The Framework: The Cavalry
| The Framework: The Cavalry | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 16 May 2021 |
| Location: | The Framework |
| Synopsis: | Framework May spends time with her thoughts |
| Cast of Characters: | Melinda May |
"Andrew, I did it. I saved the girl."
At the time those words were spoken -- spoken with such relief, such joy -- Melinda May could never possibly have imagined she'd live to regret them. But the day she failed to save two hundred and seventy-nine children and teachers from that girl she rescued in Bahrain, she did. The day she forced herself to pull the trigger on friends and colleagues at the Triskelion because they refused to take a stand against the superhuman threat that led to the girl's empowerment in the first place, she did. And the day she snapped the neck of her best friend's husband, a man who was all but a brother to her... she did. None of this would ever have happened, if only she'd killed that girl when she first had the chance.
"Look after them for me Melinda, alright? And yourself. You're better than this. Hope you realize that before it's too late."
Those words echo in her head hours, hardly a day later. "Better than what?" Her voice is harsh, tone mocking. She sits on the floor of the small kitchen in her apartment, fighting with the cap on her bottle of Haig. Her fingers are stiff, tonight. Not a surprise, given missions she's been on over the last 48 hours.
For over thirty years, she's done her job faithfully. Her whole career is built on her ability to follow orders efficiently. Effectively. Before that damnable child, breaking the rules was easy. Routine. Fun, even. But she still followed orders. Until she didn't.
The one time Melinda May failed to follow orders, failed to listen to Command and sit by and watch a team of thirty agents die at the hands of an Inhuman monster, she also saved an Inhuman child. She thought the child could be saved. Nurture over nature. She was wrong. That child was every bit the monster her mother was. That child went on to kill over two hundred other children... all because she couldn't get enough of their pain. All because Melinda didn't get there to do the job she should have done in Bahrain until the girl was reaching out for her 280th victim... Melinda, herself. She saved herself. Denied the girl her own horror and pain.
Perhaps that was her biggest mistake.
The agents Melinda saved that fateful day, the day she first saved that murderous, monstrous child, called her The Cavalry to honour her. They were men May believed were endangered by the girl's mother. Not the girl herself. It was a stupid, willful mistake. She was so focussed on saving the child, she ignored the reality of her.
And she was so proud to be The Cavalry. For a time. She never voiced that pride, never made a big deal about it. But it pleased her, nonetheless. Breaking the rules had saved lives. She had saved lives. It was a good thing.
Until it wasn't.
Pride turned to ashes the day Katya Belyakov decimated that Cambridge schoolyard with her Inhuman gift. Guilt. Recrimination. Deep self-loathing took its place. And anger. So very much anger. Anger that cost her the pregnancy she and Andrew worked so hard to achieve. Anger that destroyed her marriage. Anger that fueled -- that still fuels her need to stop every Inhuman, every metahuman who could possibly use their gifts against innocents. Against children.
They did good work today, destroying Afterlife. It was a victory. A victory on the heels of a victory. At least, as far as HYDRA is concerned, it was.
But Melinda? Destroying the Inhumans who made Katya Belyakov has done nothing to asuage her rage. It's done nothing to soothe the piercing guilt and aching grief that are her constant companions.
And it's not helping her open this damned bottle.
"Augh!" She throws the bottle across the room. It crashes against the doorway leading out into the living room. The scent of alcohol is strong, heady. The shattered glass shines wetly, soaked by the spirts it once held. For just a moment, at the tail end of that uncharacteristic, uncontrolled outburst of emotion, Melinda wishes she had a match to set it on fire. Set her life on fire, maybe.
They say, it's not the burnt skin that hurts. It's the skin that's left unburnt at the edge of the burn. It's those places where the nerves are raw, rather than ruined, that produces the deepest agony.
She pulls herself to her feet, hands white against the dark countertop. Focus. Control. Order. These have been her watchwords ever since that day in Cambridge. "You think I don't feel anything." She remembers saying that to Skye, so long ago, now. "I'm furious. But I'm sure as hell not going to waste it on a tantrum. I'm gonna mine it; save it. And when we find those Inhumans? I'm gonna use every bit of it to Take. Them. Down." And she did.
Her eyes screw shut. Never in her life has she felt this far away from center. Never has she felt so out of control. Not even when she killed that thrice damned Inhuman child. Not even when she 'lost' her own unborn child. Never. But, since she killed Daniel Sousa, it's like her emotions aren't her own, any more.
And that is unacceptable.
She looks up at her bruised and lacerated reflection in the night darkened glass of the window over the sink. To everyone else, she seems ageless, despite the injuries that mar her complexion -- a trick of good Asian genes. But to her practiced eye, far more familiar with Asian physiology than her White colleagues... she can see jowls beginning to form, the deepening circles under her eyes, and the increase in the subtle lines in their corners. There are scars there that are getting harder to hide, for all that they don't show up on her skin.
She's done what she set out to do. Afterlife is gone. The Inhumans are dead -- or as good as dead, in the Doctor's tender care. Anything else is superflous. That means... she has one more rule to break before she calls it done. Peggy Sousa and her children -- all her children -- need to leave America, to get away from HYDRA's merciless reach. That includes her rebellious thirteen-year-old Melinda Sousa, who was sent to a training center a few days ago.
Doctor be damned. Melinda May is the Cavalry and she owes Daniel Sousa this one last service before she rides off into the sunset. She meets her own eyes in the dark reflection of the kitchen window.
"So, go do it already."
