It occurs to me that our little happy band has the saddest pasts you could imagine. Just a little thought on that.
DISCLAIMER: Poor babies are not mine.
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BROKEN
Virgil Minelli hated budget cuts. He was a cop first and foremost. Pushing pencils and playing with numbers is not what he signed on to do. But here he was, with a stack of files, and a mandate to "trim the waste". Seriously, how much waste did those moronic beaurocrats think was involved in investigating crime? They wanted waste trimmed until some lunatic went on a crime spree and then they would all want to know where the cops were. He hated math.
He had already gone through most of the units and found almost nothing to use. Cutting his units down wasn't working. He cut back and reassigned 3 agents so far. But he knew they would get them back. His hand hovered over the last pile. Lisbon's Serious Crimes. Mother Teresa and her brood. This would be impossible.
Sighing, he started with Cho. He had a good record, pretty clean. Cho was a good agent, smart, solid and an incredible interrogator. He had that Juvie record, and it was some pretty serious stuff. He was fiercely loyal to Lisbon, maybe to a fault.
Van Pelt. Now she was a rookie in this unit, but came to CBI with a pretty impressive record for someone so young. A degree in Criminology from Iowa State and she was taking courses in Criminal Psyche for a masters. Of course, that one incident in high school would have damaged anyone very badly, but she seemed fine. Almost too pretty to be a cop. She had blended pretty well into that odd little crew.
Rigsby. When Minelli first read his file and realized who he was, you could have knocked him over with a feather. Who would have thought this straight arrow would be the son of the biggest motorcycle gang leader in the state? Not only did he not use his father's last name, there was nothing else that could tie the two together. He was an astute arson investigator. Rigsby's only fault was his soft spot when it came to women.
Jane. What a disaster. Lisbon had him in hand most of the time, but he was getting worse. For a long time, she was the only one who could even tolerate him, now he was getting under her skin. While not technically an agent, Minelli could re-assign him. But who the hell would he drop that nightmare on to? He had powerful friends and for now, Lisbon had this damaged, brilliant nut in hand.
Lisbon. The leader of this group. She was tough, fair, and a good leader. She had become short sighted regarding Jane. Her ability to inspire the kind of loyalty her unit showed was impressive. Their close ratio was the best at the CBI. But she was damaged by her past too.
Ticking off the names in his head, Minelli realized that this whole group had a shared background of difficult pasts. There was something broken in all of them. They were all damaged goods by most people's measures. But as a group, they complemented each other's failings. Maybe that's why they all worked so well. He had a sense that if you cut one, they would all bleed. And after they bled, they would rise up as a whole to defend each other. Cutting one of Teresa Lisbon's bizarre little family was one tiger he was not willing to poke.
Minelli moved that stack of files to one side, untouched by the financial axe. Maybe he could reduce the number of copiers in the building?
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