LFN: Five Ways Flora Leung could Have Died but Didn't (And One Way She Did)
Title: Five Ways Flora Leung Could Have Died but Didn't (And One Way She Did)
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Character(s): Michael, OC, Madeline, Elena, Adam
Prompt: fanfic100 30 - Death
Length: 6,140 words
Rating: PG - PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Summary: Some fates cannot be changed.
Notes: this is, as you've guessed, an ff100 story as well as an AU to the One Line series (well except for one of them). you can find the prompt table here.
Notes2: As usual with these kinds of things, the titles have little to do with each other, though for once they relate to the stories. In order of appearance, the titles are from "Safe and Sound" by Sheryl Crow, "Bye Bye Brianna" by Nicole C. Mullins, "Do You Like the Way" by Santana ft. Lauren Hill and Cee-lo, "We Declare War" by Kurt Carr & The Kurt Carr Singers, "Apres Moi" by Regina Spektor, and number 6's title is a link.
§§§
1. Until You're Safe and Sound
“Flora?”
“Yes, cutie?”
“I'm getting cold.”
“Oh…I know you are, sweetheart. It's cold out here.”
“I can see my breath.”
“You bet you can.”
“It's always cold when you can see your breath.”
“Mmhmm.”
“And sometimes even when you can't.”
“That's right. Can you tell me why sometimes it's cold outside even when you can't see your breath.”
“…Um…”
“Just think about it for a minute.”
“Flora?”
“Got an answer for me, cutie?”
“I'm slipping.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. Here lemme…”
“Flora, are you okay?”
“I'm…fine. I'm fine. I just caught your leg on something when I got you higher on my hip. Are all okay now, sweetheart?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Did you think of an answer to my question?”
“About how it can be cold outside even when you can't see your breath?”
“Exactly, cutie pertuttie.”
“Flora, you're silly.”
“And you still haven't answered my question, sir. Or do you give up.”
“Nuh uh!”
“Okay then, whatcha got for me?”
“Sometimes it's cold because…because…because the sun's not out?”
“Mmhmm. That's one reason. Got anything else? How about when winter turns into spring and even a little bit of a higher temperature feels warm, but when it's the other way around-”
“Like when summer goes into fall?”
“Exactly! So when summer goes into fall that same temperature in a different season feels cold, y'know?”
“No.”
“Oh, cutie.”
§§§
“Flora?”
“Yes, cutie?”
“Are we there yet?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but I don’t think so. Are you okay?”
“I’m still kinda cold.”
“That’s okay. Tell me if you stop feeling cold, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Flora, I’m slipping.”
“That better?”
“My leg feels wet.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s okay. Just press your leg into my side.”
“Like tha- Did I hurt you? I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me, sweetheart.”
“But-”
“Just keep pressing, cutie. I swear it’s okay.
“…Okay.”
“You sound sleepy.”
“I’m a little tired.”
“Can you tell me how cold you are? Where you’re cold?”
“My hands are cold.”
“And your feet?”
“Uh huh. And my nose and my cheeks.”
“But not your insides? Not your chest or your tummy? Your head doesn’t hurt?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Then it’s okay for you to go to take a nap. But not too long, okay?”
“Okay, Flor. Are you gonna take a nap, too?”
“Oh, no, sweetheart. I can’t go to sleep. Someone has to watch where we’re going.”
§§§
“Flora… Flora…”
“Hmm?”
“You said to wake you up if you started to get sleepy.”
“Yes I did. Thank you very much.”
“I did a good job?”
“You did a very good job, cutie.”
§§§
“Flora… Flora…
“Flora…”
“Huh?”
“Flora!”
“What?”
“You were falling asleep again.”
“I’m sorry, cutie.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“We were falling down.”
“I’m sorry I scared you, cutie.”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“That’s okay.”
“…If you want to call again, you can. Get the phone out of my inside pocket.”
“Yeah!... … … …It’s still not picking up.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart. Try again. At least we know it’s ringing.”
“Do you…”
“He’ll pick up. I promise he’ll find us.”
§§§
“Flo-”
“I’m awake, I’m awake. I’m sorry. I…”
“Don’t cry, Flora.”
“I’m not crying, sweetheart.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not. I’m too cold to cry. Ha, made you laugh.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did-”
“Adam.”
Flora stumbled, clutching the boy to her chest. Her chest hurt where her heart crashed against it. She could feel the pressure of Adam’s hand pulling at her hair, but she couldn’t feel the pain of it. Pain at all would have been a huge relief. Mr. Samuelle’s voice was doing okay as an alternative.
“Flora. Why are you here? How did you-”
“Daddy?”
Adam twisted and squirmed in her arms, but he was zipped into her down coat. She whimpered.
Mr. Samuelle was there, undoing the zip, getting Adam out. It was cold without him there. It was the first time she had been cold for a while. It made her breath hitch. That hurt.
“Adam.”
Was it snowing?
She didn’t know. Her vision was filled with Adam’s black hair. A world of black.
§§§
She was dreaming. In her dream it was white and bright and hurt; and someone was saying to turn down the light but it wasn’t Mr. Samuelle; then Mr. Samuelle was there and maybe he had been the one to turn the lights down because dreams were weird like that and who else would care. And how had she gotten inside?
A dream.
Lower lights, and cold - burning cold. Were dreams supposed to hurt? Sometimes. In nightmares. Sometimes they hurt.
She dreamed Mr. Samuelle was talking to her but she couldn’t see him properly, just hear him asking her how she had found him and why she was there and why Adam was covered in her blood. Then the dream changed and it was a doctor telling Mr. Samuelle that she had been up enough already, let her rest, but she kept talking. Kept telling him about the people who had run Mrs. Samuelle’s car off the road. How Mrs. Samuelle had been thrown and she had been thrown and Adam had been thrown but she and Adam had been thrown together; and when the guys who had run them off the road, that had flipped the car over and over, when they came and shot Elena to make sure, then they came and shot her to make sure, how they had pushed her over on Adam and shot her in the stomach but left before they could make sure.
But she didn’t think anyone heard her. Not even in her dreams.
§§§
She was dreaming. Of cold like fire. Of the neat hole in Mrs. Samuelle’s head that she would not let Adam see. Of walking, following a signal on a PDA Adam had found and then left at her house a week ago. A year ago. Yesterday.
She dreamt of Adam’s dark hair, his round eyes, his bright voice. His dark hair.
She dreamed of black.
§§§
2. Bye Bye Brianna
“Michael.”
He stopped and turned, two steps down the landing. “Yes, Madeline?” Operations continued down from the Perch without missing a step. So that was the look that had passed between them.
“A moment?”
Inclining his head, he waited for her. Operation’s steel gray head disappeared around the corner and down to the next level as Michael and Madeline made the landing. They took the hall and the next landings in silence, passing a trio of whispering pages on the stairs. One turned back for Madeline and handed her one of several active panels in her hand.
“Thank you, Sylvie.”
Madeline read the panel as they entered her office from the top level and walked down the stairs. Standing in front of her desk, left hand grasping his right wrist, he mentally shifted gears as she settled herself. She sat down with a cup of coffee and a croissant and the panel. “Here,” and she handed him a newspaper. “Please, help yourself to something then take a seat.”
Michael declined the food but did sit down. He read the article - what there was of it on the first page - a second time.
“Did you know? Did you have any idea?”
He looked up at her. She had set down the panel and was holding the white mug in both hands, blowing on the steam lightly.
“No.”
She nodded slowly to herself. “Hmm.” Madeline inhaled the steam and blew out softly from her mouth. “That was in this morning’s paper. You’re going to have to talk to the authorities. There’s no getting around it. I expect Elena will call you at some point today if she hasn’t already left a message for you.”
Michael blinked.
“Do you think she had any idea what was going on? Elena did have more contact with her.”
Michael thought about it. Had Elena noticed anything? “I don’t believe so.”
“Hmm.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, neither companionable nor tense, though Michael felt the charge in it. He thought he understood it. He should have noticed what was going on. But, quite frankly, if it did not concern Elena, Adam or Salla Vacek, he didn’t particularly care what went on in their neighborhood. He knew about the schools, he knew about the parks, he knew something about each of the neighbors. Apparently not enough.
“You will go home tonight,” Madeline said as if that hadn’t been part of the schedule, and suddenly Michael couldn’t remember whether it had or had not been. “And you will of course cooperate with any investigations within your reasonable ability to do so.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if you will find this helpful…” She handed him the panel that Sylvie had given to her. “…but you never know.”
“I should take the newspaper then?”
“Yes.”
Yes they had negotiated his dismissal. Michael stood.
“Michael…”
He stopped.
“I am…available if you find it problematic discussing what has happened with Adam.”
He inclined his head.
§§§
“Michael!”
He was ready for the emotional outburst but not the way Elena launched herself at him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said into his neck. “I’m so glad you came home tonight.” She pulled away and her face was wet with tears. He could feel them cool on his collar. “Have you heard what happened to-”
He cut her off with a nod and was surprised at the tightness in his throat that kept him from responding verbally. He had thought it would be an unwillingness to sound cold and disinterested. “Yes.” He hadn’t planned to speak.
“How could I not- Michael, I feel as if I failed her. As if this terrible thing had somehow happened to Adam and I just…just…just closed my eyes to what was right there all along. Right there in front of my eyes.” The way she wouldn’t touch him
“Where is Adam?”
“Upstairs. We’re lucky she wasn’t to come by today aren’t we?”
He nodded. Adam wouldn’t ask after her until tomorrow when he ran to the couch by the big picture window to wave at his friend. But she wouldn’t be there. And then… And then.
“It’s been so hard trying to act as if everything’s normal. I haven’t wanted to take him out for all the reporters and police outside. I didn’t want to involve him or have to answer any questions too soon and…” Elena fisted her hands in Michael’s lapels and pulled herself into his chest as if she would wrap him bodily around her. “How could I not have seen? Why didn’t I know?” She was sobbing into his coat.
Elena had knocked his briefcase out of his hands so he had no trouble wrapping his arms around her, running his hands through her hair and down her back. He couldn’t tell her that if he who was trained to notice incongruous detail hadn’t seen the signs then it was unlikely that she would have, so he said murmured comforting platitudes and slowly walked her toward the living room and a couch.
On the coffee table he saw a local paper similar to the one Madeline had given him. It had been turned thoroughly inside out so that one of it’s lead stories - Local Girl Commits Suicide. Abuse Suspected - was hidden by economics, terrorists and comic strips.
§§§
3. And The Walls of Jericho Come A’Tumblin’ Down. Selah.
Flora turned at the voice.
“Great view, huh?”
Nodding enthusiastically, Flora agreed with the woman who had spoken. It was early and she was carrying a tray of coffee from one of the flotilla of coffee carts downstairs. She offered one to Flora.
Who shook her head. “That’s okay. I’m still on French time. It’s, uh…”
“About noon for you?”
“Two-ish I think. We’re six hours off from you.”
“How do you like living in France?”
Flora found herself following the woman around as she delivered her coffee to the skeleton crew manning the office. Her stepfather’s company had opened it only days before. He hadn’t had to go but he had vacation coming up and it had been a long time since they’d been back in the States… They had decided finally, somewhat giddily, that Henry would take the assignment and then they would see Jun’s parents in California and play at being tourists while they were there. Their two-and-a-half week trip would begin tomorrow.
“Having fun?”
Flora and the young woman were near her stepfather’s office. Jun Carrington was reading the hardcover she’d brought over from France. Flora had frowned a bit when she realized that it was written in English, not French - thinking to herself that neither her mother nor Mrs. Samuelle were ever going to learn the language if they kept at it the way they were.
But she was all smiles now. “Mmmhmm. The view is a-mazing.”
Jun caught her daughter around the waist and pulled her in for a brief hug and kiss. “Your dad and I should have brought you here when you were little.”
Shrugging, Flora said, “I wouldn’t have remembered anyway.”
“Still.”
She shrugged again.
“Well don’t bother anyone, Flor. They have work to do.”
“Oh she’s no bother, Mrs. Carrington,” the young woman she was walking with said. “I’ve got a little sister about her age that I wish I could tolerate half as well. Spoilt brat.”
They left to laughter.
Her stepfather was busy in another part office so they left his coffee on the desk he had been given for the three days they were in town.
“That was fun,” Flora said as they ended up where they had begun, at the bank of windows overlooking New York City framed by a perfect blue sky. Outside it was a truly beautiful day, even at the hour they had been out. The plan was to finish with the office early, go have breakfast and begin their holiday a half day early.
“I meant it when I said you’re a lot easier to deal with than my little sister. We have another older brother and she’s the baby… My parents act like she’s the sun, moon and stars. If I didn’t already live on my own I would have to move out.”
Flora giggled. “I don’t know. I think I’d like to have a little brother or sister.”
“Trust me, kid. You’ve got it good now.”
Chuckling again, something caught Flora’s eye. She turned to the window. “What’s that?” she asked though it was an obvious question.
Still the young woman with her answered her with an equal measure of confusion. “It looks like an airplane.”
“But isn’t it flying too low?”
§§§
4. The Violent Taketh By Force
Adam placed a light hand on his father’s arm and knew he had the man’s complete attention though his eyes continued to roam, seemingly aimlessly, through the crowd.
“Yes?”
“Nine o’clock. Short, inappropriate dress, all-black hair…Does she look familiar?”
Michael wanted to tell his son that he had only described half the women in Taipei when his eyes stopped on her. He understood why Adam thought that his description was clear enough.
“Why do you think she looks familiar?” he asked softly.
“Because she does?”
Michael ignored his son’s impatience and focused on the woman standing nearly still on a corner constantly ebbing and flowing with the tide of pedestrians crossing the street. And though she was not dressed inappropriately as Adam had said, there was something about her that did not belong to that ever-moving crowd. If they had been in a different city, Michael might have said that she was a prostitute, but Tai-
“Flor!”
And then of course he saw it. She was older, had lost the fat that softened her features, and looked more like the pictures he had of her father than she had when they were neighbors. The height thrown him. They had still been neighbors when she’d reached her full height, and even from a street away it was clear she was standing several inches above that.
“Flor!”
“Adam! No!” It had been a long time since Michael had heard that insistent tone in his son’s voice, but at fifteen he hadn’t thought they’d be in a situation where the boy was likely to run out into the street after his old babysitter either.
“Adam!”
But the boy had dashed out into the congested street. Possibly the only thing that saved him was the congestion.
Flora Leung turned at his voice.
Her shock, Michael saw, was greater than theirs had been. Of course there was the small matter of his being dead. It was likely that she had gone to his funeral. So it wasn’t surprising when she turned in Michael’s direction, stepping off the curb.
The force of Adam’s hug forced both of them out of the way of what would have been an inopportune pedicab. The young woman looked down. “Adam?” And then up. “Mr. Samuelle?”
This close to her, he could more clearly see what Adam had meant when he’d called her dress “inappropriate.” The makeup was overdone up close. Michael didn’t know if the fault was over-application, or done deliberately. And there were any number of reasons why it might have been done deliberately - several of them innocent.
The shock makes it easy for him to maneuver Flora away from the curb, Adam trailing after her as if attached to a string.
“You’re short.”
The smile that blossomed on her face momentarily erased her shock. “And you’re kinda rude,” she said, brushing Adam’s long hair out of his face. “But still my cutie.”
The boy blushed to his roots.
“Flora-”
All of his son’s good work was undone by the sound of Michael’s voice. She turned wide, shocky eyes on him. He supposed she had gone to his funeral. Unlike Adam she had been fifteen years old at the time. She would have remembered it well.
Michael found himself wanting to touch her, wanting to push the hair out of her face, much as she had done with Adam.
“You’re not dead.”
“What are you doing in Taipei?” Adam asked for them both. In their way, they had become a good team.
She turned her attention to the boy. “My grandfather. My father’s father. I’m looking for him. I was hoping…I was hoping to reconnect with that side of my family.”
“You said you’d leave me instantly if your dad ever showed up,” he accused.
Flora smiled, her eyes disappearing. “Oui, mon chou. I did. But that was because I already knew that he was dead. I can’t believe you remember that.” She went to tousle his hair, but he smoothly blocked the move with his hand - masking the maneuver by taking her hand in his and smiling down on her.
Yes…a sort of team. Adam had been an eager student.
“Adam has an amazing memory,” Michael said, switching to French. “So you’re sure your father’s dead?”
Flora nodded. “He died years ago. When I was a little girl,” she replied, also in French.
“Have you had any luck contacting your grandfather? Or any of your other relatives?”
She shook her head, squeezing Adam’s hand. The boy responded by stepping into her personal space, as if he were four years old again and he could shelter under the comforting weight of her arm. It occurred to Michael then that perhaps Adam hadn’t been deflecting her hand from her hair. Perhaps the boy had simply wanted to hold, to touch, a piece of a childhood so wholly lost.
I’m sorry Adam.
Michael had, thus far, managed to keep much the less palatable side of their existence from Adam…
“You’re not dead,” Flora said again, as if having the son at her side gave her the strength to face the father.
“No.”
“What-”
Adam cut her off. “It’s a long story.”
“Okay.”
…but not all of it. He could see the lines of fear around Adam’s eyes, in the way that he huddled even closer to Flora. Their eyes met over her dark, dark hair. Michael wondered whether this would be one of those things they talked about in roundabout ways on crowded streets, or if it would be one of those things that crowded them in the enclosed silence of their car.
Flora turned suddenly, wrapping her arms around Adam’s middle. “It was so good to see you. Even if I don’t find anyone, this trip hasn’t been a waste at all.” She was still speaking French. For their benefit.
Adam closed his eyes and seemed to breath her in as he ruthlessly returned the hug. She was smiling at him when he finally let her go.
Michael found it strangely comforting that she was just as timid about shaking his hand now, so many years later, as she had been that first night when he-
“Let us walk you back to your hotel,” he said.
“Oh…you don’t have to do that. I’m not terribly far away, actually, though I am a little turned around.”
That explained it.
“It’s no problem. Let us walk with you. It’s been a long time.”
“All right. If you don’t mind?” She looked to Adam and he shook his head. “Okay, then.” She rattled off the address and Michael confirmed that she was, indeed, turned around. Slipping her hand through Adam’s arm, she said, “Do you remember The International Friendship song?”
“No,” he said softly, shaking his head.
“Hmm.”
“I’m sorry.”
§§§
5. I, Oh, Must Go On Standing
Michael held up his hand. The intel from Asia had come too late to stop the device that had gone off, but the gas carrying the genetically manipulated virus had not yet dissipated. And if their intel was sound, the air-borne virus would remain viable and transferable, if dormant, for several days without the counteragent. They needed to practice caution or become carriers themselves.
This was not a rescue. It was containment.
“Status?”
“Teams One and Two have the external vents,” Birkoff replied. Michael could hear typing in the background before he continued: “And we have shut down the internal ventilation system.
What had saved them, in a sense, was that the office building was outside city limits, set back from the road on a estate-worthy property. Michael noted the tasteful landscaping of the grounds and recalled that part of the company’s selling point to future employees was it’s non-urban atmosphere. The company contracted with several local restaurants and specialty shops to provide workers with scaled down versions on-site, sharing space with a fitness center and a nursery. Visitors came to visit the extensive gardens and various art collections on permanent and temporary display.
Striking a little before noon, the party trying to “market” their new man-made virus, which they had named Ophelia, had chosen an optimum time. The building was filled with workers and their children, visitors, tourists and contractors. The scope of the devastation would rock much of Southern Asia once the incident reached the media. Which was, ostensibly, the point.
“Entrances secure?”
“Ye-ah…”
Michael’s lashes lowered. “What is the problem?”
“About one and half-sides of the building have all glass fronts, up to the second story. It’s heavy duty stuff, but if someone really wanted to and had something really heavy on hand they could break through.”
“Something heavy?”
“Like a really big sculpture or a piece of office furniture…”
Michael nodded to himself. “When Teams One and Two return have them take up position on higher ground.”
“Yes, Michael.”
He turned to the four men with him. “Birkoff.”
“Ye-”
“Have Team Two join my position.”
“ ‘Kay. Gotcha.”
He looked at each of the men he had with him in turn. They had known at the outset that this was a possibility, though Michael hadn’t much wanted to contemplate it as they retrieved arms from the weapon’s locker. Or on the plane. Or in the van.
“If anything gets through the windows-” You have to disengage, Michael, he heard Jurgen say. What you are looking at is not a person, it is a thing. Dehumanizing your target, your subject, will get you through another day. He’s not thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about you. Particularly at the moment. “-shoot it. Understand.”
Sharp nods all around. He trusted them to follow through. “Birkoff, relay the orders to the other teams.”
“Already did.”
He’d worry about having to deal with Nikita later.
They approached the building. As Birkoff had said, and as the sim had shown, the entire front of the building, up to the second floor, was fronted in heavy glass that went partially around on either side. At only five until Team Two could join them, they were spread a little thin, but anyone trying to get through the glass would already be more than half-dead from the Ophelia virus: The virus collapsed blood vessels, thinned artery walls and sent the white blood cells after the already weakened organs. Symptoms included sudden unexplainable heart palpitations, an equally sudden drop in blood pressure, coughing up blood, blood flowing from the ears and eyes as the arteries serving the brain broke down and the blood sought release from any visible orifice, and open sores appearing along the skin. If the victim hadn’t collapse or passed out already, a sheen of blood would begin to cover their skin as the last stage of the attack on the blood took place. The sores they had yet to explain, while the attack on the organs seemed to happen almost posthumously. The internal organs of the one salvageable victim they had found nearly destroyed by the rupturing of the blood vessels within were further ravaged by the body’s white blood cells as Section doctors had watched and taken notes. Michael had no doubt that anyone still alive after being exposed to Ophelia would find being shot a mercy.
Moving in behind the rest of his team, he saw Tora and Johns of Team Two moving in ahead of him to take up position near the front where they needed the most coverage. The glass was filled with dead and dying.
The sound of breaking glass shattered the unnatural stillness of the afternoon. A shot rang out, but behind him. Michael glanced up. Someone had tried to get through an upstairs window. And Team One was in position.
He saw her when he brought his attention back down. There was no explanation for why he had missed her the first time, other than she was one of many who was pressed almost intimately against the glass. Truthfully, it the movement of her hand against the glass, spreading a red smear, that had caught his attention.
Michael almost lowered his weapon as he continued forward before he remembered himself. Even in the still of the afternoon, with nothing but the hum of electricity and the sound of Birkoff’s quiet murmurings in his ear, Michael couldn’t hear what the young woman who had once babysat his son was saying. There was an urge, like a string tied to his navel, to kneel down by the glass and press his ear to it so he could hear her.
“Mr. Samuelle…” was easy enough to read on her lips, however. The rest of it was lost to missing teeth and partially crushed jaw
Michael was positive that autopsy reports would show that Flora Leung’s cause of death was due to being crushed, not exposure to an unknown, man-made virus.
Her hand jerked against the glass again. The blood had run down her ears in a macabre parody of sideburns and red spittle was flecked on the glass. The cut over her eye, however, had nothing to do with the virus. Nor did it have anything to do with the awkward angle of her right arm or the goose-egg forming above the cut.
“…my mom.”
It was almost startling to realize that the head of short black hair on the oddly twisted long neck belonged to Mrs. Carrington, Flora’s mother. As if Flora had only begun to live the night he had surprised her babysitting his son.
Shooting her would have been a mercy, but one that he could not have adequately explained. This was not a rescue mission. It was containment.
§§§
6. Psalms 139:13
It was Adam that saved her life, even if she didn’t know it. He was reaching for his gun when the boy shot out around her legs, shouting “Daddy!” forcing him to abandon the motion as he dropped his briefcase.
Michael scooped up his son but didn’t swing him around the way Adam probably wanted him to. “Who’s that?” Michael murmured in Adam’s ear, keeping his eyes on the short-haired Asian woman still standing quietly no more than five feet away.
“That’s Jun,” he answered, scrunching up his nose.
“Ah, and why is Jun here?”
“I babysit. Sometimes,” Jun said smiling softly.
American, Michael said, beginning to codify her. He let his bag slide off his shoulder and shifted Adam to his left side, freeing his gun hand. He extended it to Jun.
He saw her take it, but her hand felt like a shadow.
“We haven’t met, have we?”
Shook her head, no.
“Daddy, Jun speaks French too!”
“Does she?”
“Uh huh.”
“We talk French with Mommy so she will learn.”
“Is it working?”
Adam turned to Jun and made a face. “I don’t think so.”
Smilingly, she agreed. “I’m sorry to say it’s true. Elena doesn’t seem very motivated.” She seemed reluctant to say it.
“Yet you do?”
“Mommy asked.”
Michael placed a gentle finger over Adam’s lips. “Don’t interrupt grown-ups.” He kissed the boy’s head.
“Jun interrupted,” he protested.
“Jun’s a grown up.”
Adam pouted. “That’s not fair.”
Michael kissed him again. “I know.” He turned back to Jun. “I’m sorry, he’s-”
“He’s fine. I should go,” she said, attempting to push hair behind her ear in a way that made him think that it had only recently been cut. She took a step backward. “Now that you’re home I- ”
“Do you know why Elena’s gone?”
Jun stopped short. “Oh. Um, she spoke to Henry, my husband, actually. I believe she said there was an emergency at the University? Something about someone either locked in or locked out and the University copy of the key is missing, the professor is out of town all month on a lecture tour and…”
A smile made Michael reposition her age as being closer to Elena’s than he had first presumed.
“…and I don’t know whomever else might have a copy of the key, but they’re not available either so Elena was it. Depending on whether the person was locked in or locked out, she shouldn’t be more than another half hour,” Jun reassured him.
Michael nodded.
She turned on her heel to leave.
“Daddy…it’s dark outside and Jun is three blocks away.”
“We should walk her home.”
Adam nodded.
Michael set the boy down. “Go get your coat.” Laughter trailed after him like soap bubbles.
§§§
“Thank you. For walking me.”
“It was my idea,” Adam, holding both adult’s hands, said.
Love and longing were naked on her face when she smiled down at him. Michael fought not to pull Adam to himself.
“And I appreciate it very much.”
“What does ‘piece-he-ate’ mean?”
They laughed.
“What?”
“I’ll explain when we get home,” Michael promised.
“Okay.”
“So…you said you and your husband moved to the neighborhood only recently, Jun?”
She nodded. “I believe Elena said you were away…on business?”
Yes that was what Elena would have told her.
“I met Elena at the University. When she found out that I was a near neighbor, she was kind enough to take me around and introduce me and my husband to the neighborhood.”
Which had likely taken all of those “few months.” But Michael was around so little that bringing up the new neighbor and friend would have paled in comparison to spending time with her husband.
“May I ask where from?”
“The States as you might have imagined. Though my husband’s English. Poor Henry, he’s beginning to think he’ll never see England again,” she said with a small smile.
“Business?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Then you learned French at University?”
“From my husband. My first husband.”
“Divorced?”
Jun’s pained expression told Michael that he should have regretted the question as soon as he said it, and so he did the appropriate backpedaling.
“No, no. It’s all right,” she said, though it clearly wasn’t. “It was just a…bad divorce. Bad circumstances,” she added.
Michael nodded sympathetically, letting Adam fill the silence with chatter about his day. Jun upheld the adult half of the conversation.
“This is me. Us.” Jun dropped down to one knee and gave Adam a light hug. She chucked his chin and he chucked hers back. The longing on her face was plain. To plain. Red flags were up, demanding action, but he had to stand still.
“It was nice meeting you, Michael.”
Her hand was no less ephemeral the second time around. “And you, Jun.” She was starting up the walk when he called her name. “I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Oh. Carrington.”
“Jun Carrington,” he repeated. He smiled and waved then wheeled Adam around toward home.
They were sitting in the living room playing dinosaurs and astronauts when Michael heard Elena’s car pull into the drive. Mischief gleaming in his eyes, he said, “Let’s surprise Mommy.”
An answering light shone in Adam’s eyes. “Yeah.”
§§§
It was about three in the morning and Elena was fast asleep, lying diagonally across the bed, tangled in the bed sheets. She’d nearly given him a bruise for the surprise he’d given her, but Michael had made it up to her after she had had put Adam down for the night. Facing the bed, he couldn’t see her for the glare of his laptop, but it kept the light from disturbing her rest.
Despite the late hour, Brikoff had been able to provide him with a profile of Jun Carrington.
He had been right to amend her age. She was older by Elena by only two years, despite the care on her face. Cares placed there, no doubt, by her the activities of her former husband. Peter Leung had told her that he was a French Canadian and Chinese. The son of a corrupt Chinese businessman, Leung had been running from his father’s life when he had met Jun. Six years later that life had come back to haunt his burgeoning family when Leung’s father had his daughter-in-law kidnapped to force his son’s return to the fold.
According to the medical reports Birkoff had included, it was stress on an already tenuous pregnancy that caused Jun’s miscarriage, not any delay on the part of the elder Leung’s people to get Jun to a hospital when she began to hemorrhage.
According to the copies of the legal documents Michael requested, “irreconcilable differences” were the cause of their divorce.
Bad circumstances indeed.
Jun Leung remarried nearly four years later. Her new husband’s job had relocated them to France two months after Michael had been relocated from England by Section.
According to the most recent intel, Peter Leung was now going under the name Peter Yuen and had moved his base of operations to Taiwan.
Michael closed his laptop and let it sit warm on his thighs as his eyes adjusted.
He thought about the need in Jun’s eyes when she looked at Adam, wondering that whether Elena had noticed. And if she had noticed, why she would allow such a woman to watch their son. The desperate were dangerous. Out of pity, perhaps?
Michael frowned. Did he really think that Jun Carrington would really steal Adam away from them?
But what would he do in such a situation. What would he do if - when - Adam was taken away from him? What would he do to get his son back?
He set the laptop off on the bed and slipped out of the room.
Despite their best efforts, Adam was sleeping with his thumb firmly planted in his mouth. On the floor his stuffed black lab, Winston of all things, was lying where it had fallen as it slipped from his arms. Michael allowed his rigid control to lapse momentarily and gave in to the need to touch his son, to breathe in the scent of him as it rose from his skin. He didn’t know what he wouldn’t do for Adam. For this piece of himself that was not himself.
He gave Adam one last kiss and slid noiselessly from the room.
He didn’t like Jun Carrington, but Michael thought he understood the ache in her eyes.
[in]Fin[ite]
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Character(s): Michael, OC, Madeline, Elena, Adam
Prompt: fanfic100 30 - Death
Length: 6,140 words
Rating: PG - PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Summary: Some fates cannot be changed.
Notes: this is, as you've guessed, an ff100 story as well as an AU to the One Line series (well except for one of them). you can find the prompt table here.
Notes2: As usual with these kinds of things, the titles have little to do with each other, though for once they relate to the stories. In order of appearance, the titles are from "Safe and Sound" by Sheryl Crow, "Bye Bye Brianna" by Nicole C. Mullins, "Do You Like the Way" by Santana ft. Lauren Hill and Cee-lo, "We Declare War" by Kurt Carr & The Kurt Carr Singers, "Apres Moi" by Regina Spektor, and number 6's title is a link.
§§§
1. Until You're Safe and Sound
“Flora?”
“Yes, cutie?”
“I'm getting cold.”
“Oh…I know you are, sweetheart. It's cold out here.”
“I can see my breath.”
“You bet you can.”
“It's always cold when you can see your breath.”
“Mmhmm.”
“And sometimes even when you can't.”
“That's right. Can you tell me why sometimes it's cold outside even when you can't see your breath.”
“…Um…”
“Just think about it for a minute.”
“Flora?”
“Got an answer for me, cutie?”
“I'm slipping.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. Here lemme…”
“Flora, are you okay?”
“I'm…fine. I'm fine. I just caught your leg on something when I got you higher on my hip. Are all okay now, sweetheart?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Did you think of an answer to my question?”
“About how it can be cold outside even when you can't see your breath?”
“Exactly, cutie pertuttie.”
“Flora, you're silly.”
“And you still haven't answered my question, sir. Or do you give up.”
“Nuh uh!”
“Okay then, whatcha got for me?”
“Sometimes it's cold because…because…because the sun's not out?”
“Mmhmm. That's one reason. Got anything else? How about when winter turns into spring and even a little bit of a higher temperature feels warm, but when it's the other way around-”
“Like when summer goes into fall?”
“Exactly! So when summer goes into fall that same temperature in a different season feels cold, y'know?”
“No.”
“Oh, cutie.”
§§§
“Flora?”
“Yes, cutie?”
“Are we there yet?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but I don’t think so. Are you okay?”
“I’m still kinda cold.”
“That’s okay. Tell me if you stop feeling cold, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Flora, I’m slipping.”
“That better?”
“My leg feels wet.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s okay. Just press your leg into my side.”
“Like tha- Did I hurt you? I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me, sweetheart.”
“But-”
“Just keep pressing, cutie. I swear it’s okay.
“…Okay.”
“You sound sleepy.”
“I’m a little tired.”
“Can you tell me how cold you are? Where you’re cold?”
“My hands are cold.”
“And your feet?”
“Uh huh. And my nose and my cheeks.”
“But not your insides? Not your chest or your tummy? Your head doesn’t hurt?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Then it’s okay for you to go to take a nap. But not too long, okay?”
“Okay, Flor. Are you gonna take a nap, too?”
“Oh, no, sweetheart. I can’t go to sleep. Someone has to watch where we’re going.”
§§§
“Flora… Flora…”
“Hmm?”
“You said to wake you up if you started to get sleepy.”
“Yes I did. Thank you very much.”
“I did a good job?”
“You did a very good job, cutie.”
§§§
“Flora… Flora…
“Flora…”
“Huh?”
“Flora!”
“What?”
“You were falling asleep again.”
“I’m sorry, cutie.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“We were falling down.”
“I’m sorry I scared you, cutie.”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“That’s okay.”
“…If you want to call again, you can. Get the phone out of my inside pocket.”
“Yeah!... … … …It’s still not picking up.”
“That’s okay, sweetheart. Try again. At least we know it’s ringing.”
“Do you…”
“He’ll pick up. I promise he’ll find us.”
§§§
“Flo-”
“I’m awake, I’m awake. I’m sorry. I…”
“Don’t cry, Flora.”
“I’m not crying, sweetheart.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not. I’m too cold to cry. Ha, made you laugh.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did-”
“Adam.”
Flora stumbled, clutching the boy to her chest. Her chest hurt where her heart crashed against it. She could feel the pressure of Adam’s hand pulling at her hair, but she couldn’t feel the pain of it. Pain at all would have been a huge relief. Mr. Samuelle’s voice was doing okay as an alternative.
“Flora. Why are you here? How did you-”
“Daddy?”
Adam twisted and squirmed in her arms, but he was zipped into her down coat. She whimpered.
Mr. Samuelle was there, undoing the zip, getting Adam out. It was cold without him there. It was the first time she had been cold for a while. It made her breath hitch. That hurt.
“Adam.”
Was it snowing?
She didn’t know. Her vision was filled with Adam’s black hair. A world of black.
§§§
She was dreaming. In her dream it was white and bright and hurt; and someone was saying to turn down the light but it wasn’t Mr. Samuelle; then Mr. Samuelle was there and maybe he had been the one to turn the lights down because dreams were weird like that and who else would care. And how had she gotten inside?
A dream.
Lower lights, and cold - burning cold. Were dreams supposed to hurt? Sometimes. In nightmares. Sometimes they hurt.
She dreamed Mr. Samuelle was talking to her but she couldn’t see him properly, just hear him asking her how she had found him and why she was there and why Adam was covered in her blood. Then the dream changed and it was a doctor telling Mr. Samuelle that she had been up enough already, let her rest, but she kept talking. Kept telling him about the people who had run Mrs. Samuelle’s car off the road. How Mrs. Samuelle had been thrown and she had been thrown and Adam had been thrown but she and Adam had been thrown together; and when the guys who had run them off the road, that had flipped the car over and over, when they came and shot Elena to make sure, then they came and shot her to make sure, how they had pushed her over on Adam and shot her in the stomach but left before they could make sure.
But she didn’t think anyone heard her. Not even in her dreams.
§§§
She was dreaming. Of cold like fire. Of the neat hole in Mrs. Samuelle’s head that she would not let Adam see. Of walking, following a signal on a PDA Adam had found and then left at her house a week ago. A year ago. Yesterday.
She dreamt of Adam’s dark hair, his round eyes, his bright voice. His dark hair.
She dreamed of black.
§§§
2. Bye Bye Brianna
“Michael.”
He stopped and turned, two steps down the landing. “Yes, Madeline?” Operations continued down from the Perch without missing a step. So that was the look that had passed between them.
“A moment?”
Inclining his head, he waited for her. Operation’s steel gray head disappeared around the corner and down to the next level as Michael and Madeline made the landing. They took the hall and the next landings in silence, passing a trio of whispering pages on the stairs. One turned back for Madeline and handed her one of several active panels in her hand.
“Thank you, Sylvie.”
Madeline read the panel as they entered her office from the top level and walked down the stairs. Standing in front of her desk, left hand grasping his right wrist, he mentally shifted gears as she settled herself. She sat down with a cup of coffee and a croissant and the panel. “Here,” and she handed him a newspaper. “Please, help yourself to something then take a seat.”
Michael declined the food but did sit down. He read the article - what there was of it on the first page - a second time.
“Did you know? Did you have any idea?”
He looked up at her. She had set down the panel and was holding the white mug in both hands, blowing on the steam lightly.
“No.”
She nodded slowly to herself. “Hmm.” Madeline inhaled the steam and blew out softly from her mouth. “That was in this morning’s paper. You’re going to have to talk to the authorities. There’s no getting around it. I expect Elena will call you at some point today if she hasn’t already left a message for you.”
Michael blinked.
“Do you think she had any idea what was going on? Elena did have more contact with her.”
Michael thought about it. Had Elena noticed anything? “I don’t believe so.”
“Hmm.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, neither companionable nor tense, though Michael felt the charge in it. He thought he understood it. He should have noticed what was going on. But, quite frankly, if it did not concern Elena, Adam or Salla Vacek, he didn’t particularly care what went on in their neighborhood. He knew about the schools, he knew about the parks, he knew something about each of the neighbors. Apparently not enough.
“You will go home tonight,” Madeline said as if that hadn’t been part of the schedule, and suddenly Michael couldn’t remember whether it had or had not been. “And you will of course cooperate with any investigations within your reasonable ability to do so.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know if you will find this helpful…” She handed him the panel that Sylvie had given to her. “…but you never know.”
“I should take the newspaper then?”
“Yes.”
Yes they had negotiated his dismissal. Michael stood.
“Michael…”
He stopped.
“I am…available if you find it problematic discussing what has happened with Adam.”
He inclined his head.
§§§
“Michael!”
He was ready for the emotional outburst but not the way Elena launched herself at him. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said into his neck. “I’m so glad you came home tonight.” She pulled away and her face was wet with tears. He could feel them cool on his collar. “Have you heard what happened to-”
He cut her off with a nod and was surprised at the tightness in his throat that kept him from responding verbally. He had thought it would be an unwillingness to sound cold and disinterested. “Yes.” He hadn’t planned to speak.
“How could I not- Michael, I feel as if I failed her. As if this terrible thing had somehow happened to Adam and I just…just…just closed my eyes to what was right there all along. Right there in front of my eyes.” The way she wouldn’t touch him
“Where is Adam?”
“Upstairs. We’re lucky she wasn’t to come by today aren’t we?”
He nodded. Adam wouldn’t ask after her until tomorrow when he ran to the couch by the big picture window to wave at his friend. But she wouldn’t be there. And then… And then.
“It’s been so hard trying to act as if everything’s normal. I haven’t wanted to take him out for all the reporters and police outside. I didn’t want to involve him or have to answer any questions too soon and…” Elena fisted her hands in Michael’s lapels and pulled herself into his chest as if she would wrap him bodily around her. “How could I not have seen? Why didn’t I know?” She was sobbing into his coat.
Elena had knocked his briefcase out of his hands so he had no trouble wrapping his arms around her, running his hands through her hair and down her back. He couldn’t tell her that if he who was trained to notice incongruous detail hadn’t seen the signs then it was unlikely that she would have, so he said murmured comforting platitudes and slowly walked her toward the living room and a couch.
On the coffee table he saw a local paper similar to the one Madeline had given him. It had been turned thoroughly inside out so that one of it’s lead stories - Local Girl Commits Suicide. Abuse Suspected - was hidden by economics, terrorists and comic strips.
§§§
3. And The Walls of Jericho Come A’Tumblin’ Down. Selah.
Flora turned at the voice.
“Great view, huh?”
Nodding enthusiastically, Flora agreed with the woman who had spoken. It was early and she was carrying a tray of coffee from one of the flotilla of coffee carts downstairs. She offered one to Flora.
Who shook her head. “That’s okay. I’m still on French time. It’s, uh…”
“About noon for you?”
“Two-ish I think. We’re six hours off from you.”
“How do you like living in France?”
Flora found herself following the woman around as she delivered her coffee to the skeleton crew manning the office. Her stepfather’s company had opened it only days before. He hadn’t had to go but he had vacation coming up and it had been a long time since they’d been back in the States… They had decided finally, somewhat giddily, that Henry would take the assignment and then they would see Jun’s parents in California and play at being tourists while they were there. Their two-and-a-half week trip would begin tomorrow.
“Having fun?”
Flora and the young woman were near her stepfather’s office. Jun Carrington was reading the hardcover she’d brought over from France. Flora had frowned a bit when she realized that it was written in English, not French - thinking to herself that neither her mother nor Mrs. Samuelle were ever going to learn the language if they kept at it the way they were.
But she was all smiles now. “Mmmhmm. The view is a-mazing.”
Jun caught her daughter around the waist and pulled her in for a brief hug and kiss. “Your dad and I should have brought you here when you were little.”
Shrugging, Flora said, “I wouldn’t have remembered anyway.”
“Still.”
She shrugged again.
“Well don’t bother anyone, Flor. They have work to do.”
“Oh she’s no bother, Mrs. Carrington,” the young woman she was walking with said. “I’ve got a little sister about her age that I wish I could tolerate half as well. Spoilt brat.”
They left to laughter.
Her stepfather was busy in another part office so they left his coffee on the desk he had been given for the three days they were in town.
“That was fun,” Flora said as they ended up where they had begun, at the bank of windows overlooking New York City framed by a perfect blue sky. Outside it was a truly beautiful day, even at the hour they had been out. The plan was to finish with the office early, go have breakfast and begin their holiday a half day early.
“I meant it when I said you’re a lot easier to deal with than my little sister. We have another older brother and she’s the baby… My parents act like she’s the sun, moon and stars. If I didn’t already live on my own I would have to move out.”
Flora giggled. “I don’t know. I think I’d like to have a little brother or sister.”
“Trust me, kid. You’ve got it good now.”
Chuckling again, something caught Flora’s eye. She turned to the window. “What’s that?” she asked though it was an obvious question.
Still the young woman with her answered her with an equal measure of confusion. “It looks like an airplane.”
“But isn’t it flying too low?”
§§§
4. The Violent Taketh By Force
Adam placed a light hand on his father’s arm and knew he had the man’s complete attention though his eyes continued to roam, seemingly aimlessly, through the crowd.
“Yes?”
“Nine o’clock. Short, inappropriate dress, all-black hair…Does she look familiar?”
Michael wanted to tell his son that he had only described half the women in Taipei when his eyes stopped on her. He understood why Adam thought that his description was clear enough.
“Why do you think she looks familiar?” he asked softly.
“Because she does?”
Michael ignored his son’s impatience and focused on the woman standing nearly still on a corner constantly ebbing and flowing with the tide of pedestrians crossing the street. And though she was not dressed inappropriately as Adam had said, there was something about her that did not belong to that ever-moving crowd. If they had been in a different city, Michael might have said that she was a prostitute, but Tai-
“Flor!”
And then of course he saw it. She was older, had lost the fat that softened her features, and looked more like the pictures he had of her father than she had when they were neighbors. The height thrown him. They had still been neighbors when she’d reached her full height, and even from a street away it was clear she was standing several inches above that.
“Flor!”
“Adam! No!” It had been a long time since Michael had heard that insistent tone in his son’s voice, but at fifteen he hadn’t thought they’d be in a situation where the boy was likely to run out into the street after his old babysitter either.
“Adam!”
But the boy had dashed out into the congested street. Possibly the only thing that saved him was the congestion.
Flora Leung turned at his voice.
Her shock, Michael saw, was greater than theirs had been. Of course there was the small matter of his being dead. It was likely that she had gone to his funeral. So it wasn’t surprising when she turned in Michael’s direction, stepping off the curb.
The force of Adam’s hug forced both of them out of the way of what would have been an inopportune pedicab. The young woman looked down. “Adam?” And then up. “Mr. Samuelle?”
This close to her, he could more clearly see what Adam had meant when he’d called her dress “inappropriate.” The makeup was overdone up close. Michael didn’t know if the fault was over-application, or done deliberately. And there were any number of reasons why it might have been done deliberately - several of them innocent.
The shock makes it easy for him to maneuver Flora away from the curb, Adam trailing after her as if attached to a string.
“You’re short.”
The smile that blossomed on her face momentarily erased her shock. “And you’re kinda rude,” she said, brushing Adam’s long hair out of his face. “But still my cutie.”
The boy blushed to his roots.
“Flora-”
All of his son’s good work was undone by the sound of Michael’s voice. She turned wide, shocky eyes on him. He supposed she had gone to his funeral. Unlike Adam she had been fifteen years old at the time. She would have remembered it well.
Michael found himself wanting to touch her, wanting to push the hair out of her face, much as she had done with Adam.
“You’re not dead.”
“What are you doing in Taipei?” Adam asked for them both. In their way, they had become a good team.
She turned her attention to the boy. “My grandfather. My father’s father. I’m looking for him. I was hoping…I was hoping to reconnect with that side of my family.”
“You said you’d leave me instantly if your dad ever showed up,” he accused.
Flora smiled, her eyes disappearing. “Oui, mon chou. I did. But that was because I already knew that he was dead. I can’t believe you remember that.” She went to tousle his hair, but he smoothly blocked the move with his hand - masking the maneuver by taking her hand in his and smiling down on her.
Yes…a sort of team. Adam had been an eager student.
“Adam has an amazing memory,” Michael said, switching to French. “So you’re sure your father’s dead?”
Flora nodded. “He died years ago. When I was a little girl,” she replied, also in French.
“Have you had any luck contacting your grandfather? Or any of your other relatives?”
She shook her head, squeezing Adam’s hand. The boy responded by stepping into her personal space, as if he were four years old again and he could shelter under the comforting weight of her arm. It occurred to Michael then that perhaps Adam hadn’t been deflecting her hand from her hair. Perhaps the boy had simply wanted to hold, to touch, a piece of a childhood so wholly lost.
I’m sorry Adam.
Michael had, thus far, managed to keep much the less palatable side of their existence from Adam…
“You’re not dead,” Flora said again, as if having the son at her side gave her the strength to face the father.
“No.”
“What-”
Adam cut her off. “It’s a long story.”
“Okay.”
…but not all of it. He could see the lines of fear around Adam’s eyes, in the way that he huddled even closer to Flora. Their eyes met over her dark, dark hair. Michael wondered whether this would be one of those things they talked about in roundabout ways on crowded streets, or if it would be one of those things that crowded them in the enclosed silence of their car.
Flora turned suddenly, wrapping her arms around Adam’s middle. “It was so good to see you. Even if I don’t find anyone, this trip hasn’t been a waste at all.” She was still speaking French. For their benefit.
Adam closed his eyes and seemed to breath her in as he ruthlessly returned the hug. She was smiling at him when he finally let her go.
Michael found it strangely comforting that she was just as timid about shaking his hand now, so many years later, as she had been that first night when he-
“Let us walk you back to your hotel,” he said.
“Oh…you don’t have to do that. I’m not terribly far away, actually, though I am a little turned around.”
That explained it.
“It’s no problem. Let us walk with you. It’s been a long time.”
“All right. If you don’t mind?” She looked to Adam and he shook his head. “Okay, then.” She rattled off the address and Michael confirmed that she was, indeed, turned around. Slipping her hand through Adam’s arm, she said, “Do you remember The International Friendship song?”
“No,” he said softly, shaking his head.
“Hmm.”
“I’m sorry.”
§§§
5. I, Oh, Must Go On Standing
Michael held up his hand. The intel from Asia had come too late to stop the device that had gone off, but the gas carrying the genetically manipulated virus had not yet dissipated. And if their intel was sound, the air-borne virus would remain viable and transferable, if dormant, for several days without the counteragent. They needed to practice caution or become carriers themselves.
This was not a rescue. It was containment.
“Status?”
“Teams One and Two have the external vents,” Birkoff replied. Michael could hear typing in the background before he continued: “And we have shut down the internal ventilation system.
What had saved them, in a sense, was that the office building was outside city limits, set back from the road on a estate-worthy property. Michael noted the tasteful landscaping of the grounds and recalled that part of the company’s selling point to future employees was it’s non-urban atmosphere. The company contracted with several local restaurants and specialty shops to provide workers with scaled down versions on-site, sharing space with a fitness center and a nursery. Visitors came to visit the extensive gardens and various art collections on permanent and temporary display.
Striking a little before noon, the party trying to “market” their new man-made virus, which they had named Ophelia, had chosen an optimum time. The building was filled with workers and their children, visitors, tourists and contractors. The scope of the devastation would rock much of Southern Asia once the incident reached the media. Which was, ostensibly, the point.
“Entrances secure?”
“Ye-ah…”
Michael’s lashes lowered. “What is the problem?”
“About one and half-sides of the building have all glass fronts, up to the second story. It’s heavy duty stuff, but if someone really wanted to and had something really heavy on hand they could break through.”
“Something heavy?”
“Like a really big sculpture or a piece of office furniture…”
Michael nodded to himself. “When Teams One and Two return have them take up position on higher ground.”
“Yes, Michael.”
He turned to the four men with him. “Birkoff.”
“Ye-”
“Have Team Two join my position.”
“ ‘Kay. Gotcha.”
He looked at each of the men he had with him in turn. They had known at the outset that this was a possibility, though Michael hadn’t much wanted to contemplate it as they retrieved arms from the weapon’s locker. Or on the plane. Or in the van.
“If anything gets through the windows-” You have to disengage, Michael, he heard Jurgen say. What you are looking at is not a person, it is a thing. Dehumanizing your target, your subject, will get you through another day. He’s not thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about you. Particularly at the moment. “-shoot it. Understand.”
Sharp nods all around. He trusted them to follow through. “Birkoff, relay the orders to the other teams.”
“Already did.”
He’d worry about having to deal with Nikita later.
They approached the building. As Birkoff had said, and as the sim had shown, the entire front of the building, up to the second floor, was fronted in heavy glass that went partially around on either side. At only five until Team Two could join them, they were spread a little thin, but anyone trying to get through the glass would already be more than half-dead from the Ophelia virus: The virus collapsed blood vessels, thinned artery walls and sent the white blood cells after the already weakened organs. Symptoms included sudden unexplainable heart palpitations, an equally sudden drop in blood pressure, coughing up blood, blood flowing from the ears and eyes as the arteries serving the brain broke down and the blood sought release from any visible orifice, and open sores appearing along the skin. If the victim hadn’t collapse or passed out already, a sheen of blood would begin to cover their skin as the last stage of the attack on the blood took place. The sores they had yet to explain, while the attack on the organs seemed to happen almost posthumously. The internal organs of the one salvageable victim they had found nearly destroyed by the rupturing of the blood vessels within were further ravaged by the body’s white blood cells as Section doctors had watched and taken notes. Michael had no doubt that anyone still alive after being exposed to Ophelia would find being shot a mercy.
Moving in behind the rest of his team, he saw Tora and Johns of Team Two moving in ahead of him to take up position near the front where they needed the most coverage. The glass was filled with dead and dying.
The sound of breaking glass shattered the unnatural stillness of the afternoon. A shot rang out, but behind him. Michael glanced up. Someone had tried to get through an upstairs window. And Team One was in position.
He saw her when he brought his attention back down. There was no explanation for why he had missed her the first time, other than she was one of many who was pressed almost intimately against the glass. Truthfully, it the movement of her hand against the glass, spreading a red smear, that had caught his attention.
Michael almost lowered his weapon as he continued forward before he remembered himself. Even in the still of the afternoon, with nothing but the hum of electricity and the sound of Birkoff’s quiet murmurings in his ear, Michael couldn’t hear what the young woman who had once babysat his son was saying. There was an urge, like a string tied to his navel, to kneel down by the glass and press his ear to it so he could hear her.
“Mr. Samuelle…” was easy enough to read on her lips, however. The rest of it was lost to missing teeth and partially crushed jaw
Michael was positive that autopsy reports would show that Flora Leung’s cause of death was due to being crushed, not exposure to an unknown, man-made virus.
Her hand jerked against the glass again. The blood had run down her ears in a macabre parody of sideburns and red spittle was flecked on the glass. The cut over her eye, however, had nothing to do with the virus. Nor did it have anything to do with the awkward angle of her right arm or the goose-egg forming above the cut.
“…my mom.”
It was almost startling to realize that the head of short black hair on the oddly twisted long neck belonged to Mrs. Carrington, Flora’s mother. As if Flora had only begun to live the night he had surprised her babysitting his son.
Shooting her would have been a mercy, but one that he could not have adequately explained. This was not a rescue mission. It was containment.
§§§
6. Psalms 139:13
It was Adam that saved her life, even if she didn’t know it. He was reaching for his gun when the boy shot out around her legs, shouting “Daddy!” forcing him to abandon the motion as he dropped his briefcase.
Michael scooped up his son but didn’t swing him around the way Adam probably wanted him to. “Who’s that?” Michael murmured in Adam’s ear, keeping his eyes on the short-haired Asian woman still standing quietly no more than five feet away.
“That’s Jun,” he answered, scrunching up his nose.
“Ah, and why is Jun here?”
“I babysit. Sometimes,” Jun said smiling softly.
American, Michael said, beginning to codify her. He let his bag slide off his shoulder and shifted Adam to his left side, freeing his gun hand. He extended it to Jun.
He saw her take it, but her hand felt like a shadow.
“We haven’t met, have we?”
Shook her head, no.
“Daddy, Jun speaks French too!”
“Does she?”
“Uh huh.”
“We talk French with Mommy so she will learn.”
“Is it working?”
Adam turned to Jun and made a face. “I don’t think so.”
Smilingly, she agreed. “I’m sorry to say it’s true. Elena doesn’t seem very motivated.” She seemed reluctant to say it.
“Yet you do?”
“Mommy asked.”
Michael placed a gentle finger over Adam’s lips. “Don’t interrupt grown-ups.” He kissed the boy’s head.
“Jun interrupted,” he protested.
“Jun’s a grown up.”
Adam pouted. “That’s not fair.”
Michael kissed him again. “I know.” He turned back to Jun. “I’m sorry, he’s-”
“He’s fine. I should go,” she said, attempting to push hair behind her ear in a way that made him think that it had only recently been cut. She took a step backward. “Now that you’re home I- ”
“Do you know why Elena’s gone?”
Jun stopped short. “Oh. Um, she spoke to Henry, my husband, actually. I believe she said there was an emergency at the University? Something about someone either locked in or locked out and the University copy of the key is missing, the professor is out of town all month on a lecture tour and…”
A smile made Michael reposition her age as being closer to Elena’s than he had first presumed.
“…and I don’t know whomever else might have a copy of the key, but they’re not available either so Elena was it. Depending on whether the person was locked in or locked out, she shouldn’t be more than another half hour,” Jun reassured him.
Michael nodded.
She turned on her heel to leave.
“Daddy…it’s dark outside and Jun is three blocks away.”
“We should walk her home.”
Adam nodded.
Michael set the boy down. “Go get your coat.” Laughter trailed after him like soap bubbles.
§§§
“Thank you. For walking me.”
“It was my idea,” Adam, holding both adult’s hands, said.
Love and longing were naked on her face when she smiled down at him. Michael fought not to pull Adam to himself.
“And I appreciate it very much.”
“What does ‘piece-he-ate’ mean?”
They laughed.
“What?”
“I’ll explain when we get home,” Michael promised.
“Okay.”
“So…you said you and your husband moved to the neighborhood only recently, Jun?”
She nodded. “I believe Elena said you were away…on business?”
Yes that was what Elena would have told her.
“I met Elena at the University. When she found out that I was a near neighbor, she was kind enough to take me around and introduce me and my husband to the neighborhood.”
Which had likely taken all of those “few months.” But Michael was around so little that bringing up the new neighbor and friend would have paled in comparison to spending time with her husband.
“May I ask where from?”
“The States as you might have imagined. Though my husband’s English. Poor Henry, he’s beginning to think he’ll never see England again,” she said with a small smile.
“Business?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Then you learned French at University?”
“From my husband. My first husband.”
“Divorced?”
Jun’s pained expression told Michael that he should have regretted the question as soon as he said it, and so he did the appropriate backpedaling.
“No, no. It’s all right,” she said, though it clearly wasn’t. “It was just a…bad divorce. Bad circumstances,” she added.
Michael nodded sympathetically, letting Adam fill the silence with chatter about his day. Jun upheld the adult half of the conversation.
“This is me. Us.” Jun dropped down to one knee and gave Adam a light hug. She chucked his chin and he chucked hers back. The longing on her face was plain. To plain. Red flags were up, demanding action, but he had to stand still.
“It was nice meeting you, Michael.”
Her hand was no less ephemeral the second time around. “And you, Jun.” She was starting up the walk when he called her name. “I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Oh. Carrington.”
“Jun Carrington,” he repeated. He smiled and waved then wheeled Adam around toward home.
They were sitting in the living room playing dinosaurs and astronauts when Michael heard Elena’s car pull into the drive. Mischief gleaming in his eyes, he said, “Let’s surprise Mommy.”
An answering light shone in Adam’s eyes. “Yeah.”
§§§
It was about three in the morning and Elena was fast asleep, lying diagonally across the bed, tangled in the bed sheets. She’d nearly given him a bruise for the surprise he’d given her, but Michael had made it up to her after she had had put Adam down for the night. Facing the bed, he couldn’t see her for the glare of his laptop, but it kept the light from disturbing her rest.
Despite the late hour, Brikoff had been able to provide him with a profile of Jun Carrington.
He had been right to amend her age. She was older by Elena by only two years, despite the care on her face. Cares placed there, no doubt, by her the activities of her former husband. Peter Leung had told her that he was a French Canadian and Chinese. The son of a corrupt Chinese businessman, Leung had been running from his father’s life when he had met Jun. Six years later that life had come back to haunt his burgeoning family when Leung’s father had his daughter-in-law kidnapped to force his son’s return to the fold.
According to the medical reports Birkoff had included, it was stress on an already tenuous pregnancy that caused Jun’s miscarriage, not any delay on the part of the elder Leung’s people to get Jun to a hospital when she began to hemorrhage.
According to the copies of the legal documents Michael requested, “irreconcilable differences” were the cause of their divorce.
Bad circumstances indeed.
Jun Leung remarried nearly four years later. Her new husband’s job had relocated them to France two months after Michael had been relocated from England by Section.
According to the most recent intel, Peter Leung was now going under the name Peter Yuen and had moved his base of operations to Taiwan.
Michael closed his laptop and let it sit warm on his thighs as his eyes adjusted.
He thought about the need in Jun’s eyes when she looked at Adam, wondering that whether Elena had noticed. And if she had noticed, why she would allow such a woman to watch their son. The desperate were dangerous. Out of pity, perhaps?
Michael frowned. Did he really think that Jun Carrington would really steal Adam away from them?
But what would he do in such a situation. What would he do if - when - Adam was taken away from him? What would he do to get his son back?
He set the laptop off on the bed and slipped out of the room.
Despite their best efforts, Adam was sleeping with his thumb firmly planted in his mouth. On the floor his stuffed black lab, Winston of all things, was lying where it had fallen as it slipped from his arms. Michael allowed his rigid control to lapse momentarily and gave in to the need to touch his son, to breathe in the scent of him as it rose from his skin. He didn’t know what he wouldn’t do for Adam. For this piece of himself that was not himself.
He gave Adam one last kiss and slid noiselessly from the room.
He didn’t like Jun Carrington, but Michael thought he understood the ache in her eyes.
[in]Fin[ite]