SPOV

As I walked from the courtyard in Eric's living area back to my office with Quinn, I could feel the anger growing inside of me to a boiling point. I'd be lucky if we were in my office with the door closed before I exploded. I clinched hard at the file folder and pen in my hand, and instinctively knew the pen was getting close to breaking. Just in time, we reached my office. We walked in, and the moment I had the door shut behind us, I let him have it.

"Damnit, Quinn, how dare you?!? You know I enjoy spending time with you, but, if you ever disrespect me like that again, you'll be lucky if I don't have Sam fire you!"

The ignorant ass had the gall to look confused. "What are you talking about? What did I do?"

"Oh, Quinn, come on. You called me 'babe' in front of a resident. First off, you know I absolutely hate being called that, and second, we're at work. You know the rules, when we're here; you need to keep your actions towards me strictly professional. I don't mind joking around and being friendly, but, nothing beyond that. It's hard enough to get these guys to trust and respect me, without the head of security demeaning my position."

"Aww, Sook, come on. You know that wasn't my intention."

"Of course I know that. Because if it had been your intention, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, you would be down at the security desk sulking about being dumped. Have I made my point?"

"Yeah, fine. You don't have to be a bitch about it."

I was so enraged, I literally had to curl my fingers and dig my nails into my own palms to keep from hitting him. "Apparently I do."

"Ya know what, you go ahead and get back to eating pizza with Mr. Tall, Handsome and Deadly. I'll have Hoyt do room check with me tonight." He walked to the door, flung it open, and stopped in his tracks. His bulky form took up so much of the door frame, I couldn't see what made him stop. I just heard him mutter "figures," underneath his breath, and then step into the hallway. That's when I noticed Eric Northman standing there, eyebrow raised with a slight smirk.

"Oh dear, did I interrupt something?" His words didn't match his tone. He sounded positively gleeful.

"I'm not in the mood for your attitude, Northman. What did you need?"

"Well, first things first. May I come in?" That's when I noticed he hadn't yet entered my office. I briefly thought of how nice it was of him to ask, and made a motion for him to come in. "Now, are you alright? It sounded like the two of you were having a bit of a…..heated discussion." I was about to tell him to get out, but, I could tell by the look on his face that he truly was genuinely concerned about whether or not I was alright. Wow, that was different. Especially coming from one of my residents.

"I'm fine, thank you. Just a little…..perturbed. How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know that Mr. Security-Man thinks you're a bitch for calling him on his inappropriate behavior." As embarrassed as I was that he'd heard that much, I had to stifle a giggle at Eric calling Quinn Mr. Security-Man. He continued, "And I have to admit, I do believe that this is the first time I've ever heard another man call me handsome. Which, I believe is saying something considering I've just spent the past five years in prison."

"Oh, really? Please don't take offense to this, but, you do seem like the kinda guy who'd have to fight off potential suitors behind bars. How'd you manage to not get hit on?"

"Well, considering that the first three and a half years that I was there, I was in solitary on suicide watch…."

I could tell that I'd hit a nerve, and I didn't mean to. I felt horrible, but I could tell that apologizing for it at this moment wouldn't be the right thing to do. Instead, I decided on a quick change of subject. "Well, since you're the one who came to see me, what can I do for you?"

"Well, to be honest, I was kind of wondering about the other resident that I'm supposed to be sharing my area with. Since it's after 9pm, I figured he'd be there so I could introduce myself."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I completely forgot to talk to you about that. You will be sharing your area with a young man named Barry. He's in his early twenties, and he's a real sweet kid. He's quite naïve though."

"Okay. This should be interesting. Um, but where is he?"

"Well, he is actually out for the evening." I could tell that this threw him off.

"How is that possible? I thought that everyone has to be here by 9pm or a warrant immediately gets issued?"

"Well, yes, technically that's the deal. But, honestly, this was a time when we decided to make an exception." I could see the skepticism on his face. "Barry has never actually been to prison. His entire sentence has been carried out here. He's a first time offender, and was only an accessory to a crime. He's been an exemplary resident while he's been here. His sister got engaged a few months ago, and her fiancé is being deployed to Afghanistan in two weeks, so they're having the wedding tonight. We put a monitoring ankle-bracelet on him, and he has a plain-clothes officer covering him."

He sat silently in thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think that'd be the right thing to do."

"Oh, well, Mr. Northman, I'm so relieved that I have your approval…" I said sarcastically. He looked taken aback for a moment, and then burst into laughter.

"Well, I guess that since I asked about Barry, that would mean it's your turn to ask something of me, correct?" I was intrigued. He wanted to continue getting to know each other. I could tell that he wasn't the type to open up freely, especially considering what he's been through. I knew that I would be a fool not to take this opportunity to prove to him that he can trust me to help him.

"Well, let me clarify some boundaries here. Are you at all comfortable talking about your family?" I saw him flinch when I said this. I knew this was a touchy subject, and I didn't want to broach it too early and have him retreat back into his protective shell.

"You can ask. I'll try to answer. I can't guarantee anything beyond that," he said while looking down at his hands.

"How did you and your wife meet?"

He grinned and gave a small chuckle. "As I'm sure my file says, I was born and raised in Sweden. My Dad was a mechanic with the Air Force, and he was stationed there. Well, Pam and Cindy's Dad was a pilot. We lived a few houses away from each other on base. Their Mom wasn't so happy with the way her life was going, and, she left them. Their Dad knew he wouldn't be very good at raising two daughters on his own, so, they spent a lot of time at our place. We were pretty good friends all growing up. I never thought of Cindy as anything more. I even dated Pam in high school." He closed his eyes for a moment, and seemed to be concentrating hard on something. "My Mom died when I was 19, and, after that, I moved to New Orleans. It had been a while since I'd seen Cindy and Pam, because their Dad had been transferred when we were 17. I ran into Pam one day at a grocery store, and we got to chatting, and, I told her I'd love to have her and Cindy over for dinner. After that night, Cindy and I were pretty damn inseparable. She'd been in a pretty serious relationship about a year before this, and, although it was over, she'd had a little baby girl, Lizzie. The day Cindy and I got married, I signed adoption papers and made Lizzie my little girl." He stopped speaking, and I could see his hands ball into fists. I knew I had to try and break the tension.

"Your turn. Go ahead and ask me anything. I'll even answer some personal questions." His eyebrow shot up with that statement. "Well, within reason anyway." He smiled and laughed. I like the way his eyes lifted when he laughed. It was encouraging.

"What made you choose this profession?" Wow. I know he didn't realize he was asking something all that personal, but boy was he. Should I tell him? Aww, hell, if I want him to trust me, I'd better try to show him I trust him, too.

"When I was 7 and my older brother Jason was 9, my parents were killed in a small plane crash, along with my Dad's sister and her husband. They had one child, Hadley, and since we were all suddenly orphaned, my Gran took us all in and raised us. We never really saw much of my Mom's family, but that's okay, as far as I was concerned, Gran, Jason and Hadley were the only family I needed. Hadley's grandparents were always happy to have her come visit. With them loosing their son, she was their only connection to him, I guess you could say. One weekend a month she would stay at their house, and then she'd be with them for 2 weeks during the summer. She was my same age, and, I remember that when we were 12, she came home from one of those weekends acting odd. I told my Gran about it, and she spoke to Hadley. A day later we got word that Hadley's uncle Bartett had been arrested. Apparently, when Hadley would stay with her grandparents, her uncle would come in and touch her very inappropriately.

He was sent to prison, and she would still spend time with her grandparents, just not ever completely alone. I remember that it was September, and we were only a little ways into our senior year in high school. It was Hadley's weekend with her grandparents, and she was always excited to go, because she really loved them a lot. They had tickets to go the state fair, but Hadley had a math test coming up and wanted to study, so she stayed home alone." I paused and took a deep breath. Trying so hard to keep my emotions in check. "Um, they found what remained of her three days later. It turned out her Uncle Bartlett had been released from prison. He went to the house, beat her up real bad, took her to his house where he repeatedly raped her. The doctors said they couldn't be certain, but they were pretty sure that she was still alive when he used a very large knife and old wood saw to cut her into tiny pieces. He had put her in three garbage bags and just thrown her out into the woods." I took a moment to dash away the single tear that was trickling down my cheek. "I found out a few months afterwards that, some stupid probation officer signed off that he wasn't dangerous, without ever having even met him. I knew right then and there, that if I would never let the same thing happen to anyone else." We sat there in silence, neither one quite brave enough to say something in that moment.

A/N I know this isn't the best stopping point, but, I didn't have much of a choice. I'm exhausted and my 2-year old son is sick, so I am in desperate need fo sleep. I figured y'all would be more pleased if I posted a somewhat short chapter instead of no chapter at all. Enjoy!!!