Lena was nervous, but not as nervous as she ought to have been. She agreed to Hodiak's plan, against Brian's frequent urging to deny him. She was going to infiltrate the Manson House and feed information to Hodiak until they had enough to shut it all down. She wasn't a cop, not officially. She hadn't finished the academy. She met Brian there, he went on to become a detective and she had fallen into research analysis for a different branch of the beat. They lived together now, of course, and spoke often of their wedding day but there was no rush. They wanted to wait for a promotion to hit Shafe before they planned any great wedding (although Lena already had her bridesmaid's dresses picked out). But for now, she was being briefed on the goings-on of the Manson house, being given a new identity (Lena Blaine was becoming Blair Beaumont), clothes, and the like and she would be dropped into Charlie's life through one of his easily manipulated girls with a story that would open Charlie up to her. "Ah-" Lena held her finger up to her fiancée's perfect lips, "If you ask me am I sure one more time, I swear, baby..." she shook her head before leaning up to replace her slender finger with her lips, "I should do this. We know he likely killed your friend and he's roping barely legal girls into a harem and..." she opted to not talk about the rest of the mess she was about to throw herself into.

Brian was not secure on this mission whatsoever. He didn't trust Hodiak as far as he could throw him, not with this personal vendetta against Manson to catch him and make him pay for all the pain he'd caused. Which was fine, that was their job but it wasn't part of the job to throw yourself into something potentially-most-certainly life threatening without any thought to oneself. So needless to say, throwing his fiancée into the line of fire wasn't something that he was too keen on doing and it left him endlessly bitter with Hodiak for doing it. "I'm not going to stop asking you because I'm not sure of this and I don't want you to do it. Even if you're hell-bent on doing it anyway, I'm still going to voice my concerns." He told her easily, his voice never left its concern filled state. Sighing at the state of rush she seemed to be in; Brian shook his head and rubbed his hands over it as he began to pace the room. "We can keep going over this but I don't like it. Undercover? And for Hodiak? He cares as much about the people he works with as he does about the perps you're hunting down. He just wants another notch on his belt and you're a casualty in that matter. He doesn't have your back, not like you would need him to if things went awry. And how am I supposed to be okay with that? You just walking out the door like nothing bad is going to happen when you and I both know what this Manson asshole is capable of."

She'd been chatting up Charlie's girl for some weeks now and the girl was picking her up from the street corner soon. They didn't have much time left together. "I'm going to miss you..." she said, sadly slipping her engagement ring from her finger and slipping it on to a chain around his neck, "Take care of it." She knew his concerns were valid, she couldn't knock them. She loved Brian with her heart and soul. But having left the force left a little hole in her that craved adventure, to help close cases like she always thought she would. And if Manson continued he could decide to take on the whole police task force and that put her dear Brian in danger and she wouldn't have that. "I know you're worried," she said understandingly, touching his face again, "But someone's gotta do it and he's never seen me before," she said, dropping her hand to his waist, linking one finger into his belt loop to pull him closer. "It's gonna be hard for me too. I'll miss you," she said honestly. She had days she would report back in to the real world and she would get to see him then but they would be few and far between and they wouldn't be too long. "Hodiak wants to see Manson stopped and so do we, baby. He'll watch me, and you know the code word, if I need to be pulled out or if my cover's blown..." she said, her free hand touching his hair gently. "I have to do this, Brian," she said surely. "And look, we only have a few more minutes before I'm supposed to meet Sadie, can we just be here?" she asked, leaning up to kiss him again.

Well just as protective she was over him, he was over her and he had a reason to be concerned with Mason's penchant for torturing the women he manipulated into his harem. There wasn't much he could do from the outside without blowing her cover and that would only put her in more danger. Closing his eyes at her affections though his face remained solemn, Brian nodded his head and touched their foreheads together when she kissed him. They remained still as such until she had to meet Sadie which had the knots turning forevermore in his stomach. It wouldn't be too long until Charlie's girl introduced them and he would undoubtedly be lured by Lena's presence-or Blair rather. He forgot she was Blair Beaumont now. The name sat like rust on his tongue. He preferred Lena. Lena Shafe. The idea of her being his wife is the only thing that kept him going at a time like this. He hoped Hodiak was happy because he sure as fuck wasn't and didn't plan to be until Manson was dead or incarcerated and FAR FAR away from Lena. If Lena even wanted him anymore after this...Manson was powerful. No one knew how powerful he was. And they wouldn't know until it was too late.

"I love you," Lena said longingly. She leaned up to kiss him one last good time as another man came into the room to tell them they were ready for her. They had to drop her in an unmarked car by an unmarked man and they couldn't risk having Sadie get a look at Shafe. "I love you," she repeated when she leaned down, unable to think of anything else to tell him. Nothing else mattered but that. She then brought her engagement ring from the chain around his neck to her lips and kissed it to, "Take good care of it. I'll need it when I get back," she said and she had to pull away from him, which was harder than she expected. Hodiak was optimistic about a four-week operation from start to incarceration but her plug was pulled at the end of two. She had eight weeks to infiltrate and get enough evidence back to Hodiak to put Charlie away for good. She found her stomach in knots over leaving Brian as she was driven to her drop off point. Then, left with only a very small bag of things she waited in the agreed upon spot until Sadie arrived.

"It's so good to see you, finally," Sadie threw her arms around Lena like they were old friends, "Everyone's so excited to meet you. You're going to love it at Charlie's. It's perfect for you. We're all one big family and Charlie really looks out for us," Sadie kept her arm around Lena's waist as she led her away, "Oh you'll just love it!" Sadie cooed, Lena wasn't so sure. But she wasn't allowed to be Lena anymore. She was Blair and she was going to love it, "Take me to Charlie," She smirked, playing into the girls excitement, allowing herself to be toted along.