“All this. All for me?” Bob gestured a the fallen bodies, the charred buildings.
Carolyn emptied her handgun, tucked it into her pack.
“All my life was for you.”
Bob blinked rapidly. His breath hitched in his chest. “Did you ever really love me?”
Scott and Clay glared daggers at her, daring her to answer any other way than yes.
She stepped closer to Bob, then closer again, and leaned up. He leaned down so their foreheads were touching, and she curled a hand around the nape of his neck. For a long moment they stood there, just breathing with each other, a whisper away from a kiss.
Then Carolyn spoke, too softly for the other boys to hear.
“I picked up a gun when I was six years old, first killed a man when I was ten. I learned seven languages and how to withstand torture, just so I could keep you alive. They taught me everything I know, but the one thing I never learned was how to love.”
Bob’s eyes slipped closed, and a sob caught in his throat.
Carolyn whispered, “Thank you for trying to teach me, Robbie.”
Bob tilted his head forward, and their lips brushed, not quite a kiss. He settle a hand on her waist to tug her closer, seal their embrace, and then someone said,
“Agent Pierce!”
And she was gone. Carolyn spun away before their mouths could meet and shouldered her pack. She snapped off a salute at a man in a uniform and fell into step with him.
Bob let his hands fall to his sides and opened his eyes, watched her walk away. Dan went to put a hand on his shoulder, but Clay shook his head.
“What just happened?” Scott asked, voice faint.
“I think,” Bob said, voice thick with emotion, “that she just saved my life.”
“Think we’ll ever see her again?” Dan asked.
“Except for the past twenty-four hours, I don’t think we ever saw her at all,” Clay said.
Scott put a hand on Bob’s arm. “Come on. We’re going home.”
(347 words - "The Funeral" by Band of Horses)
2 comments:
That's heartbreaking sister. And the song choice was great to go with it. When you think that it was all for him; that she tried to love. I know she is not supposed to be Asia, but did Carolyn live by the old code?
I wondered if the song choice would be too cliché since I'm such a Spencer Reid fangirl, but honestly, it's a really great song.
I'll confess that I tagged this series under Dagaz more for the boys (who are regular Dagaz characters) than for Carolyn. By the end of everything, she was an agent for a different organization entirely, and she was just a product of her upbringing.
But she really did love Bob.
As for the Old Code...no one but Sector Five sticks to it.
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