[RP] All Of The Pages I Have Turned

[idontreallyspar]

Tom was really starting to wish that government agents had a higher salary, because if they did he wouldn't be here...with It

He didn't talk about It, or even mention It to anyone because as far as he was concerned, It didn't exist. At least until he had to pull It out of storage because the rental fee was cutting into his budget.

So his one day off had been spent bringing everything from storage home and stowing it in his apartment, or his alloted space in the garage downstairs. Now all that was left was It...and in some inherent, fucked-up way, Tom knew he had to look through It. It just...seemed the thing to do. Especially since It hadn't been opened since the day It came into existence.

Standing in the middle of his living room, he stared at It, arms crossed and features inscrutable. It was rather benign...a simple four-by-three foot locker with three decals splashed across the side...a KISS sticker, a Willingsboro Police Department logo, and a bumper sticker of the Jersey Polytechnic High mascot, the Polytech Parrot.

He was trying to decide how he felt about It before he actually did what he had to...then trying to decide if that even meant anything. The meaning...the things It held were so far removed from his life that they'd ceased to matter at one point, and finally ceased to exist in his world.

So why did he still have It?

Time passed. Tom didn't know how much.

It continued to sit there. To exist.

Finally taking a deep breath, Tom uncrossed his arms and walked towards It, sinking down to sit on the floor alongside It. He hesitated, then reached out for the combination lock that sealed all the secrets It kept so carefully hidden away.

The combo was still 1004...a date that no longer mattered to him.

His fingers spun it into place with a practiced ease that startled him...frightened him, just a little.

But before he could open the lock, a knock came at his door...a swift, efficient rat-atata-tata-tat he knew all too well.

Cringing inwardly, he simply winced, then released the lock, hauling himself to his feet. "It's open, Rachel!!"

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[my_strappyshoes]

Opening the door she smiled as she shut the door behind herself. Setting her purse down on the floor she tugged her shoes off. She saw him moving around the house probably to the kitchen to grab a beer. "Grab one for me too?" she called out to him as she moved her shoes out of the way.

Running her fingers through her hair letting it whip past her fingers lightly before heading into Tom's living room. She got a curious smirk on her features as she saw Tom easing onto the floor in the middle of the living room with a lock box. The two beers set on the coffee table to the side. Tom wasn't really an on the floor type, well at least not to start with.

Moving over to him her fingers scratched at the back of his neck before she settled herself right behind him resting her chin on his shoulder. "Hey, spring cleaning all over huh? My mom sent me some stuff from high school today. It was a bit jarring to see how much my life's changed since then."

Her head tipped to the side a bit worried that he was being exceptionally silent, "Hey, everything okay?" As she asked she reached beyond him and grabbed her beer before taking a sip.

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Tom wanted to shrug, but her chin was on his shoulder, so that just seemed rude. Instead, he just fell silent, leaning back into her slightly as he continued to stare at It...It. He'd given the goddamn thing a *name.* He was past this. He had been for so many years.

Maybe the reason it was back again was the explosion at work...going through that again. Or maybe it was the chin on his shoulder...maybe she was the one that could make it go away.

"Lisbon never happened." he finally declared after a moment. Turning his head to meet her eyes, which were now filled with confusion, he took a deep, steadying breath. "Back at APO...that night we were digging up the servers. I told you I'd been in explosions like that before...Lisbon and Copenhagen? Lisbon...I lied. It didn't happen in Lisbon, and it didn't happen when I was with the Agency."

[my_strappyshoes]

Her eyes were filled with more than just confusion, there was a slow creeping sense of panic as well. She set her beer down, as it had been just casually at her side, but now she wanted to make sure it was out of the way in case she had to run for it. Not that she thought that, but it was just a sinking feeling that had started out low and sunk ever since his sentences started to form.

He had lied to her before, actually several times before but she thought that they had gotten past all the past, beyond all the secrets and intrigue. She was to the point that she trusted him, and this wasn't how trust was to be repaid. Her feet pushed up against the floor beside him as she forced herself up onto the couch behind him. "Tom? I don't understand, and really? You're scaring me."

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well...I'm scaring me, too." he sighed, reaching up to rub the back of his neck as he stood up. Crossing the room, he opened an ornate looking clock on his mantle, swinging the glass front open to press the center dial, where he had a bugkiller hidden. Closing it, he returned to the center of the room...

...then with only a brief hesitation, knelt down and yanked the lock on It open.

Pulling it free, he opened the lid slowly, gazing down for a moment on the contents of the foot locker. Inside were some simple, yet totally alien items. Among other things were clothes...books...a couple medals and trophies, some old records...and down at the very bottom, a plain manila envelope.

It was the envelope Tom went after, pulling it out of the bottom and rising again, opening it as he strode over to sit beside Rachel on the couch. Hesitating once again, he slowly drew out a stack of papers and photos, on top of them a yellowed newspaper clipping displaying an obituary with a photograph at the top...one that could have been a much younger version of him if his nose were bigger and his forehead not quite so broad.

Gazing at it for a moment, he finally looked up at her, then handed her the clipping. "*This* was the first explosion I was ever in."

[my_strappyshoes]

Rachel watched him move through the room carefully, trying to sort out just what was going on, and worried that it was a lot more serious than she was prepared for, more serious than a beer would take care of. He opened the lock box that had been the elephant in the room up until that moment. He handed her a piece of newspaper and she didn't want to look at it at first.

Her eyes were searching his, trying to find some amount of truth behind the look of worry he had, she knew he was still safe, but it wasn't the same in the room. It didn't feel like Tom, it felt like something completely new. Finally she broke her gaze with him and glanced down to the article.

She read over the article and tried to make sense of it all. Tried to figure out why he had it in there. Why it was the first explosion he was in... it didn't actually want to fit together in her mind, but slowly it started to click into place. The name of the father, the name of the mother... it was him. It was the man that she had been falling in love with, and he had been a lie too.

Her breath drew in slightly staggered as she tried to contain herself, but she had so many emotions running through her that she couldn't sort out which one she felt more. She hadn't even thought about how he felt showing her this. "I- I don't know what to say. Why tell me? Why now? You could have gone on forever without telling me this..."

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

"Because of that very reason." Tom replied honestly, gaze lowered to the stack of documents in his lap...his old birth certificate, a copy of his death certificate he'd procured illicitly...loose baby pictures, photos of his family, everything that had once been Anthony Venomecci.

Finally, he was able to look up at Rachel...the biggest piece of his life now, while the biggest piece of his life before sat right in his lap. "I was twenty one when it happened...just a kid. I had my whole life ahead of me when I got the job at that damn sporting goods store...I got the job to put some cash together for stuff I'd need during Academy training." He paused, shaking his head. "I heard some talk I shouldn't have...about money laundering, shit they took from something called Credit Dauphine and the Alliance. The biggest mistake I ever made was going to the local cops about what I heard, 'cause somehow those fuckers found out. Cornered me one night after hours...I tried to run but they fired off some shots, hit a case of ammo that hadn't been stored yet...and the whole place went up."

[my_strappyshoes]

His eyes cast downward she watched him struggle with what no doubt was the truth. He had been able to trust her with everything else, but this felt more real to her, more true than anything he had said before. It wasn't just a case or a mission gone bad... this was his life. This wasn't just who he was, it was what made him the man he was today. This is how Thomas Grace became this man that she was falling in love with.

The name Credit Dauphine was familiar to Rachel, not only from her own experience within The Shed, but from Sydney as well. She knew that Tom had no choice but to run, to start over. His eyes kept falling to his lap, to the stack of what his life was. It was unimaginable to think that his life could fit in his lap, when hers managed to fill up her mother's attic. The one article still in her own hands she set on top of the stack and slipped her hands to the bottom picking it all up and setting it onto the coffee table.

Shifting on the couch she drew her leg up to the side, turning her body to face him. Her hand reached up to his chin, palm brushing against it softly as her fingers ran along his jawline turning him to face her again, "Hey. You did what you had to do, you did the right thing, because you're a good man. I keep telling you this, and you have a hard time believing it. Heck, you give me proof and I still think somewhere you think you don't deserve the life you have."

Inching up closer to him her one knee rested behind his back, toes brushing against his thigh she wasn't quite in his lap, but as close as she could get without actually falling onto him. Whatever worry or doubt she had placed in her mind when he started the conversation all of it was swept aside with a simple glance at the man he was, the man she knew he was. "You deserve it."

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Tom listened to her, the effort she expended in trying to comfort him over something...that really didn't bother him anymore. Well and truly...not now that she knew.

He shook his head, meeting her gaze. "That's not it." he explained, licking his lips in a rare gesture of mild disquiet. "I was just a kid when it happened...I had all these plans and then this thing comes along..."

He paused, gesturing to the photo in the obituary. "I'm not WITSEC, not exactly...I didn't change my face, I needed reconstructive surgery after the damn explosion. The Agency faked my death to protect me while I gave 'em all the info I had on that operation. Wasn't much, but it helped...and after they took down an East Coast Alliance cell based on my intel, they offered me a job and a new identity."

After a beat, he reached up to take her hand in his, running his thumb over her wrist in a silent gesture of affection. "I guess...I guess what I want you to know that this life I have now...this isn't a new life. It's the old one I didn't get. I left a lot behind...but I swapped serving my community for serving my country, and I'm not running from the sons of bitches that nearly killed me, I'm sticking it to 'em every day. I was too young to be someone else, to have another life before this all happened. I told you no more lies...and I just want you to know I mean it. The guy sitting here now...it's the same guy in that photo. You understand what I'm trying to say?"

[my_strappyshoes]

She wanted to say yes, but it was swimming all around in her head making it probably a bit more confusing than it needed to be. Rachel was always the overthinker, the million ways to the same conclusion type. The harder way to the truth was the one she always preferred especially if the truth wasn't exactly easy to swallow. The thought that Thomas Grace was Thomas Grace even though he used to be Anthony Venomecci wasn't a simple thought process either, no matter how hard she wanted it to be.

She chewed on her lower lip a bit, a nervous habit that she wished she could break. She didn't want to come across as less than astute, but she also wanted to make sure that she did understand, that she just wasn't nodding along silently with a thousand questions in the back of her mind. She laughed a bit shaking her head, "Sorry, I just... I don't want to say that I don't understand because it should be really simple to understand. I just can't seem to get my head to wrap around it as nice and neat as it should. Which I know can probably seem like I'm overthinking it all, which I probably am... but this is a lot to think about and honestly? Well of course... and see this is when you're supposed to stop me from rambling myself over a cliff and just do this." She smiled and leaned into kiss him, trying to stop the words that no doubt would spill from her for hours on end if she let them.

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Tom just sat there as she talked, feeling a small kernel of hope at the fact she was babbling again...babbling meant she was thinking (and yes, probably overthinking), but thinking meant trying to understand, and that was a good start. It meant she wasn't walking out the door.

Then she finally stopped herself and kissed him with that wisecrack *he* should have made instead, but rather than ruminate on that fact, he just kissed her back, reaching out to haul her into his lap so she wasn't sitting cockeyed on the couch. Letting one hand rise to run through her hair, he finally broke the kiss with a small smirk.

"Why make me stop you?" he deadpanned, nose brushing hers as his breath ghosted across her face, fingers toying with the softness of her hair. "You seem to be doin' just fine on your own."

[my_strappyshoes]

Between the kiss and being hauled atop his lap her eyes widened a bit during the movement and when he finally broke free and teased her she hit him playfully on the shoulder. Her eyes narrowed at him, daring him to keep it up. They weren't a perfect match by any means at all, in fact that was probably the main reason that they worked so well together. "I'm serious here. This is a huge deal, and even if all of it is connected now, and even if I know about it all? It's still a huge deal."

She kissed him again quickly before leaning back in his lap to reach for her beer. If he hadn't been holding he she might have fallen right off his lap, and cracked her head on the table. Instead she just stretched backwards over the floor until her fingers found the bottle. Getting up was a bit of a problem though.

"Uh... Yeah so a little help would be great now... Anthony," her eyes narrowing again but this time with a hint of 'I know I shouldn't be doing this but I'm stretched backward over the couch and really I have nothing to lose' hidden in her smirk.

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Oh, she was *so* asking for it...not simply because it almost felt kind of good to hear his real name after so many years, or because it sounded kind of nice when she said it out loud.

Even when he WAS using that name, nobody called him Anthony. Ever.

"I oughta warn you...one, that's not my name anymore...and two, using that name could be hazardous to your balance." he quipped, raising a challenging eyebrow.

[my_strappyshoes]

"Hazardous to my balance, Anthony? I happen to be extremely graceful." She quipped as she tried once again to right herself up, but now that she was starting to laugh it really wasn't working. In fact it was getting worse. Trying to push herself up using the beer bottle wasn't working at all. and her free hand was busy trying to cling to the edge of the couch in an effort to pull herself up, but the laughing again wasn't helping.

It should have been just like a sit up, but for some reason the extension of her back into that position wasn't allowing for the actual 'up' part of it. Her shirt was starting to inch down toward her as well, and she wanted to grab it and tug it back down to her waist, but that would require letting go of either her beer or the couch, and she wasn't sure what sort of result that would have.

However it didn't matter because the last remark she made had loosened his grip on her a bit daring her to try and support herself more. Which ended up with her just slipping off of his lap finally and onto the floor where her backside hit a bit harder than she expected. "Oh, that was so your fault." She said between fits of laughter, "You did that on purpose!" She rolled onto her stomach taking an awkward sip of her beer before sliding up onto her knees, into a rather interesting position for a moment until she sat atop her legs kneeling with her back to him. "You are so in trouble, Anthony."

It would have been more convincing if she could actually say that to his face without laughing, but she knew if she looked at him she was going to break down again. It wasn't even the fact that she was using his real name, it was more the tone she was using that was more amusing to herself.

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Tom couldn't stop himself from laughing as she hit the floor, even though he *did* try to catch her before it happened...and couldn't stop himself from admiring the view for a moment, either, before she rose to a sitting position on the floor near his feet, facing away from him. Cute and quirky she might be, but the body on that girl was absolutely devastating...

"You keep that up, Gibson, and I'm gonna have to resort to torture." he warned, lashing out with one bare foot to poke his big toe ticklishly into the small of her back.

[my_strappyshoes]

Somewhat at a calmer state of being, her laughter dying down to just a harder breathing from her chest hurting a bit she glanced over her shoulder at him, "Oh is that so, Anthony, you know a man of mystery such as yourself shouldn't be making such threats." she retorted as she swatted his foot away from her back.

Bringing her knee up in front of her she stood up, tilting herself to the side a bit letting her hair fall over her shoulders completely. "I really don't think you are in any position to make such a threat anyway. I don't cave under torture. You should take that into consideration."

She took a defiant sip of her beer in a mini-celebration of her own ability to maintain her composure this time.

[idontspar.livejournal.com]

Tom rose slowly, trying not to smile, though his eyes did enough of it for him as he started stalking towards her with mock menace. "Well it all depends on what method of torture I decide to implement." he pointed out, one hand darting out to steal her beer before she could react. Stealing a sip with a grin, he set it down on the nearby coffee table...

...then lunged forward and grabbed her around the waist, turning her so her back was pinned to his chest and one arm was free to hold her fast against him while the other started tickling her mercilessly. He knew he should probably be addressing the whole 'former identity' thing some more, but he didn't really want to at the moment...not when she was needling him about his real name. It was another shred of normalcy, one he clung to hard. It was what Rachel gave him that was so special...normalcy without the boredom. She was in this life as thick as he was, but she was still just a beautiful, nice girl that had taken a shine to him, though God knew why.

He just knew he was grateful as hell for it.