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He's never been afraid of water. Not before Moscow.
Brandt was always an excellent swimmer, underwater or turning laps. He dives in the pool one evening, and it's weeks later, it's relaxing, it's time off after the stress of ghost protocol, of deciding what to tell Ethan, then Ethan finally telling him the truth about Croatia. He's under the water, and for a long, slow moment, it's fine. The lighting, the bubbles in the water— He hears phantom gunshots and sees the light shining through the depths.
He pulls himself out onto the side, gasping for breath in way that has nothing to do with his form or how much oxygen he had in his lungs down there. It's all he needs, he thinks. One more reason he was never cut out for the field.
Brandt doesn't believe in letting circumstances control him, so he doesn't. He takes the simple approach first, draws a full bath, the kind you can sink tired muscles into and let the tension ease away.
He doesn't add anything to the water, wanting it clean enough to let it go over his head without complication if he panics. That's what this is, panic, and it's going to go away.
He has to brace himself to lean his head back under the water, to make himself do it, but he does it and—
...he can't breathe. Gunshots sound over head. There's a hand on his arm, and light in the water and he can't breathe...
—he comes up abruptly and dries off his face, trying to catch more breath than he probably really needs. He wasn't under there long. Not very long at all.
He comes back from the next summer get-together still a little shaky. It was easy enough to shrug off the pool, stay in his dry land civvies, and chat with other coworkers who opted out. It wasn't so easy to shrug off Carter inviting him in with that small, head-tilted smile she sent his way sometimes or the narrowed-eyed way she seemed to see right through him afterward, mouth curled in question.
He leans on the sill of his open window and waits for something he knows is coming. She never lets anything go, it's not in her nature, and he knows she's noticed this.
She knocks instead of ringing and he takes in a breath before going to let her in.
"Jane."
She's still got that small, curving smile when she sees him, head bent to the side just a bit. She's in a light summer dress now, and she looks just as good as she did at the pool. "Can I come in?" she asks, a faintly pleased tone in her voice.
He wonders what at, wonders if she knows he doesn't mind her seeing right through him. He opens the door wide enough to let her inside.
She waits until she's all the way in before turning and asking gently, "Are you okay, Brandt? I—" She hesitates, hedges, "I'm worried about you."
All the tension is back, not that it ever really left, and Brandt just leans back against the door and shrugs. "I'm fine."
He gets the disbelieving look. It's not like they haven't all heard it before, given the lie to each other time after time as if they really expect their teammates to believe it. The last time, it was Jane dealing with another loss on her watch; no matter how unavoidable, she blamed herself for the moment she might have made an impossible decision, maybe stretched a little further, and saved them. He'd been there for her then, though he'd thought she'd go to Ethan.
But, "You lost Julia," she told him and it wasn't the same as when she lost Hannaway.
That was then. This is now. He waits for her to push him, to not let him get away with the lie that's holding him together because this doesn't even make sense. It's been months since Moscow, more than a year, and the nightmares aren't getting better. He dreams of the Secretary, and it's another loss no one could have prevented. This one's real. It's not even another Julia.
But Jane doesn't press. She huffs out a soft breath. So many questions seem to pass through her eyes, one after another, but in the end she shakes her head, letting all of them slip away. "Just don't get yourself hurt, okay?"
People, agents, get hurt when they make mistakes, when they let their little unattended traumas get in the way.
He nods. "I'll be fine."
She steps closer, and they stare at each other for a moment.
He leans in slowly, and she doesn't pull away, just catches her breath with that light little hitch she has, and he kisses her. She slides her arms around him, and he holds on for a long moment. She's warm and solid and sweet, and then he leans back again, away from her to catch his breath, and remember why this was a bad idea in the first place.
"Hey," Jane says softly, her fingers light against his neck.
"I shouldn't have done that," he admits, voice a little rougher than he'd like.
She bites down on her lip, hurt flashing through her eyes. "Why not?" She sounds more demanding than hurt. "Brandt—"
"Frat regs. You know that."
She stares at him for a moment, then huffs a small laugh as she backs away. "That is such a you thing to say." She looks a little fond, if a little displeased still as she grabs her purse from where she'd set it and says goodnight.
The next mission they have involves water, a few tons of it sitting on top of their way in that Ethan wants Brandt to swim through. He curses under his breath and goes out in the hall to deal with it.
He hears Ethan start to call after him, hears his voice cut off as someone interjects, but he doesn't stop to pay attention to who or what, just closes the door and leans his back on the wall as he breathes.
...gunshots, light in the water, Ethan's hand hard on his arm as they swim free of the sinking vehicle, the Secretary dead inside it...
"Brandt."
It's Jane's voice, low and firm, not the soft, throaty sound of the night after the summer pool party. This is her working voice, her 'get it together or tell me what is wrong.'
He just looks at her for a long moment. "I can't do it."
"And I can't seduce," she reminds him. "Sometimes I have to."
He knows that. Usually he can live with it. This time... He stares in the direction of the door into the room, knowing that Ethan is counting on him, and this time he knows it. He let him down with Julia. He couldn't do it then either, but he tried.
Jane shakes her head, squeezes his hand. "We'll swap. I'll swim. You get the security system, okay?"
Brandt knows he should remind her it's Ethan's mission, Ethan's choice, but he can't find it in him. He just nods in relief.
Ethan, of course, always knows.
He finds Brandt afterward by the water where they met up after ghost protocol had been rescinded the first time, where he invited Brandt to join his team, to accept another mission, to be in the field.
Brandt doesn't say anything to greet him. Ethan leans on the post beside him.
"Water, huh?" he finally opens. It's not like Ethan doesn't know what marked that particular scar on his psyche. "You see anyone about it?"
The silence drags.
"Yeah," Brandt finally admits. "I'm seeing someone."
It's affecting his performance in the field, and chaotic mission parameters aside, the Impossible Missions Force demands its operatives to follow certain regulations for a reason.
"I'll be fine."
Ethan nods, not taking away that small self-reassurance, just offers, "If you ever aren't, I'm here."
They stand there a long time, looking out over the water.