A/N: I'm a huge Tina Majorino (& Mac!) fan, which shouldn't be a shocker if you've read my Veronica Mars fics before. I think she is amazingly talented! So naturally I was excited when she landed a new show. So this is my attempt to get to know her new character. I'm serious, do NOT read this if you haven't seen the first episode (pilot) of Legends, unless you like spoilers. So go back, watch it, and then read this story...Please. Warning, character death is mentioned. So yeah, it's a little antsy. Enjoy...
BIG thank you to DKougar for pointing out my massive error about the training ground for the FBI. It's now corrected!
Obligatory Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own this show or character, but I'm thrilled to play around in this new world!
Empty Chair
Maggie Harris was standing in front of the white board that took up a major chunk of real estate in the corner conference room of the tenth floor of the Los Angeles field office of the FBI Division of Covert Operations. She was removing pictures of the key players from Martin's mission from the day before. The file on the Founding Fathers was now closed. She was also reviewing footage in her head, paying close attention to what went right and, more important, what went wrong.
She held the lives of her team in her finger tips as they ghosted over the keyboard where she built up ,or tore down, online identities, little e-trails that could make or break the legend of the agents she supported. Maggie took her job—her calling, actually—very seriously.
Part of her job description was being forced to listen as her team was in dangerous situations hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away. It was a helpless feeling, but she tucked it away in a cob-webby corner of her mind to deal with during the downtime, after the danger was over and the endless paperwork phase had barely begun. When she was in the moment the only thing that mattered was keeping everyone safe. She had to think on the fly, come up with a plausible back story and all the necessary support tech documentation within mere seconds. She and Bobby, her tech partner-in-crime (prevention, that is), had a rhythm going. She was the brains, coming up with the story; he was the brawn, the one hefting up fabricated documentation. It was a dance which worked very well for them, they were in sync.
Bobby was the first one she met as a rookie agent for the Covert Ops division. In addition to being her partner, he was a mentor of sorts, so unlike the other suits she encountered in the bureau. He, too, was a professional hacker, also doing it for the right reasons. He made this job, her dream job, more fun than work. They both spoke the same techno-geek dialect punctuated with snark.
Growing up as an Air Force brat, she moved around a lot, and found herself creating a rich tapestry of, well not lies, but embellishments for each new town they landed in. She thought of it as a reinvention, however, the thought she could create a career out of that little talent hadn't even occurred to her until her desire to serve her country brought her to the FBI. She fell into the Covert Ops rabbit hole by accident while interning in Quantico, it turned out to be a cushy landing though. She felt like she'd found her people, plus she got to re-live her childhood habit of reinvention, and now she even got paid for it. It was not a bad life at all, but it came with heavy responsibilities.
This ritual of tearing down the pictorial landscape of the old case to make room for the inevitable next one was a way of coping really. She couldn't change the outcome of the past case, though fortunately they usually got the big bad in the end with minimal collateral damage, but she could certain drill down to what things needed to be changed for the next case.
Maggie's reverie was interrupted by the door to the room being opened. She jumped a little at the sound, but tried to cover it. Even though she didn't go out in the field, she was still a trained agent who knew to stay alive you had to stay alert—that lesson had been drilled into them countless times, it had to be.
It was Martin Odum, the infamous cowboy agent himself.
Self-consciously, Maggie looked down at her scuffed black loafers, still sensible but in need of replacement. She mumbled out an apology for the loss of Stillman, a CI (confidential informant) Martin had known and trusted for several years. She had been the one tasked with staying in contact with him until suddenly the calls had ceased. She'd gone through the proper channels, reported his lack of communication immediately but it still felt like she'd failed Stillman, and failed Martin, someone she admired greatly.
He batted away her condolences and uttered an apology of sorts for his reputation of being "an island" type of agent, one that worked best alone and off the grid.
Being a believer in giving credit where it was due, Maggie reassured him that Bobby had given her a crash course in Martin 101. It was true, Bobby was the one who first translated Martin for her, parsed down his basic personality into a code her processors could translate. He was a loner, he worked better by himself, and he was given that leash-less freedom because the cold fact was he was born for this job. Martin was a legend within the agency because he became each and every legend he worked.
She noticed right away though a shift in Martin's demeanor when she mentioned Bobby's name.
"Where is Bobby?" Martin asked.
Maggie cocked her head, pondering. She mentally started ticking backwards throughout the day and quickly deduced that he hadn't been in the office all day. It was an unusual occurrence and she had not even frakking noticed.
"I don't know, I haven't seen him all day," she admitted. Sick was a likely possibility but he wasn't the type to not call. Her mind immediately locked on nightmarish scenarios though, it was too ingrained in her FBI DNA to go any other route with her thoughts.
Martin turned around and exited the room as quickly as he'd come, Maggie knew he'd had a plan in mind by his man-on-a mission routine. Somehow the room seemed smaller after he left, and a little harder to breath like he'd sucked up all the air. It was a weird kind of talent. She'd only known him a few days but she already had it labeled as the Martin Odum Effect. It sounded space-agey to her.
It wasn't until the next day, however, that news of Bobby's death trickled down to her from the office gossip chain.
Crystal, the team leader, came by with the somber news. It was 7:08 AM. Maggie had just looked down at the start bar of the centralized computer stationed on her desk. The time imprinted in her mind, little, inconsequential but to her it signified a shift. She was now going to have to go through this job without her lifeline, her mentor, she felt a little bit like an orphan reborn at barely 7 in the morning.
She looked over at Bobby's cubical on her left.
She'd expected to see his smiling face in the cube next to her, explaining excitedly why he'd skipped work the previous day. She would only understand the basic gist of the story, but not the nuances. It didn't matter though, his grins were always contagious.
Her gaze locked in on his empty chair.
It looked…wrong, that death-empty chair sitting in front of Bobby's computer, as though waiting for him to come back. She was waiting for him to come back. They were all waiting for him to come back. It was an exercise in futility, of course.
Bobby no longer existed, but traces of him did, and in the back of Maggie's analytical mind there was strange, cold comfort in that.
He'd left smudged fingerprints on his keyboard—invisible souvenirs that told a story of what he did for the agency and his agents he devotedly served. His sarcastic comment loading, please wait mug still had a shallow river of cold, government coffee swimming inside—a monument to his caffeine habit, practically mandatory for a Fed. Perhaps, though, Maggie's favorite of all of Bobby's little personalized touches that made his FBI-issued desk a little more homey was his pencil with a purple haired troll topper on it. Separate they didn't mean much, but together they were all that remained of a life choked out all too soon.
Maybe they should bronze his chair, because the thought of anyone else occupying just seemed wrong to her.
The end.
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