St. Clarity
The Learjet's GPS is swiftly counting down the final couple hundred miles between them and home. It's the early hours of the morning before daybreak, and the only sound in the air is the muted roar of the engines propelling them. Ryan's comfortable in the pilot's seat and Fitz sits beside him, monitoring the system and the gauges. The dash is lit up with blinking lights that flicker and shift the shadows around the lines of their faces.
The plane practically flies itself, but they're both aware of their surroundings and diligently listen to the radio communication chatter they pick up once they're back in American airspace. So far it's been an uneventful flight.
If Ryan had been asked at the start of this adventure, he would have assured you that every piece of him would be burning to return to DC. To get back to his office, his resources, where he could throw himself into further analyzing the information collected from his hour with Borz. However, his mind is currently elsewhere. It's been running itself in circles since take off from Bogota, but despite his best efforts to steer it somewhere safe and predictable, it always ends up in the same place.
Annie Walker is a distraction he can't shake.
"You're thinking." Fitz states out of the blue, jarring Ryan from his thoughts. Fitz isn't one for small talk, so it catches him off guard.
"Am I?" Ryan attempts to skirt around the edge of the conversation, but the dodge lacks his usual finesse, and Fitz calls his bluff.
"I can tell." Fritz promises, convinced that his explanation is an unequivocal fact. "And when you do, dangerous things happen. For example, this trip."
"Now you sound like Caitlin." Ryan growls, growing defensive. "This trip ended up being everything we needed it to be. Danger is part of the job description, you know that."
"You know I resent that comparison." Fitz replies flatly. "And you know that's not what I'm talking about."
Before Ryan can argue further, their conversation is fortuitously interrupted by a knock on the dividing wall of the cockpit.
"Coffee?" Annie stands in the doorway, holding two cups. "I assumed you guys would want it black. I have to admit the Keurig makes me a little jealous."
"Actually, I was just needing a break, but sure - I'll take it." Fitz unbuckles his seatbelt, removes his earphones, and stands. He ignores the confused look on Ryan's face as he takes one of the cups of coffee from an equally confused Annie. "In fact," Fitz adds, "why don't you keep my seat warm for me, Walker?"
With a tip of his head to Ryan and a cheshire cat grin, he takes a swig of the coffee, steam still rising from the top, before quickly retreating into the cabin.
"Did I miss something?" Annie hands Ryan the other cup, suspicious eyes trailing Fitz to the back of the plane. Ryan doesn't answer right away, temporarily rendered wordless by Fitz's abandonment. Annie turns to him, expectant, but the seconds of silence tick by much to her aggravation.
"Well?" Ryan finally says, glancing at her, sipping his coffee. It's strong - just how he likes it.
"Well what?" She echoes, not following.
"Are you going to take a seat," he replies nonchalantly, "or is the pressure of first officer just too much?"
He's well aware of what he's doing, and he enjoys it - taunting her, getting under her skin. The ripostes, the back and forth, come naturally when she's around, and the muffled laughter, the lingering half-smiles she won't quite give up, only make him want to provoke her more.
Maybe Fitz isn't so wrong. The mind can be a dangerous place, and it doesn't help that Annie Walker has been dangerous from the start.
She leans against the doorway, sultry and smarting. "Was that a challenge?"
Ryan chooses to bait her again, fueling the fire. "Are you scared?"
"You, Mr. McQuaid, are the last thing I'd ever be scared of."
She takes the seat next to him to prove her point.
Talking to Annie is effortless.
Ryan tells her about how he had once been the bane of every professors' existence at the Naval Academy (Arthur Campbell included), and the story on how he garnered his field medic skills.
He finds out her favorite ice cream is Cherry Garcia, that she does in fact have more passport stamps than him, and that her favorite holiday is the Fourth of July.
It's in these rare moments alone with her that things become far more easy, more simple, than what they really are.
Instead of two adversaries at odds because of their allegiances, they're just two people.
The fantasy only lasts for a little while. Time passes too quickly, and Leesburg executive's approach controller reminds him that they'll be landing soon. And once they do, he and Annie will part ways again.
He shouldn't be disappointed, but he is.
Ryan is the last one off the jet after they land.
Annie is the first thing he sees when he steps onto the tarmac.
She's shrouded in light from the Virginia sunrise, a slender silhouette. Her clothes are disheveled, and her long, blonde hair is windswept and tangled. She pulls the loose strands from around her mouth, and he watches the curl of her fingers when she does it. Her eyes are bright despite the lingering shadow of exhaustion, an inextinguishable spark.
There's something wild about her, something fierce.
Something beautiful.
Much to Ryan's dismay, Annie refuses his offer to give her a ride home.
He therefore has to suffer through the ride back to headquarters with Dex, Jim and Fitz on his own.
Subsequently he must also suffer through their commentary.
"Maybe we need to start a new betting pool, boys." Jim contemplates.
"Oh yeah?" Dex plays along simply for the joy of being aggravating, his shit-eating grin a dead giveaway. "I say… two months."
"Pfft." Fitz shakes his head. "Cut that in half, if even."
"What are we betting on exactly?" Ryan knows he'll likely regret the answer.
"We're just taking advantage of the inevitable bossman." Jim hedges. "Besides, you're the one always telling us to be opportunistic."
"The inevitable being?"
"Jesus - isn't it obvious, McQuaid? You like her."
Ryan spends the day finishing up his debrief on Venezuela, returning phone calls, and doing his very best to pretend the entire conversation on the car ride over never happened. He tells himself that it's for the best, because (regardless of his feelings) past experience has taught him that hoping for the impossible does more damage than good.
His plan is to go home - eventually. However, said plans are interrupted when Caitlin storms into his office and insists that he is needed for a new contract bid in Edinburgh tomorrow.
So much for a relaxing night.
Instead of spending it on his couch with bottle of bourbon he'll be flying over the Atlantic ocean instead to spend a day in the birthplace of scotch.
Ryan has a few hours before a driver will take him back to Leesburg, where he will board a jet that (thankfully) someone else will be flying. He makes the most of his time, taking advantage of the community showers he insisted on when they first drew up the schematics for this building. What's good enough for his people is good enough for him. Clean, shaved and feeling as close to a million bucks as humanly possible, he retires to his office lounge for the remainder of his wait.
100 proof silk on this couch will have to do.
Ryan sits down with the intention of reading up on the dossier Caitlin's made on the company chairman he'll be speaking with tomorrow, but business politics are the furthest thing from his mind.
He eyes the bottle of bourbon sitting on the coffee table in front of him.
He thinks about the last person he shared it with.
Ryan sets the dossier on the couch and crosses the room to his desk. He fires up his desktop computer, pulls up Google, moves to use the keyboard - then hesitates.
He made a promise that he wouldn't do this. This is a line that he knows better than to cross, because if he does he'll only be torturing himself. But it's something he hasn't been able to stop thinking about - in all the days and hours and minutes that have gone by since.
If he closes his eyes, he can still see Annie on the dock in Maracaibo.
He takes a breath before he starts typing.
Myocarditis.
AN: Oh snap, an entire chapter of deleted scenes! Primadonna001 and I would like for them to just fly off into the sunset now. I might I see an AU fic in the future... ;)
Also aren't Fitz, Jim and Dex fun?! I love them lol. They need an acronym: WWFJDD? Anyway, you readers ROCK! Holy smokes, almost at 100 reviews as I'm posting this. I am flattered and I love that you love this story as much as I do, and I love reading all your thoughts and ideas on what you think is going on - the character conversation is awesome. Mad props, as one reviewer mentioned, to the CA writers for giving me such awesome material to use my imagination on. Cheers and here is to hoping you continue to enjoy it, and thank you for your patience. Tell me what else you want to see that might have happened behind the scenes, I'm here to please! xoxo
Musical inspiration: St. Clarity, by The Paper Kites.