Rating:Umm..., PG? I don't know.
Disclaimer:Nope, don't own them. Wish I did, but I don't. If I owned Ezra and/or Vin and/or Chris, well then, I would be a very happy camper then indeed. But as it is, Julian and Serena are mine, but I doubt that anyone really would want to rip them off. And if you do, well, I don't really care.
Author's Note:I don't know anything about prisons. Never been there, have no relatives in there, and I don't plan on making any trips there in the near future. So, if you see mistakes with the plot, well, deal with them because I have better things to do, like fantasize about Anthony Starke (not Iron Man, Ezra!), then change my plot. Spanks very much.
Today was Serena May Larabee's first day of kindergarten.
Julian watched the bright yellow school bus as it pulled away. Julian had put her on that bus, and almost cried when her Serena's little hand left hers. Serena waveed to her from the window.
It was hard for her to let go of that beatiful little girl. Serena was all that Julian had ever since...well for the past few years. Her little Rena, the girl that shouldn't have been, was the best thing that ever happened to her. And now she was taking the first step in growing up. It hurt.
She walked back to the apartment, more than a little sad, to grab her keys and briefcase.
Her brother, Chris, had arranged for Julian to get a transfer back to Denver as a second undercover agent for his special ATF team. She wouldn't be officially on the team, any team could use her due to the shortage of female undercover agents, but Team Seven always had first dibs on her talents.
Julian took a deep breath of the clean air. "Yet another reason..." she thought, mentally adding the fresh air to the reasons she moved back here from New York. First and foremost was the welfare of her daughter. She didn't want the shy girl to go to school in the big city. She was afraid for the girl. Then came the bigger issue, not that she would ever admit it.
Ezra.
She had met the man about six years ago in the city, while undercover. He was a dealer in a mafia casino, and she was an "arms dealer". Suffice to say, she'd slept with the man once, and ended up pregnant. Then, after the bust he disappeared.
Julian had looked everywhere for him. Prisons all over the country, tried to access Witness Protection, everything. Not a trace. She had a hard time accepting that fact, that she would never see him again. But she really didn't blame him. If he would have looked for her, he wouldn't find anything either. This move would separate her from all memories associated with the man and, hopefully, allow her to get on with her life. Start dating again.
Julian put the issue out of her mind. It would only serve to cause heartache and tears, something she didn't need on her first day back at the Denver ATF.
She started her Volkswagen Passat with some trouble. It had been acting up for some time now, ever since it arrived from New York.
Today was Julian Elisabeth Larabee's first day at the Denver ATF. She wished someone was there to hold her hand.
"Chris!" Julian called across the lot to where her brother was getting out of his 4-Runner. "wait up!"
He did, like always, and they entered the office building together, exchanging typical sibling pleasantries.
They entered Chris's office only to find that five other men were already there. She knew Buck Wilmington from her younger days, but not the others. She decided the best way to break the ice that was forming, would be to greet her old "friend" warmly.
"Hey Buck!" she went up to the mustachioed man. "How you been?"
As he hugged her, he answered. "Just great Julie. How's Serena?"
She was surprised that Buck remembered her daughter's name. They'd only met once or twice. But she was flattered anyway. Rena always did make quite the impression on people. "She's good."
Julian grinned at her brother, already knee deep in paper work. Same as ever, she thought. "Hey, aren't you going to introduce me to the rest of the team? Or do I have to do it myself?"
Chris smiled back. "Yeah, hold up." he said, flipping through a rather large file. Julian turned back to the men.
Buck started the introductions, seeing that Chris wouldn't pop his head up for some time.
"Alright, Julie. Well this here's JD Dunne, our resident computer and tech whiz."
A short man held out one slim hand and shook it with surprising strength. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Larabee."
Buck moved on to a handsome blue-eyed man next. She always liked guys with long hair. "This is Vin Tanner. If it shoots, this man can fire it, and with greater accuracy than any other man alive." Vin colored a bit at this, but Julian noticed he didn't say anything.
So it must be true. she thought to herself, returning the nod he gave her.
"This is Josiah Sanchez, our 'preacher'. We don't really know what he does, but we keep him around for laughs anyway." The older man shared in the laughter that resounded in the room. It was obvious, to her at least, that this was the man that kept the team functional.
"And finally,"Buck tried hard to quit chuckling. "Nathan Jackson, our field doctor. He's saved all our lives countless times." Julian shook with him as well, before adding a question of her own to the discussion that began to form in the large room.
"Hey, Buck, I thought that I would be a second undercover op. So where's the first?"
Buck didn't get the chance to answer, Vin interupted before he could say something stupid.
"Oh, that's Ezra, he's always late." Vin commented.
"Yeah, he'll be late to his own funeral!" JD added only half jokingly.
The chuckling that ensued covered Julian's reaction. To all but Vin. He noticed the surprise wash across her features at the sound of Ezra's name.
"Nah, Jules," she reprimanded herself. "It can't be him. After all. he was from New York. I'm sure that there are plenty of other people in the world named Ezra.
Vin was walking Julian to her desk when the southerner showed up. "Well, it seems that, judging from the sheer amount of conversation about our newest agent, that she has arrived while I was acquiring my morning latte." Ezra flopped his briefcase on his desk and turned.
Julian froze in her tracks, her back to Ezra, at the sound of that voice. It was the same voice that had haunted her dreams for the past five years of her life. The same voice she heard in the market, or in the subway. The same voice that belonged to the father of her child. Her mind raced as she tried to come up with a reasonable explaination. It wasn't really him, it was her imagination wanting the man with the same name to be Her Ezra.
Ezra stopped in his tracks as he looked at the back of the woman's head. The hair was a little different, but was it her....? No, it couldn't be. She was in a maximum security prison in New York. He walked towards her.
Julian took a deep breath and turned. Then her eyes bugged and her mouth dropped open. "H..."
SPLAT!!!
Six dollars worth of Starbucks landed on the floor and splashed onto Ezra Standish's designer trousers.
Vin just stared at the pair. He had never in all his life seen Ezra speechless. If it wasn't so odd, it would have been comical.
Then the silence was broken as Julian finally spoke. "I thought you were in jail."
"I thought you were." he replied.
Then the silence began again until JD called out, "Hey, Ez! How come you never told us you were in jail?" Slowly, the five other men filtered in and waited for an explaination.
Ezra, eyes still locked with Julian's, answered, more to her than his co-workers. "I wasn't."
"Julie, jail time?" Her brother prompted.
She still couldn't believe it. Ezra Simpson wasn't a mobster. "I was undercover in New York, a small arms dealer. Bust went down and I was arrested by the FBI. They didn't know who I worked for, thought I was really a guns dealer."
Ezra continued, to the astonishment of the others, with his end of the story. "I was still with the FBI then, as you know, my last case. I was under as a card dealer in a mob run casino. I ended up getting arrested by the ATF. Julie and I...met a few times. We never knew."
Vin wasn't the only one that noticed the pause in his sentence, and like the rest, decided not to comment on it.
"So you two have met, then?" JD asked.
"Maybe not." Julian held out her hand. "Julian Larabee."
Well that explains the Christenson part, Ezra thought. He returned her shake. "Ezra Standish."
Julian sat across from Ezra at a small table in the back of a bar.
"This is a shock, to say the least." Julian said, taking a sip of her coffee.
Their conversation had been limited to such pronouncements for the past half hour.
"I tried to look for you, Julie, after what happened." Ezra reached across the table to touch her hand. She slipped her palm into his. The touch made every emotion return that had long since been buried.
"I called every prison on the east coast and quite a few in the midwest." Julian felt herself turn red at the admission.
Ezra looked up then and their eyes met. He was smiling. "I did too."
And then, both faces aflame, Julian Elisabeth Larabee and Ezra P. Standish cracked up.