View From The Garden
Title: View From The Garden
Pairing: References to Madeline/Operations and Adrian/George
Characters: Adrian, Madeline, Carla, Nikita, OC
Rating: PG-13, for mild swearing and distubing events
Word Count: 3,201
Disclaimer: I own nothing, just playing.
Author's Note: Great thanks to my beta, jaybee65 .
Summary: Adrian spent over nine years on the outside after the coup, formulating a plan to take back the Sections. What happened to her during that time?
1992
When she returns to Section, she will exterminate Paul.
She comes to the decision about an hour after midday, when the sun is up and she’s working in her garden. Before that, she reviews the schematics of the Belgian embassy, initiates a full sweep of the premises after an unfortunate incident with a nosy tourist, writes a preliminary profile for Geneva, and nearly orders a helicopter shot down. And all before lunch.
A simple cancellation will be adequate. No games, no lies, no false kindness. She owes him that much.
Of course, Adrian has already decided what to do with the other one. She made that decision three years ago, on that fateful day. When she returns, Madeline will be cancelled. The decision was not difficult.
But Paul is entirely different. As much as it pains her to admit it, she is still fond of him. If only he hadn’t…there are too many words to fill in, and she hasn’t the energy. If only he hadn’t loved that woman, she thinks. That was the crux of the problem. She has spent so many years trying to deny it, but she knows that it’s true. The mere thought of their relationship fills her with rage-if she’s being honest with herself, it reminds her of how much she has lost--and so she moves from the subject of murdering Paul to much more pleasant thoughts. Such as how to murder Madeline.
How is indeed the question. She thinks about it, obsesses over it, during the long hours of staring at her flowers. It has, in fact, become quite an occupation in the three years since the coup. Sometimes Adrian will keep things professional. A bullet to the head, or perhaps death at the hands of one of those unnatural freaks Madeline herself had cultivated. Other times she decides something more gruesome is warranted.
Once, Adrian thinks of having her killed in front of him. She is pruning her tulips when the thought comes to her. She is at first horrified, then delighted-it would hurt him so much more than anything she could do to him personally-and then angry at herself for indulging in such ludicrous fantasies of revenge. Perhaps she is losing her touch.
No, of course not. And she will prove it to herself by canceling Paul when she inevitably returns to power. Besides, Adrian knows that it isn’t entirely fair to blame Madeline for Paul’s betrayal. It is her own failures and miscalculations that she hates, more so than that insignificant woman. But that is the past. Adrian forces herself to focus on the present. It is all that she can do to survive.
Still, she hates them both, for different reasons. She can’t let it go. Perhaps, Adrian thinks, she has earned her revenge. They both richly deserve the death she will give them.
But then again, she thinks as she attends to her flowers, don’t we all?
****
1994
“Ma’am?”
Adrian looks up from her desk at the girl, an attractive creature with olive skin and dark eyes. She doesn’t recognize her.
“Francis is here to see you.”
“Of course. Thank you…” Adrian allows her voice to trail off expectantly.
“Carla.”
“Oh yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t remember you.”
The girl blushes. Suddenly she looks very young. But then again, thinks Adrian, they have all begun to look young to her.
“Please, tell Francis to come in,” she continues.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Thank you. Oh, and Carla?”
She turns around halfway to the door. “Yes?”
“I like to invoke a certain familiarity with my core staff. I find that it helps build trust. In the future, please call me Adrian.”
“Yes…Adrian.” Her voice sounds uncertain.
Francis tips his hat at Carla as he walks in. Adrian suppresses to urge to roll her eyes, instead smiling benevolently while examining Francis. He looks tired, she thinks.
Indeed, tired is an understatement. His face is gaunt and gray-looking, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes. In all her years in the trade Adrian has learned to look for every nuance in behavior, but there is no need for such subtle analysis here. The very body of the man gives off extreme weariness.
“Hello, Francis. Would you like something? Tea, perhaps?” She is impatient, but she forces herself to wait. She has become quite adept at waiting these past five years.
To her relief, he shakes his head. “I just need to debrief and get the fuck out of here. Pardon my French. Operations has me running a crazy mission schedule. I swear, I think he’s trying to kill me.”
Adrian feels her pulse quicken.
“Do you think that Operations suspects?”
Francis stares at one of the paintings on the walls, his eyelids visibly drooping. She waits calmly for his response. Finally, he speaks:
“No.”
She relaxes, although a feeling of unease has settled over her. She gives him a small smile. “Good. So I take it things are busy at Section?”
“Quite. We’re active in all three sectors.”
Adrian purses her lips. Paul is overextending himself. Not a surprise, given how well she knows him.
“Where does Section think you are now?”
He smiles weakly at her. “Gathering reconnaissance intel in the Mediterranean.”
“Very good.” She selects a pastry from her plate. “Have you succeeded in gaining access to the files I asked for?”
Francis shakes his head wearily. “No. I can’t do it.”
“You can’t? My dear, I believe you’re underestimating yourself.”
“I just can’t.” There is something in his tone that has changed. It has been there from the start of their meeting. At first she had attributed it to his obvious exhaustion, but it’s more than that, she realizes.
“I’m not able to do this anymore,” Francis continues, wiping his hand on his shirt. Adrian notes to herself that he is sweating profusely. How had she not noticed it before?
“I hope you understand,” he says. “I’m loyal, Adrian, and I would never betray you. But I can’t keep this up. Eventually, they’re going to find out. Madeline called me in the other day…” his voice trails off.
Adrian watches him in silence, allowing him to imagine what she may do to him. Then, basking in his discomfort, she speaks:
“Did you tell Madeline anything?”
“No! I swear. How could you think that? Adrian, I’m your friend.”
She gets up and begins to pace. It is a disaster on so many different levels, she cannot deny that. Finding another person would set her back years. She forces herself to calm down, thinking of her flowers. Patience. It is by far the highest virtue.
“I am not your friend, Francis. I am your colleague.”
“Colleagues, friends, whatever,” he says. His voice carries a rough edge of panic to it. “Just let me go, Adrian. I won’t tell them anything.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she says coldly.
She walks back to her desk, where she sits and presses a button. “Housekeeping.”
Francis stares at her in horror. “Adrian, please. Think about what you’re doing. What will they think when I don’t show up again?”
“You fell off a cliff while staying near the sea. You hit your head on the way down, and the current carried you away. They’ll recover your body somewhere near Cyprus. Or a body, anyway.”
She watches as her security enters to remove him. His face has turned an ashen color, and he is still staring at her with an expression of utter shock. She feels a pang of regret.
“I’m truly sorry, Francis,” she says quietly. “You will tell these men everything you told Madeline. If you comply, your death will be painless. If not, well…”
He starts to scream on the way out. She goes to finish her pastry and tries to block out the sound. She will have to wait to find out how much he revealed to Madeline. Adrian prefers not to watch the actual act of extracting the information. However, eventually the frustration is too much to bear and she throws a pot of orchids to the ground. Later she scoops them up and deposits them into fresh pots, with fresh soil. She caresses the pale pink petals, feeling the velvety softness against her skin.
Her mind begins to clear. She allows herself a moment of regret that it had to come to this. She would have preferred a few more years of anonymity. Nevertheless, perhaps this is a blessing. Francis was not the right person. She had been hasty, blinded by a desire for revenge and a swift return to power. She will not make that mistake again.
But Madeline knows now, and by extension, Paul. They will no doubt try to outwit her. She smiles as she wipes the last crumbs of the pastry from her mouth.
Let them try.
****
1997
“How is she?”
Carla shifts in her chair, and Adrian can sense that she is uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Good. It wouldn’t do to have her employees overly comfortable.
“She’s…likeable,” Carla says haltingly.
“Please continue to dazzle me with your powers of observation.”
Carla looks vaguely hurt. “Well, she’s outgoing, or at least I suspect she would be, if she wasn’t so suspicious. And not just of people. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a stray dog came to the window.”
“Ah, paranoia. A known side effect of life in Section.”
“Yes,” Carla says. “And she’s rebellious. Immature, I would say. But very principled. A strong sense of right and wrong. I gather that she hates Section.” She falls silent for a moment. “She’s beautiful,” she adds as an afterthought.
The perfect candidate. “Well-done, Carla.”
Carla beams at the praise. “I appreciate that. Will I be given a new assignment?”
Adrian shakes her head. “Not yet. As you so aptly stated, she’s immature. She’s not ready for the challenge yet. You will continue to cultivate your friendship with her.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you, Carla. You may go now.”
Carla retreats from the room with grace, and Adrian smiles. She is hardly the awkward girl she was before. She has always found it so very rejuvenating to see people working up to their potential. Adrian reaches for her tea, and goes to sit at her favorite chair by the window to watch the sunset.
She is close now, very close. The time has come to think of specifics again. It occurs to her that it might be prudent to cancel George as well when she returns. To her knowledge, he has never betrayed her. But he has been working with Philip and Paul for too long. Perhaps, she thinks, he would not welcome her return. The thought fills her with something resembling sadness.
Just a few years ago, she would have found the idea of killing George abhorrent. Eight years ago, to be precise. Nearly a decade. Had it really been that long?
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Adrian never says it out loud, but sometimes she mouths the words when she’s in her garden and there’s no one else around. She had not anticipated it taking more than three years. Quite frankly, she had expected Paul’s rule to be a disaster.
And it has, she thinks grimly. Not that anyone else but her would see it. She has learned through her sources that his numbers are high. Francis used to report them to her with a vaguely sympathetic air, as if he thought the idea of her successor doing better than she had would upset her.
“He’s quite good, you know,” he had said one day, eying her as if she were a time bomb about to explode.
Adrian had just smiled. “Yes, I know.”
She misses him these days. Both of them--Francis and Paul. And, as she thinks about it, she misses George as well. She has barely given a thought to him over the past eight years, but now she thinks of him once in a while. How he used to smile at her; how he frowned incessantly when she did something he considered reckless. It has been so long since she spoke to an equal. She is surrounded by subordinates-she is never touched; always looked at with a mixture of reverence and fear. As it should be. Yet there are some days…
Adrian doesn’t finish the thought, because it is unproductive. Nikita is perfect, and the Gemstone file is within her grasp. Then Paul will be exposed for what he is-an egomaniacal tyrant with no business being anywhere near power. There will be no mistakes this time. No margin for error. She is well-aware that she has only one chance. She does not intend to fail.
However, she thinks as she watches the sun go down through her window, she would have liked to have seen him again. Just one more time.
****
1998
Nikita is even better than she had dared to hope.
From the moment Adrian sees her she knows that she has won. All of her long years of waiting and painstaking labor have paid off. Her Section will be returned to her. She has to restrain herself from grinning like a madwoman during their first meeting.
Nikita, despite her initial stance of exaggerated defiance, is an agreeable audience. Adrian finds herself reveling in the attention of someone who understands. When she tells Nikita why Paul has to be stopped, she sees the resolve in the other woman’s eyes. They are alike, the two of them. She had originally planned to dispose of Nikita after it was all over, but perhaps she will reconsider.
“Adrian? The car is waiting.”
“Thank you. I’ll need just another moment.”
Carla stands politely. Adrian suddenly feels a rush of affection towards her.
“How long have you been with us, Carla?”
“Four years.”
Adrian smiles. “You have served me well. But it’s time for me to move on. I would like you to follow me in my next endeavor.”
“I’d be delighted.” Carla smiles back, and for a moment she looks rather childish again. “But if you don’t mind my asking, what is your next endeavor?”
Adrian looks out the window at the roses, her mind registering that they need to be pruned. Carla is still waiting expectantly.
“I’ll tell you everything when I get back. For now, I’d like you to call the gardener.”
Carla nods and turns to go. Adrian reaches for her coat and pulls on her gloves. She has a moment of indecision while choosing her sunglasses.
“Adrian?”
She makes a small sound of acknowledgement, still torn between frames.
“Do you have a specific part of the garden you want him to attend to?”
Adrian smiles.
“The roses. They need to be pruned.”
****
She has not been in the White Room for nine years.
It is different, somehow, although nothing discernable has changed. The chair still sits in the center, the stainless metal contrasting sharply with the harsh blankness of the rest of the room. It is surprisingly comfortable, although that might be whatever drugs they put her on talking. The restraints are invasive, but Adrian doesn’t feel them. She doesn’t feel anything, really
She certainly does not expect that she will see George. Knowing Madeline and Paul as well as she does, he won’t even know that she’s here. When she dies he will feel nothing. He is likely far away in another country, another world, strategizing with his subordinates or drinking his morning coffee. Oddly, the thought brings her some comfort.
The door opens with an ear-splitting creak.
“Hello, Adrian.”
It is a moment before Adrian can bring herself to look up at the owner of that voice. Although she understands that she has lost-for good this time, she doesn’t deny it-at least Paul had the good grace to say it out loud. Madeline, by contrast, had merely smirked and given her a faintly superior look. So very polite, as usual. It was infuriating.
She forces a smile, just to show how much she doesn’t care.
“I commend you. It was quite a play.”
Madeline inclines her head in acknowledgment. Adrian is amused by her complete lack of modesty. She has always been like Paul in that respect.
She watches out of the corner of her eye as Madeline begins to circle the chair. There is a confidence, a fluid nature to her movements that was not there before. Adrian has been in power long enough to know its effects. Madeline shows all of the signs of one accustomed to being obeyed.
“We’re not going to cancel you.”
Adrian tries not to allow the signs of her shock to show, but she knows that Madeline will be able to tell in the tense set of her shoulders, the sharp intake of breath.
“Really? Are you sure that’s wise, my dear?”
Madeline stops in front of her, hands clasped. There is a gleam in her eyes that Adrian has never seen before, not in all of the years she has known her. It is more than the pride of defeating an enemy. It is personal.
Knowing this, Adrian realizes that just as she has spent the last nine years dreaming of the punishments she would inflict on this woman when she returned to power, Madeline has been doing the same thing. They had each stayed in their respective gardens, dreaming of how to kill the other. She should have known that it would end this way. They were bound together, for better or worse.
Adrian feels her throat go dry, and despite herself she ventures the question.
“What are you going to do with me?”
Madeline just looks at her for a moment. Then she raises her hand, and for a moment Adrian thinks she’s going to hit her. But instead she rests it gracefully onto the arm of the chair. Adrian stares at it. She is wearing a diamond ring, and a part of her wonders if it’s a gift from Paul. It’s not hard to see why he’s so captivated, really. Madeline tends to have that effect on people.
They stare at each other, Madeline’s hand still resting dangerously near hers. Adrian finds herself thinking of her garden. Carla will certainly see to the flowers, and the gardener…but no, Carla is dead. They are all dead, and she will never see her garden again. She looks into Madeline’s face. What she sees is not blind hatred or pity, but rather something else. An understanding of sorts. It is not much, but it is enough.
Madeline seems to have felt it as well, because she jerks her hand away like she had been touching something disgusting. Adrian smirks. Yes, she always wins.
“So tell me, Madeline,” she says softly, “Have you come to torture me?”
Yet even as she says these mildly taunting words she feels an iron clamp of dread around her heart. And Madeline is standing straight as a rod, her arms crossed. Adrian can feel the garden slipping away, fading at the edges.
“No,” Madeline says. The gleam is back in her eyes again.
“We have something else in mind.”
~fin