One Willing Fool
The rest of the drive to Caracas is relatively uneventful. However, that changes soon after their arrival. It would be Ryan's luck that he'd get the enigmatic Annie Walker to let her walls down, just to have the moment inauspiciously interrupted. They're well on their way to enjoying Jim's bourbon when Borz starts gasping for air from where they left him on the safe house floor.
His lung is collapsing.
When Annie said she made things more exciting, Ryan hadn't taken her seriously.
One wasted bottle of bourbon and homemade chest tube later, he promises he'll never make that mistake again.
The problem now is that the status quo has shifted even further out of their favor, and they're running out of time to turn the tables.
Even with his self-taught field medic skills (courtesy of a tactical mission gone wrong during his days as Lieutenant Commander McQuaid), he knows Borz has a few hours at best if they don't find help. He can only describe the look on Annie's face when he tells her this as gutted. Ryan's not naive though, as much as he believes in Annie's capacity for compassion, he knows her turmoil has little to do with remorse for the dying man in front of them.
No, what's killing her is that Borz Altan's secrets may die with him.
She looks frozen, suspended in the air over Borz's unnaturally still body, her hands braced on his shoulders as if she could will the life back into him. Her need for him to live is only matched by her determination to find the truth - the very same principle that's motivated her from the beginning. Ryan recognizes the passion, the purpose, and more than anything he respects it. She's driven by a doggedness and stubborn, unshakeable resolve that - for a moment - reminds him of himself.
He owes it to her, after everything, to help her find the answers she's so desperately looking for.
But they have to find a doctor first.
"This guy doesn't know protocol, the only way to make sure he isn't being followed is for me-" Ryan makes one last adjustment to the chest tube, "-to go there and bring him back myself."
Annie's torn between argument and agreement. She knows that if Ryan takes even one step out of the house, it's potentially putting them all at risk. She also knows that if he doesn't, and Borz dies, all of this will have been for nothing. She moves to the rasping man's side, supporting the chest tube with her hand while she watches Ryan cross the room to his bag, where he digs out a fresh wad of cash, and a gun.
"Hey, you need anything while I'm out?" He asks casually, sticking the gun at the small of his back and donning his jacket. "Toothpaste or, I dunno, bubblegum?"
Annie only stares at him, completely floored by his ability to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary - as if their lives weren't in danger.
"Every badge in Venezuela is out looking for you, you're not fazed by that?" She asks incredulously.
Ryan flashes her his signature smile, but his nervous laugh is hardly a picture of confidence. There's no point in lying to her: sugar coating things has never really been one of his talents, and it certainly isn't now.
"Well actually, I'm scared shitless, but that's part of the fun, right?"
He's certain things can't get worse.
But they do.
He doesn't make it five blocks from the safe house before he realizes that the neighborhood is swarming with Venezuelan police officers. He manages to reach the small grocery store with the pay phone he had planned on using. However, all it takes is for him to over hear one conversation with the store owner and an officer (involving uncomfortably close descriptions of both his and Annie's physical appearances) to send him racing back to her.
When he bursts into the house, frantic and breathless, he's too caught up in trying to figure out another escape plan to even wonder what she's talking to Borz about. He quickly begins gathering what he can into the one black bag, and wastes no time in giving Annie the ultimatum he's arrived at: that they have to leave - now.
Saving them becomes his only priority.
That's when they both hear the knock at the door.
"They must have followed you here." Annie scrambles to her feet and the knocks on the door echo through the house, accompanied by the less than patient demands of the police waiting for them on the other side.
"Nobody was following me." Ryan's frustration is biting, and he reloads the clip of his gun with more force than necessary. "As I said, they're canvasing the entire area."
"What are you doing?" Annie eyes the gun in his hands, working especially hard to keep her anxiety from escalating into hysteria.
"We're going to have to fight our way out of here!" He waves his gun, as if the answer is obvious.
"We can't fight our way out and carry Borz at the same time! And I am not leaving him here. He is my only link to Chicago."
Annie's fierce refusal stops Ryan in his tracks. He can't believe it. He can't believe her. Here Annie Walker stands with every single odd possible stacked against her, and she's still fighting for the win, even with the wolves at the door.
"Ok." He takes a breath. "If you have a better idea, I'd love to hear it."
Annie hesitates, but then she spins around and dives for the chair behind her. That's when Ryan spies the needle and syringe sitting there, and he watches her as she flies into action before he can stop her - jabbing the needle into Borz's leg. The realization hits him - morphine.
"What are you doing?" This time he is the one near hysterics.
"A Hail Mary." Annie mutters. "Now are you going to stand there, or are you going to help me carry him up the stairs?"
Annie's either insane, brilliant, or both.
Ryan manages to drag Borz up the flight of stairs to the second floor, cussing because he could've sworn he was in better shape than this, while Annie takes the steps two and three at a time ahead of him. She disappears once she reaches the top, a blur of motorcycle boots and blonde hair. When he rounds the corner into the master bedroom he's winded and wishing he knew what the hell she was planning.
Her pile of clothes at the foot of the bed isn't helping him figure that out.
"Am I missing something?" He calls to her, struggling to hold up Borz's morphine-induced dead weight.
When she reappears at the edge of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, he's beginning to think insanity might be the more likely verdict.
Not that he's complaining. If he dies today, at least he can say the view was exceptional.
"In the shower, now." Annie gestures backward with one hand to the sound of running water, clutching the towel around her with the other.
"I feel like we're taking things way too fast." Ryan declares facetiously. "For the record, when I asked you out to dinner this isn't exactly what I had in mind."
She shakes her head at him, forever nonplused by his persistence. He can only hope that someday his efforts might be rewarded when she finally realizes he doesn't plan on giving up.
Instead of wasting any more precious time questioning her, he does as he's told. Ryan drags Borz through the narrow bathroom door, trying not to think about how incredibly close she is, which given the small space is practically impossible. To make matters worse their shoulders brush as she sidesteps out of his way, and both of them immediately stutter over awkward apologies and averted gazes, as if imminent death or detainment was the least of their worries.
The knocking below resumes with more force, along with the increasingly aggressive clamor of the law enforcement behind it. The noise pulls both of them back into the moment, and the gravity of the situation is suddenly suffocating. Annie falters for a fraction of a second, as if she's fighting with herself. She opens her mouth like she's going to say something, searches Ryan's face, but the words never come. More shouts from below cause her to flinch, and she quickly dashes for the door.
"Hey-" he stops her and she wheels back around, startled, "- if we do make it out of here alive, I really do want to take you to dinner."
Annie rolls her eyes, unimpressed, but smiling.
"Making it out alive should be the least of you worries." She assures him with a wink. "It's dinner I can't promise."
Before he can argue, she's gone.
AN: This chapter was more character study and less deleted scenes, but I liked writing it from Ryan's POV, because as viewers our vantage point is nearly always from Annie's perspective. Like I said, I like to get inside their heads and see what all makes them tick. It's so great to have such awesome starting points with as rich and deep as the emotions have been on the show this season in comparison to the past. So I hope I'm doing some justice by tapping at least a little bit of that. Thanks for the reviews you guys, they mean a lot! Hope you continue to enjoy it! xoxo