Disclaimer—Characters belong to JJ Abrams. No copyright infringement intended. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Author's Notes—Kerry, my beta, still rocks my world. Don't know what I'd do without you (and I really don't want to find out G).
Spoilers—Echoes
Feedback—Always greatly appreciated.
Archive—Let me know first, thanks.
The Bottle Fleet—Reflections on Sally Vincent.
He was a California kid, born and bred. More than that, he was a Los Angelino and he considered himself lucky to have those distinctions. He was also proud of the title CIA agent. He's proud to know that, if he wanted, he could be Agent Eric Weiss, BS. Okay, so having a Bachelor of Science could be entertaining. But, he could call himself a UCLA alum. He was a son, a brother, and a friend. There were good things about him.
But, at the moment, he had blinders on. At the moment the only word he had to describe himself was heartbroken. And for good reason, too: Sally Vincent had been the one.
She was smart, beautiful, and thoughtful. She'd come down from Silicon Valley with her JD—Juris Doctor. From what he'd heard, she was a damn good attorney. An associate at a prestigious litigation firm, she was on the fast track to making partner. She certainly wanted her name on the door.
He got to see her in court one day, in action. She was ruthless, hammering away at an expert witness until he cracked on the stand, in front of the judge, jury, and everyone in the gallery. It had been almost frightening to watch. She did, with words, what he'd seen female CIA agents do with martial arts moves.
Perhaps the word really could be mightier than the sword.
And then, just like they did at the CIA, once court was in recess, she was chatting amicably with the other lawyer, as though she hadn't just destroyed his star expert witness. The disguise was off, the alias set aside for what was truly underneath. That was intriguing to him. That people outside of his Company, too, had those masks.
And she'd taken off her fierce litigator mask to allow the true Sally Vincent to show through. And that was the Sally Vincent he knew. The one who knew how to laugh and appreciated a good-and sometimes bad-joke. The one whose smile came easily.
And for a while, that had been enough. The ability to share the mundane of every day existence. He'd take her to the movies, to dinner, just out and about. They'd spend nights curled up in each other's arms. To him, it was perfect. But, to her, there was something missing. Something he wasn't telling her.
She wasn't sure how many State Department employees had books written in, she couldn't tell exactly, but several different languages, hidden in desk drawers, kitchen cabinets, and under the sink in the bathroom. If she ever came across him on the computer, he'd close whatever application he was in, or open another to hide the first. He'd come home with bound paper books to read, but if she even passed the open door, he'd slide it under the pillow on the couch, or back into his case.
Any questions she'd ask about what he was up to, about his books, he'd clam up.
So, she tried to lead by example. If her day had gone badly, she'd tell him. If she landed a hefty settlement for her client, she'd share in her joy. And then she'd ask about his day, how it had gone, what had happened. He had two patented answers for that. It was either "fine" or he'd tell her he didn't want to talk about it.
And it was starting to drive Sally crazy. She could put up with his long hours, and the business trips. She was a workaholic, too. And some of her cases took her all over the state. But, not knowing what he did from nine to five, or from five in the morning till midnight was problematic. He swore to her as their relationship started to make its final descent that he was not cheating on her, that it was his job that kept him away. That the nature of his job was such that he couldn't discuss even the slightest detail with her.
Eventually, Sally had enough. She'd had her fill of his excuses and his non-answers. She'd grown weary of having the same arguments with him night after night. It was time, she decided, to admit defeat and simply move on.
But, he'd wanted her to stay. He wanted her to understand. His job was important to him, but so was she.
She'd sneered at him and told him quietly, coldly, in the voice that he couldn't have his cake and eat it, too. While, certainly, a cliché, it stung. And he didn't have a response. He'd just stood there, stunned, and he waited desperately for that lawyer façade to fade, for the mask to melt away, for his beaming, beautiful Sally Vincent to return.
But she didn't. She just left.
He was devastated, crushed. The nights grew longer, nearly unbearable. All that time that he used to spend was her was now empty and massive. He needed something to fill the time. Something that, like Sally, was all-encompassing and fulfilling and magical. Because, before the fights, there had been magic between them.
He'd always done magic. Being Houdini's relative and namesake, he'd been doing sleight of hand for years. That couldn't replace her. It took a while, but he finally found something that was challenging. Something that was quite the oddity but relatively magical.
How did one get those boats into those bottles with the thin little necks? He was bound and determined to figure it out. It required great focus, great patience. It filled his time and made his otherwise long nights speed by. It was cathartic. And it was far better than what he could've fallen into. If he had to pick some relatively compulsive behavior to pick up to ease the pain of his bruised heart, he figured doing something constructive was far, far better than bellying up to the bottle. After all, he'd always heard that troubles could float.
Building little ships in little bottles helped keep him sane, no matter how often his best friend informed him that he was crazy for spending so much time making his bottled fleet.
As with all heartbreaks, eventually it healed. Or, at least, the heartbreak stops hurting. And he slowly got over her, enough to stop making ships in bottles. Although, by the time he reached that point, he did have quite the collection. He couldn't merely junk them. It seemed like such a waste. He certainly didn't want to keep them either.
Packing them all up, wrapping them individually, he headed over to UCLA Medical Center one afternoon, swinging by the Pediatrics wing. Even if those children were cooped up in their hospital beds, they could dream. And maybe they needed a boat to help get them to wherever they wanted to go.
He figured it was like his first alumni donation. Even if he'd had his heart broken, maybe it wasn't so bad after all.
End.