AN: I loved Monsoon. Probably not for the same reason you did. ;)
Spoilers: Monsoon
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: So not mine, but I'm so pleased about what happened that I don't care.
Character: Abby Corrigan
Summary: Abby's office has a window, with a view.
Room With A View
She sends Gavin home as soon as they get back to the office. He's not much of a partner, but he's earnest and he really is trying. It's not his fault they're woefully unprepared.
And they are. As much as it galls her to admit it, they are. Will's methods might have been reprehensible, but she can't deny he had a point, particularly when he's not around to gloat about it. That would be stupid, and Abby Corrigan is only very rarely stupid.
The view out her window isn't much, mostly just the bricks of the building across the street, but there's ivy crawling up the side and she likes to look at it when she's thinking. She traces patterns in the vines and leaves, and ideas come to her like new grown shoots, taking hard root in the cement and forcing life where there ought not to be any.
Her fingers are dialling before she completes the thought, a smile on her lips and mischief in her eyes. Henry Foss is good, born to tinker and howl at the moon, but he might have an equal in one of Abby's Bureau contacts. Penelope Garcia is no lycan, but she is preternaturally good with computers.
Garcia picks up the phone on the second ring, and Abby begins to talk.
"Agent," Gavin says by way of greeting when he comes back into the office the next morning.
He's hovering in her doorway (she has a doorway), holding his coffee in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He looks like he's been pressed from head to foot, and for just a moment, she misses the casual dress code of the Sanctuary. His face is still swollen and every time she looks at him, Abby is glad she broke if off with Will. She's not against being won back, of course, but she's determined that Will is going to work for it this time.
"You can call me Abby, you know," she says. She holds out a small jar she picked up in the market last night. It was much easier shopping when no one had a gun to their head, and she never let a good connection go to waste. "Put this on your face. It will help."
"It smells awful," Gavin says. "Where did you get it?"
"There's an abnormal market in Old City," Abby says. "They like me. I wouldn't recommend going without my company though, not for a while. Abnormals are nervous around law enforcement."
"I'll keep that in mind," he says, and she can tell he doesn't really believe her.
She's not too worried. He'll come around.
"Did you get this job because of your ex-boyfriend?" Gavin is back in her doorway, leaning up against the sill. She could close the door, shut out the bustling office and leave herself alone with the vines in the alleyway, but she's not quite ready to do that yet.
"Technically, I guess I did," she says. There's really no point in denying it, because it's pretty much true. "I tracked down Will based on rumour and supposition to help me solve a case that we couldn't crack. Then we started dating and I got more exposure to the abnormal world. When they formed this task force, I was the most qualified, even if I wasn't the most senior."
Gavin's face looks better already. Whatever his doubts, he'd used the cream she found for him and it's clearly working. That's probably why he's back and asking personal questions.
"I'm glad you did," Gavin says. "Not just because of the cream. You really are good at this."
She doesn't need him to tell her that. She has the satisfaction of having stunned a steno to stroke her ego, but it's nice to hear.
The files arrive by courier a few days later. Garcia has done an even better job than Abby hoped, and the boxes are fully of low level security information that will be priceless in the coming days of the task force's agenda. Abby was very specific as to the terms of Garcia's hack: nothing too intrusive. Nothing too classified. She wants just enough information to keep her team safe, get them trained properly and working with the right intelligence. They can handle the rest of it themselves.
Gavin floats into her office just as she's unpacking. His face is entirely clear now, the swelling and lesions gone, and word has spread around the building. She still isn't the most senior agent in the room, unless she's alone, but she's the one everyone comes to when they have questions.
And, God, are there questions. The files Garcia sent are full of abnormal traits and tactics for dealing with them, and Abby shares the information with anyone who asks. Some resist, preferring traditional methods, but it's Abby who finds the medicines for their bizarre injuries and Abby who discovers the best way to smooth things over when situations go badly. Before long, no one ignores her when she speaks.
It's new for her, this level of respect and admiration, and she finds she rather likes it. She's always been good at her job, but it was a job that many people were good at. Now it's different. Now she's on the front line of something that no one she works for entirely understands, and she's the one holding the most cards. She's not calling the shots, exactly, but she is directing them, and that's a thrill she doesn't think is going to wear off any sooner than having a window is going to.
Like the ivy on the wall across the alley, Abby is putting down roots and sending out new tendrils, making connections where connections shouldn't be, and, in her own way, she is saving the world.
Helen Magnus has not been made completely bereft of friends in high places. There are too many personal favours and hard won friendships for that. She reads the report on her desk about the fledgling FBI task force and smiles.
finis
Note: I borrowed Garcia from Criminal Minds. Helen's contact at the BAU can be whoever you want, but in my head it's Prentiss. Because duh. :)
Gravity_Not_Included, October 29, 2010