Unleashed Memories
Fandom: UC Undercover
Rating: PG
Pairing: Frank/OFC
Spoilers: Zero Option post ep
Notes: Part of the Montana Skies universe.
It was still raining.
He could hear the patter of the drops against the glass windows of his office,
the steady sound of a
That's what he'd wanted to do, what he'd planned to do.
What he was doing was something else. Leaning back in his chair, he
stared out the window, watching the drops chase one another down the panes of
glass, fingers of one hand pressed against his chin, fingers of the other hand
tapping on the arm rest of the chair.
"Brooding again Donovan?"
He could hear her voice as clearly as if she was there, and his lips
relaxed in a smile. She was the only woman he'd ever known who didn't have to
be in the same city, even in the same state, to know how he was feeling and
give him grief over it. Except that now she wasn't even on the other end of the
phone, he was just imagining her, as if his thoughts of her had literally
summoned her up.
Which was kind of what had happened.
He'd been as surprised as Jake when he'd pulled the girl out on to the
street, holding a gun to her head, talking to Wilkes. The words had spilled
forth from his lips without conscious thought from him, and they'd been ringing
in his ears ever since.
"You see her maybe one weekend a month, but she’s ok with that.
She's your break from your life."
Colin Wilkes, Monica had told them, was a straight-up psychopath, and
Jake had agreed with that assessment. Thus, it had been a shock for Donovan to
identify with him so easily, to know exactly what to say to him to get through.
He'd known that Sasha meant the world to Wilkes or rather, he thought
he did, because he'd transposed his own feelings on to the other man. He'd been
negotiating with him all day, had been trying to get the better of him, had
found out instead that psychopath or no, he was Donovan's equal when it came to
negotiating a settlement.
Then Alex had propelled Sasha into the room, told him that she was Wilkes's
eyes and ears, and he'd acted on pure instinct. He'd known he was right when he
saw Wilkes's face through the window, the look in his eyes everything that he
expected to see there.
Just how he'd have reacted if it were Bel in her place, how he had reacted
when it was Bel in her place. A sudden image came into his head now, of Wilkes
in the window of the bank, but this time, the gun was pointed at Bel's temple,
and terror was paralysing him rendering him unable to talk, to think. A shudder
ran the length of his body, and the usually implacable, imperturbable Frank
Donovan put his hands to his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to banish both
the image and the nausea it caused. He'd done the same thing a matter of hours
that seemed like a lifetime ago, when he'd stood in the bathroom and splashed
his face with water, trying to forget that day so long ago.
Technically, she shouldn't even have been there. He was the undercover
agent, she was the profiler, and it had been one of the rare occasions that they'd
worked together, their superiors unaware of their relationship. She shouldn't
have been anywhere near the exchange that day, but when one of the female
agents had called in sick, as she'd known about all the ins and outs of the
case, she'd been drafted in at the last minute. Something, he couldn't remember
exactly what, because it had all happened so fast, had gone wrong, and it ended
up with him on one side of a wall, the leader, a guy named Johnson, a guy he'd
spent two months trying to bring down on the other, one arm around Bel's neck
and a gun to his head.
Even now, years later, in his nightmares, he could still see the two of
them, could see the terror in Bel's eyes, hear the mocking tone of the other
man's voice. "You want to know what I think Frankie? I think this is your
woman. I think this is the woman who means more to you than life itself, the
woman you'd die to protect. Am I right, huh Frankie?"
He'd stood there, gun trained on them, and for several long minutes, he
hadn't been able to say a word, even as the taunting continued in that vein.
Finally, he'd managed to talk, tried to
negotiated, all the while with his heart hammering madly in his chest, but it
was only when one of the snipers got a clear shot and took it that the
nightmare came to an end, although the image of both Bel and Johnson falling to
the ground recurred night after night for a long time. Donovan just remembered
running to them, terror speeding his feet, pulling Bel to him, holding her
shaking, but very much alive form, in his arms. Eschewing paperwork, and
ignoring the pointed looks of their superiors, he took her home, crawled into
bed with her, and held her all night long.
The next morning, he'd proposed.
That had been the last time they'd worked together, and the last time
he'd ever let his personal life and his professional life collide. The two were
ever after kept in separate compartments in his head, and never the twain did
meet.
Not until today.
He shook his head to clear the thought, deciding instead to cast his
mind back to the dim and distant past, to the first time that he ever saw her,
a memory that never failed to bring a smile to his face. It had been at the FBI
gym in
When he'd walked into the gym though, there was a crowd gathered around
one of the mats, talking avidly among themselves while simultaneously looking
at whatever it was that was taking place in the centre. Curious, Donovan pushed
his way through, only to see a man and a woman circling one another, hands
raised in the martial arts ready position. The man was perspiring freely,
breathing heavily, a grimace on his face, and in contrast, the woman looked
remarkably fresh, not having broken a sweat. As Donovan watched, the man lunged
for her, but she side-stepped neatly, catching him with her free foot as she
pivoted, sending him flying. He was lying on the mat on his stomach and quick
as a flash, she was on her knees, flipping him over, pinning him securely. He
tried to get up, but couldn't, and he literally growled at her as he slapped
the mat, looking as if he wanted to slap her instead.
She inclined her head, hopping back to her feet, extending a hand to
help him up, an offer he ignored. She just shrugged nonchalantly, acting as if
she didn't notice the scattered applause from the gathered crowd, or the money
changing hands. The crowd drifted away then, but Donovan stayed standing, and
when she saw him standing there still, she lifted one dark eyebrow in a perfect
arch, staring him down. "Fancy your chances?" she challenged, and he
lifted up two hands in mock surrender.
"The better part of valour is discretion m'lady," he
observed, and she stared at him for a second before she burst out laughing.
"M'lady?" she repeated, shaking her head. "Never been
called that before."
"There's a first time for everything," he responded, and she
nodded. "That was a very impressive display," he added. When she
grinned at his words, met his gaze with dancing eyes, it was all he could do to
keep his usual sangfroid. She had quite a smile.
"Not really." He must have looked surprised, because she
shrugged. "I've been doing this a lot longer than he has. Plus, he didn't think
I could fight because I'm a woman."
"Underestimating the enemy. Never a good thing to do."
"Someone had to teach him that," she agreed. "Might as
well be me."
"Indeed." He'd taken a couple of steps closer to her then,
held out his hand, brown eyes meeting blue. "Frank Donovan."
She'd taken his hand, her grip firm and strong. "Belinda
Maines," she'd responded, hastily tacking on, "Lin."
He'd always told people that even though they'd met while she was
cleaning some poor schmuck's clock, that she hadn't even had to do that much to
knock him off his feet. That was usually the point when she rolled her eyes and
reminded him that he'd tried to leave it at that, for his next words has been,
"Well, it was nice meeting you."
He'd dropped her hand then, moving away, but her voice had stopped him,
made him turn. "How about a drink when you're finished here?" she'd
said, and he'd agreed instantly.
That was usually the point in the story where he pointed out that any
chance he had of controlling this relationship had gone up in smoke. It was
also the point where she usually snorted, "You got that right."
It was also the point in the story that he pointed out that that was
when he'd fallen head over heels in love with her. The moment that he'd known
instinctively that she didn't put up with any nonsense, that she could handle
herself, and that she sure as hell could handle him. They'd gone out for a
drink, which had bled into dinner, which had bled into more drinks, ending with
him putting her into a taxi, promising that he'd call her later on that night
to make sure she got home safely. She'd smiled and shaken her head, and he'd
known that she hadn't believed him, but when her phone had rung as she was
preparing to go to bed, he'd been on the other end. It had been during that
phone call that he'd called her Bel for the first time, not Belinda, the name
she hated, or Lin, the name that everyone else used. To him, from that night
on, she was Bel, and she'd never been anything else since then.
Nothing except the woman who was everything to him. The woman who stole
his heart and kept it safe for him. The woman who was now his wife, the mother
of his children. The woman he'd tried to walk away from this job for, only to
have her say to him that he wasn't ready to leave it behind yet. He'd known
that she was right, because she knew him better than anyone else, even better
than he knew himself. But there were nights like this, nights that he was left
alone in the office, knowing that nothing awaited him at home but a cold bed
and a phone call, that he wished she'd been wrong, just this one time.
Most times weren't that bad. Most times he could be grateful that she
and the kids were in
They were his break from his life.
Sighing, he reached out a hand, punched the number into the phone that
he knew by heart, didn't even have to look at the keypad to do it. The phone
rang once, then twice, then stopped, and her breathless voice sounded in his
ear. "Hello?"
"Hey," was all he said, and when she spoke again, he could
hear the smile in her voice.
"Hey you," she said, and he could picture her, probably in jeans
and a shirt, long dark hair loose down her back, curled up on their comfortable
couch in the living room of the main ranch house. There would be a fire blazing
in the fireplace, the room cosy and warm, the babies asleep upstairs. If he
were there, they'd be sitting there together, wrapped in one another's arms,
with mugs of hot chocolate. "Everything ok?"
He considered the question a second, lips pursed. "Why wouldn't it
be?" he said finally.
There was a chuckle from the other end of the line. "This is me
you're talking to Frank," she told him, her voice kind. "I know your
voice. And I know you wouldn't be calling at this time of the night unless you
need to talk."
He glanced at the clock, only realising then just how late it was. It
was true that he didn't call her that late most of the time; in point of fact,
there were certain times of the day that were blocked for calling, mostly at
times when the kids weren't asleep, a thought which brought something else to
mind. "I didn't wake them did I?"
"No…both fast asleep," she told him, and he breathed a sigh
of relief. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong with you?"
His gaze returned to the windows, to the steady beat of rain falling,
beating against the windowpanes. "I thought about you today," he told
her, eyes following one particular drop, tracing its path down the glass.
"Only once?" There was a teasing lilt in her voice, and it
had the desired effect of making him smile, but only briefly.
"During the case," he said, and he could hear her suck her
breath in sharply.
"That's a no-no isn't it?" she observed, trying to keep her
voice casual, but he knew her as well as she knew him, and he knew that his
words had rattled her.
"It is," he agreed. "We had a bank heist go bad, hostage
situation, one of my men was inside. They released a hostage, a bank teller.
Turns out that she was one of the gang. The leader's girlfriend." There
was silence when he paused, as she waited for him to continue. He knew that her
thoughts would have followed the same path his had done, wanted to give her
time to compose herself, should she need it. "I brought her out where he
could see her. I held a gun to her head, told him exactly what their
relationship was like. That they only saw one another once a month, if that,
but that that was the way it had to be and that they were ok with that. Except
that's not their relationship."
Her words were quiet, but accepting. "No. It's ours."
His words were just as quiet, but nowhere near as accepting. "I
know."
"Is that's what's bothering you?" she asked. "Frank, you
did what you were trained to do. Used whatever means necessary to get through
to him. There's nothing wrong with that."
He shook his head. "It seems wrong…like I'm cheapening us
somehow…"
There was a soft chuckle through the line. "That's not what it was
Frank, and if I thought it was, you were the first one to know about it."
He smiled despite himself, knowing that much was certainly true. "I don't
care if you use me, or how you feel about me, to get through a case. The only
thing I care about Frank, is that you keep yourself safe and well, and get
yourself home to us in one piece."
He sighed, the image of Wilkes and Jake once more bleeding into Johnson
and Bel. "I could have lost you that day Bel," he breathed.
"But you didn't." Her voice was strong, firm, and he wanted
nothing more than to believe her. "You kept him talking until SWAT could
do their thing, kept him from getting away, from doing anything to me…"
Her voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard. He hadn't been the only one who'd
been woken by memories in the middle of the night, and her nightmares had been
worse than his had been. "I'm here Frank. And I love you, and I'm not
going anywhere."
Donovan reached up, rubbing one hand over his forehead and closing his
eyes, letting his mind form an image of Bel and the kids, feeling the tension
drain out of him. "How much longer till I’m there?" he asked, not
because he'd lost track of the days, but because he needed to know that she was
counting down just like he was, needed that confirmation that she was missing
him just as much as he was missing her.
"Too long Frank," came the murmured reply. "Too, too
long."
He sighed into the phone at the loneliness of her words, the loneliness
he recognised, the loneliness he shared. The loneliness they'd chosen when he'd
taken this job, when she'd insisted that he should. This was the way they'd
wanted it, the way it had to be. He knew that, and so did Bel.
This was the reality of their life.
"Tell me about the kids." His voice was low, but she laughed
in delighted memory and launched straight into a long and involved anecdote
about something that had happened earlier that day. By the time she was halfway
into it, he was smiling too, and by the time the story was finished, they were
both laughing. And then she told him another one, then another, and they sat
there talking long into the night, one in Illinois, one in Montana, both taking
a break from their lives.
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