Smokescreen

19

Our lives are not a series of cause and effect based solely on our own choices. It's an amalgamation, an intricate tapestry of our decisions and the decisions of those around us, weaving together and reacting to one another. Erica and Ben's lives had been entwined that moment that he found Alexander sitting in his room.

Many different paths have been taken throughout many different tapestries, especially those of Erica Hale and Benjamin Ripley. However, no matter the trials, the two of them always seem to find each other. So, that brings us to the past, dear reader, where Erica had seemed to realise the inevitability of their death.

No words left her mouth, but Ben's name was on her lips as she struggled against the handcuffs. Her body ached from being hunched in the metal chair for nearly a day, though she had received no wounds.

"Alright." Ben said. "I've been planning for this for weeks."

She grasped his hand, feeling a string between his fingers that he passed to her. She recognised the material as a wire saw that they could use to sever the weaker part of the handcuffs. Erica instinctively began to thread it through hers, and Ben began to move his hands slowly and carefully. The metal heated up as the friction from the metal string began to cut through it, slowly but surely.

"Why aren't we using it to take the bomb off of you?" Ben ignored her, continuing to cut through the cuffs with the wire until one of them clinked off of her right hand. He waited for her to pass the string through her left link, but she did not.

"Erica." Ben said in a low voice.

"Ben." She replied. "You're the one with a bomb on your wrist."

"Pass it through." It was a single sentence with so much meaning. Please was unspoken. He was, afterall, still a gentleman. It had so many implications. Why wasn't he complying? She outranked him- she had for years. Her brain was yelling at her that they should just cut off the bomb, cut off both of their handcuffs, and escape. They didn't need to go back to the CIA.

Ben threaded it through himself, working and moving quickly to cut it off. He was sure not to jostle the explosive on his wrist too much. He knew that there was not going to be any big explosions this time. This bomb was meant to kill them so that they would bleed out. Something slow and painful. He needed to get Erica out before he ended it.

"So, you love me too?" Erica asked, tapping her foot as tears came to her eyes. Maybe it wasn't the right time to talk about it, but what other time would there be? Ben kept silent, but from how she twisted herself in the chair, she could see that his neck was turning red.

Erica thought back to the beginning- not hers, of course, but Ben's. She hadn't happened by that hallway by chance. Erica was an ambitious girl who had wanted to prove that she was more than just a Hale- more than her father and those before her. So, she broke into her father's office during her week home and found the file for Operation Creeping Badger. From there, she manipulated herself into a front-and-center position. Most boys will fall for a pretty girl who helps them, right?

The one thing that she didn't add to her plan was becoming fond of this skinny, awkward fleming who just wanted to belong. He somehow reminded her of herself when she joined the academy. You see, dear reader, Erica might have been doing the things they were learning before she could walk, but that doesn't mean that she enjoyed it. When she was little, she adored the stories that her dad told her about his missions and time as a teen in the academy. Alexander and Catherine actually met when he was undercover in Scotland as a university student at sixteen.

Erica used to worship James Bond, loved the movies, the books, all of the lore. She dreamed of being the perfect agent: fighting the bad guys and being the good guy. Now she wasn't so sure she was part of the good guys. They weren't the villains of the tale, but they were bad in their own right.

After going into the academy, she found that it was better to hide beneath a shield of ice, a facade of nonchalance and excellence; to make yourself unapproachable and make sure that you are by turning away anyone that comes to you for help. Ben seemed to have learned the same thing that she did. If there's blood in the water, the sharks will come.

She'd been thinking of Ben as that broken boy who had watched his friends leave and die, someone that she needed to protect. In truth, Ben seemed to have grown up more than she ever did. Erica ran away from her problems, no matter how much she tried to deny it. She refused to confront her father, instead stewing on the anger that all the hero worship had been for his own ego. She didn't see the point in letting out her feelings about Joshua, instead avoiding the topic and locking the anger, love, and hurt into her trunk.

"I've either been a cautionary tale or the best thing to happen to you. My plan is that you'll live long enough to figure out which." Ben finally spoke as the metal released and slid onto the floor with a clink. She rubbed her wrists and stretched her back, the room blurry from the tears in her eyes. Erica stood up slowly, leaning on the metal chair.

"You aren't worried about Jemma?" She asked.

"Jemma's already blown this place. Chances are that Zoe's tracked it down. It's a bust. Zibbell's then told your father and grandfather, presumably, and they're heading down here.''

"Where are we?" Erica asked, making her way to face him after grabbing the wire saw from the floor to see if she could get the handcuffs off of him.

"You really didn't recognise it?" Ben asked. "It's the warehouse where Mike and Joshua died."

She froze, staring at his face. Erica hadn't seen him fully in weeks, and though she had gotten an 'A' back in her survival study class when she was fourteen, she wasn't fully prepared for the extent of his wounds.

"I'm going to get you out of here." She said, trying to fruitlessly lace the string through his handcuffs. He pulled his hands away from her, cutting open his wrist on scar tissue, the vertical wound bleeding quickly. Ben shook his head, suddenly tired.

"If you'd asked for the moon, I would have shot to the stars to get it for you. That's something I can't do for you."

"What good is a hero if you can't save yourself?" She said to him, over the beeping of the bomb, the ticking of the clock of time, counting down to his death. The agent looked over at the girl that he had loved since he was young and naive, and gave a pained smile, stretching the scars on his face. He was a boy still, but a warrior nonetheless.

"What good is a hero if you don't save the people in need of saving?" He replied quietly. "I'm already gone. Save yourself."

Erica gaped, the tears finally spilling over. She grasped his free hand, the blood on his wrists transfering to hers.

"I'll finally be able to rest.... There are letters in my room. I wrote them a while back. Can you give them to the people they're for?" He gave a sad chuckle. Erica nodded, the silvery trails down her face reminding him of when he found her in the chamber back at Eden. Without thinking much, Ben leaned over to her, the handcuffs that chain him to his death straining against the chair.

A sudden sense of irony claimed him as he kissed her. It was a silent promise of always, but he would be gone in a snap. He remembered the first kiss- a situation similar to this one. Ben broke it, staring into her eyes that were filled with tears as she finally grasped his fate. "Live." He said. "Live like I never did."

The door slammed shut for the last time, and Erica fled the building, sprinting down the hallways like she had 3 years before so she wouldn't have to hear the explosion. She would deal with Jemma at a later date, but she was going to have to escape where Cain or the CIA couldn't track her down. So, Erica left, if only to get the letters and go.

Zoe and the Hales arrived at the warehouse two hours later, only to find Ben in the same chair he had been bound to for weeks. His face was scarred to the point where he was nearly unrecognizable. His hair was honey blond, matted and greasy, coated with the blood that ran down and covered his whole body from the hole in his arm where his hand used to be. The blood had dripped on the floor in almost a halo. Though, there was a smile on his face when he died, and his eyes were wide open with irises as dark as death itself.