Title: Uncovered

Rating: PG

Classification: Drama, Angst, A/U

Spoilers: Last four episodes of Season 3

Disclaimers: If I owned them, I wouldn't need to be writing this in the first place! The only character that's mine is Josée – please don't use her:)

Summary: It's January, 2005, and two people and two people who haven't seen each other in years meet in a library.

Note: This story contains a crossover with NCIS, but that doesn't happen until much later in the story. All terrorism-related content is completely fictionalized for the purpose of this story. The info about 'Agent Capezzi' is courtesy of the book Protecting the President and is based on reality. Any reviews will be read – but you're not getting any answers before the characters do!

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He knew it would happen one day. It was inevitable. It was why he'd considered transferring offices after what happened. But expecting it didn't make it any easier when he looked up and saw her staring at him, her face whiter than he'd ever seen.

The librarian referred to him by name then, asking if he had any other questions for her. For a minute, he considered hiding behind that, letting her think her eyes were playing tricks on her. But he couldn't do it.

Instead, he thanked the librarian for her time and walked over to where she stood, slowly trying to process what she was seeing.

"C.J.?" he said softly.

"I don't...I don't believe..."

"Come on, let's talk."

"Talk?" The words were a strangled sob. "Talk!? Talk is something I've been wanting to do for the last two-and-a-half years! Talk is something I thought I had to do at the cemetery!"

"There's nothing I can say that will make what you went through worth it. But I can give you some of the answers you never got that night."

"And then what?" He looked at her, feeling in his eyes all the pain and emotion from that night.

"That's up to you."

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From this point on, all first-person scenes are in Simon's POV.

My partner Josée Strug and I had been called into the Director's office. This wasn't the typical way we'd receive assignments unless our assignment dealt with serious terrorist activity. Did I think then about the probability of what ended up happening actually occurring? I don't know. Maybe.

"This is Special Agent Ron Butterfield, head of the U.S. Secret Service DC Field Office," the Director explained.

Josée and I both shook his hand. "Sir."

"What I'm about to tell you is something the public has no idea about and it goes no further than the four of us unless I say otherwise. Do you understand?" Agent Butterfield looked both of us in the eye.

"Yes, sir."

"Since shortly after the New Year, a series of attempts have been made against the president's life. All have been small and low-profile and have been kept out of public knowledge. A terrorist group known as 'The Wings of Retribution' have claimed responsibility for each of the incidents. You may also know them as 'The King's Men.'"

"An extremist faction dedicated to overthrowing the American government and bringing us back under British rule," I answered. The agent nodded.

"All of the attacks have occurred in what are considered to be secure locations. Car bomb planted in the Presidential limousine. Explosives wired to the cables of an elevator in the White House. Sniper fire along motorcade routes changed in less than an hour's notice."

"How can that be possible?" Josée asked, her voice showing the disbelief of a doctor watching an otherwise healthy patient dying under routine surgery.

"It isn't, unless the person responsible has ties to the Secret Service." Agent Butterfield looked Josée and I in the eye. "There is an assassin on the President's security detail. And I don't know who they are."

Dead bodies don't make me sick to my stomach. Neither do the carnival rides that are specifically designed for that purpose. But hearing Agent Butterfield's words left me with a depth of nausea beyond any flu bug I'd ever had.

"I realize you're operating a man short right now. But I need the best team on this, and that's something I can't have with my people, not without the possibility of having the assassin work the investigation."

The agent Josée and I normally worked with had been recalled to his previous duty station to testify in a high-profile court case he'd been involved with. However I could have had no backup and I would have made the same call. So would Josée. It's what we do.

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