>GEORGE BUSH CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE, CIA HQ
>THE BLACK FLOORS
>2200
>20NOV2019

It was a feeling like doing something wrong and waiting for your parents to get home. Like sitting outside the principal’s office. It was a secure meeting room, no windows out into the hallway, not to mention the Black Floors were subterranean anyway. He didn’t know if that made him feel better, or just more anxious. Does the deer feel better about it if it can see the wolves coming? Donnelley simply sat at the small wood table, the navy blue carpet and soundproofed walls, whole room done up like a corporate office space. He took in a breath and it sounded like hundred mile winds in the silence.

The door opened, and he almost flinched, guilty for nothing. At least nothing he’d done in this room. Director Oakes closed the door behind her and took a seat opposite Donnelley, placing a folder on the table. They didn’t speak to each other, just sat on opposite sides of the table. Her head was freshly buzzed, and he spied a small scar next to her hairline that disappeared under the hair. And then he noticed more, one on her lip, another running up her forearm. She was dressed more like she was one of the Wetwork Teams, and not a busy Director wading knee deep in the bureaucracy of the Program. She took her turn drawing in a breath and sighing it out, “This is it.” She said, nodding at the folder, “Everything Ava and Dave will need to leave this all behind.”

“Thanks.” Donnelley said, holding Oakes’ gaze. Like two street dogs, two opponents sussing out the next moves of the other.

“You didn’t ask for one for Laine.” Oakes said, a slight hint of curiosity in her voice, just at the edges.

“She doesn’t want one.” Donnelley said, already wondering when Oakes was going to pull another favor out of her ass. Just one more, that’s all it’ll take. Just one more. How many times had he told himself that, he wondered.

“You didn’t ask for one for you.” Her voice was much more matter-of-fact. Her turn to wonder about things, as she quirked a brow. “I thought you’d want to leave this all in the past and try to make something out of the rest of your life?”

“That’s not how this works.”

“It is for David and Avaline.” Oakes inclined her head towards Donnelley.

“It wasn’t for Poker, or for Maui, Clyde Baughman. Or anyone else I ever knew that’s dead now, that’s not how it worked for [i]them.[/i]” Donnelley inclined his head in turn, corner of a lip downturned in a growing frown.

“Or for Bob?”

Donnelley let go a tell, he knew, his brows twitching and then furrowing. Knitting together as he looked away, “He wouldn’t have lasted anyway.”

“Maybe,” Oakes leaned forward, “But that wasn’t for you to decide, Donnelley. He was a good kid-“

“And that’s my fuckin’ point. You said no witnesses, I told him no witnesses, and he wasn’t goin’ to pull that fuckin’ trigger-“

“Like you did? Or was it how it really went down is you faked him out and then killed him?” Oakes didn’t seem any more or any less upset with the idea that Donnelley had killed her new guy. “I wonder why?”

“I didn’t shoot him. We got to the place, his granddaughter was there, and I didn’t do it.” Donnelley was staring burning holes in the table, “I lowered my pistol. Maybe I could catch him at another time, maybe when he didn’t have his granddaughter.”

“And then this stupid fuck blows Bill’s head open.” Donnelley shook his head, fist balled underneath the table. The room was silent, but Donnelley could feel his blood pumping in his ears. Who was this bitch that could look him in the eyes, and after everything he’d done for her, and the Program, and THUNDER, and that lying piece of shit Foster, and grill him over some petty shit? How could she look him in the eyes and write him off as a fuck-up? He was good at what he did, and he’d proved it plenty-

“Would you like to know how I ended up here?” Oakes broke the silence, and Donnelley looked at her. Her and her scars, and bruises, “Ended up being the person in charge of the Program’s Office of [i]Murder?[/i]”

Donnelley opened his mouth, and then shut it. Oakes looked his face over, eyes hanging on the large burn scar that ran down his face, tracing the line that the burning coolant and oil had taken. He almost turned his face away from her, but instead he held his chin up. He was done hiding it, hiding from it. Oakes continued, “I grew up just like you. Poor family, my father beat my mother and I. Staying together for the kid is by far the stupidest shit they ever did besides have me.”

Oakes didn’t seem torn up about it, “When I was old enough, I joined the Air Force. Security Forces. Broke up a lot of fights, ended a lot of fights. I was good at it. When I heard about my father murdering my mother, I only got better at it.” Oakes nodded, a fierceness in her eyes as she recounted her past, “I planned on getting out of the Air Force and doing to him what he’d been doing to me and my mother for all our lives. Some General’s nephew or some shit lost a fight to me, and that put me on the first ride out of the Air Force. Some men in black suits and sunglasses you and everyone else here might recognize came up to me and asked if I’d like to make this all go away.”

“Next thing I know, I’m on a plane to Andersen Air Force Base. They take me to a building, hand me a key to a cell, and they tell me my father’s down the stairs.” Oakes frowned at the wall as if she could see the door there still, “I stood in front of that door for a long time. Then I went back up the stairs and handed them the key. I was done with him, my father.”

“I did my time in prison, took the Dishonorable Discharge. They came back to me and told me it was a test. They knew I could fight and kill, they wanted to know if I could [i]stop.[/i]” Oakes looked back at Donnelley, present in the room again, but giving Donnelley the same look she gave that door all those years ago.

Donnelley snorted, couldn’t help himself, “So, what? Bill was my fuckin’ test?”

“Bill needed to die, doesn’t matter now. Bob… Bob, though. I think you’re tired, Donnelley. I think one day, you're going to be sent after another Bill in another house, with another granddaughter inside of it,” Oakes stabbed her finger into the table to punctuate each word, “And there won’t be a Bob to blow that Other-Bill’s head off when he shows you he’s not planning on going today.”

“Next time, don’t hesitate. Just fucking shoot him in the face, and be done with it. There’s a right time to stop, and a wrong time to stop killing.” Oakes stood, leaving the folders on the table.

“And when’s that, since you know so fuckin’ much about everythin’?” Donnelley stared up at Oakes.

“[i]When I tell you to.[/i]” Oakes narrowed her eyes, “But, if I wanted someone like Ghost, or one of my people to head your team? I’d have [i]put one there.[/i] For what it’s worth, I know very well why you did Bob.”

Oakes turned for the door, “And I know why you didn’t ask for a folder for yourself.”

“You would’ve done the same thing. No Bob,and no folder.” Donnelley said, not quite asking as he was watching her go. She stopped halfway out the door, and turned to look at Donnelley. The look in her eyes gave him his answer, and then she turned to shut the door before Donnelley called out, “West Virginia!”

Oakes stopped. She stepped back inside and looked at Donnelley. The two stared at each other just like that for a few moments, before Donnelley spoke again, “Blackriver. Maria Vasquez. I had a job to do, I had a killer to stop—[i]UMBRA[/i] had a killer to stop.” Donnelley frowned, “Someone wouldn’t let us do it. Someone put up roadblocks at every stop, and gave Foster official authorization to do that.”

“Everythin’ in that folder I gave you came from someone outside the Program who knew [i]way more[/i] than anyone else.” Donnelley stood, sending the office chair rolling backward into the wall, “[i]I died,[/i] UMBRA and other good people [i]died[/i] to bring you that [i]fucking folder![/i]”

“And every time I meet one of these guys like I met my source for that folder, they tell me I’m not—[i]we’re not[/i],” He waved his arm to gesture to himself and Oakes, to the entirety of the Program’s Black Floors, “We’re [i]not[/i] Delta Green!”

Oakes just watched Donnelley unleash his tirade, watched him breathing hard, staring fiery daggers into her. All the while, she stared back impassively, “So?”

“So, I want to know, Oakes.” Donnelley shook his head, “What am I? What are we doing? What the hell is [i]Majestic-12[/i], who the fuck is Overman, what the [i]fuck[/i] is March Tech?”

“I thought this was Delta Green. I thought we were all on the same side.” Donnelley frowned darker still as Oakes just kept staring at him, unmoved.

“Don’t be naive.” Oakes said with some finality, and then turned and left, shutting the door behind herself.

Donnelley looked after her for a few long moments, then at the manilla folder. How lucky those two were to have someone like him. Someone willing to let them go while he was eaten by the fire, drowning in the strong flow of a river it took him too long to realize he was in. Some part of him wanted to feed those folders into a shredder. If he had to be here, so did they. But that wasn’t what he did. That wasn’t who he was. That wasn’t why he stayed so long. 

He deserved this.

>SHORTLY AFTER…///

Donnelley closed the door to the meeting room behind him. The halls were empty at this hour, the last vestiges of things to do were held in folders and closed laptops under the arms of fast-walking analysts and others. It was a 24-hour clock they ran on, no closing time, even if the activity had somewhat slowed. He passed by members of the skeleton crew, not meeting any eyes, and no eyes meeting his. Once he found Dave and Ava in a break room, he stood down the hall and just watched them, wondering what they were thinking.

Maybe plans for the rest of their lives outside and away from all of this. Figuring out how best to forget everything they’d learned about how the world really worked. The things they’d seen, and done. How to get back to normal. Here Donnelley was, standing here with their ticket. It was supposed to be a surprise, a parting gift. But gifts were supposed to be handed over with a smile, something Donnelley just couldn’t muster as he watched them. Knowing he would probably never see them again after he handed the folder over. The thick manilla folder had everything the Program had on them, psych evals, physical evals, DNA, everything anyone would need to know them as well as they knew themselves. Maybe better.

He’d flipped through some of the pages, but the DNA samples and the information about them were sealed. Not that he’d even know what he was looking at. One of the envelopes was personally addressed to Ava with a note that said she’d want to read and cross reference it with the other sample inside. He knew she’d had dreams and visions, maybe she had something inside her that wasn’t all too human, but he knew if it was something like that, well. That was one favor he would never do for Oakes. And nobody would tell her outright like this.

He shook himself from his reverie when he saw them notice him down the long hall just standing there. Dave was the first to notice, then Ava. He took a breath and finished walking over to the small break room and stood in front of them. He didn’t say anything at first, just placed the folder on the table and glanced at each of them before he looked away.

Ava lightly tightened her hands around the warm styrofoam cup she had filled with whatever generic brand tea that was kept stocked in this breakroom. It barely tasted like anything, but it was warm and had enough flavor for her brain to associate with some semblance of comfort. 

Comfort that was chased away when Donnelley silently walked up to them, set down a thick manilla folder and then looked away from them. Her heart immediately started to race as she looked at the folder and imagined all the horrible things that could be inside. Was it another assignment? Already? Why wasn’t Donnelley looking at them?

She felt her hands start to tighten too much around her cup, threatening to break the styrofoam. She cleared her throat and brought up the cup to take a sip of her warm tea. “Hey, Donnelley.” She greeted him, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen. “What’s…what’s that?”

Dave watched him approach in silence, his gaze inscrutable behind the layers of exhaustion written over his face. His eyes were red-rimmed from the gunsmoke and explosive residue, his ears still ringing despite the hours between now and the actual mission. When the envelope hit the table he looked at it for a moment in silence, reaching over and gently taking Ava’s hand beneath the table and waiting for an explanation. 

“It’s everythin’ the Program has on you. Original copies.” Donnelley said, looking back up at them, eyes going between them, “Your termination papers.”

He still didn’t seem too happy about it, “You’re free to go. Thank you for your service, leave all of this behind and don’t look back.” He said, scooting the folder closer, “I wouldn’t.”

Ava’s eyes widened and she gripped onto Dave’s hand tightly beneath the table. “R-really?” She aksed, her voice lilting upwards with hesitant hope. “Just…just like that? We’re done?”

“Just like that,” Dave said softly. He squeezed her hand, and with his other reached out to take the papers, pulling them over. Then he stood and offered his hand. “I won’t lie an’ say I’ve loved every minute of this…But hell, I guess I can’t lie and say some of it wasn’t kinda fun.” 

Donnelley’s hands turned into fists at the sentiment of it all being ‘just like that.’ It wasn’t just like that for him, or any of them. His best friend was being restrained by Security in a holding cell somewhere down here, a lot of other people had it easier being dead. Let alone knowing what he’d had to do for Oakes to get them this. Someone was dead, and his granddaughter woke up to it.

He stared at Dave’s hand and it was as if the brotherhood between them had evaporated with his fucking smile. His eyes went from the hand to Dave’s eyes, “You might’a thought it was just that easy, Dave, but you weren’t the one that had to do what I had to do to get this.” Donnelley planted his hand on the folder and roughly slid it towards them just a bit more while holding his gaze, “Don’t make me regret givin’ you this [i]fuckin’[/i] thing.”

“Like y’all said,” Donnelley’s lip curled into a frown and his eyes were on Dave in a way they hadn’t ever been, and bad, “Just like that. Y’all’re done.”

Dave held his gaze for a moment before lowering his hand. He wanted to say a lot of things; chief among them about how Donnelley didn’t have a monopoly on hard living, wasn’t the only one to have killed people and seen horrible shit. He thought, just for a moment, about that barn, and his knife, and a Russian thug tied to a chair, and how he’d done all that for the Program and for his friends, including the one who was mean-mugging him for a reason he couldn’t figure out. Instead he picked up the envelope.

“Alright then,” he said. “Thanks.” 

Now he looked away, very pointedly. “C’mon Ava. We’re done.” 

Ava started when Dave turned to her, snapped out the rising sense of dread that had seized her in immobility with the escalating tension between the two men. “Um, yeah, we are.” She said, standing up with her cup of tea. 

She shuffled her way over to Dave and put her hand on his lower back, looking down at the gently rising steam in her cup instead of at Donnelley. Her mind was still processing everything that had just happened, but she still tried to summon some sincerity to say. “Thank…Thank you Donnelley for…everything.”

Donnelley didn’t answer, just stood in silence and watched them go. He barely contained his anger and resentment watching them go down the empty hall. He stared at Ava’s hand on Dave’s back and remembered how he broke Laine’s heart in Texas. Watched them walking away, remembering getting the news of Poker dying in front of his daughter. Remembered his ex-wife was in a coma, and his daughter traumatized by retaliation for nothing that she did.

He took a few steps towards the couple walking away from him and punched the break room door hard enough to put a dent in the thin aluminum door, “You can’t be [i]fuckin’[/i] serious!” He roared, “You’re gonna look me in my fuckin’ face and think this is all done with a fuckin’ handshake and a smile, you son of a bitch! People died to get you that fuckin’ piece of paper!”

Dave stopped, turned to face him, his hands fisted at his sides. “What the fuck do you want from me, man?” He said. His voice was tight and low. “What do you want me to fuckin’ say? People died for me to get out, and that fuckin’ sucks. People died to bring me into it. People died [i]while[/i] I was in it. You died. Laine died. [i]Ava died[/i]. That’s all that fuckin’ happens here, is people dyin’, and now I’m a bad guy because I asked for us to get out? I asked, and you made it happen, and we’re wrong because of that?”

Ava looked between the two of them, her hand going from resting on Dave’s back to gripping onto his shirt, trying to give a gentle tug to stop the escalating energy swirling in this confined hallway. She could feel her throat start to tighten and a sting growing behind her eyes; she was so tired. They were all so tired.

“Guys,” she said quietly, desperately. “Please, stop.”

“I don’t think you’re bad, [i]Dave.[/i]” Donnelley started forward, slowly walking to them while he talked, “I just think it makes you look like a fuckin’ tourist. Like someone who hits nails halfway in and then fuckin’ [i]stops.[/i] Just sits there while everyone else does the [i]real fuckin’ work,[/i] and then pats hisself on the back like you was fuckin’ there to see it through.”

He closed the distance and was an arm’s length away from Dave, his shoulders heaving with his breath and his words shaking out of him, his red eyes wide with fury, “Makes me feel like you don’t give a [i]fuck[/i] about [i]shit[/i] long as you get [i]yours.[/i]” He said, and reached out to shove Dave.

Dave heard Ava, felt the tug on his shirt, and with more willpower than he thought he had in him he kept his fist from swinging. Instead he leaned in closer to Donnelley. 

“What I give a fuck about is my son back home in Arkansas, and the lady standin’ here beside me. And if they’re safe, then you can think whatever the fuck you want.” He shook his head, giving Donnelley a look that was as pitying as it was disdainful. “You remember that talk we had, way back? When you said sometimes it didn’t feel like nobody had your back? This is why. Because you’re a fuckin’ asshole to the people who try to care about you, man. Go be alone.” 

He turned away and took Ava’s hand, leading her towards the door. 

Donnelley stood there in silence when Dave and Ava turned away from him. He watched them leave, but he stood rooted there. He wanted to get hit, wanted something, but the ache in his chest only grew until he couldn’t stand it. Before they rounded the corner into another hallway and out of view, he grit his teeth and growled out a lame, “[i]Fuck[/i] you.”

And then he was alone again…///