Little fingers are poking her in the eye as they try to pry open her eyelids, and little hands are gently slapping her cheeks. Charlie groans and presses a pillow to her face.
"Mama?"
"Mama…"
"Mama!"
"Boys," she says sleepily. "It's very early in the morning. Is someone hurt?"
"No."
"Is someone sick?"
"No, but-"
"Is anything flooded or on fire? I'm talking to you Johnny."
"That wasn't my fault! And, no."
"Then why are you out of bed?" Reluctantly, she gives in to whoever is tugging at the pillow and lets them take it. Squinting against the light coming in from the hall, she opens her eyes to see two grinning faces, sitting on their knees, half on her chest, looking deceptively adorable.
"We're hungry," Johnny explains. Mike nods vigorously.
Charlie sighs and tilts the alarm clock on the nightstand so she can see the time. Six freakin' fourteen. Good god, she's raising morning people. "Let me guess. Pancakes?"
They scramble off her, out the door, and she takes an accidental elbow to the gut in the process. There's excited yelling coming from the kitchen, and the sound of chairs scraping against the floor has her rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and following the little terrors into the kitchen before their attempt at 'cooking' gets too out of control. She flicks a light on and grumbles about the fact that she's up before the sun, especially after being up until two the night before, preparing briefs on her work that week for her handler at the bureau.
She's lucky to have scored this gig at the tattoo parlor because it allows her to remain undercover, while still working a nine to five schedule to keep things less hectic for the boys. Sometimes she misses running down the leads that she's digging up and passing along to other agents now, but it feels good to be able to get her sons from school every day and spend the whole evening with them.
Charlie winces. Except today. "I have a late client at work today so you're going to stay for after school program."
From where he's sitting politely at the table, Mike agrees. She runs her fingers through his hair and kisses his cheek. Johnny is standing on a chair by the stove, waiting impatiently to help her with the pancakes. She tilts his head back until he's looking straight up at the ceiling and into her eyes. "Do not," she warns sternly, "give that teacher a hard time again. Capiche?"
"Capiche," he agrees, giggling and grinning like the cat that's planning on eating the canary. Unable to resist, she presses kisses all over his face because the kid's a pistol and she loves it.
"Who wants what?" she asks, shaking her head at these kids and their insistence on pancakes made into shapes.
He hears the screaming from the stairwell, and his heart stops in his chest. His hands grapple for his gun at his waist, instinct overruling the logical portion of his mind that knows he's wearing a wetsuit and unarmed. The twenty or so feet from where he is to the apartment door stretches into miles in his eyes as he breaks into a sprint, hardly slowing down before he smashes through the door and it swings back and smashes against the wall.
DJ looks up from where he's holding Paige upside down, digging his fingers into her sides while she shrieks in laughter. "Something wrong?"
Paige dangles from his grasp, flushed and out of breath but completely unharmed.
"No," Paul says, breathing heavily. "It's all good."
It takes a few seconds for his heart rate to come down, but he tries not to let it show. "You're just gonna take that off of him?" he teases, tickling her neck as DJ resumes his attack on her sides. "Not even going to try to fight him off?"
With surprisingly impressive strength, she pulls her shoulders up and aims playful blows at his chest and arms. DJ laughs and plants her in a chair at the table, smoothing the mess he made of her braided pigtails with one hand. "Good surf?" he asks, pouring himself a glass of orange juice and some milk for Paige.
"Good as it gets, my friend." For once in his life, he got in at a reasonable hour the night before and treated himself to an early morning surf. Unfortunately, his professional luck doesn't seem to be holding up because he expects to be tied up with this heroine bust until at least seven that night.
"I have to put in some-" Paige looks up at him, and he changes his tone. "…overtime this afternoon. I need you get Paige from school at three."
While DJ knows what he does for living, Paige is still a little fuzzy on the details, so he tries to keep the cop talk to a minimum. Dales nods his understanding over his sister's head.
"Can do." He grabs his books off the counter and musses Paige's hair. "See ya later, kid."
After pouring a bowl of cereal for Paige, Paul goes to get himself dried off and dressed for work. Only when he's alone does he think about easy it had been to believe that someone was in the apartment harming his family this morning. How completely in the realm of possibility it was that someone would try to get back at him for his work at the bureau by hurting his seven year old.
Briggs takes a deep breath and tucks his gun in his waistband.
Despite her best efforts, she's maybe twenty minutes late to pick up the boys at the elementary school. Her last client cried like a baby and demanded a break every other second, which has shredded what little patience she had in the first place. So she's irritated and in a rush when she jogs across the parking lot towards the library. Still, she can't help but notice the girl on the bench outside the school, swinging her legs with her chin in her hands.
Charlie looks around. The parking lot is empty, except for a few faculty vehicles that she recognizes. How long has this kid been there?
She hesitates before calling, "You okay, kiddo?"
"Yeah," the girl answers, sounding unsure. "I think so."
She's hit by the cop's instinct to stop and help, but knows that her boys are waiting for her and forces herself to move along. In the library, Mike is sitting quietly next to the librarian, and Johnny is, as expected, being an absolute horror for the library aid with some of the other kids with parents that are running late. She recognizes the Zelanski boy next to him and rushes to lead her son away, knowing all too well how much trouble those two can get up to together.
"How was school?" she asks, one arm around Johnny's shoulders and Mike gripping her other hand. Charlie sighs contentedly. It won't be long before they think they're too big for this, so she soaks it up and enjoys while she can. Although she has a feeling that Johnny will always be affectionate, she'll have some fun embarrassing the hell out of Mikey when he gets older.
"Our teacher totally forgot we were supposed to have a spelling test. It was freaking awesome," Johnny, looking through his backpack for his hat.
Charlie frowns and gives his shoulders a little shake. "Hey, hey. Don't curse. You know better than that."
That's probably her bad, she thinks guiltily. He's been around the tattoo parlor too much lately, and she doesn't have the cleanest of mouths to set an example with. Mike tugs on her arm, and she smiles and leans down to his level.
"I was student of the day," he announces proudly, pulling at the star sticker on his shirt to show her.
"You were?" she says with exaggerated amazement. "That's fantastic! Did you get to lead the line?"
He grins and nods, and Charlie ruffles his hair, pulling them both closer as they exit the building. She frowns when sees that the girl is still there, hugging her backpack against her chest. She's not much bigger than Mike, but looks to be about Johnny's age. "Is that little girl in your class?" she asks, nodding towards her.
Johnny blushes guiltily and stares at the pavement. "That's Paige," Mike explains, sounding awed.
Paige…where has she heard that name?
"The same Paige that decked you for tormenting your brother?" Charlie demands when she realizes the connection. Johnny nods.
Last week, he came home with a black eye and a note from the teacher explaining that there had been an altercation on the playground. She'd been livid that someone had put their hands on her son, but cooled down once she pried the whole story out of him. Apparently without realizing it, Johnny took his teasing a little too far and almost had Mikey in tears before the girl (Paige, evidently) took matters into her own hands and socked who she thought to be a playground bully.
Johnny was pretty gutted about being hit by a girl, but seems to have moved past it. And now Mike's got the sweetest little hero worship thing going on. He waves shyly at her, half hidden by his mother's knees. Paige waves back, trying to hide a sniffle with the top of her backpack.
Charlie sighs. She's exhausted and she just wants to take her boys home for a relaxing evening at home. But that probably wasn't an option before, and definitely isn't now that the girl's crying.
"Stay here," she orders, settling the boys on their own bench before cautiously approaching Paige's.
When she sees her coming, Paige rubs the back of her hand across her eyes, unsuccessfully trying to hide her tears. Charlie sits down next to her, stifling a laugh when the girl slides a foot in the opposite direction, until she's only half sitting on the bench.
"Did you happen to punch my son in the face the other day?" she asks casually.
Paige startles, or for a second, Charlie worries that her ice breaker won't work as well as she thought it would. But then Paige straightens up and looks her dead in the eye. "I didn't know they were brothers," she says defensively. "And he's shouldn't have been picking on him just cuz he's littler!"
Charlie laughs and puts her hands up in surrender. "I know. I told him as much. I mean, I didn't hit him, but I made my point."
"Good." She looks the other way and rests her head on her backpack, and the sniffling starts up again. Charlie winces in sympathy and pulls her phone out of her pocket. "Where's your mama, sweetheart? Do you think we can call her?"
Little shoulders shrug. "Don't have one."
"Okay," she says patiently, decidedly not touching that one with a ten foot pole. "Who was supposed to come get you today?"
"DJ," Paige answers, turning her head to rest on her other cheek, apparently ready to look at her. "I don't think he's coming," she whispers hesitantly, looking pained at the idea.
Considering regular school was over almost two hours ago, and she's pretty sure she's never seen this girl in the library for after school program, that's a safe bet.
"I won't lie to you. I don't think so either."
For a second, it looks like Paige is about to cry again, but at the last second, she holds it together and crosses her arms over her chest, stiff faced. Charlie can't help it. She's starting to like this kid.
"What do you say we call and yell at him, huh?" she offers, giving her a little wink. Paige perks up.
By the grace of god, Paige knows the number, but DJ (who turns out to be her high school aged brother) doesn't pick up. She also provides her father's name and number, but going incommunicado is apparently a family trait because Paul Briggs doesn't answer his phone either.
"Do you know his work number?" she asks desperately. "What kind of job does your daddy have?"
Something about that makes Paige go pale, and she immediately hides her face in the backpack again. "I don't remember."
That's a lie if she's ever hear one, but Charlie doesn't feel up to calling her out on it. She scrubs at her eyes and looks out at the empty parking lot. Even the faculty vehicles are gone now. Paige wraps her arms around her knees and blinks heavily, the way her own sons do when they miss a nap and have a big day.
"Alright," she sighs, finally making a decision. "Tell you what, babe. We're gonna leave a message for your daddy with my phone, and he can come pick you up at my house."
This Paul Briggs is in for it when she gets her hands on him.
AN: I shouldn't be doing this. The next chapter of Distance is only kind of finished and I've been kind of neglecting Dynamic, so I really shouldn't be doing this.
But apparently, I'm doing this, so enjoy!