Need To Know

"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

That's one way of looking at it, dear Eleanor. In my line of work, you have to face a different kind of fear: Those you care for getting caught up in the aftermath of what I'm doing. Not letting myself care too much is a way to protect them from the dangers of my job. I chose this job, I willingly take the risks that come with it. I had a choice.

Those I care about too much, don't have it, because I can't tell them how dangerous is can be to get close to me. Keeping them at bay means keeping them safe. That's why I am afraid to care too much for anyone and hardly ever dare to.

[most of this is canon, a few bits are fanon]

Clayton "Clay" Webb is the son of Neville Webb, an ex NSA and CIA agent who was killed on a mission, and Porter Webb, who was a trained code cracker. His family is 'old money'. He grew up in Virginia.

Webb has always been a loner. Having lost his father at an early age, the person he is closest to is his mother. She got him interested in music, Webb plays cello and piano, and introduced him to operas. She also taught him to ride and they still go riding together once a week if Clay is not away on a mission.

Clay also got into other sports, none of them team sports. He learned fencing and pistol shooting and also is a good runner and swimmer. He took part in the 1988 Summer Olympics, competing in modern pentathlon. It's an achievement he's very proud of and he keeps photos and trophies around his place.

He is fluent in French and Dutch.

Webb studied at Harvard and afterwards did post graduate work at the National Cryptographic School. With that additional qualification he got a job with the NSA where he stayed for close to two years before joining the army, getting posted to the United States Army Adjutant General's Corps with which he was involved in Gulf War I. Four years later, deciding the Army wasn't the right place for him, he got a job with the State Department from where he was recruited to the CIA by his later mentor Tim Fawkes 14 months later. Fawkes became a kind of surrogate father to Clay.

During his time with the CIA, Webb has worked his way up the ranks. After five years he had become Deputy-Director of Operations for the Counter-Intelligence-Center. Another five years on, he was Assistant to the Deputy-Director of Operations in southwest Asia.

However, due to making classified material public to give some people peace of mind after years of uncertainty, he has now been degraded. His new post is Deputy Chief of Station in Paramaribo, Suriname. It's from this dead-end post that Clay comes to the village.

Here's his his CV:

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