The Role He Plays

His heart may have stopped in his chest at the voice that echoed in place of his wife's. Tom stopped, eyes wide, and he was sure the world shifted under his feet. Before he could process it Liz was screaming at him to call the FBI and the line was going dead. He stood there for several moments, staring ahead, before his mind moved into action.

The FBI. Tom Keen, fourth grade teacher and terrified husband. That made sense. He called and in a stuttering voice have them everything he knew and managed to wrangle a promise from someone that they would call as soon as they knew more. They wouldn't, he knew, and they'd taken too much time getting him to the correct department. He hated the bureaucracy.

Tom wished he still had his hiding spots that he'd made claims on when they first moved in, but after the box incident a few months before, he didn't dare. He had moved everything to his bank safe deposit box, and if he wanted to handle the situation in a timely manner he was going to have to get to it.

He just about broke the lamp in his haste to turn it over and grab the key from it. He finally got the bottom off of it and pulled the key out, halfway out the door by the time he remembered to link the house phone with his cell just in case they actually did call.

The bank was not a place that he frequented. At least not this bank, anyway. Tom balanced his secrets very carefully and often on a very sharp edge. One wrong move could bring everything crashing down around him, and one wrong move in the wrong direction could put more than just him in danger. He was willing to die for what he believed in, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice people that he cared for for it. Granted, when he started all of this, that hadn't really been a problem. Now it was, and even he had lines that he didn't dare cross.

That was what had him breaking one of his firmly adhered to rules and acting on emotion when it could blow his cover sky high. He'd managed to get through the Zamani attack and his go-box being found. It would be poetic for his cover to unravel because he couldn't be a good terrified husband and sit at home hoping for the best.

He gave a brief nod to a woman who he knew and she excused herself and stepped around. "How is your day going, Mr Keen?" she greeted conversationally.

"Hurried, actually. I need to get into my box if you have a second."

"Of course."

She didn't know a great deal other than the fact that she needed to make sure that the box was always available to him and she was paid very well to do it. She let him in and he paused. "Does my wife have access to this if she ever needs it?"

"Of course. As long as she has the key."

"Great. Thank you."

He waited until she walked out and gave it another painful thirty seconds before the camera switched off before flipping the lid open. Inside rested replacements for most of what he'd lost in his go-box, including a gun, passports, and the handy little contraption he had been looking for. Tom quickly stuffed it in his pocket, eyed the gun, and snapped the lid shut. This was already going too far. He was already risking too much. Sneaking into the Post Office was not an option.

Too much time had passed for his taste by the time that he got home and closed the door, leaning heavily against it. He fished his cell out of his pocket, checking it again before attaching the small contraption to it, scrambling anything that could possible listen into the call before he punched in a set of numbers that he knew by heart.

It rang once, then twice, and by the third time he thought that maybe he truly had been left in the cold. "Keen. You're off schedule."

"There's an issue."

There was a pause. "Extraction is not an option now."

"It's not for me. Elizabeth Scott is under fire and I have no way to go in without my cover being blown."

The was a pause again and the sound of clicking like on a keyboard. Maybe they would say to hell with it. Maybe he could still go in and save her. "Hold your position. Do not compromise your cover. Await further orders."

"I don't think you get it," he snapped at the auto-enhanced voice. "Liz is in trouble. My base mission is to protect her."

"You will await further orders," the automated voice responded. He was about ready to argue again when it spoke. "Agent Keen will be protected."

The line went dead in his ear and Tom slid to the floor. He'd done everything he could short of going to the facility itself, which he wasn't entirely certain he could find, much less breach. Now all he had left was to play the role of the terrified husband waiting desperately for some sign that the woman he loved was okay. It seemed the deeper he got into this mess, the more he became the role he played.

Notes: I got a request for a scene from Anslo Garrick, and the cool thing was this little short had just been finished when the request came through :D

Let me know if you have requests! I want to write more of these!