on the strait. (numb3rs)
Terry; gen; rewind prompts
Terry's got her head on the right way

written for numb3rs100 rewind prompts: ivory tower, surface, prison & in another world. taking the idea that terry lake owns your ass, and can do her job in her sleep. no copyright infringement intended.

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Once every three months she guest lectures for UCLA's Criminology and Psychology freshmen. She talks about cases they've closed, or about combining disciplines when working in the field. Sometimes she tells an anecdote about a successful raid. The kids seem interested, and she never catches anyone dozing off.

The campus makes her uncomfortable. How does Charlie work in a place like this? She shudders to think that had she chosen differently she could have ended up in a place like this.

She slips her ID around her neck, feels its light weight stick to her skin, and breathes easier.

--

Books and covers, girl. Later, she's sitting across the room from a man who's killed more people than she has digits. The Bank Bomber – don't fetishise his crimes, you know better – Thomas Murray. Average height and build; no distinguishing features other than the gash on his left cheek.

She doesn't have to say anything to him: the crime is all over his hands; his hands are all over the bomb fragments. His signature's in the knotted wires, and his fingerprints on the casing. He could be my milkman, she thinks. She won't give him the satisfaction of seeing her shiver.

--

She knows better, she does, she does – she always tells herself, never take it home. The minute you carry the case out of interrogation is the minute you trap yourself. She knows this. It's her mantra; it keeps her strong.

The job can bite. She knew it would be brutal, but sometimes it still surprises her. But Terry's got her head on the right way. Never take it home.

She lets Don buy her a drink after work, two max because she knows she's got to wake early, and when he asks her if she's okay, her smile is genuine.

--

The trick is to compartmentalise. This is Personal; this is Work. This belongs to her; this she has to give to the Bureau. Give and take. She's known since Quantico that she'd have to sacrifice something to the beast. At the time she hadn't known it would be her marriage, but she's learned to live with it.

If she was someone else she might get snowed under by what she sees. If she was someone who took things too personally, someone who made everything an attack on her beliefs… but she's not, and that kind of thinking never helped anyone.

end.