Since I've gotten so much positive feedback I tried to hurry with the next chapter.

Sorry if there are any mistakes, but I finished this half asleep.

Enjoy :)

Chapter 9

"Can you show me how to do that?"

Clarke sighed as the brunette continued to converse with her, Clarke's lack of response seemingly went unnoticed by the Latina. The brunette had kept talking throughout her time in the training area and continued to do so on the way up to the shared living space. The young woman was like a lost puppy. An annoying lost puppy that was trying to get the attention of its owner by barking and pulling on their pant leg.

"I'm not sure you're made for this."

"Why not? Would be so could if I could throw knives like that."

"You need a certain level of concentration. I have yet to see you remaining silent and focusing on one thing for more than just a second."

"I'll have you know that I am fantastic at working focused and concentrated." Raven huffed.

"I have a hard time imagining this."

As soon as the elevator doors opened Clarke stepped out of the metal cage that felt smaller than she could remember. The others had obviously finally accomplished to get up as they were currently bustling in the kitchen with the last preparations of breakfast. Clarke urged her feet to continue towards the lot hoping to lose the brunette blabbermouth still following her.

"Good morning you two, you're right on time for breakfast." The tall man with more hair on his face than his head said as he saw the two coming towards them.

"Food! Gosh, I love you guys." Raven exclaimed and rushed past Clarke to tackle the breakfast table. As annoying as she was, the blonde found the sight of Raven shoving as much food on her plate as she could while the boys watched flabbergasted rather amusing.

"Hey, we've briefly saw each other yesterday, but you were gone too fast for any introduction. I'm Lincoln Black, nice to meet you."

While Clarke had been focusing on the tower of food on Raven's plate she hadn't noticed how the tall man – Lincoln – had moved closer to her. Despite his huge frame he radiated a certain calmness and softness. He was smiling friendly at her while waiting for her to shake his outstretched hand. After a beat she accepted it and replied with a brief smile of her own. "I'm Clarke Griffin, nice to meet you, too."

"You should hurry, Clarke. I can't guarantee that Raven won't inhale the complete food all by herself. Looks like she's at least trying to." A smile formed on Lincoln's lips which only widened as Raven replied something incomprehensible due to her mouth full of bacon.

"Oh, I already ate."

"You did?" Lexa asked and there was something in her expression Clarke could identify as it was just a second before the brunette had schooled her features again. Clarke guessed that she wasn't pleased of her trying to get out of spending time with the team – again.

"There's a diner on my route. I'll stop by after my morning run."

But not only Lexa's green eyes felt like they were drilling into her, she also sensed Octavia observing every movement she did. Of course there had to be a damn CIA agent on the team. She just couldn't get a read on her, couldn't tell if she recognized her or not. Well, she hadn't tried to attack Clarke in her sleep yet, so that had to mean she didn't know her, right? Or maybe she was just waiting for the right moment to strike. The blonde knew that the chances were pretty high that Octavia hadn't heard of her or seen her before. The CIA was a very big agency. For all she knew Octavia could have been working in some back office sorting out old files.

"Which route are you taking?" The mountain of a man sitting next to Raven asked her. Clarke mused about his previous line of work for a moment. Maybe she should get in contact with one of her many associates to get some background information about the people she will be working and living with. She'd definitely feel better if she knew more about these people.

"I start with going down Lake Street. It's a nice run this early of the day, almost no people are in the way. Further down I turn into Church Road and continue towards Polis Park. There's a very good path through the park, around eight miles. I'll leave the park on Pine Street. From there I slowly circle my way back here." Clarke explained the route of her morning run. Of course she didn't tell him that her route changes a little every day. It was always bad to develop a certain pattern. It left you at the mercy of anyone who may have set an eye on you and for people like Clarke that was very dangerous.

The big man who sported an impressive beard nodded his head as he thought about her words, no doubt mentally going over the route she had giving him. "Sounds really like a nice route. There are quite a few great trails in Polis Park. You should try them should you ever tire of your current one."

The blonde was sure she'll know every path in this park in a matter of days.

Catching the commander's ever attentive stare while she and the others continued with their breakfast, Clarke thought it better to play nice to get her new boss off of her back. Putting on a smile, she lifted her hand and waved slightly. "Sorry I missed the introduction. Some of you I've already met during the short time I've been here already. For all the others, I'm Clarke Griffin. It's nice to meet you and I'm sure we'll have a great time working together."

Damn, maybe she should have become an actress. She was not used to be overly nice and sweet towards others. Of course she had had to kiss some asses before, but overall the line of work she was working in led her to rather rougher people. But that was in the past, right? She did all of this to try and find some kind of normality for her. Perhaps she should get used to smile more often, to be more open to others.

But after all of those years it was hard to open up. Clarke was too used to always keep things to herself. To not give away too many details. Those things would always end up used against her. Just because she was trying to do something good didn't mean that she could just shed her cautiousness and knock down this wall she built that felt like the Great Wall of China.

However she had to start somewhere, and based on the softening of the commander's stare she was on the right way. Clarke felt like she just earned some bonus points with her boss – not that it would help her much seeing that she probably started with a lot of bad points. It would take a while to reach the positive side.

"I'm Ryder Forrester, nice to meet you, too." The huge bearded man introduced himself and Clarke found his name oddly fitting.

"I'm Monty Green. It's a pleasure to meet you." Piped up a voice to Raven's right. Monty had black longish hair and a clear Asian origin. Sitting in the midst of well-trained people made him stick out of the group and Clarke could easily identify his role as one of the computer specialists on the task force.

That left one person without a name.

The blonde woman watched her carefully as she had held back and kept eating her breakfast. While her stare wasn't as challenging and stripping as Lexa's or ever-knowing and distant as Octavia's, the blonde's was definitely somewhat annoying – literally. Clarke would describe it as pure annoyance. She almost thought that she won't get a name out of her, at least not that easily, when suddenly her eyes flickered narrowly over to Lexa and Clarke could easily imagine a harsh kick to the shin of the blonde signaling for her to introduce herself.

This tells Clarke instantly that there was a shared backstory. Those two certainly knew each other better.

After a beat the stare off between the blonde and Lexa ended and the eyes of the still nameless woman rested on her again. Right before Clarke thought that the silence was getting awkward and tried to find the right excuse to leave the blonde finally spoke up. "Adams."

"Anya…." Lexa leaned forward and yet again stared at the blonde, this time even more sternly than before.

The eye-roll that followed by the blonde felt like it belonged to her as if she did it regularly. "Anya Adams. You may call me Adams."

Lexa sighed and gave up to get her friend to find her manners she must have stored away in the lowest of drawers and thrown the keys away. Anya was still staring at her but got back to eating her breakfast.

Fine, Clarke had more than enough experience with crude people. This was nothing new. But Clarke was very adept at pushing certain buttons and she permitted herself to be just as ignorant as the other blonde. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Anya."

The others were grinning secretly into their breakfast and, aha! There was even a slight tuck at Lexa's lips. The scowl on Anya's face was a nice bonus. Oh yeah, she knew exactly how to speak her language if she wanted to.

Bellamy Blake stared at all of the open files on his desk, searching for the one clue that could break this damn case wide open again. So far he had three victims who all died the same way. A single bullet to the head by a sniper. He had yet to find the one thing connecting those three victims and maybe even the killer. However, he couldn't find any connections. As far as he knew the sniper just killed random people.

"Was there an explosion on your desk, Blake?"

"Stop it, Miller. Or there will be an explosion on your desk and it won't be pretty." Bellamy shot back and grinned at his colleague. Since he didn't have a partner Nathan Miller was his go to guy. Whenever he needed back up he let him tag along. His boss was already on his case and urging him to take a partner, but Bellamy didn't want to. He liked to work on his own.

Miller came up behind him and put his hands on his shoulders, squeezing a little. The dark skinned man looked up and saw the background picture of his computer and rolled his eyes. This man! All work, no break. If there wouldn't be a wife waiting for him at home, Miller was sure that Bellamy would live in the prescient. "Oh, man! Can't you find something nicer to look at?"

Confused Bellamy followed his friend's glance and looked at the picture he had on his computer. There were pictures of some of the most wanted persons on his screen. He put it up to remind himself of why he was doing what he did, the reason of why he became a cop. He wanted to help putting away the bad guys and create a better life for others. Every time one of those people got caught, he granted himself one of the nicer bottles of wine and spent a nice evening with his wife, privately celebrating that there was one less dangerous criminal walking freely around. The next day he exchanged the picture with a new one.

Some may say that he was crazy. But those who really knew him knew that he was just dedicated. Maybe too dedicated at times.

"Why don't you go home, huh? When was the last time you spent some time with your wife? You're expecting a baby, you should spent as much alone time with Gina as you still can, bro."

A smile formed on Bellamy's lips as he thought about his beautiful wife and the little life she was carrying inside of her. He never thought it possible, but he really found his other half. And he can't wait to tackle the challenges of parenthood with her.

Suddenly he felt the urge to be with his wife. He hadn't seen her since he was called to the crime scene of the second victim. He only went home for a quick shower and a change of clothes and Gina hadn't been home each time. They only had exchanged two short phone calls and a few text messages. Miller was right, he had to get away from all of this. A few hours with his wife and some sleep and then he could get back to work with a fresh set of eyes.

After breakfast the team cleaned up and went their ways. Raven and Monty were off to the base getting themselves familiar with their computer system. It was only a question of time until they got their first case and they all wanted to be ready for it. The others were preparing themselves for some friendly sparring. Ryder, Octavia and Lincoln already made their way to the training area while Lexa and Anya took their time to join them.

"Where's Griffin?" Lexa asked her friend as she noticed that she hadn't seen the blonde since breakfast.

"Don't know," Anya shrugged, swinging her towel over her shoulder and picking up a water bottle. "I think she left the building a while ago."

Of course she did. Lexa thought that today would be different. She had seen that she had tried at breakfast and really thought that she'd reduce her loner attitude. The brunette had hoped to get more information out of her. But much to her dismay Clarke Griffin wanted to remain a wild card.

If she couldn't get the information she wanted and needed from the source she had to find other ways.

"Are you coming?" Anya asked as she stepped into the elevator waiting for her friend.

"I'll be there in a sec. Go ahead and warm up, you know you'll need it."

Lexa heard her friend grumbling something as the elevator doors closed but she couldn't hear it well enough to understand it. Knowing her blonde friend it wasn't anything nice. She grabbed her cell phone from her pocket and dialed the number, surprising herself that her fingers moved without hesitation. It only rung twice until the call got picked up. "Yeah?"

"Hey, I need a favor."

"The mighty Lexa Woods asking for a favor? Now I'm curious. Shoot."

Lexa rolled her eyes as his antics. Some things never change. "Could you check a name for me?"

"That's it? That's all you want?"

"Can you do it or not?" The brunette replied annoyed.

"Sure. What's the name?"

"Clarke Griffin."