A/N1: Proprietà di Chuck.
A/N2: Bit of a breather from the US Government's war against Fulcrum. We're going to visit Positano at Christmastime. But this visit is not filled with holiday cheer.
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Donna Cailin left her apartment building, opened her umbrella, and turned uphill. The weather was hovering around 5° C with a light rain falling. She lived in a small apartment in the older section of Positano, a town on the south side of the Sorrento Peninsula. With only pedestrian access to the bulk of the town, walking uphill to the supermarket was the only choice. She'd been told that before the Amalfi Drive had been constructed after the Second World War the most desirable residences were at the bottom of the hill, near the water; the sea being the only access to the fishing village. But, with the construction of the road along the ridgeline along the peninsula, the bottom of the hill just earned any residents the steep and arduous perambulations. Now, of course, tourism filled the picturesque area near the water with hotels and restaurants.
But not at this time of the year. Now, in the lead up to Christmas, the tourists were as rare as virgins in a brothel. Without doubt, the locals decorated the town in charming lights and garlands, but that was for their own enjoyment, not for the odd visitor. She enjoyed the festive symbols, which reminded her of her home so long ago.
She marched up the old paths now bracketed by cutesy stores catering to the summer tourists, quiet and sleepy at this time of year, many simply closed until springtime. The market was at the top of the hill, where it wouldn't interfere with the shopping by the Americans and Chinese and Germans and occasional Russians. She wasn't too winded when she reached her destination, but various aches and pains still made themselves known. Her injuries were healing, but she was still impatient with her progress.
Signora Albina, the manager of the market, greeted her as she entered. The older woman spoke excellent English and was quite proud of that fact. She never passed up an opportunity to use it.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Cailin. How are you feeling today?"
"Good afternoon, Signora Albina. Aches and pains, but how can I complain when Positano is so beautiful at Christmas-time?"
"Pah. It's not a time for festivities. It's a time to celebrate the birth of our Lord," she said.
"Yes, of course," said Cailin, trying to edge away.
Signora Albina would have none of that and asked, "What hurts you? Because I think you look wonderful. Whatever happened to you in that car accident was only temporary bumps and bruises. You are still a lovely young woman."
"Well, thank you. Maybe one day, I suppose. At the moment, all I can see in the mirror are the scars," she said.
"Only temporary," she said. "You'll see. Is your writing going well?"
"Yes, thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to buy my dinner before the rain starts for real."
"Of course," said the older woman with a kind smile.
Cailin quickly accomplished her errand and headed back downhill with her mesh bag filled with the ingredients for her evening meal. She made a point of taking a different route downhill than she had while walking uphill. Without seeming to do so, she also made a point of watching each and every person she passed. As well as doorways and windows.
Arriving back at her building, she climbed the three flights of stairs to the third storey. There were two apartments on the floor, but she'd never seen the occupant of the other unit. She presumed he or she was only a part-time resident of the town.
She looked down at the floor in front of her door and saw the undisturbed light coating of white powder. Looking up, she saw the tiny bit of cardboard she'd jammed into the crack between the door and the jamb. She took it down and dropped it into her pocket.
She unlocked the two locks and stepped into the room. While she'd been out, night had begun to fall and her apartment was dark. She locked the door behind her and turned toward the kitchen, her hand reaching for the light switch.
Before she had taken three steps, the standing lamp next to an armchair clicked on, lighting the room softly. She froze in place and turned her head slowly, dread flooding her soul.
Sitting in the seat by the light was Bryce Larkin with his legs casually crossed at the knee. He wore suit pants, well-shined shoes, a white shirt, and a dark tie. The straps of his shoulder holster were dark against the white of his shirt. The jacket for the suit was draped on the back of the chair behind him. On the table next to him was a half-completed solitaire card game. In his right hand he had a Russian Makarov 9mm pistol with a suppressor attached.
The weapon was pointed at her. Silently, they stared at each other for long moments. Eventually, he gestured with the weapon to the easy chair across from him.
"Sit down, Jill," he said quietly.
She put her shopping down on a nearby table. "Bryce..." she began to step towards him.
"Not another step. Sit down." His voice lacked all emotion.
She took another step towards him and said, "Bryce, let me explain."
The weapon in his hand shifted and he shot her in the left foot. The sound was like a book slamming on a table.
Jill Roberts collapsed and growled her way through the sudden pain and shock. She looked up at him from the floor and, expressionlessly, he gestured with the weapon to the chair he'd indicated. She slowly crawled towards the chair, levered herself up and seated herself, leaving a trail of blood on the polished floor behind her. She thought of trying to stem the bleeding in her foot and decided not to bother.
"How'd you find me?" she asked.
"Shorter hair and a blonde dye job aren't enough, you know," he said.
"Yeah. My resources were limited," she replied with a shrug.
"I almost got you in Havana. Missed you by an hour or two," Bryce said.
"Lucky me," she said bitterly.
"Runs out eventually," he replied with a shrug of his own.
"So, they sent you to kill me. Even with our history and the personal relationship," she said. She was doing everything she could to sound calm, while she was actually terrified.
"Sent me? No, Jill, they didn't send me. I begged for this mission. Seriously, I begged. You know what they say. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life."
"Why? You hate Fulcrum that much?" she asked.
"Fulcrum? Naw. I know we'll beat those assholes. Chuck and Sarah will anyway. No. I hate you that much."
"Why?"
"Chuck," he said, as if that was all the explanation necessary.
"Because I betrayed him?"
"Because you were cruel to him. Needlessly cruel. And then, to make it even worse, you told him we were together after you dumped him. You tarred me with your sin. I despise you with every fiber of my being." His cold calm mask slipped for only a moment, but in that instant it revealed to her the inferno beneath.
"Oh, come on, Bryce. After all this time? He's not even pissed at that anymore. He's not taking it personally. Why are you?"
Bryce's cold mask was back in place. "I know he's not. And you know why? Because he's a better man than I am. He's got a bigger heart. A more forgiving heart. Me? Not so much. My heart is a shriveled-up stone. I don't know why, but I find it impossible to forgive a slight against me. In this case, a slight against the only friend I have in the world."
"But you betrayed him yourself. How can you judge me so harshly for something you did too?"
"I did. I did betray him. And it was the single greatest mistake of my life. If I live to be a thousand I could never erase it or atone for it. But, I will tell you this, Jill. I will try every single day. Even if it's fruitless. I will try to make up for what I did to him every single day for the rest of my life."
"Don't be an idiot, Bryce. You can't think that killing me will be atonement for your own betrayal. One thing has nothing to do with the other." There was a small puddle of blood growing on the floor under her wounded foot.
"I understand that, Jill. It's not atonement. Not by itself. But it's another brick in the wall of my support for Chuck. Maybe a small brick, but a brick nonetheless."
Jill started to laugh. "You're such a fool. You actually think you can transfer your guilt to me and ease your burden when you kill me? It doesn't work that way. The guilt you carry will be with you forever. Killing me won't make your life even a tiny bit easier. Won't help you sleep better."
"Even if it doesn't ease any of my guilt, it balances the scales of justice a tiny bit," said Bryce.
"You know what it is, right? You know what it really is? You hate yourself for what you did to Chuck and see yourself in me and my actions. Like a funhouse mirror. Rather than kill yourself for what you did, deep in your heart you think killing me is the justice that should be meted out to you," she said as she laughed bitterly. "Just give me half a chance and I'll give to you the justice you know you deserve."
"Maybe. I've thought of that too, honestly. You could be right. Guess if I ever go to therapy that's something to dig out. It's reasonable so I won't dismiss it. But you won't be here to see it, Jill. You'll be in the undiscovered country."
Jill's right hand had been held in her lap, gripping her other hand hard to deal with the pain in her foot. Slowly she relaxed it and began to move it across her thigh.
Bryce continued. "But, I have to ask. Why? Why did you dump him? Why did you involve me? And recently, why were you so obviously angry with him? He's the kindest most loving man in the world. Why would you treat him so badly? Back then and even recently? You've acted like he murdered your favorite kitten. I just don't understand it. I don't get what you were thinking."
"Fulcrum. I was part of Fulcrum even then. In the early days. They told me to break up with him. I had no..."
"Aw, cut the shit, you lying cunt. I was part of Fulcrum for months. Remember? Don't bullshit a bullshitter. They couldn't have given a flying fuck who some twenty-one year old recruit was banging. It would never even occur to them. Try again with the truth this time." He gestured with the gun. "Realizing that you no longer have anything to lose."
Jill Roberts snarled, "Fine. You want the truth? It was because he was a loser waiting to happen. Was he a nice guy? Sure, he was. Do you know what happens to nice guys in the world? They get chewed up by not-so-nice guys, that's what. He was fun to hang around with in school and he treated me really well and was dynamite in bed, but I'd always intended to break up with him at graduation. His getting expelled was the perfect opportunity to accelerate my plan. As to naming you?" Again, she gave a bitter laugh. "Just my way of locking the door behind me. No way he's going to hassle me about getting back together going forward if he thinks I've replaced him with you. I could have picked anyone to name, but I thought it was karmically sweet to pick the man who'd turned him in to the school for cheating." With the angry defiance of her answer, she'd leaned forward in her seat, her right hand moving off her thigh to rest on the seat cushion next to her leg. Bryce did not appear to notice.
"Don't you understand how cruel that was? How hard he'd take it? Didn't you care?" asked Bryce shaking his head.
"Whatever. I don't give a shit now and I didn't then," she sneered.
"You are one fucked up bitch." Jill merely shrugged in response, while Bryce shook his head sadly. "And lately? Since you showed back up, you're still acting like you are the one who has a grudge. What's with that?"
"Oh, come on. It's not too hard to figure out. I was pissed that he exceeded my mental picture of what his life would be like without me. He's in that meeting at FBI headquarters about the virus and he fucking dominates it. The most important people in Federal law enforcement and they are all kissing his ass. What the fuck? I knew he was going to be a loser, right? He was supposed to be sitting in a cubicle someplace pathetically working for some alpha male. And instead he's...he's ... he's effortlessly dominating...effortlessly, like it's no big deal when we all know it is a huge fucking deal. Sitting there with that fucking bitch Walker, who is scary beautiful and just oozing her love for him from every fucking pore in her body. And he immediately figures out Fulcrum has someone on the inside. All that planning and preparation and he sees right through it instantly. Like some kind of freak detective. Fuck him."
"So, you decided to beat him up when you and your girlfriends attacked Castle," said Bryce.
Her hand slipped down to the side of the chair between the seat cushion and the right edge of the chair.
"Oh, hell no. Not then. I decided to beat him up after the confrontation in Fort Meade. You know what he did? What he didn't do? When he was dismantling our entire plan? Doing the whole, 'I'm Carmichael and I will fuck you up before I eat breakfast' thing? You know how he did it? HE DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING STAND UP," she shrieked. "Just sat there, relaxed. Like I wasn't even worth the effort to stand up. Like I was so far beneath him that he could just dismiss me. Not happening, Bryce. NO ONE DISMISSES ME. NO ONE. NOT WALKER. NOT CHUCK. AND CERTAINLY NOT YOU."
With that, her right hand jerked a pistol out from the cushion, pointed it at Bryce and pulled the trigger. There was a metallic click as the firing pin found an empty chamber. Bryce didn't even flinch. Staring into her eyes, his left hand moved to the side of his chair and opened slightly. One by one, the rounds that had been in Jill's gun fell to the floor with gentle tapping noises.
The last hope she had withered and she knew she'd be dead in moments.
"FUCK YOU, BRYCE," she screamed, throwing the empty gun at him. He casually swatted it aside, his eyes never leaving her's.
They stared at each other silently for a moment until she said, quietly, "Burn in hell, you bastard."
"You first. Save me a seat. I'm sure I'll get there eventually," he said coldly.
He shot her in the chest twice, looked at her body sprawled in the chair for a moment or two and shot her a third time in the forehead. Without taking his eyes from her he began to unscrew the suppressor from the end of his pistol. Once it was separated, he lightly blew into one end of the tube.
He took out his phone and sent a coded message that his mission had been accomplished.
Then he tidied up the small apartment, leaving nothing useful for the Italian CSI people to find, and left the way he came.
Within minutes, he was in the cockpit of a powerful speedboat, pulling away from the dock. The light rain had stopped but the early evening remained misty. With the breeze over the water, the air was still chilly enough that he'd had to pull on a pea coat and dark woolen cap. Sailing time to Naples was less than three hours.
His phone buzzed and he read the coded message, congratulating him on his success and ordering him to take a month's leave. A month. He headed north into the Gulf of Naples rounding the peninsula at Punta Campanella, with the lights of the island of Capri on his left. He made the decision to take his month's leave in New Zealand. It would be summer there this time of year and it would be perfect weather for mountain climbing.
He pointed the bow of the boat to the constellation of city lights which were Naples and took a deep breath of the cool air. Without realizing it, he found himself smiling with satisfaction.
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A/N3: She climbed three flights to get to the third storey. That was not a mistake. In Europe, the storey one flight up from the ground is the first storey, not the second floor (as it is in the US).
A/N4: I just rewatched First Kill. Chuck lets Jill go and she's never seen or heard from again in canon. Obviously, her fate is somewhat harsher here. I choose not to paint the character as nuanced as she had been portrayed in canon. I always thought the "Fulcrum made me break up with you" explanation was flimsy at best. My Jill is simply bad and the New Day universe is a nicer place with her no longer in it.
A/N5: With this loose end taken care of, we can head back to California and the struggle between Fulcrum and the United States. If you wouldn't mind too much, please let me know what you think of the fate of Jill Roberts. And let me know if Bryce's self-reflection has swayed any of you Bryce haters to a more sympathetic stance.