A/N: Back again! Thanks to ReetSLP and chzwit for the reviews! Again, lots of scenes we might already remember so that I can structure what is going on in the characters' heads! There was such amazing writing back then... Please enjoy!
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When Robert arrived at Sean's room, the bed was empty and Anna was already there, her head thrown back restlessly. But she tilted her neck when she heard the door, and laughed a little awkwardly when Robert slipped through. "Oh, hi…"
"Hi," Robert returned, his voice a bit high. He realized quickly that he was unable to look directly at her without thinking about things that he'd rather not think about. Anna looked beautiful today. Anna always looked beautiful. A rush of guilt hit him when he considered his girlfriend, the one who made him breakfast this morning. The one who had heard him talking in his sleep…
He realized he had to get a grip on this now.
"Sean's just gone for some tests, he'll be back in a bit."
"How is he?" It seemed like a safe question. Seeing clearly that Anna felt as awkward as he did was making this worse, rather than better.
"Fine, yeah, good…he's, uh, walking…" Anna's voice was pitched and unlike herself as well.
"Good…" He had no idea what his ex might have been thinking because he had yet to really, really look at her. This was ridiculous. He decided that he had to tough it out and hope time would put everything to right and finally met her eyes. There, it wasn't so hard…
"I heard he's been pinching all the female nurses," Anna said with a falsely bright smile that Robert returned in kind, though given the circumstances, the last thing he wanted to do was joke with Anna about Sean right now.
"Positive sign." She kept smiling, and she was still stunningly beautiful, so Robert turned his attention to Sean's chart and flipped idly through it. How the hell were they going to get back to normal? He cursed Sean again in his head.
"How was your evening?" she asked, and there was a pause before her question registered with him.
"What?"
"Last night, you know, with Kate…"
"Oh! It was nice. Nice."
"Good."
"Yeah."
"You two need to spend time together."
He had to admit that Anna talking about her desire to see him and Katherine get their relationship back on track, even if it was sincere, niggled him a bit. Didn't she think he wanted that too? And it wasn't going to get back on track if he didn't stop thinking about Italy. And he couldn't stop thinking about Italy when the memory of last night was still fresh in his mind, and Sean, and Faison…and Anna. He flipped the next page hard, his response flat. "Yeah."
Even without seeing her, he could sense her casting out for other subjects to talk about, probably thinking that if they kept talking that maybe last night would go away. "Um, you—you didn't have to come here today, you know, I think that I can handle this myself."
He looked up again, feeling stupid and wondering if she was implying what he thought that she was. "What?"
"With Sean, I was gonna, you know…get some answers from him about Faison and I—"
"Hey look," Robert said gently. "I wanna neutralize this guy as much as you do." She looked like she was feeling a little guilty, and he didn't particularly enjoy seeing her like that. Especially when he found out last night that she wasn't as much to blame as they had thought before.
"Well yes, I know, but you've got other things that—"
"Together," Robert said firmly. He wasn't sure about a lot of things right now. But one thing he was sure of was that they had to take Faison down together—the two of them. This case was personal to them both and she wasn't shutting him out. "Agreed?"
She stared at him before conceding quietly, "yeah, yeah…" So she understood then. Good.
"Alright."
Awkwardness settled around them again, so Robert looked back down at the chart, fiddling with it. It was strange—being so uneasy around Anna. She was usually the person he felt most comfortable around in the world and right now…she was like the sun. He couldn't stare at her for too long.
"Oh!" Anna said, smiling over-brightly again. "You—you…you forgot this at the house and Robin wanted to—"
She extended her hand to him as she spoke and he saw that his favorite tie was enclosed in her grip. Without thinking, he grasped her smaller hand to take it from her, wholly unprepared for the heated jolt that hit him as they touched. She must have felt it too because her speech stopped suddenly, mid-sentence. Her hand was smooth, soft… fit just as he remembered and as he hadn't considered for years now.
They stood there like idiots for a moment, their hands warm and entwined before Robert couldn't take it anymore and ripped his hand from hers, tossing his tie on the bed. "What's going on here?" he asked her in frustration, throwing up his arms.
Her smile was absolutely giddy and confused as she put her own hands to her face, as if relieved that he was acknowledging the new tension around them. "I don't know! I don't know…I just feel so weird!" She danced away from him as he paced towards the door restlessly and then lifted her shoulders like she was trying to shake something off. "I feel really weird about yesterday…!"
"Weird," Robert repeated in agreement, frowning.
"Absolutely!" Her smile was at a loss, but still stunning as ever.
"I mean…" Robert struggled to articulate what either of them meant. He pointed a finger at her, impatient with the situation at hand. "This is absurd! It's absurd!"
"I know, I know," Anna's face straightened like she had been caught giggling in church, suddenly serious and composed and she briefly shielded her hands in front of her, warding the sentiment off.
"I know…I mean, what we had then…that was—that was the marriage and that was then—and that's it!"
"We're very good friends," Robert supplied. "And that's it!"
"Right!" she nodded vigorously. "We're very…close. Because of Robin…"
"And that's natural!"
"Of course." Anna licked her lips before continuing. "Oh! I…thought…um…it was probably just the drugs talking."
"Yeah!" Robert said, ready to put the blame on Sean. "Yeah, that had occurred to me!"
"Because he was really out of it when he was talking last night."
"Rambling," Robert added.
"Well yeah! Anesthetic will do that. It makes you very sentimental!"
"And he's Irish!" Robert grinned. Anna laughed back.
"And he's Irish, on top of that…yes…"
"He feels guilty, I guess…"
"I mean, the marriage wasn't gonna work anyway…" Despite the fact that Robert agreed with her, he still felt an ache in his chest when Anna proclaimed that. "It was just not gonna work." Her voice was careful and considering. "And he's Irish…"
"He's guilty about breaking us up."
"Right…and uh," Anna rubbed her head anxiously, over-stressed at the thought of their marriage. "I mean, we really didn't…expect it to last…"
"No," Robert agreed quickly, but the ache in his heart was persistent and he wasn't sure if either of them completely meant what they were saying.
"Well, we were in love…" Whether or not their marriage would have lasted, it certainly felt real to him when they were there, in it. It made him defensive. "We got married."
For him, that wasn't a small thing. He didn't jump into their marriage believing that it wasn't a real commitment. He had fully intended on marrying his pretty, infuriating, and wild WSB partner and all that came with it: 'til death do they part. I mean, it hadn't worked out…but that didn't make it any less real.
"Yeah…but…" Robert glanced over at his ex and she was looking both pensive and distressed. "You know, I mean, it wasn't this great romance that he keeps talking about… I mean, you know, you weren't perfect or anything…"
He looked up, realizing that she was making the choice to be glib about it, which both annoyed him but he also may have partially deserved; he had been callous last night, leaving her at the hospital desk when Kate arrived. Her attitude almost felt like payback…or maybe she was taking cues from how he had acted earlier. He grimaced and tried to match her attitude. "Yeah, well you're…no day at the beach yourself…"
He didn't consider why the first metaphor in his arsenal involved a beach, but he was sure some quack psychologist would have an answer for him. A beach in Italy in San Remo, Anna's skin… he shook his head.
She laughed good-naturedly at his jibe and turned to him with a cute wrinkled nose, her eyes momentarily light. "It would have been just like this the whole time, we'd have been arguing!"
Robert chuckled loudly. "It's absurd!"
She laughed along with him. "I know, it's…ridiculous."
They petered off into silence as they realized that the awkwardness had still somehow not been covered. And as Robert's smile dropped, he saw Anna watching him with concern or something like it. Suddenly, the entire thing didn't feel humorous at all and neither of them wanted to pretend about it anymore. So they stood there in silence, and Robert actually wished to see Sean come through that door and break this terrible spell.
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Sean didn't have to guess who else was in the room with Robert when he heard what Robert was saying. Of course, he had expected the two of them to be waiting when he got back from his tests. Waiting for answers about Faison.
"…lied to us for thirteen years. Obviously…the friendship is gonna be a little different," Robert said slowly. He and Anna had their backs to the door as Sean entered, but they swung around as they heard his voice.
"I agree," Sean said, deciding to be bolder than he felt. "I think it's just gonna get better." Their friendship was too important to sacrifice by meekly accepting whatever condemnation they were going to put on him. "And I mean that."
Anna looked down at her hands. "I think that's gonna be a little difficult after what you told us last night," she said levelly.
Sean tilted his head, knowing he had to accept that for what it was. For her part, Anna was appearing more receptive than Robert, and that didn't surprise him. Anna understood what it was to see the gray area. Anna was more forgiving because she understood the powerlessness of living with terrible mistakes, with no finger to point. Robert had a moral rigidity that prevented him from thinking that way.
That in mind, Sean took a deep breath. "I can't blame either one of you for feeling that way. I don't know what I would do if I were you. What I told you before was true…there aren't going to be any more secrets. I did what I thought was right at the time…"
Robert wouldn't meet his eye and his dismissal was more than evident as he paced away from the hospital bed and his best friend, but Sean worked to make sure that Robert felt the sincerity of his words. "I was wrong." He straightened up and cleared his throat. "Now…let's get down to business, shall we?"
"Yeah," Robert murmured, not very enthused. "We can get down to business." He strode back toward his injured friend almost aggressively. "If you'll provide us with something on Faison that we don't have!"
"Right," Anna agreed, watching Robert carefully and walking around him. "We have to shut him up about us for good."
"Alright," Sean groaned as he settled back into the bed. "When he was in his hey-day with the DVX, I was head of the WSB…which means I have a lot on him." He nodded to the diminutive brunette at the foot of his bed. "So do you, Anna."
Her lips quirked up ruefully. "Yeah…and he knows that…"
Robert sighed. Anna's work with the DVX never a comfortable topic with him. "Look, if we start leaking information of a sensitive nature, he's gonna know where it came from." He cast significant looks at his two companions.
"Right," Anna whipped back. Sean caught that she was pacing haltingly, as she normally did when she was running on nervous energy. "And all he has to do is open his big mouth about us."
Robert watched Anna's movement as she circled him again. "I mean, we…we're stepping on a shaky line here."
Sean looked at his two agents and it hit him that he was the most in his element here, with these mind games. Robert detested them and though Anna herself could play with the best of them, Sean often got the impression that she feared her own abilities, having succumbed to darker work before. Sean knew the feeling…but he didn't despair over it like Anna. He was a pragmatist. "It's a Catch-22 situation, isn't it? He's already warned me with the note and flowers, right?"
"Yeah," Anna said. "And he came to my house to see my daughter."
"The guy's a bomb," Robert said.
"That's why he has to be stopped."
Only Sean saw Frisco coming, the door creaking open again. "Who's gotta be stopped?"
"Hey Frisco," Sean said.
"What are you doing down here?" Robert's usual blunt nature was in full force. Frisco looked between them all, his senses as an agent accurately picking up on the atmosphere. Sean sat back quietly and watched.
"Interrupting, it looks like."
"No, no, no, you're not interrupting at all," Sean shifted in bed and smiled kindly. "Where's that beautiful pregnant wife of yours?"
"She's getting a check-up," Frisco answered. It was then that Sean noticed he was holding a police file. He dished it off to Robert, who was standing next to him. "I ran into Lewis. He wanted me to give this to you. Desiree's dead."
Anna's eyes shot up, wariness at the surface.
"Her body was found in Bangkok. Suicide." Frisco inclined his head. "Which means, she's no longer a threat to Robin." Robert handed the file to Anna and she perused it much the way Robert had. Frisco read Robert and Sean's expressions. "You don't buy it?"
"I wanna thank you for bringing it down," was all Robert said.
"Thank me?" Frisco's eyebrows went down.
"Well, I'd like to spend a little more time…studying it."
Frisco nodded slowly. "I'll look into this if you'd like, Robert."
Knowing what Frisco was going to say, Robert's response was immediately. He wiped his upper lip. "It's no longer a Bureau matter, Frisco."
Now the youngest agent was agitated. "Well I'm not talking for the WSB! I'm…talking as a friend here."
"And I appreciate that. But…her crimes were committed in my jurisdiction."
Frisco blinked. "I got a piece of this too, Robert. The woman tried to kill me, now don't forget that!"
"Just leave it alone and let Robert handle it," Anna said, prompting Frisco to slam his hand on the table.
"Just what the hell is going on here! Why are you shutting me out of this?!"
"You have a pregnant wife. You shouldn't be doing this!" Anna snapped.
"Give me a straight answer, Anna!" Frisco shouted, fed up.
"That is a straight answer!" Anna clapped back, unwavering. "You should have nothing to do with this!"
"Anna's right," Sean said quietly. "This is the time to be with Felicia. She needs you."
Frisco looked around at them incredulously, seeing that they were all ranged against him. "So that's it, hm? That's all you have to say to me."
"Desiree's dead," Robert said. "It's over."
Frisco hummed his assent sarcastically, tongue firmly in cheek. And then he rounded back toward the bed, persistent and eager to help as ever, but face cold and serious. "For a long time now, I've known that you're keeping something from me. You three. You're not telling me something."
Anna was intent on him, no give apparent in her face. "Just go to Felicia," she ordered him, pronouncing each word emphatically. "Leave it alone."
Frisco pursed his lips, furious by their refusal, but unable to make them talk. "Fine," he said. "If…you need anything, you know where you can find me." And with that, he stalked away, saying nothing else.
As the door closed behind him, Anna looked at Robert and her veneer slowly dropped as ferocity succumbed to revelation. The secrets…the lies. They all sat in this room and they felt the unbearable familiarity, a cycle repeating that they didn't want. "What are we doing?" she asked them, a panicked edge to her voice. "What are we doing, we are starting it all over again!"
Neither man answered her. There was no satisfactory response. They were silenced by secrets that could see them all dead.
Robert finally huffed and gathered himself together. "I'd best get going."
"Where are you going?" Anna said.
"Thailand. As soon as I make the necessary arrangements."
Anna nodded quickly. "I think we can use this, you know, I think we can nail Faison with Desiree's death."
Sean had alarm bells going off in his head. "I don't think we should get our hopes up too high, here."
Anna's brow furrowed. "You don't believe it's suicide."
"No," Sean said. "I think Faison had her killed. The problem is proving it."
Robert was already leaving. "I'll find something."
"I wouldn't be too optimistic, old buddy," Sean called. "The man is clever enough to cover his own tracks."
"This is the cleanest way for us to do it," Anna responded matter-of-factly, but Robert had already rounded back.
"I mean, look," Robert said, waving the file in the air, "if I can prove that he murdered or had her murdered…I turn him over to the local authorities, they arrest him, and we aren't even involved."
"He's not gonna come after us then."
"Fine," Sean shrugged. "I just hope it's that simple." He stared at Anna shrewdly. "Just in case it's not, I think you and I have to concentrate on nailing him for crimes against the US Government."
"Then he's just gonna tell them what we did!" she cried, leaning over Sean.
"So what? We deny it!" Sean snapped back.
"He has proof!" Anna rightly pointed out. But Robert touched her elbow.
"Wait, wait…he has a point."
Anna turned around and blinked, clearly having expected Robert to support her view.
"Faison's ex-DVX. The Bureau will never believe him."
Anna seemed unable to believe what she was hearing, stepping into her ex-husband in distress, and hand briefly pressing to his chest. "But he's going to try to kill you when he—"
"So what?" Robert said angrily, his response too rapid.
"—when he knows that you're going after him!"
Sean watched as they closed in on each other, and he thought idly that it looked like they had had some version of this argument before. Their emotions bubbling over were too ready at the trigger. Especially Robert. Yes, they had definitely had this argument before.
"Alright, then what am I gonna do?" Robert snarled. "Stand around, let this man come after my daughter?!" His hands, once clenched, fell to his sides and Sean shook his head.
"Anna. Come on, we don't have a choice. We have to go after him."
Anna swung back on her bedridden friend, her eyes wide and earnest. "I don't think we do! I think if we just leave him alone, then he will—" she gestured to the door and Sean nearly rolled his eyes.
"Oh, just go away, is that it?" he said sarcastically. "Come on! You're whistling Dixie."
"He's already lobbed himself on your doorstep," Robert pointed out.
"Right!" Anna gritted. "And I told him that I wanted him to leave me alone!" Her hand swiped again at Robert's chest, this time frustration mingling with the fear as she swept around him.
"Yes!" Robert exclaimed, getting more and more provoked. "And what a big, fat waste of time that was!" His hand came down on the bed, mirroring Anna's irritation. "He's besotted with you! He'll do whatever's necessary to get you!"
Sean watched them, having never witnessed them have an argument like this. It was clear that Robert was unhappy at that development: Faison's one-sided feelings for Anna. Terribly unhappy. Sean wondered when Robert found out about that—Faison's personal interest …in Anna. He doubted it was something Anna would volunteer herself, knowing how Robert could get. Even Sean should have picked up on it sooner all those years ago, but he was too fixed on the romantic issues of his own agents at the time. He had known that if Robert were to ever find out, he wouldn't take kindly to it. After all, Robert had been involved with Anna intimately at the time…
"Then why don't you let me handle him?" Anna asked, but Robert cut her off with a defiant and point-blank "No" as the words were still coming out of her mouth.
Sean watched them with some interest beyond the professional, his eyes shifting from one to the other. They had forgotten he was even there.
Robert's voice lowered threateningly and he focused on Anna , Sean knew he wanted her to mark his every word. "I'm not gonna stand around and let this slug …come after my family."
An unprecedent amount of emotion rose in Anna's voice, as close to pleading as she could get without losing face, her hands reaching out. "But I don't want him to hurt—"
"I don't care!" Robert yelled at her, cutting her off again. "I'm angry! If he wants a little bit of action? It's time."
Ripping the police file from the table, Robert tore out of the room without so much as a goodbye.
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Hours later, Anna had her fingers pressed to her forehead, her head bowed in concentration.
"Tangiers."
"Mhmm…"
"Yeah, it was in Tangiers…"
"Was it '79?"
She hesitated. "Uh, yeah…" Sean held his pen steady as Anna lifted her head, looking worn and confused. "Uh, wait…no, um…"
Sean frowned, watching her fumble around for the memory. "Come on, Anna. Come on."
"I can't!" she cried stressfully.
"Think. Think!"
"I can't! I am—I'm trying to…" Throwing her hands up, she rose from the bed and walked to the wall, planting her hands against it like she wished it would swallow her up. Sean watched the tense line of her back, her dark hair falling in waves over it. He knew that the exhaustion was more mental and emotional than anything, and that worried him. He was seeing more and more that Anna hadn't been exaggerating before about Faison.
"After all this time, he still has a hold on me!"
There was something about that man and her relationship with him that was tying Anna in knots and taking a toll on her like he had never seen. The young, pretty recruit Agent Devane, fresh out of the Academy and hand-picked by Sean himself, was a true prodigy—provocative, but always cool and collected and completely confident.
This version… was hanging on by a thread. And she needed to get her nerve back. Sean's instincts told him that no matter what they did or how badly Robert wished to protect her, bringing down Faison was going to come down mostly to Anna. And Sean's instincts usually steered him right.
"Look, look, if…if Faison can come up with dates and places, and you can't, he can prove you wrong."
Anna clenched her fingers, scraping them into the wall. "I know. I know…"
Sean took a breath, relaxing even though she wasn't. "Alright, let's try it again, eh?" he coaxed.
She bowed her head briefly and then spun off the corner. "You know how difficult this is for me? I mean, I spent my entire life trying to forget about it. I can't just pull it up like that."
Sean sighed, guilt welling up in him again. "Look, there are only so many ways I can say I'm sorry."
"'I'm sorry' doesn't stop Robin from finding out about me." Her voice was hard, but he could tell that a lot of her ire wasn't for him, but self-directed.
"You're not the only guilty one, you know." Sean's sins had been brought to bear much later than Anna's and if anyone should be worrying about a guilty conscience, it should be him.
Anna gave him a look. "Yes, but your daughter isn't going to find out what you did."
"Yeah, well, I have Tiffany to contend with. You think I like the idea of standing there, telling her what I've done?" Sean argued. What went down had stayed between the three of them for so long, buried in the darkest pit of their memories, that maybe they had forgotten that there were plenty of loved ones to consider in all of this. And if he read Anna's vulnerable face correctly, she was cataloguing them right now.
"It's not just fair, is it?" She frowned at the floor. "I really don't mind…taking the blame for what I did, but I just hate the fact that my daughter and my friends have to suffer for it." She looked at Sean, taking a step toward him. "Did you see Frisco's face in here? He knew that we were shutting him out! He knew we were lying to him."
"We don't have a choice," Sean said simply.
"And Kate." The guilt on her face magnified as she met his eye. "I ruined her wedding day!"
Sean sighed, thinking to himself that if anyone would want to take responsibility for that, it shouldn't be Anna. It was Robert's wedding day too. And he made the decision to hustle Robin and Anna out of town with Duke the day of his own wedding. Sean hadn't said anything about it at the time, because he tried very hard to stay out of Robert and Anna's relationship after his first interference… but honestly, he hadn't thought that was the best idea to begin with. It was true that Katherine had paid the price for that. But that wasn't on Anna.
"Heaven only knows what she's thinking now with Robert spending so much time with me!" She bowed her head over his bed and Sean was thinking of what he could possibly say to comfort her when the door opened and Robin burst in.
"Hi, guys!"
Sean's heart swelled at the sight of something so innocent and good to break the tension. "Hi, look who's here!"
But Robin, inheriting some degree of her parents' savvy, had already noticed her mother looking both tired and unhappy. "What's wrong?" she asked her.
"Nothing," Anna said softly.
"Hey, I brought this for you." She held a little flower in her hand. "Isn't it pretty?"
Anna gave up her misery to the love so adequately expressed by her child and wrapped her tightly in her arms. Sean laughed softly at the sight of them. This was what they had to protect, right there. He promised himself right there that he wouldn't let anything damage the sight before him. He owed it to Robin's parents as much as he did Robin herself.
Robin laughed too as they broke apart. "It's okay I came by, isn't it?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Yeah, of course it's okay," Sean's smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes. He pulled one of his gifts from the side table. "You know, the only thing that matters though, is that your mom and I were just about ready to get into this box of chocolates, so I'm glad you're here."
Robin, leaning against the bed, put a polite hand out. "Oh, no thank you. I'm so full…" She smiled sweetly at her godfather, her mother's eyes shining in that face. "Kate took me to pizza today," she said.
"Ah…" Sean murmured in understanding.
Anna looked up immediately at Kate's name. "I didn't know you were having lunch with her."
Robin shrugged at her mom's inquiring stare. "I didn't either, she stopped by school and we went to the club."
Anna seemed a bit surprised at that, and Sean couldn't blame her. Katherine was a wonderful lady, but lately, she had had more trouble dealing with feelings of resentment towards Robert's devotion to Robin, and especially Anna. And because of that, she had been working herself into the ground without time for anybody. Sean had heard it with his own ears, recalling going up to her office when the club was being built and Anna had disappeared.
When he had asked Kate that day if she had heard anything from Anna, her response was to laugh derisively.
Since when am I included in that network, Sean?
Sean had apologized, turned on the charm, assured her that Robert loved her, and listened to her vent her frustration: the secrets, the distance, and finally…Anna.
"Sean, when he puts everything on the line for his ex-wife…naturally, I'm gonna be just a little bit insecure, don't you think?"
Sean had been dealing pretty heavily with his own secrets at the time, and he had given Katherine some advice that probably had never been geared towards her anyway: don't give up on Robert. But he hadn't left her office that day feeling as if he had convinced Kate of anything. She had already begun losing faith in Robert's love for her.
Of course, Robert hadn't known then what he knew now…about his first marriage and what really went into its destruction. And now that Sean had told him, it may have made an already-present problem worse.
"…must've talked your heads off," Anna was saying as Sean's mind came back to the present, her voice light and unconcerned.
"Yeah, it was really fun…but I'm kind of bummed, 'cause…I mentioned Italy."
Anna and Sean stared at Robin, uncomprehending as to why that would be a bad thing. "So?" Anna said.
"Well, see, I was talking about how much I liked Italian food. And then I said it was probably because you and Daddy got married in San Remo. And all of the sudden, Kate got really quiet…and I don't know why. Do you?"
Anna exchanged glances with Sean over Robin's head, but they both said nothing.
Out loud, Sean wasn't going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
But in his mind, Sean had to admit… it sounded like the problem he had seen a month ago might have taken a life of its own.
A/N: Review if you're so inclined. Would appreciate it! Robert and Anna haven't been a show couple in years, but I hope they still have their fans!
