[March 7th] [The Man From U.N.C.L.E.] False Hope

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Title: False Hope
Day/Theme: March 7th - content to be slightly forlorn.
Series: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (specifically, The Odd Man Affair episode)
Character/Pairing: Mr. Ecks, a doctor, thoughts of Mr. Wye
Rating: K+/PG


By Lucky_Ladybug

Ecks clenched his teeth behind closed lips, muttering all sorts of curses and oaths in his mind as he limped down the hospital corridor. Some, he realized belatedly, he had borrowed from Wye. That Cockney had all kinds of colorful terms for usage in every frustrating situation.

Being practically forced to get up and walk when his stomach was still aflame with pain was more than a little frustrating.

Oh, he was grateful that he had recovered to that point, of course, but he seriously doubted that he was well enough to move so much. If his doctor had ever been stabbed in the stomach, he was sure the man would agree.

Dizziness suddenly washed over him with a vengeance and he stumbled into the wall with a hiss of pain. A nurse, standing nearby and watching his progress, looked up in concern.

“I’m alright,” he said quickly, his cheeks turning red from his embarrassment.

As far as such stab wounds went, he had been luckier than some. Being stabbed in the stomach had been horrible and painful like nothing he had ever experienced, but it would have been worse to have been stabbed just a little lower, where so many other elements of the digestive tract were.

Still, there had been complications, probably more than he even knew about. He had sensed that the doctor was keeping some things from him, perhaps because the guy didn’t want to upset his patient with tales of all the details of how he had almost died.

He knew he had flatlined at least twice, once almost as soon as he had been brought in, and once again on the operating table. He had vague memories of possibly having done it one other time, right in the park after the stabbing had happened. It seemed to him that he had stood over Wye while Wye was kneeling down to examine his body. But it was such a fuzzy memory and he had regained consciousness in the next moment, so it could have been a dream. He tried to insist to himself that it had been a dream.

He still remembered the strangeness of what he had seen while on the operating table. Whatever they had given him to keep him knocked out had certainly done a number on him, making him hallucinate Vivalene kissing him and Wye showing up to say that he was dead.

He paused on the walk. Even if that was a dream, what if Wye being dead wasn’t? It had been so long since he had woke up enough to know what was going on, and he had been told that Wye had never been back after bringing him there and being forced to leave for a meeting.

He leaned on the IV pole, staring off into space. Wye would have come back, if he at all could have. And if not that, he would have called. Something, anything. The fact that all was silent meant that it was very unlikely that he was still alive.

Maybe something had gone wrong and they had learned that he was a traitor. They would have killed him on the spot. Or maybe he had been killed on assignment, as Ecks had nearly been.

He wanted to keep hoping, to keep believing that Wye was alright and he would show up one day. Another part of him didn’t want to fall into the trap of longing for false hope. It was better to accept what likely was, rather than to keep wanting what could never be.

You were so worried about me, Wye. You wanted me to be alright. What about you? What’s happened to you? Will I ever even know?

He couldn’t even investigate very deeply into the matter without drawing attention and suspicion to himself. And he couldn’t reveal himself to the organization; they had to keep believing he was dead. It was what Wye had wanted for him so it would be safe for him to live. If Wye was gone, Ecks had to do that much for him.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do with my life. All I’ve ever been trained to do is to be a spy.

“Hey!”

He started and looked up at the doctor’s cry. The physician had come out of a room down the hall and was regarding him with indignation and impatience. “You’re supposed to be walking, not waiting for a bus!”

Ecks glowered. “I was walking. I’ve had enough.”

“Are you in too much pain to keep going?” the doctor persisted.

“No,” Ecks admitted honestly.

“Then walk to the end of the hall, turn around, and come back.” The physician folded his arms. “Then you’ll have had enough.”

Ecks’ lip curled. He hated being ordered to do anything if he didn’t want to do it. That was how he had come to detest the organization and had decided to betray them. Still, before he had reached that point, he had been a highly efficient agent and had obeyed even when he hadn’t wanted to. He knew how and when to be submissive and how and when to be defiant.

This was not one of those defiant times.

Still annoyed anyway, he did as the doctor directed and came back to where the guy had decided to park and observe just to make sure he would cooperate. “You haven’t heard anything from my friend, have you?” he asked.

He knew what the answer would be, so it didn’t surprise him when the doctor shook his head. “Nothing. Maybe if you’d give me some more information to go on, I could find him for you. If he’s worth finding. It doesn’t seem to me that he could care much about you, when he just up and left you like this. Never comes, never rings.”

Now Ecks’ blue eyes, the eyes so filled with water and ice, burned with the deepest fire. “I’ve told you I can’t give you any information. But something is obviously wrong with him or he would have kept in touch.”

“I just hope you’re not being naïve about this,” the doctor said bluntly. “Thinking and worrying about him could impede your recovery.”

If Ecks had been stronger, deadlier, he might have grabbed the doctor by the shirt and threatened him in a low voice. It wasn’t really his way, but he was furious at the accusations against both himself and Wye and just about pushed to his breaking point.

As it was, he gave the man a look that would have withered a giant redwood. “I,” he hissed, “am not naïve when it comes to him. And if you’re trying to tell me what to do with my thoughts, my anger over your impudence will probably impede my recovery a lot more.”

The physician stared at him for a long moment. Then, shaking his head, he made a notation on his clipboard and gestured for Ecks to go past him. “Go on and get out of here. Go back to bed. You’re a strange one; always have been. I’ll be glad when you’re well enough to leave.”

“So will I. Your bedside manner is nonexistent.” Ecks quite agreeably went into his room, not caring as the heavy door shut very loudly behind him.

He sank onto the bed, sitting up for one brief moment before choosing instead to lie down. Standing was one thing, but sitting up without pain was far more challenging. It would take a while yet before he was ready for that. Instead he gazed up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

“Don’t worry none, Duck. I’ll be back. I always am.”

Ecks smirked a bit to himself. One of Wye’s idiosyncracies was his sometimes-use of the term Duck for his friend. And then occasionally he would address a woman with Duckie, which was altogether different.

Ecks had been appalled the first time Wye had called him that. It was a silly term, a childish term, he had insisted. There wasn’t that much of a gap between their ages. But he had warmed to it and was used to it by now. He wished Wye was there to use it on him.

You’re never coming back, are you. I know you must be dead.

He would come to accept that more as time went on. He thought he had mostly accepted it already, but although the doctor’s admission of no messages had not surprised him, it had still disappointed him. If he fully believed Wye was not coming back, it would not have disappointed him. Disappointment meant that he still hoped.

I am a fool, aren’t I.

It was hard to say how long he would continue to have some measure of hope. He didn’t want to fully give up. But when he glanced at the calendar and really processed the number of days that had gone by with no word, his still-mending stomach turned.

I don’t want to believe in the impossible. I am a cold, efficient agent. That’s how I’ve been trained. You will be dead to me, Wye, because I know you must be dead.

He wouldn’t ask any more if there had been messages. It was a logical first step; he knew there wouldn’t be any.

He would stop gazing out the windows and doors, watching every arriving car and thinking maybe Wye was coming at last.

He wouldn’t stop hearing Wye’s voice in his mind, because that was the last link he had to his friend. He would accept that and acknowledge it.

He would live, for himself and for Wye, but he would live alone.