A/N: Right, so I've slowly been going back over and re-proofreading this and touching it up here and there. So I figured it was worth updating in the interim of updates to my other stories.

The Ultimate Currency

Chapter 1-THURSDAY

"This is so fucking stupid. I don't understand why you're making me do this. Can I just fucking leave, please?" Katie Fitch rolled her eyes, brushed her auburn hair back over her right ear, and crossed her arms over her chest. This was such a waste of time. She didn't know anything. Anything. And keeping her here in this stupid interview room was making her dangerously close to being late for a hair appointment.

And Christ, she needed something to relax her after Monday and Tuesday. It was Thursday and she still wasn't quite sure the beginning of the week had actually happened, or if she had just gotten properly fucked up the previous weekend and was only now waking up. That she could handle. Blacking out for four days—that'd be a story she could work with. The alternative wasn't quite as conducive to crafting a narrative she could tell over drinks tomorrow night.

Katie shifted in her seat, uncrossing her arms so that she could adjust the skirt she was wearing and re-cross her legs. She wasn't terribly dressed up (by her standards), but she never left her flat without being confident she'd turn heads. And today looking good wasn't just for show—she had wagered that it would be a couple of moldable men questioning her, guys she could wrap around her finger and toy with. That would have been an amusing afternoon distraction. But not this.

This was infinitely worse. The nightmares had been terrible the last couple nights. And if she was having nightmares, then that meant it was probably real—Katie had heard you only dream about things you thought about or experienced in real life—and if what had happened was real, her whole world was in as many pieces as the reams of paper, particles of ceiling tile, and shards of glass that had covered her car when she had returned to retrieve it yesterday. Katie involuntarily shivered and closed her eyes for a second to shut out the rush of memories that had risen again. And these memories were made even bleaker and more painful because of the person across the table.

"Katie? Are you alright?" her questioner asked tentatively.

Katie snapped her eyes open and gained some control over her emotions. She cocked her head and spat in response, "I'm fucking fine. I was just held hostage for two fucking days, I have no job, I can't sleep, and that whole time you got to sit in a trailer and play 'Deal or No Deal' for my life. How the fuck are you, Emily?"

Emily Fitch looked down at the table as her twin tried to melt her with a stare she could only have learned from their mother. Guilt, helplessness, and frustration battled each other in her gut, and all three made her physically sick at regular intervals over the last couple days. But Katie didn't know that. Couldn't know that. And Emily couldn't afford to get into an argument with her now. Not if she wanted to catch the bastard that had done this. Emily looked up at her twin and tried to reach across the table and hold her hand, but Katie recoiled instantly.

"Katie, I want to help you. I know how you feel."

"Fat chance. You have absolutely no idea how I feel."

"Maybe not exactly, but it wasn't exactly a cheery week for me, either, ok? Can you please just answer the questions, Katie? Anything you can tell us—tell me—will help us catch these guys."

"You won't catch them. You couldn't even catch them when you knew exactly where they were."

Exasperated, Emily slumped back in her chair. "Katie, please."

"Listen to yourself! You're so pathetic; you still can't do anything without my help." Katie stood up and adjusted her skirt. She took two steps towards the door and turned back to her sister. "Are you going to let me leave or what?"

Emily turned and looked up at her, trying to put on a brave face and keep her professional bearing. "This isn't over, Katie. If you don't tell me, someone else will keep bothering you."

"Oh, it is over. Now, open the fucking door. I have an appointment."

Emily let her hand hover over the buzzer on the bottom of the table and studied her sister. She knew Katie was upset and bothered by what had happened—it radiated off of her. But Emily knew that here, in her office, Katie would never tell her. As much as Emily wanted Katie to open up, she was acutely aware that her job was coming between them at the most inopportune time. Not that they had been particularly close for several years, but this shield that Katie had thrown up felt like a slap in the face. Sisters, twins especially were supposed to trust one another implicitly, be able to relate to and empathize with one another. The defiant, borderline infuriated darkness in Katie's brown eyes told Emily more than any of her harsh language ever could on that account.

Emily pressed the buzzer and heard the door unlock. Without saying good-bye, Katie pulled it open and strutted out of the conference room and down the hall. Emily took a couple steadying breaths as the door slowly swung back shut. Her sister's footsteps faded farther and farther down the hall, and it felt like with each step she was leaving Emily alone to deal with all of their problems.

But Katie wasn't getting off that easy, Emily told herself. She picked up the small stack of papers and clipboard that had been sitting on the edge of the table, ready to be covered in notes, observations, and drawings if Katie had been forthcoming with details of her ordeal. Clearly, that wasn't going to be the case; not this afternoon, not here. She dropped the papers and clipboard in her bag and looked up at the ceiling through her bangs, its cold lighting staring back down at her.

"I'm just trying to help you," she said to no one. She took a deep breath and picked up her bag. Emily pressed the buzzer as she stood and walked out of the room. The hallway wasn't any more inviting than the interrogation room: bare gray walls with the occasional door leading to another interrogation room and a security desk at the very end. As Emily neared it, the guard swiveled in his chair and depressed the button to unlock the double doors that separated the interrogation wing from the rest of the offices.

"I feel like I'm seeing double," the guard offered with a smile.

Emily faked a smile in return. "We're not that alike, actually."

"I'll take your word for it, Detective."

"Not like you have much of a choice," Emily muttered as she walked away and back towards the office she had been temporarily assigned while they interviewed and questioned all of Katie's coworkers. The event had gotten national media attention, which naturally meant it merited a national response; in this case, that meant having to vacate her usual office on the main floor so that a deputy head of something or other from London could set it up as his local command center and she was relegated to the first sublevel with the interrogation rooms, classrooms, and one of the forensics labs.

Emily fumbled in her bag for her keychain and unlocked the door to the tiny little office that she was currently sharing with her counterpart from the financial department. Luckily, he was gone for the day and she didn't have to deal with his consistent efforts to discreetly check her out. She gagged thinking about how 'discreet' he was as she dropped the bag on the floor next to her desk. She looked at the wooden clock with its chipped molding and let an exasperated sigh out. She wasn't going to get anything else accomplished so long as Katie was dominating her thoughts. Without bothering to sit down and get some more work done, Emily pressed the keys on her computer to shut down the console for the evening and grabbed her jacket.

If Katie didn't want to talk here, then Emily would make her talk somewhere else.

The car door slammed shut and Katie let out a frustrated shriek. She clenched her hands around the wheel and shut her eyes as tightly as she could manage. This was so fucked. Why did Emily have to be so high and mighty, so unaffected by all this? Didn't she know that she came this close to losing her twin only a couple days ago? Shouldn't she have been able to feel that—if not on Monday and Tuesday, then certainly just now sitting in the same room together? Why did she have to drag her down here to the local offices instead of just coming over and talking?

Because she doesn't really care right now; she only cares about her job, a small voice whispered in response. Katie blinked away the loneliness that had been building inside and threatening to come bursting out in rivers of tears. Get a grip, girl. Katie brought her breathing back under control and opened her eyes. If Emily wasn't going to be there for her—again—then she'd do what Katie Fitch did best. She'd solve her own problems and wait to explain everything to her sister afterwards. Some good thinking and analyzing things did. How far did Emily's 'thinking things through' get her on Monday? Nowhere. If anything, it had put them in even greater danger with her stalling and pathetic attempts at negotiating. Thank God they had gotten out of it in spite of Emily's efforts.

Katie reached into her bag and grabbed her keys. Enough thinking about the horrors of earlier in the week. She had an appointment to make and she couldn't be late. She peeled out of the parking garage much more quickly than she intended, but she didn't care. The farther away from Emily and the police station she got, the less she was bothered by what had happened. Or so she told herself.

Emily had been sitting on the front steps of Katie's apartment building for twenty minutes before the rain began and forced her to the refuge of the lobby. She cursed herself—not for the first time—for being stubborn and not ditching her moped for a real car. Ten years on and she still couldn't bring herself to sell it. Most of the time it wasn't a problem, but the foul weather that seemed perpetual this time of year was always a particular bother. Emily sighed and looked out the rain-streaked glass on the doors wishing her sister would hurry up and return from her appointment. Drops of water collected at the bottom of her hair and fell heavily onto the back of her neck. Emily shivered.

Finally, Emily saw Katie walking along the sidewalk, an umbrella held aloft in her left hand and a scowl on her face. Must've been a hair appointment, Emily thought sourly. That would make her efforts to reach out to her sister even more difficult. Katie turned to begin walking up the steps and caught sight of the moped leaning against the brick wall flanking the steps. Emily couldn't make out what her sister muttered, but she was positive it was not flattering. Her assumption was confirmed as Katie opened the door, closed the umbrella, and greeted Emily with a derisive snort.

"Christ, don't you ever give up? Has anyone ever told you how annoyingly persistent you are?"

Emily repressed a fleeting smile from crossing her face as a college memory of someone else making a similar observation flashed through her mind. Her sister's jibe didn't carry nearly the same begrudging fondness. Instead, she crossed her arms to guard against another shiver. "Katie, I really need to talk to you. This is serious business. And you're my sister. I need to know what happened to you."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you dragged me down to a police station and before my hair was perfectly ruined by this weather. Fuck, well you can't just stand here dripping wet. Come on." Katie started across the foyer towards the stairs without a backwards glance as Emily tugged her jacket tighter around her shoulders and followed wordlessly. Her sister might act like a bitch sometimes, but Emily knew that she'd eventually cave and confide in her. Whether she would accept Emily's recounting of events, however, was a separate matter.

"There's tea on the stove for you," Katie called from the front room when she heard Emily come out of the bedroom and pad down the hall of her apartment a short time later. Katie was sitting sipping her own cup on the couch, both hands cradling the large mug for warmth, legs curled up underneath her as she leaned against the arm of the sofa. Emily appeared from the hall toweling her hair dry and wearing one of Katie's hoodies as she detoured to the kitchen.

"You're a decent host for someone who wanted nothing to do with me a couple hours ago," called Emily from the kitchen as she added lemon to her tea. "It's been awhile since we did this."

"Yeah, well don't think it's going to become tradition or anything," retorted Katie.

Emily sat down on the window seat and looked out at the rain falling in the puddles forming on the pavement three stories below. The towel was now wrapped around her hair completely as she slowly took a drink and savored the warmth of the tea.

"Still, it's nice."

"Whatever. Look, I couldn't say anything this afternoon 'cause that room gave me the creeps, ok? I don't know how you make people fess up or whatever in there 'cause it's uncomfortable and just...creepy. Besides, I don't really know anything anyways. They split us up into little groups and locked us in different offices."

Emily turned to look at her sister, surprised. "Well that was more than I expected you to give me straight away. I'm going to need to write some of this down."

Katie shrugged as Emily set her cup down and crossed the room. She pulled a dog-eared notebook from her bag where she had dropped it upon entering Katie's flat and fished a pen out as well. She returned to the window seat and sat cross-legged on it, facing Katie on the sofa. Emily bit her lip as she tried to decide what she wanted to ask first. Katie just stared at her tea and ran her thumb along the mug's handle.

"Let's start on Monday morning, I guess. Did you notice anything out of the ordinary when you went to work?"

Katie snorted, "You mean like did I know the guy cleaning the lobby floor was actually a fucking terrorist or whatever? I had no fucking idea."

Emily tapped her pen and shook her head. "No, I mean was anything different in the way people acted or in how things were set up when you arrived at work?"

Katie sipped at her tea while she thought back. They weren't exactly thoughts she wanted to relive, and most of the details from before the takeover were sketchy to her, but she knew Emily wouldn't let her off the hook. Besides, as the afternoon had gone on, Katie had come to the conclusion—albeit begrudgingly—that Emily was one of the few people she could trust in all this that was also in a position to maybe do something about it. That didn't make telling her much easier, but Katie figured there was more good to be had than bad from telling most of what she could recall to her twin.