don't get sentimental

His eyes flew open again. “Damn! I’ve forgotten already! Albert, I’ve already forgotten what she said! It was important!” He said, looking at Albert with wide eyes.

Albert shuts his eyes so tightly he’s seeing stars. The worst of the sobs have tapered off, leaving a dull ache against his breastbone, like the weight of all his failures pressing down. Not just one failure, but a pile of ‘em stacked on top of the other, all built on the scorched earth of Cooper’s loss. Staying with the Bureau after, out of some wild hope to find Coop again; giving Phillip the intel that got an agent killed, then keeping it a secret so he wouldn’t risk losing his badge and have it all be for nothing; all the ways he bent and compromised over the years, and for what? A fucking cascade of desperate measures, and what happened last night - losing his composure to the point where Gordon considers him a liability - is just the final straw that sends this whole flimsy card house crashing down around his ears. 

Has his entire career been built on a lie? Losing Cooper those twenty-five years ago almost pushed Albert over the edge, but, disillusioned as he was with Gordon and the Bureau, he chose to stay on anyway. For Coop. At least that’s what he told himself back then. But as the years passed, and their search kept turning up nothing, and even Phillip’s call faded into uneasy memory, it became harder to deny that the main reason he was staying was simply because he had nowhere else to go. As for Gordon… he seemed to regret his role in the fiasco with Cooper, and after some time, Albert found he couldn’t hold on to his anger. Instead, their relationship slowly became… comfortable. Familiar, even. Maybe because Albert was the only one left from the old team, the only one to remember everything they lost. Or maybe because Gordon had no one else to turn to, either. Anyway, he thought Gordon valued the person he is right now - valued his intelligence and his critical thinking, along with his loyalty, his stubbornness, his principles, his pride - what Albert considers to be his few redeeming features. Finding that he’s just another cog in the machine after all, after everything he’s given to the cause, after rebuilding himself practically from the ground up… He doesn’t know how he’s going to live with that knowledge. Doesn’t know if he can. He’s too lost in himself and the depth of his own misery to notice the footsteps crunching across the gravel. Then a hand closes on his shoulder and someone speaks his name, and his head whips up. For a moment he’s too stunned to do anything but stare. “Gordon? What… why-” Automatically, he starts to scrub at his eyes, only to realize it’s pointless. No way to hide that he’s been crying, and besides, chances are Gordon saw everything there was to be seen. The shock of that realization catches up with him in a rush of shame, and he bows his head again, unable to meet Gordon’s eyes. “I… didn’t expect you to come after me,” he rasps, as if that could be an excuse. Then, softly, surprising himself: “Why did you?” @paydlrt

Gordon looks down at Albert’s bowed head, thinking for a moment before he answers. Gordon had followed him out here on pretense of indignation at his insubordination, but the sight of Albert alone on this bench had stripped that away immediately. When had he ever not gone after Albert? In some sense it had been the nature of their relationship from the very beginning. Gordon constantly going after him, reminding him of why he had agreed to this life (sometimes a little more aggressively or coercively than he would have liked), reining him in, talking him down, or just letting him blow off steam so that Albert would rail at him instead of quitting the whole damn thing.

At some point after Cooper disappeared Gordon had stopped having to do that for Albert, and he had enjoyed the constancy of their partnership. It was what he preferred. But he would never stop going after Albert if it was required. He was too important, too indispensible to the work. To Gordon.

“We’ve got work to do,” he finally answers, and there’s a sadness in his eyes. He gives Albert’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and then releases him.

He sits down on the bench next to Albert, looking out ahead at the little trees and shrubs around them. Thinks silently to himself for a minute, with his hands folded between his knees, letting Albert catch up to himself. The quiet and the sunshine offer perspective. So much had happened over the past few days, so many years of mistakes all converging on them both all at once. Cooper, Diane, Jeffries. He doesn’t know what to do with it all. It’s too big. So he’s just been doing what he can. The work. The work, the work, the work. And he can’t do that alone. Especially not in this situation. He twists his hands, fidgeting.

“I need you, Albert.”

Then he reaches inside his suit jacket and pulls out a carton of Marlboros. “I won’t tell Tammy if you don’t,” he says, with a slightly mischievious look.

Continued from here. The transformation taking place in front of his eyes lasts less than a couple of seconds. One moment, Gordon is looking almost fragile, the next, his expression has shut down and he’s gripping the edge of the table with steel in his gaze.

Albert flinches automatically, his fork clanging against the plate. Feels the nervous tension in his gut solidify as Gordon starts to speak. His one, admittedly feeble hope - that Gordon would come back on his threat from last night, would acknowledge Albert’s pain and admit he’d gone too far - shattered against the raw edge of the man’s anger. A united front. It would be hysterical if it wasn’t so damn pathetic, and the thought that Gordon is looking at him to resolve this, is expecting some kind of capitulation or confession or whatever else it will take to placate him now, is enough to make the last remaining shred of his composure fall away.

At some level, he’s aware of Gordon’s eyes on him, but he’s no longer even sure if Gordon is still talking through the persistent ringing in his ears. He blinks down at his barely touched breakfast plate, bile flooding his throat at the sight, and for a moment, he’s horrifyingly certain he’s about to lose what little he put in his stomach just now.

He gets up, slamming his knee against the table, swallowing a curse as he backs away. Wonders if Gordon can see the despair in his face. “Tell Tammy -” He shudders. “Tell her whatever. Tell her I overslept. I - can’t - do this right now.” Blindly, he turns his back on Gordon, realizing he has no idea where to go. Back to his own room would take too long. Bathroom? Too cramped. Street? No privacy. Hotel courtyard then, if he can remember how to get there - but everything feels strangely muted, and his breathing’s all wrong, and… There. Set of double doors at the back of the breakfast room, down a long corridor, through another door, and he’s outside, bursting out into the daylight. There’s a bench a couple of yards away, and he stumbles towards it like a drunkard, hoping to God there’s no one else here to see.

His gut twists and he sits down, head between his knees, but nothing happens except for a weak, strangled heave. His chest hurts and he can’t get enough air, but he presses his palm against his ribcage, trying to focus on breathing. Knowing, at some level, that what he feels is irrational, but still struggling to get his body to take that cue. He couldn’t name the last time he had a panic attack in his life - only that he had them in the months after they lost Cooper - but it’s just as ugly and shameful as he remembers it to be.

God, Cooper… His Cooper, the Cooper he knew, still lost in who knows what nightmare, and who can say if they’re any closer to finding him than they were twenty-five years ago. Only now Albert has hope again - flimsy, feeble and probably false as it is - and it’s killing him breath by painful breath.

This time, he’s not even surprised when the waterworks start. He still fights it, more out of reflex than anything else, elbows on his knees and a fist pressed against his mouth while he tries to keep his shoulders from shaking. Not that it matters. He’s alone, anyway - just like he’s been from the start. @paydlrt

Albert bumps the table as he stands up, sending silverware clanging loudly against ceramic dishes and a glass to shatter on the floor, and shoving a sonic knife through Gordon’s brain.

“God damn it Albert–What the hell–!!”

He cringes and yelps in pain, his hand jumping for the dials to turn down his volume device as his hearing aids throw feedback into his ear drums. By the time he’s regained enough control to look back up, Gordon has officially lost all patience with this insubordination, but Albert is already on his way out, having just excused himself for the rest of the day from their work like that was something he could just decide for himself without Gordon’s permission just because he was upset–like HELL Albert was going to think he could just drop his duty to this case and skip on this Hastings business–he wasn’t going to accommodate this self-pity any longer when they had work to do, if Albert didn’t want to work with him on this, then he won’t work on it at all–

Gordon pulls his napkin off his lap, throws it onto the table, gets up, barks unnecessarily at the waitstaff that they weren’t to touch a DAMN thing on that table until he came back–walks out of the breakfast room, rubbing painfully at his ears–looks to his left, and sees Albert disappearing into the courtyard down the hallway. He grabs his cell phone out of his pocket, and dials Tammy’s number, smoothing his hair over in agitation with his free hand while he waited for Tammy to pick up the damn phone–

“TAMMY, ALBERT AND I ARE GOING TO BE LATER THAN EXPECTED! GET STARTED ON THE BRIEFING!” A brief pause and then he cuts her off. “YES, EVERYTHING’S FINE! WE’LL BE THERE IN A BIT!” He barks at her, with enough force that he’ll regret it later, and then hangs up and follows Albert out into the courtyard, about ready call his own bluff and make good on his threat to take Albert off the case–

But what he sees stops him in his tracks immediately–Albert with his head bowed between his legs, shaking and weeping on the bench alone across the garden. Gordon blinks, trying to process what he was seeing, and finally realizing there was no self-pity here. It was nothing but brokenness. 

His anger softens almost immediately into something protective and tender and reaching. There’s a part of Gordon that still feels responsible for Albert, despite how much their relationship has changed since when he had first taken him as his (resistant) protege over 30 years ago–despite the fact that Albert seemed to act these days like he was the one responsible for Gordon. That sense of mutual responsibility was something Gordon had leaned into without even realizing it–without knowing how much he needed it when it first arose between them, after Jeffries and Chet and Cooper were lost, after everything in Blue Rose had fallen apart in his hands in that span of just a few years. When exactly it had appeared was uncertain–sometime after Cooper disappeared–but it had entered their relationship so slowly and gradually that the change had almost been unnoticeable, until Gordon woke up one day and realized he saw Albert like an equal. Like a partner. Like the first person he felt he could truly trust with his life’s work since Jeffries. Like they were… responsible for each other. 

He’s seen Albert rage and storm, but he’s never seen him cry. Never seen him broken like this with his own eyes, even after Cooper disappeared. Gordon knew Albert had taken that loss in devastation, but it was not something that Albert had ever allowed him to see, or even something they had ever really talked about, partially out of their mutual desire for emotional privacy from each other. Compartmentalization, but also just professional boundaries, as Gordon had been very much his superior at that point in their lives. Now, Albert was his subordinate only on paper, and Gordon had assumed Albert had understood that it was just paper. That he needed Albert in this. That lying to him for so long was not just a jeopardizing of the Blue Rose, it was a severe breach of trust, both professional and personal. And that it was, on that personal level, something that defied compartmentalization because it was so completely, unfathomably, intolerable.

He feels like he should still be angry. That Albert’s behavior, for so many reasons, some personal, some professional, some literally an issue of national security, cannot and should not be excused. But watching Albert break like this…

“Albert… ” He says softly to himself sadly, as he watches him from across the courtyard for a long moment, rooted in place and still holding the door open. 

Finally he looks down, fiddles with his hearing device to turn up the volume again, and then walks over slowly to stand in front of Albert. Looking down at Albert, his arms hanging down loosely at his sides and his shoulders at a slight slouch, he looks very tired, and very… old, and nothing like human blizzard that had just forced a grown man–no, not just any grown man, but Albert Rosenfield–to go cry alone in a hotel courtyard.

“Albert…” He says again quietly, regretfully, shaking his head back and forth slightly, feeling so responsible for Albert that his heart aches.

I’m worried about you. I’m worried about Coop. 

I’m worried about us.

“Albert…” He puts a soft hand on Albert’s shoulder once again. He wants to know that Albert still feels responsible for him, too. Even if Albert made a mistake that was so massive and obvious and stupid that it felt like it could only be adequately explained as betrayal. Even if he lied.

I need you with me.

Please. 

“Oh, boy.”

“Yes I would, Albert, which is why I sent Tammy along ahead of us. I want to talk to you about our conversation last night. Make sure we’re on the same page.” He put a hand on Albert’s shoulder, and his expression softened. Gordon wants his trusted partner back, wants to know he can depend on Albert, not someone he feels he has to treat like an unruly subordinate or coerce into submission. He doesn’t like having to do what he did, but for the sake of the case and, in his mind, Albert’s own safety, he will do or say whatever is necessary to keep Albert on the straight and narrow. Perhaps it comes across as ruthless, and maybe it is, but someone has to be that person. That’s why he’s deputy director.

“You know, Albert, sometimes I really worry about you.” He squeezed Albert’s shoulder, looking at him for a moment, and then let go when the waiter returned with Albert’s breakfast, placing a plate of eggs onto the table.

Albert hovers at the door for an indecisive moment, then takes the hint and pulls it shut behind him. Gordon hunched over, face red as a beet and hacking up what sounds like lungs and stomach lining combined, isn’t a sight one sees every day. Judging by Gordon’s reaction, Albert wasn’t supposed to see it at all, so he keeps his eyes peeled but doesn’t move to interfere… up until the moment where Gordon fumbles for a trashcan and alarm bells - no, not bells but fucking sirens - start going off in Albert’s head. Even then, he stops at a cautious distance, propping his hip against Gordon’s desk in what he hopes is a non-threatening posture. Waits for the fit to taper off, which it does, except Gordon still looks like he’s trying to breathe through the pain, and, damn, it never rains but it pours, huh? “That’s rich.” Albert sniffs, shrugging off Gordon’s dismissal. “I’ll remind you the last thing I was doing was listening to your imitation of a feline coughing up a particularly nasty hairball, and I have no desire to go back to that. Very lifelike imitation, though, I’ll grant you.” He crosses his arms over his chest, feigning nonchalance while he watches Gordon closely for signs of distress. No, his breathing doesn’t look right at all. “And this show’s not over until I say so. Last time I checked, there’s only one doctor in this room and it isn’t you. So why don’t you describe your symptoms to me and we’ll take it from there. I’ll start. Chest pain? Dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath?” @paydlrt

“Albert,” he tries to interject, with a firm hand up and in a stern glance, but the hoarseness of his voice and his watery eyes diminish the Boss Effect considerably.

He closes his eyes while Albert continues in his ministrations. Yes, chest pain, difficulty breathing, severe chest congestion–but all of that could wait. What he needs to do now is get what he saw in the vision down on paper. He needs to draw what he saw before he forgets it…

The image reappears in his mind’s eye and hovers… already losing shape and definition…

He opens his eyes, suppressing a small, lingering cough–he winces, it burns–and grabs his pen from inside his jacket again, and flips open to a new page in his sketchbook.

“Albert, we can talk about this later,” He says distractedly in that hoarse voice, pointing two fingers toward the door and not looking up at his friend perched on his desk, while writing the words MONICA BELLUCCI in giant capital letters across the top of the page. He clears his throat forcefully and his voice gets a little louder, reflecting the heightened excitability and emotion of his current state. “I just caught something very, VERY important, and if I don’t record it now, I won’t remember it!” 

As he starts to sketch something beneath the letters, the suppressed coughing returns, and his face ducks back into the sleeve of his jacket.

Having resigned himself to no sleep at all, it’s actually a surprise to be shouting himself awake in the morning, the tattered remnants of a nightmare still clinging to his mind. After a minute or so of trying to slow his breathing, Albert rolls over to check his phone. 5.15am, and he’s wound tight as a fucking spring. So much for sleep. Honestly, an all-nighter might have been better than this. His head feels heavy and achy - though that could just be the emotional hangover from last night - and his gut churns when he swings his legs down onto the floor. The memory of walking out on Gordon is pawing at his hindbrain like a stray dog begging for a scrap, but he kicks it into submission with the ruthlessness of years of habit. Focus. Compartmentalize. Breathe. By the time he’s shaved, showered and dressed, he feels, if not like a whole person again, at least like he might start to keep up the pretense. He spends the next hour compulsively brushing up on case files, still refusing to let himself dwell on last night. Considers breakfast, but dismisses the thought; the state he’s in, there’s no way that can end well. Anyway, if Gordon wants Albert to come down, he can damn well pick up the phone and tell him to. The first text, when it arrives, is so Gordon it hurts - compact, bordering on rude, and cheerfully ignoring last’s night incident. Two more messages follow in rapid succession, and just as Albert opens them, a flash of memory catches him off guard. Black liquid, the consistency of blood but all the wrong color, oozing down from a marble tabletop; white, jagged teeth bared into a scream. He shakes it off with an effort, has to blink a few times to clear the images from his retina. Just his nightmare, nothing more. Squints down at Gordon’s mention of toast and eggs, his stomach turning over. Fuck. Fuck. He can’t do this right now. So, Tammy did make the call. That might be a good sign, except Gordon already agreed to it yesterday so it’s hardly a new development. And the fact Albert’s still expected at the station seems to suggest he’s not off the case yet… but that ‘stuff to go over’ sounds positively ominous, no matter how cheerfully it’s phrased. “Not hungry,” he types, wondering if he should go for a less sulky reply. Ah, fuck it. “Be down in five.” He grits his teeth and hits send. Better get this over with. He risks a glance into the mirror before going out, only to wish he hadn’t. He’s looking every bit as strung out as he feels, skin waxy with bags under his eyes, but to the untrained eye it’s passable, at least. Gordon, though - Gordon’s something else. With a last, resigned sigh, Albert closes the door behind him and heads down to the breakfast room. @paydlrt

Gordon’s eyes flick over to the text notification on his phone.

There he is.

He folds up the newspaper, and sips at his coffee while he goes over a mental checklist of how he wants this conversation to go, staring off at nothing in particular.

“Oh, Albert.” Albert arrives, and Gordon lifts a hand to get the attention of the waiter, who goes scurrying back toward the kitchen to get Albert’s breakfast. Albert had texted a sulky “Not hungry,” but Gordon would rather there be wasted food on the table when they left, than for Albert to change his mind and have nothing to eat.

Gordon, having worked closely with Albert for over 30 years through a variety of rough patches, setbacks, and close calls, initially as a mentor and now as a friend, immediately notices the telltale signs that Albert Had a Night. He also expected this, given the nature of the conversation they had the night before. Ideally, Albert had a long night of restless thinking and tossing and turning, perhaps a a cathartic emotional fallout or existential crisis of principle, followed by 2-3 hours of sleep to reset his brain and take the emotional edge off while also making him too tired to really fight this latest push anymore. He expects that Albert will be grumpy and deflective, but will at least be someone now he can reason with.

“Rough night, Albert?” He says, making an open gesture to an empty chair next to him on his right, indicating that Albert should sit.