Disclaimer- The 'ardeur' belongs to L.K Hamilton; I'm just messing around with it. Pendergast belongs to Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child; I'm just messing with him too. Kel & Brett belong to me.

"The First Meeting."

The book was just out of reach, Kellie Laskey stood on the very tips of her toes, fingers stretched as far as they could go and she still couldn't reach the damn book. It- the book- was one the wrong shelf, and it was her job to put the books where they belonged.

She fell back to the flats of her shoes, put her hands on her hips and glared hatefully at the book. A second later she stuck her tongue out at the book and turned to find one of those little stool things.

"Were you trying to reach that book? I can get it for you if you like," Kellie turned toward the voice and she found herself facing one of the two most handsome men she'd even seen.

He was as tall as a boy she'd gone to school with, around 6'4" or 6'5" even and just as slender, but not lanky. His hair was so blonde it looked white and his eyes – they looked light grey to her- reflected the light hanging over head, it all stood in stark contrast to his black suit. He was pale too; several shades paler than her and Kellie had been the palest out of all her friends and family. Outside her late brother, he'd looked a lot like this man, but Josh's eyes had been almost pink when he hadn't worn the green contacts.

"Miss?" The man asked.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I couldn't reach it." She said and in the next moment the book was in her hands, his fingers still holding one side. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Do you work here?"

"Yep," She lifted her name tag up for him to see. "Can I help you find something?"

He nodded. "Yes, I'm doing some research for a friend."

"Follow me to my terminal," She said and led the man to her desk with its computer. "What's the subject?"

"My friend is interested in learning a little about necromancy, but literature on the subject is proving hard to find."

"I know," Kellie said. "I got interested in necromancy when I was a teen, the stuff is hard to find. And most literature on it boarders close to eroticism, but I'll see what I can find. You don't mind if it's a special order do you?"

"No, not at all." He said. "Are you from Tennessee?"

Kellie glanced up at him. "Yep, most people guess Texas."

He shook his head. "Your accent is too light to be a Texan accent."

"And yours is too buttery to be Mississippi, so I'm gonna say… Maybe Georgia or Louisiana?"

The man smiled at her. "Louisiana, do you travel much?"

"I've never been over seas, mostly just from Maine to Tennessee and back again," She said, typing in another search word. "Do you travel?"

"Not as much as when I was younger." He told her.

"I'd travel all over the place if I had the money to, but I don't so here I am." More typing. "You look a little like my brother did…. Are you albino too?"

His expression changed but Kellie didn't notice, she was still typing in search words. "You are a bold questioner-"

"Oh, my name's Kel Laskey, and I know. I can't help it; I've never seen the point in beating around the bush when I want to know something. You know what they say, curiosity killed the cat-"

"But satisfaction brought him back." The man finished the old saying.

Kellie smiled at him.

"And…I am albino, type two." His voice was lower than it had been before.

"My brother was type one, with the pink eyes." She said.

"Is that why your hair is pink?"

Kellie winked at him. "Yep, you question boldly too, you know."

He gave her another little smile.

"Josh was cool about it, sometimes, but he wore contacts a lot. He hated being picked on and he did have such a hair-trigger when it came to his temper…. Here we go; I've got three hits on necromancy that aren't erotica or fiction. I assume your friend wants non-fiction?"

"Correct," He said. "Would it be possible to order all three?"

"Yep, I'll need a number to contact you and your name."

He handed her a business card, she looked at it. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent AXL Pendergast. His cell phone number was written of the other side of the card.

"FBI huh? Coolie, so are you Mulder or Scully?"

He chuckled softly and it made her smile. "A little of both perhaps,"

"Always good to mix it up a bit." She agreed. "Okay, Mister Pendergast, I'll give you a call in a week. Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure was all mine I assure you, Miss Laskey."

Kellie laughed. "You sure are a new spin on the good ol' boys. And call me Kel, by the way…Axel," She said, knowing AXL were initials and not an actual name.

"It's Aloysius, by the way." He smiled, then turned and walked out of her life until the next week.

….

The next time I saw Kel Laskey, she happened to be on her break, eating lunch with a man her age that I knew perhaps a little too well. I had been about to turn away to go find something to do until her lunch was over but she called my name.

The young man with her turned around, smiled and then turned back to Kel. "Hi Pendergast." The man said to me over his shoulder.

"Hello Brett," I said.

Kel's hair was piled on top of her head, but the curls kept falling into her eyes, it wasn't pink any more, but was instead blue. I had liked the pink look. "You know him Brett?"

I pulled out a seat next to the blond man as he answered. "We met at the System, remember? The murder mystery play you said you were going to come to but never did?"

Kel laughed. "I'm never gonna live that down am I?"

"Nope." Brett told her and the two shared a laugh.

"How do you two know each other?" I finally asked, they seemed close but I knew Brett, had known him for a year now and I knew he preferred men to women though he labeled himself bisexual.

"We went to school together in Maine." Kel said. "I came out here to see the Natural History Museum and I never left."

"I was just along for the ride, but I found the System and started acting there, never left either."

"This is quite the coincidence," I said.

"So then you don't believe in fate?" Kel asked me and the look in her eyes was intense enough to stir something in me that few did.

"That's her roundabout way of saying she likes you, Ally." Brett said, I glared at him, hating that he called me 'Ally' in front of her and not sure why. Then I processed what he'd said, looked at Kel.

She shrugged under my gaze, a lot of people had told me it was piercing, but it didn't seem to have any effect on her. Then I remembered what she'd told me about her brother and I figured my gaze was nothing compared to his.

"You find me attractive?" I asked slowly.

She grinned, flashing her front teeth. "I want to boink your brains out."

"Jeeze!" Brett stage yelled at her. "You're not beating around the bush today, are you?"

Kel hopped up and down on her butt in the seat. "I've had sugar." And they both laughed like it was some old joke.

I didn't know what to say to either of them, mostly to Kel because I found her attractive too. Or, rather a part of me I tried to keep well-fed found her attractive; but it was the same way I found certain foods appealing.

There was a chirp and Kel grabbed her cell phone from a pocket in her jacket. "Hello? Yep, I'll be right there. Okay, bye. I've got to go back to the front desk, so I'll see you later Brett. Ally, your books are under my desk, you can come get them any time. Bye guys!" She grabbed her jacket and dashed off.

"She likes me?" I asked Brett finally.

"You're all she's talked about for a week." He said and shifted his chair across from mine. "I should have known something was up when she refused to tell me what you looked like, just that you were hot."

It had been at least a month since I'd last seen Brett, but he hadn't changed much. His hair was golden blond, shoulder length and wavy, his eyes were a watery blue-green, and his complexion boarded on rosy. He wore jeans and a Legend of Zelda t-shirt. No, he hadn't changed much at all.

"She's not your girlfriend?" I asked.

"Oh hell no! I mean, she's a great girl, but I'm not her type and she's not mine, not really anyway. You're her type though."

I couldn't stop the next question. "What is her type then Brett?"

"Kel likes 'em tall, blond and smart. She's a sucker for the white knight, or she was, but her heart's been broken a lot, so maybe not any more."

"Who broke her heart?" I wanted to know, a sudden heat that was spreading though me slowly fueled the need to know the answer to each question I asked.

"There… was this guy… this teacher she liked when we were in high school, he was young, maybe late twenties or early thirties. Now that I think about it, I think he was a T/A and not an actual teacher. Anyway, it broke her heart because she knew she could never be with him, but she told him how she felt when we graduated. It didn't matter, but she told me she had to tell him because it was the right thing to do. She hates keeping a secret that has the potential to make other people happy."

It was a touching story. "You seem to know her well,"

He gave me a look. "She's my best friend, my only real friend for the longest time. Before you of course."

"Of course," I said, though I didn't feel that much like his friend, sometimes I was his lover, but that wasn't the same.

"Ask her out sometime," He said suddenly. "It would make her happy."

I looked around the Barnes & Noble café, at the people on their laptops, other sipping coffee and cappuccino. I could see Kel at the front desk assisting a little boy with his mother standing behind him; she was smiling while she spoke to them.

"She seems happy to me," I told Brett and he scoffed.

"It's an act, good isn't it? I've been trying to get her to go to the System since we moved here but she swears up and down she can't act at all. That she can't remember the lines or where she's supposed to stand. But it's complete bullshit; she's been fooling people since we were in Junior High. Aloysius… she's lonely and she doesn't want any one to know."

"But you're her best friend, so of course you know." I said.

"Yeah, I know. Please ask her out, give the ardeur something new and she'll give you a good time. But Ally?"

"Yes Brett?"

He became seriously quite suddenly. "If you break her heart or if she gets hurt because of you, I'll rip your fucking dick off and feed it to you."

I flashed him a smile. "Understood."

"Pendergast, I mean it. It's not me you need to worry about if you hurt her. Listen, I know you're a FED and all and that you can shoot and fight like a cocaine monkey. But Kel… she won't stand for it if you hurt her, it doesn't matter how good the sex is. It's her terms or not at all, remember that. And be gentle with her, okay?"

I nodded.

….

Kellie was almost convinced it was coincidence that Brett knew her latest obsession, after RPK (their code for the man she'd liked in high school) she really had given up on men and dating in general. There were always plenty of books to read, movies to watch to get the same affect, that bothersome feeling of love. RPK had been the only person she'd ever really loved and that had been useless, her irrational feelings for him had made high school seem more hellish than it really was.

He had been the last, it had been nearly two years since she and Brett had moved to New York and she hardly ever ever thought about RPK any more. But now this man, Pendergast, had entered her life, had been apart of it for technically only minutes (not counting the entire week she'd talked to Brett about him) and all those things she had felt for RPK were coming back in full force.

No, it wasn't coincidence; it was fate. Small moments leading up to one big moment that decided everything. She hadn't believed in god for a long time, the death of her grandmother had started her decline and then when she was told how sick she would become before the end, she had pretty much condemned the bastard in her mind. So maybe it was Lady Luck cutting her a break.