Prompt #7: In this white wave I am sinking in this silence 'Silence', Delerium, feat. Sarah Mclachlan
He sits, hands shackled to the arms of the chair, dressed in prison grays, his face a blank mask. Hic colleagues on the other side of the table ask question after question and still he's silent. He's been through this before, been on both sides of the table, and he knows better than to give them what they want. Especially now, when the stakes are so high.
"Dammit, Bristow. She's not worth it." Kendall, perspiration shining on his bald head.
"We know you're working with Derevko." Lindsay. Sneering. Jack doesn't even acknowledge him.
Days pass. Sitting alone in his cell, he thinks of Sydney.
Weeks turn into months. Nothing changes.
He thinks of Irina, too. Sometimes, when the loneliness is too much to bear, he closes his eyes and conjures an image of her. Sometimes he feels her there with him, her hand on his leg, her breath tickling his neck, but when he opens his eyes, she's gone.
He wonders how close he is to losing his mind. He wonders if he's already lost it – he swore, once, that he would do whatever it took to destroy Derevko, and here he is, sitting in solitary because he refuses to give her up.
Another interrogation: "She's laughing at you, Bristow. Thinks you're a fool."
Someone else: "What are you getting out of protecting her?"
His own voice of doubt: She doesn't love you, she never loved you.
And he remembers her smile first thing in the morning, her lazy laughter as they shared a joke in the evening, a moment on a train when her face lit up with joy and he realized for the first time that not everything with her was a lie.
If he gives her up, Sydney will have no one. Irina will die, and he will probably move from a solitary cell to one in another part of the prison.
"I don't trust you," he told her. Except he does, he has to, she's the only one he can. He wonders if she received that last, hastily sent message: Alive! Find her!
His love for her has destroyed his life twice over, and the most surprising thing for him to realize as he lies in bed at night is that his love is the one thing that remains constant.
"Why are you protecting her?" they ask over and over again.
They'll never believe him if he answers.