, Sean used to talk about comics too…" She smiles as she plays with the watch in her hands, remembering... "When we were in the barn, he called it my fortress of solitude."
"You remember that huh?" Sean appears by the door.
Alex looked up at him, pleasantly surprised and smiled. "Hey." She greets him.
"Fortress of Solitude." Birkhoff laughs. "Well that's fitting, you do like to hide out there a lot." He gives her a pleasing smile. "Have I ever told you the stor-"
"Birkhoff, no one wants to listen to your comic ramblings." Nikita says, entering the room.
"Says you." Birkhoff retorts. "Sonya would beg to differ."
"Aww Nerd, you finally found love." Alex says happy for him. Sean laughed at her comment.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa" Birkhoff glares at her. "Hold on, just because you can't remember gives you no excuse. My name is Birkhoff." He reminds her. "Seymour Birkhoff. Don't call me Nerd."
"Then don't call me Princess." Alex counters with a smirk.
"Touché." He glares at her one last time before turning to exit the room.
Nikita laughed and turned to face Alex. "He's uptight." Alex comments as she tries to find a more comfortable spot on the bed she was sitting on. She shifted her shoulder, groaning from the pain.
"He's just messing with you." Sean tells her. He walks over and sits down next to her. "How you doing?" He gave her a serious look, eyeing her bandages carefully, wishing he could magically heal her.
"I'm fine." Alex brushes it off. "I'm just a little sore still." She says. "It's not a big deal." She tried to mask the pain but Nikita could sense it. The poor girl had bandages wrapped around her ribs, both arms and hand. "You don't need to check up on me every five minutes." Alex glares at her.
"For the record, only I get to call him Nerd." Nikita smirks. She walks over to Alex's bedside and sat down in a nearby chair. Alex nodded, she didn't really have anything else to say to that. If Birkhoff didn't want her to call him Nerd, she wouldn't. "Are you sure you're okay?" Nikita frowns, noticing her discomfort.
"Aw, Alex is a big girl." Sean comments. He wraps an arm around his girl and pulls her closer to him. "Aren't you angel?" He smirks. "Nikita, you have nothing to worry about."
Alex shrugged. She honestly wasn't in the best mood to talk but she knew Nikita wouldn't leave her alone. Not after the stunt she pulled in the barn.
"I'm fine." She says seriously. Nikita gave her a look, unsure but the girl quickly shakes her head and jumps off the bed, showing off her new accessory. "Really Nikita, I am." Alex gives her a small smile. She tried to appear more happy but who was she kidding, Nikita saw right through her.
"How can I not be when I have this fancy thing to play with?" Alex quickly covers. "Stop worrying so much, you'll get wrinkles." She teases.
Nikita laughed. "You know, I would be offended but I'm glad you're making jokes again."
"Me too." Sean says. He turns and faces Alex, excited she was finally back. "So now that you're feeling better, wanna take a walk with me?"
"You mean I can go outside?" Alex asks.
Sean laughed. "If that's what you want." He takes her hand in his and starts to lead her toward the door.
"Wait, I wanted to talk to you." Nikita stops Alex.
"Can it wait?" Alex asks. She raises her wrist up, showing off the bracelet. "I'm not going anywhere." She frowns, feeling like she was a prisoner.
"Hey, I know it's not ideal but it's for your own good." Nikita notices her frustration. The bracelet was too tight and impossible for Alex to remove by herself. "Birkhoff will take it off for you once-"
"I know," Alex sighs. "Once I can control my flashbacks."
"Speaking of those…" Nikita says hesitantly.
"You want to know what happened back there, huh?" Alex asks.
Nikita nodded, she didn't entirely believe the only reason her friend ran away earlier was to find Sean. With Alex, there always had to be another reason even if the girl would never admit to it.
Alex sighed. She didn't really want to think about it. To tell the truth, she wasn't entirely sure what happened but Nikita continued to stare at her, waiting for her side of the story. She knew there was no way getting out of this. Nikita was very persistent.
"Nothing happened." Sean saves her. He gives Alex a look, smiling. "You came back, that's all that matters."
Alex nodded, returning a smile. "Yeah." She agrees, thankful she didn't have to explain herself to Nikita. "Can we forget about it?"
Nikita narrowed her eyes, not liking her choice of words but for the meantime she didn't want to deny Alex any happiness. It had been a long time since the girl showed any old signs of herself even if part of those signs involved being sneaky. She guessed some people never do change and that was a good thing, Alex still had a good heart deep down, she knew it.
"Sure, Alex." Nikita tells her. "We can always talk later."
"Hey, where are you taking me?" Alex jokes with Sean as he leads her down a corridor near Ops.
"You'll see." He teases.
"This isn't fair." Alex frowns. "I don't remember where any of these crazy halls lead." She looks around, not liking how all the gray walls seemed to merge together. "It's like a maze down here." She comments. "What do you even have to do for fun in a place like this?"
"Oh you know... some people like to train." Sean replies, hoping that might remind her of something she used to say. "They insist it kills time."
Alex looked at him confused. "Train?" She asks.
"Yeah, in the training room. It's like one of your favorites spots." Sean reminds her. "I was almost always guaranteed to find you in there killing some poor defenseless dummy on a punching bag." He laughs.
"Oh." She frowned again, not remembering any of that. "Is that where you're taking me?" She asks, wondering if she saw the place again, she would remember.
"No." Sean replies. He suddenly gave her a smile, excited as they turn a corner. "Ready?" He leads her directly into the heart of Operations. Alex gazed at the giant round table in front of her in awe and gasped at all the high tech equipment. "This is where we first met." Sean tells her. "Right there." He points to the spot.
"She's getting better." Birkhoff comments as he walks back into Medical, greeting Michael and Nikita. "Although, she's not too fond of the magic bracelet, but that's Alex." He laughs. "Princess has an attitude."
"She'll get used to it." Michael comments. "Besides, it's only temporary." He turns to face Nikita. "Has she said anything else about what happened back there?"
"No, we didn't really get a chance to talk about it." Nikita replies. "First, Lauren was too busy patching her up, then Birkhoff came with his fancy new toy for her to wear and then Sean covered for her."
"Well he thinks she was just looking for him." Michael says.
"Why are you guys doubting her? She came back." Birkhoff looks at him confused.
"Only because we caught her." Michael argues. He walks around Nikita and faces his friend. "Birkhoff, do you really believe Alex was just looking for Sean?"
"You may have a point." Birkhoff frowns. "There's no telling what other Jedi mind tricks Amanda has up her sleeve. When I was talking to Alex, she kept becoming distracted. It's hard to get her to focus." He sighs. "It's a bit eerie, she zonked out just like she did before when we brought her back from South Ossetia."
Nikita frowned at the mention of that place, she didn't want to think about South Ossetia. "Amanda, that bitch." She growls. "She can't get away with this. Nerd, any luck tracking what her next move could be?"
Birkhoff shook his head. "I tried to piggyback on that encrypted call she made to Smith's phone you confiscated. All I could get was the name of one place called Cobalt but when I run it through Shadownet or any backdoor channels, I can't find out anything about it ever existing."
"What about that name of the doctor I gave you? Tolcher?" Nikita asks.
"I have Sonya working on that." Birkhoff informs her. "Hopefully she has better luck tracking him down then I did with Cobalt."
"Wow." Alex walks forward, gazing all around her. "You'd think I would've remembered something like this." She took a moment to collect her thoughts, thinking back to any sort of memory she had of this place. She remembered how they first met, it made her smile but looking back and comparing the room to what was in front of her felt so surreal. It wasn't the same.
She sighed and turned to face Sean with a sad expression on her face, shaking her head in regret. "Hey, what's wrong?" Sean walks up to her nervously. "Was this too much?" He asks. "I'm sorry. This was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have brought you here."
"No. No, I'm sorry." Alex looks down once she noticed some shot out light fixtures hanging above her. "I'm fine." She says with a strain in her voice. Sean knew she was lying. She felt a sharp pain in her head and tried to control a flashback. "I'm fine." She repeats as she shakes off the feeling, hoping Sean wouldn't say anything. She quickly takes his hand, wanting to continue their tour in peace. "Let's move on."
Sean frowned, naturally worried about her. "Are you sure?" He asks. "It's okay if you want to go back to Medical, you seem more comfortable there."
"No!" Alex exclaims. She hated medical. "I want to stay with you."
"I'm not going anywhere." Sean smiles. He starts to lead her down a couple steps in the direction of the main elevator.
Alex stared at the elevator, finding it feeling so far away. The narrow walkway towards it suddenly stretched out further, making a signal on her bracelet send out a beep as her heart braced for a shocking revelation. She looked down at the shiny metal wrapped around her wrist feeling claustrophobic as her mind mapped out old images of the Operation floor in her head.
"Alex?" Sean calls her name. She had stopped dead in her tracks, frozen in fear again. "No, no... don't do this to me again." He slightly panics, fearing another round of panic attacks.
She shook her head, feeling another sharp pain. She pictured glass shattering from the ceiling above her, bodies falling and chaos surrounding her as memories from the mutiny flashed through her mind. She turned her head, finding the spot Sean had collapsed in. "This is where we first met." She remembers his last words.
"NO!" Alex screams, tears falling down her face as her heart tighten. She gasped, fighting with all her strength not to lose herself in her flashback. She knew this wasn't real. Sean was still alive. She quickly looked in his direction and reached out for him.
"Alex." Sean pulls her closer to him. "Shhh." He calms her again "It's okay, I'm still here."
Alex starts to cry into his shirt, too overwhelmed to go anywhere else. "Take me back to medical?" She asks.
Sean nodded "Okay, angel."
"Alex! There you are." Birkhoff says, relieved to see Sean walk her back into Medical. "I got an alarm for your bracelet." He paused and looked at Michael and Nikita. "We were afraid-"
"Don't worry." Alex quickly cuts him off. "I promised I wouldn't run away."
"What happened?" Nikita asks.
"I just..." Alex shakes her head. She really didn't want to talk about it. "It's nothing." She covers.
Sean frowned and caught Nikita's look. "Alex, you have to admit, this isn't something you can ignore."
She sighed feeling bad. "Why not?" She argues. "Why can't we just move on? Look at me, I'm fine."
"Alex, you have an extremely rare heart condition. You need to take all precautions seriously." Michael warns her.
"Remember what I said?" Nikita asks her.
"I know… I have to think about it, otherwise it's only going to get worse." Alex replies. She took a deep breath, frowning as she sat down on her bed, annoyed. She knew Nikita meant well.
"Let's talk about it." Nikita suggests. Alex looked around the room at all the wandering eyes, staring at her. She hated an audience. Nikita caught her expression and cleared her throat. "Just the two of us." She glances at the men.
Michael gave her a look, unsure but she stared back at him insisting. "Okay." He gives up. "Come on Sean." He tries to push the man toward the door. "You had your moment with Alex, now it's Nikita's turn."
"But-" Sean tries to argue.
"Let's go boy scout." Birkhoff teases.
"Fine, but I'll be right back!" Sean looks at Alex. "Don't forget that."
She nodded. "I won't."
Once the men were gone, Nikita closed the door behind her and confronted Alex. "So tell me, how's the head?"
A/N: End of part 1. Calm before the storm... I'm setting up something mysterious that is about to be revealed... dun dun dun! Want part 2? Please review! :)
