"I'm sorry about my friend Derek." Penelope offered gently, sitting down carefully on the edge of the couch beside Freddie.
Freddie glared at her through his dark, tousled hair. "I thought that he was going to break my arm," he grumbled.
Penelope raised her eyebrows and defended her boyfriend by pointing out, "And he thought that you were going to get away. And should that have happened he and I both knew that he would have had to deal with a very frustrated girlfriend."
Freddie looked at her incredulously. "What do I have to do with that guy and his girlfriend?"
"You've been a great help in making life miserable for her, since it was pretty much her system that you were hacking into. How did you do that, by the way? Off the record?"
Freddie shook his head. "If I'm smart enough to hack into the system, what makes you think that I'm stupid enough to just randomly give out that sort of information, especially to a cop?"
"A) I'm nowhere near as much a cop as the people that Derek and I are going to be handing you off to. B) I might just have an idea that will keep you out of prison. Is that something that you might be interested in?"
Her snappishness was now matching his, and she could tell that surprised him. It almost surprised her, but then again, not really. This cocky brat had made her life the pits, or at least played a decent part in doing so.
But maybe he wasn't really as awful as all of that after all. He looked down at his hands for a second, and for that moment in time his expression changed. He was suddenly insecure, vulnerable, and afraid. He was just a kid who had been trying to avenge his mother's horrible death.
And apparently he didn't want to go to prison, because he just nodded his agreement to whatever plan she had, looking defeated.
"Good." Penelope's voice was gentle once again as she repeated, "Then I need you to tell me how you hacked into my system."
His eyes flickered with surprise as he asked, "'Your system'? You designed it?"
Penelope shrugged. "Close enough."
Freddie relaxed back onto the couch, realizing that he had found a technological peer, and began to give her the information that she wanted. Derek came back into the room while Freddie was still explaining, but he stayed silent and stuck himself in a corner, listening to what he recognized only as "tech talk."
Freddie wrapped up his conversation with a shrug, saying, "It was hard to get the hang of at first, but now it's just a normal thing that I do."
"And that statement right there is why I think that you are going to be great for the job that I have in mind for you," Penelope declared with a friendly smile. She stood up and turned to Derek. "Do you mind if I go make a call to Rossi?"
Derek almost groaned, realizing what his girlfriend had in mind, and muttered, "Baby girl, are you sure that's a good idea?"
Penelope nodded. She was smiling, but her eyes had taken on a dangerous tint, and that meant that he was not to cross her on this kid. She was very sure, and he wasn't going to be able to change her mind, so he might as well not even try to.
"Alright," Derek gave up with a sigh.
"Thank you, lover." She bounced up off the couch and out into the apartment building's hallway.
Derek stayed where he was in the corner and glared at the juvenile perpetrator while keeping his arms crossed. Freddie looked up at him nervously.
"Nice girlfriend," the kid offered.
Derek kept his response clipped and unfriendly. "I know."
"Look, man," Freddie shifted, looking Derek hesitantly in the eye. "I just wanted to catch the freak that killed my mom. I didn't stop to think about what I was doing, you know? I just knew that it – using technology, hacking and stuff – was something that I could do to make it right."
"So that you could kill him."
"No!" Freddie's eyes widened and he shook his head emphatically. "I wasn't going to kill the guy, I swear! I was just going to hand the information over to the cops once I knew who the guy was! I just wanted justice! I've seen how long serial killers can go without being caught, and I just didn't want this guy to get away with what he did to my family! Can't you understand that?"
It was stupid to let his guard down in front of this kid, after all, he'd already proven that he would run if he could, but Freddie had struck a familiar chord.
"Yeah," Derek admitted. "I can get that – more than you'd care to know or guess – but I never would have been stupid enough to take the law into my own hands."
"But I wasn't! I was just… giving the cops a hand."
"Well, that's obviously not how the cops have been looking at it, is it?"
Freddie looked off to the side. "No." A pause and then Freddie asked, "Is that why you became an agent? So that you could get justice for whoever you were talking about?"
He had no reason to answer that question, and maybe he shouldn't have, but Derek was pretty sure that the reason Freddie had asked was simply to get his mind off of the current circumstances. "I became an agent for myself. My dad was the guy that I was talking about, and I guess that he did have a part in my choice, too."
"What happened to him? Your dad?"
Derek sighed. "He was a cop who I saw killed in the line of duty when I was nine."
"Oh man," Freddie whispered. "That must have been awful."
Derek nodded, almost telling the kid how badly he had messed himself up after that.
Instead, Freddie asked quietly, "Can I ask you something?"
"You can ask, but I don't have to answer."
Freddie looked at his hands, inquiring softly, "Does it ever get easier? The missing them so much?"
"Oh, kid," Derek's tone was as gentle as Penelope's had been, but he didn't even notice. He walked over to the couch and sat down in the place that Penelope had recently occupied. "This stuff takes time, but, yes, it will get easier after some time goes by. You just have to keep living, keep going."
Freddie scoffed, saying, "The only place that I'm going is to jail!"
"I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you," Derek warned. "You might just end up going home with me."
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