London, England
My skin felt cold as I felt the teardrop slide down my cheek and hit the pavement. I wiped at my eyes. The one thing that kept me sane was the man beside me.
It had been hours now since I had killed a man, since I had come face-to-face with Nina Myers. It was five or so, and at six we were all meeting for dinner at the restaurant in our hotel. Tony and Weiss had come back from the CC and were at the hotel comparing notes; Leticia was taking a nap, her head acting up again (and she was also doped up on Sudafed as a result); Lex was, as usual, playing with the gear.
After dinner, Oliver was supposed to bring himself to the fray, as well as our new Special Branch paperwork. I don't know if he saw the true terror in my eyes or what (launching yourself at your partner can also be a sign), but Michael had asked if I wanted to go out and walk around, and since the alternative was brooding over my job status, I'd taken him up on that. Now I held his hand ever tighter as we walked the mostly empty streets in London's equivalent to Times Square.
"You're going to crush my hand like that."
"Oh, sorry, I hadn't noticed." I relinquished my grip a bit. "Feel like I'm blind, you know? Never … never done that before … never thought I would …"
"I know." His voice was soft, tinged with more than sympathy. "I've been in that position before."
"Michael…" I started. "I didn't know."
"Kept it to myself, mostly. My partner, my best friend, turned by the Code Fives. Had to kill him myself." To his credit, he just seemed sad about the whole exchange, not bitter, not full of rage. I knew people who'd go psycho if such an incident happened to them. Jack, for instance. He kept it down, but there was a current of fury burning in him now. But Michael, no, he just seemed recalcitrant. Like he thought he needed redemption. That feeling was in me now.
"My God," I said, staring at him. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It had to be done," he said, looking off at the stars covering the early evening sky. "At least I did it for him. Owed him that much."
I nodded. I knew too well about honor, dignity and the many things we tried to covet that weren't that easy to keep. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this," I suggested softly, not wanting to be dragged under again.
"Probably smarter." He looked over at me. "You didn't deserve something like that."
"I asked for it. I was trying to do the right thing." I exhaled, and I was able to see my breath in the night. "When I grew up, you know, with the disability, I made a promise that I'd try to leave the world a better place."
"That what you were doing joining the CIA at sixteen?"
"Something like that." I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "You know what always makes me feel better?"
Now there was a smirk on his face. "What's that?"
"Isn't there a Borders around here?"
The smile on his face was accompanied by due sarcasm: "My God, you actually still read."
"And I love TV," I said as we headed down the appropriate street. "Now come on, you can watch me freak out."
"Nothing else I'd rather be doing."
Ten minutes later we had arrived at the largest bookstore in London, a massive two-story Borders Books & Music that included a full music section, a café, and – here's the important part – a whole ton of books. The last time I had been here I almost couldn't get all the stuff I bought into my suitcase. This time, I knew my way around and pounced on the up escalator to get to where I needed to be. My mood had improved, and so had Michael's amusement at my behavior switch.
"So how many books do you own?"
"Couple hundred, I figure. I stopped counting." We stepped off the escalator and I headed straight for the mystery section. "That's the one perk of being here though. My favorite authors are British, Ian Rankin and Nick Hornby."
"Not surprised, given all of Leticia's facts about you."
I rolled my eyes, scanning the shelves to see if the new Rankin was out, which indeed it was. I hefted Beggars Banquet in one hand. Like all of Ian's novels, it was rather weighty, and probably over five hundred pages at that. I owned the complete series, and I would never pass a new one up. Michael put his hands on my shoulders, and I nearly jumped.
"And you've read all of those, I'm guessing."
I feigned innocence. "I may have."
He chuckled. "Where have you been all my life?"
"Working on my screenplay and trying not to flunk out of higher education." I grabbed the book and turned round to circle and look for James Lee Burke, following Michael, who was over searching for James Ellroy. I think I was blushing. "Anyway, your social life can't be as bad as mine."
"Let's see, Code Fives, my apartment exploded, and I can't speak to anyone I actually knew. I doubt that." He eyed me as I came over beside him. "Isn't that all relative anyway?"
"A lot of things are relative." I sighed. "Thank you for being here for me, Michael. I appreciate it."
He smiled thinly. "Just trying to do the right thing."
For a while, in his company, it was easy to forget why I was really in London again, who I really was. It was easy to think I was just back to buy more novels, stalk Jack Davenport, and spend time in the company of an incredibly handsome, smart and sympathic guy that bore a slight resemblance to Jack Davenport. We were able to smile and laugh, make subtle jokes, and let the stress go. But it wouldn't wait forever. I knew that somewhere, in the back of my mind.
We stopped to get coffee at the café, and soon I found myself opening up to this man that I felt like I had known all my life. It was a feeling I hadn't felt since I'd met Chris all those years ago.
"It's so easy to try to do the right thing," I found myself saying. "Just put your heart and soul into it, make a commitment to something other than yourself, be prepared to go all the way. And yet so many people are so self-absorbed. I couldn't be that kind of person. I saw a dark side of the world, and I wanted to make something better than that. I knew that would demand of me as much as it would of other people. It's not fair to ask someone to do what you wouldn't do."
"That's an idealistic ideology," Michael said, "it must be hard."
"It is hard. But I learned I had to stand for something."
"That's what I always said. Why I became a cop. People need help. Half the time they won't admit it, but people can't do things alone. And I wanted them to know they weren't alone. Maybe I wanted to know I wasn't alone, I don't know. Combination of both, I guess."
"It's a tough world," I concurred. "But we make it tougher than it has to be."
"We honestly do." He stopped, looking at me for a moment. "How do you know so much?"
"I wouldn't say I know that much at all." I took a long drink, laughed a little. "I think I'm an old soul. There's a running joke that I'm really 28 in a 17-year-old's body." Then I paused. "Sometimes it's not that funny."
"Like tonight."
"Yeah." I exhaled. "I lost it all, recently … left high school and nobody wants anything to do with me anymore. A friend was killed. A hero was killed. I got played. Had myself a nice emotional breakdown. That's when I really committed to working at CTU. It was pretty much all I had left. CTU and Leticia."
"Nobody else?" He seemed surprised.
"A best friend upstate, but we don't see each other anymore." I sighed. "They keep saying that will change. I keep waiting. But you know what they say, ninety percent of the game is waiting. Just go out and play."
"That's all we can do."
"Yeah. It just … does it ever scare you sometimes?"
"More often than you think."
We paused in a mutual silence, in a mutual vulnerability.
He took my hand across the table, held it tight. "Until this is over, I'll always be right here."
"I know."
Still holding on to each other, both metaphorically and physically, we rose as one and exited the café. It was getting darker outside, and a light rain had begun to fall on the grand streets of London. I felt the warmth in Michael's lips as he kissed me on the cheek at the same time I felt the weight of the nine-millimeter still in my holster.
The walk back to the hotel was only maybe fifteen minutes, and I spent them thinking over what had happened, what was to come. Part of it was strategy – what did the clues say, what was the next move, where did we go from here? But part of it was personal – could I take the pain, could I rise to the challenge, was I the one that should be right here, right now? I had been giving a lot of thought to whether or not I would even stay with CTU when this tour of duty was over, if it ever was over.
As the warmth of the restaurant hit me, as we walked together over to the table where Tony and Weiss and Leticia and Lex were all waiting for us, I had made my decision.