Chapter Text
He stretches his arms out above him in bed, winces as the incision from his rotator cuff repair surgery still pulls taut. The orthopedist at his last follow-up appointment reminded him to keep up with moisturizing it at least twice a day to help the scar tissue heal. Peter nodded along, leaving out the information that he couldn’t reach the back incision and had no one to ask to help him. It’s hours before the sun will come up, before he’d have anywhere to be and yet he’s wide awake. It would be nice to chalk it up to nerves of the day and the decision he’s making but it’s really just his reality now Peter fears. He wonders idly with a sigh as he swings out of bed if he’ll ever sleep through the night fully again. When had he last? Certainly not the last year and half as he waited with the FBI’s axe hanging over his head, got the shit beat out of him by Jacob Monroe’s henchmen over several days and eventually brought down an American president. Not the ten months before that as he learned to live an entirely different life, left behind everything (everyone) he knew and lost his partner. The last time was probably a period Peter tried very hard to keep out of mind to avoid the spiral it brought. A bungalow in coastal California, two months uninterrupted with a beautiful woman…
No. Peter physically shakes himself out of that path of thinking. He begrudgingly accepts that four hours is all that’s in the cards for him tonight and figures he might as well get a workout in before he has to be at the federal building. Peter’s use to hitting the heavy bag for awhile or pushing himself on a run but he’s had to get creative in the last couple months as his body healed. No boxing, no running, no high impact on his upper or lower body. The rower machine has been his best friend lately, along with swimming laps. He tries to reason it might be just as well—his days of running and gunning are over, God willing, so he might as well learn to work out like Peter Sutherland the citizen and not Peter Sutherland the agent.
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Two and a half hours later he’s showered and dressed and it’s still only 6:30, another two hours before Peter’s meeting but he figures he’s killed enough time doing everything else and might as well get a jump on D.C. morning rush-hour traffic. This isn’t exactly the kind of meeting where you want to show up late.
It’s the day Peter Sutherland is leaving Night Action.
Leaving the FBI completely, really, though Catherine and Director Parkins still haven’t given up convincing him otherwise. He’ll take what he can get at the moment, and right now that’s getting the fuck out of D.C. for awhile, free and clear of his past transgressions, and living off the government’s generous severance stipend for a few months. Peter takes a last look in the mirror before he leaves, hardly recognizing the man looking back. He’s keeping the beard that’s been his on-and-off companion recently for now, deciding he likes the partial anonymity and concealment it provides. His hair is a little longer these days too, and he’s lost a little muscle mass in a way that makes him self-conscious. Surely imperceptible to anyone else, but to Peter the drop in intensity of his workouts has left him feeling vulnerable. Although just about everything makes him feel a little vulnerable these days. He brushes over the part in his hair one more time, tightens up the simple half-Windsor at his neck and figures the presentation is as good as he’s going to get.
He’s instantly nervous as he enters the Hoover building, starting with the distinct feeling that the air is being slowly sucked out. Peter breathes through it, fighting off the panic attack he know would engulf him otherwise. Not here. Not today. Catherine is waiting for him in the lobby on the 8th floor, just as he expected. He assumes she’s probably sufficiently tired of being taken by surprise by him of all people.
Unlike all the previous times, she’s actually waiting for him with a subtle smile. He allows himself to muse for a brief moment on the way time really does heal all wounds—and even more-so on the seemingly boundless human potential for redemption and grace that has gotten them to this point.
“Good to see you again, ma’am,” Peter offers as she leads him down the short hallway to her private office. He clear his throat, finding it hoarse with disuse. There have been plenty of stretches recently where he speaks to no one and no one speaks to him. It occurs to him he has not said a word in several days and tries to fight through how pathetic it should probably make him feel.
“I would say the same, were it under different circumstances. As you know, this isn’t the outcome I desired. I felt like we made real progress in the last year, you and I. Personally and professionally.”
Peter nods respectfully with a small smile, unsure what there is left to say. He’s voiced his reasons for leaving already over the phone and decides for once in this career, at the very end, he’s just going to listen in silence. Catherine lets the air hang in expectancy for a moment before eventually accepting with a quiet murmur that she won’t be having any luck today. She may not have been along for the ride during the Metro bombing or the Camp David and Zadar nightmare, but Peter knows she understands on a foundational level why this has been unsustainable for him from the beginning. Night Action, and maybe the FBI in its entirety, are filled with entirely too much fundamental ambiguity for who Peter is. For who he desires to be as a person. His only regret, and maybe hers too, is that it took him so much loss and physical and emotional trauma to realize it.
“Very well, I suppose I won’t keep you any longer than I must.” He hands over his gun and badge, only recently earned back after months in purgatory with the bureau. In exchange Catherine hands him an envelope that he knows contains a sizable check. Probably more money than he’s ever had in a lump sum in his life, if he’s being honest. He’ll find out later it also contains an undated, unequivocal letter of recommendation from the President of the United States. Peter still has no idea what comes next for him professionally, or where, but he imagines that will help.
The two of them are heading back out the same short hallway in what feels like seconds but has probably been several minutes. It seems to Peter at times like he keeps missing time, fading in and out of presence in the moment for significant periods. It concerns him on some level but hopes it might improve as he gets further removed from his most recent TBI. He’s had far more over the last few years than he cares to think about.
She’s waiting for the elevator to send him on his way, and Peter gets an anxious need bubbling up to say something. The woman singlehandedly launched his career and then allowed him the means to finish it with dignity and honor rather than spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. That seems worthy of even his most ungraceful acknowledgment.
“I just want to say thank you, ma’am. For everything. I know I was not always a...pleasure to manage,” She lets out a slight bark of disbelieving laughter. Peter feels himself smile, in spite of everything. “But you didn’t let me fail either. Even when I couldn’t stop myself from trying.”
“I truly wish you the best, Peter.” She takes his hand in both of hers. “You were never trying to fail. You were just...trying to be yourself in the wrong place. Now I hope you find the right place.”
He gets on the elevator and tries his best not to cry.
Peter packs up his apartment in a depressingly short amount of time. The furniture is not his, hell some of the clothing isn’t even his. It’s been a place of little humanity, little warmth from the beginning so it’s not hard to say goodbye. The only difficulty of the goodbye is the not knowing about what comes next. He knows the where at least, and fights through the nauseous uncertainty he feels every time he thinks about California. There are many reasons he’s leaving Night Action, leaving D.C., though he would be lying to himself to not admit that one is Rose. If Peter is going to lay out the rest of his life—all his hopes, dreams, visions for it—none of them seem worth it without her. It’s been a year and a half since he let her walk out of his life. Not let her, forced her really. And while he doesn’t regret it, could never regret anything that’s kept her safe, he does feel the weight of it every single day. Peter hopes she’s been successful with whatever path of her career she’s decided to pursue, maybe even found new love, though the idea destroys him just a little. Just hopes she’s been happier.
He doesn’t have much left in the way of people he cares about, who care about him these days, so he figures he might as well be close to who he does have. And beyond that, he knows the coast will bring him genuine peace. The warmth and the water did for those couple months and he is confident it will again, even if he finds himself alone in it this time. Being alone is nothing new for Peter, but he thinks anything must be better than the isolation and persecution he’s felt every day for countless months. He’s a nervous wreck the entire flight, which it turns out is quite a significant period of time to get all the way from one coast to the other. Who would’ve thought. He closes his eyes and focuses on his own breath, fighting the need to be holding his two small checked bags on his lap and scanning the cabin for exits and assailants. Be a normal person, he thinks with recrimination. Eat your fucking peanuts and calm down. He forces visions of sunsets and normal days into his mind to block out the panic. It’ll be nice to build off the swimming he’s enjoyed recently, see how it translates in the open ocean. He thinks he might like to learn to surf, too.
There’s an optimistic wonder in his chest, too, if maybe there might be someone with him to enjoy these things, but it feels far too indulgent to dwell on. He wouldn’t blame her if there’s just been far too much pain, too much negative association, too much trauma he’s brought into her life. It occurs to him with a sting that while she’s only ever improved his life, brought him laughter and comfort and passion he hadn’t had in so long, he’s only ever brought hers ruin and risk and regret. Peter wonders if he’s being extremely selfish to even look for her again after making her promise to forget him, but he also can’t help wondering if the change in his circumstances might make some small difference. He hopes she might at least be willing to take his company as a friend, someone to try the occasional new restaurant with or ask for a ride to the mechanic when she needs it. He wants more than that too, of course, but tries to keep his expectations tempered. God knows he’s short on friends these days. And if none of it goes well, he’ll still be in California. The last place that made the churn in his gut and mind stop for awhile. And that will be so, so welcome.