Ten Years
Just because there isn't nearly enough Eagle Eye fanfiction out there, and I wanted to christen this journal with something new.
Title: Ten Years
Pairing: none
Warnings: none
Summary: Ethan was the one with the rocket strapped to his back, but there's always more to the story.
Jerry hasn't said a word to him all day. It's not until 2:30 and they're on the bus home that Ethan finally screws up his courage and touches his shoulder. "Jer?"
"Thanks for the help," Jerry grumbles. His voice is accusatory, even slurred from the swollen lip. Ethan sighs.
"I had to do something. You expect me to just watch--"
Jerry cuts him off. "Yeah, I get it. Thanks." He turns pointedly away, watching the bare trees speed by outside the window. Ethan lifts a hand, hesitates, then drops it into his lap, staring. His knuckles are scraped from where he pulled Eddie Vasquez off of Jerry and slammed him into the wall outside the cafeteria before sixth period. It's the second time this week that Jerry's gotten into a fight with the big senior, even though Eddie wipes the floor with him every time.
"Why can't you just--"
"Let it go?" Jerry asks sarcastically, still staring out the window. "Be a good boy? You sound like Dad."
"Well, maybe--" Ethan begins, then bites down on he has a point.
Jerry shrugs, a stiff, angry motion, and even then, there's something between them, something broken that Ethan doesn't know how to fix.
***
"West Point?" Jerry laughs, shaking his head. He's cultivating a scruffy beard and his hair is almost long enough to pull back into a ponytail. "Why the hell do you want to go to West Point?"
"Dad's going to shave your head while you sleep, you know," Ethan says, instead of answering him. There's almost never any point in discussing these things with Jerry; they always end in arguments and Ethan's feeling good, lazy and mellow with a few shots of pilfered Jack Daniels in him. He doesn't want to fight now.
Laughing, Jerry tugs one dark ringlet down to his chin. "Chicks dig it. You should give it a try."
Ethan runs a hand through his own cropped hair. "You look like an idiot."
"Yeah, well that's nothing new." The words make Ethan wince, but Jerry's voice is mild. He flops back on the bed and stares up at his ceiling, which is plastered with odd little doodles and sketches of his friends. There's a charcoal nude right over his pillow, a pretty girl Ethan recognizes from his AP Chemistry class. He's always wondered if it was done from life, but hasn't quite got the nerve to ask. "You really think he'd shave my head?"
"Yeah."
"I'll lock my door." He glances at the door, then pulls the pint of JD out from under the covers, takes a drink, and offers it to Ethan. "So, West Point."
"You got into Stanford," Ethan says defensively. Jerry holds his hands up, grinning.
"Hey, I'm not judging."
Ethan accepts the bottle and drinks. Jerry doesn't seem disposed to discuss it further, and he's grateful for that.
***
From: Jerry Shaw
Sent: September 10, 2003
To: Ethan Shaw
RE: Hey.
How's it going? Shit's weird here without you around.
Organic Chemistry's kicking my ass. I think I'm going to switch my major. Don't tell dad.
Hope you're doing lots of push-ups.
~Jerry.
***
From: Ethan Shaw
Sent: April 7, 2004
To: Jerry Shaw
RE: Just heard about the breakup
J-
Sorry about Angela. Sometimes things just don't work out.
I guess you know that. But still. It's my duty to say that in a completely ineffectual attempt to make you feel better.
Dad has some idea about building an addition on the garage this summer, just so you know. I think he's planning on recruiting you on Spring Break. Have you talked to him lately?
Keep your shit together.
-E.
***
From: Jerry Shaw
Sent: October 23, 2005
To: Ethan Shaw
RE: Okay, you can't be that busy.
Seriously man, what the fuck. Haven't heard from you in like three weeks. Did you get my call?
Anyway, I'm not coming home for thanksgiving. Got stuff going on here. I haven't told dad and mom yet, thought I'd give you time to prepare for the shitstorm.
See ya
Jerry.
***
Ethan closes his email and pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. He's tempted to write back and try talking Jerry into coming home, but it won't work and he doesn't quite have the heart to try. Considering how Thanksgiving has gone for the past few years, maybe it's just as well.
Dad's going to freak. Mom won't though, and he'd take comfort in that if it weren't because she's already given up on Jerry.
"He's just so--difficult," he can already hear her saying to the neighbors, and then it's only a matter of time before Ethan's name comes up, the inevitable comparison, while they all nod and cluck and "oh well at least you have one who's making something of himself" and if Jerry's around he's either locked himself in his room by that point or he's gone, off with whatever friends he has left at home.
It's like none of them even see him at all.
***
From: Ethan Shaw
Sent: May 13, 2006
To: Jerry Shaw
RE: You're fucking kidding.
J-
You have one year left and you're quitting?
I know you're not talking to me. I haven't heard from you since Christmas. I don't know what your problem is, but--
Okay. I do know what this is about, but seriously. Is it really worth it? You could do anything with a degree from Stanford.
I don't care though. I just want to make sure you're okay.
I miss you man.
-E.
***
Ethan looks at the letter and winces. It's going to rub Jerry in all the wrong ways and he knows it, but it's been about an hour in the composing and he can't seem to make it any better.
Jerry hasn't told anyone else that he's leaving school, and Ethan's got a sneaking suspicion that he isn't going to come home for the summer.
He's right.
When he gets a collect call from Japan a month later, he takes it even though it's three in the morning. Jerry's drunk and irritable and they can't seem to say two sentences to each other without snapping, but it's good to hear from him all the same.
Jerry hangs up on him when he offers to send money, but he does it anyway.
***
It's a postcard next, in late August. It's sent to West Point instead of their parents' house, and Ethan's pretty sure they haven't even talked to Jerry in months. He doesn't say anything to them, although Jerry doesn't ask him to keep it quiet. Knowing Jerry, it's completely possible that he's trying to start drama.
The postcard's of a pretty Chinese stripper with tassels on her nipples. On the back are three sentences about the Great Wall scrawled in Jerry's nearly illegible handwriting.
Ethan writes a five-page letter about his new girlfriend (sweet, but sort of boring), the job offers he's gotten (fascinating, although he doubts Jerry will think so), the weather (sunny). He doesn't mention Stanford or their parents, but he isn't surprised that Jerry doesn't write back.
***
"Coming home for Christmas?"
It's tradition by this point. This is the third Christmas that Jerry's been gone, and Ethan knows he's not coming back. It's always so awkward, like an empty hole at the table where he's supposed to be even though nobody mentions him. Nobody else seems to notice the way banter falls flat. Nobody else seems to miss the demented elves that Jerry used to doodle on the backs of holiday napkins and then stick all over the tree before anybody woke up.
"Nah," Jerry says. His voice is tired and rough, and he has a smoker's cough.
Ethan slumps in his computer chair, staring at the photo over his desk. Three years, it's been. They're twenty-one in the picture, Jerry slouched against the wall in a trenchcoat and scruff, the perfect counterpoint to Ethan's stiff-backed military posture. It's always been like that with the two of them. Jerry is night to his day, easy-going where he's driven, always the one to bear the brunt of their father's temper, their mother's disappointment. He was always the one who jollied Ethan out of dark moods and dragged him out to parties on Sunday nights when he had homework to do. Now he's gone and Ethan feels like a triangle with one leg missing, leaning, leaning with nothing to hold him up.
Jerry sighs at the long silence. "Look, I'm sorry man. I just can't--"
"--deal with it, I know."
Another long silence. When Jerry speaks again, his voice is low. "I was gonna say that I can't afford it. New job doesn't pay too well. I'm in Alaska," he adds, offhanded. Last time they talked he was in Singapore, but that was four months ago.
It's been so long since he's had to really worry about money that he almost can't remember what it's like. Jerry's been living on card games and charm since he quit school, though, and they almost never talk about it. These phone calls are rare enough as it is, and there's an upspoken list of things they don't say. Still. That was almost an opening. "If you want I could--"
"Forget about it," Jerry says. His voice is final. "Tell me about your job."
And Ethan sighs, and goes back to his carefully fabricated work stories even though he knows that Jerry doesn't give a damn and probably wouldn't even if he knew what Ethan really does for a living.
When he runs out of amusing anecdotes, Jerry picks up the slack, talking about his latest girlfriend and his Polish landlady, who feeds him and doesn't hassle him too much about the rent. "I swear, she's adopted me or something," he says, and Ethan thinks that someone needs to.
"I have some leave time coming up," he says when Jerry runs out of things to say. "This spring. Maybe we could--I don't know. Go fishing or something."
"Yeah," Jerry says, and he knows it's not going to happen. "Yeah, that'd be great."
***
"Man, I cannot wait to get out of here." Major Bowman is entering data as he speaks, long fingers quick and competent at the keyboard. He glances over at Ethan and flashes an infectious grin. "Course, by tomorrow night, I'll be glad to be back. My sister's coming up from Maryland with her kids and I swear, after one night trapped in a house with those monsters, this is gonna look like a vacation."
Ethan nods vaguely. He's sorting through the logs while A.R.I.A. hums softly behind the wall of windows, but it's a quiet night and he isn't really expecting to find anything.
"You got family?" Bowman asks suddenly, and Ethan looks up, startled. He doesn't usually volunteer anything about his life to the other men and for the most part, they don't ask.
"My parents," he says after a pause. "And a brother."
"Younger? Older?" Bowman grins. "Younger, I bet. You got that big brother look written all over you."
Ethan smiles a little, ducks his head. "Twin, actually. Identical."
"Yeah? What's he like?"
"Funny," Ethan says after a long pause. "He likes to draw--pretty good at it, too. He was going to get a degree in engineering from Stanford, but he dropped out after his junior year."
"Huh." Bowman spins his chair around, face mildly inquisitive. "Too much work?"
"He had a four-oh," Ethan says, defensive for no reason he can think of.
"So not much like you at all," Bowman says, smiling, inviting him to share the joke. Ethan gives him a weak grin and goes back to his logs, because it should be funny but it's a little too true.
***
His hands are shaking and blood roars in his ears. It takes him two fumbling tries to get the memory card out of his phone and tuck it under the tag on the fire extinguisher, back here where A.R.I.A. can't see him. He can feel her on the other side of the elevator shaft, a malevolent presence. That makes him want to laugh, a little hysterical. It always used to get on his nerves when the others talked about A.R.I.A. like she was a person, and here he is, doing exactly that.
It's a long shot. She'll read the code, he knows. A human operator might overlook a flashing cell phone, but not A.R.I.A. She never overlooks anything. Never.
Still, he has to try something. If he can get out of here alive, he'll go to his superiors, but he's pretty sure he's not going to be that lucky.
***
He makes it to his car unscathed and sits there for a long time, staring at his hands. She's going to kill him. The thought is almost devoid of fear, no longer possibility but fact. The voice encryption lock will hold her for a little while, but it's too limited. There's still too much she can do.
If he were one of the other Minutemen, this might work, but A.R.I.A. has an ace in the hole, because Ethan has a twin. An identical twin. Something they should have thought of much earlier. She won't bother trying to reason with him. She has his file, and Ethan knows that she can read between the lines as well as he can. Brilliant, driven, disciplined; a stubborn loner. Hard to manipulate. Whereas Jerry--
Talented, frustrating, funny, short-tempered Jerry. It's always been easy to push his buttons.
Ethan pulls his keys out, hesitates, starts the car. If he stays here, she'll find a way to kill him. If he goes anywhere, she'll find a way to kill him.
He almost smiles. Might as well make a try for it.
***
It's over too quickly for him to close his eyes.
Maybe the truck's still bearing down on him or maybe it's already hit, because he can't see and all he can hear is the roaring in his ears. His body seems distant, not quite attached.
Images, almost too fast to process.
A baseball arcing across a blue shy. A small, dark-haired boy. Jerry, held at gunpoint by a beautiful woman, talking, intense and sad. A paper airplane covered in doodles, like they used to throw at each other in class.
And then, light.
And then, nothing.