Throwing A Good Punch - Chapter 2 - Jess' POV

It's been two days since my argument with Becker and we haven't spoke at all, not even about work and today I have been called into Lester's office with Becker and Matt to discuss my proposal. I already knew Matt was on my side and Lester strongly agreed with what I was saying so I was hoping that I was going there and I was going to be told good news and everyone was going to agree with me and take my side then I can laugh in Becker's face!

As I walked into Lester's office everyone grew quite and I took a seat opposite Lester "Jess me and Matt have been discussing you proposal and we both think that it is a good idea considering you are a member of the core team I think that it's essential you get full field training like Abby, Emily and all the others have got. I think we've got good enough reason to think that maybe one day you may have to use the field training in a real life situation and we have lost too many people and I am certainly not going to lose anymore for any reason so from tomorrow for two weeks you will be given full training by Becker and if he has to go out for any field work you will be trained by Becker's second in command here then we'll let you go in the field under Becker's protection" Lester explained.

I smiled widely as Lester told me the news and seen Becker who was standing next to me tense more and more with each passing minute and I wanted nothing more then to face him and laugh but it's not a good idea in front of Lester plus I still feel quite bad about what I told him the other day about my death being on his hands if I died and I reminded myself that I needed to apologise to him before we start training tomorrow so there are no hard feelings between us, as we left the office Matt smiled and walked over to Emily and Becker was walking away and I chased after him "Can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked, he nodded and we walked to his office "I just want to say that I am really sorry for what I said to you the other day, I was bang out of order and I had no right to say it" I told him.

"I know you didn't mean it and I'm sorry for being rude and telling you to leave" He said and I smiled at him "I don't want you to think that I'm being an asshole by not giving you field training and the reason I didn't want to give you it was not because I didn't think you could handle it, the reason was that I don't want to ever think about you in a situation where you have to use your field training… you are supposed to be safe sitting at your computer and I have promised myself after the… incident that I won't ever let you be in that situation again that I will protect you from anything" He explained.

"I know everyone here sees me as the little girl who can't handle real life, who's obsessed with wearing colourful clothes and eating chocolate and they think that's all I am and I want to show everyone that they are wrong about me! That I'm not useless like they think I am" I told him.

"Jess no one here thinks you're worthless, in fact everyone here has nothing but nice and good things to say about you and what you do here. Do you know how many of my men tell me they're alive because of you spotting something out of the corner of your eye on CCTV or you've sent a medical team already because you thought someone was going to get hurt or you've listened and heard someone's cry for help through the comm system when the rest of us can't… most of my team are still alive because of you" He told me and it made me smile to hear that I was doing a good job.

After our heart to heart conversation we hugged it out and I went and relieved Connor of the ADD and took over and as he walked away he mumbled something about people being late and inconsiderate or something and I rolled my eyes at him, he was always like this when he was tired. I remembered when him and Abby lived with me and when we had to get up for work in the morning he would just complain the whole way there until around 11am when he would turn into normal Connor and it was only 8am now so we had a few hours to go until Connor was back to his normal self.

It was only an hour later when the alarms started blaring around the ARC and the team rushed over to me to collect their black boxes and the information they would need "Anomaly at Cussac Road College, co-ordinates 12353, estimated journey time 8 and a half minutes. Hacked into CCTV feed no incursions as of yet. Second team and medical team on stand by" I told them and they ran off to save the world once again.

Watching the CCTV I did a sweep of the whole place and there was no one in there and no creature incursions and as I got back to the camera that was filming the anomaly I watched as the team locked the anomaly and Becker post two guards next to it as he, Matt and Emily went to do a thorough sweep of the place in case I missed something… not that I was "Building clear" Becker said into comms.

The team came back and posted their black boxes on the stands and I started to retrieve information from them when a bar of chocolate landed in front of me and when I looked up I seen Becker smiling down at me "Just to say sorry for the other day" He said and walked away.

Becker's POV

I walked into work carrying all my training gear for today was the beginning of Jess' training that she so desperately wanted and I have made sure that I have got the training room all to myself today and have also made sure to block all the windows to make sure no one can look inside and put Jess off what she was doing, Lester told me to train her like I trained everyone else and that was exactly what I was going to do.

Jess came in and I was surprised to see that she wasn't wearing one of her inappropriate skirts and was in fact wearing something sensible. She was wearing a white t-shirt and some blue shorts (sensible but short shorts not that I'm surprised) and a pair of white Nike trainers, she had her hair in two plaits, one of each side.

"OK Lester told me to train you like I would train anyone else and that's what I'm going to do. So first I want you to warm up and I want you to just do a light jog around the room doing two laps OK?" She nodded and done her two laps "Great now I want you I want you to do two more laps but faster" She did another two laps "Great now I want you to go another two and this time I want you faster" She did those two laps "OK now you've warmed up and got all your muscles working, me and you are going to do a little combat training. First we're going to do blocks" I told her how to hit me and showed her how to block the hit "You've always got to be one step ahead of the person you're fighting" I went to attack her and she blocked me and I went and stood behind her "Now what if I was behind you? And you can't hit my balls, if I was behind you and grabbed you with one hand around your throat and one arm around you stomach locking both your arms to your side?" I asked her.

She struggled getting out of my grip but finally managed it by elbowing me in the stomach and stepping on my foot at the same time which was a good move "Although if a guy did come at me from behind then I would go for the balls" She stated.

"A guy would be expecting that, lately if men are attacking women from behind they usually have their lower bodies moved away from their victim so they can't reach the balls" I explained and we went again and this time she got out of it faster, it still took her a little while but she was faster "Make sure you do a different move every time" I told her when she went to elbow me for the third time. After that I decided to work her up on her punch so I held my hands up and told her to punch me and when she punched me I could see she put all her effort into it but it wouldn't do much damage to a person let alone a creature "When you throw a punch put your weight behind it and move your hips with the punch, look I'll show you" I walked over to the punching bag and threw a punch at it then I held me hand up to Jess "OK go on, remember use all you weight" I told her and she threw a punch but missed my hand and was about to fall so I grabbed her "You OK?" I asked.

"I'm just not good at throwing a punch" She said "I've never been a good fighter, even when I was a kid and me and my brother would play fight he used to beat the shit out of me because I couldn't throw a punch" She admitted.

"It's not easy but as well as using your weight and moving your hips with the punch you have also gotta believe you can throw a good punch, if you think it's going to be shit then it will be… now come on do it again" I said and she huffed tiredly "You're not going to lunch until you throw a good punch" I told her.

She looked at me like I was insane! "You can't do that" She said.

"Yes I can. Today you're one of my new recruits and you need to be able to fight well and if you can't you fail and you're not one to fail Jess so do it… punch me!" I said and she punched but it wasn't a good one still so time for plan B… make her mad.

"Becker I can't throw a punch!" She shouted.

"You want everyone here to think that you're a failure? That you can't do it? You're to weak to do it? You can't handle it? That's what everyone is going to think when they find out you can't throw a punch. I didn't have you down a failure Jess I thought you would fight and work until you done it, if you can't throw a punch then you're gonna become someone's bitch like when you were a kid and you were your brothers bitch, you want that all your life. You wanna die because you can't throw a punch? I'm not sure I wanna give you this training if your gonna cry and wine about not doing it, I don't have quitters on me team" With each word I saw her get angrier and angrier "Hit me Jess, go on hit me!" I shouted and she threw a punch… and it hurt.

"Did I do it?" She asked and I nodded "Yes! I can throw a punch!" She said and we threw a few more punches before we went off for lunch "Well done on making my angry, it was a good plan" She stated.