Hello. Long time no see. I don't know if the Graceland fandom is still active over here, but I had this idea a while ago and I only recently found it on my doc. I figured I'd share with whoever is brave enough to read. It's a crossover with Breakout Kings, with Paige's first cover being Erica Reed (it's a stretch and not my cup of tea).
It takes place - hypothetically - 6 years after BOK and 2 years after GL season 3.
Paige's socks slid easily on the parqueted floor as she exited the bathroom. She rubbed her hand over her face and yawned loudly. She didn't even remember what time they came back from The Drop the night before. They'd been out celebrating Charlie's OP and had one too many drinks. Luckily for her, she could hold her liquor.
The hall seemed longer than usual. As she walked past Mike's room and back into hers, she almost cried out loud in exasperation when she heard her cellphone ring. She was hoping for some more hours of silence before having to jump back into her reality made of lies.
'Speaking of lies', she thought, when the all too familiar number and NYC's area code flashed on the screen.
"'Hey, animal."
"What do you want?"
"You got out of here pretty fast last time."
"Cut the crap, Ray."
Paige took a deep breath. Her eyes closed, she walked to the window and cracked it open, letting the summer breeze fill her nostrils. Ray's tone was a mix of stiffness and disappointment. She didn't know whether to feel offended or angered by it.
"I really hope there's a good purpose to this call."
"There is."
"What's up?"
Paige ran her fingers over a stock of files as she propped herself up on her desk. Her eyes fell over Mike's lean frame running down the beach for a moment. It was that early, she realized.
"You haven't heard about Damien, have you? No matches? No connections with your people down there?"
"No," Paige gritted her teeth. Her eyes turned into slits when flashbacks of her undercover mission in New York, back in the day, flooded her mind. The image of her first mentor still pained her to this day. "Why are we talking about this?"
"I think we found him."
Suddenly she was petrified. Her eyes were staring into nowhere. Her hand curled up into a fist and her knuckles turned white unbeknownst to her.
Ray breathed hard on the other side of the phone. If this was hard on her, she could only imagine how hard it was on him. How he'd been bottling up all his feelings until now. Once upon a time they had a good bond. When Charlie died, he was the only one left whom she could talk to without having to lie, without having to put on her mask. It kept her sane during those first months of adapting to her job.
Just when he was starting to open up to her and they found a common ground to build a friendship on, DEA called her in and she was gone, just like that.
This was supposed to be in her past. It had been years, but now that Ray called her the pain of Charlie's senseless death was still as fresh as new.
"Where?"
"New York."
Paige snorted. "Of course."
Her heart was beating fast inside her chest. It seemed like it wanted to explode. Her head was spinning even though everything around her was still.
"He's back and he's fucking with us."
"And what the hell am I supposed to do?" Paige ran a hand through her hair. She tucked a strand behind her ear and sighed. "I'm sorry. Why are you telling me this?"
The DEA agent heard her ex colleague take a deep breath on the other side and his voice getting deeper, almost like a growl. In that moment she knew it wasn't Ray, the US Marshall agent talking, but Ray, Charlie's friend, determined to avenge his death.
"It's the first time in years we have any trace of Fontleroy. We can't miss this opportunity." That name not only brought back so many bad memories, it also made her feel so uneasy. Like a cold hearted killer. "Any investigation now would be useless. The Marshals won't reopen the case, it's not in their jurisdiction anymore. It's been classified."
A killer that Damien Fontleroy was, not them. But Charlie was a good man, it had been an unjust death. She knew Ray was feeling the same way.
"But a federal agency can."
Paige lifted her head up. Everything was much clearer now. Everything made sense. The sudden call. The cut to the chase news. He wanted a budget, he wanted a team. He just wanted to nail that son of a bitch. In his own way.
With his felony background, the Marshals wouldn't let him run a kamikaze joint-OP like that, but if she was the one pulling the strings, he would get away with it. Ray did not only want her help to reopen the case - he wanted her to be his figurehead.
"I never said I would help you."
"You owe it to Charlie."
She dropped her head back against the glass and brought her legs up to curl up on the desk. Knees to her chest, she shook her head, even though he couldn't see her.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
Her voice sounded almost scared and she herself could hear that. It was like a punch in the gut. She was just beginning to recover from the Toros mishap. She had enough onto her plate to deal with, this was just one more piece of that crazy puzzle that her life had become.
"Look, I'm sorry-"
"Okay. I'll do it."
Paige shook her head and bit her lip. She gripped the back of her neck and debated whether kicking the chair to the floor or screaming out loud as soon as the phone call ended. At dawn. While everybody in the house except Mike were fast asleep, probably due to their hangover.
When Ray hung up, Paige fidgeted with her phone. She was barely capable to prevent herself from trembling and she could feel her eyes watering. She hated coming to terms with her past. She wasn't one to dwell over buts and what ifs. Nevertheless, she couldn't say no to this. Ray was right. She owed it to Charlie.
N/A: Obviously, Ray never killed Damien and the investigation was classified as a cold case.
