"Through a Splintered Glass"
Title: Through a Splintered Glass [2/2]
Fandom: Eureka.
Characters: everyone, with focus on Fargo, Zane, Jack and Nathan
Word Count: 8139
Rating: 15
Warnings: dark!AU, language, torture, a physically and emotionally abusive relationship with D/s overtones, general butchery of world history, and some slight messing with canon timelines
Summary: It’s 2009, and the Cold War heated up. Global Dynamics is a pioneering weapons development facility with the smartest minds gleaned what’s left of the West, and the notoriously pro-war town of Eureka is run by the military with an iron fist to rival the Iron Curtain. It’s Eureka, ladies and gentlemen, but not as we know it. Zane/Fargo, Jack/Nathan.
Notes: For smallfandomfest, for the prompt: Zane/Fargo, the things we’ll do for science.
Through a Splintered Glass
Fargo doesn’t see Donovan for a few days.
For that matter, he doesn’t see most people: he hides himself away in his lab, pulling old nuclear-powered AK-47s to pieces and putting them back together in more streamlined, effective ways. By the time he’s done, he’s cobbled four into one and got something that looks oddly like a plant pot, but packs enough force to make a metre-deep hole in the floor of his lab when he pulls the trigger by accident. He spends the next thirty-six hours tripping into that hole before he gets used to it, and starts using it as an impromptu garbage can.
In the corridor, on the way to the canteen because he hasn’t eaten for thirty-six hours (and drunk only a can of flat cola he found in a desk drawer), he sees Sheriff Carter. He doesn’t speak to the man, because Carter looks like he’s on a mission: he’s talking tightly to Jo over the radio-Fargo catches the words “dissident” and “Section Nine”, which he figures is pretty much normal operating procedure-and the man’s got his handcuffs clenched in one hand. His knuckles are pale. Fargo doesn’t even get a glance from the blond, but it doesn’t stop his stomach from clenching when he sees his face.
There’s a long crimson gash etched raggedly down Carter’s right cheek, stretching from the corner of his eye to his chin, held together with stitches and a piece of Global’s lightweight medical gauze, and it twists with every twitch of Carter’s facial muscles. His left eye is blackened, and a patch of skin just below his hairline is scraped red-raw.
Fargo’s fingers fist in his pocket.
Vincent’s not in the canteen when Fargo gets there-he’s on a break, his sullen replacement says-so Fargo goes and finds himself a corner of an empty table. He doesn’t want to be all melodramatic and say that the food tastes ashen, but he’s certainly not paying any attention to what it does taste like. He taps his fork absently against the side of the plastic tray, and stares into the middle distance. His mind is occupied with Jack Carter and the hole in the floor of his lab.
“You’re a hard man to find, Fargo.”
Donovan doesn’t wait for permission to sit - he just slides into the seat across from Fargo, nudging Fargo’s tray out of the way and slipping his own into its place. He seems as casual and relaxed as he was the first time Fargo saw him at a distance in Global’s atrium, if a little scruffier - and now that Fargo looks, he can see the faint darkness under Donovan’s eyes, and the fact that his t-shirt looks slept in. The scrutiny doesn’t seem to faze Donovan, and he just attacks his plate of sausage and mash with vigour.
Fargo clears his throat. “You were looking for me?” he asks.
Donovan just shrugs, and chews.
And Fargo sits back, because there’s no point in trying to talk to Donovan if he’s got a mouthful of Vincent’s best mashed potato (just the right amount of butter, a dash of salt and pepper, and the faintest hint of spice).
He watches as Stark enters the canteen. The expressionless man exchanges a few words with the suddenly-super-polite server behind the counter, and then he’s handed a neatly wrapped package. Stark never eats in the canteen with everyone else, Fargo’s noticed. His lab is his castle, he thinks, and there’s something twisted behind that thought.
A purple bruise is blossoming across Stark’s right cheek, and his lip is split, but he still pulls off that arrogant sneer effortlessly.
Donovan puts down his fork, and the deliberate motion draws Fargo’s attention back to him - and he’s immediately riveted, because he can see the icy Colonel shining through the sardonic scientist.
“Donovan?” he ventures.
“I was given your name by Sam O’Neill,” Donovan says calmly, and he’s slouched in his seat as if he hasn’t a care in the world - but Fargo understands. “She said you’d understand. And that your middle name was Beaden.”
Fargo feels himself relax, because that just answers so many questions - and Donovan got the exchange exactly right. So he offers him a faint grin. “I’ve been trying to figure you out ever since you got here, you know that,” he comments. “You could’ve said something sooner.”
Donovan shrugs. “Have to get myself situated before I can make those kind of ties,” he answers lightly. “And anyway.” He smirks. “I wanted to see what kind of guy you were.”
Fargo quirks an eyebrow. “And?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
And Fargo swears there’s something flirtatious in the other man’s voice.
So he lets his lips curve in response, because he thinks that he might-
His cell buzzes loudly in his pocket. Fuck, he thinks, and drags it out, flashing Donovan an apologetic grimace. “Fargo.”
“Is Doctor Jessica Riley one of ours?” Jo demands sharply.
Fargo feels his heart leap. “Jo, you know I can’t-”
“Shut the fuck up, Fargo, and tell me,” Jo barks. “Protocol we can worry about later, because Carter’s just been sent by Stark to bring her in on suspicion of breaking into his fucking lab.”
“Fargo,” a voice says from behind him, and it’s silky smooth and so very deadly. Fargo snaps his cell shut on Jo, because he’d recognise that voice anywhere, and he swivels in his seat, heart suddenly racing. Stark smiles down at him, and his expression tells Fargo that, fuck, he knows. “Would you like to come with me?” the bruised scientist asks. “I’ve something I’d like to show you.”
And it’s phrased as a question, but Fargo knows that he’s really got no choice at all.
§§§
Fargo’s shoved into a chair in the corner of the sparse interrogation room, and he feels like his heart’s about to hammer its way free from his ribs. He licks his lips, and forces himself not to look at Jess Riley. She’s not looking at him, either - she knows the rules. You have contact with three others, maximum, Fargo’s mind gabbles. If you’re found, you disclose no connections and you’re immediately disowned. Those’re the rules. You agreed to them. So play the game.
Riley’s hands are shaking, even as her wrists are cuffed to the chair she’s sitting in.
Fargo affects disinterested blankness. Stark’s trying to make a point, and trying to make him crack. He’s not going to get the fucking satisfaction.
The door is cracked open, and Deacon is ushered in. He gives Fargo a nod in greeting, and is pointed to another chair. In this instance, Fargo reflects, his scattered thoughts firmly coalescing on this one point, the greeting is okay. They’re supposed to be friends, after all, and friends greet each other, even if they have just been shepherded into a starkly-light interrogation complex underneath the Sheriff’s office - an interrogation complex that’s designed to resist nuclear, thermonuclear and chemical attack. So is therefore vaguely impenetrable.
Shepherded, Fargo echoes. Like lambs to the fucking slaughter.
No one speaks for a moment, and so the three of them sit in silence.
Fargo wonders if Deacon knows who Riley is. Hell, if he hasn’t at least guessed by now, he’s not quite the genius he’s cracked up to be - but Fargo sees that little flicker in his dark eyes that, while not betraying his nonexistent emotion, does scream that he’s made that leap.
Stark and Carter don’t leave them waiting long.
The scientist has his usual arrogant, victorious smirk firmly in place, and that doesn’t exactly help with Fargo’s jangling nerves. But, strangely enough, it’s the Sheriff’s expression that really gets him: the man is a blank slate, eyes flat and empty, and it’s in that expression that Fargo knows that this is not something he wants to witness.
“So,” Stark begins. “Jessica.”
Riley looks up at him, and Fargo’s impressed by the composure she shows. “Well done,” she answers half-snidely, and her voice barely shakes.
Stark pointedly ignores Fargo and Deacon, and moves to stand in front of Riley. His shoes click sharply on the concrete floor. “We know, Jessica,” he says, and his voice is quiet and sinister and so very patronising. “We know everything. Your mother, and your stepfather. Russian, wasn’t he?”
“Ukrainian, actually,” Riley corrects primly, and her fingers curl around the ends of the armrests.
Stark doesn’t smile. “We know that virus couldn’t’ve been your work,” he says, and his hand lightly touches her shoulder. “We’re not accusing you of that. You’re a psychologist, not a programmer, so it’s not active undermining of the war effort we can prosecute you for - just aiding and abetting, but that’s a serious enough charge.” Stark pauses, and smiles faux-sincerely at Riley. “Just tell us who did the programming, and this goes much better for you.”
Riley’s eyes are downcast, but just for a moment, because then she looks up at him and there’s nothing but defiance in her face. “I’m not playing your games, Nathan,” she says flatly, and Fargo’s impressed by her use of Stark’s first name. Level the playing field, his mind mutters. Don’t let him intimidate you. Riley is a psychologist, after all, so mind games are to be expected. “So,” Riley continues, interrupting the ramblings of Fargo’s mind, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And Stark looks almost regretful - but it’s just an act, Fargo knows that, and it just makes it all the more painful to watch. “Jessica,” the taller man says, and her name is almost a sigh from his lips. His hand drops from her shoulder, and he looks to Carter with a smirk. “All yours, Jack,” he says, and there’s expectation and delight and some kind of sick, twisted pleasure in his voice.
Fargo tries not to cringe, because he remembers the last time he heard Stark call Carter ‘Jack’.
Carter stands behind Riley, even as she stares straight ahead with only the trembling of her hands betraying her fear. The Sheriff’s gaze is intent on her, though, and there’s a slender metal band hanging from his grasp. He dangles it in front of Riley’s face. “Do you know what this is?” he asks.
“Of-”
Carter speaks right over Riley, as if she didn’t exist. “It’s the new interrogation unit from Henry Deacon,” he says in answer to his own question. “Concentrated electrical pulses, directed at different nerve clusters every five seconds. That makes sure that-unlike with conventional forms of torture-the body doesn’t become used to the sensation.” Carter’s lips smirk. “Every jolt feels like the first cut,” he says, and there’s something almost admiring in his voice. He runs a finger around the curve of the band, and then grips a handful of Riley’s dark hair, holding her head still. “The pulses are controlled remotely when it’s placed around the neck,” he says finally. And Fargo’s mouth goes dry as Carter slips the slender band around Riley’s throat, and clips it into place. He can see the hammering of her pulse, and he knows that that terror is deserved: this thing is infamous around Eureka already, after Deacon gave it a trial run on Doctor Hood and managed to completely fry the vulcanologist’s central nervous system within five minutes, and anyway, Fargo helped in the early stages of design. It’s vicious. And Riley knows that.
Fargo chances a glance at Deacon, but the other man’s features are blank. Right now, Fargo wishes he’d been the one who’d been wiped of all emotions, because his are doing a number on his head right now.
A smirk twists just the very corners of Carter’s lips-the first emotion he’s shown so far-and he leans down, a hand on either of Riley’s shoulders. “And I’ve been just dying to try this out,” he says, and the words are barely above a whisper, but they carry in the dead silence of the room.
Riley just tilts her chin upwards in silent defiance.
Carter runs an almost-apologetic fingertip along her jaw, and straightens. He takes a step back from the chair, and retrieves a small, grey mess of wires and chips. It’s cradled in his palm, and Carter strokes that same fingertip across what Fargo swears is a fingerprint recognition pad.
For a moment, nothing happens.
An amber LED flickers into brightness on the pale grey band, just over the pounding of Riley’s jugular. Out of the control of his eye, Fargo sees Deacon stiffen.
And then Riley screams, and it’s long and loud and full of such pain.
The impassivity is back on Carter’s face, and his blue eyes are dark. Fargo wants to look away-oh, he wants that so badly-but he can’t. He knows he can’t. Carter’s focus may be on Riley, and Stark might be angled half-away from Fargo, but these interrogation chambers are rigged with concealed cameras from every angle: he’s being watched.
Fuck, he bites off inside his mind.
The muscles in Riley’s arms begin to spasm, and she’s keening. Blue sparks itself down her suddenly-static hair, and veins stand out in her neck. Her forearms jerk up off the chair, rubbing and chafing against the cuffs holding her down: the padding’s been stripped off them, and her wrists are systematically rubbed raw and bleeding. Blood drips to the floor and smears across the cuffs.
The damn machine has been switched on less than thirty seconds.
At least she’s not screaming any more, some childish, selfish corner of Fargo’s brain says quietly, because he hates it when people scream.
Behind her, Carter brushes his thumb over the print pad again, and Riley sags in the chair like a marionette whose strings have just been snapped. Fargo’s insides feel like they’re all twisted around each other. Riley’s breathing is ragged in the sudden quiet, but after a moment she flicks her hair back and tugs her breathing under control. There’s blood on her lip and trickling down her chin, but she just sneers wordlessly up at Stark.
Carter leaves the metal band around her neck and turns his attention briefly to Deacon. “I’m impressed,” he says flatly, and it’s the first time, Fargo realises, that he’s acknowledged either his or Deacon’s presence. But it’s only fleeting, because then Carter’s focused back in on Riley. A dark, broken smirk twists his lips, and this, Fargo thinks - this is the man they brought back from Menwith Hill. “Riley,” Carter says, “having fun yet?”
She smiles, and her teeth are stained with blood. “Time of my life,” she says, voice slurred.
“Good,” Carter says. “Ready to tell us who you’re working for?”
Riley spits, and the bloody spittle lands square on Stark’s polished dress shoe. “I’m all alone, Jack,” she quips. “There’s really no one here beside me.” Which is just fucking ironic, Fargo thinks, despite being half-butchered song lyrics.
Carter slips the control for the band back into his pocket. “Not what we want to hear,” he observes.
“What do you want to hear?” Riley asks, and her voice is still slurred by the blood seeping into her mouth. Fargo guesses that she’s bitten her tongue. “That it’s Fargo and Deacon? Fine. It’s them. But also Blake, and, oh yeah, you, Jack. And Nate here. That okay?”
Carter looks vaguely amused. Fargo lets out a tight breath.
Riley shrugs, and doesn’t seem to notice as the bleeding mess of her wrists grates against the sharp steel of the cuffs. “But why do you want them?” she asks, and her eyes are strangely absent. “The names? I mean, it won’t do anything. And they’ll be out of town before you can even think about catching them.” She rolls her head back against the back of the chair, and smiles crookedly at Carter. Fargo can still see the pounding of her pulse in her exposed throat, but it’s slower now. He’s not sure what that means. “I think,” she starts, “it’s just because you want a scapegoat, Jack. Someone to blame, because you sure as hell can’t blame your daughter, even though she’s the one who royally fucked up your pugilist credentials by actually thinking for-”
She’s silenced by Stark’s fist smashing into her jaw, and no one expected that.
Riley just laughs, though, and spits, and Fargo realises that Deacon’s damn machine has done more than just inflict fleeting pain, because the woman’s lost any preservation instinct she ever had. “It’s true, though,” she answers, and it comes out as more of a gurgle than anything else. “I’m the fucking psychologist, so you listen to me. You can’t get at the Russians, because they’re on the other side of the fucking world. You can’t get at the guys who left you to die at Menwith, because they’re all dead. And you can’t get at poor little Zoë, because she’s in a high-security jail under a death sentence - and anyway, she’s the only memory of the wife you think you let die you have left. So-” And Riley’s adopted a kind of lolling position in her prison, with her wrists twisted and her neck craned back, with blood drooling down her throat. “-you look for someone to blame. And it’s not Nate, here, because, hell, that’s fucked up enough as it is, so you pick me.” She grimaces. “Or, whoever it is you want to get to through me.”
“You want to stop talking now,” Stark says, and his voice is a low thrum that sets Fargo’s teeth on edge.
“Which isn’t going to happen,” Riley rambles, and blood bubbles at her lips - it can’t be coming from a bitten tongue, Fargo realises, there’s too much of it, and so he glances over at Deacon, because, fuck, this is his work. But the dark-skinned man is just looking on impassively, the faintest hint of scientific curiosity dancing in his eyes as he watches Jess Riley die. “I mean,” Riley continues, “even if I knew, would I tell you? Would I fuck. You may be gorgeous, Jack, but I don’t swing that way.” She giggles thickly, and her shoulders spasm. “So you get nothing.”
Carter says nothing as she sniggers into the quiet, and he’s as blank as the marble statue of Oppenheimer on Main.
Fargo feels sick.
Riley’s still giggling when Carter draws his gun.
“Step away, Stark,” he says quietly, and the snap of the safety makes Fargo flinch.
“Carter-”
“We’ll get nothing here,” Carter says, and crouches down behind Riley, gun held loosely in his grasp. He never looks at Stark.
If Fargo were anyone else, he’d’ve missed it, but he’s been running Stark’s errands for years, so the briefest flicker of Stark’s green eyes beneath their lids means something: it means indecision, and it means fear. But Stark steps away, and stands beside the door, hands clasped loosely at his waist, because he hears the darkness in Carter’s voice as clearly as Fargo does.
The muzzle of Carter’s gun is pressed up against Riley’s collarbone, but there’s still that bloody, slack giggle on her lips. Her head lolls against Carter’s cheek, and his chin rests ever so slightly on her shoulder - the opposite shoulder to his gun’s blunt muzzle. He’s holding her in a fucked-up embrace, Fargo thinks, and the whimsy of that thought is so completely inappropriate. “Did you ever think about your girlfriend in all this?” Carter asks quietly, simply, and then just pulls the trigger. The shot is deafeningly loud in the enclosed space, and Riley howls in pain - but Carter’s expression barely changes. His hand grips Riley’s throat, pinning her in place. “Amy, isn’t it?”
“Amy...” Riley gasps, hands rendered claw-like with the pain.
“Yeah,” Carter says, and he sounds almost regretful, and it’s so at odds with the apathy of his face that it’s jarring. “Well, Amy’s about to get a broken heart,” he finishes, and releases her neck, and stands up, and takes a half-step back, and shoots her with devastating accuracy twice through the neck.
It’s not a quick death, not really, because Carter knows what he’s doing. Both shots pretty much miss the spinal column, so the bone does nothing but splinter, but one bullet goes straight through the jugular and the other the carotid - so it’s quick, but only as quick as bleeding to death from two major blood vessels can be.
Jess Riley dies with her girlfriend’s name on her bloody lips.
§§§
Fargo can’t stop shaking, which is really starting to piss him off.
He couldn’t manage to leave the station when Carter finally let him go, seemingly satisfied (by the fact that he was trembling like a fucking leaf, which isn’t a characteristic the Sheriff tends to associate with cold-blooded peace-lovers, apparently), so Jo gave him a blanket and left him in a shadowy corner of the main office while she dealt with Taggart, whose latest crossbreed had apparently snaffled his secret stash of ridiculously sugary Australian chocolate and then mauled one of the Baker twins whilst on the resulting sugar high. Blood all over the statue of Oppenheimer, Jo’d reported, which had just tied in so well with Fargo’s earlier scattered thoughts that it made him feel vaguely ill. It also added to his shaking - the same shaking which is just getting annoying, but that he can’t seem to stop.
It doesn’t help that he’s still got Jess Riley’s blood all over his hands - and not just in the metaphorical, Shakespearian sense. Out, damn spot, out, he thinks absently, but he’s not a fucking woman, so that kinda negates that point, doesn’t it?
He giggles, but it’s a shrill, panicked sound.
Jo casts him a dirty look from behind her desk, because she’s been wading through what she dubbed “motherfucking shitwork” (translation: paperwork) for about an hour now, and the stack of forms is barely smaller. So his distracting her, he knows, will not go down well. At least Carter’s disappeared-gone on some call from the holding cells up at Global: apparently the Soviets are getting antsy, and tried to crack open a dog tag which housed a tiny, almost microscopic vial full of anthrax spores, which Fargo thinks is actually pretty clever-so he’s not getting the glare of death from two annoyed law-enforcement officers. Just the one.
He just hopes Jo doesn’t bash his skull in with her desk lamp. That would be bad.
Fargo forces himself to quiet, and sinks down into his chair.
He’s slipping into a quiet half-doze (which is shock, he knows that logically, but he chooses to ignore that fact and just go with the general flow of exhaustion) when he vaguely acknowledges that the door is pushed open and a third person joins the party. There’s a quiet, non-committal greeting which Fargo doesn’t quite catch-sleep, remember? he thinks in annoyance, and smothers a yawn-and then Jo purrs, “What can I do for you, handsome?”
Now, this tells Fargo two things. Firstly, that Jo doesn’t know whoever it is that’s just slipped into the office, because Jo always greets people by name: vestige of the military, Fargo’s always thought, but he’s never actually asked. Secondly, that whoever it is, they’re, as Jo would put it, “smokin’ hot”, because Jo has very high standards.
Fargo thinks for a moment.
Abruptly, he sits bolt upright. “Donovan!” he exclaims.
Jo nearly falls out of her seat, and Donovan starts around. “Fargo?” he asks, incredulity and shock in his voice, and Fargo doesn’t miss the fact that there’s something wary in his stance: something left over from his brief conversation with the automatically-flirtatious Jo.
Jo, behind him, just glares at Fargo. He feels himself quail slightly, because he’s just managed to interrupt her in snaring a new toy, which-and he knows from experience, because Jo found Carter quite very up to her standards when he first arrived in Eureka-is never a good idea.
But Donovan is starting towards him, and there’s what looks suspiciously like worry in his eyes. “Hey, Fargo, are you okay?” he asks.
Fargo forces himself to smile, but it feels like a grimace more than anything else. “Fine,” he answers, waving his hand absently. “Peachy.”
Donovan’s eyebrows are slowly ascending further and further towards his hairline. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Obviously.” He glances back at Jo, and Fargo watches the way his neck curves. His skin almost glows under the warm lights of the Sheriff’s station. “D’you mind if I take him out of here?” he asks. “He seems a bit... off, and I don’t think here’s really the best place for him to be right now.”
Jo glances over at Fargo, and she’s got that tight look in her eyes again. “I’m not sure if-”
Fargo waves again. “ ‘S fine,” he interjects, because he knows she’s worried he’ll say something he’s not supposed to, which is ridiculous, really, because he’s fully in control of himself, completely, really. “He’s one of us,” he continues. “Beaden, y’see.” Because that explains everything, really. Donovan hides a smirk, and Jo just looks vaguely exasperated. Fargo wonders why he’s suddenly so amusing, and waves his hand for the third time. “ ‘S all good,” he adds, and thinks he’d quite like to get to sleep.
Right on cue, he yawns again.
Jo throws up her hands. “Take him,” she says to Donovan, “before I >throw something at him.”
Donovan smirks, and reaches out to Fargo, who immediately grasps the offered hand and pulls himself up. Donovan turns back to Jo as he does so, and so he misses Fargo seeing his own hands for the first time in a while: there’s blood under his nails and spattered across his pale skin, staining his skin and the cuffs of his shirt, and he suddenly feels sick and dizzy and so very, very awake. Jess Riley was twenty-nine, he thinks, and collapses against Donovan.
The other man’s startled obscenity just blurs in with the memories, and Fargo barely notices as Donovan’s arms go round him and steady him - he’s busy, because his mind is a tangled mess of Riley and blood and CarterStark and why.
At least he’s finally stopped shaking.
§§§
Donovan sinks into the armchair opposite him, a mug of coffee in his hand. “You feeling better?” he asks, and his bright eyes are intent on Fargo.
Fargo ignores the scrutiny. “Yeah,” he answers, and he keeps his response guarded. His head is clearer, now, and he’s hating the fact that he essentially collapsed in front of Zane Donovan. It helps that he’s showered, and that Donovan’s shoved his suit into the wash, because now he can’t see the blood anymore. Even if he can’t stop thinking about it.
Twice, through the neck, with sickening precision that just screams that, fuck, he’s done that before.
“Zoning out on me?” Donovan asks, forehead furrowed.
Fargo almost jumps, because, yeah, he kinda did. “Sorry,” he apologises.
Donovan shrugs. “No problem,” he answers easily. “But you’re in shock. I need to keep you focused on me, okay?” Fargo nods mutely, because he knows the other man is right, even if he doesn’t particularly want to admit it. He curls up beneath the blanket that’s thrown haphazardly over his knees. “So,” Donovan continues, “Fargo. Talk to me.” And Donovan’s gaze flickers slightly, because Fargo’s a sight, he knows that. “What happened after Stark dragged you off?” he asks, and there’s curiosity and sympathy and apprehension all twisted up in his voice.
So Fargo takes a shuddering breath, and tells him: how he hid the virus on Jess Riley’s desktop, and how Stark found it-fuck knows how or why, but that doesn’t really matter right now-and how Riley was staked out and tortured as an example to him and Deacon, and how Stark’s really got nothing but suspicions, but that’s apparently good enough to drag Carter into this. He’d gloss over the torture bit if he could, because it’s something he doesn’t really want to think about, let alone recount in detail, but the words just spill off his tongue until he’s not sure whether he’s fully in control any more. So he explains Deacon’s emotionless, scientific response, and outlines Riley’s bloody psychoanalysis of Carter, and describes Stark punching Riley while Carter just watched, motionless and hurting, and then finally the blood and it was everywhere-
Donovan’s features are dark when Fargo finally trails to a halt.
Fargo gives a shaky laugh. “Sorry,” he says absently.
Donovan shakes it head. “I’ve heard worse,” he answers honestly, and that, oddly enough, makes Fargo feel slightly better. “I just-” He cuts himself off, and chews lightly at his lower lip. Fargo finds himself slightly transfixed by the movement. “Do you know who tipped Stark off?” he asks.
Fargo frowns. “Tipped him off?” he echoes. “No.” He thinks for a moment. “I assumed he’d gone in to wipe the security tapes for his lab, and found they were already wiped, then went digging.” He reasons that’s the most logical explanation, after all, and he’s had several hours of sitting there shaking in the corner of an office while Jo slogs through paperwork to figure it out.
“That assumes that Stark’s ashamed of what... happened in his lab, and that he therefore doesn’t want anyone to know about it,” Donovan counters, and Fargo doesn’t miss the other man’s stumble over ‘happened’. “Which he’s pretty plainly not, considering what we heard, and the state of Carter’s face. So, I figure, he was tipped off.” And he leans forward and puts the cooling coffee down on the carpet, and Fargo can just tell by his reluctance that he’s found something.
He sits up straighter. “And?” he asks.
Donovan slouches back against the sofa’s cushions, and fixes Fargo with that intense, fever-bright gaze which Fargo is beginning to quietly enjoy being the focus of. “How much do you know-and I mean really know-about Jo Lupo?” he asks.
Fargo’s heart misses a beat, because he can’t be saying what Fargo thinks he’s saying. “What?”
“She called you when we were in the canteen today, right?” Donovan asks.
Fargo nods. “So?”
“You were busy with the call,” Donovan explains, “but I wasn’t. Stark was standing against the wall, watching everyone, and when you picked up the phone, he looked fucking joyous.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean-”
Donovan holds up a hand to forestall him, and Fargo subsides. “I went and hacked Stark’s inbox after you left. Two anonymous messages from this morning, bounced off about fifty satellites before actually landing in his inbox, making it pretty much untraceable. One message detailed exactly what to look for in his lab’s automated systems, and rough specs of the virus itself. The other was sent at ten-oh-nine, five minutes before Stark turned up in the canteen. It said that the culprit would be called at ten-twenty.” Donovan’s gaze is level and quiet. “Jo Lupo placed a call to you at exactly ten-twenty-three GD time, and when I was in the station today I noticed that the clock in there’s exactly three minutes slow. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”
And Fargo sits there for a moment, mouth half-open, because Jo Lupo, a double agent? “Fuck,” he says, and that expresses his thoughts just about perfectly.
Donovan smirks. “Pretty much.” He leans forward, propping his elbows on his thighs. “So I did some digging into her personal record. What d’you know about her military career?”
Fargo shrugs. “Not much. She served two tours of duty-one in Spain, one in France-before being transferred to Eureka as a reward for exceptional service. She doesn’t talk about it much.”
Donovan’s nodding, but then a darkly-ironic smirk crosses his lips, and he speaks again: “Yeah, she only served two tours. But on both occasions her company ended up stuck in Europe for over a year longer than they were supposed to. Her kill rate was four hundred percent higher than any other soldier. In her report at the end of her first tour, she said, and I quote, ‘I look forward to heading back for my second tour, something which will hopefully be the first of many’.”
“She had a change of heart,” Fargo argues. “It happens.”
“And,” Donovan continues, “she said the exactly same thing at the end of her second tour. Fargo, she loves war. And she’s worse than Carter, too - from what I’ve read, he’s for the war because he hates the Russians et al. Lupo? She just likes to kill people.”
“So what the fuck is she doing in Eureka?” Fargo asks, and he’s swearing because now he’s just pissed off. Jo’s been leading them round the houses for years, probably, and neither he nor Deacon even bothered to do a proper background check because she was such a good fucking actress, and came so highly recommended Deacon once quipped she’d been sent from heaven - before his accident, obviously. “And what’s she doing as one of the ringleaders of the fucking peace movement?”
“Every month,” Donovan answers, “she gets ten thousand dollars deposited in her account from an account that has no number, and no name attached to it. I couldn’t trace where it’s located, and when I got even vaguely close my laptop went into automatic shutdown, and when I’d got it working again it told me I’d been spiked.” He shrugs. “That’s all the hallmarks of a government front. She’s a fucking spy, Fargo.”
Fargo’s head hurts, but he can feel the shock fading, because now he’s got something to focus on. “Great,” he says half-heartedly. “So. What do we do?”
Donovan gives him an inscrutable look. “You’re asking me?”
“I’ve been stuck in a fucking torture chamber all afternoon, Donovan,” Fargo points out acerbically, and he feels much more like his normal self, which is at once reassuring and worrying, because he shouldn’t be forgetting Jess Riley this quickly. “I haven’t had much time to plan anything,” he continues. “So. What’ve you come up with?”
Donovan busies himself with his pockets. “That’s a fair amount of trust for someone you met a week ago,” he observes neutrally, and his fingers stutter against the denim seams.
Fargo shrugs. “You saved my life,” he points out. “And Sam O’Neill seems to trust you. So I guess I do too.”
Donovan’s lips quirk upwards, just slightly.
Fargo winds his fingers into his blanket, and tips his head to one side slightly. “Fucking Ada?” he asks, an amused smile twitching his lips.
Donovan laughs, and nods. “Fucking Ada,” he confirms.
§§§
When Jo Lupo dies within a week in a lab accident that and roasts her like a turkey, Fargo isn’t surprised - nor is he particularly astonished to discover, when he checks the paperwork, that Colonel Zane Donovan (PhD, PhD, PhD), Director of Research for Global Dynamics, has been assigned to official clearout. After all, Donovan had finally answered Fargo’s question of “What do we do?” with a cryptic “I’ll deal with it”, and, sure, enough, five days later, Jo’s body is a charred cinder on the floor of a Section Two lab. Fucking snake, he thinks bitterly, and plugs another nuclear fuel cell into the handgun before he spots belatedly that it’s pretty damn close to overload. He yanks the fuel cell out, tossed it into the hole in his lab floor, and ducks for cover behind his desk.
That bitterness mellows, though, because whatever else Jo was, she did manage to help keep Fargo sane for the years she was posted to Eureka, and that’s something. So he goes to the funeral, even though there isn’t exactly much left to bury.
There’s a handful of them stood around the grave: himself and Deacon, mostly for appearances, because they were supposed to be her friends; Carter, who’s silent and reflective, and seems to genuinely care; General Blake, which surprises Fargo, because he’d never actually seen the pair of them interact; and a handful of other Eurekans. It’s not a big funeral. Around here, they never are.
Fargo sits at a bench, afterwards, when the final piece of green turf has been replaced over the coffin, and watches the mourners. It’s drizzling, and the sky is a pale grey - and General Blake stands silently beside Jo’s headstone, her head bowed. Rain drips from the ends of her hair, and Fargo’s astonished to see her press her fingertips to her lips and then to the grey stone.
Blake has been less antagonistic the past few days, but Fargo never figured that was because she’d redirected her attentions away from making Stark’s life hell.
He leans back against the wooden slats of the back of the bench, and watches as Blake walks away, collar turned up against the rain.
“I didn’t think I’d find you here.”
Fargo shrugs, hands deep in his pockets. “Yeah, she fucked us over, and held us back god-knows how many years. But she was a good friend, in her way.” He doesn’t quite know why he feels such a need to defend a traitor, but she wasn’t just a traitor - she was Jo, and there’s been enough distrust and violence recently to go around.
Donovan sits down beside him, dark woollen coat studded with rain. “Going soft in your old age?” he quips.
Fargo doesn’t smile. “It’s been a rough few days,” he answers.
Donovan quiets. “Sorry,” he says, tone subdued.
Fargo stirs slightly, and watches absently as Carter stands next to Jo’s grave. His hands are clasped loosely at his waist, and his lips are moving in words that’re drowned by the patter of rain. “What for?” Fargo asks.
“If I hadn’t demanded you get me into Stark’s lab, Riley’d probably still be alive,” Donovan answers, and there’s the faintest turn of guilt in his voice.
“But so would Jo,” Fargo counters, “and she’d be screwing us over as ever.” He smiles slightly, and glances over at his companion. “And, if we’re going down the blame road, it’s really all Blake’s fault, ‘cause she was the one who deposed Stark and brought you in in the first place.” His smile fades, just slightly. “And I’d say she got what was coming to her.”
Donovan nods, and it’s so strangely accepting. “Yeah,” he says, “I saw her next to Lupo’s grave. Allie never said anything.”
Fargo’s lips twist. “I spoke to her yesterday,” he says slowly, “in an unofficial capacity. She seemed happy.”
There’s quiet for a moment, and the rain patters on the world around them. Fargo notes it’s getting heavier. They should head inside soon. It’s Donovan who finally breaks the quiet: “When I was clearing out Lupo’s files,” he says softly, “I found, along with about a thousand records of conversations and messages between her, you and someone called Deacon-” Fargo winces. “-a couple of encrypted messages marked ‘Allison’. I didn’t open them. I didn’t figure it was Allie.”
“Yeah.” Fargo squints through the trees at Blake as she slips into her car and pulls away, driving far too fast for the wet roads. He does remember seeing something about Blake authorising the high-friction project down in Section Nine for her own personal uses, despite it being intended for heavy artillery on the Russian Steppes. The sleek Aston’s tyres could’ve got the same treatment. “It’s a crazy enough town,” he muses.
He can almost feel Donovan’s thoughtfulness. “She’s not exactly lucky when it comes to relationships,” the other man says softly, and he sounds almost pitying.
“I guess not,” Fargo answers, faintest twist of confusion in his voice, because he’s not exactly sure where that came from. “You going soft now?” he quips.
Donovan smiles, just a little. “Guess so,” he answers.
Fargo pauses, just for a moment, and thinks about Blake and relationships, and the wedding ring she never takes off. “What happened to her husband?” he asks, and it’s a tentative query because he knows it’s something that’s really none of his business.
Donovan settles back against the bench, hands deep in pockets. “You remember the New Orleans air strike, about ten years ago?” he asks.
Fargo nods. “Of course. The Russians wiped out fifty percent of the city, and destroyed an entire military barracks.” He laughs, but it’s an empty sound. “Kinda hard to miss.”
Donovan just nods. “Allie was stationed there, along with her husband and autistic son. She was called away the day before the strike.” The furrows in his forehead deepens, and he doesn’t look at Fargo. “Mike wanted to bring Kevin along - a road trip, of sorts. She persuaded him to stay behind, ‘cause she’d only be away a few days.” He shrugs, and it looks emotionless but there’s pain in the lazy movement. “They died. She lived.”
Fargo’s silent for a moment. “You knew her, back then?” he asks.
Donovan nods. “Mike, too,” he answers. “He was a good friend.”
“That can’t’ve been easy for her.”
Donovan gives him a crooked, ironic smile. “Why d’you think she took up with me?” he quips, but there’s something grieving and empty in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Fargo says, because it’s all he can think to say.
Donovan just nods, and Fargo sits back against the bench. Rain spatters against the trees above them.
Fargo feels the other man’s gaze latch onto him. “Have you spoken to Amy Baxter yet?” Donovan asks.
“Not yet,” Fargo answers, hating the abrupt shift in conversation, and thinks momentarily about Jess Riley. But the thought doesn’t make him want to throw up any more, just go and hug the porcelain, so he thinks that’s an improvement. “I don’t think she knew about Riley’s involvement.”
“So she doesn’t know why her girlfriend died.”
“Yeah. And she can’t, because that could just bring Carter and Stark back down on us again.”
Donovan picks at the hem of his coat. “That has to suck.”
Fargo huffs a soft laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess it must.”
Again, there’s no sound but the patter of the rain for a moment. Fargo feels the chill rainwater winding its way down his neck, so he brusquely turns his collar up. He feels Donovan watch the sudden flurry of movement, and then slouch down against the bench. The jeans, Fargo notices, have been replaced by sharply-cut suit trousers.
The silence is comfortable, which is something Fargo hasn’t ever quite experienced before.
Abruptly, Donovan leans forward. “Look at that,” he says, incredulity in his voice, and Fargo obediently follows his rapt gaze.
Carter’s left Jo’s grave, and he’s making his way back across the muddy grass to the treeline, where the Sheriff’s dark grey Jeep is parked - and parked with Stark leaning against the bonnet. Carter falters as he hits the treeline, and Fargo mentally kicks himself for picking a bench so far away, because the rain completely deadens the sound as Stark speaks, and it’s too far away for him to properly lip-read. But the body language is clear enough, because Stark fucking well reaches out to Carter, and Carter jerks out of his reach. He’s still got the ragged slash down his cheek, after all, and Fargo knows that’s going to scar in more ways than one.
“Are they-” he begins, but Donovan shushes him.
Fargo looks back, and Stark reaches out his hand to gently cup Carter’s injured cheek-which is surprising in and of itself-but there’s something utterly out-of-character in the scientist’s body language. And after a moment, it comes to Fargo: he looks vulnerable, which is just so very messed up. Carter’s shoulders are slumped, and it’s in resignation and disbelief and quiet, accepting sorrow.
Fargo thinks about the briefest of encounters in a glass-strewn lab, and Carter’s hopelessness doesn’t seem that unrealistic.
Stark tugs Carter to him, and kisses him - and Fargo can tell from all the way across the graveyard that it’s not anything violent or territorial or claiming: it’s a kiss, nothing more, and Carter sinks into it like he’s dying.
Fargo looks away.
Donovan’s got a strange, half-hard look in his eyes. “Carter’s a killer,” he says quietly, “and Stark made him do it, pretty much. I don’t think that makes the best basis for a relationship.”
“No,” Fargo agrees, “but then at least then they’re not making the rest of us suffer as well.”
Donovan casts him a sideways glance. “That’s kinda selfish.”
Fargo smiles wearily. “Welcome to Eureka.”
§§§
Fargo walked to the funeral, because he lives five minutes away, and he's never liked driving in the wet, anyway. He doesn't ask him to, but when Fargo levers himself up from the bench and announces he's heading home, long after Stark and Carter slipped into the Jeep, the scientist's fingers lingering that fraction too long on the Sheriff's wrist, Donovan wordlessly rises as well. Fargo doesn't protest.
Darkness is already falling over the streets, and the rain's getting heavier by the time they reach Fargo's house. Standing on his front steps, Fargo glances back to Donovan - and has to smother a laugh, because the other man looks like a drowned rat. “D'you want to come in?” he asks, lips twitching.
Donovan sinks his chin further into his collar and nods pathetically.
Fargo smirks, and turns and unlocks the door.
He supplies Donovan with a beer and a towel, and goes upstairs to get changed. Really, he shouldn't be just leaving a man who he's known all of a fortnight alone in his house-especially considering Donovan's not inconsiderable IQ and capacity to hack just about any electronic device that Fargo owns-but there's something about him that just...
Fargo stops in the middle of his bedroom, and smacks himself on the side of the head. You sound like a teenage girl, he tells himself firmly. Quit it.
When he gets back downstairs, Donovan's situated himself on the sofa. His hair's spiked up all over the place from what Fargo guesses must've been a fairly vigorous head-drying, and he's gazing absently into space, beer bottle held loosely in one hand. Fargo fights the urge to smile. “Tired?” he asks, and goes to join the other man.
Donovan looks up, and flashes Fargo a smile. “I guess,” he says. “A test of some super-powerful version of mustard gas got messed up. A lot of casualties, and about a mile of paperwork.”
Fargo winces. “Fun,” he says, and joins Donovan on the sofa. “So. Wishing you hadn't transferred?” he asks, and it's a flippant question, really, but Fargo can't help but wonder.
There's a faint speculative glimmer in Donovan's eyes, and he adjusts his long-limbed sprawl so he's facing Fargo. “No,” he answers slowly, “I wouldn't say that.” And he smirks, just lightly. “I mean, it's a crazy-assed town, and the chef in the canteen keeps flirting with me, but I've got friends in high places.” The smirk grows. “So I guess I'm set.”
“Friend in high places, huh?” Fargo smirks. “Well, at least you're not on Stark's bad side yet.”
“ 'Yet'?” Donovan echoes, one eyebrow curved in an elegant arch.
Fargo shrugs. “Blake can only protect you for so long,” he points out.
Donovan laughs, and then the languidity in his gaze flickers to something else - something more intense. “And then,” he says, “there's you.”
Fargo's not going to be played that easily. “Me?” he asks.
Donovan nods thoughtfully. “You,” he repeats, and he reaches out and deposits the beer bottle on the coffee table. There's still that playful glimmer in his eyes, and Fargo thinks he knows what's going to happen - and, strangely enough, it doesn't make him want to run a mile, or ten. “So,” Donovan says, and Fargo can tell that his lips are fighting a smile, “I'm gonna try something.”
And he leans forward, and it's gradual and incremental but so very definite, and there's still that teasing sparkle in his eyes.
Fargo feels his heart rate pick up, and he licks his lips - and doesn't miss the way that Donovan's gaze darts to that movement. “Donovan,” he tries, because he feels he should at least try and put up some vague resistance, “what are you-”
Donovan's lips claim his in a tentative kiss, cutting off his feeble attempts at protest, and it just feel so very, very right. There's no tongue, just that light, almost fleeting pressure, until Fargo can't take it anymore, and slides his hand up the still-chill skin of Donovan's arm, and then, as if that's tacit endorsement of what's happening, Fargo suddenly finds himself having his mouth well and truly plundered.
With a quiet sound of ohgodplease, Fargo lets his eyes slide shut, and tangles his fingers in Donovan's hair.
When Donovan pulls back, lips wet and gaping in a laughing smile, he quips, “Call me Zane.”
finis
previous: [ “New Director of Research’s in today.”]
Fandom: Eureka.
Characters: everyone, with focus on Fargo, Zane, Jack and Nathan
Word Count: 8139
Rating: 15
Warnings: dark!AU, language, torture, a physically and emotionally abusive relationship with D/s overtones, general butchery of world history, and some slight messing with canon timelines
Summary: It’s 2009, and the Cold War heated up. Global Dynamics is a pioneering weapons development facility with the smartest minds gleaned what’s left of the West, and the notoriously pro-war town of Eureka is run by the military with an iron fist to rival the Iron Curtain. It’s Eureka, ladies and gentlemen, but not as we know it. Zane/Fargo, Jack/Nathan.
Notes: For smallfandomfest, for the prompt: Zane/Fargo, the things we’ll do for science.
Through a Splintered Glass
Fargo doesn’t see Donovan for a few days.
For that matter, he doesn’t see most people: he hides himself away in his lab, pulling old nuclear-powered AK-47s to pieces and putting them back together in more streamlined, effective ways. By the time he’s done, he’s cobbled four into one and got something that looks oddly like a plant pot, but packs enough force to make a metre-deep hole in the floor of his lab when he pulls the trigger by accident. He spends the next thirty-six hours tripping into that hole before he gets used to it, and starts using it as an impromptu garbage can.
In the corridor, on the way to the canteen because he hasn’t eaten for thirty-six hours (and drunk only a can of flat cola he found in a desk drawer), he sees Sheriff Carter. He doesn’t speak to the man, because Carter looks like he’s on a mission: he’s talking tightly to Jo over the radio-Fargo catches the words “dissident” and “Section Nine”, which he figures is pretty much normal operating procedure-and the man’s got his handcuffs clenched in one hand. His knuckles are pale. Fargo doesn’t even get a glance from the blond, but it doesn’t stop his stomach from clenching when he sees his face.
There’s a long crimson gash etched raggedly down Carter’s right cheek, stretching from the corner of his eye to his chin, held together with stitches and a piece of Global’s lightweight medical gauze, and it twists with every twitch of Carter’s facial muscles. His left eye is blackened, and a patch of skin just below his hairline is scraped red-raw.
Fargo’s fingers fist in his pocket.
Vincent’s not in the canteen when Fargo gets there-he’s on a break, his sullen replacement says-so Fargo goes and finds himself a corner of an empty table. He doesn’t want to be all melodramatic and say that the food tastes ashen, but he’s certainly not paying any attention to what it does taste like. He taps his fork absently against the side of the plastic tray, and stares into the middle distance. His mind is occupied with Jack Carter and the hole in the floor of his lab.
“You’re a hard man to find, Fargo.”
Donovan doesn’t wait for permission to sit - he just slides into the seat across from Fargo, nudging Fargo’s tray out of the way and slipping his own into its place. He seems as casual and relaxed as he was the first time Fargo saw him at a distance in Global’s atrium, if a little scruffier - and now that Fargo looks, he can see the faint darkness under Donovan’s eyes, and the fact that his t-shirt looks slept in. The scrutiny doesn’t seem to faze Donovan, and he just attacks his plate of sausage and mash with vigour.
Fargo clears his throat. “You were looking for me?” he asks.
Donovan just shrugs, and chews.
And Fargo sits back, because there’s no point in trying to talk to Donovan if he’s got a mouthful of Vincent’s best mashed potato (just the right amount of butter, a dash of salt and pepper, and the faintest hint of spice).
He watches as Stark enters the canteen. The expressionless man exchanges a few words with the suddenly-super-polite server behind the counter, and then he’s handed a neatly wrapped package. Stark never eats in the canteen with everyone else, Fargo’s noticed. His lab is his castle, he thinks, and there’s something twisted behind that thought.
A purple bruise is blossoming across Stark’s right cheek, and his lip is split, but he still pulls off that arrogant sneer effortlessly.
Donovan puts down his fork, and the deliberate motion draws Fargo’s attention back to him - and he’s immediately riveted, because he can see the icy Colonel shining through the sardonic scientist.
“Donovan?” he ventures.
“I was given your name by Sam O’Neill,” Donovan says calmly, and he’s slouched in his seat as if he hasn’t a care in the world - but Fargo understands. “She said you’d understand. And that your middle name was Beaden.”
Fargo feels himself relax, because that just answers so many questions - and Donovan got the exchange exactly right. So he offers him a faint grin. “I’ve been trying to figure you out ever since you got here, you know that,” he comments. “You could’ve said something sooner.”
Donovan shrugs. “Have to get myself situated before I can make those kind of ties,” he answers lightly. “And anyway.” He smirks. “I wanted to see what kind of guy you were.”
Fargo quirks an eyebrow. “And?”
“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”
And Fargo swears there’s something flirtatious in the other man’s voice.
So he lets his lips curve in response, because he thinks that he might-
His cell buzzes loudly in his pocket. Fuck, he thinks, and drags it out, flashing Donovan an apologetic grimace. “Fargo.”
“Is Doctor Jessica Riley one of ours?” Jo demands sharply.
Fargo feels his heart leap. “Jo, you know I can’t-”
“Shut the fuck up, Fargo, and tell me,” Jo barks. “Protocol we can worry about later, because Carter’s just been sent by Stark to bring her in on suspicion of breaking into his fucking lab.”
“Fargo,” a voice says from behind him, and it’s silky smooth and so very deadly. Fargo snaps his cell shut on Jo, because he’d recognise that voice anywhere, and he swivels in his seat, heart suddenly racing. Stark smiles down at him, and his expression tells Fargo that, fuck, he knows. “Would you like to come with me?” the bruised scientist asks. “I’ve something I’d like to show you.”
And it’s phrased as a question, but Fargo knows that he’s really got no choice at all.
§§§
Fargo’s shoved into a chair in the corner of the sparse interrogation room, and he feels like his heart’s about to hammer its way free from his ribs. He licks his lips, and forces himself not to look at Jess Riley. She’s not looking at him, either - she knows the rules. You have contact with three others, maximum, Fargo’s mind gabbles. If you’re found, you disclose no connections and you’re immediately disowned. Those’re the rules. You agreed to them. So play the game.
Riley’s hands are shaking, even as her wrists are cuffed to the chair she’s sitting in.
Fargo affects disinterested blankness. Stark’s trying to make a point, and trying to make him crack. He’s not going to get the fucking satisfaction.
The door is cracked open, and Deacon is ushered in. He gives Fargo a nod in greeting, and is pointed to another chair. In this instance, Fargo reflects, his scattered thoughts firmly coalescing on this one point, the greeting is okay. They’re supposed to be friends, after all, and friends greet each other, even if they have just been shepherded into a starkly-light interrogation complex underneath the Sheriff’s office - an interrogation complex that’s designed to resist nuclear, thermonuclear and chemical attack. So is therefore vaguely impenetrable.
Shepherded, Fargo echoes. Like lambs to the fucking slaughter.
No one speaks for a moment, and so the three of them sit in silence.
Fargo wonders if Deacon knows who Riley is. Hell, if he hasn’t at least guessed by now, he’s not quite the genius he’s cracked up to be - but Fargo sees that little flicker in his dark eyes that, while not betraying his nonexistent emotion, does scream that he’s made that leap.
Stark and Carter don’t leave them waiting long.
The scientist has his usual arrogant, victorious smirk firmly in place, and that doesn’t exactly help with Fargo’s jangling nerves. But, strangely enough, it’s the Sheriff’s expression that really gets him: the man is a blank slate, eyes flat and empty, and it’s in that expression that Fargo knows that this is not something he wants to witness.
“So,” Stark begins. “Jessica.”
Riley looks up at him, and Fargo’s impressed by the composure she shows. “Well done,” she answers half-snidely, and her voice barely shakes.
Stark pointedly ignores Fargo and Deacon, and moves to stand in front of Riley. His shoes click sharply on the concrete floor. “We know, Jessica,” he says, and his voice is quiet and sinister and so very patronising. “We know everything. Your mother, and your stepfather. Russian, wasn’t he?”
“Ukrainian, actually,” Riley corrects primly, and her fingers curl around the ends of the armrests.
Stark doesn’t smile. “We know that virus couldn’t’ve been your work,” he says, and his hand lightly touches her shoulder. “We’re not accusing you of that. You’re a psychologist, not a programmer, so it’s not active undermining of the war effort we can prosecute you for - just aiding and abetting, but that’s a serious enough charge.” Stark pauses, and smiles faux-sincerely at Riley. “Just tell us who did the programming, and this goes much better for you.”
Riley’s eyes are downcast, but just for a moment, because then she looks up at him and there’s nothing but defiance in her face. “I’m not playing your games, Nathan,” she says flatly, and Fargo’s impressed by her use of Stark’s first name. Level the playing field, his mind mutters. Don’t let him intimidate you. Riley is a psychologist, after all, so mind games are to be expected. “So,” Riley continues, interrupting the ramblings of Fargo’s mind, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
And Stark looks almost regretful - but it’s just an act, Fargo knows that, and it just makes it all the more painful to watch. “Jessica,” the taller man says, and her name is almost a sigh from his lips. His hand drops from her shoulder, and he looks to Carter with a smirk. “All yours, Jack,” he says, and there’s expectation and delight and some kind of sick, twisted pleasure in his voice.
Fargo tries not to cringe, because he remembers the last time he heard Stark call Carter ‘Jack’.
Carter stands behind Riley, even as she stares straight ahead with only the trembling of her hands betraying her fear. The Sheriff’s gaze is intent on her, though, and there’s a slender metal band hanging from his grasp. He dangles it in front of Riley’s face. “Do you know what this is?” he asks.
“Of-”
Carter speaks right over Riley, as if she didn’t exist. “It’s the new interrogation unit from Henry Deacon,” he says in answer to his own question. “Concentrated electrical pulses, directed at different nerve clusters every five seconds. That makes sure that-unlike with conventional forms of torture-the body doesn’t become used to the sensation.” Carter’s lips smirk. “Every jolt feels like the first cut,” he says, and there’s something almost admiring in his voice. He runs a finger around the curve of the band, and then grips a handful of Riley’s dark hair, holding her head still. “The pulses are controlled remotely when it’s placed around the neck,” he says finally. And Fargo’s mouth goes dry as Carter slips the slender band around Riley’s throat, and clips it into place. He can see the hammering of her pulse, and he knows that that terror is deserved: this thing is infamous around Eureka already, after Deacon gave it a trial run on Doctor Hood and managed to completely fry the vulcanologist’s central nervous system within five minutes, and anyway, Fargo helped in the early stages of design. It’s vicious. And Riley knows that.
Fargo chances a glance at Deacon, but the other man’s features are blank. Right now, Fargo wishes he’d been the one who’d been wiped of all emotions, because his are doing a number on his head right now.
A smirk twists just the very corners of Carter’s lips-the first emotion he’s shown so far-and he leans down, a hand on either of Riley’s shoulders. “And I’ve been just dying to try this out,” he says, and the words are barely above a whisper, but they carry in the dead silence of the room.
Riley just tilts her chin upwards in silent defiance.
Carter runs an almost-apologetic fingertip along her jaw, and straightens. He takes a step back from the chair, and retrieves a small, grey mess of wires and chips. It’s cradled in his palm, and Carter strokes that same fingertip across what Fargo swears is a fingerprint recognition pad.
For a moment, nothing happens.
An amber LED flickers into brightness on the pale grey band, just over the pounding of Riley’s jugular. Out of the control of his eye, Fargo sees Deacon stiffen.
And then Riley screams, and it’s long and loud and full of such pain.
The impassivity is back on Carter’s face, and his blue eyes are dark. Fargo wants to look away-oh, he wants that so badly-but he can’t. He knows he can’t. Carter’s focus may be on Riley, and Stark might be angled half-away from Fargo, but these interrogation chambers are rigged with concealed cameras from every angle: he’s being watched.
Fuck, he bites off inside his mind.
The muscles in Riley’s arms begin to spasm, and she’s keening. Blue sparks itself down her suddenly-static hair, and veins stand out in her neck. Her forearms jerk up off the chair, rubbing and chafing against the cuffs holding her down: the padding’s been stripped off them, and her wrists are systematically rubbed raw and bleeding. Blood drips to the floor and smears across the cuffs.
The damn machine has been switched on less than thirty seconds.
At least she’s not screaming any more, some childish, selfish corner of Fargo’s brain says quietly, because he hates it when people scream.
Behind her, Carter brushes his thumb over the print pad again, and Riley sags in the chair like a marionette whose strings have just been snapped. Fargo’s insides feel like they’re all twisted around each other. Riley’s breathing is ragged in the sudden quiet, but after a moment she flicks her hair back and tugs her breathing under control. There’s blood on her lip and trickling down her chin, but she just sneers wordlessly up at Stark.
Carter leaves the metal band around her neck and turns his attention briefly to Deacon. “I’m impressed,” he says flatly, and it’s the first time, Fargo realises, that he’s acknowledged either his or Deacon’s presence. But it’s only fleeting, because then Carter’s focused back in on Riley. A dark, broken smirk twists his lips, and this, Fargo thinks - this is the man they brought back from Menwith Hill. “Riley,” Carter says, “having fun yet?”
She smiles, and her teeth are stained with blood. “Time of my life,” she says, voice slurred.
“Good,” Carter says. “Ready to tell us who you’re working for?”
Riley spits, and the bloody spittle lands square on Stark’s polished dress shoe. “I’m all alone, Jack,” she quips. “There’s really no one here beside me.” Which is just fucking ironic, Fargo thinks, despite being half-butchered song lyrics.
Carter slips the control for the band back into his pocket. “Not what we want to hear,” he observes.
“What do you want to hear?” Riley asks, and her voice is still slurred by the blood seeping into her mouth. Fargo guesses that she’s bitten her tongue. “That it’s Fargo and Deacon? Fine. It’s them. But also Blake, and, oh yeah, you, Jack. And Nate here. That okay?”
Carter looks vaguely amused. Fargo lets out a tight breath.
Riley shrugs, and doesn’t seem to notice as the bleeding mess of her wrists grates against the sharp steel of the cuffs. “But why do you want them?” she asks, and her eyes are strangely absent. “The names? I mean, it won’t do anything. And they’ll be out of town before you can even think about catching them.” She rolls her head back against the back of the chair, and smiles crookedly at Carter. Fargo can still see the pounding of her pulse in her exposed throat, but it’s slower now. He’s not sure what that means. “I think,” she starts, “it’s just because you want a scapegoat, Jack. Someone to blame, because you sure as hell can’t blame your daughter, even though she’s the one who royally fucked up your pugilist credentials by actually thinking for-”
She’s silenced by Stark’s fist smashing into her jaw, and no one expected that.
Riley just laughs, though, and spits, and Fargo realises that Deacon’s damn machine has done more than just inflict fleeting pain, because the woman’s lost any preservation instinct she ever had. “It’s true, though,” she answers, and it comes out as more of a gurgle than anything else. “I’m the fucking psychologist, so you listen to me. You can’t get at the Russians, because they’re on the other side of the fucking world. You can’t get at the guys who left you to die at Menwith, because they’re all dead. And you can’t get at poor little Zoë, because she’s in a high-security jail under a death sentence - and anyway, she’s the only memory of the wife you think you let die you have left. So-” And Riley’s adopted a kind of lolling position in her prison, with her wrists twisted and her neck craned back, with blood drooling down her throat. “-you look for someone to blame. And it’s not Nate, here, because, hell, that’s fucked up enough as it is, so you pick me.” She grimaces. “Or, whoever it is you want to get to through me.”
“You want to stop talking now,” Stark says, and his voice is a low thrum that sets Fargo’s teeth on edge.
“Which isn’t going to happen,” Riley rambles, and blood bubbles at her lips - it can’t be coming from a bitten tongue, Fargo realises, there’s too much of it, and so he glances over at Deacon, because, fuck, this is his work. But the dark-skinned man is just looking on impassively, the faintest hint of scientific curiosity dancing in his eyes as he watches Jess Riley die. “I mean,” Riley continues, “even if I knew, would I tell you? Would I fuck. You may be gorgeous, Jack, but I don’t swing that way.” She giggles thickly, and her shoulders spasm. “So you get nothing.”
Carter says nothing as she sniggers into the quiet, and he’s as blank as the marble statue of Oppenheimer on Main.
Fargo feels sick.
Riley’s still giggling when Carter draws his gun.
“Step away, Stark,” he says quietly, and the snap of the safety makes Fargo flinch.
“Carter-”
“We’ll get nothing here,” Carter says, and crouches down behind Riley, gun held loosely in his grasp. He never looks at Stark.
If Fargo were anyone else, he’d’ve missed it, but he’s been running Stark’s errands for years, so the briefest flicker of Stark’s green eyes beneath their lids means something: it means indecision, and it means fear. But Stark steps away, and stands beside the door, hands clasped loosely at his waist, because he hears the darkness in Carter’s voice as clearly as Fargo does.
The muzzle of Carter’s gun is pressed up against Riley’s collarbone, but there’s still that bloody, slack giggle on her lips. Her head lolls against Carter’s cheek, and his chin rests ever so slightly on her shoulder - the opposite shoulder to his gun’s blunt muzzle. He’s holding her in a fucked-up embrace, Fargo thinks, and the whimsy of that thought is so completely inappropriate. “Did you ever think about your girlfriend in all this?” Carter asks quietly, simply, and then just pulls the trigger. The shot is deafeningly loud in the enclosed space, and Riley howls in pain - but Carter’s expression barely changes. His hand grips Riley’s throat, pinning her in place. “Amy, isn’t it?”
“Amy...” Riley gasps, hands rendered claw-like with the pain.
“Yeah,” Carter says, and he sounds almost regretful, and it’s so at odds with the apathy of his face that it’s jarring. “Well, Amy’s about to get a broken heart,” he finishes, and releases her neck, and stands up, and takes a half-step back, and shoots her with devastating accuracy twice through the neck.
It’s not a quick death, not really, because Carter knows what he’s doing. Both shots pretty much miss the spinal column, so the bone does nothing but splinter, but one bullet goes straight through the jugular and the other the carotid - so it’s quick, but only as quick as bleeding to death from two major blood vessels can be.
Jess Riley dies with her girlfriend’s name on her bloody lips.
§§§
Fargo can’t stop shaking, which is really starting to piss him off.
He couldn’t manage to leave the station when Carter finally let him go, seemingly satisfied (by the fact that he was trembling like a fucking leaf, which isn’t a characteristic the Sheriff tends to associate with cold-blooded peace-lovers, apparently), so Jo gave him a blanket and left him in a shadowy corner of the main office while she dealt with Taggart, whose latest crossbreed had apparently snaffled his secret stash of ridiculously sugary Australian chocolate and then mauled one of the Baker twins whilst on the resulting sugar high. Blood all over the statue of Oppenheimer, Jo’d reported, which had just tied in so well with Fargo’s earlier scattered thoughts that it made him feel vaguely ill. It also added to his shaking - the same shaking which is just getting annoying, but that he can’t seem to stop.
It doesn’t help that he’s still got Jess Riley’s blood all over his hands - and not just in the metaphorical, Shakespearian sense. Out, damn spot, out, he thinks absently, but he’s not a fucking woman, so that kinda negates that point, doesn’t it?
He giggles, but it’s a shrill, panicked sound.
Jo casts him a dirty look from behind her desk, because she’s been wading through what she dubbed “motherfucking shitwork” (translation: paperwork) for about an hour now, and the stack of forms is barely smaller. So his distracting her, he knows, will not go down well. At least Carter’s disappeared-gone on some call from the holding cells up at Global: apparently the Soviets are getting antsy, and tried to crack open a dog tag which housed a tiny, almost microscopic vial full of anthrax spores, which Fargo thinks is actually pretty clever-so he’s not getting the glare of death from two annoyed law-enforcement officers. Just the one.
He just hopes Jo doesn’t bash his skull in with her desk lamp. That would be bad.
Fargo forces himself to quiet, and sinks down into his chair.
He’s slipping into a quiet half-doze (which is shock, he knows that logically, but he chooses to ignore that fact and just go with the general flow of exhaustion) when he vaguely acknowledges that the door is pushed open and a third person joins the party. There’s a quiet, non-committal greeting which Fargo doesn’t quite catch-sleep, remember? he thinks in annoyance, and smothers a yawn-and then Jo purrs, “What can I do for you, handsome?”
Now, this tells Fargo two things. Firstly, that Jo doesn’t know whoever it is that’s just slipped into the office, because Jo always greets people by name: vestige of the military, Fargo’s always thought, but he’s never actually asked. Secondly, that whoever it is, they’re, as Jo would put it, “smokin’ hot”, because Jo has very high standards.
Fargo thinks for a moment.
Abruptly, he sits bolt upright. “Donovan!” he exclaims.
Jo nearly falls out of her seat, and Donovan starts around. “Fargo?” he asks, incredulity and shock in his voice, and Fargo doesn’t miss the fact that there’s something wary in his stance: something left over from his brief conversation with the automatically-flirtatious Jo.
Jo, behind him, just glares at Fargo. He feels himself quail slightly, because he’s just managed to interrupt her in snaring a new toy, which-and he knows from experience, because Jo found Carter quite very up to her standards when he first arrived in Eureka-is never a good idea.
But Donovan is starting towards him, and there’s what looks suspiciously like worry in his eyes. “Hey, Fargo, are you okay?” he asks.
Fargo forces himself to smile, but it feels like a grimace more than anything else. “Fine,” he answers, waving his hand absently. “Peachy.”
Donovan’s eyebrows are slowly ascending further and further towards his hairline. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Obviously.” He glances back at Jo, and Fargo watches the way his neck curves. His skin almost glows under the warm lights of the Sheriff’s station. “D’you mind if I take him out of here?” he asks. “He seems a bit... off, and I don’t think here’s really the best place for him to be right now.”
Jo glances over at Fargo, and she’s got that tight look in her eyes again. “I’m not sure if-”
Fargo waves again. “ ‘S fine,” he interjects, because he knows she’s worried he’ll say something he’s not supposed to, which is ridiculous, really, because he’s fully in control of himself, completely, really. “He’s one of us,” he continues. “Beaden, y’see.” Because that explains everything, really. Donovan hides a smirk, and Jo just looks vaguely exasperated. Fargo wonders why he’s suddenly so amusing, and waves his hand for the third time. “ ‘S all good,” he adds, and thinks he’d quite like to get to sleep.
Right on cue, he yawns again.
Jo throws up her hands. “Take him,” she says to Donovan, “before I >throw something at him.”
Donovan smirks, and reaches out to Fargo, who immediately grasps the offered hand and pulls himself up. Donovan turns back to Jo as he does so, and so he misses Fargo seeing his own hands for the first time in a while: there’s blood under his nails and spattered across his pale skin, staining his skin and the cuffs of his shirt, and he suddenly feels sick and dizzy and so very, very awake. Jess Riley was twenty-nine, he thinks, and collapses against Donovan.
The other man’s startled obscenity just blurs in with the memories, and Fargo barely notices as Donovan’s arms go round him and steady him - he’s busy, because his mind is a tangled mess of Riley and blood and CarterStark and why.
At least he’s finally stopped shaking.
§§§
Donovan sinks into the armchair opposite him, a mug of coffee in his hand. “You feeling better?” he asks, and his bright eyes are intent on Fargo.
Fargo ignores the scrutiny. “Yeah,” he answers, and he keeps his response guarded. His head is clearer, now, and he’s hating the fact that he essentially collapsed in front of Zane Donovan. It helps that he’s showered, and that Donovan’s shoved his suit into the wash, because now he can’t see the blood anymore. Even if he can’t stop thinking about it.
Twice, through the neck, with sickening precision that just screams that, fuck, he’s done that before.
“Zoning out on me?” Donovan asks, forehead furrowed.
Fargo almost jumps, because, yeah, he kinda did. “Sorry,” he apologises.
Donovan shrugs. “No problem,” he answers easily. “But you’re in shock. I need to keep you focused on me, okay?” Fargo nods mutely, because he knows the other man is right, even if he doesn’t particularly want to admit it. He curls up beneath the blanket that’s thrown haphazardly over his knees. “So,” Donovan continues, “Fargo. Talk to me.” And Donovan’s gaze flickers slightly, because Fargo’s a sight, he knows that. “What happened after Stark dragged you off?” he asks, and there’s curiosity and sympathy and apprehension all twisted up in his voice.
So Fargo takes a shuddering breath, and tells him: how he hid the virus on Jess Riley’s desktop, and how Stark found it-fuck knows how or why, but that doesn’t really matter right now-and how Riley was staked out and tortured as an example to him and Deacon, and how Stark’s really got nothing but suspicions, but that’s apparently good enough to drag Carter into this. He’d gloss over the torture bit if he could, because it’s something he doesn’t really want to think about, let alone recount in detail, but the words just spill off his tongue until he’s not sure whether he’s fully in control any more. So he explains Deacon’s emotionless, scientific response, and outlines Riley’s bloody psychoanalysis of Carter, and describes Stark punching Riley while Carter just watched, motionless and hurting, and then finally the blood and it was everywhere-
Donovan’s features are dark when Fargo finally trails to a halt.
Fargo gives a shaky laugh. “Sorry,” he says absently.
Donovan shakes it head. “I’ve heard worse,” he answers honestly, and that, oddly enough, makes Fargo feel slightly better. “I just-” He cuts himself off, and chews lightly at his lower lip. Fargo finds himself slightly transfixed by the movement. “Do you know who tipped Stark off?” he asks.
Fargo frowns. “Tipped him off?” he echoes. “No.” He thinks for a moment. “I assumed he’d gone in to wipe the security tapes for his lab, and found they were already wiped, then went digging.” He reasons that’s the most logical explanation, after all, and he’s had several hours of sitting there shaking in the corner of an office while Jo slogs through paperwork to figure it out.
“That assumes that Stark’s ashamed of what... happened in his lab, and that he therefore doesn’t want anyone to know about it,” Donovan counters, and Fargo doesn’t miss the other man’s stumble over ‘happened’. “Which he’s pretty plainly not, considering what we heard, and the state of Carter’s face. So, I figure, he was tipped off.” And he leans forward and puts the cooling coffee down on the carpet, and Fargo can just tell by his reluctance that he’s found something.
He sits up straighter. “And?” he asks.
Donovan slouches back against the sofa’s cushions, and fixes Fargo with that intense, fever-bright gaze which Fargo is beginning to quietly enjoy being the focus of. “How much do you know-and I mean really know-about Jo Lupo?” he asks.
Fargo’s heart misses a beat, because he can’t be saying what Fargo thinks he’s saying. “What?”
“She called you when we were in the canteen today, right?” Donovan asks.
Fargo nods. “So?”
“You were busy with the call,” Donovan explains, “but I wasn’t. Stark was standing against the wall, watching everyone, and when you picked up the phone, he looked fucking joyous.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean-”
Donovan holds up a hand to forestall him, and Fargo subsides. “I went and hacked Stark’s inbox after you left. Two anonymous messages from this morning, bounced off about fifty satellites before actually landing in his inbox, making it pretty much untraceable. One message detailed exactly what to look for in his lab’s automated systems, and rough specs of the virus itself. The other was sent at ten-oh-nine, five minutes before Stark turned up in the canteen. It said that the culprit would be called at ten-twenty.” Donovan’s gaze is level and quiet. “Jo Lupo placed a call to you at exactly ten-twenty-three GD time, and when I was in the station today I noticed that the clock in there’s exactly three minutes slow. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”
And Fargo sits there for a moment, mouth half-open, because Jo Lupo, a double agent? “Fuck,” he says, and that expresses his thoughts just about perfectly.
Donovan smirks. “Pretty much.” He leans forward, propping his elbows on his thighs. “So I did some digging into her personal record. What d’you know about her military career?”
Fargo shrugs. “Not much. She served two tours of duty-one in Spain, one in France-before being transferred to Eureka as a reward for exceptional service. She doesn’t talk about it much.”
Donovan’s nodding, but then a darkly-ironic smirk crosses his lips, and he speaks again: “Yeah, she only served two tours. But on both occasions her company ended up stuck in Europe for over a year longer than they were supposed to. Her kill rate was four hundred percent higher than any other soldier. In her report at the end of her first tour, she said, and I quote, ‘I look forward to heading back for my second tour, something which will hopefully be the first of many’.”
“She had a change of heart,” Fargo argues. “It happens.”
“And,” Donovan continues, “she said the exactly same thing at the end of her second tour. Fargo, she loves war. And she’s worse than Carter, too - from what I’ve read, he’s for the war because he hates the Russians et al. Lupo? She just likes to kill people.”
“So what the fuck is she doing in Eureka?” Fargo asks, and he’s swearing because now he’s just pissed off. Jo’s been leading them round the houses for years, probably, and neither he nor Deacon even bothered to do a proper background check because she was such a good fucking actress, and came so highly recommended Deacon once quipped she’d been sent from heaven - before his accident, obviously. “And what’s she doing as one of the ringleaders of the fucking peace movement?”
“Every month,” Donovan answers, “she gets ten thousand dollars deposited in her account from an account that has no number, and no name attached to it. I couldn’t trace where it’s located, and when I got even vaguely close my laptop went into automatic shutdown, and when I’d got it working again it told me I’d been spiked.” He shrugs. “That’s all the hallmarks of a government front. She’s a fucking spy, Fargo.”
Fargo’s head hurts, but he can feel the shock fading, because now he’s got something to focus on. “Great,” he says half-heartedly. “So. What do we do?”
Donovan gives him an inscrutable look. “You’re asking me?”
“I’ve been stuck in a fucking torture chamber all afternoon, Donovan,” Fargo points out acerbically, and he feels much more like his normal self, which is at once reassuring and worrying, because he shouldn’t be forgetting Jess Riley this quickly. “I haven’t had much time to plan anything,” he continues. “So. What’ve you come up with?”
Donovan busies himself with his pockets. “That’s a fair amount of trust for someone you met a week ago,” he observes neutrally, and his fingers stutter against the denim seams.
Fargo shrugs. “You saved my life,” he points out. “And Sam O’Neill seems to trust you. So I guess I do too.”
Donovan’s lips quirk upwards, just slightly.
Fargo winds his fingers into his blanket, and tips his head to one side slightly. “Fucking Ada?” he asks, an amused smile twitching his lips.
Donovan laughs, and nods. “Fucking Ada,” he confirms.
§§§
When Jo Lupo dies within a week in a lab accident that and roasts her like a turkey, Fargo isn’t surprised - nor is he particularly astonished to discover, when he checks the paperwork, that Colonel Zane Donovan (PhD, PhD, PhD), Director of Research for Global Dynamics, has been assigned to official clearout. After all, Donovan had finally answered Fargo’s question of “What do we do?” with a cryptic “I’ll deal with it”, and, sure, enough, five days later, Jo’s body is a charred cinder on the floor of a Section Two lab. Fucking snake, he thinks bitterly, and plugs another nuclear fuel cell into the handgun before he spots belatedly that it’s pretty damn close to overload. He yanks the fuel cell out, tossed it into the hole in his lab floor, and ducks for cover behind his desk.
That bitterness mellows, though, because whatever else Jo was, she did manage to help keep Fargo sane for the years she was posted to Eureka, and that’s something. So he goes to the funeral, even though there isn’t exactly much left to bury.
There’s a handful of them stood around the grave: himself and Deacon, mostly for appearances, because they were supposed to be her friends; Carter, who’s silent and reflective, and seems to genuinely care; General Blake, which surprises Fargo, because he’d never actually seen the pair of them interact; and a handful of other Eurekans. It’s not a big funeral. Around here, they never are.
Fargo sits at a bench, afterwards, when the final piece of green turf has been replaced over the coffin, and watches the mourners. It’s drizzling, and the sky is a pale grey - and General Blake stands silently beside Jo’s headstone, her head bowed. Rain drips from the ends of her hair, and Fargo’s astonished to see her press her fingertips to her lips and then to the grey stone.
Blake has been less antagonistic the past few days, but Fargo never figured that was because she’d redirected her attentions away from making Stark’s life hell.
He leans back against the wooden slats of the back of the bench, and watches as Blake walks away, collar turned up against the rain.
“I didn’t think I’d find you here.”
Fargo shrugs, hands deep in his pockets. “Yeah, she fucked us over, and held us back god-knows how many years. But she was a good friend, in her way.” He doesn’t quite know why he feels such a need to defend a traitor, but she wasn’t just a traitor - she was Jo, and there’s been enough distrust and violence recently to go around.
Donovan sits down beside him, dark woollen coat studded with rain. “Going soft in your old age?” he quips.
Fargo doesn’t smile. “It’s been a rough few days,” he answers.
Donovan quiets. “Sorry,” he says, tone subdued.
Fargo stirs slightly, and watches absently as Carter stands next to Jo’s grave. His hands are clasped loosely at his waist, and his lips are moving in words that’re drowned by the patter of rain. “What for?” Fargo asks.
“If I hadn’t demanded you get me into Stark’s lab, Riley’d probably still be alive,” Donovan answers, and there’s the faintest turn of guilt in his voice.
“But so would Jo,” Fargo counters, “and she’d be screwing us over as ever.” He smiles slightly, and glances over at his companion. “And, if we’re going down the blame road, it’s really all Blake’s fault, ‘cause she was the one who deposed Stark and brought you in in the first place.” His smile fades, just slightly. “And I’d say she got what was coming to her.”
Donovan nods, and it’s so strangely accepting. “Yeah,” he says, “I saw her next to Lupo’s grave. Allie never said anything.”
Fargo’s lips twist. “I spoke to her yesterday,” he says slowly, “in an unofficial capacity. She seemed happy.”
There’s quiet for a moment, and the rain patters on the world around them. Fargo notes it’s getting heavier. They should head inside soon. It’s Donovan who finally breaks the quiet: “When I was clearing out Lupo’s files,” he says softly, “I found, along with about a thousand records of conversations and messages between her, you and someone called Deacon-” Fargo winces. “-a couple of encrypted messages marked ‘Allison’. I didn’t open them. I didn’t figure it was Allie.”
“Yeah.” Fargo squints through the trees at Blake as she slips into her car and pulls away, driving far too fast for the wet roads. He does remember seeing something about Blake authorising the high-friction project down in Section Nine for her own personal uses, despite it being intended for heavy artillery on the Russian Steppes. The sleek Aston’s tyres could’ve got the same treatment. “It’s a crazy enough town,” he muses.
He can almost feel Donovan’s thoughtfulness. “She’s not exactly lucky when it comes to relationships,” the other man says softly, and he sounds almost pitying.
“I guess not,” Fargo answers, faintest twist of confusion in his voice, because he’s not exactly sure where that came from. “You going soft now?” he quips.
Donovan smiles, just a little. “Guess so,” he answers.
Fargo pauses, just for a moment, and thinks about Blake and relationships, and the wedding ring she never takes off. “What happened to her husband?” he asks, and it’s a tentative query because he knows it’s something that’s really none of his business.
Donovan settles back against the bench, hands deep in pockets. “You remember the New Orleans air strike, about ten years ago?” he asks.
Fargo nods. “Of course. The Russians wiped out fifty percent of the city, and destroyed an entire military barracks.” He laughs, but it’s an empty sound. “Kinda hard to miss.”
Donovan just nods. “Allie was stationed there, along with her husband and autistic son. She was called away the day before the strike.” The furrows in his forehead deepens, and he doesn’t look at Fargo. “Mike wanted to bring Kevin along - a road trip, of sorts. She persuaded him to stay behind, ‘cause she’d only be away a few days.” He shrugs, and it looks emotionless but there’s pain in the lazy movement. “They died. She lived.”
Fargo’s silent for a moment. “You knew her, back then?” he asks.
Donovan nods. “Mike, too,” he answers. “He was a good friend.”
“That can’t’ve been easy for her.”
Donovan gives him a crooked, ironic smile. “Why d’you think she took up with me?” he quips, but there’s something grieving and empty in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Fargo says, because it’s all he can think to say.
Donovan just nods, and Fargo sits back against the bench. Rain spatters against the trees above them.
Fargo feels the other man’s gaze latch onto him. “Have you spoken to Amy Baxter yet?” Donovan asks.
“Not yet,” Fargo answers, hating the abrupt shift in conversation, and thinks momentarily about Jess Riley. But the thought doesn’t make him want to throw up any more, just go and hug the porcelain, so he thinks that’s an improvement. “I don’t think she knew about Riley’s involvement.”
“So she doesn’t know why her girlfriend died.”
“Yeah. And she can’t, because that could just bring Carter and Stark back down on us again.”
Donovan picks at the hem of his coat. “That has to suck.”
Fargo huffs a soft laugh. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess it must.”
Again, there’s no sound but the patter of the rain for a moment. Fargo feels the chill rainwater winding its way down his neck, so he brusquely turns his collar up. He feels Donovan watch the sudden flurry of movement, and then slouch down against the bench. The jeans, Fargo notices, have been replaced by sharply-cut suit trousers.
The silence is comfortable, which is something Fargo hasn’t ever quite experienced before.
Abruptly, Donovan leans forward. “Look at that,” he says, incredulity in his voice, and Fargo obediently follows his rapt gaze.
Carter’s left Jo’s grave, and he’s making his way back across the muddy grass to the treeline, where the Sheriff’s dark grey Jeep is parked - and parked with Stark leaning against the bonnet. Carter falters as he hits the treeline, and Fargo mentally kicks himself for picking a bench so far away, because the rain completely deadens the sound as Stark speaks, and it’s too far away for him to properly lip-read. But the body language is clear enough, because Stark fucking well reaches out to Carter, and Carter jerks out of his reach. He’s still got the ragged slash down his cheek, after all, and Fargo knows that’s going to scar in more ways than one.
“Are they-” he begins, but Donovan shushes him.
Fargo looks back, and Stark reaches out his hand to gently cup Carter’s injured cheek-which is surprising in and of itself-but there’s something utterly out-of-character in the scientist’s body language. And after a moment, it comes to Fargo: he looks vulnerable, which is just so very messed up. Carter’s shoulders are slumped, and it’s in resignation and disbelief and quiet, accepting sorrow.
Fargo thinks about the briefest of encounters in a glass-strewn lab, and Carter’s hopelessness doesn’t seem that unrealistic.
Stark tugs Carter to him, and kisses him - and Fargo can tell from all the way across the graveyard that it’s not anything violent or territorial or claiming: it’s a kiss, nothing more, and Carter sinks into it like he’s dying.
Fargo looks away.
Donovan’s got a strange, half-hard look in his eyes. “Carter’s a killer,” he says quietly, “and Stark made him do it, pretty much. I don’t think that makes the best basis for a relationship.”
“No,” Fargo agrees, “but then at least then they’re not making the rest of us suffer as well.”
Donovan casts him a sideways glance. “That’s kinda selfish.”
Fargo smiles wearily. “Welcome to Eureka.”
§§§
Fargo walked to the funeral, because he lives five minutes away, and he's never liked driving in the wet, anyway. He doesn't ask him to, but when Fargo levers himself up from the bench and announces he's heading home, long after Stark and Carter slipped into the Jeep, the scientist's fingers lingering that fraction too long on the Sheriff's wrist, Donovan wordlessly rises as well. Fargo doesn't protest.
Darkness is already falling over the streets, and the rain's getting heavier by the time they reach Fargo's house. Standing on his front steps, Fargo glances back to Donovan - and has to smother a laugh, because the other man looks like a drowned rat. “D'you want to come in?” he asks, lips twitching.
Donovan sinks his chin further into his collar and nods pathetically.
Fargo smirks, and turns and unlocks the door.
He supplies Donovan with a beer and a towel, and goes upstairs to get changed. Really, he shouldn't be just leaving a man who he's known all of a fortnight alone in his house-especially considering Donovan's not inconsiderable IQ and capacity to hack just about any electronic device that Fargo owns-but there's something about him that just...
Fargo stops in the middle of his bedroom, and smacks himself on the side of the head. You sound like a teenage girl, he tells himself firmly. Quit it.
When he gets back downstairs, Donovan's situated himself on the sofa. His hair's spiked up all over the place from what Fargo guesses must've been a fairly vigorous head-drying, and he's gazing absently into space, beer bottle held loosely in one hand. Fargo fights the urge to smile. “Tired?” he asks, and goes to join the other man.
Donovan looks up, and flashes Fargo a smile. “I guess,” he says. “A test of some super-powerful version of mustard gas got messed up. A lot of casualties, and about a mile of paperwork.”
Fargo winces. “Fun,” he says, and joins Donovan on the sofa. “So. Wishing you hadn't transferred?” he asks, and it's a flippant question, really, but Fargo can't help but wonder.
There's a faint speculative glimmer in Donovan's eyes, and he adjusts his long-limbed sprawl so he's facing Fargo. “No,” he answers slowly, “I wouldn't say that.” And he smirks, just lightly. “I mean, it's a crazy-assed town, and the chef in the canteen keeps flirting with me, but I've got friends in high places.” The smirk grows. “So I guess I'm set.”
“Friend in high places, huh?” Fargo smirks. “Well, at least you're not on Stark's bad side yet.”
“ 'Yet'?” Donovan echoes, one eyebrow curved in an elegant arch.
Fargo shrugs. “Blake can only protect you for so long,” he points out.
Donovan laughs, and then the languidity in his gaze flickers to something else - something more intense. “And then,” he says, “there's you.”
Fargo's not going to be played that easily. “Me?” he asks.
Donovan nods thoughtfully. “You,” he repeats, and he reaches out and deposits the beer bottle on the coffee table. There's still that playful glimmer in his eyes, and Fargo thinks he knows what's going to happen - and, strangely enough, it doesn't make him want to run a mile, or ten. “So,” Donovan says, and Fargo can tell that his lips are fighting a smile, “I'm gonna try something.”
And he leans forward, and it's gradual and incremental but so very definite, and there's still that teasing sparkle in his eyes.
Fargo feels his heart rate pick up, and he licks his lips - and doesn't miss the way that Donovan's gaze darts to that movement. “Donovan,” he tries, because he feels he should at least try and put up some vague resistance, “what are you-”
Donovan's lips claim his in a tentative kiss, cutting off his feeble attempts at protest, and it just feel so very, very right. There's no tongue, just that light, almost fleeting pressure, until Fargo can't take it anymore, and slides his hand up the still-chill skin of Donovan's arm, and then, as if that's tacit endorsement of what's happening, Fargo suddenly finds himself having his mouth well and truly plundered.
With a quiet sound of ohgodplease, Fargo lets his eyes slide shut, and tangles his fingers in Donovan's hair.
When Donovan pulls back, lips wet and gaping in a laughing smile, he quips, “Call me Zane.”
finis
previous: [ “New Director of Research’s in today.”]