The Memory Agent & Fool Me Once (9 page)

*****

While Duke is in surgery Claire waits in the chapel for about an
hour.
 
She waits in the solarium
for about an hour.
 
She waits in
Duke’s room, sitting by his empty bed, listening to the
ipod
,
the very song that was playing when Duke regained his sight.”
 
Finally, Claire takes a seat next to
the guard outside of Duke’s room and dozes off.

The doctor approaches.
 
The
cop shakes Claire awake.
 
She darts
up.
 
“How did it go?”

“He was a fighter –“

"Was
???"
 
Claire tries not to sound freaked.

“Is. It was touch and go for a while, but he would not give up.
 
He's in ICU.
 
He'll be back up here shortly.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Claire walks down the hallway heading for the solarium.

She enters and approaches the window, looking out at the nighttime
cityscape skyline.

She can't hold them back, tears of relief and joy.
  
She regains her composure, wipes
her face and leaves the room.

Back in his room, Duke is sound asleep, handcuffed to the bed.
 
Claire enters.
 
She is incredibly happy to see him.

She takes a seat in the chair next to the bed.
 
She folds her arms and rests her head on the bed up next to
Duke's hand.
 
She falls asleep
instantly.

Duke wakes up.
 
He looks
just as incredibly happy to see
Claire
as she was to
see him.
 
He’s especially happy to
see her sleeping peacefully.
 
He
runs his fingers through her hair before falling back asleep.

Duke and Claire are both still sound asleep.
 
The doctor is in the room; he coughs loudly awakening
Claire.
 
She sits up and comes to
attention right away.
 
What’s the
prognosis?”
 
She asks.

“He's doing remarkably well.
 
He'll be able to be released in a couple of days,” the doctor informs
Claire.

Duke wakes up.
 
The doctor
checks out his eyes.
 
“How does
your head feel?”

“Not bad.
 
Only a minor
headache,” Duke answers.

“Good.
 
I was just telling
nurse Claire that you'll be able to be released in a couple of days.”

Duke’s face drops knowing what that means.
 
The doctor leaves the room.

“I guess I'll be going to jail while my brother drinks tequila in
Mexico.”

“Is that where is?” Claire asks, her FBI instincts now taking over.

“Could be there, or maybe still at his cabin.”
 

Claire’s mind is moving a mile a minute, thinking how best to proceed.
 
“What if I busted you out of the
hospital, brought you to your brother?”

“Are you serious?”

“You're the one who mentioned it, the day I brought you to the
solarium.”

“I was kidding.”

“I'm not.”

“I couldn't have you do that, Claire.
 
You're no criminal. And I certainly don't want to turn you
into one.
 
Bonnie and Clyde
ain't
the life I was dreaming about before I went under the
knife.”

“I want to do it.
 
For you.
 
I can
deal with the consequences.”

“The consequences would be jail time or a fugitive's life.”

“There could be other options, Duke, if we both end up doing the right
thing.”

*****

Whitmore sits at his desk.
 
Claire enters.

“I heard he made it,” Whitmore states without any sort of emotion.

“I'm breaking Duke out of the hospital,” Claire announces.
 

“What?”
 
Whitmore is
incredulous.

“I'm breaking Duke out of the hospital. Tomorrow night.”

“I won't authorize that. You’re too close, Claire, your judgment has
been compromised.”

“He's taking me to Riker who hopefully is still holed up in a cabin in
the woods somewhere.”

I’m putting a tracking device in my bracelet.”
 
Claire places a tracking unit on Whitmore’s desk and then
puts a small tracking device inside her wide band silver and turquoise
bracelet.
 
“One request, please
stay completely out of sight during the tail.
 
This is our last shot at getting Riker before he crosses the
border.”

“Did you hear me?
 
I'm not
authorizing this,” Whitmore firmly declares.

“You better. If you hadn't blown the interrogation, we wouldn't be stuck
with this option.

If you don't authorize it, I'm going rogue.”

“What's going to happen when Duke finds out you've been working him?”

Claire tries to let Whit down gently.
 
“It hasn't been all work, Whit.
 
I'm sorry.”

“This is not going to end well,” Whitmore warns.

Duke lays in bed, awake, handcuffed, looking conflicted and nervous.

Claire enters. She pushes the wheelchair over to the bed.
 
“Are you ready?”
 
She asks with a warm, encouraging
smile.

“I don't think we should be doing this,” Duke responds.

“I'm determined,” Claire says as she unlocks the handcuffs freeing
Duke’s wrist.

“I don't want to be the one responsible for ruining your life.”

“If anything, you're responsible for the opposite,” Claire’s eyes widen
at her own admission.
 
She may need
to say it to execute the plan, but she also said it with meaning.
 
Meaning that Duke fully appreciates and
reciprocates.
 
He smiles tenderly,
gratefully at her.

“Let's get you out of here.” Claire helps Duke out of bed and into the
wheelchair.
 
She strategically
places the handcuffs on Duke's wrist and the arm of the wheel chair making it
look like they're locked.
 
Claire
wheels Duke out of the room.

Claire stops by the cop on duty.
 
She hands the cop the handcuff key.
 
“We're going to the solarium.
 
We'll be back in about an hour.”

Claire pushes the wheelchair down the hallway heading for the solarium.

As she reaches the solarium, she looks around to make sure no one is
nearby.
 
No one is.
 
She turns the corner and pushes the
wheelchair towards the elevator.

She reaches the elevator and stops.
 
She pushes the down button.
 
A couple of nurses walk by.
 
Duke looks nervous, Claire smiles at the nurses.
 
The elevator arrives.
 
Claire pushes the wheelchair into the
elevator.
 
The doors close.

The elevator doors open.
 
Claire pushes the wheelchair out into
the parking garage.

She wheels Duke over to her car, a Jaguar sports coup.
  

Duke is duly impressed.
 
“This is your car?”

“
Yuup
.”

“Nice.”

Claire removes the handcuffs and helps Duke into the passenger
seat.
 
“I picked you up some clothes
and shoes.
 
They're in the trunk.”

Claire shuts the door, pushes the empty wheelchair next to the wall and
then gets into the car.
 
Claire
starts the car, the engine purrs like a kick-ass kitten.

“Where to?”
 
She asks.

“North.”
 

Claire drives out of the parking garage and turns onto a city
street.
 
It's the middle of the
night, so it's dark and quiet.
 
The
car passes a parked SUV with tinted windows.

Inside the SUV…

Whitmore, seated in the passenger seat, reads a tracking monitor
watching as the jaguar bleeps along revealing it's pinpoint location.
 

Whitmore turns to the agent in the driver's seat.
 
“Let's go, but do not get within her
view.”

Inside the Jaguar…

Claire drives along a country by-way. The night sky is slowly
brightening into day cloaking the world in a light grey tone.

Her hand is on the
stick-shift
, her bracelet on
that wrist.
 
Duke touches her hand.

“How are you doing?” He asks her.

“So far so good.
 
How about
you?”

“Nervous.”

“How much further?”

“A few hours.”

“Maybe we should think about stopping somewhere, to wash up, change up,
get you your meds,” Claire offers.

“Sounds good,” he responds.

Claire and Duke check into a highway motel.
 
They enter the motel
room,
Duke is
still in his hospital pajamas.

There are two
queen sized
beds in the room,
Claire puts a suitcase on the first bed.
 
She opens the suitcase and removes a pair of men's jeans, a men's tee
shirt and a pill bottle.
 
“Clothes
and pills, what more could a man want.”
 
She quips.

She locks eyes with Duke, his penetrating look tells her, without a
single word, exactly what more he wants.
 
She wants it to.
 
She drops
the clothes and the pills on the bed.

Duke sweeps her up in his strong embrace.
 
He carries her to the second bed, places her on the bed and
lowers himself on top of her.
 
Their eyes locked the entire time.

He kisses her.
 
A tender kiss.
 
They linger with the kiss, passion and desire growing as their tongues
explore each other’s mouths.
 
They’re savoring the feeling, the moment.
 

He nuzzles his cheek into her neck, “God, I love how you smell,” he
whispers in her ear.
 
The feel of
his scuff on her neck shoots an intense wave of pleasure through Claire’s body
causing her to quiver.
 
She presses
her hips into his feeling his hardness.

With the passion building, they sit up to take off their clothes.
 
Claire removes Duke’s hospital
top.
 
She caresses his muscular
chest, relishing his warm skin.
 
She kisses the very spot where he had spilled the chili.
 
“This is where I wiped the chili from
your chest.”

“I remember.
 
Every moment
with you has been unforgettable, Claire,” Duke tells her as he gazes intently
into her eyes.

Duke removes Claire’s nurse’s top and sports bra.
 
He fondles her breasts, her nipples
hardening under his touch.
 
He
suckles first one breast and then the other as Claire runs her fingers through
his dark wavy hair.

She unties the
strings on his bottoms and pushes them down around his hips exposing his long,
hard manhood.
 
She takes it in her
mouth kissing it, licking it as Duke moans with pleasure.
 
Neither can wait, the ache, the need,
the longing are too great.

Together they
remove their bottoms so they’re now both naked.
 
They lay back down on the bed as they explore, with
desperate desire, each other’s bodies, kissing and caressing.

Duke’s fingers
travel up Claire’s inner thigh until they find her spot.
 
He thrusts his fingers deep inside and
finds her wet and wanting.
 
“I want
you inside of me,” she whispers breathlessly in his ear, spreading her legs
further apart and arching her hips towards him.

Duke willingly
obliges.
 
He removes his fingers
and positions himself directly on top of Claire.
 
He enters her slowly.
 
Their eyes locked as he pauses for a moment so they can relish the
exquisite feel, the special moment.
 
And then he begins to thrust, deeper and deeper, harder and harder.
 
She grabs onto his back her hips
thrusting with his.
 
They’re
completely in tune, in sync, lost in each other.
 
The intensity and passion builds until they both explode
together.
 
They seal their climax
with an impassioned kiss.