Berlin was great and so were all your latest reviews. Thank you, guys! My wonderful beta jbird was happy with this chapter, so here it is. Enjoy!
Tomorrow
by Serataja
-Chapter 5-
Interludes and Examinations, Part 2
September 2001
"I wonder what he's doing up there?" Katrina Scopes asked her husband. She was just as small and round as he was, and if they'd had any children they would probably have looked exactly the same way too. She was busy at the sink, her hands deep into foam and dishwater.
They'd had lunch and Agent Malone had joined them.
"Making sure she's all right," John Scopes mumbled around his pipe, his attention on the sports section of the paper.
"He's been up there for almost an hour. Is he watching her sleep or what?"
"Hm…" her husband answered. His team had lost again. It was just too bad…
Katrina's heartbeat sped up at the image in her mind of that man watching patiently over his young, blonde and miserably ill colleague. Like a certain sales assistant in Anchorage she found him very attractive, although she would never admit that even to herself.
"I'm sure he's in love with her. He's wearing a wedding band and it's not her he's married to…"
"Who's in love with whom?" her husband asked, sucking at his pipe.
She looked out of the window. She had a good look toward the area of the landslide but everything was obscured by the rain.
"A wonder they survived," she said.
Now she had her husband's attention.
"God's been watching over them," he said with satisfaction. He would preach about this for years to come.
In the course of the morning the rest of the slope had come down. The road was gone and so were the phone and power lines. His brother Nick, who was the mayor, planned to make a trip downriver tomorrow and report the whole mess to the authorities. No one had been hurt and since everyone was equipped to deal with power shortages, people were taking it calmly. John Scopes himself had a generator behind the house, like many others.
"I'm sure they're in love," his wife said, staring out into the rain.
"Whatever you say," he said, not really interested.
"He can't have slept much. Did you see how he looked? That poor man."
He lowered the paper to the table and looked at her, alarmed.
"Don't you go talking to him, just because you feel sorry for him. We have to protect our own. It's none of his business to come here, sticking his nose into all those old stories."
"He's from the FBI," she pointed out in a reverent tone.
He sighed. She was definitely watching too much television. She should use that tone toward him and his work. After all he was a man of God. The FBI… What good could they do?
"That's beside the point," he said. "It happened twenty years ago, and we should all just forget about it."
"Maybe it's time to bring it all out into the open…"
"Katrina, she's still out there. Do you want her to go to prison?"
"No, of course not," she mumbled, turning back to her dishes.
000
Jack sat on the only chair, his head in his hands. The room was small; the walls painted pink and faded by age. It might have been a nursery once, now it was obviously the guestroom.
Sam was asleep. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, her skin very white against the sheets. When he came in - it could surely be no more then ten minutes ago - her breath had been irregular and labored. He had sunk down on the chair, scared to death that she might develop pneumonia or something else nasty and potentially deadly, with no doctor in sight. But after a while her breathing had evened out, and so had the beat of his heart. Now he was just sitting and waiting. He had more interviews scheduled for the evening and at two o'clock Nick Scopes planned to take him by another route near to the cabin where Felicia's family had been killed. They all suspected it had been buried in the landslide.
Jack was horribly tired but, as always, when too many things were running through his mind, he had hardly been able to rest. The noise of the generator had done him no good either. His room was facing in the direction of the bloody thing and he could still hear its hammering sound, now made bearable by the fact that Sam's room was actually facing in the other direction, toward the river. A child would have been able to sleep through it and Sam was obviously not bothered by it either.
He ran his fingers through his hair. Sleep would come when he was exhausted enough, it always did.
He checked the time, surprised that it was so late. Nick Scopes would come for him in half an hour. He should go downstairs. He was sure Mrs. Scopes would give him a cup of coffee. But he didn't want to leave Sam, until it was absolutely necessary. Someone should be near her, in case her condition worsened.
The chair had become uncomfortable to sit in, so he went and sat on the edge of the bed. There was a dull, angry throbbing in his knee when he moved, but he could live with it, it had been worse. One of her arms was resting on the covers, so he touched her, encircling her wrist with his hand, just to make sure that she was warm enough. His thumb found the small beat of her pulse and he took a deep breath, closing his eyes.
He nodded off in a sitting position, jerking awake when there was a knocking at the door.
It was Katrina, carrying a mug of coffee in her hands, a look on her face that could only be described as compassion. She handed the mug to him and he took it gratefully. He sipped at it, the taste strong and bitter, waking his numbed senses.
"Do you like it?" she asked.
"It's exactly what I need," he answered.
She approached the bed, touching Sam's cheek and forehead in a motherly way. Jack wondered if the room had been meant for a child, and if so, what had happened. She might have children old enough to have left home but somehow he had the feeling that she wasn't a mother.
"I think she's going to be fine," Katrina said in a competent tone. "Don't you worry, Agent Malone, I'll take care of her. Now, when you've finished that mug come down to the kitchen. Nick said he'd come over in a little while."
Jack drank the coffee, taking his time. He was desperate for Sam to wake up before he left. He wanted to see her eyes and make sure that everything was all right between them. In the way his mind worked, he had already forgotten how she had kissed him down by the creek and wiped water and tears off his face. He still saw her sitting in the car, crying, not wanting him to touch her.
But in the end it was time to go as she was still soundly asleep. So he picked up the pieces of his heart - the dull pain in his chest almost as bad as the one in his knee.
000
It had stopped to rain but Nick Scopes was still in a gloomy and taciturn mood. He led the way through the high grass towards the line of trees, which were already taking on the golden shimmer of autumn.
Jack had tried to get Nick to talk but the man had answered in monosyllables. For a while Jack had contemplated threatening him with the consequences of obstructing a federal investigation, but then he had let it go. He didn't want to get people on edge just yet. There was always time for that later, when the contact to the rest of the world had been restored, and it was possible to get a backup sent in, if necessary. His hand went down to his belt again, wanting to touch his gun and he stopped himself, sighing inwardly. He wondered how often he usually performed that little gesture without noticing. He felt his heart beat heavily. Without his gun he wasn't worth much, he was helpless. He knew that in his current condition he didn't even meet the physical requirements of the FBI. He should have sent Danny on this mission. Together with Vivian he would have done just fine.
Nick noticed that he was too far ahead and stopped, turning around and waiting patiently.
"War wound?" he asked when Jack came closer.
"I've never been to war."
Nick took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Jack.
Jack eyed the pack for a while, then declined the offer.
"Given up smoking, eh?"
Jack nodded.
"Several years ago."
"Well, no matter what you do, you're still a smoker."
Jack grinned. The man was right. He'd never get rid of the addiction, he could only contain it. "You seem like a man who's been to war," Nick enquired further.
Jack shrugged.
"I'm an FBI agent."
"You seem more like a soldier."
Nick was watching the agent closely. At first sight he hadn't seemed like a threat, and on the outside he still didn't look like one, standing in the middle of nowhere with his city complexion and beads of sweat running into his eyes. It was easy to underestimate people, though, and Nick had a strange feeling about this man.
Finally Jack answered.
"I've been in the military. A long time ago. That's where I busted my knee."
"Oh," Nick nodded.
He started walking again in the swift and continuous pace of someone who has spent all his life out in the open, his figure tall and bulky in the thick coat he was wearing, leaving the man from New York to follow him in his own time.
000
"This is as far as it goes," Nick said.
They had neared the edge of the landslide, and its tangle of earth, mud and uprooted trees.
"The cabin was only a little further up this trail. Nothing more than a ruin really. No one liked to go there. Oh, well…" Nick lit another cigarette and Jack saw that the man was relieved. "It doesn't seem to be that deeply buried, but I'm sure it's properly crushed. You sure you don't want a cigarette?"
Jack shook his head.
"It's good to bury the ghosts of the past," Nick said. "Don't you think so, Agent Malone?"
"Why don't you tell me, who did it, and I'll tell you if it should stay buried?" Jack said evenly.
A surprised frown spread across Nick's face. He felt the urge to find out how far he could push this agent. To find out what it would take to make him lose his cool demeanor "You're very good at figuring things out. What if I tell you that there are reasons for ghosts to stay buried?"
"There are always reasons."
In one fluid motion Nick reached inside his open coat, behind his back. Before Jack could even start to react he saw a high caliber gun being trained on him. The eyes behind the gun hadn't changed their expression. They were still calm and enquiring.
Jack tried to keep the shock out of his face. He felt as if the breath had been knocked from him.
"Don't feel bad, Agent Malone," Nick said, "I was a cop, once, in another life. Best shot in the whole department. You couldn't have seen that one coming."
Jack knew otherwise. He had been too tired to see it coming.
"You don't want to do that," he said with all the calm he could muster.
"Are you afraid of dying?"
Jack didn't answer.
"There are worse things than dying, aren't there, Agent Malone?"
Jack waited for the man to make his point.
"Maybe I'll deal with you now and with your pretty colleague later?"
Jack felt steel bands try to crush his chest. His vision narrowed and all he could see was the muzzle of the gun and the surprisingly sane eyes of the man behind them. Different scenarios were running rapidly through his mind. The man was still willing to talk. If he could distract him and try to jump him, maybe he would have…
Nick lowered the gun.
"You see," he said, "we all have our breaking points. This one is yours. Mine was, when I killed a kid, because I've always been too fast with a gun. Pat's was, when she saw her father kill her mother and her little brothers."
TBC