A/N: This update came up pretty fast for me, yeah? Lol, trying to do right by you guys. ;) This chapter's a little shorter - mission set up details and all that jazz. I gave you just a teeny bit more of drug-high Brandt since you guys seemed to enjoy that so much last chapter, lol. Thanks to The Beta Branch folks for looking it over, and thanks to all the anon reviewers that I can't thank via private message like usual. You guys rock!


"Hmmm…not bad," Benji said, a touch of surprise in his voice as he stared at the drink he had absconded with. "Kind of like…like a melted banana split. With extra cherries."

Jane stared at him and raised an eyebrow. "That's disgusting," she deadpanned, "and it's Brandt's. Put it back."

"Well it's not like he's going to notice," Benji argued, pointing at the agent who was fast asleep in his chair. "Besides, I'm pretty sure my French fries drank more of it than he did over the last half hour."

He pointed down at the pile of brown-tinted mush that used to be his fries, hardly touched before Brandt had decided that the milkshake flavor would be better than ketchup. Seeing as how the process of very carefully letting the thick liquid fall from the straw one drop at a time kept Brandt focused and quiet, no one bothered to try to stop him. Benji could always get more fries later - they were free, after all.

"Guys, the mission?" Ethan reminded them as he pulled a small, black box out of his messenger bag. He set it on the table and pushed a button on a tiny remote control device, bringing up a holographic display that could be seen clearly from both sides of the table. A video of a short, slightly overweight, balding man making his way into a rundown motel played for a few seconds before Ethan paused it. "Garret Styles, assistant and general brown-noser to Reese Carmichael-" he hit the button and another image came up of a younger man sporting a very expensive Armani suit; his black, wavy hair slicked back to reveal bright green eyes and a sly smile, "recently appointed CEO of Detroskye Industries."

Jane looked up. "The hover-tech company?"

"The hover-tech company," Benji corrected. "I've seen some of their designs. Competitors can't even come close."

Ethan nodded. "Right, and just when the military was due to draw up a contract with former CEO Houston James, James winds up dead."

"Murder?" Benji interjected.

"Stroke," Hunt answered. "No foul play suspected as far as anyone can tell, but Carmichael gets put in charge and suddenly no deal. He won't sign."

Jane frowned. "With military backing, his company would be set for life. Why wouldn't he sign for that?"

"Exactly," Ethan responded. "Young entrepreneur, head of a top-notch company gaining world attention at the age of thirty-seven, a fortune practically dropped on his doorstep - he's got everything to lose…so why wouldn't he make the deal?"

Benji sat back in his chair and gestured at the hologram. "So, what, we put a bug and tracker on Styles, sit on him for a bit, and see if anything pops up?"

Ethan nodded slowly. "Pretty much, yeah."

"That's it." Jane said it as a statement more than a question.

"That's it," Hunt confirmed. "If anything suspicious does come up, we have free reign to take whatever action we see fit from there."

"…Okay…and IMF put us on the initial recon…why?" Jane asked.

Hunt pointedly looked over at Brandt.

Benji scoffed. "What? He gets injured, so the rest of us are stuck doing rookie jobs? How is that fair? I could handle this mission alone with my eyes closed!"

There was a pause before Ethan admitted quietly, "I picked it." At the shocked looks Benji and Jane shot his way he continued with his explanation. "Look, I needed him to focus on something other than the Columbia case. He says he knows it's not his fault, but the constant questions, the snide jokes aimed at himself, the restlessness – it's driving him nuts, and because of that he's driving me nuts. I was hoping if I got our team involved in something else, he could put it out of his head for a little while."

Jane squinted her eyes at him in confusion. "But why this case? Why something so easy?"

"Because…" Ethan rubbed his eyes with his fingers, "The initial idea was for him to stay with me at my place, you'd check in every day, maybe feed him something to work with, and just keep him busy without worrying him too much about you two being in the field by yourselves."

"…But?" Benji prompted.

"But, he worried too much about you two being in the field by yourselves. He convinced me that I should be on point."

With a laugh, Jane asked, "How'd he do that?"

Ethan shook his head. "A whole…Murphy's Law…thing. It doesn't matter. It still would've worked out if I could've found someone to babys-" He cut himself off and closed his eyes as he realized he was about to repeat the exact same degrading statement that pissed him off every single time Brandt used it. "…He'll be calmer if he's with us, anyway, instead of working himself up at home. Plus, we can all keep an eye on him."

There was an awkward, uncertain silence before Benji nodded emphatically. "This can work. We can just st-stick him in the van. With me. I'll put him on a screen, give him a headset, make him feel like he's doing something…and if he falls asleep or needs a break, I can handle it on my own. Yeah, we can do this."

Ethan cracked a small smile and turned his attention to Carter. "Jane?"

She put her hands up. "I'm fine with whatever you guys want to do."

Hunt eyed her critically, "I'm sensing another 'but' in the conversation…"

She looked at Brandt. "Murphy's Law… What do we do with him if things get hot out there?"

"Like I said, we'll figure it out," Ethan answered. "If the case gets too heavy, we'll just pull out, report our findings, and let someone else take over."

"Hmm-mmm, no, not a good idea," Benji argued. "The whole reason we're doing this, according to you, is to get his mind off the fact that we had to pull out of the last case due to his injury. If we have to do it again…"

"We don't have much of a choice," Ethan snapped back, his tone a little sharper than he had intended. He sucked in a breath to calm his obvious frazzled nerves before starting again. "We run with it, see where it goes, and take it as far as we can. I won't let him get hurt again, but we've got to do something before he snaps."

"Is it really that bad?" Jane asked with a frown. "Every time we talk he always seems so-"

"Every time he looked at me during our first mission he blamed himself for my wife's death. Without me pulling his file, or him telling me directly, I never would've known. If there's one thing Brandt's good at, it's hiding guilt. He's distancing himself over the Columbia mission, playing it off as fine so we don't worry, but we're losing him. I can see it now that I know what I'm looking for. We have to at least try."

"Alright," Jane said, nodding with more certainty. She snagged the remote from Ethan's hand and flipped back to the image of Styles. "So how do we get a bug on this guy?"

Ethan smirked at her, then turned his smile on Benji. "Someone needs to seduce the assistant."

Benji furled his brows. "Sedu- Why are looking at me like that? Shouldn't that be Ja-" The grin on Ethan's face grew even bigger. "Oh, no. No! Not me! You do it! I'm supposed to be in the van doing the whole stakeout thing! With Brandt! I'm not-"

"He likes accents, and I'm too old," Hunt said with an apologetic shrug. "It's gotta be you."

Jane patted the tech's hand. "Do it for Brandt."

"Really? You played that card?" He threw his hands up in agitation. "Already, she's pulling out the guilt card. This is great, wonderful, fantastic. He's not even remotely attractive! If I were a woman, I'd be gagging. In fact, just thinking about it… Oh, god, I really think I am going to gag…"

Jane and Ethan laughed as Benji continued to rant, knowing he would do what needed to be done. Ethan just hoped this moment of camaraderie and good humor wasn't about to become the calm before the storm.

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