A/N: Hello again! Welcome back to the next chapter of "On Your Six!" Now that I am nearly completely caught up chapters *should* be a little longer/more frequent, but I make no promises. I hope that everyone has enjoyed what they have read so far and I just want to thank everyone for reading, reviewing, and adding this story to your alerts/favorites. For anyone wondering what Nikolas looks like, I was imaging Val Chermovsky as I was writing. -Alisabeth.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the familiar material. They only things that are mine are Rowan and Beryl.
935 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington D.C, 20535. Comprised of grey brick and a plethora of tall windows it looked like nearly every other industrial office building within the metropolitan area, screaming authority though there were no physical markers. Her feet heavy and her heart thrumming a mile a minute Rowan glanced up at the one building in the city that made her openly cringe. Inhale, exhale. The slow, meditative breaths that she practiced as she stood sandwiched between Raina Amin and Caleb Haas were doing nothing for her, her palms damp as she rubbed them along denim clad thighs. And when a voice spoke in her ear, delightfully feminine and accented, Rowan couldn't help the small squeak and jump she gave as she turned her head in the direction of the quieter Amin twin.
"Are you okay?" Raina repeated, her dark brows furrowed beneath the dusky blue of her hijab.
Forcing a husky chuckle Rowan tilt her head to and fro. "I'm okay." The 'I think' remained unspoken as the group of agents and agents in training passed through the front entrance into one of the most well-known branches of the Bureau.
Flashing her badge as the trainees received their visitors passes, Rowan found a corner near the elevator banks to wait in until her 'misfits' gathered to take the ride to the fifth floor where they would be presenting their theories on a current case and giving a briefing on how to move forward. Rocking from the heel of her well-worn Converse to standing on the tip of her toes, the repetitive motion and slow burn in her calf muscles had her beginning to calm just slightly. Pasting on an almost fake smile as her trainees approached her, Rowan stepped up beside Booth and began muttering out the side of her mouth while Alex was distracted.
"How did she take your decision?" she whispered.
Blue eyes flicked down to meet grey briefly before a single shoulder shrugged. "As well as you could expect. She took the file…I think she also wants to look for more info while we're here."
Rowan shook her head minutely. "Be careful." Stepping away from Ryan she stepped into the elevator as the doors 'whooshed' open. Staring at the N.A.T's waiting to board the elevator Rowan felt her first true smile since Liam O'Connor had announced their little 'field trip.' "Well what are y'all waiting for, we have a presentation to give!"
With nearly twenty minutes before the actual assigned meeting time, the elevator ride was merely a relocation to be closer to the conference room that they would soon occupy. Humming along to the generic elevator music, Rowan ushered the trainees out when the doors chimed their arrival. Identical to the main lobby several floors below, the N.A.T's and their 'chaperones' branched off to separate parts of the hallway to wait. Out of the corner of her eye Rowan noticed Alex and Ryan disappearing, internally praying that they were going to make out in a broom closet and not to look into Alex's father like she expected. Taking note of the paired off groups she settled onto one of the wooden benches that lined the white walls, plucking a worn copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" from her bag. Less than half a chapter later she glanced up as a shadow was cast over the pages of her book, a throat clearing above her. Her heart seemed to drop down into her stomach as her gaze collided with that of Agent Nikolas Maximov. To Rowan it felt as if the temperature in the room had climbed a thousand degrees and that she as a person had shrunk to the size of the Polly Pocket toys she used to play with.
"You always did have a book with you everywhere you went," Nikolas said reverently, the motion of him canting his head to the side causing a dark brunet curl to fall across his forehead. "It's nice to see you."
Without bothering to mark her place in her book Rowan shook her head, tucking the novel close to her chest. "I wish I could say the same to you but I can't. Leave me alone Nikolas." Mentally congratulating herself on the fact that her voice only cracked once throughout the sentence, Rowan jutted her chin out defiantly, glaring up into the handsome face of the six-foot-tall Organized Crime agent who had wormed past her barriers.
Whiskey hued eyes glinted beneath the fluorescent lighting of the hallway. "It's been what, three years? It seems as if you certainly haven't changed." He paused. "What I mean is, you look great."
Rowan huffed. "It's been four and I still don't want to talk to you. I believe that everything that needed to be said has already been done, and if you will excuse me there is somewhere that I need to be." With her pulse racing, Rowan gave a single nod in Nikolas direction as she got to her feet.
She had only taken a few steps when Nikolas spoke once more. "We were good together you know- you and me. Sometimes I think it's a shame it all ended."
"It only ended because you had no clue what prioritizing and honesty were." Feeling eyes turning in her direction Rowan refused to turn around. The feel of a calloused palm grasping the bare flesh of her wrist jerked her back, causing her to tense. "Let me go Nik."
"Rowan…"
A shadow cast over the pair and Simon's lean form nudged its way between the two, partially shielding the redhead. "Is there a problem here?" The question seemed like nothing more than a formality as the bespectacled N.A.T stood, hands clenching and unclenching at his side, narrow shoulders tensing as his jaw ticked.
"Not on my end, how about on yours Nikolas?" Rowan probed.
Nikolas began to speak but paused as Nimah stepped up to the trio. Nostrils flaring as he made an about face and stomped off, his broad figure remained the focus of the three until he was out of sight.
"A friend of yours?" Nimah questioned as she hovered beyond Simon's shoulder, dark brows arched high on her forehead.
"Something like that," Rowan mumbled, fingers running over her wrist to check for any tenderness as the skin took on a friction induced flush. "Thank you for that Simon."
"No problem- are you okay?" Simon asked softly, brows furrowing as he caught sight of her rubbing her wrist.
"Nothing a couple Aleve and a little rest won't fix," Rowan grinned. "Although I must be getting slow in my age. The last time he tried that I nearly broke his nose."
"Maybe it's the 'nearly' that caused some sort of misunderstanding." The smirk in Simon's voice was obvious and Rowan couldn't help but chuckle, agreeing with the sentiment.
Playfully slugging her 'savior' on the shoulder Rowan fell into step between the pair when Liam O'Connor called the N.A.T's to the conference room. From her peripheral she caught Ryan and Alex easing into the group and Rowan pursed her lips. Giving an encouraging word to Nimah and Simon, she took to the shadows of the conference room as she awaited the briefing to commence.
Her ear itching, the cartilage hoops in her right ear catching, and the tips of her ponytail smacking her in the face were all things that Rowan was blocking out as she reclined on her elbows in a patch of sunshine-y grass. Gray eyes made a continuous sweep from behind aviator sunglasses as she searched for anyone acting out of the ordinary. For the middle of a week day, D.C's John Marshall Park was surprisingly highly populated, making the task of identifying whoever had stolen the 'missing strain of Ebola' slightly more challenging. From her position she could see everything, the grassy knoll slightly elevated to give her a better vantage point. A hundred yards to her left Alex and Ryan were talking all hush-hush, two hundred yards to her right Simon and Nimah stood beside a soft pretzel vendor, and on the footbridge straight ahead she had the perfect view of Caleb and Shelby getting their flirt on.
Saying something to Alex in the distance Ryan stepped away from the brunette. Popping to her feet, Rowan brushed stray blades of grass from her denim clad derriere and made her way to 'casually' intercept his path.
"So did you two learn anything?" she whispered as she reached up to tighten her ponytail, shivering when the breeze brushed across the stretch of skin that her shirt revealed with the upraised position of her arms.
"Everything we learn leads to more questions," he groused. "We just thought O'Connor knew her father but in reality they were partners when Liam first left the Academy and now her mom is involved."
"How the hell is her mom involved?" Rowan asked in astonishment. This poor girl seemed to be in the epicenter of chaos.
"In '93 the Omaha field office was blown up by two truck bombs, killing two hundred and four people- Alex's mom was a person of interest for having ties to Pakistani Intelligence groups." Large hands scrubbed over a scruffy jaw, drawing forth a faint rasping sound.
"And Alex never knew any of this?"
"She didn't seem to have a clue, but…" his words came to a halt as they came closer to Simon and mere seconds later there was a call for a distraction from Alex who thought she had spotted the suspect. "You ready?" Ryan muttered.
Rowan responded by placing a hand on his chest as if it hold him back as he began to shout nonsense at Simon about 'eyeing up his girl,' going on a tangent about the 'bro code.' Trying not to marvel at the feel of well-developed pecs beneath her palms and the heat of him radiating through thin cotton, Rowan 'separated' the two men the moment that Alex gave chase, darting to catch up as her trainee took off like a rocket. By the time she skidded to the stop at the bottom of a set of concrete steps, Alex was already in the process of cuffing the 'suspect,' a beam lighting up her features.
As the 'senior' agent Rowan joined Alex, making sure that the suspect was properly Mirandized, and searched as they prepped to haul him in for questioning despite the fact that the canister containing the 'stolen strain' was nowhere in sight. Passing Liam who stood a little ways off observing, Rowan allowed Alex to load the suspect into the back of their SUV before slamming the door closed and allowing herself her first smile since the distraction.
"Nice job on your first arrest, newb," Rowan teased, tossing the car keys to Alex.
"O'Connor's got the file and cornered Alex." Those were the words that greeted Rowan the moment she picked up her phone, effectively cutting off the sound of Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man."
Covering her left ear as she tried to block the nose of Killian's Pub Rowan squeezed her eyes shut. "He didn't boot her from the program, did he?"
"She's still in but he knows we're snooping more so than before." For a single beat there was no sound. "Are you at a bar?"
"It's a Friday night."
"So in other words, yes." Ryan laughed. "I don't know what else to do about O'Connor."
"Of course. I'm at Killian's if you and the rest of the N.A.T's would like to stop in, I can hop on the next table that opens up," she offered, plucking another handful of popcorn from the plastic bowl in front of her. "And don't worry too much tonight, we can strategize soon."
"Can I tell them the first round is on you?" Ryan teased.
"Only if the second is on you," she countered.
"I'll go try to round the misfits up," Ryan responded. "I'll text you with a head count," he promised before ending the call on his side of the line.
It didn't take long for a text to come through, telling Rowan to reserve a table for herself, Ryan, Caleb, Shelby, Simon, and Alex- the twins were ducking out to avoid being seen in public together. Staking her claim on a corner booth, she didn't have to wait long until she saw her friends entering a within twenty minutes. Raising the once sweating bottle of her first Sam Adams she slid along the booth to the very end as they joined her, filing onto the bench one by one.
"Thanks for the invite, Rowan," greeted Shelby as Caleb settled beside her, tossing his arm to rest along the petite blonde's shoulders.
Alex nodded from where she sat sandwiched between Simon, who was to Rowans left, and Ryan. "It's nice to get out with permission this time."
"No problem," Rowan shrugged nonchalantly. "First round is on me so I'll be taking orders, and would anyone want to split an appetizer with me?"
"Do wings sound good to anyone else?" Ryan asked, blue eyes skimming the placard on the table that advertised the pubs culinary options.
"Hot with bleu, extra celery," Rowan said absently as she used the pen from her purse to jot down orders. She failed to notice the raised eyebrows when Booth hummed his approval of the order and sat back. "What about two samplers?"
A chorus of approval sounded and Rowan huffed.
"Y'all do realize that there are three different samplers, right? Which ones am I ordering?" she questioned, pen hovering over paper. Receiving her answer after deliberation amongst themselves, Rowan gave a mock salute as she made her way to the bar to order, leaning against the counter top as she spoke with a pretty brunette who wore the pub's logo. Paying for the drinks and letting the brunette know they'd be splitting the cost of any food, she picked her way through the crowd touting a tray laden with beverages.
As drinks were doled out, Alex raised hers in the air. "To our first legit case," she toasted with a beam.
The sound of glass tapping glass echoed around their small group as variations of the toast were murmured before the first indulgence of alcohol was made. Nodding once as she tipped her bottle to her lips, Rowan savored the taste of her drink as she took another sip as she swallowed a swell of pride. To their first legitimate case indeed.
A/N: And there is chapter eleven :) Thanks for reading and as a side note Happy International Women's Day! -Alisabeth.