Welcome back?

A/N: OK, Doyle heads back to CTU. Chaos and merriment (not really) ensues. Have tried to make it a little light-hearted in places though. Enter Chloe and Morris! Sorry if any of this seems OOC. Trying to get back on track.

242424242424242424242424

The first person Doyle saw when he headed back into the CTU building a couple of weeks later was Chloe, looking surprisingly… round as she munched on a candy bar beside the vending machine. "Agent Doyle," she greeted him, not unkindly but not enthusiastically either, as he made his way from the locker room.

"Hi," he replied, tone matching hers.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, more for something to say really, than out of genuine interest, he knew. Nevertheless, seeing one of his former colleagues had detracted somewhat from his own feelings of nervousness at being back here. He was wound up tighter than a guitar string. He waited for her to stare at his scars, but she didn't appear to notice.

"Better. You?" he said with a shrug.

"Fat," she said grumpily, tossing the candy wrapper in the garbage and pulling out a couple more quarters and hopefully feeding them into the machine, "My ass is the size of Utah… Nadia's waiting in her office to brief you. She said to go on up when you got here."

"Uh.. thanks." As Doyle climbed the stairs, he looked back down at the floor. The building hadn't changed much since the last time he was here. It was pretty quiet today too, he guessed that Field Ops were in training someplace, and felt a pang of envy, which he quickly suppressed as he knocked at the door.

"Come in.."

Nadia was sat at her desk, going over what looked to be some kind of field notes. Her smile was brief as she greeted him. "Welcome back Mike, take a seat."

He sat down opposite her silently, regarding her back in this office environment that clearly suited her so well.

"How are the headaches?" she ventured, setting down her papers and scrutinising him.

"A little better." His face had healed a lot more in the past couple of weeks, and he was looking a little less paler now, too. Still too thin though. Before he had been bordering on muscular, now he was looking kind of lean.

"That's good," she guessed right off that he didn't want to make small talk. He was looking kind of impatient to get back to work, or maybe he was just bored with the conversation, "well, Morris has set you up a system right next to his. He and Chloe will go over the IP protocols with you this morning and debrief you on some of the chatter we're monitoring at the moment. This afternoon I think Chloe needed to show you some of the new satellite repositioning she's working on. She wants you to be fully operational with the programme before she leaves. I guess that's about it at the moment, unless God forbid anything happens in the mean time. Any questions?"

He shook his head mutely.

"Nothing you wanted to talk about or anything bothering you about being back?"

"Nope."

"Well, I guess I'll see you later then."

She watched him depart from the office, a little frustrated with him already. Was it really so hard for the guy to make small talk? She knew he wasn't exactly big on emotions, but jeez..

Even so, she'd not expected her heart to speed up a little, the way it had when he'd walked back into her office, and even now her palms felt a little sweaty at her encounter with him. Five minutes in the presence of Mike Doyle and already she felt tense and flustered. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea…

242424242424242424

Morris had been sulking for the past twenty minutes, ever since Doyle had came and sat down at his new workstation. It was pissing Chloe off. Every time Doyle asked something, generally a valid or intelligent question as he found his way around the new programmes and routers, he was answered with either a terse 'yes' or 'no' or a roll of the eyes from her spouse. Morris was behaving like a child, and she wasn't sure that she could cope with two of them.

"Morris, quit being a jerk," she finally snapped as she rubbed her stomach. Man, she was hungry today.

"I'm not the one with the problem, darling," he passed her a bag of M&M's, glaring at Doyle the whole while.

"Look Morris, I'm sorry, OK?" Doyle said simply.

"Do you even know what you're apologising for?"

"Grabbing you by the throat?" he ventured.

"That's a start."

"What else did I do?" Doyle demanded, eyes narrowing.

"You come in here and behave like a complete arsehole," Morris told him bluntly, "throwing your weight around and interrogating people. Pissing everyone off. You might have been the golden boy back in Denver, but it sure won't win you many friends here, mate."

Doyle's eyes clouded over; "I said I was sorry."

"Did you tell Nadia that?"

"Excuse me?" Doyle raised his eyebrows.

"Did you afford Nadia the courtesy of saying you were sorry for the way you treated her?"

"I told her at the time I regretted it."

"Did you mean it?"

Chloe was watching the argumentative comments tossed back and forth as she dug into the bag of sweets. Kind of fascinated by the way the conversation was headed.

"Of course I meant it," Doyle hissed, "anyway, what the hell does any of this have to do with you?"

"Because she's not just our boss, she's our friend, and she's been through a lot lately, and for some reason, despite the way you treated her, she's willing to give you a second chance. I just wanted to make sure that was warranted."

"It is."

"Good."

"Fine."

"Fine." Morris turned back to his station with a petulant expression, and Doyle to his looking mutinous, as Chloe bit back a small smile. Nadia was certainly going to have her hands full with these two.

242424242424242424242424

Four days later, Doyle had found his way round the systems pretty well for someone with no real Comms or system training, and Chloe was impressed by the way he'd adapted to everything. Even Morris seemed to have dropped the attitude somewhat, sensing that Doyle really was pretty good at what he was doing, though there was still the occasional squabble.

She and Morris were both a little concerned however, by Doyle's headaches. He tried to pass them off as nothing, but from the way he occasionally squinted at the computer screen, despite the wire-rimmed glasses he'd taken to wearing, they guessed his eyes were still troubling him.

Chloe mentioned it to Nadia one morning after the team briefing. Later that day she called Doyle up to her office under the pretext of finding out how he was coping in his new role. Doyle rolled his eyes as he sat opposite her.

"Quit making stuff up, Nadia. I saw Chloe talking to you. Want to tell me why you really brought me up here?"

"Ok," Nadia crossed her arms, not surprised he'd seen right through her flimsy excuse, "they're concerned about your headaches, your eyes. They tell me you sometimes struggle with what's on the monitor. I'm worried you came back here too soon."

"I'm. ..Fine." Doyle hissed through clenched teeth.

"You sure? Because we can't have anyone on the floor that's not up to speed."

"What, am I speaking in tongues or something? I just told you I was OK." Irritated at her line of questioning, he crossed his own arms. His defensiveness instantly got her back up.

"Fine. But the second any of this gets too much for you, I need you to take a break, Ok?"

"Right," he said sarcastically. He knew she was just looking out for him, but it bothered him. Made him feel weak that she had seen he wasn't 100.

"Oh.. Mike," she stopped him as he turned to leave. "We finally got your personnel file through from Denver, I need to make sure it's updated. There's no next of kin or person to contact in an emergency on here…" she stopped short at the expression on his face.

"Leave it blank."

"But…"

"I said: leave it blank!" he snapped, his eyes stormy as he surveyed her.

"I have to put someone's name," she told him softly, "a parent or something…"

"You can put the frigging President down for all I care," he spat, his eyes meeting hers. She was blown away by the pain and hurt she saw there in that instant, which he quickly tried to mask with his antipathy as he lowered his voice; "there's no one, Ok?"

She bit her lip, confused by the emotions that suddenly hit her at seeing him look so upset, and nodded silently.

"Can I get the hell out of here now?" he demanded, his eyes now devoid of any real emotion.

"Yes."

With one final glare, he slammed the door shut behind him, as Nadia sank down weakly into her chair. What in the hell was that all about?

2424242424242424242424242424