DISCLAIMER: The Bionic Woman and its characters are the property of NBC. No infringement intended.
SPOILERS: References to events in 1x03 - Sisterhood.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Knowledge is sorrow's spy
By Lesley Mitchell
The night air is cool around her. A light breeze ruffles her blonde bangs, carrying with is the first hints of the autumn to come. It makes her shiver slightly, but the movement is entirely involuntary.
She is engrossed; as oblivious to the state of the weather, as to the scudding of the clouds, orange tinged by the city's glare, across the slim crescent face of the recently risen new moon. Though she can hear the bleat of the siren three blocks away, as a cop pulls over a speeding motorist, and pinpoint it as being to the north west, as easily as she can identify the scrabbling of the rat in the drift of garbage three feet behind her, neither these, nor any of the many other noises, the aural detritus of the city below, impinge on her conscious mind.
Her focus is solely for the apartment across the street. It's risky, she knows, observing from so close, but it gives her a better field of view. From here, her eyrie, she has watched the other's life for weeks, now. Seen the ups and downs. Watched the dancing and the arguments with her sister. Shared the tears the other has shed, in the quiet, lonely periods of the nights.
If she could truly feel any more, there might have been a weird sense of déjà vu, stepping into that space, as she had the previous night. She knows it as thoroughly as its occupants, probably better. She could say exactly where Becca hides things from Jaime, or where Jaime keeps the things closest to her heart. She could walk through it blindfold, and never even brush against the mismatched furniture or stumble on a shoe, casually discarded by one or other of the occupants.
Over the weeks, she's learned their routines. In the worst times, she thinks about the routines. And when the shaking won't stop, and she's forced to take the potion, the vile concoction that Anthros has given, she finds a nugget of solace, hope even, in those simple acts performed without thought by her new bionic sister.
This evening, though, is different. Jaime is late, again. She wouldn't have expected that after, last night's events; she has seen the protectiveness that comes naturally to the brunette, and her ferocity in the defence of her family. That display had provoked a stray feeling, something she could hold on to briefly inside the blank walls that imprison her mind. There was a longing to be part of something again, a longing for someone to feel as much about her as Jaime clearly does for her sister.
She's noticed this about being around Jaime. The younger woman helps crack the shell in which she lives. So far, she's not worked out what, if anything, it means. Anthros might know, but she's sure as hell not going to share this with him, voluntarily.
Nearly lost in her own thoughts, she might have missed the arrival of the vehicle, but it has a distinctive thrum, which resonates with earlier memories. Looking down into the street below the apartment, she finds that the shred of emotion for this evening is surprise. She hasn't the angle to see the occupant, nor a licence plate, but she needs neither to know about the big, dark car and its driver.
"Ruth," she whispers into the night, "you really need to get that timing fixed."
For a while, there is nothing more. She can see the sister moving around, more restless than usual, as if the introduction of a second observer has changed things sufficiently for her subconscious to feel it. Seconds tick past into minutes and, with every one that passes without the departure of the psychiatrist, she finds her own surprise more tangible. It turns to shock when she watches the cropped blonde first leave her car, then appear in the apartment.
If someone had simply described to her the rest of the evening, she would have called them a liar. Even having seen it all for herself, she is left battling disbelief.
She would give far more than a penny to know the other woman's thoughts, as she makes her way out of the building and back to her car. Enhanced vision shows her usually pale, controlled features to still hold a trace of the flush from before, and many emotions flutter across her face, as clearly as the fingers that find their way to her slightly swollen lips, several times in the short walk from building to car.
There is one more emotion for Sarah Corvus, this evening. Jealously runs riot through her mind, spreading chaos and with it the first tremors that preface the very worst of times.
She retreats swiftly into the night, lest, in the haze to come, she destroys what she covets.
The End