The Perfect Weapon Ending 1 Chapter 1003: Part 4 section 3 of 3
Chapter 1003: Part 4 section 3 of 3
“What is going to happen in there?” Vaughn asked, as they had walked to the elevator which would take them to the monitor room, wanting to have this conversation before they greeted Kendall. Before Sydney began to listen to the conversation between her parents on that closed station Jack had offered to her and told Kendall he would kill him for using. And what was Kendall doing here, waiting, anyway, when he wasn’t even listening to the monitors? Poor Jack, this had to be a difficult day and he’d had to give Kendall a ride up here? He must have driven Jack crazy, if the odd way Kendall had been babbling downstairs had been any indication. “What is your father going to say to get through to her?”
“The truth. He’s going to...” She swallowed hard. “I think he’s going to say goodbye. Forever.”
Vaughn nodded and put his hand on Sydney’s arm. “I...see. I don’t think, Syd, that there was any other option. This ending -“ he gestured toward Jack, as they heard his low voice, coming from the cell. “I don’t think there was ever any other option.”
She looked up quickly and sliced her hand through the air as the elevator doors opened before them. “That’s where you’re wrong. So wrong. There was always another option.”
“Syd,” Vaughn said warningly. “Do not blame your father-“
“I’m not!” Sydney protested. “Listen to me before you blame me, this time!”
The doors closed behind them and she stabbed the button for the correct floor.
“I’m sorry. I just assumed-“
“You know what they say about those who assume....” She said, trying to smile.
He tried to smile back, then put his arm around her. “What is it, what were you going to say?”
“There was another option. It did not have to end this way. If she had made a different choice twenty-odd years ago, sometime in the last two decades or even....any time during that night in Panama, I think right up to the last moment...If she had just made a different choice....”
“Chosen you, your father...”
“Chosen love. Chosen...courage. Over the game.” Sydney shook her head. “The game. And she even told me - as a ploy - that she had been a fool when she chose ideology over her daughter. She said that to win my trust, but you know what? It was the truth. She was a fool. Then. Now. Only she didn’t chose ideology. She chose the game twenty years ago, then again every day for the last twenty years, then again in Panama and in Mexico City and on that ice rink. Always chose the game. If she had overcome her patterns, instead of surrendering to the temptation of the game and the desire for control, ... ironically if she had surrendered some of that control she wants, she would have found the greatest stability of all, his love, our love. If she had chosen love first...We would not be here right now. If she had chosen love, she would not be in that cell, listening to the worst words she will ever hear in her entire life.”
“I am sorry, so sorry,” Jack said softly. “More sorry than I can ever say. I would have given almost anything, to not have to say these words. But...this is the end. The game between us, all the games between us, are over. I don’t love you.”
The words fell into the silence like those links had fallen into the dust. So...dirty, hiding their connection, it had to be just a game of hide and seek, she thought frantically.
“No!” She exclaimed, jumping to her feet and moving toward him. “You don’t mean it. You can’t. You promised me, you promised me! You promised me forever. And besides, when you say you’re sorry, when you’re playing a game, you don’t really mean it. You’re just misdirecting me and-“
“Irina!” he said softly. Grabbing her by the elbows, he said, “Look at me. Look into my eyes. This is no game. No game. This is the simple, unvarnished truth. This is reality. This is the end of forever and a day. Forever ended the day you chose to dive into that river rather than telling me the truth, trusting in our love, the strength of what was between us. The day you decided that the game meant more than the people who loved you, their needs, their hopes, their faith in you. And then when you returned? That was the second chance, the day of forever and a day. And the day passed as I opened the limo door on the dock in Panama and saw an empty...box. That moment...that was the day when the links between us were forever broken.”
“No. You look at me. See me!”
“I do see you. And when I see you, I don’t see you as the woman with whom I fell in love, the woman who made love to me in our backyard wearing just a pagan necklace taking me places I had never even imagined before because she loved me, the woman who was the mother of my child, the woman who only had to look at me to make me catch my breath, the woman I promised to love, honor and cherish until death we did part.”
“Yes, you did promise that. And neither of us are dead.”
He ground his teeth together silently, prayed for patience. “You are wrong. Death did part us. The first time it was Laura’s death. Followed rapidly by the death of trust, of my ability to trust. In anyone else, in myself. The second time, it was the death of hope, of faith, of finally, the death of love.”
“When....” she asked haltingly, not wanting to hear the answer, the word ripped from her throat involuntarily by some little voice that whispered, you should know this....
“When I opened that limo door in Panama. Because in that moment, I lost all hope in...In us. I lost all faith in your ability, worse yet, your desire to make the right choices. All faith in your desire to see, feel, understand, the power of what we had. What we once had. And I realized that it truly was too late. When I saw that empty back seat. Just an empty...box of a car. No you. No trust. No connection. Because there could not be a real connection, not for you to leave us again. By your choice you left us nothing. There Was. Nothing. there anymore.”
She stared at him, seeing that empty box in the dirt, the sand and grit flowing over the once shiny, golden links.
“I am your wife,” she said again, more firmly, even as her legs began to tremble and she decided that she would sit down now.
“Not for much longer,” Jack said softly, his hands in his pockets, the casual pose belying the seriousness of his words.
“What?” Irina asked, shaking her head, looking up at him from the bunk on which she now sat.
“This is the truth. This is no game. This is the end.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, it will never end between us.”
“Yes. It has. I filed the annulment papers this morning,” Jack told her, watching her carefully. At least she was sitting down.
“You...what?”
“I filed the final annulment papers this morning. Within a very short period of time, we will no longer be husband and wife.”
“You won’t be my husband?” she asked, feeling that coldness, that shock begin to send tiny, pitiless little fingers through her once again, just as she had felt it when she had first seen the broken links of the chain in that box. That deceptive box, that looked so beautiful, so unchanged on the outside, but within lay a circle that could never again clasp her within its love. And underneath those links had lain a false bottom, an empty hollow containing the means of her entrapment and a word, that Gotcha whose meaning had changed from a game between lovers to capture of could it be... a lover turned enemy? No, it could not be. They were still---
“I understand that .... notion may be difficult for you. After all, on some level you’ve thought of yourself as my wife for the last thirty years. Whereas, I, I haven’t truly thought of you as my wife, as Laura, for more than twenty.”
“But....why would you do that? Annul our marriage?” She began, feeling that confusion she had kept at bay ever since she had opened the box and seen the broken chain, feeling it begin to send panic through her. “But, if I’m not your wife... If you don’t think of me as your wife, what am I to you? What am I to you?”
“An enemy operative. A treacherous enemy operative.”
“That’s it? That...cannot be it. No...we have too much history between us.” She shook her head.
“That’s the problem. It’s all history. It’s all the past. We shared a past. It’s over. It’s not the present and certainly not the future. My...future is not our future. Our futures are no longer linked.”
She stared at him, deciding that she needed to make a move in this game. This could not be. She would not allow it to be. She only needed to find the right key....What could it be? Oh...try this, she decided. “In my heart, regardless of what the paperwork says, you will be my husband and I will be your wife.”
“Laura was my wife. You are an enemy operative working against my country’s interests and my daughter’s welfare. Capturing you was the perfect combination of personal and professional interests. And isn’t that always the best combination of all, Irina? I learned so very much from you, didn’t I?” he asked, trying to penetrate the defenses he could already see her flinging up to protect herself from the reality confronting her, to comfort herself---
“But...wait!” she exclaimed triumphantly, finding a flaw in his logic. She thought. “The blankets in Kashmir, the food on the plane, the-”
“Irina. Those...notes of comfort were common human decency and a gesture toward what we once shared. In the past,” he said firmly.
“No.... And what else was Sydney talking about earlier? My sentence?”
“You will not get the death penalty,” Jack reassured her, knowing she had not truly heard Sydney earlier, feeling it would be cruel to do otherwise, to let her wait and wonder, the way he had for six months. Besides, Sydney would not like it if he did that. So, a doubleplay, he decided as he admitted, knowing it was a risk to do so, “I made a deal so that you would not be executed. Do you remember Sydney saying that?”
“A deal?” she asked softly, feeling a sudden surge of hope. He would not have made a deal if he did not want to keep playing the game with her, if he did not still feel something for her, no matter what he said. She sighed in relief. “Thank you. And solitary...it’s not solitary, you said?”
“No. It’s not solitary, Irina. Having lived through that myself? No. That would be cruel. I would not do that.”
“I....So, there will be some asymmetry?” She asked, feigning surprise.
“Symmetry is...good as long as it serves a purpose. Solitary would serve no good purpose. As long as you don’t try and organize a crime cartel in your cell block, you’ll be treated...quite well.”
“Still a smartass.”
“Some things don’t change,” he shrugged, knowing however, that he had changed or rather found himself, albeit a slightly-new self, again.
“Jack...I know another thing that doesn’t change...” she argued desperately. “You did that, made sure I wouldn’t get the death penalty, made sure I wouldn’t be in solitary, aren’t selling Querencia, because you do care. You must, I know--” She whispered it fiercely and opened her mouth to continue, but stopped abruptly when she saw him shake his head, saw the regret in his eyes.
“Irina. I...loved Laura. I’m not denying that. I have never denied that. Even when it might have been in my best interests I never denied that. Because to do so would be denying not only the truth, but - in some ways - the best part of me, as Querencia will be. But Laura is gone, the connections are gone. Like that jewelry I sold or that chain with the broken links hidden in the desert sands---”
“I am Laura!” she protested, ignoring the comment about the jewelry, that she refused, just refused to believe.
This had gone on long enough, he decided. This had to end. “If you are Laura...you know what? The cost is too high. The cost is just too high,” Jack said, then stopped momentarily, hearing that song from so many months ago playing in his head.
Does anyone know what love can cost? To take you so high and leave you lost?
“That cost,” he began again, “It’s no longer one I’m willing to pay, for which I paid with my life for twenty years. I know what your love can cost and I’m simply not willing to pay the price any more. It’s just not worth the loss of the rest of my life, Sydney’s life, the loss of possibilities and hope and faith. It’s just not worth the loss of everything.” And somewhere out there, he knew, he would find love, hope and faith. Well, to be honest, he had the hope and faith now. He felt the impatience rise again, tamped it down, knowing he would soon be free to walk out into the sunlight and begin again.
“But....in the past, we... “ Irina stood up and walked toward him. “We had everything---”
“And yet, and yet. You walked away, or rather dove away from it, from everything. But you know what? Do not say we had everything because we did not. Not really. We didn’t have the truth. We just had enough. And I want, deserve, need everything.”
“But....you loved me, Laura, so much. I know you did. And I am Laura, I am!”
“And if you are? Then Laura’s love was inadequate as well.” He let the words fall between them, like bricks forming a wall, as he heard her gasp in shock. Then continued, trying to add more bricks, “Because I, and Sydney, deserve more than being our wife and mother’s second choice.”
She bit her lip, did not know what to say. And then before she could rebut it somehow, she did not know how, he continued.
“But...In the end, I don’t believe that this woman before me was Laura. Because the Laura we knew, the Laura we loved would have never made the choice this woman did. This woman who left us. Laura would have never left us. And if given the choice, I would rather believe that Laura loved us with everything in her. Even if that’s an illusion. Because sometimes the illusion of the gift of love is better than no love at all.”
“Now...You don’t feel love?”
“No. The love I felt for Laura, for what we had in the past will always be there. But the love that lives, grows, changes, deepens? That love, based on faith and hope and trust, that leads us forward into the future? It died. A slow, painful death. But yes, it died.”
“Your love...died? How? How is it possible that so much love could die?”
He sighed. Did he have to explain everything twice? What could he say this time that might get through to her? He pushed a hand through his hair and tried again. “Everyone has limits beyond which they cannot be pushed, everyone has needs that must be met.” He saw only blankness and tried yet again. “Every living thing needs sustenance. Remember....Remember that one time early in our gardening when you bought that beautiful rose bush, so full of those gorgeous white blooms that we could see from our bedroom window at night? And the nurseryman told you it needed minimal care and you interpreted that to mean that all you had to do was water it occasionally? And it almost died from neglect when you didn’t fertilize it, then again when you applied too much pesticide later when you were trying to save it?”
“Jack...I don’t think I’m capable of understanding one of your cryptic analogies tonight.”
“It’s morning, Irina. Look out your window. I made sure that you had one. In the future, use it,” he recommended, looking at his watch.
“The morning? The window? This...is it? I don’t believe it. My future?” She asked haltingly, not noticing that she had spoken in Russian until he answered in English.
“Yes. This is it, Irina. This is the end. This is the last time we will meet on this earth.”
She stared at him. Noted the closed expression on his face, the hands in his pockets. That he looked like her Jack, the young man she had first loved, the mature man against whom she realized too late she had played the most important game, no, no, that was wrong, one of the most important games of her life. But he was not her Jack, was he? “You cannot be serious.” Then looking at his face, she asked in shock, “I’m not going to see you again?”
“No.”
That soft, firm, short word.
No.
That awful word.
No.
That word he had so seldom said to her when she was Laura. Then it had been ‘yes’ or ‘tell me what you want.’ Not that word. The shortest sentence in any language. Aside from ‘please,’ and he had already used that to urge her to listen to his words. This damn word. No, no.
No.
That word dropped, with all its dreadful emptiness, like that box had to the floor of the desert, spilling the past out onto the arid landscape for the dirt of the present to bury it.
No.
“NO! No. That cannot be. We will see each other, be together, make love again. Anything else is not possible, not possible. That cannot-“ She protested, looking around, seeing for the first time the box within which she now was trapped herself, in which he had trapped her with her own weaknesses, the box of broken connections.
“I am sorry. Believe me when I say I am truly, deeply sorry. More sorry than I can ever say that this was your choice. If only.....But no. This is it. I...don’t believe there is anything more left to say between us.” Except perhaps for an apology, but he neither expected nor hoped for that, he thought wryly. Irina had never truly surprised him since the day she had walked into the CIA. Then smiled inside as he thought, well, maybe that was what he wanted next, a woman who surprised him.
“But....Jack, you cannot mean this-“
“Irina, nyet. Look into my eyes. See the truth,” he told her, gripping her shoulders, then tilting her head up to face him. “Please see the truth,” he urged. She jerked in shock. That was the second time he had said please since her return, both in this conversation. She lifted her eyes reluctantly. Saw again, the regret, the compassion. And realized, blinking as if a veil had been ripped from her face, that he was not wearing a mask, he was wearing the truth. He felt no more for her than that, regret and compassion. And that...that was not enough, let alone everything, she thought, even as she knew her thought processes had slowed to a near halt, that she was gaping at him in shock. He said, squeezing her shoulder, “Do you see?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Then shook her head. Thought, ‘No, I don’t want to.’
“Listen to me. I am going to leave shortly. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?” he asked, trying to reach her.
“Just...this,” she said softly, knowing he would do it. Jack was....reliable, trustworthy. Still a sweet man. “Can you...One last time? Give me that illusion?”
He paused for a moment, debating, she knew. Then nodded, opened his arms. She stepped forward and rested her head on his chest and he lightly wrapped his arms around her and waited. “Say it, please,” she whispered on a thread of sound, as light, as frayed, as insubstantial as the connection that now lay between them, ready to be broken at any moment.
“Laura, I loved you. So much. With all my heart and soul, I loved you.”
She nodded against his chest, whispered silently into the warmth of his body, “Ia tebia liubliu.” Present tense, she noted, while noting that his words were past tense, ‘I loved you.’
As always, Jack’s words were precise. They were soft, gentle even, but there was a horrible slicing sharpness to them. The pain not felt in the utterance nor in the initial sound floating through the air, but in the next instant as the brain, no the heart...No. Was it the soul? The soul heard the truth in the words, felt the sting beneath the softness, the cut that eviscerated all mistruths. All veils of protection. All self deception.
‘I loved you,’ she heard again. Knew she would hear it over and over until she found a way to stop hearing it. There was an awful honesty in the precision of his language. There always had been, that night in Panama if she had just listened. Staying there for a moment, trying to imprint his scent on her mind, this one last time, she listened to his heartbeat. Slow and steady. He stood there. Waiting. He was good at waiting, she had always thought. But..what she had not realized, until too late, one more truth she had not realized until too late, was that everyone, even Jack, had their limits.
“You meant it...that broken chain. You truly meant it,” she whispered, still not moving.
“Yes. I did,” he whispered back. “I had to show you, make you understand that the game between us is over.
“Panama....”
“Ah, yes, Panama. If at any time, any time, you had just told me the truth. Said you were sorry....” Would that cut through the barriers around her soul, make her ask, ‘What if?” The question she needed to ask to move out of the hole into which she had dug herself.
She swallowed hard, swallowed down the regret which she convinced herself served no purpose, swallowed down the question, ‘What if?’
Tried to control the trembling that started deep within, that within seconds made her entire body shake, then jerk in reaction, then her knees begin to buckle. Automatically, he held onto her tighter, even as he debated about whether or not to allow her to fall. But, he decided, even if she fell she would not hit true bottom she needed to see, so there was no point in allowing her to fall. So he could do this, one last time he could catch her. A gift before he left, a good memory, he decided as he bent to pick her up.
Then shook his head, as she rasped out, “The chair, I want to---” She cut her words off, afraid to say them, to hear the words in the air, to hear a blatant rejection of her request, ‘I want to sit in your lap and have you cuddle me, pretend that you are my Jack and I am your Laura. One last time?’
Because sometimes the illusion of the gift of love is better than no love at all... she heard in her mind instead.
“The bed. You need to lie down,” he said firmly, knowing she had wanted to sit in his lap again, as she had always wanted to sit in his lap. But she needed to understand that this was different, that it would never be the same. That he was not her Jack and she was not his Laura.
Registered only dimly through her disappointment, that Jack picked her up and put her on the bunk, tugged her shoes off and pulled the blankets up over her.
“How did I get so many blankets?” she asked absently as he tugged them up around her chin, only now noting that she had had an inordinate number of them on the foot of her bunk ever since she arrived. “Did you-“ He nodded. She whispered, “Thank you.”
When he pulled up the chair and sat down next to her, she grabbed frantically for his right hand, stared up at him, searching, searching futilely as he said, “Shhh. Relax. You will be okay. You are strong, remember? But you need to calm yourself.”
“Jack....” she asked softly, feeling her lips tremble as she spoke, “Will you-“
“Do you want me to stroke your hair, calm you down?” He asked gently for the sake of the woman he had once loved, the woman who had been Sydney’s mother.
She nodded. “Like you used to. And talk to me? For...” she swallowed hard. “For what we once had, were to each other? Will you?”
“Fine. Try to relax. Even sleep, that might be best right now. Okay?” She nodded again. “Close your eyes,” he said softly as his left hand began stroking her hair. As his hand smoothed it, soothed her, he said slowly, “Relax your legs, that’s it, just relax. You can stop the shaking if you try,” she heard and listened, knowing she was hearing that voice one last time. Nodded, then concentrated as he told her, “Good. Now relax your back, let it sink into the mattress, can you do that?” When she did that, he continued, “Your neck, just let your head fall back...that’s it.”
She stared up at him, looking, searching, knowing that anyone watching would see a man caring for a woman. But anyone else could not see his eyes, see the terrifying...impersonality of the compassion within them, the compassion of a stranger or at best - or was this far worse? -- an old acquaintance with whom one had nothing in common any longer, with whom one’s connection had come to an end. Like a sound that started as a whisper and grew to a torrent of noise, like an earthquake whose rumble began far away and ended with an earsplitting crescendo of the sound of a train rumbling through one’s bedroom, she heard their voices on that plane, that passage home from India, raised in harmony, as they had sung, ”This could be heaven or this could be hell....”
And so, she chose to close her eyes, decided to pretend that his touch meant what it once had, that she had heaven and everything else she wanted within the grasp of her hand. That this, she decided, with a catch of her breath - or was it her heart - was not hell, she decided as she held onto his warm hand with her cold hand one last time.
One last time caught by that fierce grip, he thought dispassionately, that grip that held onto the wrong notions for far too long, that held the veil of self-deception in place and used it to blot tears before they had a chance to fall and cleanse. He stroked her hair one last time as her breathing had evened out and then disengaged his right hand. “Good luck. Good bye,” he said softly as he stood up, not knowing if she heard or not. Noting that she had not shed a single tear.Was her soul so dead? Would she merely decide that all she had to do was find a way to play the game better or find a new game?
She thought, with a silent gulp as she heard his footsteps cross the empty floor of her cell, keeping her eyes closed, He didn’t even call me, ‘honey.’
Then she tensed as he opened the door, turned and locked it and walked away.
She silently threw back the blankets and walked over to the bars and pushing her face against them, watched him recede. Watched his tall form become smaller and smaller in the distance. Noted that he never looked back. Never looked back while she could not look away. Feeling her heart grow heavier with each step he took, she wondered if she should lie down, even if it were daytime instead of night.
Noted that the blue of his clothes, the silver of his hair, seemed to blur in the distance, in the light that seemed to shimmer in the prison hallway. Why did he look...so amorphous, ....she wondered? What was wrong with her eyesight?
And then, raising her hand to rub her eyes, she realized that her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Then dropping her fist to her abdomen, she rubbed at the ache, the unrelenting ache within that felt like a thousand knives were cutting her from inside. As...what was that inside that hurt so much? Could it be...was it her soul? That she had lost so long ago, the day she had taken that plunge into that icy river? Had she found it again, was this what it felt like to have a soul? This hurt, this pain? But why now?
Why...too late?
As he reached the end, she heard the bell of the elevator, watched obliquely, as best she could from the angle from her cell, as the doors opened and Sydney appeared in the light from the elevator. He lifted a hand and she thought for a moment he would turn and wave goodbye. She grabbed the bars, leaned forward, prepared to respond, one last time. Maybe he would change his....And then she sagged, only the bars holding her upright as she realized he had merely raised his hand to take Sydney’s as she held it out to him. Saw someone else hesitantly reach out and take Jack’s other hand, realized it was Vaughn again. Then the doors closed, the elevator bell chimed again and they left.
As the lights above the elevator blinked downward in number, she blinked her eyes, trying for one last glimpse. Then blinked again and the lift was gone. Walking slow back to the bunk, she stared unseeingly at the mirror, plastic and unbreakable she knew, above the small sink. Without conscious volition, she turned away from it, sat down heavily on the floor.
Those watching in the control room, waited. And then to varying degrees of surprise, they heard her begin to sing.
…Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way….
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'….
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast…
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before'Relax,' said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
but you can never leave.
“How long,” Jack asked softly, “Until she ties a knot in that veil of self-delusion and uses it to hold on to the only thing she truly has?”
“Do you really think she will be able to do that?” Vaughn asked, filing away his questions about Jack’s use of that song on the plane home from India for later. Now was definitely not the time.
Jack nodded. “That woman is the best games player I have ever met. And where she truly excels is at self-delusion that will defeat her own best self. So much wasted human potential lost to temptation. Just watch. 1, 2, 3---”
”We are all just prisoners here of our own device.... No, I will find a way,” she said softly, slamming her hand against the floor.
"The last thing I remember, I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before. She got up. Began to pace. “Surely there was a way out. Surely I can find a way... Sydney? The therapist? ”
”Relax, said the nightman, we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. No, that was wrong,” Irina said and walked over to the bed and pulled the covers over her once again.
“Sydney,” Jack said softly, shaking his head. “We have done everything we could. The rest is up to her. I have no regrets.” He looked at his daughter. She looked at him. Both nodded. “We are done here, are we not? Let’s go.” Time was wasting. He hated waste.
“Yes,” Sydney agreed. “It’s cold in here. Let’s go outside where it is warm.”
“Let’s,” Jack said and opened the door. They blinked as the sunlight hit them fully in the face as they walked out.
TBC at Chapter 1004 Part 1