Note: This is an extremely late entry for the Chit Chat On Author's Corner Silver Screen Challenge. My challenge prompt was Erin Strauss/David Rossi with the movie prompt Two Week's Notice. Also, this was the first time that I attempted to write Strauss as a major character. I would appreciate and welcome any constructive criticism concerned her or any other part of this or any other story that I write. Thank you for reading and I do hope that you enjoy reading this tardy entry.
Regrets and Revoked Resignations
Dave had made many mistakes in his fifty-seven years, but the one that he had found himself, more so in the past four years regretting, occurred over twenty years ago.
On the outskirts of Washington, D.C. was a bar that lower ranked FBI agents and FBI Cadets frequented on the weekends. Although, Dave had been a Supervisory Special Agent for two years, he could not forget about his old haunt. Max had told him that the reason he had not stopped coming to the bar, was because the adoration and looks of envy and worship of the lower ranked agents and agent hopefuls fed his already over inflated ego.
How he enjoyed the wit of his partner, Special Supervisory Agent Max Ryan. However true his words were, Dave could not let the senior agent know that he knew that the older man was right. The past six months he had been using the excuse of keeping an eye on Special Agent Jason Gideon, because it was known throughout the bureau that trouble was not far behind him. However, every time Dave vocalized this reason, Max did not hesitate to point out the irony of SSA Lady Killer reigning in SA Madcap.
Neither he nor Gideon had found that humorous, but silently acknowledged what Ryan had said. However, the actual reason why he had been frequenting the bar more so in the past six months was that a beautiful young blonde probationary agent loved to unwind there.
On the night that he would eventually come to list as one of his top regrets, he had entered the bar and automatically pursued the dance floor for his Fiera Bellezza. He frowned as he noted that she was not there. She had not missed a Saturday night in the past six months that she was assigned to the team on the floor below his. He knew that she should be here as he had heard her telling her friend in accounting that she needed to dance all her stress off.
Just as his thoughts went to her being mugged or worse, he had spotted her sitting at the bar drinking a beer. His eyebrows furrowed in both concern and disbelief. The woman had something against alcohol. When she had first met him outside of the Bureau, he had been holding a glass of Scotch, and she snubbed her pert nose at him and had made a despairingly comment about all types of alcohol. He had it bad for her, because he made sure that whenever he visited this bar, he did not drink anything alcoholic. That was fine with him, because back at his apartment was a bottle of Jack Daniels waiting on him.
Something was direly wrong with his Fierra Bellezza. It was a good thing that the team that he was on and the one she was one, did not work together often. He knew her name as he had had been given her name when they had been introduced six months ago, but he thought the nickname he had for her, fitted her better. However, during company time it would not be a prudent to call a fellow agent, regardless of her probationary status, fair beauty in Italian.
He had walked over to the lone woman at the bar and tapped her on the shoulder. She had looked up from nursing her beer and looked at him. His breath caught because her bright blue eyes were bloodshot and the simple make up she had been wearing was smudged under her eyes and down her cheekbones.
"Agent Rossi, how may I assist you?"
He blinked, because she always had a snide comment whenever he approached her here, but at the Headquarters, she was sweeter than a southern debutante was at her first ball looking for her Rhett.
He swore and muttered his name for her. Her eyes slightly widened as she heard him, but she did not comment. He gave her one of his killer smiles that always got him want he wanted. "You can assist me with an explanation as to whom and what put those tears in your eyes."
"It does not matter." She replied crisply as she wiped away the tears as if drying them would make him forget that he had saw them.
"It matters to me." He stated as he took the seat beside her.
"Of course," She snorted. "If it gets me in your bed."
"We both know why that's not going to happen, Erin." He whispered.
"Yes, I have standards that you cannot meet." She snidely retorted.
"Oh, sweetheart," He whispered as he teased the blonde curl at her temple that escaped her prim and proper bun. "I'm sure I'll exceed your standards, but back to the point at hand, who made you cry?"
"It no longer matters as to who or what, because it is of no consequence. I have handled it. End of story."
"No, not end of story, because I have yet to hear the climax." Rossi interjected then inquired. "What's a story without one?"
"None," Erin replied stiffly before she continued. "Which is what I've implied, when I said that it does not matter?"
"But it does." He retorted.
There was a moment of silence between the two. She was getting pissed off at him and because she was no longer crying, he liked it. He'd rather her strike him than for her to hurt in anyway. He was thoroughly infatuated with her while she could barely stand him.
"Fine," She sighed as if in surrender. "I'm quitting."
"Quitting?" He pondered as he was unsure what she meant. As he continued, his tone of voice transformed from inquiring to a seductive whisper. "You're quitting this ill attempt to keep me out of your bed? Quitting your prejudice against alcohol? Quitting dancing? You should totally quit the first two things, but not dancing. I love to watch you."
She closed her eyes and bit her lip in the attempt to hide her reaction to both his words and the seductiveness. He knew the effect he always had on her which was why she reacted so strongly negative where it concerned him. The harder she fought to keep them from ending in bed together proved to him the more she wanted them to. Yet he knew that they would not tonight and possibly never.
She slightly opened her mouth to talk, but then closed it. After a moment of hesitation, she reopened it and confessed. "I'm quitting the bureau. I refuse to watch people die."
"Erin, darling," He whispered. "What did you expect when you joined the FBI? That it was all sunshine and cupcakes?"
"I didn't want to hold someone's hand while they died, David." She exclaimed as her tears started to fall again. He inwardly winced at her tears as it penetrated his tough shell. "I wanted to put away the criminal that killed them, not be the last person they saw."
"Today was your first day in the field." He stated as if in realization of what actually occurred.
"No, it wasn't." She claimed adamantly.
"Then explain to me what happened."
"My training officer had to ask a witness a question." She answered as she winced at the memory. She broke eye contact and looked at her half empty beer. She took a shuddering breath before she continued. "The witness was at hospital in Arlington. While he questioned him, the man went into cardiac arrest."
His eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. "How did he die holding you hand?"
"Agent Powell was being unnecessarily mean to while questioning him. I was offering him comfort and I could not bring myself to let go. The doctors and nurses were unable to revive him.
"Erin." He half sighed and groaned. He did not want to witness someone die yet she was an FBI Agent. He felt compelled to tell her that she was in the wrong field, but he did not want to see her shattered more than already was.
It was a good thing that he had not, because he winced when she continued. "After we got back to the Hoover building, he berated me in the bullpen, and said that my reaction was the reason he was against women joining the bureau. He called me a soft hearted chick that needed to find a man and be a house wife." She paused and almost smiled as she continued. "I wanted to slap the taste out of his mouth, but I did not, because at that time I wanted to prove him wrong."
"That time?" He parroted in confusion. He added stubbornly. "You will prove him wrong."
"No, David, I won't." She replied. His eyes widened as he realized that for the first time she had called him David.
"I typed up my resignation from the Bureau." She stated in a tone that did not welcome an argument.
He argued regardless of the warning her voice held. "No, you are not quitting!"
"Yes, I am!" She stated firmly.
"No." He retorted. "On Monday morning, you will march your ass up to your Unit Chief's office, and revoke any resignation that you might have given him!"
"No, I will absolutely not!" She retorted firm in her resolve to quit. "He humiliated me. Everyone in the bullpen and out in the hallway heard what he said and saw how he manhandled me!"
"Manhandled you!" He parroted. The vein his forehead visibly throbbed. "Explain what you meant by manhandled!"
"He jerked me inside the bullpen to the middle of it, and grabbed my neck and chin so that I was forced to look at him while he demeaned me"
"No, you are not going to let some stick in the mud, prejudiced bastard quit something that you worked hard for." He paused, but before she could speak, he continued. "I asked my mentor, Ryan, to request your file so that he could go over it, and determine whether you were up to snuff to join the team that we're working on. It is going to be revolutionary and I wanted you to be a part of that. You're beautiful," As he continued to speak, she shyly smiled at the praise he was giving her. "And I thought that you were smart and had guts, but apparently I was wrong."
She winced and the wounded hurt in her eyes could not be masked.
He swallowed. He did not want to hurt her feelings, yet he did not want her to be a quitter either. He continued onward. "The first time that you are in a situation where the going gets tough, you run. I, and I'm sure Ryan, doesn't want someone like that on their team. I understand that you are not comfortable with watching someone die. I'm not that comfortable with it either, and it bothers me that I have had to kill, but what does make me comfortable is the idea that I've placed a motherfucker behind bars or killed him so that he won't take another life. I have come to terms with the nature of the job, but if you aren't able to, then both you and Powell are right. You don't have what it takes to be an employee of the Bureau. You have no loyalty, bravery, honor, or integrity. Prove him right, Erin," He paused before he stressed the following word "Quit."
She was livid. He had further hurt her feelings and damaged her pride. He had made her cry tears of anger and resentment. She picked the bottle of bear off the bar top and slammed it down.
He quirked an eyebrow at the action, but inwardly he grinned.
"Powell, was NOT right!" She snarled. "I will prove both him and you wrong! I have what it takes to be a FBI employee! I will climb the ranks until I am the first woman to become the director. Watch me, David Rossi, watch me, and remember that you said I couldn't do it!"
Dave grinned and tapped the tip of his beer to hers. "Babe, I know you have what it takes and I'll happily watch, but remember when it happens, I'll remind you that you thought you didn't, because you wanted to quit."
Days later, Ryan would tell him that the interest in the broad that Dave had the hots for was no longer an option for the special interest team that they were starting. Dave had thought the worse, that Erin had actually decided to quit, but he grinned when Ryan revealed that she had transferred to Human Relations. Retribution for the treatment that Powell had bestowed upon her, her first project had been adding the term gender to the no discrimination policy. Months after the policy passed, Powell had been reprimanded. Erin had her sweet justice against the prejudiced agent; however, Dave would be served a plate of sweet irony, because she had become his boss. If only he hadn't of retired early, that might have been different, but if he had let her quit, it would have been an absolute.
He kept these memories securely locked away in his deepest subconscious, because he did not want the team to know that he was the catalyst for then Probationary Agent, now Section Chief Erin Strauss for revoking her two weeks' notice.
Because of his role in Erin's decision to not only stay with the Bureau, but to climb the ranks, he felt that he was responsible, however indirectly, for JJ's transfer that hurt the team professionally and emotionally.