The road was dusty; her family had managed to insert the worry of drought into their infrequent telephone conversations over the past two months. Against the weeks without a decent rain, the bright green of the grassy field was surrealistic, fantastic, as if she had made a wrong turn into Disneyland by mistake, a vast, lush, Disneyland the size of nine football fields surrounded by white picket fencing. She drove the small compact rental car to the area where other cars had been left and turned off the engine, listening to it tick as it cooled, taking another air-conditioned breath before venturing out into the afternoon sun.
Impossible to believe that she'd risen that morning in her apartment near Silver Spring, showered while the coffee maker gurgled liquid wakeup, dressed as she half-listened to the television news, sipped coffee and promised herself that she'd eat a decent breakfast on the weekend. The routine she followed six days out of seven and far too often on the seventh day as well. It had still been dark when she arrived at work, early enough that she was surprised to find her boss already there, further surprised at his summons.
Marella, you've stayed in contact with your old boss, haven't you?
There were only four riders on the field -- a scrimmage, Laura had called it – two in dark colored shirts, the other two in white shirts, galloping and colliding with the exultant glee of schoolboys. The white shirted team of two was moving the ball downfield, heading away from Marella at a good clip. Sans helmets, the men's hair streamed in the breeze created by the pace of their horses. As one swung his mallet, a dark-shirted rider cut his horse in, checking the first player's mallet with a hook from his own. In the scramble for the ball, all four riders fought for position, literally tons of horseflesh adding weight to a fast moving shoving contest. Even across the broad field, the shouts of the various riders rose above the thunder of the hoofs striking earth, and the thinner clacking of mallets meeting mostly other mallets.
Taken at gunpoint, drugged and interrogated, Rankin had said. The drugs applied intravenously for twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, possibly longer.
A dark-shirted rider broke away from the pack, heading back in Marella's direction. As the remaining three riders broke apart, Marella saw the white ball traveling upfield, towards the goal to her right, and the first dark shirted rider hotly pursued by a rider in a white shirt. A golden-haired, familiar looking man wore the white shirt, leaning into a beautiful chestnut, the horse's hoofs tucking under its belly as if never touching earth. She watched avidly as the two men contested possession of the ball, horses colliding, mallets seeking, probing as the riders fought for position.
Refused the request to be interviewed by the research team, to answer questions about his first hand experience under what appears to be a highly effective interrogation drug.
The other pair of riders split, positioning themselves strategically to await the outcome of the battle between their teammates, who were evidencing little to recommend the sport as one of gentlemen based on the amount of shoving between them. Marella willed success to Michael, willed that his fierce competitiveness had not been damaged beyond repair by this latest ordeal. Elbows flew and Marella's breath caught as the white-shirted rider suddenly sagged to his left. She heard the thwack of the mallet even if she never saw the ball until it was moving back downfield toward the other white-shirted rider. The pursuit and resulting goal was almost anticlimactic.
Michael's triumphant smile lifted some of her worry and she watched him with open admiration as the riders cantered their horses in from the field. His need for riding and for polo increased proportionately to his aggravation index at work, and his staff knew where they could find him any free weekend. On horseback, he wasn't lame, no one could see him limp, and a pair of aviator sunglasses shielded more than his eye from the sun, but his love of riding and horses was deeper than his scars from Red Star.
Blond hair whipped by the wind, white teeth framed by an amused tilt of a mustache, a strong, well defined jaw. The long, lean body poured into a casual open necked polo shirt, close fitting jodhpurs and well-worn leather riding boots that encased muscled calves. Amused by her very physical response to the sight of the polo shirt clinging damply to Michael's chest, Marella forced herself to identify the specific hormones attempting to seize control of her brain and body.
"Marella!"
A range of emotions ran over his face, astonishment and open delight, followed by confusion and then understanding. By the time he'd dismounted, with easy grace and long habit, Michael looked surprisingly grateful to see her. Reins, mallet and crop in his right hand, he wrapped his arms around her as she slipped into his embrace, burying her face against his left collarbone, arms around his neck.
"This is a wonderful surprise," he said, pulling back just far enough to angle in for a kiss, a bruising, demanding, relieved kiss that left them both breathless.
Michael's fellow polo players passed by. "Not one of his usual beautiful women in white," one said, the others laughing.
Marella began to tremble; emotion that had been carefully boxed away beginning to escape its tight boundaries.
"Your boss sent you?" Michael said into her hair, holding her gently as the trembling became more obvious.
She nodded, gaze sliding to meet his, frustrated that it was still masked by the sunglasses. The rueful twist of his lips hinted at his state.
"You should have told me," she said, more hurt than angry. "Rankin told me first thing this morning. I caught the next flight to LAX." She ran the fingertips of her right hand across his cheekbone, let her fingers linger at his temple, smoothing away the lines and tension that seemed more evident than when she'd last seen him. "Rankin asked me to contact you, but that's not why I came."
Michael exhaled and nodded.
"I came because the idea of someone hurting you makes me want to fire nuclear-tipped Shrike missiles," Marella declared, a quivering lip detracting from the fury she wanted to convey.
Michael's thumb rubbed her bottom, wobbly lip, and through the grave set of his features, there was a hint of a small, wry smile.
"An expression of sentiment that owes more to Stringfellow Hawke than Shakespeare or Marlowe."
"Come live with me and be my Love
And we will all the pleasures prove…"
"You're dangerously close to treading on my lines," Michael warned with warm affection. "Marella... honey… I wanted to call you. I picked up the phone more times than I can count." His gaze dropped and he looked for all the world like a boy close to shuffling his feet in reluctant embarrassment. "If I called, you'd want to come, and even though I wanted you to come, I didn't want you to drop everything, or feel obligated to do so, especially since, as you can see, I'm perfectly fine."
Drugged and interrogated for more than twenty-four hours was not Marella's definition of perfectly fine but she was desperately moved by his near admission of need, of the convoluted reasoning attempting to put her before what he wanted. She focused on the only thing she could extract without criticizing his thought process.
"You wanted me to come?"
"I wanted you to come," he agreed in quiet voice. "I needed you to come and I am immensely happy and grateful that you are here."
Marella kissed him softly, lingering on his lips, trying to convey with gentle pressure all of the emotions swirling in her heart and her brain, the most dominant of which was a fierce protectiveness, a willingness to do whatever necessary to keep this man from harm.
Pausing for breath, her hands fisted in Michael's hair and the fingers of his left hand possessively splayed over the most sensitive area of her lower back, just over the coccyx, she realized with a start that he still held the reins to his horse and that while the polo field was mostly empty, they were not alone.
"Come home with me," Michael breathed in her ear.
"Yes," Marella said smiling. She'd come with little luggage and no real plan other than to find Michael and fix what she could, soothe what she couldn't fix, and wrap herself around him until she decided it was safe to leave. It was impossible to plan when she knew next to nothing of what had happened. Rankin hadn't had many details and Archangel's office had refused to share any when she'd called after arriving in Los Angeles. Whatever had happened to Michael was classified, need to know, and Laura had reluctantly enforced protocol. "Your horse?"
"Twenty minutes," he promised, with a quick, parting kiss. "Five minutes to walk him, to cool him down, and then fifteen minutes to get him settled, clean, and comfortable in his stall."
It was twenty-five minutes later, but as Michael emerged from the barn smiling, Marella found herself smiling back, unable to be impatient in such lovely surroundings. She'd had time to soak up and absorb some of the California sunshine she'd taken for granted for most of her life, squirreling it away for the coming winter on the Eastern Seaboard where gray skies were far more daunting than the bitter cold.
"I can't give you a sample of the drugs they used," Michael said suddenly. "I don't have one to give."
Surprised, Marella shifted position on the couch to watch his face, letting her own expression soften encouragingly. He needed to talk about it, needed to exorcise the experience and there were so few people he trusted, could trust with the truth. Each part of the story would be compartmentalized: in the debrief, he could present all of the facts; to the research scientists, he could provide details of the drugs' impact; but to talk about what it felt like…
"I had blood drawn, of course, but the half-life of the drug is very short and our people couldn't determine anything about it. Probably why Stoner used the IV to keep a constant rate in my system."
"Stoner," she mused. The name was unfamiliar.
"Patrick Stoner; an arms dealer, who with the help of Mikael Gurvovich, was determined to get his hands on a device I was fostering." Michael's gaze went distant, his expression rueful. "It's not clear whether the 'technique' used on me was Stoner's doing or Gurovich's, or both, but it wasn't just the drug. They combined it with constant sensory over stimulation." He'd gone very still, only the bobbing of his Adam's apple conveying distress. "Impossible to know what was real and what wasn't, almost constant hallucinations drawing on my own mind, my own memories to make them seem real."
She wanted to comfort him, it was painful not to reach out and tell him that he was all right, that it was over. It wasn't over, not until he could put it behind him, so she pressed her lips together tightly and waited, listening, giving him a space where he could let it go.
"I don't know what Stoner used on Professor Roberts. He needed all three of us – Roberts, Gurovich and me – to make the device function." His face darkened in a scowl. "Gurovich followed the money, his loyalty, his research for sale to the highest bidder, which wasn't that much of a surprise honestly, but Roberts wouldn't have handed over his research to Stoner. Not for money and not for free." He shook his head slowly. "I don't know how Stoner got what he wanted from Roberts. He killed them both, Roberts and Gurovich, after he had what he needed, so I guess I'll never know."
It had only been six months but it felt as if she'd been gone for years. Roberts, Gurovich, Stoner – Marella knew none of those names, could find no context to understand what had happened or why. The idea teased at the back of her mind; despite her refusal to acknowledge that there was any truth to it, it wouldn't go away. This wouldn't have happened if she'd been here. Of course, it would have, Stoner would still have gone after Archangel, but the little Marella had elicited from Laura had infuriated her: Dublin had activated Zebra Squad, had sent them to kill Michael. She would have stopped that.
They sat in silence, sprawled more than sat in the very bland but extremely comfortable sofa in Michael's living room. His decorating scheme owed more to time spent in four-star hotels than personal preference, excepting the color selection. Dressed in one of Michael's old sweaters and pajama bottoms that hung loosely on her frame, Marella blended perfectly into the white and off-white décor.
"I broke," Michael said, very quietly, starting at the floor. "I told Stoner what he wanted, what I swore to myself I'd never give him."
Marella blinked away tears. Biting hard on her lower lip, she was hard pressed not to reach for him; she held back reassurances that breaking under interrogation was nothing shameful, that he'd held out longer than most could. Drugs applied intravenously for twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours, possibly longer
"I'd like to think if the interrogation tactics had been physical, I wouldn't have broken," Michael said, his voice lacking conviction. "I wish I could say that I gave Stoner what he wanted during the worst of the hallucinations, because I couldn't tell what I was doing. Stoner was a clever little bastard, I'll give him that." He rubbed his right eye. "He stopped the treatment long enough for me to realize that my sanity was slipping, long enough for me to be more terrified of going back to the hallucinations than I was of Stoner having the device."
Fear, Marella understood. She'd been studying it for six months. It was the true tool of the professional interrogator. All other techniques were in service to getting the target to the point of believing that he or she couldn't endure what was threatened. Once the target passed the point of being afraid, or had given up, no amount of physical, chemical or psychological torture in the world would yield information.
"I choose to give him the information he needed…"
"Because the device in his hands was less frightening than you losing your mind," Marella countered softly.
Michael shook his head, expression full of regret. "I knew Stoner would kill me after he had what he needed, and that was better than the hallucinations."
She pressed her fist to her mouth, horrified. Michael reached for her and she grabbed his hand, her grip far too tight for comfort.
"I'm sorry," Michael said. "I wasn't thinking of you when I made the decision. When Stoner's man came to kill me, I realized that this might hurt you."
'Might hurt me," she mouthed, incredulous.
"Someone would tell you – Laura probably -- but they wouldn't know that we were involved, they wouldn't know how to tell you."
As if there was any good way to learn that your lover had been tortured and killed.
"Stoner's man came to kill you?" Marella said weakly, shaken beyond her ability to absorb the knowledge that Michael had come so close to dying, and that his final thoughts would have been worrying about how she learned of his death, how it would affect her.
"Hawke," Michael answered. "His timing…" He swallowed. "Had he been a few seconds later, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Hawke. She waited, surprised, when the normal surge of irritation she felt whenever Hawke's name was mentioned failed to appear. Hawke had saved Michael's life. The Firm had sent people to kill him and Hawke saved his life. Instead or irritation she felt a physical urgency and almost leapt from the couch, staggering and barely reaching the powder room before she brought up her dinner – the coq a vin, the baby asparagus, the excellent bottle of wine. She was violently ill, gagging and retching over the toilet long after her stomach had emptied itself. The tile floor was cool under her knees, and she rested her weight on palms pressed against the terra cotta as the shuddering gradually abated. She'd cried – she always cried when she was ill, a purely instinctive and physical reaction – and between the tears and the damp perspiration on her face, Marella felt the roots of her hair soak up the moisture; sweat-stained, it would frizz.
"Here," Michael said, kneeling next to her, handing her a glass full of cool water.
Gratefully, she sipped at it, rinsed the horrid taste from her mouth and spit it into the basin. Again. And again. Until there was no water left in the cup. Michael stood, refilled the glass and handed it to her as he dampened a washcloth. Kneeling again, he ran the cloth over her face so gently that she felt like a child, and like a child, she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him in a way that would have been embarrassing if she had a shred of self-consciousness remaining.
"I love you," she said damply into his neck.
His arms tightened around her back. "I love you, too."
"This wasn't how I planned on telling you that," she said miserably.
"A romantic dinner, making love, maybe champagne," Michael said, fingers drawing a pattern on her back. "I know. I'd thought about how to say it too." He sighed against the side of her face. "I wish I'd said it earlier. God knows, I'd wanted to often enough."
"Damn it," she said, simultaneously laughing and crying. "This was supposed to be a much more romantic moment. I guess a kiss is out of the question."
Michael pulled back, leaning away far enough to see her face. Fingertips tenderly pushed her damp curls back from her face, blue eye never leaving brown eyes.
"I've done romance." He smiled wryly. "So have you. This is much better. This is the real thing."
And then -- surprisingly, foolishly, bravely -- he leaned down and kissed her anyway.
A/N: This chapter references episode 38: "Fortune Teller" the 4th episode in Season Three.