Author's Note: Thank you for sticking with me, even if the story disappeared for a short while last week. I hope it's stays up now for your reading pleasure (which I hope you're having).

Originally I'd planned to make the training one chapter but this is already longer than I'd planned and only half of it, so I decided to split the spy training into two chapters.

Please, please tell me what you think, especially details you liked, that always helps a lot!

Chapter Two

Rachel touched down in Washington DC roughly an hour after getting on the plane in Toledo, Ohio. Her dads had drove her the one and a half hours to the bigger city and sent her on her merry way.

Leroy's voice still rung in her ears, it rose above the engine noise the plane made, being steered to the gate.

"Blow them all away, baby girl", her Papa had said.

"Like the last time you were here in Toledo with you", her Dad, Hiram, chimed in, "Do you remember that? The Ohio State Singing Competition for toddlers? You won first prize"

"Yes, I remember, Daddy", Rachel said and blushed a little.

With her dads, she was still the little innocent girl. Sometimes she felt bad for lying to them, for hiding so much of what she really was in plain sight. They didn't deserve that, they didn't deserve a daughter who lashed out into illegality for things they held no blame for. They weren't the ones that took her mother away from her, they'd tried – for all their lives – to make her happy. It wasn't their fault that they couldn't succeed. So she kept up appearances and acted happy and content, for their sakes more than for hers. She did not want them to worry or blame themselves for her state of mind.

And back in Toledo, they had been so proud and happy for her. For her music camp scholarship. That was her cover story for the two weeks spent in Quantico. They'd sent a really official looking letter that Rachel had made an impression at the last Regionals performance with her Glee club and they wanted to reward her with a spot in one of the leading musical programs for youngsters in the country. A part of her wished that it wasn't just a cover. At least she knew what she was doing on a stage, dancing and singing, it was her element, almost as much as numbers and code were.

She had no idea what Anderson's spy training entailed and she didn't like it.

Her dads had watched her go into customs and waved until she was out of sight. Right now she collected her things to get off the plane, pushing past scattered tourists through the narrow aisles between rows of seats.

Once she was out of the vehicle, she quickly found her suitcase from the luggage band and looked for the exit, finding it quickly and leaving for the commotion of arrivals.

For a moment she was nervous, because she couldn't see any sign that someone was waiting for her, no sign with her name on it, no smirking suit waiting for her but then she spotted him. He stood at the far end of the arrival gate dressed in jeans and a purple shirt, the first three buttons undone.

She had to double-check if it was really him, looking so different from the way she'd known him. His hair was still short but they'd grown in a way that she could see how curly it'd be if he'd let it roam free. He'd probably get a righteous afro and that thought made her smile.

He saw her just when she did and smiled back, raising his hand to wave her over. She wasn't sure because she was still some feet away but she was pretty sure he was sporting a five o'clock shadow. He looked dangerously handsome, even more so than the first time she saw him and even more approachable because he wasn't sporting a two piece Italian suit but regular people's clothes.

Rachel Berry felt a familiar twitch below her belt which made walking a little uncomfortable for a second and scolded herself because she didn't want to find him sexy, she refused.

Within the last months he'd stopped being super annoying but that might only be because she'd only spoken to him on the phone and she wasn't willing to give in to his charm, that was just what he wanted, just what they'd wanted him to do...to charm people. But not her. Not Rachel Berry.

That was why her smile turned lopsided as she walked up to him, a little awkwardly too because she didn't know how to greet him. She wouldn't hug him but a handshake seemed silly as well. She ended up giving him a weird head wobble and said, "Hi"

"Ms. Berry, it's good to see you", he still smiled politely and relieved her of her luggage, carrying the trolley behind him as he walked her through the arrivals hall.

"How was your flight?", he asked her, clearly attempting small talk.

"Short", she answered, not in the right mood to be snippy, "The ride to Toledo took longer than the flight"

"Did your fathers take you to the airport?"

"Uh-huh and they wouldn't stop giving me advice for the music camp", she raised her eyebrows and he laughed lightly.

"Well, at least they bought it", he mused, "So you're probably really good if they weren't even surprised"

"I'm brilliant", she said with no hint of sarcasm.

"I actually have no trouble believing that", he glanced down at her and then did something really weird. He looked away first, then up, then bit his lip and shook his head ever so slightly, all within seconds but she caught it none the less.

Peculiar, she thought.

He had his own car parked on one of the decks and let her pick the channel on a radio.

"So why aren't you wearing your fancy suit?", she asked when they'd been driving for a while.

"I didn't want to draw attention", he shrugged, "It would've looked weird if I'd picked you up in a suit, this way it looked like I was your brother or something, no questions asked"

"Does Sapphir know about our operation? Do they know about me?", she wondered, prompted by his wish not to raise flags around her.

"No", he promised, "I mean, they know that the FBI and CIA are on their tails but they know nothing about you"

He looked at her intently then, pursing his lips, almost like he wanted to say something else but then he refrained and changed the subject instead.

"I'm taking you to your room now, it's a dorm at the academy, one room, small kitchen and a bath with a shower, you're provided groceries and vouchers to eat at the Campus restaurants and you have Wi-Fi and TV", and then he added with a smirk, "Your Internet connection is of course monitored and you're not gonna be working on Sapphir from your dorm, you'll be at the Tech devision and supervised for that"

"I didn't need supervision the last couple of months", she protested, not a fan of the prospect of a guard dog or babysitter, "And I still delivered"

"True", he agreed, "But they're also gonna teach how to not leave traces anymore. Plus, even if you had no one looking over your shoulder back home doesn't mean we didn't check up on you"

"You practically own me, why do you people still don't trust me?"

"Do you trust us?", he retorted, shutting her up, "That's what I thought"

Quantico was past the outskirts of the city and the Academy was sort of embedded in the woods. The leaves had already started turning colors, making it all the more exciting to drive through the sea of reds and yellows, browns and purples.

"It's pretty here", she stated as they walked from a parking lot to a beige building, "Prettier than our Community College...but to be fair, that's not really a challenge"

Agent Anderson remained silent for their way to her dorm on the third floor, the whole building seemed deserted.

"The students are on vacation, most of them went home", he informed her.

"Nice", she muttered, "It's like ghost city in here"

"I'm living at the end of the corridor for the time being", he said, "So if you get scared just knock on my door"

"Ha!", she huffed loudly, "I don't get scared"

"Good to know", he smiled and stopped in the middle of the corridor, fumbling with a key on a door.

He waited for her to catch up with him and let her in, handing her the key after he pushed her suitcase over the threshold.

"The fridge is full, you can get settled in now", he said, "If you want to walk the perimeter you have to tell me first and...wait a second -"

He brushed past her, crossing her in the doorway and got something small from the desk in her room, bringing it back to her.

Gently, he took her wrist into his hands and she noticed how his fingertips were slightly calloused. With a snapping sound he closed a little watch-like band around her skin and looked back down at her.

"This is a tracker so that we always know where you are and you don't get lost..it'll come off in two weeks when you leave"

"Why do I feel this is your version of electronic tags?", she asked him, retreating into the room slowly.

"It's not", he reassured her, "It's just to keep you safe"

They stood there in silence for a while and just before it got awkward, he spoke again, "I wouldn't go to bed late, we'll start early tomorrow morning...and if you need anything, I'm just down the hall"

As promised, Agent Anderson knocked at her door at 6 am the next morning and gave her a short tour of the campus, where she'd be training with him for the most time and then they drove over to the main building where he introduced her to Grace Fielding, Quantico based Tech-Wiz who would be working with Rachel every day for two to four hours.

Rachel thought she would start on hands-on combat immediately but Anderson deflated those hopes fairly quickly.

At first he sat her down in a sort of classroom and had her do tons of paper work. She was eighteen so she was legal to sign all the contracts necessary. She'd already signed one that swore her to complete secrecy back at the Hillside Motel when they first met but now there were more forms to fill out, that she wouldn't steal data, that she wouldn't run away from her handler and that she would always listen to him.

"I will always obey orders given to me by superior Agents and my handler Agent Blaine Anderson", she read aloud, ballpoint pen in hand, "Blaine, huh? That's a nice, innocent, non-threatening name"

"Works wonders in hostage negotiation", he shrugged, patiently waiting for her to read through every last paragraph.

"So you did have training in that", Rachel said triumphantly, "I knew it"

"How come?", he asked her to elaborate, he did that a lot. She wondered if it was just his way of trying to build a relationship or if it was genuine interest.

"Because of your voice", she answered, "it's all smooth and soothing"

"Thank you?", he joked, implying that he wasn't sure if she was being earnestly nice to him for a change. She smiled just at his acknowledgement of her bickering. So he actually did care, at least a little bit.

"I have a question", she said when she handed him her signed papers, "How did you get so important when you're only 25?"

"I started early", he answered, "A little like you, I got recruited out of school"

"For what?"

"That's kinda classified"

"Lame", she scoffed but he was quickly back on track with her lessons.

At first he made her run through all kinds of lingo – safe words, bureau code and abbreviations, forms and channels of communications, how to address higher ups, how to ask for back up, how to describe a scenery, how to drop universal hints in tricky situations where you can't really talk.

This, plus even more thorough studies of Sapphir operators (name, age, bio and rank), took up the first couple of days and when Rachel went back to her dorm at night, her brain was too fried to do anything more than send Tina an e-mail and calling her Dads, telling them all the same made-up stores about music camp.

She slept like a stone, dreaming vividly of Sapphir people, lists of names and numbers, computer screens and, more often than not, Blaine.

She reasoned that this was because she saw him every day for at least five hours, not because it had any other significance.

Okay, she had to admit that she didn't exactly hate him all the way anymore. And she'd started calling him Blaine which made him feel even more like a friend than a foe to her.

At first she'd done it just to annoy him, because she noticed him cringing when she initially, playfully, called him by his first name.

He'd given her a funny look and then shook himself again in that weird way..like he was physically trying to shake off a thought. He did that on more occasions, mostly when they were alone and she said the one or another inappropriate thing. She liked that because these were the times that his suave act faded and revealed more of an actual person.

When he faltered in some way he became real, not that polished, perfect, flawless, shiny example of a man he seemed to be the rest of the time.

These were the times she didn't feel so damn stupid next to him, the times that she could show him that they were really equals, even if he didn't like that fact much.

One night near the end of her first week in Quantico, Blaine took her out to a little diner in town and they sat and for the first time talked privately. Or as private as Blaine would have the conversation get.

He asked her a lot about Lima, about her friends and Glee club and she let herself get carried away, answering more than asking questions in return. He stayed relatively mum, sometimes dodging questions, sometimes steering the conversation back to her without her even noticing.

She guessed that came with his job but it was a little frustrating, not getting anything solid out of him.

"Okay, but you can at least tell me what your favorite song is", she scoffed after another 'classified'-excuse coming from the other side of the booth, "Or movie, your favorite movie, that can't be top secret"

"A little less conversation", Blaine smiled.

"I thought you wanted to talk, you asked me to talk over dinner", she said, startled by his sudden change in manners, telling her to shut up like that, "Rude"

"No", he laughed at her now, "No, I mean the song. By Elvis. That's my favorite song right now. It changes a lot though"

"Oh", she muttered sheepishly. That hadn't been embarrassing at all.

"What's yours?", he asked and gladly didn't pry on her lack of 70's pop culture knowledge.

"My Man from Funny Girl", she answered and earned herself a puzzled look, "The Broadway musical, turned-into-movie with Barbra Streisand?..Oh come on, you haven't seen it?"

"No, sorry, I haven't"

"Well, then if your precious agency ever gives you a day off you know what to do, or we'll just ditch tomorrow and I'll show it to you. It's also my favorite film by the way"

"What's the song about?", Blaine asked her over his waffles. (He'd ordered waffles!)

"Oh, um..it's about this girl who really loves this guy, even though he will never know how much and it's really quite sad because she completely loses herself in love for this guy and while I don't ever hope to be this dependent on somebody I do think it bares a certain kind of beauty. Tragic beauty but beauty no less. To love like that. With all your heart, unconditionally and desperately..", she stopped herself dead halfway into babbling and getting ridiculous, "you know, um, that kind of thing. So, what's your favorite movie anyway?"

"You don't want to know", he said, staring down at his desert, "Trust me"

"No, come on", she insisted, "I told you mine, you tell me yours, that's how it goes"

"It takes two to tango, huh?"

"Don't stall me, Anderson", she ordered with mocked strictness, "Spill it"

"Okay, fine", he gave in, "It's Jumanji"

"The one with the board game?", she nearly coughed up her chocolate milk.

"Yes", he said, raising both his hands in a surrendering gesture, "I said it, I'm a grown man and I love a kids movie about a live action board game"

Rachel laughed and was genuinely happy when he joined in. Their conversation went on over a third refill of her chocolate milk and his apple juice – he wouldn't drink when she was there, even when he was technically after hours. Something about needing his full senses to be able to protect her at all times.

Intel-on-Blaine-wise, she managed to find out that he'd went to school in Seattle and that his family still lived there but he hadn't seen them in a while. Also that he hadn't been on a proper vacation in years and she actually had a really great and interesting time prying that all out of him.

His company was kind of thrilling because he was actually interesting. He'd lived, he'd seen things, he was smart and witted. Not like the guys she knew from high school, immature jocks or guys like her ex-boyfriend Finn Hudson, who's imagination didn't reach past the football field.

Blaine Anderson was more than that and she was glad to have met him. Not for him so much, no, definitely and not at all because of him as a person, just..him as an idea, as a reassurance that there were men out there in the world that were different. More interesting, more thoughtful, better in general than the men she knew back in Lima.

When she finished her drink, he asked her if she wanted one more or if she was ready to go. She let out a yawn and even if she'd said she wanted to stay, his protective instincts kicked in and he called it a night, looking out for the waitress, gesturing her that they wanted to pay.

Rachel produced her wallet from her purse, a hot pink eccentric number and reached for a ten dollar bill when he turned back around.

"Don't be silly, Rachel", Blaine protested, "I got it, it's the least the bureau can do"

"You're still trying to charm me, huh?", she was blatantly flirting and enjoyed how it immediately made him squirm.

"I, uh, no, I'm just...", he stuttered, "I'm trying to be nice..you did really good today, I'm trying to validate that"

Rachel smiled at his effort to regain his cool and watched him pay the bill before her eyes fell down on the picture in her wallet as they always did once she'd opened it.

She ran her thumb over it gingerly and closed her eyes for a second. Mom.

"Is that your birth mother?", Blaine asked and her head snapped up, startled that he'd apparently watched her private moment and annoyed that he put the puzzle together so quickly.

But then again, Rachel was a spitting image of her Mom, everyone could see the resemblance.

She nodded after a while, looking back down at the photo and then thought of something.

"You were never surprised about my Dads", she said, just now finding it peculiar. Normally people were curious or even appalled by her somewhat unusual set of parents.

"It was in your file; Rachel Berry, adoptive daughter of Hiram and Leroy Berry", Blaine spoke evenly.

"Well one of them is my father", Rachel told him, "They took a very..unorthodox method of surrogation, it's a long story but the bottom line is that I don't know which one of them is my biological Dad. It doesn't matter though, they're both my parents..."

"And your mother?", he asked curiously. Rachel had to swallow, she usually didn't talk about this.

"She helped raise me", she almost whispered, "She always used to sing with me. But she died when I was nine years old. Drunk driver, ran her car against a tree and there was a...a big explosion. There wasn't even anything left to bury"

She heard how bitter she sounded and thought once again that she hadn't built up enough resistance yet. She needed to have a thicker skin, needed to be less attached. What happened to her Mom sucked but it was almost ten years ago and she needed to rise above it eventually.

But then again she knew that everything she was, she was because of what happened that winter night nine and a half years ago.

"I just miss her", she hoped to close, "Every day"

"I'm sorry", Blaine said, "I had no idea"

"It's fine", she smiled weakly, "I just..I look at this picture and I see how happy she was and..it's just unfair...Her name was Shelby"

"I'm sure she loved you very much", Blaine said and even though it was just a phrase it hit closer to her heart than she had thought it would, prompting her to change the subject as she felt tears threaten at the corners of her eyes.

"She did", she said curtly, "But I think it's time to go, if tomorrow will be as early as the last couple of days I better get to bed"

Next chapter will be Blaine's POV. Please review if you're reading and actually enjoying it, thank you!