"Okay, so Rachel Anne Simmonds was born in Arizona, but moved to Los Angeles when she was seven to go on to live in various orphanages and foster homes until the age of 12 when she was taken in by Agent Foster's grandparents. She graduated high school at the top of her class, with a full scholarship to several colleges, namely Princeton University, Columbia U, the University of Chicago and Stanford University. She joined the CIA, and passed her field agents exam with the highest recommendations from the examiners, who noted that her skills in both hand-to-hand combat and weapon combat surpassed their high expectations," Tuck's main technician and the head of his recon team told him. Most of it he already knew, but it didn't hurt to be reminded. "She's a fan of classic rock and collecting mini Camaros."
"What, as in the cars?" Tuck questioned, a plan forming in his head. Oh, Rachel was going to love this!
I don't know what spurred Tuck to do this, but I'm not going to complain. He showed up at my apartment, with a giant, pleased grin on his face, told me to change out of my sweats because he was taking me out. So I put on a nice pair of black skinny jeans, a red checkered top, and some black boots. After I brushed my hair up into a ponytail, we were out the door, in his car, and suddenly racing one of the sweetest Camaros I'd ever seen. I love a good Camaro. It's just one of those cars that always looks cool and is great to drive if it's kept in a great condition.
"Oh, my god, this is so fun!" I said, as I turned a corner, letting the rear drag out a little bit, causing a little bit of smoke to come off the tires.
"You're a natural in this." Tuck said, sounding a little nervous. I smirked at that. He knew my driving skills were amazing, but I was driving a little more recklessly and a little less controlled then I would in a car chase. Mostly because there were no civilians around.
"It's so weird. My ex-boyfriend used to collect these. He was one of those rich kids rebelling against their parents. But his were never as nice as this one, and he never let me drive them." I told him, as I gave the car a little more gas to work with. I watched the speedometer needle rise, and grinned to myself. This particular Camaro was so beautiful, and ran like a dream.
"I can't impossibly imagine why he wouldn't do that." Tuck teased me, and I laughed at him, until I heard what I thought was gun fire. I took my eyes off the track in front of me,
"What was that? Did you just shoot something?" I asked, my eyes alternating between him and the track in front of me. I was pretty sure it was gunfire, but Tuck wouldn't purposely lie to me. I had definitely heard something that sounded like gunfire.
"No. That was the exhaust backfiring. Give it some throttle. Go on!" Tuck encouraged, clearly wanting to get off the subject and distract me with the car.
"O-kay," I said, still not believing him, but seeing no reason as to why he would shoot something out in the middle of the racetrack, so I mentally shrugged off my paranoia. "Woohoo!"
I let go off the wheel for a second, throwing my hands up in the air, and Tuck quickly grabbed the wheel as if I was about to lose control of the car. I laughed and smacked his hands away, slowing down a tad so he'd stop having a heart attack. I smiled at him, and took one hand off the wheel to hold one of his.
"You need to relax!" I said, pressing on the gas again, slowly making the speedometer's needle rise. Tuck was watching it like a hawk as it hit 70 mph, and then 80, and I swear, I saw him have a brain aneurysm when the speedometer's needle pushed 90 mph. I grinned at his expression, and laughed out loud, but I was barely heard over the throaty growl of the engine.
I saw the beginning of the track and I hit the brakes, listening gleefully to the sound of the tires squealing before we came to a stop. I laughed at Tuck's panicked expression and climbed out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition for the owner who was waiting for us. Tuck came up behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist, leading me back to his car. He went to open the door for me, but I turned around to face him.
"That was a lot of fun. Thoughtful because you know I'm a car fanatic. Thank you." I said, tip-toeing slightly so I could press my lips against his. Tuck responded within seconds, his hands gripping my waist as mine locked together behind his head. Tuck was an amazing kisser, better than I'd imagined he would have been. Eventually I pulled away with a satisfied smile on my face.
"I'm thinking I should have asked you out years ago." Tuck said, not taking his hands away from my waist, so we stayed put.
"Maybe you should have."
Tuck kissed me again softer than the first, before pulling away and letting me go, much to my bitter disappointment. You know that unsatisfied feeling when you do something but then its over too soon and you kinda wanted it to go further? Yeah. It sucks.
Tuck took me home and kissed me goodbye at the door, and we both ignored the parts of ourselves that wanted to take it further, and he left with all of his clothes on.
"She volunteers at dog shelters with her friend Lauren when she has time off. She favors red wine when she's got female company, beer with male company and scotch or Russian vodka when she's alone. She likes lavender bath salts and she collects posters by Gustav Klimt." FDR's main technician, Bothwick, who was also his head of 'operations', read out loud to him from the information they'd gathered or observed about Rachel. No one knew exactly why they were re-conning one of their own agents or what connection she had to their current case, but they went along with it anyway. Mostly out of hope they'd get paid for over time.
"Huh?"
"Yeah. Austrian cat. Boy can paint. Ain't you never seen The Kiss? You know, like that…" Bothwick started imitating two people kissing and FDR looked down at him from where he was sitting up on the desk.
"Yeah, of course I have." FDR replied, and he realized what his next date with Rachel had to be. Something that she normally wouldn't have the opportunity to do, and probably wouldn't even think of doing herself. Something special.
So FDR hadn't given up on the whole idea of us dating, so when he told me he had a surprise for me, I was a little wary about it. He took me to a warehouse, and, despite knowing him for years and trusting him with my life, I was comforted by the feeling of the small pistol I had strapped to my leg underneath my red dress. I was always prepared.
He led me through this giant crate maze, until we turned a corner and he stopped, allowing me to bask in the brilliance of several Gustav Klimt paintings.
"Is this what I think it is?" I questioned, walking forward, my eyes flickering to each painting, soaking it all in.
"You're a fan, right?" FDR asked me.
"Of Gustav Klimt?"
"Of Gustav Klimt. He's my favourite artist."
"You don't like art, Franklin. Unless it's nude art," I teased him, throwing a smile at him so he would know that I was joking. "He's my favourite artist. This is incredible. Are these real?"
"Yeah."
We walked closer the paintings, and FDR pointed at the smallest one that we were closest too.
"Do you recognise this? The Harpist, 1895?"
"Yes. I've seen it in a book."
"Pre-secession movement. The tension between the two-and three-dimensionality is incredible," He waved me over to another painting, and I was stunned. How? How did FDR know all of this? FDR? I must've hit my head really hard and not realised it, because clearly I was experiencing some sort of concussion induced hallucinations or I was dreaming in a coma. "This is my favourite."
"Undine, 1902."
"Oh, my goodness, this is amazing." I breathed as I stared at Klimt's painting. It was beautiful.
"Innovation became intrinsic to Degas and other modernists. You can see influence of art nouveau," FDR explained, still surprising me with all his knowledge until he carried on speaking. "He was a strong advocate of the finger-painting movement."
"What?" I asked, tearing my eyes of the art and to him.
FDR started to stumble over his words and stopped making any sense. All I really took out of it was he thought Gustav Klimt sometimes used mud and sticks and his hands and he used something else when he couldn't find a stick, but he stopped himself from making an even bigger ass out of himself.
"You know, I think enough talking," He said, stepping backwards to a painting covered with a sheet. "Let's let the paintings speak for themselves."
He yanked the sheet off and uncovered The Kiss. I stared up at it, smiling at the beauty of it, barely aware that FDR had moved away and was by my side.
"Wow. It's so beautiful," I turned to him, and slid my hand down his arm until I was holding his hand. I looked back at the painting and rested my head on FDR's shoulder as I soaked it all in. Gustav Klimt was a genius. "It's amazing. Just incredible."
"Yeah. It is." FDR agreed.
"Thank you." I said, looking up at him.
"Anything for you, Rach." He replied, staring down into my eyes, almost sucking me into his baby blues. God, why did they have to be blue? Why not brown? Boring brown eyes that looked like mud, instead of bright blue eyes that sparkled like the Caribbean sea.
This made my decision making more difficult.
That night when I went home I called Lauren.
"How did it go?" Lauren asked me, as I moved around my kitchen, my phone stuck between my ear and my shoulder and my hands grabbing ingredients for my dinner.
"They both went well. Too well. I don't know what to do."
"I'm coming over. Give me fifteen minutes and have the wine open."
"Got it."
I hung up the phone, and put away all the food I'd just dragged out of my cabinets and my fridge. I'd probably end up having take-out anyway. I grabbed a bottle of wine from my fridge and two glasses and opened the wine, ready and waiting for Lauren to get here. But while I waited, I had a mini panic attack, and questioned the morality of what I was doing. Dating my two best friends? What kind of masochistic moron did that? Well...me, obviously, but why was I doing this to myself and to Tuck and FDR? It was stupid, and frustrating, and so unfair to everyone involved.
I drank my glass of wine to cool my nerves, before pouring another. The doorbell rang and I rushed to get it, eager to get Lauren's advice.
"Alright, go up on 5. Let's pump the audio a little bit." FDR instructed Bothwick, as the watched the monitors. Rachel was in her kitchen, waiting for her friend, already drinking a glass of wine as she waited.
"Are you sure about this, sir? We might have some constitutional issues here." Bothwick warned, before he did anything. Though he knew his 'boss' would have some retort that would make what they were doing okay.
"Patriot Act." FDR replied.
"It's not just that, sir, but if Agent Simmonds finds out that we've bugged her house and listened in on her conversations…she'll kill us all." Bothwick said, and FDR knew that it was a possibility. If there was anything that Rachel disliked more than groomers, it was her privacy being invaded. Once FDR had gone through her desk, looking to see if she'd hidden his and Tuck's Christmas gifts in there, but she'd caught him and he had quickly found himself on the floor with a knife pressed against his throat. Rachel was a great, sweet girl, but she was deadly too. She had taken lessons in more than just the combat training they received when they had joined the CIA. She had learnt all sorts of martial arts, and her gymnastics only helped her become even more deadly.
"I promise she won't find out. Now could you just-" FDR trailed off, gesturing at the monitor. Bothwick sighed, and pressed the button that would bump up the audio, just in time for Rachel to sit down at her kitchen island with her friend.
"So how was it?" Lauren asked her.
"They're both incredible. FDR has these amazing eyes that you just wanna melt into. So beautiful. He really challenges me, you know. But I've known him since I was twelve. He's that guy who's always on, he's super slick. Sometimes, I think he doesn't care about anything more than himself. Even when we were kids, he looked out for his best interests," Rachel explained, occasionally sipping her wine between sentences. "You could never get him to do anything if it didn't benefit him, but I used to try work around that."
FDR stared at the monitor. He didn't realise that she felt that way, or that he was like that until she pointed it out.
"Didn't you say she volunteered at dog shelters?" FDR asked Bothwick.
"Yeah?"
"Where's the nearest shelter?"
This was getting stranger. FDR picked me up in the morning and took me to work, and after pretty much disappearing all day, while I did most of the work on the Heinrich case, he asked me for my help with something. Of course I agreed, and somehow we ended up at a pet shelter. A pet shelter of all places was somewhere I would not have guessed, even in my wildest, weirdest dreams, that FDR would take me or even know where one was. As far as I knew, FDR was not an animal person. He'd never really taken an interest in Nana's horses, but that could just be because he thought they weren't a very masculine animal, but who knows?
"What are we doing at a pet shelter?" I questioned, as we headed inside.
"Well, they say it's a sanctuary for them, but its really more of sanctuary for me." FDR answered, holding my hand as we walked in. There was a cute little dog being groomed in front of us, and I heard the barks of several more dogs in cages around the room.
"I didn't know that you volunteered at a dog shelter," I said, as I glanced around at all the dogs in their cages. I grinned at him. "This is amazing. Franklin Foster volunteering at a dog shelter. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I probably would have hit you on the back of the head for lying to me."
"Well, I don't really broadcast it. The guys at work would laugh at me."
"I just had no idea you were so passionate about animals." I remarked, as we walked around the cages, getting a closer look at all of the adorable, abandoned dogs and puppies. FDR glanced down at me, and I raised an eyebrow at him as I waited for a reply.
"Yeah. Animals and kids."
"Well I knew about the kids part. Joe adores his Uncle Frank."
"Exactly. I guess there are a lot of things you don't know about me." FDR replied.
"I guess so." I smiled up at him, running my free hand up and down his arm.
"So…do you wanna help me pick one out?" FDR asked. I looked at him in surprise, my eyes widening and my mouth dropping slightly.
"You're gonna adopt a dog? And risk ruining your bachelor pad? Dogs shed hair, you know? And chew things. A lot." I warned him, not really understanding why he wanted to adopt a dog. I mean, okay I just found out he had a love for animals. Growing up, he'd never really expressed an interest either way, but maybe he just hid it so he didn't get teased or something.
"I just think it's time for me to be responsible for something other than myself, you know?" FDR smiled at me, and I felt myself melting under his soft blue-eyed gaze. FDR was growing up. I mean, it only took him thirty years to do it, but it was so sweet.
"Wow, that's so great." I said, kissing him quickly, before I pulled away to smile at him.
"Okay. Let's pick the saddest, oldest bastard here." FDR said. I pulled a face, but didn't say anything. I let him lead me round until we found this cute, grey dog with the saddest face ever. Of course, FDR adopted that one, and I picked out some of the stuff he'd need to look after it; a dog bed, lead, poop scoop, dog treats, flea shampoo and a dog brush.
FDR didn't really think it through when he brought us here in his two seat convertible so I had his dog on my lap, and he forced all of the added extras to fit in his tiny trunk.
When we got to his place, I helped him set the dog up and stayed to show him how to groom him and stuff, before I went home. It was one of the weirdest and cutest dates I'd been on. I never knew that FDR really wanted that kind of domestic life. Because getting a dog was very domestic-y, and it was a huge responsibility. And up until a few days ago, I would have said that Franklin was not ready for that kind of responsibility, but now...he was changing. And I want to say for the good, but I still loved the Franklin that he used to be. The older Franklin was just not someone I would have dated on a long-term basis.
But he was maturing, and he seemed happier for it, so maybe I should just be happy for him.
(conversation continued from before)
"Okay. So what about Tuck?" Lauren asked Rachel.
Tuck waited to hear Rachel's answer, as he leaned against the wall of his own recon room whilst watching the monitors. He watched as Rachel paused for a second before she answered her friends question, as though she was carefully thinking through her words. It was almost as if she knew he was listening in and was choosing her words so that she didn't hurt his feelings.
"Tuck is great. He's sweet, he's kind and we always have so much fun," Tuck chuckled at that, feeling like he had achieved something. "More fun than I've ever had with anyone my entire life. But he's maybe too sweet? A little earnest? Maybe the safe option."
"Yeah. That's boring. I almost fell asleep just listening to that." Lauren replied.
Tuck moved forward, closer to the monitor, and held his hand over his mouth.
"Safe." He repeated, as if he'd never heard the word before. Well, at least not associated with him.
Tuck was taking me paint-balling. I had to admit when he told me, I almost laughed. We get to shoot real guns with real bullets at real people all the time, but I guess that was the fun in going to paintball. There was no real consequence to shooting someone with a paintball pellet, except for some nasty bruises the next day. Another thing that made me laugh about the whole thing was I put on an old grey t-shirt and a pair of dungarees with some combat boots and Tuck still told me I looked beautiful. He was adorable and charming and I was still in love with that British accent. Every compliment he gave me
"Okay, I think I'm ready, Tuck. This will be fun." I said, walking towards him.
"No. This is not fun," He said, looking at me with a serious expression on his face. "It's dangerous."
I quirked an eyebrow at that, and bit my lip to stop myself from laughing as Tuck pulled apart a pair of camouflage curtains, and revealed the carnage, the war zone that was the paintball arena. I stared at it.
"This looks like the watered down version of Bangladesh," I muttered to myself. Bangladesh had not been a walk in a park, let me tell you. Tuck nudged me back slightly before he jumped onto a wooden bar, and swung himself so he kicked a guy in the face. I winced, but stared at Tuck in shock, as he carried on as if her were in an actual war zone. He kicked a guy in the stomach and knocked him over, before he leaned over a wooden bridge and shot someone underneath it. "Oh, my god. We are totally getting sued."
Tuck looked back at me, staring at him in shock and waved me over.
"Come on, Rach." He called, looking down his scope for another target. I nodded, and spurred into action. I dropped the goggles the guy had given me. I didn't need them, and they'd probably just end up annoying me. I dropped into a defensive crouch and quickly moved forwards towards Tuck, where he was waiting behind a small wall.
He checked that the coast was clear before he waved us forward.
"Clear. We're coming out. Okay, come on." He instructed me, and I was still somewhat in shock at his display earlier so I just followed him without question.
"Get him!" A kid yelled, and was quickly taken out by Tuck, the force of the blows knocking him off his feet.
"I'm glad that we didn't bring Joe." I muttered to myself, staying behind another wall, while I watched Tuck single-handedly take out three more amateur paintball enthusiasts and a kid probably here for a birthday party.
"No head shots! That's illegal!" A man shouted, and I winced. Yep, we were so getting sued.
"Oh, my god." I said, out loud.
Tuck was so focused on taking everyone out that most of the kids who were playing hid in an underground fort-like structure. He didn't even realize that I stopped following him after a while. I just sat on the wall, watching as he threw a paint grenade into their hiding spot, listened to their yells of fright as it exploded all over them, and then Tuck moved onto the next guy. There were a couple of stragglers who tried to take me out, but I got those quickly, without causing too much damage.
Tuck hopped across these logs to a tree fort, where the flag that would end the session was. He tossed this guy off of the fort, sending him tumbling to the ground, and grabbed the flag. He held it up and looked down at me from where I was standing, still kind of shell shocked.
He jumped down and I jogged towards him.
"Did you see me light that up?" Tuck asked me, slightly out of breath.
"Okay-"
"That boy came right out of nowhere."
"You were disturbingly…I dunno. I wanna say good or fast or aggressive, but I'm kind of in shock. You do remember that this is not Bangladesh or Kandahar or Moscow, but a paintball tournament, right?" I breathed.
"Yeah, how does that make you feel?" Tuck asked me, grinning and pointing at me once, before he started to catch his breath again.
"Like if our nation gets attacked by random kids with paintball guns, I'll be safe."
"Safe." Tuck repeated, but I carried on talking as if I hadn't heard him.
"I tried to have your back there. I got off a few shots, but I don't think it mattered either way. I felt like we were back in Bangladesh or Singapore. Remember how terrifying Singapore was? You scared the absolute shit out of me in Singapore." I rambled, trying to get all the shock I felt out of my system. I shouldn't really be shocked at the display I just saw, but I just didn't see it happening at an innocent game of paintball.
"Really?"
"Yeah! Do you not remember that? I was trying to work my magic with the drug lord, he put his hands on me, then you and FDR burst in, all guns a-blazing, nearly getting us all killed, and you took out half of the guys there. My friend, Lauren, wanted us to go to Singapore for this crazy girls adventure last year. I couldn't do it, because every time she mentioned it, I had terrifying flashbacks."
"Yeah?" Tuck beamed, as though it was a victory. "Well, then. Let's go get something to eat."
He grabbed me by the hand and led me away, and I was still too confused and surprised to argue with him. I'd have to report back to Lauren and tell her that 'safe' was not a word I'd use when talking about Tuck anymore. Never again would I say that. Never. Nope. Not again.
