Something a little different this time although I still don't have rights to any of it. I decided to try my hand at Billy's Quantico experience a while ago but that spiralled a little out of control. Don's came through a bit clearer and calmer, which isn't really surprising, and there are some scribbles floating about for the rest of the gang's but they're a long way away. Hopefully this appeases those of you who wanted something with a bit more substance than the craziness of the last few stories. It gets a little dark at points.
Part I: I-V
Don Eppes makes the decision to quit baseball after they win the most important game of the season. He looks to the stands from his teammates' shoulders after a home run and wonders what the hell he's doing playing minor league ball as a utility player. He wonders why he's still there, still trying, still waiting.
No one is in the stands for him and no one has been there for years.
He crumples the pamphlet the FBI recruiter on campus, one career advisory day a long time ago, had given him in his hands and then smooths it out, noting the next date for applications, before pinning it to the memo board in his room. He spends more time staring at it in the dark from his bed than he does sleeping.
The next morning he goes to practice and doesn't say anything.
Three weeks later he goes and sits the entrance exam and another week after that, hours after he shakes his interviewer's hand as the man says he'll see him at Quantico, he plays his last game and shakes his coach's hand as well.
"I'm never going to make the majors." He turns away from the surprise and disappointment because he knows well enough what they look like and doesn't need to see them on another face.
Telling his family goes about as well as he expected but he tells himself, over and over again, that this decision isn't for them. He believes himself, just a little, for the first time in a very long time as his father shouts, his mother looks at him with a patient and unsurprised kind of confusion, and his brother scratches away at his equations on a chalkboard.
"The FBI? Why not just go the whole way and join the Army? Did we not teach you anything?"
He believes himself, just a little, because this was something he didn't need to think about anyone else when making this decision. It was just for him and that is unfamiliar enough that he clings to it like he used to cling to his bat on the long, dark, bike rides home after Little League practices.
i.Don slips into the fabric of Quantico as easily as he slipped into the fabric of high school, college, the Rangers. He doesn't have to worry about protecting anyone but himself and even the rigid, inflexible routine feels like freedom in comparison to everything else he ever remembers.
No one here knows anything about him except what he can do and that suits him here just as well as it did at the Rangers. Somehow, even though the fitness test they do in the first week is nothing compared to some of his training sessions and he is almost guiltily pleased with how well he does in comparison to the other recruits, success here feels even better as though every success he's ever achieved before was just a trial run for this. He feels like what he can do here is worthwhile and that is an addicting feeling. It reminds him of the rush of winning a game, at least in the beginning, of that heady sense of achievement that he doesn't think he'll ever stop striving for.
He discovers, with no small amount of surprise, that when he isn't next to Charlie he's smarter than he ever gave himself credit for. He stretches his mind and body out further than he ever has before and there are no walls there to stifle him here.
It finally feels like he might have outrun the ghosts at his heels and so he throws himself in headfirst because life and experience and reality have taught him a harsh lesson over and over again and he knows with unwavering certainty that good things seldom last.
ii.
Sometime in the second week, amidst lectures that leave his brain abuzz like he's never felt before and practical exercises that somehow leave him flooded with adrenaline for hours afterwards in a way that games never did, Don falls in with a trio of childhood friends a couple of years older than him. Richard Morse, a 26 year old lawyer, engages him in conversation at the end of a law and ethics seminar and, before he realises it, he's sitting at their table for lunch and the conversation has turned to college.
The trio are from Boston and had all graduated from Harvard. Don forgets to be intimidated after a while because Alex Doherty and Carter Bennett think that the fact he played ball with the Stockton Rangers is even more impressive than the fact that they'd gone to an Ivy League college.
They trade stories from the courtroom for stories from the diamond, from sidebars for the locker rooms, and Don sits with them at each meal and in each class. After a few days he is caught off guard by the realisation that they're friends.
"It's good to have fresh blood," Richard laughs at the third dinner they spend together. All four are uncomfortably and just a little smugly aware of the gazes of the other recruits who haven't knitted together quite so completely. "New stories and a different face, you know? We're practically brothers. I've endured years of these two's shit talking and ugly mugs."
Alex punches Richard in the shoulder with a grin and Carter steals the last of his chicken while they're distracted and Don feels an unfamiliar sense of warmth settle around him as Richard rolls his eyes in resignation.
He deliberately doesn't mention that his eighteen year old brother is a Princeton graduate and it doesn't escape his notice that they don't talk about their families either but somehow it doesn't seem to matter.
iii.
All the recruits are given the same lecture about restrictions on fraternisation but, just like high school and college, it doesn't do more than add an extra thrill and ensure that it will happen regardless, probably in spite, of any prohibitions.
Terry Lake catches Don's eye before the first month is out and he somehow knows that she's nothing like any girl he's ever been with before. The idea is somehow both exhilarating and terrifying and he wonders if the spark in her eyes whenever he manages to catch them is real or imagined.
"She's a right spitfire, that one," Alex says under his breath during a behavioural science lecture that Don spends more of watching her than taking notes. "Did you see her last round with that Amazon in the ring? You might get burned there."
Don does little more than nod and let a half-grin quirk the corners of his mouth up. He murmurs that getting burned is half the fun and Alex grins back, nudging him, and snickers. Don thinks that this must be what having a brother is supposed to feel like. "You sly dog."
He deliberately ignores the look that Richard shoots him and rolls his eyes at Carter's lewd expression instead before focusing on the lecturer and going back to his notes.
Every few moments his eyes drift over Terry Lake's neat ponytail and he doesn't bother trying to stop them.
The half grin, brief flash of teeth and spark that he sees on their way out of the lecture room is definitely real and he deliberately tamps down the flutter of something unfamiliar in his stomach.
iv.
By the end of the fourth week Don thinks that he's almost forgotten what life outside of Quantico is like and the little bit of him that isn't calmly pleased with that says that maybe, just maybe he should write his parents.
He stares blankly at the lined paper and pen resting neatly beside it and wonders why he has no desire to write down any of the many things that have happened in the last four weeks. The thought of putting them to paper to share with his family fills him with an odd sense of dread and the part of him that feels like he should write wonders why that is.
Reminding himself of his father's words when he'd brought the acceptance letter to the house is more than enough to shut that tiny bit up just as Richard appears at the door in their regulation issue gym gear. He wonders just for a moment why it is he so badly doesn't want to write them but forgets about it as the other man opens his mouth.
"Come for a run?"
He doesn't think, just nods, and laces his shoes faster than he thinks he ever has before. They trade off the lead, each taking turns setting a punishing pace, and run until the screaming in their muscles is louder than the screaming in their heads because, even though neither says a thing, they both know that the other can hear it too.
They keep running until the screaming in their muscles is the only thing left and there isn't any room left for the ghosts.
v.
Week five is their first proper round in Hogan's Alley and Don doesn't think he's ever been more nervous and excited about anything in his whole life. His knees shake and his palms sweat but the second the situation sinks through the fog in his brain he knows exactly what he needs to do.
He doesn't even realise that he's the one barking the instructions that the recruits in his section are following and when the siren screeches and the fog clears he blinks in bemusement.
A hand he somehow knows is Alex's descends on his shoulder and Richard is right at his side as Carter is the first to break the odd silence. "Where the hell did that come from, Eppes?"
He blinks again and can't quite find words because he doesn't know either.
"Good show," one of the instructors says coolly, dark eyes giving nothing away, as he nods at them. Don thinks his name might be Edgerton. He's seen him around the firing range whenever they have firearms training. "This way, the four of you, to the range. You'll be with me for debriefing."
Alex's hand tightens on his shoulder, Richard stiffens beside him a little and Carter's sharp intake of breath doesn't escape his ears. Neither do the stares of the other recruits and he swallows quietly before meeting the dark eyes. His voice is remarkably steady as he responds.
"Yes sir."
Well, that was interesting to write. I look forward to hearing what you all think of it. Next one shouldn't be more than a few days away, barring any unforeseen chaos that might pop up.