Bells

by Seven


Disclaimer:  Earth: Final Conflict and its characters are copyrighted by Tribune Entertainment Company.  All rights reserved.



Notes from Author:   This song is written by Jimmy Rankin, and is one of my faves. I was listening to it and some of the lines could be applied to Sandoval and Beckett, especially the "chains that have held us."



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Siobhan Beckett stood at Strandhill, her red hair blown around her face as she watched Boone and Sandoval's shuttle take off, wheeling around and going into interdimensional.

She sighed and turned around, hiking back to the town. Several townsfolk in the streets eyed her, hostile, but Beckett ignored them, absently stroking her wrist as her skrill began to hiss, alarmed. Though her eyes remained fixed ahead, she saw nothing. Her mind was slowly untangling what had been happening for the past few days.

Not about Ma'el. About Sandoval.

Siobhan Beckett had read the files on Agent Sandoval long before, when she had first become a Companion agent and had set about learning whatever she needed to to serve her Companion best. The photos showed a handsome, but cold-eyed man who seemed to be looking at the camera as an enemy.

But when she had spoken to him in the caves, she had seen something other than the "perfect implant" that he acted like around Boone and Marquette. A faint hint of amusement in his voice as he had complimented her on her skrill action?

But his face had gone momentarily blank, a sign Siobhan recognized as a CVI memory intrusion. Then he had gone cold again, but not before she had glimpsed a hint of pain in his dark eyes.

Pain? she thought. A failed marriage, perhaps? Some woman who broke his heart before his implantation?

She didn't know. What she did know was that she and Agent Ronald Sandoval were somehow connected, tied together in some strange thread of fate. She didn't know how or why, but she also knew that Sandoval had closed himself off to any kind of human relationship. At least, she thought with a smile, right now he was.

The sudden resonent boom of a church bell broke Siobhan from her reverie, making her jump. She glanced at the small stone church, weathered and worn by hundreds of years of wind and rain. Out the front, amid cheering relatives and friends, was a newly-married couple, a blond girl clad in white and a dark-haired lad in a militia uniform. She recognized him faintly as one of her own men, a new recruit.

Siobhan's heart throbbed as the two looked at each other lovingly as they ran down to the battered car and jumped in, the engine sputtering and then revving. The wedding guests began to talk quietly to each other, shaking hands, laughing, and slapping each other on the back.

For a long moment, Siobhan Beckett watched the car bearing the newlyweds zoom off into the distance. Her pale face betrayed both a hint of happiness and a touch of sadness, as if their joy were something out of her reach

Then she slowly turned and continued to walk. The church bells continued to ring...

If only you would love me

Bells would ring

And voices silent for a thousand years

Suddenly could sing

And the heart of a bandit

Would surely vanish without a clue

Then the world would keep on turning

My darling, if only you...

If only you would notice

The grass would grow again

And all the leaves that have fallen

Would blow away in the wind

And the sun would shine forever

All the flowers would blossom and bloom

And then I could face the morning

My darling, if only you

If the war we've been living

Would cease to be, let us live again

If the chains that have held us

Would break away and set us free

Then my heart like an eagle

Would fly away into the blue

Close the book, quietly disappear

My darling, if only you

Bells