Original series Suitable for all readers

 

Does He Know? 

A “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” short story

 

By Flic City

 

 

I wonder if he knows.

 

Sometimes, when I’m alone, I think that he must do. After all, Captain Scarlet isn’t anybody’s fool, and it must have occurred to him. But then, when we’re working together, or sharing some time off, I see how relaxed he is with me, and it seems that he can’t know… that he’s being watched. That I’m watching him.

 

He knew when it started, of course. After the – incident – on the Car-Vu, oh yeah, he knew he was being watched. As the Colonel said, ‘I should think that he would expect it, Captain’. But does he know that I still watch him? Does he know that I’ll be watching him for the rest of our working lives? He figured out my orders to ‘keep Captain Scarlet under watch’; did he realise that they end with the word, ‘indefinitely’?

 

It’s funny… you really couldn’t say that I’m being subtle about it, or anything.

 

We are field partners! All well and good, but most field partners go off on their own during missions – and not because the other is about to commit suicide. Look at Magenta and Ochre; they are the second-best team in the organisation, but you could count the number of times they work closely together on the fingers of one hand. But us? I don’t think we’ve worked separately since – this happened to him.

 

Actually, I’m wrong; I forgot about the ‘gambling incident’. Man, that shook me up! Paul seemed to want to ruin his career, and I was terrified that he was behaving out of character because of the Mysterons. That’s why I was so desperate to prove to myself that something more was going on. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the hollow in my stomach when Scarlet raised a gun and shot me; it seemed that he must be a Mysteron agent, and I had just failed in my orders. I had let my personal feelings get in the way, and now the Mysterons had Paul under their command again…

 

I really blew up at the Colonel in private, after he explained that it had all been an act. ‘You had to behave as you normally would,’ he said. ‘And if I’d decided not to give Paul the benefit of the doubt?’ I asked him later. ‘How were you going to explain my shooting him, Colonel? Tell him what’s going on? What’s been going on since he revived in sickbay?’

 

I wish I hadn’t done that. The Colonel threatened to post someone else to keep watch over Scarlet. He might have, for all I know… It’s strange; I’m getting paranoid that people are watching my field partner, instead of that they’re watching me!

 

It doesn’t help any that Paul seems to rely on me for reassurance that he’s still himself. I feel like I’m betraying our friendship every time I say, ‘You’re Paul Metcalfe, I’m sure of it’. If I were completely sure of it, would I have agreed to watch him in the first place? But if I hadn’t, then the Colonel would have put someone else to watch him; maybe Ochre, and we all know how Ochre felt about Paul those first few months. He still keeps an eye on him; I wonder if Paul’s noticed…

 

It always comes back to that, when I start thinking about this.

 

I wonder if he knows…

 

 

 

This is the sort of thing my muse inspires me with at two in the morning. I noticed that all the Spectrum captains apart from Blue and Scarlet seem to work together as the exception, rather then the rule, and this occurred to me to explain why. (And no, it’s not slash! Just Blue angsting about having to keep his friend under surveillance.)

 

 

OTHER STORIES BY FLIC CITY

 

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