Author's notes: Again; these characters do not belong to me. Etc. etc.

This is – like my first story – about Viv and Danny again. Please review if you liked it and there's a point in continuing…

The New Assignment

A very forceful knock on the door made Jack look up from his desk. "Yeah?"

The door opened a little and Vivian stuck her head in. "Jack, you got a minute?"

"Yes. Come on in. I was going to talk to anyway."

Vivian entered the office and gently closed the door behind her.

"Take a seat", Jack offered her.

She did so and started to speak right away: "Jack, I need to talk to you about Danny Taylor."

"Oh, yeah right. What about him?" He was a little amused but careful not to show it.

"Jack, you gotta be kidding."

"What are talking about?"

"You cannot hire him!" Vivian just couldn't believe what she was doing. She usually respected all of her boss' decisions but this time he really had gone too far.

"I already have. So what?"

"He's way too young. Too inexperienced. Not qualified for this kind of work."

"What makes you think that?" Jack knew that normally Vivian was quite right in her judgement on people, he used to always listen to her. But this time he had decided to act against her advice for once. But he was still interested in her opinion. Although she was relatively young as well, he respected her a lot – much more than many other agents, who were a lot older. In fact, that was one of the reasons why he'd decided to give the indeed very young Agent Taylor a chance. Age was important, but to him it didn't mean everything.

"He's still half a child. I mean how old he? Twenty-four, twenty-five?"

"Twenty-five."

"Jack, you know how nasty the job can get. I don't think he is ready for it. And also; I've heard rumours."

"Rumours?"

"Yes. That he's had a bit of a difficult past… he acts a lot on emotion… In fact I've done some research: At the academy he was known as the worst hot-head of his year and having trouble controlling himself."

Jack didn't say a word. He just looked at Vivian with raised eyebrows waiting for her to continue.

"Jack, we need someone who's more grown-up. Steady. Not a kid like him!"

"Well, yeah, he might need someone to look after him for a bit and show him how this works until he's grown-up enough…"

Finally Jack amusement was beginning to show. Vivian sighed. She had a bad feeling about what was going to come next. "You don't mean…?"

Jack interrupted her: "And coincidently you are exactly the right person to do that, Viv."

There it was. The sentence she'd dreaded. For a moment she didn't know what to say, but then… "No, Jack. Don't do that to me, please. I'm no babysitter."

"Viv, you are exactly the person", Jack repeated. He seemed quite proud of his brilliant idea. "Patient and calm, intelligent, impressing… I need somebody he's gonna respect from the very first moment."

"But not me. You hired him, he's your problem." Realising what she'd just said Vivian apologised: "Sorry, but really, shouldn't you be the one to teach him? I mean, he should be respecting you even more than me."

"Are you trying to misbehave on purpose to make me rethink this?" Jack asked calmly. "Well, actually you aren't wrong about this but the thing is I don't have time for that. And I'm your supervisor, I tell you what to do."

"Yes, you are." Viv sighed again. "So I think I'll have to do as I'm told…"

Jack watched as she left his office muttering under her breath. It sounded like "…as if I had time for babysitting…" He smiled to himself and turned his attention back to the report he was writing. He had a good feeling about this after all.