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Five Times Scotty Knew Kelly Better Than Kelly Knew Himself, and One Time It Was the Other Way Around
by Allthinky
1. A Cup of Kindness
It was, as movie cowboys often said, only a flesh wound. It had packed a mean punch to his leg, and hurt like - well, like a piece of hot lead through the flesh - but in the end all he'd needed by way of medical treatment was a few sutures. After instructing him on keeping the wound clean and dry, they'd handed him a prescription for pain pills and sent him on his way. On the way out of the clinic, Scotty'd tried kidding around with Kel about how much fun a teetotaller might have with pain pills, but Kelly was still miles away. After the first several desperate apologies, he'd battened down all the hatches. Scotty knew Kelly would come around eventually, but he didn't think he'd ever hear the story about the Spanish lady cop and the flamenco dance.
Back at the hotel, after the literal sparks had died down, Scotty admired the pluck of the young export clerk, returning the favor of a box of firecrackers in an enclosed space. On the other hand, while Kelly took cover under the bed with his conquest, Scotty had just his own self, a surprising collection of dust bunnies, and a charlie horse unlike any he'd had before. He hadn't wanted to disturb whatever pleasantries Kelly was up to under the other bed, but he had neither the desire to remain in the room with them, nor the ability to extricate himself from his makeshift bomb shelter.
He called out, with as much sarcasm as he could muster,
"Hey Don Juan, are you still in one piece over there?"
There was a sudden stillness, and a stifled giggle.
"I only ask because I'm a tiny bit injured over here, you see, and therefore helpless to make my own way topside. If you'll kindly be of some small assistance, I will remove myself from your playground posthaste."
He heard Kel clear his throat, then a murmur. After some rustling sounds, he found himself looking at his partner's knee and listening to his best W.C. Fields impersonation.
"Fear not, my man. You can always count on me to pull you out from under the bed when the situation calls for it. I can also lace up your shoes, in a pinch."
Kelly kept his face turned away as he reached under the bed and grabbed Scotty by the arms. He counted three with great ceremony, then pulled, levered, and shifted until Scotty found himself sitting on the edge of the bed, sweating but able to relax the quadraceps muscle to relieve the ache. When Kelly turned back to his visitor, Scotty tried surreptitiously to massage some of the tightness out, seeking to quit the room as quickly as possible.
As often happened, he found that his partner had other plans. He looked up to see Kelly shooing the young woman out the door.
"Sorry, honey, I'd love to prolong the visit, but now that the fire's out, I recall that I actually have a great deal of work to do."
Within minutes the girl had disappeared, the box of firecrackers was smoldering in the shower stall, and Kelly had seated himself on his own bed and demanded that Scotty take his trousers down.
"Oh, no, Romeo - you just let your hanky panky walk out the door. I was brought up right, and you know it. Don't make me write my mom and tell her what you did!"
"Milton, you are a million laughs. Now, do you think you tore the stitches? Just get rid of the pants, and I'll get you some ice."
Still not looking Scotty in the eye, Kel was up and into the bathroom. He emerged almost instantaneously with a damp washcloth, which he conveyed to the ice bucket, and then spent some seconds rattling ice cubes and muttering to himself.
"Kelly, would you stop it? I don't need ice or nothing. Just a little spasm, is all. I haven't been keeping my crawling-out-from-under-the-bed muscles in good form, lately. Didn't you see me walking to the door just minutes ago? Now cut it out."
His head bent over the ice bucket, Kelly took on an air of weary patience.
"Cut what out? This is what we do, Scotty. You take care of me, I take care of you. And we all live happily ever after. Didn't you learn nothin' in spy school?"
"Yes, I learned stuff. All about duty, betrayal, and death. A real blast. Anyway, I don't care what you said, man, you are too glum. Don't try to lie to me."
"I'm not glum, I'm .... contemplative," Kelly dumped the ice back into the bucket and tossed the washcloth on top. Then he crossed to his bed and threw himself down on it, one arm covering his eyes.
Scotty sat on his own bed, prepared for a lengthy debate.
"Nay, nay sir, you are glum. I know me some glum when I see it. Anyhow, you couldn't be contemplative if you tried."
"Is that so?" Kelly asked, but his traditional comeback lacked any real petulance. "I'll show you contemplation. While you rest here and read some egghead book or something, I'll go write a report wherein I explain to my betters just how it is that I not only took care of the assignment, which involved killing an old friend and erstwhile teacher, and also managed to get my partner almost killed. All in one fell swoop. How about that?"
It was just as well that they weren't looking each other in the eye. Listening to Kelly's self-loathing was hard enough; he had no desire to see that look in his eye - the excruciating doubt that anyone else could find value in a man who saw his own failings so clearly. Scotty reckoned he had about one chance to head off the evening of drinking, brawling, and other self-destructive behaviors that even now Kelly was no doubt envisioning.
"You always have been an overachiever. And I'm sorry to tell you this, Hemingway, but the report's already done."
Now Kelly looked at him; Scotty caught the swift movement of Kelly's head and could almost see the accusatory stare out of the corner of his eye.
"What did you say?"
The tone was even, almost blank, but Scotty had known Kelly long enough to read it: anger combined with relief that responsibility had been taken from him.
Scotty sat up carefully and looked Kelly in the eye.
"I said, the report's done. I did it while I was waiting for you at the clinic. While you were, um, making sure Russ didn't have anything on his person that might embarrass the department, and summoning the police with your famous horrified tourist act. It's a good thing I wrote it, too, because it sounds like you would've left out the part where we got the prototype back."
"Scotty - what did you do?"
Kelly's eyes were desperate; he wanted and didn't want for the whole thing to disappear without his having to lift one more finger. Scotty could see the anger Kelly had for himself all coiled up, ready to lash out at some innocent bystander - like a meddling partner - if given half a chance.
"What did I do? Listen to yourself, Duke. What would I do? I wrote up the report; I mean, it's all sketched out in my notebook - you still get to type it up in triplicate, if you want."
Kelly's eyes narrowed. He knew he was being snowed; but figuring out the exact contents of this snowjob was beyond him. With practiced nonchalance, he retrieved Scotty's notebook from a pile of items on the dresser and leafed through it, one hip resting against the edge of the desk.
"'Due to previous knowledge of target, Robinson ascertained location of item. Item retrieved; Scott wounded. Target neutralized; cleanup successful.' Scotty, you can't - we can't ..."
"Why not, man? It's just the truth. Didn't leave out anything the Pentagon needs to know."
"Oh, really, pal? How about this: instead of executing a double agent as ordered, I let him con me into helping him double-cross the both of us, get his hands on a valuable and dangerous component, and almost kill you. Then, in all of my wonderfulness, I go ahead and throw him over a cliff, strip the body of identifying items, and make sure he'll be buried in an unmarked grave. You don't think they'd be interested in those trivial details?"
"Kel, listen. You treated an old friend, an old teacher, with kindness. You gave him a chance. And in the end, we got more than the Department wanted --"
"In the end," Kelly broke in, with barely controlled anguish, "he would've killed you." Leave it to Kelly to think he'd failed two friends because he couldn't save everybody.
Scotty shook his head.
"Just like on every other job, the bad guy tried to kill both of us. And we did the job, just like we always do, even double-crossed by one of the best in the business. You want to tell me which part you really regret? Is it me getting wounded, or you getting suckered?"
Kelly crossed his arms and dropped his eyes, but his answer was free of defensiveness, if not self-loathing.
"Is there a third choice? You got wounded because I got suckered?"
"I hate to break it to you, Kel, but you don't have control over everything. I got wounded because an assignment went bad on us. That's all."
"But it was my responsibility. I'm the senior agent. You wouldn't have gone for it if it weren't for me."
"Maybe not. Hard to say. He was pretty convincing - all that shame over getting broken. It's not the kind of lie you expect a guy to tell. But don't take all the credit, Duke; you wouldn't have gone for it if I hadn't gone along. Right? Since when have you known me to play follow the leader? For that matter, when have you ever tried to steamroll me?"
For two minutes, maybe three, Scotty thought he might be the loneliest man in Hong Kong.
"Well, I believe I have heard it was a great favorite of yours back in Philadelphia, have I not?"
Kelly's diversion was not brilliant, but Scotty seized on it all the same.
"Well sure, man, but only if I got to be the leader. Me or Fat Albert. Man - you should've seen some of the things that guy would try to get us off his tail ..."
***
2. Vendetta
The car was as old as Scotty had promised, but it did run, volubly so. The assault of the engine turning over, after the eerie silence of the Torazzi courtyard, made Kelly flinch. Scotty caught his eye for a minute, the familiar measuring gaze taking in Kelly's physical state, then shifted the car into gear. Kelly didn't know whether Scotty's disgusted sigh was down to the clash of the ancient gears or his own lack of smooth, but he wasn't going to lay any bets.
By the time they reached the hotel, Kelly concluded that the car was not Scotty's problem. A cold silence accompanied him to the room, and that same cold silence met the news that he was headed for the shower. He knew Scotty's ire was justified, given the way he'd been lured guilelessly to his very own murder trial, and then refused to help Scotty help him. You've met my failure - that was a laugh. Scotty didn't fail. That was purely a Robinson trait. He wouldn't blame Scotty if the silent treatment lasted the whole rest of their career. Of course, as long as he remained hiding in the bathroom, he could put off the inevitable moment when Scotty gave up on silence and started in with the yelling. On the other hand, as long as he remained in the bathroom, he had to contemplate the clothing that had been too near Romolo Torazzi when the trigger was pulled.
Kelly thus shaved with meticulous care, eyes riveted to the mirror. He couldn't blame Scotty for being put out. By the same token, he wouldn't have blamed Remo for turning over in his grave. Romolo had brought his death upon himself in many ways, but if Kelly hadn't long ago put friendship over duty, the right brother might have come home from that war. Instead, Famiglio Torazzo had lost the remaining twin, along with any comfort they may have had regarding Remo's death.
"Hey - you all right in there? Done with your self-flagellation? Can I get you a cat o' nine tails, or did you just drown in the shower?"
The jibe didn't sound right, delivered in such a flat tone. Poor Scotty. It wasn't right he should have to save his partner from personal failures as well as occupational hazards.
Kelly wiped his face with a towel and opened the door.
"Um, sorry man, you need --?" He indicated the room with a wag of his head.
"Nope. I need you to take off the hair shirt and then come down with me to eat something. You look ... peaked."
Kelly didn't mean to laugh - if he had meant it, it wouldn't have come out sounding like a strangled walrus. He tried to overcome his ridiculous shame to look his partner in the eye.
"Sorry, but I'm a little confused. Aren't you mad at me, Duke?"
"Yes. I am. But it's not going well. Looks like I gotta stand in line just to beat you up."
Scotty turned away, and Kelly felt a slight shift in the air between them. He steadied himself against the doorframe, then followed Scotty into the room.
"Hey, look man, don't make fun of me. I've had a bad day."
"Oh, really? You wanna hear about my bad day?"
Scotty sounded peevish.
"No. I just - don't be yelling at me, Jack. I was just trying --"
"Shut up."
Kelly paused in the act of pulling a shirt over his head.
"Hey, you're out of line," he said, but he knew his claim lacked conviction, maybe because he didn't believe his own words.
"No. I'm not. You've been lying to yourself for two days, Kel, and I think you know it."
Having successfully shouldered his way into the shirt, he took a breath to try to deny it. Of course, Scotty wasn't finished.
"Just stop it, man. Stop it. And don't even think about lying to me. I'll tell you what you were trying to do. You were trying to get yourself killed as penance for getting Remo killed! Doesn't that sound like the kind of thing I'm entitled to be uptight about, Jack?"
"Hey, listen, Scotty --" It was taking a surprising amount of energy to sound aggrieved. "Stop trying to shrink my head, all right? I'm not ... stupid. I would've --"
"Ha!"
Scotty, apparently, had boatloads of energy.
"Not stupid? You listen to me, Stanley! Stupid's just the beginning. You've got yourself so tangled up in what you should've done or shouldn't have done that you don't even know how stupid you are. And I think I've known you long enough to be able to identify the stupidity when it comes out of your mouth. So hear this: you do not get to decide whether you live or die for your mistakes. We are a team, Jack. I know you can't always be careful, or even intelligent, but under no circumstances are you allowed to throw your life away while I'm spinning my wheels looking all over the countryside for your sorry self."
Kelly tried to listen to the words, but he was more puzzled by Scotty's tone. The man was clearly trying to keep it light, but something kept breaking through, and it wasn't anger. Scotty could hold onto anger and bury it so deep no one would ever find it. He'd had a lot of practice. This was a whole new sound - was it fear? It didn't figure.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Scotty. It's just, I gave him my word, you know? And he was my friend. A real friend. In a tough time. I just - I didn't want it all to be for nothing. I mean, I didn't understand it - the way he cared about his family's honor - but he died for it. I just thought the least I could do was keep a promise."
It was making him tired. And his head hurt. He ignored the fact that he was wearing a shirt and a towel, and sprawled in an armchair about as far from Scotty as he could get.
But Scotty was shaking his head, and making those little sounds of disapproval that only Scotty, and his mother, could make.
"The least you could do. You should hear yourself. Listen to me, Kel. He wouldn't have wanted this. If he was your friend, he would never ask you to die for his coward brother or for his family's honor. That was his privilege, not yours. I don't care what kind of promise you made to him. If he'd seen you today, he would've smacked you right in the mouth."
His disdain was almost tangible, and Kelly felt his energy returning with a burst of anger, but he kept a tight lid on it.
"Now how do you know all of that, Fred C.? You didn't even know the man."
"I didn't have to know him, man. I know you, and I know what it's like to be your friend."
The pain in Kelly's chest, which had nothing to do with the beating he'd taken the day before, made him close his eyes against his partner's unusually sincere gaze. He could still hear Scotty's quick inhalation before he went on.
"He'd forgive you for telling the truth, Kel, if there was anything to forgive. Whether he'd forgive you for that dumb stunt you pulled today? I don't know."
Kelly wanted a cigarette badly. A cigarette, and a quart of Chianti. And he wanted to believe Scotty.
"Is that so?" he asked, pushing a couple of sore ribs around and finally making eye-contact with his partner.
"Do you doubt me?"
Kelly sat for a moment under the guise of testing his bruised ribs against a deep inhalation, and then a long exhalation.
"Well, now that you mention it, I have rarely ever had cause to doubt you. But I do want you to know, I know that Remo definitely would've forgiven me for today's dumb stunt."
"You think?"
"I know it. Turns out I have kind of a long track-record of pulling dumb stunts. Or, you know, what people might want to call dumb stunts. And he always forgave me for every one."
"I bet he would've made you buy him dinner, though, after pulling a dumb stunt like that."
"Well, lucky thing is, I'm always willing to buy a man dinner. Because, again luckily, I left my whole per diem in my other pants that didn't get taken prisoner."
"I see. Those must be your 'staying safe at home' pants."
"Certainly. And having done so, they now will become my 'taking my friend to dinner' pants."
"It's good to have pants that are flexible like that."
"I've always thought so, yes."
***
3. A Room with a Rack
Scotty kept a discreet hand in the small of Kelly's back all the way from Anderson's office to the front walk. The department's Madrid office took the middle floor of a neo-colonial monstrosity with an insurance agency above and a tailor on the street. Lighting a cigarette, Kelly found himself overwhelmed by the tang of cheap cologne. He'd been choking on it in Anderson's office, and instead of escaping it, he found to his consternation that it had followed him out. His right hand, he realized, was redolent of the stuff. He'd used that one to deck Anderson. He considered it a worthwhile sacrifice.
"He owes us a vacation, man."
Scotty's voice was that same blend of childish whine and entirely grown-up sadness that he'd been using, intermittently, ever since Kelly had woken up in the hospital. It pained him to hear his whip-smart partner constantly feeling Kelly out for which way his mood was swinging. It was only one of many of the regrets he had about the last two weeks, but it cut pretty deep.
"Yeah. Business, pleasure, all that jazz. No rest for the weary, and seventy-eight other cliches from me to you."
Whatever he'd meant to convey, he hadn't pulled off any lightness whatsoever. Now he was responsible for the way Scotty was looking at him, measuring him, out of the corner of his eye. He took a deep drag on the cigarette, then watched in dismay when some muscle in his forearm spasmed, jerking his hand just enough to lose his grip on the cigarette. Scotty spoke over his quick expletive, and in his easy way stepped behind Kelly and to his right, plucking up his jacket sleeve and taking Kelly's right hand between his two at face level.
"Looks like you'll be holding the champagne bowl with two hands, tonight, Herman."
Kelly grimaced mildly as Scotty traced the twitch in the muscle to its origin at his elbow and dug in. After a blank second, Kelly realized Scotty was falling into training mode right here on the street in Madrid, and he was going along with it. He jerked his arm away with a grunt, angry with himself for giving in to Scotty's helpful nature.
"Who said there was going to be champagne tonight anyway, Duke?" He was working on a tone of mocking self-pity, but didn't like his chances of pulling it off. A sheepish glance at his partner's face only confirmed his failure.
"Will you listen to yourself? Just listen to yourself. Come here."
As if Kelly were a stubborn child, Scotty grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged - more gently than was his wont - til they had dodged through late afternoon traffic into a shaded plaza. Scotty's custodial behavior continued; pointing at a bench, he barked "Sit!" and then stood with his arms crossed until Kelly complied. Then, to Kelly's dismay, the lesson began.
"I know what you're doing. You're still beating yourself up over the whole thing. You still think you lost something - back there, in that dungeon, don't you?"
"Oh, come on, Scotty, are you going to deny it? I had all the fortitude of your Great-Aunt Tilly during our whole fraudulent vacation. And I would ask myself, why are you still here? Except I know you, and you'll stick with me until it all goes bad and you'll end up holding the bag. For a genius, you're not very smart sometimes."
He retrieved his cigarettes and shook out another one, but his hands were still shaky, and the whole procedure didn't go well.
He wasn't surprised when Scotty sat down beside him, but was astonished when he grabbed the cigarette and lighter from him. Alexander Scott, physical trainer and Kelly's own private fun spoiler, lit the cigarette and then passed it over.
"All right, all right, here comes the bad news. Lighting a cigarette for a broken man - gonna let me down easy, Jack?"
But Scotty only smiled and shook his head.
"You still don't know, do you? The only one I'm letting down tonight is my mother, when I take you out for champagne and lobster to celebrate, Kel. And you better be ready to lie to her when you write, because you know how she feels about us wasting the taxpayer's dime on luxuries."
"Champagne and lobst - you don't even drink, Chester. What do you take me for? And your mother has never once complained about the taxpayer's dime, or anyone else's, for that matter. She can't deny me anything. But she won't like you drinking."
"First of all, I won't be drinking the champagne. I'll be having tonic and lime, probably, and they'll look at me funny like they always do."
Scotty stopped for breath, his eyes steady on the passing cars and the foot traffic going by. Kelly watched him, concentrating on keeping the trembling of his hands to a minimum as he worked the cigarette, but he couldn't see any duplicity on his partner's face. Not that he expected duplicity from Scotty, not ever ... but ...
"Second of all, champagne and lobster because you deserve a little celebration. So, we'll call Lindy Upside-Down McGowan, and we'll book a table, and we will, in our inimitable fashion, celebrate that we got out of this mess in one piece."
Like the Zen master he wasn't, Scotty remained perfectly still. He sat slightly hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees. Kelly could tell that he was no longer watching cars, and was now just gazing into the distance.
"Celebrate." Kelly let the word fall from his lips, a stone into a pond. He'd never felt less like celebrating in his life.
"I know, Kel," Scotty said, still gazing, not for the first time appearing privy to Kelly's partner's thoughts.
"But consider this: those bastards had you, they had both of us cold. And you never gave up a thing. And, in spite of the self-pitying nonsense you've been selling yourself, you never lost anything. You know who looks bad? Anderson looks bad. I don't know how he's going to explain this - almost losing a top field agent, twice, almost busting up a well-oiled, successful team, twice, for a plan that failed. So, yes, if you ask me, you fool, a celebration is in order. Because you didn't lose anything, and the Department didn't lose anything - no thanks to the empty hats running the joint - and I did not lose anything."
The recital paused, and Scotty took a deep breath, and turned to look Kelly in the eye.
"Do understand me now, Jack?"
Not for the first time, Kelly found that he had no words for his partner.
"And finally," Scotty said, levering himself off the bench with a huff, discretely taking his partner's elbow, "finally, don't you ever underestimate the fortitude of my Great Aunt Tilly, man. She would smack you in the mouth so hard, your mouth would be talking to Thursday while the rest of you was still in church on Sunday ...."
***
4. Magic Mirror
Just don't lie to yourself.
Scotty offered this sage advice to his partner, then the both of them lapsed into a pained silence. It wasn't exactly tiresome, not exactly irritating, or even boring (despite its predictability), but this mood of Kelly's was in the same neighborhood. The post-girl funk, wherein a punishing self-loathing surfaced from its home in Kel's unconscious, eager for blood. Scotty would happily take a bullet for the man. He would also pay a lot not to get these occasional glimpses into just how wretched the insides of an outwardly beautiful cat could be. Not boring. Just . . . tiring.
It was simpler for Scotty; when he wanted to, he could envision the life that might await him, if he ever walked away from this half-life. The wife, the children, the corner office overlooking the verdant quad and the two-class-per-week schedule. He'd pictured it a thousand times in grad school, but back then he thought he would have to earn it. So, he had tucked that picture into a quiet corner of his mind for safekeeping, and kept his head down and his mouth closed during spy school and his early assignments. The job he was doing was three parts damnation to one part redemption, but he was willing to face the damnation because he liked to think that the work he did gave some other poor slobs a shot at a dream - the kind of dream Scotty had come by honestly, thanks to his mom and a couple of lucky breaks.
Kel had long since lost sight of any life better than the one he had now: a schizophrenic marriage of duty and dissipation, either of which could end up fatal, if it weren't for his dopey Rhodes Scholar partner. Whenever Kelly spotted something worth saving, assignment or not, he ended up charging blind into a snake pit or right off the edge of a cliff. Kelly could spot a lost cause from a mile way and convince himself it was a sure bet. Then, a second after the big reveal, down he went. Scott knew it had something to do with Kelly believing that he didn't have a right to happiness, and it pained him. Whatever he himself was sacrificing by working for the Department, he could imagine the time after, when his dues had been paid. Mostly, Kelly didn't seem to think he'd ever be done paying.
In spite of that, or maybe because of it, Scotty didn't begrudge Kelly the labor required to pick the man up, dust him off, and put his heart back where it belonged. And a steam room was as good a place as any to make a couple of repairs. But he hated the sweat running into his eyes, and tried to scrub away the irritation with equally sweaty hands. He grabbed a hand towel to dry his face, then tossed it back over his shoulder to Kelly, who was probably having eye trouble, too. The little "humph" that followed the sound of the towel hitting Kelly's face was gratifying, and encouraged him to try to knock one more wedge under the weight trying to suffocate his partner.
"How are we going to write this one up, Hobey? They were a little curious about the whole timing of the pictures and when we finally got ourselves out of there."
"I dunno, man, you'll think of something. Tell 'em we were away free and clear, but I forgot my gun, had to go back and get it."
"Uh huh. And it was such a heavy gun, I had to go back with you, and we got stuck in an elevator."
"Well, it was heavy, no doubt about that."
They were silent for another moment.
"Hey, Scotty? How about one day we get me a lighter gun?"
"Well, something needs to lighten up around here. Tell you what. Just keep eating your greens, and you'll be big and strong enough to carry your own gun." And if you don't, I'll just have to stay put, won't I?
"Is that right?" Kelly's voice trembled with grief, or possibly gratitude. "I hope you don't think I'm going to start eating your greens, man. You can't make me. And don't you even think for one second that I'm going to lie to your mother about it."
"Nuh-uh. You can't lie to my mother, man. She'll see right through you in a second."
"You are right about that, sir. Your mother is no fool."
Of course, Scotty thought, not for the first time, that's not necessarily a guarantee that she didn't raise one.
***
5.Turnabout for Traitors
Blood loss, infection, exhaustion; none of these conditions came as a surprise. Nevertheless, when Scotty was finally permitted into his partner's hospital room, he was glad that Kelly was asleep. He'd hate to have had to explain the look on his face when he first came through the door and caught sight of the wretched specimen swaddled in starched sheets under the hand-painted watchful gaze of the crucified Redeemer.
He'd seen Kelly in worse shape before - Scotty himself had been in worse shape on occasion - but rarely as the result of such a gargantuan cock-up. Nate and Hampton showing up in his hotel room, when he'd still had some Philadelphian air in his lungs, had blindsided him. He'd barely had time to absorb the idea that Kelly had turned traitor before they'd begun producing 'the evidence' amassed against him. Finding himself going through his partner's jacket for clues made him feel like a character in one of those Kafka short stories - he'd never liked them much - and finding the wad of cash made the story more pathetically absurd. (It was, literally, laughable; he could imagine Kelly going bad in any number of ways, if pushed just right. He would say the same for himself. He could not, however, imagine Kelly selling out British agents for cash. On the list of his partner's vices, money was way down there, below blasphemy, occasional gluttony, and about a mile below coveting his neighbor's wife, given the right circumstances.)
With his mind still back in Philadelphia, Scotty had been caught flat-footed by the whole scene, and more so by Nate's subsequent murder. He hadn't even been able to swear that the knife in Nate's back had been thrown. He knew it had been, but he hadn't seen it; the angle was bad. His confidence that Kelly hadn't killed Nate didn't exactly convince the suits in the Department. Scotty wasn't used to feeling so helpless, and worse, he wasn't used to his partner running out on a limb without at least letting Scotty in on the location of the tree.
Kelly shifted in his sleep, bringing Scotty back to the present. He found that he was gripping the rails of the hospital bed hard enough to make his hands cramp, and as he let out a deep breath to try to relax, he realized he'd been clenching his teeth as well. Most folks in the trade would opine that Alexander Scott was a very cool, calm, collected fellow. Well, let them think that. He snaked out his right foot to catch a leg of the bedside chair and pulled it closer. He sank down into it with another deep breath, preparing to settle in for a long wait.
"What are you so angry about?"
Kelly's voice was thick and drowsy, and he hadn't even opened his eyes, but there he was, Mr. Nonchalance in the flesh.
"What makes you think I'm angry?"
"Too quiet, too still. Strung like a bow and trying to breathe through it. Someone steal your lunch money?"
His eyes finally opened to reveal cautious curiosity along with drug-related vagueness; he tried to shift himself up a bit, probably to make better eye contact with Scotty, but caught himself with a hiss of pain.
"All right, Hobey, hold your horses," Scotty muttered, raising the head of the bed slightly, and shifting one pillow away from the stab wound in Kelly's back. When they made eye contact again, Kel simply raised his eyebrows to indicate that his question still stood.
Shifting his weight uneasily, Scotty toyed with the hem of the blanket.
"Nope. No one took my lunch money. Someone ran off with my partner, though. And then they returned him - folded, spindled, and mutilated."
The little puff of air probably would have been a snorted laugh, Scotty thought, if only Kelly hadn't been taking care not to aggravate sutures.
"Sounds like a rotten deal, pal," Kelly said with some lightness, and then he once again made solid eye contact, and cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry."
"Yes, you certainly are. But tell me, partner, what exactly you are sorry about."
Kelly's eyes narrowed, and then his whole face opened into a soft vulnerability, only partly attributable to morphine.
"Well, that I couldn't get out of it faster? I guess after they got Nate, I was a little desperate. Should've figured a way - I dunno. Definitely shouldn't have gotten knifed in the back. And then, you know, I trusted Hampton. That was a dumb move - not my first, of course, but certainly one of my greatest."
Scotty shook his head. Kelly appeared to be on his way back to sleep, and Scotty knew he needed it, but they weren't quite done with the conversation, and they needed to have it out, now, before Kelly spent one more day reflecting on his own shortcomings.
"Sorry, Kel. That's not what you're sorry for. But thanks for playing."
Catching himself on the threshold of sleep, Kelly's pathetic expression took a turn toward the sour.
"Hey, man - what's that supposed to mean? I tried to keep you out of it -"
"Yes - yes you did. And that worked out splendidly, didn't it? Why didn't you just trust me? I handed you a Get Out of Jail Free card, partner, and you tore it up and tossed it in my face."
"No, I didn't - You're not - Scotty, are you mad at me?"
Scotty allowed himself a smirk. "Give the man a kewpie doll."
"So that's why I'm sorry? Because I didn't go along with your brilliant plan? Scotty, I just . . . I didn't want your career to go up in smoke, if I could help it."
"Kelly, listen to me closely. I'm. Your. Partner. That means we get into jams together, and we get out of them together. Now, why would you go off all on your own, leave a perfectly good private plane on the runway, your partner with his mouth hanging open and a dead man in the back of the car? Protecting me is not your job. That's not how it works, Kel. We work together."
There was a charged moment during which Kelly seemed to be deciding on the best response, short of pretending to pass out. His eyes, when they flitted back to meet Scotty's, were blank.
"No? Is that right? Seemed like you had your own rules back in Philadelphia, when those goons had your mom and Jo. Did I miss something?"
Had he not known Kelly as well as he did, Scotty would have walked out on the man right then. He held himself together with all the restraint at his disposal.
"Nice try, pal. That was different. You know why it was. I couldn't --"
But Kelly was making a feeble dismissive gesture with his right hand.
"Yeah, I know, I know. That was out of line. I'm sorry. Listen, Scotty, I don't know what you want from me, man. And I'm too tired to figure it out. Are you gonna take pity on me or what?"
Scotty scrubbed at his face with both hands, and let himself flop back into the chair.
"Pity for the pitiful. Why not? Talking about my mom was a low blow, Homer. Of course, you didn't slug me on the chin to ditch me. I guess I might owe you one for that."
"Certainly. Scotty? I'm still - I trust you, man. You know that."
"I do. But then explain to me how it is that a basically bright guy like yourself can forget so fast that he has a partner. I may be smarter, funnier, and better looking than you, but I still need you to prop up my cover. You don't get to make executive decisions about the partnership - you don't get to run out on it. Right?"
But Kelly was asleep. Just as well, Scotty reckoned.
"And you don't get to decide that I'm worth more than you are, or run away to protect me from the trouble you get yourself into. Agreed? Good. I'm glad we had this little chat."
Sometimes it was easier to win an argument with Kelly when he was asleep.
***
6. A Few Miles West of Nowhere
Scotty was sitting on the edge of the bed, wincing manfully, while Kelly cleaned out the cuts on his face and hands and muttered to himself in a voice that teetered on the line between mockery and admiration; Scotty didn't know anyone else who could swing that particular tone.
"'It started with guns, how'd you think it would end up?' That was a hell of an exit line, truly, but you'd better be careful, Duke, or you're going to start sounding like Mahatma Gandhi."
The drive from Cathy's had been grimly silent, and he appreciated Kelly's attempt to lighten the mood, but something had cracked a bit, back at that barn, and Scotty felt his mood suddenly lurch out of his control.
"Yeah, well, there's worse people to sound like, Senator Goldwater."
Whoops. He felt Kelly's body tense in front of him, and an upward glance told him what he already knew: Kelly's eyes, nearly black in the low light of the cheap bedside lamp, were large and blank, and his face had taken on the schooled nonchalance it always did when he was hurt.
Scotty grabbed the hand holding the washcloth and lifted it away from his own face, trying to put as much apology as he could into his expression.
"Sorry, Kel. That was out of line. I'm just tired."
He stood up, and Kelly was forced to take a few steps back to make room, but he didn't take his hand back or his eyes off of Scotty's face.
"You're tired," he repeated, carefully, then turned away and disappeared into the bathroom, calling carelessly back, "Well, you've got a right, what with one thing and another. This trip has definitely not been a swim in Lake Tahoe, just a bunch of running around in the dark and getting beat up. I'm pretty tired of it, my ownself."
Kelly shut off the light in the bathroom, and stood hipshot in the doorway, his right shoulder holding up the door frame. Scotty stood in place, nodding his head while he watched himself flex his hands, pretty sure he looked just like the bungling idiot he felt himself to be.
"You want me to wrap those?"
Scotty looked up in time to see Kelly's nod at his hands, and shook his head no.
"Just want to hit the ol' hay, man. Tired."
Terrific, he was repeating himself.
"Yes, I think I heard about that," Kelly said, lightly; then, more sharply:
"Scotty?"
Scotty had made it one or two steps toward his suitcase, wondering where his pajamas might be, but stopped dead at that tone.
There was so much he'd hated about this assignment: the initial banality, the left turn into grim, watching his partner keep a lid on his feelings of rage and humiliation at the way they'd both been treated, then getting the stuffing beat out of him by a slow-witted racist Goliath while a whole town of his slow-witted racist cousins stood around and watched. And Kelly, struggling frantically to get Tiny's attention, resorting to helpless taunts - I'm over here, you redneck honky! - in an effort to save him further hurt. If the whole thing hadn't been gone so bad, he'd have teased Kel about it afterward. Redneck Honky? That the best you can do, Homer? But the last thing he wanted to do was relive one second of the last 36 hours.
"Just let it go, Kel. It'll all look better in the morning."
But Kelly didn't move.
"Oh, really? Because in my experience, the bruises and contusions and the pulled muscles and pummeled tendons only seem to tighten up overnight. Isn't that right? Seems like I had some trainer one time always used to make me spend a whole hour in the sauna or a pot of boiling oil or something 'til I loosened up. And the whole time he'd be talking me to death about 'better luck next time', or 'not whether you win or lose', or, mostly, 'why won't you ever listen to me?' or like that, til I --"
Scotty was getting the uncomfortable sensation that he had not been able to keep a single thought or feeling from his partner in the previous two days, and he let himself sit down, heavily, on the side of his bed. He bowed his head and rubbed his hands over the top of it, wishing not for the first time that their per diem might occasionally afford them separate rooms.
"Please, I mean it, man, just leave it alone. Don't worry about it."
He knew this to be an iffy technique. Kelly almost never worried about him unless he was told not to. He just didn't want to get into the whole thing, but also couldn't rub enough brain cells together to come up with a workable misdirection.
Kelly hadn't moved, except to change the cross of his arms and slouch down a little further against the door frame.
"Certainly. Well. I wouldn't be worried about a thing, for myself. But, something just keeps bugging me about this whole assignment. And, I hope you'll stop me if I'm out of line, here, you being the brains to my ever more useless brawn, but I wonder if it had occurred to you, as it has to me, that this assignment was rotten from the ground up. Karl Pierson wasn't really, all things considered, a very different kind of man than the ones you and I take our orders from, was he? I mean, is that a far-fetched kind of a thought for me to be having or what?"
Scotty held himself very still. He had an unpleasant moment of disorientation, as if he'd been watching his uncle's slide show of an island vacation, and the next slide up suddenly displayed a raunchy bachelor party, or a still from a snuff film.
He got hold of himself, then looked up to see those familiar brown eyes - wary, waiting. Before Scotty could even decide whether to respond with nonsense or anger, Kelly continued.
"I mean, the contagious paranoia game is bad enough, but did he have to do that whole 'Communists in the Capitol' thing? You know, we were only seconds away from him talking about 'bombing 'em back to the Stone Age'."
He paused again, this time with more certainty, and without breaking eye contact.
Scotty, however, had to look away from the strange combination of empathy and pleading in Kelly's eyes. He didn't want this, didn't want Kelly to offer him these particular openings. Scott didn't want to leave his suddenly perspicacious partner curious, but he found himself compelled to sidestep the issue.
"True, true. Although, with that armory, it would've been more like 'rat-a-tat-tatting them back to the Depression,' or maybe 'mustard-gassing them back to World War I,' if it came to that."
Kelly huffed out a breath, part relieved laughter, part comment on stupidity, and he finally left the door frame to sink down on his own bed, elbows on his knees and head bowed in a near mirror-image of Scotty.
"'Dear Mom,'" he began, and Scotty braced himself for whatever tattling his partner was contemplating, "'Please tell Scotty to stop being smarter than everyone else, and also to stop being so brave and honest at all times. In fact, he should probably find a nice girl, settle down, and stop trying to fix this shitcan of a world, especially when his knucklehead bosses keep giving him the wrong jobs in the wrong towns, and Scotty's a lot smarter than they are anyhow. Love, Kelly.'"
Torn between laughter and anger, Scotty aimed at mild curiosity.
"You think I'm in the wrong job, man?"
Kelly sighed and lay back on his bed, lighting a cigarette and tossing the lighter back on the night table.
"I think," he began, slowly, gazing bleakly at the ceiling, "that you would always be the right man for just about any job, Holmes. Any honorable job, at least. But the truth is, and you know it better than I do, we have wandered far from the land of motherhood and apple pie. And, it might also be true that my best tennis game is behind me, getting smaller and smaller in the rearview. So, one day soon, no more cover. And whatever the Department wants to do with us then, we don't get one word to say about it. Then again, by the same token, an honorable person like you has to wonder about the future of the spy business. All fun and games, 'til ... Well, like you said, we go into it with guns, how do we think it's going to end up?"
Scotty felt the scowl take over his face. As much as he wanted to deny both the limited lifespan of their cover and the fatal cynicism in which Kelly was indulging, he couldn't dismiss this as his partner's usual gloom. Kelly had been a cynic and a fatalist as long as Scotty'd known him, and he'd certainly thumbed his nose at their bosses and higher ups on a regular basis. But his disenchantment usually surfaced in reaction to a particular act; now he was hinting at a more fundamental problem.
"Now who sounds like a radical pacifist?"
Kelly snorted and rolled to his side to face Scotty, propping his head up on one hand and fingering the cigarette with the other.
"Listen, pal, I never claimed to be saving the world or nothing. When I die by the sword, about four people are going to get a little misty about the eyes and say to themselves 'Now then, we have lost one of the all time great globe-trotting, pistol-packing, heavy-drinking playboy spies. Bring on the next guy.' And that'll be that."
Scotty found himself smiling gently as Kelly rolled his eyes, heightening the effect of his self-deprecating tone, but then his eyes narrowed and his gaze turned grimly serious.
"But you, man," and he pointed his cigarette at Scotty as if it were a maestro's baton, "one of these days the absurdity of all of this is going to stop giving you those polite little taps on the shoulder and smack you right in the mouth. Now, I wouldn't flatter myself to think you owe me anything, but I would ask that - when that inevitable day comes -- you won't just head off into the sunset, nattering about stickball and Chinese dialects, or clam up tight the way you do. I would take it as a personal favor, from you to me, if you could just - however it seems appropriate - just give me a little clue when the going gets good."
"Sunset? What? Going - have you lost your mind, Jack? We're better than the job - that's a given. We've always known that. So why would I be thinking about leaving now?"
When Kelly held up a hand, Scotty stopped, noting that the cigarette was nearly done for, and ashes had fallen on the bed. Kelly was usually neater about his cigarettes, if not much else.
"I didn't mean you were thinking about it now, genius. Even though maybe you should be. I just meant: I know it won't be easy for you, when it comes time to park your old partner by the side of the road, and trade your spy glasses and your decoder ring for a job that pays you in dollars instead of bullets and dry cleaning. Where people would call you 'Dr. Scott', and not look at you like you were a tennis bum's trainer, or worse, and people weren't always trying to knock your highly valuable brains out of your thick head. Don't tell me you've never thought about it."
Well, hell.
"Okay, I won't."
Truth was, he'd been angry at this small town ugliness, and frustrated with the assignment even before it had turned so ugly. It hadn't really occurred to him to put it together with the parade of other frustrations he'd felt lately. He figured Kelly was onto something, though, even if it was his partner's fear of abandonment that had compelled him to bring it out into the open.
A movement out of the corner of his eye reminded him that Kelly hadn't taken his next turn in the conversation, yet; he was rolling off the far side of the bed in order to toss his cigarette butt in an ashtray. When he turned back, though, fear wasn't what Scotty read in his eyes. It was something more like admiration.
"So, you have been thinking about it."
Scotty groaned in disgust.
"Look, will you keep your sticky fingers out of my head? Mostly, I've been thinking about going swimming in Lake Tahoe."
"Uh huh," Kelly grunted, unconvinced. Then smiled the smile that said he knew how to keep a secret.
"You've already got your resignation letter written, haven't you?"
Scotty shook his head. This conversation was going to some very foreign places, and he felt he'd left his passport behind. Best to go forward with the simple truth, and let Kelly make things complicated. As usual.
"Yes, several times, as have you. But we always end up tearing them up, don't we?"
"All right, all right, you win. You love the job, I love the job, and nothing will ever be otherwise."
Kelly lit another cigarette, then looked at Scotty thoughtfully.
"Still want to go to Tahoe tomorrow?" he asked, exhaling the smoke through his nose.
"You think they're going to give us the time?"
"Well, they'd better. Not too often we get beat up this much on a fact-finding mission. I'd like to see them try to stop us."
"No, you wouldn't."
"Party-pooper."
"Yes, I've got a Master's Degree in the pooping of parties. I can show it to you next time we're in Philadelphia."
"Master's Degree! I didn't know that - see how much I don't know about you? And, tell me the truth, sir, did you get it from the very prestigious Somber University?"
"Um, actually, no. I hate to brag, but I got it at Temple, you see."
With a grin that was somehow simultaneously sincere and a transparent bluff, Kelly headed for the shower, his parting sarcasm nevertheless reflecting fondness.
"Oh, that's right, that's right - always the best for my main man."
Absolutely, Scotty thought, nothing but the best. The best partner. The best friend. And nothing will ever be otherwise.
END
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Notes: Six post- or just pre-tag vignettes, mostly in episode order; spoilers for the named eps, and maybe some foreshadowing.
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