Chapter 18 - -How Far Does The Dark Go?
If the coast is clear, why can't I see
If the stakes are loaded, why's it seem I'm losing everything
Stare down the fear, like a loaded gun
On the bottom track, why's it seem I can't see anything
How far does the dark go?
The headache was different, not quite as painful but more like a pressure that nothing would stop, not even the mantra nor the feel of Harm's skin on hers. It pounded away, squeezing and releasing until Mac's eyes fluttered open and focused on a beige fabric that lined the ceiling. She found it odd, the colour combined with faint movements, a shifting, some bumps as if she were in a vehicle of some sort
Decidedly she was dreaming as Harm's ceiling was white, adorned with a dark crown moulding whose design carried throughout the flat. He was likely having a nightmare, shifting to and fro beside her which accounted for the jerky movement. But, as her senses slowly came online and she tried to turn to touch him, she found the bed she was in to be cold and empty.
Then there were the smells, a combination of him and her that mixed and lingered so pleasantly on everything she owned. The short time living together was as if she'd absorbed a part of him, welcomely so as Mac loved to turn over in the morning and breathe him on the sheets. It eased the anxiety, made her feel as if the darkness was surmountable. These smells that assaulted her senses were different, stale an almost chemical like polish and disinfectant.
And why was her mouth so dry? Stuffed with a cotton kind of icky that when she tried to swallow, Mac choked on thick saliva.
"Get her some water. Now." A dream became a nightmare, the voice of Clayton Webb pulled her into the present and her eyes again focused to find she was in the rear bedroom of a private airplane.
"Clay?" Mac felt a hand on her back, raising her up into a sitting position until her feet hit the ground. A strong arm wrapped around her waist and she was moved to the middle of the plane and settled into a large leather chair and immediately a cool bottle of water was raised to her lips. She took several deep gulps and eventually downed the whole bottle as that was the only way to quench the terrible thirst. It helped ease the ache in her head somewhat. "Clay, what is this? Where am I?...Where's ...Where's Harm?"
He wasn't there, she knew it could sense it as if they were linked in some way. Perhaps they were, she decided, it was the only way they kept coming to each other despite immeasurable odds. Webb cringed visibly when she mentioned the other man. This was not going to be an easy endeavor, without the constant "treatments'' at Langley, he knew the control had slipped and become something else all together. Widow was still inside but, he suspected it would not last much longer if he didn't intervene. "You're okay, Sarah. You're safe."
"Fuck being safe...Where the hell is Harm?!" She demanded with a bit more force and the sudden surge of adrenaline brought her senses online. Mac looked around to spot many familiar faces from Langley settling on Dr. Gutierrez who sat just across from her with that famously impassive expression. She knew exactly what this was, the agency's branded form of intervention. "No. No… Oh God, no."
As foolish as it was, she rushed towards Clay, murderous intent forcing her to slam into him so hard he was knocked off the chair and onto the floor. She pounced on him, delivering blow after rage filled blow until someone pulled her off. "You sick, sadistic son of a bitch. What did you do to Harm?"
She was slammed back onto the leather chair, held back by two burly men that often carried out some of Webb's shadier deeds. One of them slammed a fist across her cheek which only enraged her more. It was Webb that stopped them from touching her, sitting at another chair that was right next to Mac as he dabbed the blood that was running down his nose and over a busted lip. "Don't hurt her… Calm down, Sarah."
"Stop calling me that!" She tried to rush him again but strong arms held her back until Mac was forced to calm down and relax. She took another bottle of water, offered to her by Dr. Guttierez and drank it in just a few swallows. "What is this?"
"I need you. Your country needs you and I knew you wouldn't just come if I asked." Webb said simply. "Sadik is in Washington."
Sadik. The name made a shiver run down her spine. The man had taken so much from her although he never really laid a hand on her flesh. It was the emotional toll, the monster she became in order to defeat the threat and keep Harm safe. "Why is she here." Mac pointed at the doctor, her hand quivering lightly at the answer she knew she would be given.
"You need help, Sarah." Gutierrez said, using that calm tone that once had Mac trusting her. Now, she knew different, the reasoning behind the consensual psychiatric visits that had nothing to do with easing the stress of the job. They had turned her into a killing machine, taken away what was good in her and molded it into pure hatred. "A session will help those blanks in your memory. Clayton told me about your blankout in Paris."
"Treatment? That's what you call programming me? Treatment? I'm not doing that again. I won't let you."
"Sarah."
"No." Even as she tried to fight the suggestions, the mantra had already begun drumming at the edges of her mind. Mac had almost forgotten the words, choosing to replace them with another phrase that could free her. But, that damned familiar headache joined the battle threatening to force her compliance or take her life altogether. "Where's Harm?" She was crying now, begging. Please don't let him be hurt.
Webb let out a long suffering sigh. "He's in London, probably waking up with a pretty nasty headache I suppose."
"He doesn't know about this, does he?" It was foolish to ask, of course he wouldn't because Harm would move Heaven and Earth to find her, he would be on this very plane with her. Mac's chest began to hurt, right over the area of her heart. It was a sharp pain and without thought she rubbed a handover the spot. Harm would never forgive her for this. "He'll believe I left him… I didn't… I didn't leave him." Frantically, she stood up meaning to reach some sort of communication device to call, to let him know she loved him and this was forced upon them. "I have to call him. He has to know."
"You can't. He'll come after you and we can't have that. I don't need him in the way again."
Mac was crying now, the tears freely running down her cheeks. She choked on a sob, shook from the desperation of being unable to assure him that she hadn't left. "I told him… Promised him I wouldn't leave." She told him over and over at the cottage, swore her life on that promise that nothing would keep them apart. "Please, Clay."
This would destroy him, she knew because the man that Harm had become needed her as much as she needed him. He'd finally given in with his heart and soul, relinquished that precious control that kept them apart for so long. He loved her and this would break his heart. "I promised him."
"Well, guess you'll break that promise."
Webb's callused words had her rushing at him once more, getting in a few hard punches until the men restrained her once again. "You son of a bitch. How could you do this to me? You were our friend, we trusted you… I trusted you!"
"None of us, not even Rabb is safe if Sadik remains alive." His words had an oddly calming effect, enough to have her stop trying to resist the men that had her restrained. "Got your attention now, huh?...Look, I need you and didn't want Rabb in the way. I saw what being with him does to you, Mac. You lose your objectivity, keep blacking out and forgetting and I need you fully operational. Can you tell me that you can battle Sadik like this?" He motioned at her with an obvious look of disgust. His perfect CIA officer was only a shell of what they'd turned her into.
Mac glanced between Gutierrez and Webb, settling her gaze back on the doctor. "I can't do this again."
Gutierrez smiled. "Yes, you can, Sarah. I promise you, we'll take it easy, guide you back under. You want to protect him, this is your chance. This is what you were designed to do."
"Okay."
….
Guiterrez and Webb escorted her back to the bedroom, urging Mac to lay down as a needle was inserted into her left arm and run to an IV drip. Whatever fluid was being introduced burned, she felt it move through her veins, the ache building until the liquid was completely inside of her. "Sarah… I need you to remember the past. That hurt and pain you felt when the Commander broke your heart. That night in Sydney Harbor, him denying his love for you. Do you remember it?"
Mac didn't want to but whatever ran through their veins forced a compliance along with the words that were spoken from her own lips. "There will never be an us.'' She felt the darkness shift and tried to claim her but, then she thought of him, the man in whose arms she found unconditional love. Her lifeline. "There will always be an us."
She could still hear Gutierrez trying to guide her as a war began to brew within, the want to be free slowly losing to the need for that control. The control had saved her time and time again, kept her from being hurt. As her body began to seize, warm, sticky liquid dripped out of her nose in a steady flow. The pain in her head grew insurmountably so, aching like it never had until Mac eventually passed out from the agony.
"What the hell happened?" Clay demanded when Guiterrez used a towel to clean the nose bleed. "Did it work?"
"Who was she with all of this time, Clay? The Commander?" Gutierrez asked and then plunged another fluid to mix with the current one.
Webb shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. "He's a Captain now but..."
"Well, you're going to have to find him and bring him to her."
"Are you out of your mind? Rabb's the one that wrecked the programming in the first place." And it was his fault, his belief that the control wouldn't slip. He should have never asked Rabb for a favour but then, he was the only one Webb trusted to find the Phonebook and keep Mac out of trouble.
"Do you want her to die? This Commander… Captain, whoever is her trigger…. The foundation of which I created the control. I can't wipe her clean, there is no going back and if we push too hard, she will die."
"You made her hate him once, do it again."
Gutierrez sighed. This wasn't what she signed up for, the destruction of innocent lives and Mac was, undoubtedly, an innocent in all of this. Used for the agency's gains. "I can't make her do anything anymore… She was new, hurt and vulnerable when we began. Sarah is none of those things now. She resented him and that's done with. She's stronger than you can imagine."
"Do something!" Webb hissed out, grabbing Gutierrez by the throat and intending to strangle the woman. "There is a fucking terrorist out there, gunning for me and her. I need Widow to get him first. Lives are at stake, innocent ones and we're not sure of what he's capable of. Fix her. Do something!" He let her go.
Gutierrez's hand came to her throat, rubbing her skin as she coughed in order to take a deep breath. She was put in an impossible position and knew she had no other choice. "Bring me the metal case." She instructed, taking out a small, unlabeled vial with a syrupy type of liquid inside. "Forgive me, Colonel." The liquid was sucked into a long needle and sunk into Mac's thigh.
"What is that?"
"Don't ask...I need some time alone with her, it's the only way that hypnosis will work to put the subject into a kind of retrograde amnesia."
"Will it work?"
Gutierrez sighed. "We won't know until she wakes up."
The drug made Mac drift deeper into darkness. 'There will never be an us.'
Four Days Later
London
Harm stood by the window watching the storm clouds that continued to roll in. It was true that London had an almost constant gloomy weather but, it hadn't stopped raining since the day she left.
He should have prepared for the anguish but, Mac duped him into believing she would stay, never leave and she would certainly never hurt him again. Harm could practically hear her voice, the confessions of love, the promises that washed away when he woke up four days ago to a terrible headache and an empty bed.
Something was wrong, his impeccable instincts tingled alive in the most foreboding sensation that he felt once before. "Mac?" He called out to her and received no answer. Groaning he pulled himself up and nearly carneed into the nightstand as he tried to get his bearings. The room was spinning, his mouth was dry and there was something most definitely off. Where the hell was she? "Mac?!"
He padded out of the room past the living room and then to the kitchen. The whole loft was dark except for the little bit of light entering through the sliding glass door amidst the storm raging outside. With each second that passed, Harm felt desperate. She wouldn't have left without telling him, she would have left some sort of note. "Mac?" That was when his panic set in, making his heart hammer in fear which amplified the moment he stepped back into their bedroom.
Sitting atop of the nightstand on her side of the bed was a note written on white cardstock. One side had his name the other would push Harm over the edge to an incensed fit of rage. 'There will never be an us.'Harm read the note once, twice and a third time all the while praying this was some sort of nightmare he needed to wake from. "No. Damn you, Sarah, no!"
The note crumbled in his fist and he tossed against the wall where it bounced off and landed just under the bed. He couldn't control his fury any longer and found that he didn' want to either. With a blood curdling yell, Harm swiped his arm across the every hard surface in his room, roughly pushing bottles of her perfume and even the small jewelry box he'd bought her hurtling to the floor. It all landed in a loud crash and then he set his sights on the closet which was nearly empty but, still had some of her clothing.
He tore it all apart, tossing all of her clothes onto a heap on the floor before turning to the bed. It would smell of her - of them - and the love he thought they made that night. Harm stripped the sheets, yanked the cases off of the pillows and combined it with her clothes to shove down the garbage chute. He would have set it all ablaze if he could and instead found every single item that reminded him of Sarah MacKenzie and tossed them all away.
Pictures, notes, her skin cream and even that damned USMC mug that sat next to his in the cupboard. It was all garbage, all remnants that needed to be destroyed. Once the cleansing had been done, Harm returned to the room, slammed the door and slid down the back until he settled on the floor. He allowed himself to cry then because the rage had died down completely leaving him with vulnerable thoughts and emotions.
Harm buried his face in his hands he let powerful sobs consume him, crying until there was nothing left but anguished hiccups. How could she do this to him again? He wished he could explain it or at least understand the methods in which she operated. For one blessed week they lived together in the cottage hanging between love and passion. It seemed his Mac had finally returned or at least a version of her that he remembered. There was still darkness there, he knew and she'd told him as much but, with each passing day it seems that would soon be a memory.
Once the rage tempered down and emptiness settled inside him and with a heavy heart he ventured down to the basement retrieving whatever he could salvage from the garbage. The pictures he'd shove into a drawer, the sheets and clothing he tossed in a corner of the closet where they would remain.
The last few days he'd thrown himself into work, it was easier to bury his head in case file after case file than think about her. Calls were never answered, in fact, it appeared she'd disconnected her cellphone and even Langley refused to give him information on Mac. He'd tried other avenues exhausting each one until he decided to give up. He wouldn't go to Webb this time either, wouldn't make himself out to be that pinning idiot again.
If she wanted nothing to do with him than so be it.
Unfortunately, he would dream of her every night, both happy dreams and nightmares. And it was the nightmare that was most jarring particularly the one that woke him from a fitful sleep earlier that morning.
Harm was walking through the upper level of a warehouse filled with a heavy haze that shrouded the building in mystery. He was sweating profusely, inching his way through a catwalk and towards an office at the end of the walkway. Halfway there he heard a woman screaming in pain and the zapping sounds of an electrical current that dimmed the lighting inside of the building.
The screams belonged to Mac, he knew and her voice echoed through the building as she begged her tormentor to stop. He doubled his efforts, began sprinting across the catwalk but, with each step the office seemed farther and farther away. He was losing her, Harm could sense it, the pain that was forcing Mac to black out only to be brought back by smelling salts and have the same torture repeated on her frail body.
After what seemed like forever, he stepped into the office finding Mac dangling by her arms and only the tips of her toes grazing the ground. Her clothes were partially torn off exposing more of her than any other man had a right to see. She was bleeding through the gashes in the fabric and her face was marred by cuts and bruises as well as a swollen eye. Her short hair was plastered to the sides of her face and her head hung limply, chin to her chest. She was also wet and water sluiced off of her dripping onto the ground.
There were cables that ran across the office and rested on the floor by her feet. He followed them, finding one Sadik Fahd standing by a bank of car batteries. "I wondered if her lover would come to free the whore."
"She isn't a whore and you're a dead man." Harm raised his arm, pointing his gun at the terrorist but, when he tried to fire the trigger wouldn't work.
Sadik found joy in this, his sadistic laughter filled the room they were in. "I'll give you two choices Mr. Rabb… Shoot Sarah or shoot yourself. Just two choices."
The man walked to him, stopping just a breath away. Sadik turned Harm, pointing his outstretched hand towards Mac who had begun to moan in pain. "Put her out of her misery, Captain… End her pain." Without much thought, Harm pulled the trigger.
He heaved a heavy sigh and settled back into his chair thankful that he was alone in the office. It gave him a chance to think about the nightmare and wonder if his initial thoughts held any weight.
What if Mac was in danger?
What if in his anguish and selfishness he'd missed a key part? From the bottom of a drawer he pulled out a bottle of single malt scotch and poured some into his empty coffee cup. The note, her damned Dear John letter sat on his desk blotter, crumpled and slightly torn, the edges frayed.
Harm threw back a shot of scotch and then settled his gaze on every word on that blasted note. There was something he had missed, he knew and that note was the ticket to finding what went wrong. It was then that he noticed something very odd that he hadn't noticed upon his first inspection of the cardstock - it wasn't Mac's handwriting.
"No." He focused his eyes on each letter, the way they swept across the page that was familiar to her scribe but wasn't. Mac had specific ways of ending each word but, the biggest give away was his name on the opposite side. Oh, the handwriting was damned close but it wasn't hers, not at all. Instinctively, he brought the paper up to his nose taking a deep whiff to find the traces of a man's cologne - it wasn't his but that particular scent belonged to someone he knew. He slammed his fist onto the desk. "Webb."
The son of a bitch had taken her, Harm was sure of it now and felt a deep seated guilt that he hadn't considered that option until now. Mac had promised him again and again that she would never leave him. He should have believed her.
Staring at the letter he tried to piece together what exactly had happened. They'd arrived home, laughing and kissing only for him to throw Mac iver his shoulder and dump her in bed. Making love had been passionate and desperate if not a little rough as if they'd tried to brand one another.
That's when his memories became hazy.
Mac had slipped out of bed, seducing him to join her in the showee and he'd watched as she swayed her hips to tempt him. And then nothing…
Nothing… Until he woke up in bed with the oddest of headaches and cottonmouth. She was gone. Some of her clothes are missing. She'd left him.
"You're my lifeline, you know? No matter how bad that darkness tells me you're not...I did this for you...I'd give my life for you."
Mac's voice resonated in his mind, her words that she'd spoken at the cottage when they were both at their happiest. Those weren't the words of a woman that would leave him so ruthlessly. She loved him and she needed him now more than ever.
Desperately, he opened up a World map on his computer and stared at each country as if he would get a hit on her location. She'd found him once in the middle of a storm tossed ocean and he wondered if the fates would afford him that gift just this once.
Harm concentrated on the screen and impatiently waited for some sort of sign but, there was none. Nothing seemed to draw him to a specific spot or location. There was no tingling sensation, no gut feeling or vision. "Where are you? God, help me find her, I swear I'll never let her go again if I do. Help me, please."
He gripped the edges of the desk, waiting...waiting. "Sarah, please...help me find you." He pleaded and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. "Please."
The answer came in the form of a phone call which was patched directly to his office from a guardian angel Harm should have relied on from the start. "Harm, get your six on the first plane to Washington. I think Mac's in trouble." It was AJ Chegwidden.
