Chapter 59

Levi sat in the yard, looking at the garden. It was mostly his at this point. He chose what they planted. He did most of the weeding and Tamara was happy to let him do it. His reward for weeding was to be allowed to pick out what went into the ground. If anything symbolized the changes in his life, it was that his greatest accomplishment was a plot of dirt.

I'm such an old man, he thought to himself, although he smiled a little at that even as he tried not to think about the fact that his body was closer to death than his mind was. He hadn't been forced to pay the ultimate price for the life he had chosen. Instead, he lived with a literal deadline, only he didn't know quite when it would be. He just knew that it was closer than it should be.

Oh, well. That was life. He'd had much more happiness than he deserved and he would try to be content with that.

The screen door opened.

"You asleep, Dad?"

Levi sat up and turned around. Sure enough. Bri was standing there, looking awkward.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Last I checked, I wasn't dead yet and you were here just a few weeks ago."

Bri's expression changed to one of frustration. Levi was glad of that. Now that she was admitting to some concern for his presence or absence, he wanted to inure her to the idea of his death. If he frustrated her on occasion, she might not feel as much sadness later on. However, she walked over and sat down beside him. For a little while, she said nothing. There was definitely something specific on her mind and Levi decided to let her say it on her own terms.

"Is Agent McGee doing his running route?" Bri asked, without looking at him.

Levi raised an eyebrow. "Not so far. I've gone over to the park a couple of times, but he's usually a little slow getting back out after things like this."

"Oh."

"Any particular reason for asking?"

There was a long pause.

"None that I want to share."

"Ah." In reality, that was basically an answer in and of itself. Levi debated whether or not he wanted to probe and see if he could get Bri to bristle at all. "How long are you staying?"

"Just a day or two."

"Did David come with you?"

"No."

Another pause.

"Well, I can give you Tim's address if you want it."

Another pause.

"You may have to be deliberate, Bri. Sometimes, you can't just wait. You have to take a risk," Levi said.

"A risk of what?"

"That what you try to do may be rejected. In this case, you already know that Tim will probably let you say what you have to say, but he may not give you what you're hoping for."

"What am I hoping for?" Bri asked.

"Forgiveness."

Bri stiffened. Levi knew that she hated to admit to being wrong...about anything. She wanted to be perfect and she didn't want to accept that she wasn't. Still less did she want to admit that doing the right thing in one context could still be wrong in another. However, it appeared that she was edging toward doing just that.

"Aren't you?" Levi asked.

Bri said nothing.

"Being sorry isn't weakness, Bri. It's not weakness and neither is admitting you're wrong. In fact, it's the opposite because it's really hard to do it."

"Speaking from personal experience?"

"Yes," Levi said. "And the worst of it is that what I was wrong about I can never fix. I can only look back and see how wrong I was and regret it."

"What were you wrong about?"

Levi took a breath. He didn't like talking about his pain any more than Bri liked talking about her mistakes, but if she was hesitating to take the step that he knew she needed to take, then, he'd have to do it anyway.

"That I had to abandon my family in order to do what I felt I needed to do. Maybe you would have been in danger if I had stayed, but I didn't keep you safe the way I thought I would be by leaving. I was wrong, and it wasn't only me who suffered for it. My entire family suffered, and my son died. And I wasn't there. There are times when I still wish I had gone on to be the teacher I had planned on being, but I didn't do that and I can't. I can't go back. I can barely go forward but that's what I'm doing. For as long as I can." Then, he drove his point home. "That's what you have to do now, Bri. You're preparing to take a step forward but you don't want to and you're marking time when you really shouldn't. Just do what you don't want to do. You know you should. Do it."

Bri didn't respond right away and so Levi decided to push her a little bit more. He pulled out his phone and while Bri was watching him, he sent her a text message with Tim's address. Her phone buzzed at her and she raised an eyebrow at him while she looked at it. Then, she did roll her eyes, but she didn't say anything against the information.

"No excuses, Bri," Levi said. "You're making a real life now. You can go so much further than I can. You just have to do it. Don't wait until circumstances force you to. That is the worst way to deal with it. And yes, that comes from personal experience, too."

Another silence and then Bri stood and went back to the house.

"Thanks, Dad," she said softly.

"You're welcome."

Then, she went inside and Levi leaned back against the chair and went back to his solitary contemplation of the garden.

The tomatoes were almost ripe. They'd get some good ones soon.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Bri paused for a moment as she got out of her car. She didn't want to do this, but at the same time, she felt she basically had no choice. It was about right and wrong. She'd spent a long time pretending that it wasn't about that. The CIA often did the wrong thing for the right reasons. For the greater good. She had let that be the way she managed her life. Until a few years ago when she had left the CIA. She had struggled to escape the life she had lived. She had thought it didn't really matter.

But then, she'd started dating David and saw the life he had lived. In reality, she still wondered sometimes what in the world had attracted him to her in the beginning. It wasn't as though she had been very personable. She had never tried to be in the past. She had known how skilled she was and knew that it would mostly carry her through. Bedside manner? Unnecessary because all she needed to do was be able to patch people up on occasion and do medical research with little human interaction. David had hired her in spite of that because she came so highly recommended.

Now, she looked at Tim McGee's house. It looked normal enough but she could easily slip into a CIA evaluation and see all the things that made this ideal for someone who was being protected.

No more delaying. Bri took a deep breath and started forward.

Then, the front door opened and Tim came out of the house with a large Doberman who looked to be almost full grown. He saw her and she could see the instant wariness and stiffening. Obviously, he had no trouble recognizing her and he wasn't happy about seeing her. She felt much the same. She just hid it and Tim wasn't even trying to. He didn't want to see her and he was wondering why in the world she was at his house.

Now that he'd seen her, though, there was no point in trying to hide so she stood where she was as Tim reluctantly approached her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I came here to talk to you."

Tim raised an eyebrow at her.

"Why? What could you possibly have to say to me that you couldn't have said sometime in the last 10 years or more?"

"When you phrase it like that, probably nothing that I couldn't have said in the last 10 years. But I didn't say it."

Tim sighed and started walking. The dog resisted for a moment, clearly wondering if Bri was an enemy or not. Given the reputation of Dobermans, Bri did hope that she didn't decide on enemy.

"Come on, Marra," Tim said, but he paused and looked back at Bri. "If you're going to talk, you'll have to do it while I'm walking my dog. You're not coming into my home."

Bri was surprised to realize that Tim's complete disgust for her presence actually stung a little. He did not want her anywhere near him but he would permit it...as long as it didn't infect his home. Tim, who had been willing to forgive her father before she had, considered her utterly unwelcome.

Still, she followed him down the street. At first, it was silent.

"What do you have to say?" Tim asked finally, sounding impatient.

Bri really wasn't sure how to broach this topic. It was unfamiliar territory for her.

Halfway down the block, Tim stopped walking and faced her directly.

"I have a lot on my plate right now. I've had to deal with far too much recently to want to deal with you. If you don't say whatever it is you have to say, I may just sic Marra on you and be done with it."

"I came here to apologize, Agent McGee."

Tim's expression became incredulous.

"Excuse me?"

"I came here to apologize."

"For what?" Tim asked. It wasn't a real question. It was a challenge. He wasn't letting her off easily, if at all.

"You know what for."

"Yes, I do, but I'm not sure I believe that you do."

"For how I treated you."

Tim started walking again, Marra staying close to him but her eyes were on Bri very frequently. Whatever passed for canine intelligence, it was clear that Marra was picking up on the emotions Tim was expressing. That was an extra reason for Bri to avoid being confrontational.

"Which time?" Tim asked, not softening in the slightest. "I can't think of any positive interaction I've had with you at any point in the last 10 years. If you're going to try to bring up when you treated my shrapnel wounds, I'll remind you that you did basically nothing to make my experience less painful and, in fact, you acted like I was simply an inconvenience. If you're going to apologize for all of that, it will probably take a while."

"I will if I need to," Bri said.

"Why? What difference does it make now?"

"In terms of your life or my life, probably nothing, but it's still the right thing to do."

"Took you a while to figure that out."

"I know."

"No apologies for that?"

"I don't need to apologize for taking time," Bri said. "I need to apologize for what I did. As much as I don't want to admit it, torturing you was wrong, even though I was doing it under orders. I'm sure it doesn't help, but I wasn't doing it out of any perverse enjoyment."

"It doesn't. Not at all."

"I'm not surprised. I don't even think it should. But it's true."

Tim stopped and stared at Bri for a long moment. Then, to her surprise, he looked down at his dog.

"Marra, sit."

The dog did as she was told and he pet her gently. Then, he straightened.

"You are just like your father...before he changed, before he tried to become a better person. He never hesitated to hurt another person if he deemed it necessary. Only you're worse. He always admitted that he caused suffering. He never tried to excuse himself. Like you, he didn't do it because he enjoyed it, only because it was necessary. ...but he still admitted that it hurt. Do you know why I was so determined to get you out of prison in Yemen?"

Bri winced. She didn't like thinking about that time.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I know how you felt. No, your treatment wasn't the same as mine, but you were being tortured and you could put the man who beat my feet until I wished I was dead in front of me and I wouldn't want him to go through the same thing he put me through. I wasn't going to let you stay in that situation." His voice rose and Marra started fidgeting. "It's not because I like you. It's not because I wanted to be anywhere near you. It's not because I forgave you for what you put me through. It's because I'm human and I didn't want you to keep suffering when I could help stop it. And it could have been anyone else in your place. A complete stranger, my worst enemy, and I would still feel that way."

"Are you saying that you're better than I am?" Bri challenged.

"Yes," Tim said without hesitation. "I am better than you. Will it stay that way? I don't know. It depends on you. You must be changing to some degree, but how much are you willing to change? Are you willing to change enough that you could stand in front of the people who tortured you and not want them to be tortured in return?"

"I don't know."

Marra made a whining sound and Tim pet her again. In fact, he crouched down so that he could get close to her.

"It's all right, Marra." Then, he stood up. "How much have you told your fiancé about your life?"

"Not everything."

"Have you told him the kinds of things you used to do to people in the name of the CIA?"

"No. Most of them are classified you know."

Tim smiled humorlessly. "You don't have to be specific."

"No, but there things I can't tell him," Bri said. "And it's not because of what you're thinking. It's not because I'm trying to hide who I was from him. I never wanted him to come into a relationship with me based on lies. I've already seen what happens in that situation."

"Your parents?"

Bri actually laughed. "You know my father. Lies were never the problem."

Tim nodded in acceptance.

"I saw it in other agents...including Ray. He tried to build a relationship with Agent David without being fully honest with her and when he did finally tell her, it was too late and he lost her. I'm not doing that. I know that you don't want to ascribe anything positive to me and I don't blame you for that, but I've never tried to pretend to be other than who I was."

"Except with me?"

"That was on assignment."

Tim shook his head. "You're still trying to justify it."

"It's still the truth," Bri said. "I may apologize for torturing you, but I wasn't going to come up to you and say that I was with the CIA and we were going to be torturing you. It doesn't work like that. You know that, Agent McGee. I didn't even really have an identity within the CIA. I changed my name every time I took on a new assignment. My father told me that I couldn't expect to be treated like his daughter and so I made sure I wasn't. I was anyone...except the daughter of Levi Carew. But I always was. That part had nothing to do with you."

"And did you have to pretend to be interested in me to get me? Why not abduct me? Grab me while I was sleeping? My apartment had zero security. Why on a date?"

"Because it was easy and we were hoping to keep what we were doing secret for as long as possible. The people who were making you construct the tracing program were obviously watching you. A date was innocuous. Did that make things worse? I don't see how it would."

"I'm not surprised you don't see it." Tim shook his head. "What you don't seem to understand, whether it's willful or not, is that what you did to me is still the worst thing...because it was first. You don't understand it. When I have nightmares, it could be anything from the last 10 years. There are plenty of choices, but it's always the light. It's always the pain and the light." His voice shook for a moment. "What you did to me is still the thing that hurts after all this time. I don't have nightmares about my feet getting beaten. I don't have nightmares about getting hit with shrapnel. I don't have nightmares about the program I made even though I despise myself for it. When I have nightmares, it's the light.. and the insanity... and the pain. That is what you did to me. You want to apologize for that? I'm glad that you've got to the point where you can at least acknowledge that it was wrong. ...but that's the very least that you can do. That just proves that you're a human being after all. But it's only an academic exercise for you. Until you can show even a little empathy, which you should be able to do since you went through something similar, I can't forgive you. Thank you for apologizing but that's far from enough."

Then, he tugged on the leash a little.

"Come on, Marra. Let's go home."

Marra got up, still whining a little, but she followed him willingly enough.

"What's enough, then, Agent McGee?" Bri asked.

Tim paused and looked back. There was a strange expression on his face, one that Bri couldn't decipher.

"That's for you to figure out. If you want to."

Then, he kept walking. Bri stood where she was. For a moment, she was really irritated. She had apologized and if that wasn't enough, what was? This was probably one of those things that were supposed to be deep and meaningful. It was just annoying. The question was whether she'd swallow her pride and ask her father to explain it. She was sure he would be able to, but she didn't want to go to him, metaphorical cap in hand, and ask for help. She was still determined to do it, but she wished that Tim would give her a little leeway.

Maybe he is. Maybe this is all he can give.

It was possible. Bri sighed and walked back to her car and then drove away.