Unfolding

Clint musters up the best reassuring smile he can for Wendy. "Don't think twice about me being tired, alright? I'm just fine."

He gives her a little squeeze. "Yes... we do have the rest of our lives together, and I'm very much looking forward to it."

Leaning down he gives her a tender kiss. "No matter what happens, we have each other."

Finally he withdraws, even though he doesn't want to. "I need to keep working on that engine... If you need anything juts let me know, okay?"


Rocky keeps his gaze on Jess as she talks, truly interested in every word she said. As she allowed him any questions, he just studies her for a moment. An uneasiness had risen - one that hadn't been there before he'd asked her about herself.

"I just want to know what makes you you today, Jess," he responds. His voice is gentle...almost reassuring for some reason - as if he knew more than he had let on. The corner of his mouth upturns slightly, proving no displeasure. "You don't have to be afraid of the past - I'm certainly not." It was suddenly clear that he knew. Somehow he knew about Jess' immediate past.

Interrupted by the waitress again, it's several minutes before Rocky revisits their conversation, but he moves on as if there had never been a break. "Boring or not, you have to do something for fun," he prompts. "What do you like to get out and do? Where are your favorite spots to go?"


Scott can't help the brief look of surprise when Hope asks to keep some of the pictures and he just shrugs. "I don't care," he answers. "There's no reason for me to keep them."

Still quiet, he almost doesn't seem to hear Hope ask how he is. But finally he stands up, wandering back to the window he'd been drawn to the last time he'd been here. How was he? "I'm tired and sick to my stomach," he finally replies.

After a moment, he turns around, leaning his back against the wall beside the window and finally looking at Hope. "Not much different than any other day after another night of nightmares. I've come to expect nothing more."

He turns back around, his eyes seeing his own reflection in the glass. Slowly, his hair was getting a little longer. The markings on his face from the beatings were receding. If he weren't so gaunt, he might almost recognize himself.

"They didn't even plan on taking me, you know..." He had no idea why he was talking about this. She hadn't asked. He still hadn't even told anyone the whole story, or even written up the report he'd been asked to. But he was so tired of reliving it every night. Every night, the whole thing played through his mind over and over again. The images were a horror he despised.

His voice is so quiet, one would have to strain to understand. "The Agency watches everyone... all the time. I wasn't supposed to live through that explosion. I should have died."

He sees it again as if it had just happened yesterday. He could still hear the desperate voices of his team over the mic, urging him to get out of the house. "I tried to get out." His eyes have lost their life and he stares into nothingness. "There was someone who had already been shot... he was dead... blood everywhere."

Scott swallows hard. "I couldn't get out.... the house was locked down. But I remembered a passageway in the basement I'd see in the blueprints. I almost made it. The pressure from the bomb sent me in the rest of the way. When I woke up, my left eye's sight was gone - it had been a piece of debris. I don't know how long I'd been in there... but I crawled the rest of the way until I came out at the other end. It was several blocks away in an empty lot. I didn't know what was going on, so when someone offered to help, I didn't refuse. I blacked out. I didn't know it was the Agency. By the time I woke up, we were halfway to...their setup. And it was too late...I couldn't escape."

The rest was too horrific for him to want to talk about. It still hurt too much. It still frightened him too much. He had seen so much and experienced so much that it made him sick just thinking about it. Scott just stands, a picture of sheer despair of one who had given up all hope... of one whose fight was completely gone.

Eventually he turns back around to wander back to Hope's desk. Reaching down, he finds the picture of the broken mirror and picks it up, just looking at it. He sets it back down, then once more sits on the edge of a chair, his head hanging.