Reflections or mirages
Chapter 6. The scarf

Author's note: Certain lines of dialogue are verbatim from the episode, as some scenes are extended versions of those aired, and are therefore not mine.

=During and after FBI S04E09 "Unfinished Business"=

"Hey, sorry to keep you waiting," said Rina as she stepped out of the front door of her house.
"No worries. Double espresso, almond milk," Jubal offered her a smile and the cup of coffee he had brought her.
"Thank you. You're wearing the scarf," she commented, pleased.
"Oh, yeah. Of course. I love it.
They shared a short but intense kiss.
"You look good."
"I'm gonna wear anything you give me."
"Plus, it's cold out." Jubal pulled the scarf over his face and around his neck.
"Yeah, what happened-?"

The characteristic crack of a gun being fired tore through the cold morning air… and Rina's chest. And Jubal's soul.

·~·~·

As she walked past Jubal's work station at the JOC, something caught Isobel's eye on his desk. It was his scarf. She could recognize it because she had seen him wring it in his hands when she had met him that morning, just after the assassination attempt on Rina's life. At that time, Jubal had asked her she let him work.

"Jubal, I know you two were dating, and that you were standing right next to her when she got shot."

Jubal seemed more surprised that she mentioned it out loud than the fact that she knew. It was the first time Isobel had addressed the matter out loud; she had to steel herself to even say it. It pierced her chest anyway, but she managed to hide it and be empathetic to his situation. Not that it was of much use.

"I need to stay focused on this. Please," Jubal begged, completely overriding her efforts.

Despite her own fears, despite the gleam of feverish despair in Jubal's eyes, Isobel agreed. She had been unable to refuse his plea.

But now... now she had just given him the order to leave.

When Ian had shown them how the device worked, Isobel's heart had almost leapt out of her mouth. She had to clench her fists to control the feeling of horror. For his part, Jubal had reacted by wanting to do something reckless for the third time.

And Isobel had been forced to order him to go to the hospital, to be with Rina. She had had no choice.

Not just because Jubal had offered a suspect to drop the attempted murder charges for shooting Maggie and OA, or because he had lost his temper during the interrogation, but because Jubal was increasingly on the edge of the precipice.

"We're gonna find Winters," Isobel had assured him. "I promise you that, and Castlewood? He will be charged for his involvement in all of this. Right now, you go down to the hospital and check on Rina. Be there for her when she comes out of surgery. That's an order, not a request."

The reproach, the resentment in Jubal's eyes just before he left struck Isobel deep inside. She feared that he was not going to forgive her.

But she had no regrets. Now that Maggie had been shot too, now that the doctors had said Rina had a brain hemorrhage, now that Jubal knew his family was also threatened, if Isobel let him, Jubal would end up ruining the case he was so desperate to solve. Jubal wouldn't forgive himself if that happened, so Isobel couldn't allow him make a mistake like that, even if it would cause her suffering to earn his grudge.

Approaching Jubal's desk, she surreptitiously picked up the scarf. It was rolled up, but as she unwrapped it a little, her breath caught for a moment. Except for the small part facing outward, it was completely soaked with blood. It was obvious that it was Rina's. Jubal must have used his own scarf to stop the bleeding. With a lump in her throat, Isobel rolled it back up and, before anyone could see it, took it away from the JOC.

She didn't want Jubal to find Rina's blood on his desk when he'd get back.

·~·~·

The hospital corridor was plunged into the usual semi-darkness of that late night hour, and silence accompanied it. Isobel walked it down, making sure that the clicking of her shoes was barely audible, so as not to disturb the patients, who were probably already asleep.

She was so physically and emotionally exhausted it was hard to walk. That long, fateful day weighed on Isobel like a sentence.

Striving to honor the promise she had made to Jubal, Isobel had taken the reins of the case. At first she made no headway. Then Jubal disobeyed her and returned from the hospital.

"I'm not a doctor... I need to be here, Isobel."

His plea tore at her heart. Once again she could not refuse.

"Okay, but you are on a very short leash."

His return was helpful. Thanks to him they were able to arrest the bastard who assembled the devices and find out how many had been installed. And then Elise found out that Vargas was behind it all. Isobel was still unable to process the death of his family, the consequences that had triggered the decisions she had made, the enormous guilt that overwhelmed her.

Moreover, Jubal was tempted to commit an atrocity to get rid of Vargas.

Isobel could understand but was terrified that he would come to that; to end up also being responsible for his disgrace... and his likely subsequent collapse.

"And we are going to stop him, but we're better than that. We have to be."

Because she was sure that Jubal would not be able to live with himself after that. Something like that would certainly destroy him...

"Somehow... somehow, it's my fault." From far down the hospital corridor, Isobel heard the deep, unmistakable timbre of Jubal's voice. "Something I could have... I could have done, you know? There's something I could have done."

He surely was just around the next corner. A fresh pinch of agony racked Isobel as she heard him say that; her steps faltered.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Another unknown male voice was heard. "Some sort of mind-reader? A saint?" Isobel stopped dead in her tracks, unsettled by the ruthlessness of those words. "You're just another selfish prick who thinks the world revolves around him and himself. So as much as I'd like to lay this at your feet... I can't do that. This isn't on you. Or her. It's just something that happened. Part of the job you two signed up for." He seemed to soften his tone a bit… but then he added with cruel disdain: "So save all your 'what-ifs' and self-pity for someone else."

The knot that had tightened in Isobel's gut held her where she stood, paralyzed, unable to stop thinking about how devastating it must have been for Jubal to be told that.

A very tall man in his mid-forties, dressed in expensive clothes, rounded the corner and walked toward Isobel. He wore a bitter expression on his face. He walked past her without looking at her. Hesitantly, Isobel managed to make her feet start walking again toward Jubal, who, behind the corner, had become completely silent.

But then the knot burst into fury inside her. She stopped again. She couldn't leave things like this. She spun on her heels and followed the man until they were far enough away that Jubal couldn't hear them. She caught up with him by the elevators.

"Who are you and why do you think you have the right to speak to Jubal like that?" said Isobel in a harsh whisper.

The man turned and looked at her in mild surprise for a moment, but then his countenance turned sour. "I'm Rob Dolan, Rina's ex-husband," as if that explained everything.

Isobel gave him a cold look. "OK. So?"

The man hesitated, then seemed furious. "Well, 'your friend' destroyed my marriage," the man spat.

Isobel needed only a second to assimilate that information. So Rina cheated on her husband with Jubal... She squared her shoulders and met Dolan's eyes.

"My friend did not break any compromise with you. If anything, it was Rina who did it," she snapped, still whispering. "That doesn't give you the right to treat Jubal like that."

"It's shameful of him to blame himself," Dolan replied, looking down the length of his own nose at her with insufferable haughtiness. "I only told him to stop feeling pity for himself."

'You have no idea what you're talking about, sir. It's not self-pity. Jubal believes he is responsible for what happened to Rina because he wishes with all his might that he could have prevented it." She knew it well. "And he wishes it because he cared about her. Very much..." Isobel swallowed hard. "And yes, he sure blames himself. That's his flaw. He blames himself for everything even though he shouldn't." And in this case he certainly shouldn't. It was all on Isobel's conscience, really. He took a step toward Dolan, "But it's a far less petty defect than taking it out on someone broken just to get some measly relief."

Dolan's face was congested. He pursed his lips in contempt, trying to find a retort.

Isobel didn't give him the opportunity. She turned and walked away, leaving him standing there.

She found Jubal watching Rina through a glass. He looked absolutely devastated.

Swallowing her own dismay, Isobel moved closer to him.

Immersed in his suffering, Jubal didn't notice. He was thinking that Dolan was probably right, that he was just a selfish jerk. And that made him feel even more guilty, trapped in that vicious circle of self-recrimination.

"How is she...?" Isobel asked softly.

Jubal glanced sideways, suddenly aware of her presence.

He was surprised to find her there. To say that his early friendship with Isobel had drifted apart for some time now would be an understatement. He would never have expected her to drop by. Part of him was willing to thank her, but another part wasn't sure he was happy to see her either. He still felt ashamed of the last conversation he'd had with her, when he had proposed to facilitate Vargas' death.

And we are going to stop him, but we're better than that. We have to be.

Isobel's reply echoed within him, the disappointment in her eyes seared into his memory. And yet the temptation was still very strong. That embarrassed him even more, to the point of not being able to look her in the face.

And to top it off, Jubal didn't feel there was enough trust between them to show how vulnerable he felt at the moment. She had hardly ever done it with him and even less so since he started dating Rina.

He ran the heel of his hand over each eye and tried as hard as he could to pull himself together. He cleared his throat but his voice sounded broken anyway.

"They... They don't know if she will wake up."

"I'm so sorry…" was all Isobel was able to say. She felt lost. But she had to find a way to give Jubal her support. She struggled to find some words of encouragement. "But there's still hope, isn't there?"

"Yeah…" Jubal was not ready to give up. He clung to it desperately. "Yes, there still is."

He didn't seemed very hopeful to Isobel. Then he turned and looked straight at her, his eyes reddened with grief. "What are you doing here?"

The question painfully stuck the words in Isobel's throat. She couldn't lie and say she was there for Rina. But neither could she expose herself by telling the truth, that she was there for him.

"I brought you your scarf," she said absurdly. "It's cold. I thought you might need it..."

She took the garment out of her bag and held it out to him, a little hesitantly. She had it washed, brought it to him without a trace of blood.

Bewilderment washed over Jubal. That Isobel was in possession of the scarf made no sense at all. He was trying to find it -he couldn't even remember where he had left it- when, as he took it from her hand, the memory of pressing the garment against Rina's chest trying to stop the bleeding burst into his mind with the violence of a scream, erasing everything else. He passed his other hand over his face, clenching the scarf in his fist.

"It… it was a Rina's gift," he mumbled, almost breathless.

Isobel couldn't help but think it seemed a bit of an impersonal gift. A simple plaid scarf. If she would have to get Jubal a present, she would have bought him tickets to take his kids to see his favorite baseball team play, or she would have gotten him online a box of those pastries that he loved so much and that they only made in Boston. Or at least she would have had a pencil embroidered on the scarf...

"I was wearing it today for the first time," Jubal added, his voice trembling, his gaze lost.

Rina's gift may have been impersonal, but it meant so much to him. Isobel's heart twisted in pain as she saw him on the verge of break down. She reached up a hand to stroke his arm, to give him some comfort, but did not finish the movement.

"I was putting it right when... When..." His voice trailed off. And suddenly his eyes widened in shock. "Oh, my God." Jubal felt the air rush out of his lungs abruptly and refuse to come back in. The world seemed to collapse around him, "I was putting right my scarf... It was cold. I put it up, covering my nose and mouth... If I hadn't..."

Isobel looked at him in horror. If he hadn't, the shot -that single shot that murder weapon fired before it jammed- would have hit him.

Isobel's knees almost buckled. She would never dare confess to him that she still shuddered remembering when she saw the trigger of the device activate furiously as it recognized Jubal's features. Realizing now how close he had come to being the one on the other side of the glass at that moment almost sent her into a panic.

But for Jubal, it meant something completely different and heartbreaking. It meant that he could have changed Rina's fate, that he could have saved her... if only he hadn't covered his face.

He couldn't bear it. He closed his eyes with a wince and hunched in on himself clutching the scarf against his chest.

That reaction made Isobel understand what Jubal was thinking. And suddenly, she was suffering with him. The urge to hug him became so uncontrollable that she was about to give in to her impulse.

"Leave me alone, please," pleaded Jubal, his voice hoarse and strangled.

He didn't want to completely fall apart in front of her. The way that broke Isobel's heart was devastating. She took two steps back.

"Of course," she murmured, her eyes brimming with tears.

As she walked away down the hallway, they rolled down her cheeks before she could hold them back.

~.~.~.~

Author's note: The detail of the scarf is actually taken from the episode. Looking closely, Jubal has the scarf in his face when they both step down the stairs and when Rina is shot. That's a really fine point from the show makers, that demonstrates their good work. It almost goes unnoticed but it's so intentional, I think. If it actually is, big kudos from me to them, indeed.

Without detracting from Jeremy Sisto's work, which is also outstanding, I want to call attention to Alana de la Garza's magnificent performance in this episode. I encourage you to re-watch it and notice the subtlety of her emotions. It is fascinating to see the firmness with which she delivers her lines while sensing the fear and vulnerability in her eyes. Just wonderful. Above it all, in this scenes:

- At first, when she accepts Jubal to work on the case.
- When she sees the device react to his features.
- After asking Jubal to go to the hospital and when he comes back and asks her to let him stay.
- In the gentleness with which she addresses the obviously shaken Elise.
- And after stopping Jubal's intention to kill Vargas.

And without these marvelous details, writing this chapter would not have been possible.