Hunnigan wasn't one to usually participate in the "team spirit building days" that director Shepard liked to arrange at least once a year (usually around December since he loved combining the office Christmas party into the same event, like he had this year). "Team spirit building day" was a fancy way of saying "Let's do an activity together for an hour and then get drunk, the D.S.O. is buying". Contrary to what people thought, Hunnigan wasn't against the events because they were a gross misuse of taxpayer money; she was against all forced socializing, always had been. Getting stuck in a room with a bunch of (eventually drunk) colleagues wasn't what she considered "fun".

This year, she'd made an exception after hearing that the mission would be to hike up to a cabin in the woods and then spend the night there, get drunk, and get a ride back home in the morning. Truthfully, she'd done it to protect Helena. She didn't think anything unseemly would happen at the cabin between all the agents, but she knew Helena was still considered a newbie at the very least, or at the worst, some still considered her a traitor to the country for her involvement regarding the events that led to the President's death.

And that all in the most petty possible way summed up to Helena being forced to do the "team work" alone and hike up to the cabin by herself. Helena was the only one who hadn't been assigned a partner to work with at the agency, and she'd seemed rather pleased about it to be honest, but like the agents' daily work, this too could get dangerous if attempted alone.

They weren't all going to just walk up a neat little path for twenty minutes and end up at a luxury cabin, where would be the challenge in that? Each of the six pairs of agents were to be dropped off at undisclosed locations in the woods and they'd be given the same tools to navigate their way to the cabin, whoever got there first won the race and got to sleep in the bed... because it wasn't a luxury cabin, it was what could be sold with the word "comfy", which was a nicer way of saying it was about the size of a shoe box and had only one bed; the pairs coming in second or later would have to settle for sleeping bags on the floor.

All the agents wore a GPS tracker so they could be found if they did manage to get themselves lost, so that was a thin comfort of sorts, but Hunnigan had no intention of losing the race. Everyone was expecting her to, of course they were, she wasn't even a field agent, but she was determined to make sure that after this year's event, no one would ever underestimate a competitive and skilled (if only in theory) desk jockey.

The agents were mixed up a little so that everyone had someone else's partner for today, an exercise to encourage making friends with other people than just the ones you saw daily. Hunnigan made her way over to Helena before it would become obvious no one else would. Not getting picked had a way to hurt in more ways that one would imagine such a small act of being excluded would.

Or maybe I'm just projecting my own insecurities, and Helena would be just fine without me, Hunnigan mused. Way back when she'd been the runt with the glasses, she'd accumulated a ton of experience on being the last one to get picked and on just how bad it felt. That was also when she'd learned she had a burning passion to show everyone what happened when you underestimated Ingrid Lee Hunnigan. Most of the time she got her chance to show off by managing to be the one who had saved the game by to scoring the one more point the team had needed to win. Not always, that kind of thing only happened in inspirational Lifetime-movies.

Hunnigan hadn't noticed how ridiculously competitive she could be until she'd realized she'd spent most of her youth playing sports just for the joy of proving everyone wrong, not because she'd particularly enjoyed the game. She still remembered the moment it had dawned on her. After her growth spurt, it had become all too obvious that basketball was the sport she should be playing, because what else could a 6′ 1″ girl do, she sure as hell wasn't going to be a figure skater or a ballet dancer (at least that was how her mother had presented the case to her). It had made sense at the time, she hadn't been bad at the game, on the contrary, it was what had earned her a scholarship, but her main motivation to play was gone when she realized she had nothing to prove.

I am not enjoying this at all.

The thought had sped through her mind with the subtlety and force of a freight train after a game her team had won. She'd never enjoyed the sport as much as she'd enjoyed proving people wrong (a charming personality trait in anyone, she was sure), but there was no one to prove wrong anymore because no one was underestimating her. If anything, it was the other way around, they expected her to do a great job just because she was the tall girl. Meeting people's unwanted expectations wasn't much of an incentive.

So, she'd quit and focused on doing things she enjoyed, things that challenged her enough to keep her interested. There wasn't much use for her competitiveness in her line of work, but when an opportunity for clear, direct competition (such as a little race to the cabin in the woods - intentionally ominous, director Shepard had found it hilarious but he was a strange man in many ways) was there, she wasn't about to pass it up, especially because she knew no one would expect her to win the race.

Well, me and Helena. The two underdogs with a vicious bite. Team work for the win. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, maybe she doesn't care enough to make an effort to win and then I'll be pissed off, Hunnigan mused as she and Helena were dropped off at their starting location.

"Three minutes and we can move," Helena said after checking her watch.
"Okay. Ready to kick some ass?" Hunnigan asked and Helena chuckled.

"I'll hold them down, you beat them up."

Helena admitted she wasn't at her best currently; after what had happened this summer, she'd spent a lot of time slumped in a depression which had manifested as her not bothering to take care of herself like she'd used to. She'd eaten poorly, drank too much, smoked too many cigarettes, and half-assed her training sessions during the three days of the week when close quarter combat-training and other physical fitness-training were mandatory at the agency. She hadn't begun getting better about it until a couple of weeks ago, and months of inactivity were showing easily.

"Would you slow the hell down?" Helena humphed as she tried to keep up with Hunnigan who vaulted herself over a fallen log with ease, her legs not even touching the layer of fluffy snow on top of it.
"I'd rather you hurried up," Hunnigan responded but paused to wait for Helena to make her way over the log as well, only she didn't do quite as graceful a job of it as Hunnigan had done.

"It's easy for you to say, you've got legs up to your tits, I gotta take three steps where you only gotta take one," Helena argued and defiantly stopped to dig a bottle of water from her backpack and took a long swig from it as Hunnigan stood by, impatiently shifting her weight from one long leg to the other.

"We're almost there, the sooner you hurry up and move, to sooner we get to the cabin."

Helena agreed that she'd rather get there before it got really dark and before the wind escalated to a storm, it was unpleasant as it was, the force of it turning the flakes of snow into icy needles that pelted her face. Within the next half an hour, it had turned into a full-blown storm, Helena and Hunnigan making it to the cabin barely before the worst of the storm hit.

"Well, look at that, we're the first ones here," Hunnigan said rather happily.

"I bet the others turned back when they saw the storm coming," Helena mumbled. Considering how fast Hunnigan had insisted they make their way over to the cabin, Helena was ready to assume the others had barely gotten started making their way over when the storm had hit since Hunnigan was probably the only one who had actually cared about winning the race. Helena was willing to bet serious money that Leon was still at the drop off point with Sherry, getting drunk while Sherry busied herself by texting with Jake Muller.

"Maybe so, but I don't care; I win, I rule," Hunnigan said and did what Helena assumed was her victory dance, and the way she moved would've made Michael Jackson proud. Helena chuckled and kicked off her shoes before removing her jacket.

"Well, Shepard certainly put some effort to catering," Helena said as she looked around the kitchenette. There were several bags of various chips on the counter, a few cases of beer on the floor, various bottles of rum, vodka and whiskey, several large bottles of soda, and three gallons of water. She peeked into the fridge and found milk, butter, cheese, and a large tray of lasagna, covered in plastic wrap. She assumed Shepard had intended for that to be dinner once everyone had made it to the cabin.

"Oh, great," Hunnigan said sarcastically from across the room. She sat on the couch, her legs crossed, one foot tucked under her thigh for warmth while she rubbed the other with her hand, holding her phone in the other.
"What's wrong?" Helena inquired and grabbed a beer from the fridge and replaced it with a warm one.

"Shepard sent a message to go back because the storm is supposedly going to get really bad."
"Well, seems we were right about the others then."

"I let him know we're already here, so they won't worry or waste time looking for us, and he said it might take a day or two before they can come pick us up."
"There's plenty to eat and drink, I think we'll be fine. Or we can probably try hiking back in the morning if you feel like it? I have full confidence in your navigational skills," Helena smirked.

"Yeah, maybe. Let's see how it goes in the morning," Hunnigan said and put the phone away.
"Indeed, so how about we just relax and enjoy winning the race, huh?" Helena suggested and offered Hunnigan a can of beer.
"Cheers."