A/n: Here it is, the first chapter of 'On Your Six' that has been published in 2016! I wish you all the best in this new year!-Alisabeth
Disclaimer: I still own nothing but Rowan and Beryl (and Beryl's cat, who is inspired by my own 6lb bed hog 'Parker.')
Right hook, left cross. Jab, hook, hook. Beads of sweat streaked across lightly tanned flesh, a fiery red ponytail swinging as Rowan attacked the heavy bag that hung in a back corner of the training room at the academy. Carrie Underwood's "Little Toy Guns" was echoing in her head, drowning out the sound of labored breathing and distracting her from the pain in her split and bruised knuckles, her boxing gloves abandoned beside a bottled water and her backpack. The tape that she had painstakingly wrapped around her knuckles was beginning to peel, leaving behind a stick residue on her flesh. Uppercut, uppercut, roundhouse kick. With her heart pounding Rowan continued to throw the entirety of her weight behind her motions until she collapsed with the momentum of one of her rotations. Her knees hit the mat, pain blossoming on impact, and she slammed flat palmed hands down on the compressed rubber as her head spun. Gulping for breath she couldn't help but clutch the swinging heavy bag in order to heave herself to her feet, knees quivering. Pausing the music and hanging her headphones around her neck she focused on the silence of the room and flinched when someone spoke from behind her.
"Are you picturing that bag as anyone in particular?" came the voice of Ryan, a mixture of amusement and concern.
"Why? Have you done anything lately to feel guilty about?" Rowan snarked, hobbling to a nearby speed-bag and setting her stance, starting slow as the muscles in her arms burned.
"Rowan…" his voice held a subtle warning and without turning she knew that her partners jaw was set and his eyes were likely to have darkened. "How many times do I have to apologize?"
The tempo of her movement increased. "I don't know? How about you try apologizing first and I'll tell you how many more times it will take?"
"Fine. I'm sorry I missed the situation report. There, happy?"
Rowan threw a final punch before she swung in her partner's direction, her eyes narrowed. "No I am not happy! It would have been one thing if you missed it because you were still on the assignment, but to miss it because you were too busy screwing Alex is another, especially where YOU called the meeting in the first place. I would have been content to go back to the room and simply sleep through the fact that I was the only one in that room who hadn't gotten laid that night but instead I found myself sitting on a DC rooftop in fall waiting for your ass to show up. And I don't know what feels worse, waiting for you and hoping you had a reason for missing the meet other than the fact that you were boinking someone's brains out, or the feeling I had that day in the warehouse where it was like a lead balloon holding me down beneath a wall of water."
"We got caught up in the motions and the fact that for once, I wasn't UC and she wasn't a mark," Ryan hissed.
"But you are UC and she is your mark and this is what, the second time you have slept with her? What happened to keeping your distance from a mark and your emotions in check? You have repeatedly said those words to me and I have listened, but are you so selfish that you would ignore your own advice?" Every words she spoke took Rowan a half step closer to where Ryan stood, their voices hushed but still seeming to echo around them in the empty gym.
"So I've made a mistake, get over it!" he exclaimed, hands jumping at his sides in a 'what-can-you-do' gesture.
"A mistake happens once and you learn from it, twice is the beginning of a pattern."
"When did you become such an expert on mistakes?" Ryan chuckled darkly, a furrow starting to form between his brows.
"When I decided that staying in Quantico was best." The words had slipped out and were hanging in limbo before Rowan could even think about her response, the thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind for the past few days emerging into open airspace. Her hands clapped over her mouth. "Ryan! I didn't…"
"You and I both know you did, Rowan. You wouldn't say something unless you meant it consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously. And if that is how you feel, why did you stay?"
Rowan swallowed thickly, refusing to meet Ryan's gaze as she felt a burn in the back of her eyes. She wouldn't cry, wouldn't give him the satisfaction even if he was hardly ever satisfied when he saw her tears. "I stayed because I couldn't stand the idea of being back in Chicago, not after I found you again. I stayed because I couldn't leave you without someone that not only you trust, but I trust, on your six but now, I don't think I can trust myself to do the job correctly."
"I never asked you to stay," Ryan whispered, focusing his gaze on something over Rowan's shoulder.
"I know, and I've realized now that you don't need me. This was never a two person Op so…" Rowan trailed off, turning her back on her partner, literally and figuratively for the first time in three and a half years. Gathering her things and releasing her hair from its ponytail to curtain her face Rowan swallowed once more, hoping that the action would compose her enough until she could exit the gym. "If it's any consolation," she started as she paused by the gym's exit. "I'm sorry if I've somehow managed to side track you into screwing up the op."
"You didn't sidetrack me," Ryan protested. "And Rowan you…I," he stumbled.
"It's okay Ryan, after everything that's happened I don't expect anything on my behalf- I don't need any apologies or questions or to make any requests. I'll just make sure to get out of the way."
Pushing through the double doored exit, Rowan was able to keep the glassy eyed welling of tears at bay until she had not only bypassed the few stirring agents that lingered around the lower levels and the lobby, but those in the parking lot as she tapped out a message to send to Beryl and shrugged into her backpack with a roll of her neck. Feeling more strength than she had since the beginning of her brutalization of the heavy bag, she took off, feet pounding pavement as she buried her emotions along the roads of Virginia in the twelve miles it took to run back to the apartment.
Ryan's head was still spinning with everything that had occurred earlier that morning as he took his seat beside Alex in the first lecture of the morning. He still could not pinpoint exactly where the conversation had gone off the rails and sometime between the arguing and the site of the one consistent thing in his life walking out the door he had found something inside of him drifting away. As he dug a pen out of his bag and leaned back in his chair to wait for the class to begin he couldn't help but tense when Shelby turned back to him and Alex, asking whether either of them had seen or heard from Rowan.
"Last I heard from Danvers was on that damn bus," he grumbled, eyes straight forward. "Who knows, maybe that cold finally did her in."
Both of the females cocked an eyebrow before Shelby shook her head, blonde hair dancing. The pale shade was such a contrast to the fiery red that had become a staple in his daily life.
"But if she was sick Rowan would have responded to the call and text messages I left her to tell me so. The last I heard from her was Saturday when she told me she had dropped my stuff off and honestly? I'm kind of worried, she doesn't seem the type to just disappear."
"Who knows what type of person she is," Ryan remarked, fiddling with his pen and doodling in the corner of a blank piece of paper.
"Are you okay?" Alex asked, rotating in her seat.
"Just dandy."
Both women were forced to drop the subject when the guest speaker entered the room to begin the discussion on surveillance. Before he began to pay full attention Ryan glanced at the screen of his phone after it vibrated in his pocket, seeing one missed text message and a flashing voicemail, both from his sister Sarah- the very same sister who had called Rowan when something had gone wrong. Jaw clenching he turned his phone off and focused, taking notes intermittently and shuffling off to gather gear with Simon afterwards on the way to Hogan's Alley.
Crouched beside a lamp in 'the mark's apartment' a half hour later Ryan felt a subtle pounding beginning in his temples as he worked to hide one listening device after the another. Lost in thought it took him a moment to realize that Simon had called his name. Setting down his screw driver Ryan glanced up. "Yeah?"
Dark brows quirked behind round glasses. "Are you okay, man? You've been off since you got back this morning."
"Oh, yeah I'm…I've actually been thinking about maybe telling Alex some stuff. Don't you ever worry about that? How someone might react to something in your past?" He couldn't believe he was confiding in Simon Asher. About women no less.
Simon stopped tinkering with his part of the assignment for a moment, setting down the surveillance equipment to cross his arms over his chest. "The past is a dangerous place- you never know where dwelling there will take you."
Ryan sighed and used one hand to rub at the back of his neck. "And that's what I was worrying about."
Simon seemed to sense the conversation was over because he simply offered a sympathetic look before turning back to setting up his bug.
A steady stream of hot water pounded against bare flesh and mixed with drops of escaped saline as Rowan stood beneath the apartment's single shower head, her eyes closed tightly as she fought to repress the shuddering of her shoulders. She would not cry, at least that is what she kept telling herself as the tears continued to sporadically escape. Rinsing away the last of her suds as she took a shaky breath and wound herself in a bath towel she found it impossible to move from the safe haven of porcelain tile and steam. The little clock on the vanity exclaimed that it was nine-fifteen in the morning.
We would be in lectures by now, she thought morosely as she sluggishly shuffled out of the bathroom once she had drip dried into the tub. Routing through her still unpacked suitcase and trying to squash thoughts that her procrastination should have been a sign Rowan eased into a pair of ratty sweatpants and tried to ignore the name on the back of the 'Hawthorne High School Hockey' hoodie that she had kinda-sorta commandeered in the past as one of her favorites. Feeling blindly along the underside of the coffee table as she collapsed onto Beryl's futon that she had taken up residence on, Rowan found her slumbering laptop and opened the screen to find that the site she had surfed when she had returned from Quantico hadn't been a figment of her imagination. Southwest Airlines flights out of Ronald Reagan National Airport and into Midway Airport in Chicago, the cursor hovering over the list of designated flights and glaring at her menacingly.
Could she really do this? Just pack up her few belongings and take off back to Chicago? Could she really picture herself leaving without a real good bye before returning to the Chicago field office and requesting a reassignment?
Somewhere after nine p.m. Rowan's phone vibrating on the coffee table woke her from an impromptu cat nap, her hands slapping uncoordinatedly in search of the device. With it in hand she deftly swept her thumb across the screen and held it against her ear without bothering to look at the caller I.D.
"Danvers," she yawned, burrowing further into her hoodie and the fleece throw that she had draped over her lap.
"Rowan! I need your help!" came the panic stricken voice of Ryan Booth, his tone alone forcing her into full wakefulness. "My covers been blown!"
On her feet and searching for her side arm in one motion Rowan cursed as she tripped over Beryl's cat, muttering an apology to the calico that looked thoroughly offended. "I can be anywhere in twenty minutes, what do you need from me?"
"Can you buzz me up? Please?"
Rowan stopped. "Buzz you up?"
"I'm outside and I need you to buzz me into the building," Ryan responded, waving up as Rowan's face appeared from behind a curtained window before disappearing. Seconds later the door buzzed and gave way beneath one solid tug. "Thank you."
The only response was the click of the call being ended and when he looked up from the second flight of stairs in the fifth floor walk up he found Rowan standing in the hallway with the door to '2B' cracked behind her, wearing only a pair of baggy sweatpants and one of his old sweatshirts, her hair askew and pillow lines on her face. Relief coursed through him for the first time since he had been approached by Liam O'Connor outside of Assistant Director Shaw's home. Instinct took over once he was within an arm's length of Rowan, his arms winding around her waist and hauling her close as he felt his racing heart slow. Her response was hesitant but after a moment she reciprocated, her arms banding around him and her hands tucking beneath his light jacket for warmth. They stayed like that for the briefest of moments before Rowan pulled away, running a hand over her bed head before motioning to the door behind her.
"Come on in and let's talk," she instructed softly, stooping to pick up the pastel colored calico who was pacing the foyer.
Doing as he was told Ryan trailed behind her, closing the door to the apartment and securing the deadbolt with deft fingers. He couldn't help his weak chuckle at the sight of Rowan's figure dwarfed in his oversized hoodie, just like he couldn't help the probing feeling low in his abdomen. Clearing his throat and taking a seat in the well-worn Lay-Z-Boy he rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands between his thighs as he waited for Rowan to start a conversation. He was not disappointed when she nearly burst from the effort of keeping in her questions, curling up with the cat and a throw on the futon opposite him.
"So out with it! What the hell happened? Are you going back to Chicago? Where's Alex? What did she say? How…" she rambled, eyes wide and no longer showing any signs of sleep merely worry and confusion.
"Friggin O'Connor is what happened! Shaw had assigned us to run surveillance on her as our assignment today and Alex and I were in charge of bugging out and sitting on her residence. At one point our audio cut and I got out to fix it only to run into O'Connor. I tried to tell him that I wasn't spying on him, that Alex was nearby and that Shaw knew we were there but he kept going on making accusations and threats about the op. Alex heard everything and she's gone- she took off in the surveillance van and by the time I made it back to Quantico I couldn't find her. I came right here from there," Ryan explained.
"Ugh that slime ball!" Rowan exclaimed. "So what happens now?"
Ryan hesitated because in all honesty, he had no clue how to answer that particular question. "I don't know. I guess until I speak to Miranda it is all a waiting game to find out whether I will be on the next flight back home, let alone whether I am keeping my badge."
Rowan tensed. "Why wouldn't you be keeping your badge?"
Stretching his legs out in front of him and toeing off the boots he had been wearing all day Ryan shrugged helplessly. "O'Connor made threats to my badge and told me that I no longer had a badge nor was I an agent unless this mission was successful. He basically said I was legitimately reenlisted at the Academy and one wrong move and I would be gone."
A red flush eased into Rowan's face. "He can't do that!"
"He's got the director in his pocket, Rowan, of course he can do that!" Ryan bit back.
"And he's just as slimy as O'Connor. Ryan, after what they did to us on that assignment, how do we trust anything they say, let alone anything they claim to have on us?"
"Easy…we don't trust them, and unless we are given anything else to go on, we take anything they say with a grain of salt until proven otherwise," Ryan said softly, glancing up through golden tipped lashes.
Rowan opened her mouth to respond, thoughts of the file folder tucked into the bottom of her suitcase coming to the forefront of her mind. Shaking her head and dismissing any idea of bringing the folder out just yet she stretched her legs out in front of her. "So now what," she started instead. "Do you go back to Quantico tonight with a potential target on your back, or do you lay low for at least a few hours?"
"My first priority is finding something to eat," Ryan said honestly, his stomach grumbling as if to voice its opinion. "And then I figure I'll probably check into a hotel for a few days and lay low-this is the extended weekend off for N.A.T's so there is likely to be few people on base for a few days. Hopefully the dust settles so I can get back without anyone being of the wiser."
"I can order something in tonight if you aren't opposed to spending time with me after this morning," Rowan said hesitantly.
"We were both angry and probably should have cooled off before we had that conversation," Ryan responded, blue eyes locking in on Rowan's own grey ones. "Pizza from Zel's or Chinese from Shang's?"
Rowan's face lit up. "Want to split a couple of appetizer orders from Shang's? I've been craving good Chinese food and would totally be up for some Peking Ravioli, General Tsao's, Veggie Lo-Mein, and Crab Rangoon!" she exclaimed, scampering towards the kitchen and rifling around in a drawer, triumphantly holding up a paper takeout menu a moment later.
"Call it in and don't forget the egg rolls," Ryan smirked. "Do you mind pointing me in the direction of the bathroom?"
"Second door on the left," Rowan said absently as she dialed out on her cell phone and pressed it to her ear. She spoke again, as if she had had an afterthought. "And call Sarah if you can!"
Taking the hand that her partner waved over his head as he turned into the bathroom as a sign that he had heard her, Rowan placed their dinner order for delivery with a cheerful woman on the other end of the line. Hanging up her phone she had barely set it down before it began to ring with the specific ringtone set for Beryl. Snatching it back up she accepted the call and had to pull the phone away from her ear at the blast of noise on the other end of the line.
"Beryl? Beryl, is that you?" Rowan called into the phone.
"Rowan! You'll never believe where I am right now!" her friend greeted excitedly over the background noise.
"I have no clue where to even start," Rowan said, brows furrowing as she winced at some of the cacophony of car horns she heard.
"New York! Teegan surprised me with a weekend in New York! I am currently standing in line for a real Broadway production!"
Rowan couldn't help but chuckle at Beryl's childlike glee. "That's great B., should I take that as you telling me not to expect you for a few nights?"
"Yes, please. But you should only know I agreed once he had me on the train! And would never usually do this but The Lion King is on Broadway this weekend and you know that it is one of my favorites!"
"You don't have to defend yourself to me, B. I was young once too and would take off on weekend trips too every once in a while," Rowan placated. "Don't worry about anything, I have Parker's furry little back. But…"
"But what? Is everything okay?" Beryl's tone began to take on a bit of worry.
"Ryan is here, in Virginia. And I was wondering if he could stay with me for a few days, rather than him trying to find a hotel last minute?"
"Your Ryan is there?! You're partner Ryan, the one you have been not so secretly pinning over?" Beryl gasped, shushing what sounded like Teegan.
"Yes," Rowan admitted sheepishly.
"Of course he can! And if anything happens, please just change the sheets and don't ever mention it!"
"Nothing like that will happen!" Rowan protested, feeling her face flush, even more so when Ryan stepped into the room and raised an eyebrow while he listened to someone on his own phone. "I've got to go now B., but thank you and enjoy your show! I really can't wait to see photos."
"Love you too, chicky!" Beryl called out with a smacking kiss sound before the line disconnected.
Pocketing her phone Rowan lit up when Ryan motioned to his phone with one hand and mouthed his sister's name. Curling up on the arm of the futon, she listened as she heard him try to counter the unsinkable Sarah Booth.
"Sarah, yes, Sarah…would you give me a minute?" he huffed exasperatedly. "I am still technically under right now and only reached out because I may be back sooner than planned and I was hoping to stop through…yes I know California is on the opposite side of the country from Chicago…Yes, I know the basic concepts of geography…would you please let me get a word in?" he paused. "Yes I have spoken to Rowan…yes, I know how much you all love her…please stop comparing her to Emilia…."
That had Rowan wincing. His family openly compared her to Ryan's ex-wife? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
Ryan rolled his eyes skyward. "For all that is good, Sarah! Just give me a second to talk! I will hopefully be home soon, but if you need to get anything to me please don't call me, call Rowan like you have been doing. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I hear my takeout at the door…love you all, too." His phone bounced as he tossed it onto the futon's mattress. "Damn she talks a lot," he muttered.
"All of your sisters do," Rowan countered. "So while you were in the bathroom I spoke with Beryl and found out her boyfriend surprised her with a weekend in the Big Apple… I don't suppose you would be okay with staying here for the weekend?"
Fighting a yawn as she picked up the last Peking Ravioli with her chop sticks Rowan paid only half a mind to the movie that streamed across the small television screen on the TV in the corner. Sitting opposite her with his own food abandoned, Ryan's head bobbed sleepily as events of the day began to catch up with him. As his head dipped and jumped once more Rowan pushed to her feet.
"Come with me," she yawned as she squinted her eyes. "Let's go."
Ryan blinked slowly. "Where're we going?"
"To find you something to wear for the night."
Making their way to where her suitcase was stored Rowan motioned for him to stand still as she routed through her clothes and extracted a few articles before shoving them in his direction. Much to his surprise, Ryan found one of his tee shirts and a pair of his basketball shorts, both of which he had thought had gotten lost in the depth of his washer/dryer.
"These are mine," he said, stating the obvious.
"And they make mighty comfortable pajamas," Rowan countered.
"Jeez, Ro, do I even have any more clothes left in Chicago?" he asked, half out of curiosity and half seriously.
Flashing a cheeky smile over her shoulder Rowan shrugged innocently. "We'll just have to find out when we get back to Chicago, won't we?"
A/N: And here it is! Let me know what you think! And, yes, I know it may seem Ryan was forgiven too easily, but there is a method to my madness! -Alisabeth
