Intentional End

Chapter 35

Early Saturday Morning

October 20

The sound of the shower woke him and Edward rolled onto his back, right arm over his eyes. What the hell are you doing, he asked himself.

The previous evening, Eames had driven from the airport straight to her place. They began undressing at the door and fell onto the bed clinging to each other. The sex was incredible, better than either of them remembered.

"You're awake," Eames said as she entered from the bathroom, tucking in the top edge of the towel into the length that wrapped her.

He rolled to his right and propped his head in his hand. "Hey."

She crossed and sat facing him. As they stared at each other, his left hand slid up under her towel and he began to harden.

"Edward, no," she stopped his hand.

"Why not," he asked softly.

She wanted to tell him that last night was a mistake, that they were finished, that Peter wanted her, and that she was in love with Bobby. "We used the last condom."

"Well, we could do it without needing one," he said, then waggled his tongue at her.

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What is that, he wondered with eyes like slits. Bobby opened his eyes wider and tried to focus – oh, the smoke alarm. He shifted his eyes right and left without moving his head and realised he was on his back in the hallway, up against the wall across from the bathroom. He had tripped, fallen and passed out on his way to bed last night – or was it the bathroom. . .

Someone had taken an axe to his head while he slept. This is nuts; I have to stop this, he told himself and tried to roll onto his side. The entire contents of his cranial bowl sloshed to the left and a light like the second coming of Christ blinded him, causing his stomach to heave so he froze. Oh God. He breathed deeply a few times; slowly, so slowly, he got to his knees without moving his head, then climbed the wall with his palms until he was upright. He had to pee like a race horse or he would have spent the entire day on his back in the hallway.

Finally on his feet, he stood at the toilet, relieved himself and waited for his stomach to do its thing. But, surprisingly, he did not vomit. Great, he thought dismally, my body is getting used to this. He made his way to the bed and sat with his head in his hands, wondering when he had taken off his undershirt and jeans.

After a few minutes, he sat up and looked for his cell – he wanted to call Gleason and see how she was. Bobby stood to go look for it in the living room when reality slammed him in the solar plexus; he stumbled back against the bed and sat down hard.

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"Jimmy?" Angie found her husband leaning on the kitchen sink, staring out the kitchen window. "Are you all right?" He wiped his face and turned. "Honey, what's wrong?" His wife crossed to him and took his arms. "Jimmy, what's wrong? Tell me."

"Ange," he hitched and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. He couldn't believe he had tampered with evidence. This whole series of events had taken him to this low, low place. "Angie . . . I'm, I'm really tired. That's all, Sweetheart, I'm tired."

Angie Deakins pulled back from his embrace and saw a man she had seen only once before – nearly two years ago when their daughter, Julie, had been raped. She knew something was eating at him and had been for the past two or three months. He had been unusually diligent in needing to know where she and the girls were at every moment. She knew something had happened to warrant this behaviour, but her husband would not talk about anything related to his work.

"Then come back to bed. Come and sleep," she told her husband, taking his hand and leading him to their room.

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"Do you want me to make breakfast?" Eames asked him through the shower door.

"Huh?" Sledge called in return.

"Do you want me to –," she hollered, the shower stopped and Edward opened the door and stepped out taking the towel she offered, "– make breakfast?" she concluded with a softer voice.

"Are you hungry?" Edward asked as he rubbed his head with the towel; Eames couldn't keep her eyes off his manhood.

"Edward, we need to talk about Bobby."

"Ok, let's go get something to eat and you tell me what's happened. Then we can go see him and find out how I might help. Why don't you call him while I dress?"

Eames nodded and went to ring Bobby.

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He fell back onto the bed and couldn't breathe. She's gone. She's gone. She's dead. Oh God. Gleason? Bobby dragged deep breaths and felt panic crawl through him. Oh God. Gleason! Bobby began to shake and issued a low mewl. Then he rolled onto his side and hugged himself, drawing his legs into his chest.

The prospect of living without her made him sick; he needed her alive so that he could live. Gleason had given him purpose, reason; she had steadied him, balanced him. His life, his real life, started when he met her; his life had finally had meaning. Even through their bad times, and there were many, she was the reason he did anything, everything.

His mewl escalated into a wail and he clawed for her pillows and clung to them, rocking. The wail became a guttural scream into her pillow and he cried uncontrollably. Bobby scooped her throw and drew it to him, squeezing it all, hugging fiercely as to a life force. The place in his chest where his heart had laid was now a raw, open, sucking wound. Mud flowed in his veins, his blood gone to soil.

This was it, the bottom. Every reason for his life was gone. He didn't want to live anymore.

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Falacci was waiting for someone in Tech to arrive. She had phoned down to see if Wycoff's lap top was open yet and got no answer. Damn! Of course, she was the first one in on her shift, everyone else was probably still in bed.

While she waited, Falacci looked at the printout of Wycoff's contacts from his organiser. Yesterday she had found something interesting – several notations identified with initials and some kind of alphabetic code. She had copied the initials and code and now sat examining them:

CMli culanth/f

GRyn dt/gw

WGliyn lng/rg

DJyn cpt/rg/f

MGli dn/cm/wg

. . . and, could make nothing of them. Did the upper case letters represent names? Why was the code broken into sections? What did the slants mean? Falacci sat with pen and pad and tried to decipher. She was deep in thought and jumped when the phone rang. "Falacci."

"Hey, Detective, this is Kyle."

"Who?"

"Kyle. You know, in Technical Forensics. I did that PDA for you yesterday and you left that FBI computer. Remember?" The hurt in his voice was clear as glass.

"Kyle! Yes, yes! My fantastic young techie geek mastermind! Of course I remember. You caught me deep in thought here. Sorry." She had to smile as she recalled how easy this kid had been to schmooze. "So, big boy, whattcha got for me this morning?"

His relief at being remembered was obvious, "Well, I stayed late last night working on getting inside this guy's computer. You were right, it was locked up tight; these government grade machines usually are. But – I got in! I tried a new configuration of system bypasses paralleled with a combination of binary –,"

"Oh, you know way too much for me to understand, Kylie, why don't I just come on down and pick it up?"

"Yeah, that would be great. Anytime is good for me. I'm here till six or so, even though it's Saturday. I'll wait for you."

"Thank you, my geek master, I'll be down shortly." They hung up and Falacci smiled and shook her head.

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"He doesn't answer," Eames told Edward with some alarm as he entered the kitchen.

"Of course not, he's probably passed out drunk. Let's get some breakfast, you tell me what's up and then we'll call him and head over. What say?" Edward took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. Eames reciprocated then turned her head away and pushed him back. "What?" he asked.

"Let's, let's just go get breakfast," and she moved toward the door.

Edward knew exactly how she felt. Last night, this whole being here, was a terrible mistake. Eames hadn't even asked why he had come to New York. Sledge guessed the real reason he came back didn't really matter now; he was still in love with her.

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Bobby lay on the bed, clutching what was left of his wife – her pillows and throw. He had stopped crying but continued to sob. God, his head pounded. He had to get drunk, royally pissed, out of his mind, drunk. He could no longer live without her.

Having made up his mind, Bobby made his way down the hall and retrieved the nearly empty bottle from beside his chair, the fresh one from the kitchen and a clean glass. He stopped and flipped the lock bar on the door, looked around the living room, saw her everywhere and returned to the bedroom, kicking shut the door behind him.

The fresh bottle and glass went onto the night stand and he stood and drained the other straight from the bottle. It burned all the way down and he nearly threw it up, but he clapped a hand over his mouth and squeezed shut his eyes, stepping with his left foot to keep from tilting over. At last he settled and he dropped the empty bottle where he stood.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he opened the new bottle, took a long draught as though it was a beer and slammed the bottle back onto the night stand. Jesus that burns! He grabbed the edge of the mattress with both hands and held on. Deep, deep breaths through his nose and out this mouth kept it down. Then, he poured a full glass.

You better get it ready before you can't, he told himself. Bobby reached down and pulled open the bottom night stand drawer, waited for the pounding in his head to ease, then removed the Glock 24 .380 and the 15 round cartridge he kept there.

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Edward set down his fork and shook his head when Eames finished telling him everything. "So what can I do?"

"Edward, you're inside the FBI now. We need you to find out about this Wycoff. Find out why Gleason was killed."

He sat back, wiped his mouth and said, "Hon, I've been there what, not even eight weeks. I'm probationary, in training. Alex, I'm still at Quantico. I have minimal security clearance; the farthest I can get inside is the men's room in the lobby. I can't get close to anything." God, he wanted to help her, help Goren, but he was powerless. They stared at each other.

Finally Eames said steadily, "You have to help me help him."

Sitting forward, taking her hands he said, "I can't do anything. Alex, I have no access. I'm sorry." She tried to pull away her hands but he held on. "Sweetheart, I want to help you. I want to help Goren. But I cannot do anything." She looked away and he saw her eyes fill and his heart filled as well and then broke.

"Why did you come to New York?" she hitched, still looking away.

Now he let go of her hands and sat back again, sighing deeply. He looked at her for a long moment, "I came for you," he lied.

On one level it was true, this morning it was true; last week, it had not been. He had come to New York to close up his apartment and ship the rest of his belongings to his new place in Georgetown.

He stared at her, saw her disappointment and resignation and loved her like he never knew he could. "Alex," reaching for her hands again, "Hon, I'll, I'll see what I can do."

Her eyes shot back to him and she leaned forward, gripping his hands, "Edward, thank you, thank you."

Sledge had no idea what he could possibly do, but he would do something; he would find some way to help Goren. "Ok, tell me what you want to find out."

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"Ok, my smart young man, tell me how I get into this thing."

Kyle Ambrose had heard about being with an older woman; they knew how to do stuff, good stuff and they weren't clingy and stupid like women his age. "Well, I fixed it so his original access has been maintained but I implanted a secondary, easier access for you to get in." She smells nice, Kyle thought.

"Show me how, big boy," Falacci said with a step back; she caught him taking a sniff.

"Why don't you come back here and I'll walk you through it. I've printed out the sequence for you. We can work at this table back here." Kyle wanted to sit next to her, feel her warmth. He also wanted to show her how smart and funny he could be.

Falacci looked at this boy and knew exactly what he was up to. "You printed the access procedure for me? You are really something. Tell you what, let me take this upstairs, try your directions and I'll give you a call if I have any trouble. Ok?" She smiled sweetly and hid a grin at his disappointment.

"Well, I could show you how right here. I may have missed something in the directions. It can be quite involved, you never know with these government machines."

"I am certain that a clever fellow like you has tracked down each of the walls. Now, if you would get me the power cord, I will be on my way. You are going to make me look so good to the Captain."

The young man sighed and turned, retrieving a power cord from the lot they had on hand. He handed it to her, felt her fingers brush his and his pecker snapped to life. "Uh, ok here you go. You, uh, you call me if you have any trouble. Here, let me give you my extension." He took a step, reached for a slip of paper, couldn't find a pen, had to turn and find one and Falacci saw the tent in his trousers.

Oh god, she thought. "You know what," she said, "I already know your extension, 4738, right?"

"Yeah," he replied with a smile.

"OK, thanks again. I'll call you if I need you." Nola Falacci turned, heading for the elevators with the laptop and power cord in hand. She couldn't turn away fast enough to prevent that young pup from seeing her face contorted in silent laughter.

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Bobby sat with the empty gun in his hand and the cartridge on the bed beside him. He drained the glass and thought, no one will help me. No one. She's dead and no one will help me find her killer. He refilled his glass, took a sip and felt the room tip. Good, he thought, damn straight.

He turned around and set his pillow upright against the headboard then sat back against it. The cartridge lay under his right leg. He shifted the Glock to his right hand and reached for her throw, pulling it awkwardly around his shoulders. Then, he pulled her pillows up close beside him and returned the gun to his left hand.

Draining the glass, he let it fall beside him on the bed; he'd refill it here in just a second. He had to close his eyes because the room began a slow spin that he knew would pick up speed in just a second. Bobby recognised this as the start of his unconsciousness, and knew he would black out here in just a second. No! Do not pass out, he shouted to himself. Do not pass out. You need to do this. She's gone, forever. Go to her, be with her.

Suddenly, for no reason, he recalled a dream he had had while Gleason had been abducted. It came back in bits – labour, Gleason was having trouble delivering their child. His mother, first across the room and then beside him; she told him something, what was it? Oh, yeah, 'they're going to die,' that's what she said, 'they're going to die,' his wife and their baby were going to die. How did Mom know that, he wondered. Of course, it was a dream. What else? She said something else, what. . .? Alone, that's it! She said I'm always gonna be alone. Fuck if she wasn't right. Crazy bitch.

He reached for the bottle, forgetting about his glass and drank.