Chapter Three
Guilt Trips
Los Angles
Looking out of her office window, Judy Barnett heaved a sigh of resignation. All things considered, the afternoon was an exceptionally fine one, the sun was out but not glaring, the temperate was mild and the smog was low. It was the perfect day to have been rescheduling her last appointment and taking the rest of the afternoon off. However, much as she would have liked to, this was one appointment that couldn't be rescheduled, ever. It was time for her fortnightly 'chat' with Jack Bristow.
What fun.
She had just finished just reviewing her notes from their last session, when a single sharp knock on the open wooden door signaled Bristow's presence in her doorway.
"Agent Bristow," putting down her pen, Barnett gestured at her couch, "please, sit down."
"Dr Barnett." Bristow stiffly acknowledged as he gingerly settled himself on the leather couch.
Sighing internally, Barnett propped her elbows on her armrests, fingers linked, "Agent Bristow, we've been having these sessions for, what, six months?"
"Eight," and two sessions in, Barnett had realised that beneath an icy and forbidding exterior custom engineered to keep people away, Jack Bristow possessed an even icier and more forbidding interior as a second line of defense.
"That long? Agent Bristow, Jack, I think we know each other well enough that you could call me Judy," pausing a moment at his blank expression she continued, "or at least drop the Doctor."
Bristow didn't reply at first, obviously considering this possibility thoroughly before finally answering with, "Alright, Barnett."
Firmly resisting the urge to bash either herself or Bristow insensate with her legal pad, Barnett instead chose to take a very deep breath and remind herself that progress, no matter how small, was progress.
~~~
"Steady, steady. That's it you're making excellent progress"
A masculine voice emanated from what appeared at first glance to be a small walking mountain of cardboard boxes. "Y'know, I am relying on you to be my eyes."
"Okay, three steps backwards, then two to the right."
"You're sure?" Despite the fact his face was obscured by the stack of packing crates he carried, the skepticism in Will's voice made it clear that at least one of his eyebrows was raised.
Dismissing his worries with a wave of a single dusky hand, Francie replied "Sure, I'm sure."
-CRASH!-
"Maybe that should have been two back and three right," she amended as Will endeavored to extricate himself from the warren of boxes he'd just fallen into.
Biting the insides of her lips in a futile attempt to stifle her giggles, Sydney gathered up the contents of the recently airborne containers. Finally, she managed to ask "Will, are you hurt?"
"Only my dignity, luckily I managed to land on something…" extending a hand he revealed a set of lacy underwear tangled in his fingers, "…soft." he finished lamely, blushing a fierce magenta.
Clasping her hand to her forehead melodramatically, Sydney proclaimed "My unmentionables, profaned by the touch of a man. The shock! The horror!"
Making no effort whatsoever to hide her amusement, Francie chipped in "Jeez Will, you could have at least waited until we got Syd moved in before trying to get in her pants."
The tiniest trace of sarcastic petulance in his tone, Will commented "I'm so glad that I could provide entertainment for you two. Do you think you could possibly help me up now?"
Passing her armful of clothing to Francie with a shared grin, Sydney bent towards Will, linking her hands with his, she braced her knees and lent back, pulling him to his feet. Upright once more, the disheveled young man shot a dirty look at Francie, now lying prone with laughter on the floor, before offering to make coffee.
"But Francie, you're not getting any." He finished with a grin, as he backed out of the cluttered living room, "This is just for me and Syd."
"Whose coffee are you using then?" Francie's quick retort carried through the kitchen's open door.
"Damn, foiled again." Will cursed good-naturedly as he placed the full kettle on the burner and turned on the gas. Hefting the heavy ceramic jar filled with teabags he'd just taken from its lofty perch above the stove, he called out. "You want sugar with yours, Syd?"
"No, just milk thanks."
Dumping the better half of a tablespoon of sugar in his own mug, he flipped open the broadsheet lying on the kitchen bench, dislodging the pile of papers sitting next to it. Retrieving an errant sheet, Will peered at it curiously, before letting out a low whistle of admiration. "Just how smart are you Sydney?"
"Say what?" Paused mid-step, Syd leaned back out of the doorway of one of the flat's two bedrooms, glancing quizzically at both Will and Francie. The latter was also looking at former as if he'd grown an extra head.
"Oh, it's just that it says here, that you're on the Baxter scholarship, you have to be like, three kinds of genius just to apply for it."
As Will spoke an expression of comprehension flashed across Francie's face, accompanied by the sound of the kettle whistling, "McKinley's paper." she stated, as if that explained everything.
Sensing that the opposite was true from Syd's blank look, Will continued, pouring boiling water into the waiting mugs as he talked. "During the summer, Professor McKinley, my history lecturer, he kind of shanghaied me into starting research on a paper for him. Basically, it's looking at the various scholarships offered here, y'know why each one started, how long they've been around, who finances them, that kind of stuff."
"Sounds fascinating." It is doubtful that anyone had ever managed to fill two words as full of sarcasm before.
"Tell me about it. Although, I just started the memorial scholarships, and there's something about one of them…" Twisting the screw-cap off the milk-bottle, Will paused, "Uh, Francie, this milk, it's… whew."
Resealing it as quickly as humanly possible, Will held the offending liquid at arm's length. "I'm just going to get rid of this. I'll get a fresh bottle while I'm at it."
Looking at Will's retreating back, Sydney leaned against the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. "Wow, he's a really nice guy." she commented.
"Yeah," Francie drawled, mimicking the other woman's posture, "do you think we should have told him he still has one of your bras tangled in his hair?"
~~~
"Tell me about Michael Vaughn." Glancing at the clock on the wall, which showed that five minutes until the end of an almost completely useless two hours, Barnett silently told the inner voice that warned a few more sessions like this and she'd be the one needing therapy, to shut the hell up. "He's been your handler for the past four months, I believe."
"Yes."
Hoping for slightly less monosyllabic answer, Barnett prodded "And in the four months between Chresner's retirement and Vaughn's assignment, how many handlers did you have?"
"I can't remember the exact number. There were personality clashes."
Small wonder that. Barnett briefly wondered who she'd have to kill to get herself re-assigned.
"But there aren't with Agent Vaughn."
Bristow shrugged "He has flaws, due to his youth mostly."
Seizing the opening, Barnett asked "Vaughn's a very junior agent, why did you decide to stick with him?"
"I had my reasons."
"Is it because your wife killed his father?"
"What do you know about my marriage?" The mild tone of Bristow's query, neither defensive nor accusative, had Barnett replying before she'd even realized he'd asked.
"Most of the details are beyond my security clearance. In fact, if the directors believed I could create an accurate evaluation without knowing anything about you, I don't think I would even have been cleared for as much, or rather as little, as I was."
"But you know the basics."
"That the woman known as Laura Bristow, was actually a Soviet deep-cover agent named Irina Derevko, who spied on you for period of approximately ten years. She was also believed responsible for the deaths of a number of CIA agents, William Vaughn among them." She briefly wet her lips before continuing, while she had wanted to bring this subject up for a while, it hadn't been in this manner "She died in a car accident, what was reported to be a collision with an oncoming car, but was actually a colossal bungle on the part of the FBI agent assigned to investigate her. Your daughter was also killed.
"Afterwards you spent six months in solitary. The first three months of which were suicide watch." Bristow's eyes flicked almost imperceptibly to his wrist as she said this. "When you were released Arvin Sloane, approached you with an offer to join SD-6."
"He believed I would gladly turn my back on a government that was responsible killing my family. He didn't realize I blamed someone else entirely for their deaths." Bristow stood abruptly. "I believe our two hours are up, Barnett. I'll be back in a fortnight, unless you request to see me before then." Turning he strode briskly towards the doorway.
Reasoning she had nothing to lose Barnett asked one final question. "One thing, Jack, I've seen nothing in the reports of the accident to suggest you were anyway at fault. So why do you blame yourself?"
Bristow paused in the doorway his hand on the knob "Because my wife and daughter's deaths are my fault."
The sharp click of the door closing sounded loudly in Barnett's ears.