Ending the game

Time Frame: eps 1-10, but more precisely it's the night before Gemma's funeral, so it's a few days after ep 10.

Summary:Seven weeks ago he had flown to London as a married man with the sure knowledge he would return as a widower.

AN: What prompted me to "rewrite" the episodes were three sentences in ep 1, 9 and 10, which made me sit gradually up straighter and take notice. These sentences were "I know we negotiated that. But I want out." "I guess I wanna be the man she thinks I am." and "Andrew puts on a good face, but he's not the man you think he is.". And so the cogs in my brain gained speed until they were whirling like mad: what if….what if… what if Andrew is behind all this? What if he is the proverbial wolf that ate chalk? Now, that thought made me interested in him again and I began to watch the episodes under that premise. And to my surprise things that had made little to no sense suddenly became more logical and events more interesting, while others made me lie awake at night trying to find an "evil" angle where it so obviously was anything but. Oh, and I probably owe Siobhan an apology. I tried to make her a bit of a femme fatale. But there's still so little we know about her motives, so I felt free to abuse her.

NotaContrivience writes the eps from Bridge's point of view, scrutinizing every facial expression and every gesture and word. I won't be as thorough, I admit, but I will provide Andrew with a background story, that –hopefully- sheds some light on why and how he became the man he claims to be.

Funny thing is I set out to make him the evil mastermind, but I found I couldn't keep it up, if I wanted to be believable, at least as much as the series' authors are. So the entire story changed into something slightly different, but I hope it makes it no less interesting.

And of course there's another novelty, at least for me, there won't be any direct speech. It's all about Andrew's memories.

I'd love to hear your opinion as we revisit events... about twice a week, so I'm going to have finished the rewriting, when the real Ringer starts again, if I can keep it up.

Normal: Andrew in the office, reflecting

Cursive: His memories

Stage set: Andrew's office, late night, the night before Gemma's funeral, that is a couple of days after ep 10 ended. And the curtain lifts…. opening music of ringer…This is the story of an English businessman whose fate has been determined by two sisters. His name is Andrew and he contracted his wife's murder.

Episode One – A New Threat

The ice cubes crackle when Andrew pours the whiskey over them. The lights in his office are dim. It's late. Security has just made their 10 o'clock check. It's quiet.

It's his hour for thinking and listening.

Sloshing the cubes and the whiskey around, he walks over to the window and gazes at the city below. His city. He can feel its pulse. He can smell its smell. Taste its flavour in his mouth.

It's dirty.

Like him.

And it fights like him – dirty.

He swallows a mouthful. Enjoys the burn down. It makes him smile. The windowpane reflects his smiling face. He stares at himself. Who is that smiling man holding a glass of whiskey?

Over the last weeks he's been completely transformed up to the point he scarcely recognises himself anymore. For a second the old Andrew shines through and sneers at the reflection as if to remind him that the he is still there, patient but ready to pounce the moment the new Andrew relaxes his control over his instincts. His old inner demons ambition, greed and thirst for power have been let loose for far too long to be stuffed back into their cage without putting up one hell of a fight.

Unable to withstand his own searching gaze he turns away and his eyes fall upon a picture of him and his wife. It was banned from his desk about a year ago.

His hand hovers over it and then, almost against his will, he picks it up and walks over to his desk to sit down behind it. Putting the glass down, his now free hand traces her lovely face. Bridget touches places in his heart and soul he thought dead and buried. And the light in her eyes illuminates corners and places of all things good that had lain in the dark, unbeknownst even to him. He caresses her face with the tip of his finger one last time before he puts it back to his rightful place next to the computer monitor. He mustn't loose this light ever. Because he likes the new Andrew Martin she brings out in him. It still feels like a pair of brand new shoes: a bit uncomfortable and he knows he will have a few blisters, but given time he will walk, even run in them and then he will never want to have another pair of shoes again in his life because of their amazing fit.

Seven weeks ago he had flown to London as a married man with the sure knowledge he would return as a widower. He conducted his business affairs, enjoyed his home country and his family, found even time to go visit some friends he hadn't seen in quite a while, spent time with an antagonizing Juliet, had a two hours discussion with her principal trying to convince her to give Juliet one more chance and waited for that one phone call from the police or Olivia bearing the terrible news. But that phone call had never come. Eventually he had run out of excuses to prolong his stay and returned to New York, all the while puzzling what had gone wrong and wondering if the police would handcuff him still at the airport for the contracted murder of his wife. But none had awaited him at the airport. Careful and still suspicious he had returned home, after having decided to act as his usual self, albeit a bit insecure and sheepish.

Only to be greeted by a woman, who smiled flirtatiously at him and kissed him instead of making a scene and accusing him of the wildest things, which were mostly true, of course, which put him even more on guard and made him even more standoffish than usual. She had been a bit nervous, but determined to fumble her way through the first few minutes. He had immediately known this woman pretending to be his wife, wasn't his wife. This woman was comparatively relaxed and agreeable, unlike Siobhan who he had left hostile and nervous like a cat, fighting to regain lost ground in this marital battle. She had known she was walking on very thin ice with him ever since he got back the business documents. He had kept her guessing and off-balance in their cat and mouse game. It had been his payback for the last 14 months, when she had put a ring through his nose and made him dance to her tune. This woman had to be her twin sister Bridget Kelly.

Certainly he had known about her and that she had caused little Sean's death in an accident while driving drunk. When he had proposed to Siobhan Martin/Charles had just begun really kicking off on a grand scale. It would have been more than foolish to marry her without knowing if she had any skeletons in her closet that could affect him and his business negatively in the future. He had been in love, true, but he hadn't been that far gone to ignore basic survival instincts. Besides Olivia had quite forceful insisted on it, too, and he could trust her to do what's right for the business, even kick his arse into shape, if necessary.

This particular skeleton, however, hadn't come out of the closet; he had walked right in to it.

He can't remember how long he had stayed under the hot spray of water, thinking.

And when he stepped out he had made a decision. Not knowing where Siobhan was, if she was still alive and what Bridget Kelly knew and why she was in his apartment pretending to be her in the first place, he would take his clues from her and test her occasionally to figure her out. His first test he conducted immediately by returning only in his pyjama bottoms. There was no need to dress fully, if he'd possibly be out of them in a couple of minutes. If Bridget Kelly wanted to pose as his loving wife, she had better be prepared to go all the way, because if that was just another game Siobhan orchestrated from the background to destabilise him, he would change the set of rules.

His first test proved inconclusive. Bridget had curled herself into a ball and had turned her back to him. Even a blind man could read that huge „stay away" sign. He felt only a pang of frustration.

To be frank, these days he is most of the time perfectly content to fall into bed and just sleep. He long admitted at least to himself, that he isn't twenty anymore when he had sat calmly and focussed through an exam, on which outcome the renewal of his Harvard Business School scholarship depended after honing his networking skills with Catherine at another frat party the night before, where he rubbed shoulders with the sons and daughters of potential future business partners or just potential business partners of their own ambition and making.

But he was disappointed because it didn't give him much of a clue about what his sister-in-law knew about his marriage or about the rules of this new game. "Look but don't touch"? Well, that was an old one and Siobhan usually hated to repeat herself. Not knowing for sure, he floated with the stream to see where it would wash him up, got his shirt, slipped into bed and turned his back on her after a perfunctionary "good night", which she returned with a small, trembling voice. Had she been crying while he had been in the shower? Well, this time he would not don his shiny armour and mount his white horse to come to the damsel in distress's rescue. He'd done that once and look where it had got him. No, he would NOT! He told himself firmly.

He takes out his special key. This one opens the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. He stares at it. Shall he use it? After what has happened, he's reluctant. He can't stop now no matter what, not as long as they haven't found the right moment to end this game. How else can he protect her, when he doesn't know what's going on and with Bridget still keeping secrets from him? He doesn't need another Charlie in their lives. He walks the few steps into the little side room, opens the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and takes out the little recording device, courtesy of an old Harvard pal now in Homeland Security and returns to his desk to switch it on.

When Siobhan stopped using her phone except for the most mundane calls and texts, he had known time was up for the both of them. She had figured it out and used another phone to make calls she didn't want him to know about. She was preparing to slip out of his control. He had decided then at this moment of realisation that there was no option left. He needed to kill her and set things in motion. She simply knew too much about his shadier business deals and had become a liability with the state of their marriage. She even had gone to see a divorce attorney, despite his best efforts to salvage things between them partly because she wanted it - probably as an attempt to lull him - and partly because there was still that longing in him for the way they had been before. They had been such an incredible team for which even the sky wasn't ever a limit. He didn't want to have to do it, it made him sick in his stomach, but it needed to be done. He needed to free himself. So he did. And he grieved for the irretrievable loss of his happy times with her. But the worldwide financial crash had shown him the bitter truth about his marriage.

The day after the fundraiser event he had sat for more than an hour and had listened to the last phone calls she had made during his stay in London. Nothing incriminating had turned up, which he hadn't really expected since Siobhan used this other phone he hadn't found yet, though he had searched every place he could think of – even the half-finished loft, but for one call. And that one had blown him away. It had confirmed his suspicion. That woman in his apartment was indeed Bridget Kelly, not Siobhan Martin playing the game of her life. She was desperate, scared, cornered and she was on the run from a man called Bodaway, presumably her abusive lover or husband, and from the police and ….. his wife had killed herself. He had stared a long time at her picture by the couch. Siobhan was dead. Had he felt relief or regret? Both. But he was free of her games and manipulations, of the threat of exposure; of losing everything he had worked so hard for all this adult life. That was what was important here. He had the documents back she had stolen from his home computer, when it had still been connected to the M/C network, and the only one besides Olivia knowing what he had done to further his business was dead, had killed herself.

Closure.

Closure?

Not so much. Because now there was a sister who possibly knew. Maybe she hadn't the full picture, otherwise she would know, why Siobhan had killed herself. But she might know some things, might know just enough. And he didn't know how Siobhan had killed herself and where her body was.

A new threat.

When Bridget wore Siobhan's red dress he was almost mad enough to kill her himself on the spot. That dress…. That night… years ago. He had been on his way to the bar to get Catherine a glass of champagne, when he had noticed the distressed woman in red. And instead of heading to the bar he had followed her out on the terrace of the Las Vegas Tangiers and witnessed her crying. Honestly crying while looking down at a small picture clutched in her hand. And he hadn't been able to help himself. He had stepped out of the shadows and offered her his handkerchief. Eight months later he had offered her an engagement ring.

That night he had only thought Bridget was trying to manipulate him by invoking feelings of a much happier time between him and Siobhan by wearing that dress – their special dress. The dress she hadn't worn in years. She, who changed her complete wardrobe twice a year, had left it in the wardrobe as a daily reminder for him of what he had lost, to torment him every morning and every evening. The dress he had begun to hate yet long for what it once stood for.

And then she had asked him why they couldn't be nice to each other for real. No more games. She surprised him so much that he couldn't help himself and slipped by asking who she was, really. And he had wanted to believe Bridget so very much that she meant it, that he could finally come home again to an ally and not an enemy and relax in her presence, but he couldn't allow himself to believe it. Not as long as he didn't know what Bridget knew, what her plans were and where he fit into them.

Again a couple of days later Bridget dropped another bombshell into his lap. His marriage was over, Siobhan dead and Bridget hunted by both sides of the judicial fence. And one of the sisters was pregnant. This was the worst timing ever! Though, who exactly was pregnant and by whom? When Bridget had got off the phone, she had looked appalled, apologising and as unhappy as he had been, when he overheard this phone call by accident. Originally he had wanted to discuss Juliet's situation with Bridget. He still couldn't quite believe it. It was one matter to rebel against him, against all authority, but drug abuse? His little girl? She was supposed to be smarter than that. But instead of discussing Juliet's accommodation and future schooling, he had stared at his wife, his mind racing.

If Siobhan was pregnant… who was the father? In all probability it was Henry, he had to admit. During the last months their sex life had become nearly non-existent. Siobhan preferred Henry as her lover and he hadn't had much interest in her either knowing about her affair and her threat to hand over the documents to the police, if he didn't do what she wanted. The couple of times they did sleep together, when they both felt mellow and nostalgic at the same time, very rarely though; all reason said it couldn't have been enough to get her pregnant by him. Still Siobhan had killed herself and her unborn child. She had taken two lives, and if he had been responsible for one of the two lives, he couldn't bear thinking about it. And worse, he had contracted the murder of her and her child. Possibly his own child! His very own child! He had made it barely to the toilet before he lost the content of his stomach. He had hit rock bottom. He was now officially scum of the worst kind. He looked around. Was this all worth it? Where had his integrity gone? His honesty and his conscience? His sanity? He had cried then. Cried for his memory of his wife, for this child, no matter if it was Henry's or his and cried for all he had lost. He had let it slide from his hands. He had let others take it away from him while he had been busy looking elsewhere. And he had it deliberately thrown away as well.

But if it was Bridget, who was pregnant… who was the father? This guy Bodaway she was on the run from or this Malcolm she had called in distress? He resolved it didn't matter, who the father was, if that phone call had truly been intended for Bridget. He would accept it as his own. And if it meant living a lie, if it meant accepting Bridget as his wife, so be it. He would never know, if the dead child had been his, provided Siobhan had been pregnant. But this one, if it was Bridget's, was his chance to make things right again. He would take care of mother and child. He would not repeat his mistakes. This child was his beacon that would lead him back into light.

And that meant to call off the contract on his wife's murder immediately.

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