Author: greatunironic
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: How I wish.
Feedback: Like chocolate and peanut butter.
Summary: "The gas tank is always full." Malcolm Reed has none enough of running away. He runs anyway.
Etc.: I have no idea how this came about (though I have the suspicion it's because I watch far too many Bond movies and spy shows). It's actually pretty warped. Also, this is the first thing I've written that has a bit of ship-age. It's Reed/T'Pol somewhat unrequited angst weirdness. I guess it fits in with the whole warped theme of this story.
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The rooms here never change. They're always the same: a twenty on the coffee table, a gun in the desk, and keys on the bureau. He usually keeps his passports and papers on the credenza. He laughs to himself, sometimes, when he thinks about it. Because it's funny, saying to yourself that you keep your identities on the credenza.
He can't remember how many places his lived in the past five years. He's not even sure why he's running anymore. He thinks that the men of the rogue Starfleet section have stopped searching for him and he's pretty sure that the old crew from the Enterprise has stopped looking for him too. This means, for the rogue Starfleet group, that he's no longer a threat and it means, for the crew of Enterprise, that they have all but forgotten about him and have given up hope of ever seeing him again. He's not sure if these things should make him happy or sad.
Only one person of Enterprise talks to him. She's the only one he allows to talk to him. He thinks that maybe he shouldn't let her because maybe someday she'll tell the others where he is. But then logic kicks in and he knows she would never betray him like. Not until he was ready. She doesn't even know where he lives, either, and he changes places often enough to not have to worry about her finding him somehow.
She writes letters to him and sends them to a mail box under a false name. He goes there once a week, if that, and gets that mail. There's always a letter from her. He never reads it there. He always drives back to the house where he's staying currently and puts himself in a closet. He reads them there, huddled in a ball on the floor. He feels safe there, like no one can get him.
Her letters are usually long and sometimes she even has some emotion in them. She explains what's been going on within the ship and tells him the comings and goings of the crew. She'll usually mention how the captain isn't fond of the new Armoury Officer and how she isn't either. It never fails that at the end of the letter she'll ask him when he will be coming back. Then she'll write that she misses him. She signs her name 'Your friend, T'Pol'.
He misses her too. Sometimes he thinks that if he ever went back he would go back for her. But he knows he can't go back, not yet, because if he did he'd have to come out of hiding and then maybe the men from Starfleet would come after him again. He can't let that happen. They've tried to kill all who were in contact with him at the beginning and he knows that they'll try again and he knows he can't let anything happen to Enterprise's crew, especially T'Pol. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to come out of hiding.
After reading her letter, he drives away from the place where he's staying. The car is his fifth in as many years. He drives for two hundred miles to a payphone that he knows can't be traced. Even still, he keeps a suitcase filled with everything he'd need for two weeks in the trunk, an extra supply of cash (never credit cards, always cash; cards can be traced) in the glove compartment, and a gun duct tapped under the dash. It's unregistered so in case he fires it, it won't be traced. Nothing of him can be traced anymore. Sometimes he smiles when he thinks about that; Malcolm Reed, super spy, James Bond in the making.
Except, he doesn't work for the government because that's who he's running from and he doesn't drink martinis, shaken not stirred, and he doesn't have all the super swank weapons and spy gear (but he does have a nice security system) and he doesn't get the girl. Mainly because the girl he wants is light years away with no emotions and probably no idea how he feels for her.
He calls this same girl (the girl he wants and the girl who writes) from this untraceable payphone that's two hundred miles away from his current home. It's in the middle of the desert (which desert? he's not telling) so the wind blows the sand up in a dramatic fashion when she picks up the phone. He tells her that he got her letter and he thanks her for it. He says he's doing fine and that he misses her too. He says goodbye and hangs up. He drives away. He only gets to hear her voice when she says hello.
Eventually he gets back home and he falls asleep on the couch. He dreams about her and being free. Sometimes he thinks they really have stopped looking for him. Then he knows that thinking that is a weakness and he can't have any weaknesses. He wishes they would stop looking for him. He's had enough of running. He can't even remember what he did in the first place. He thinks it may have something to do with the work he did before he join the crew of Enterprise.
Running is all he knows how to do anymore and sometimes it's all there is in his life. Other times she's there and that makes him want to just give up and go back and let them catch him if only he could tell her how he feels. He's had enough and he just wants to give up running.
He keeps identities on the credenza anyway and the gas tank is always full.