AN: Sorry for the delay. I intended to update a couple of weeks ago, but some extenuating circumstances came up and unfortunately, an update was not going to happen. I've also been working on another story, so that is
Anyway, here's part two of Rachel's first case with the team and there might possibly be a part three. Happy reading and enjoy the update!
"What?" the senior agent asks scowling, as she turns her chair to face the senior probie.
"Uh- well its, um...kind of complicated. But there may have been a murder." Sam stutters out as he hangs up the phone. Quinn sets her papers down on the desk and Rachel follows suit.
"May have been, Evans?" the blond asks as her irritation with the probie grows. Sam turns his chair to face his boss, making eye contact with the blond. He sees that the older blond is about to lose her patience with him, so he nervously brushes some of his shaggy locks out of his eyes.
"Yeah. Well, they have a Union solider who was dug up on a battlefield in Manassas. And now they think that he may have been a Marine." he finishes quietly.
Quinn rolls her eyes at the probie and picks up the papers once again. " It was the Civil War, Evans. Marines fought on both sides."
Sam stares at his boss quizzically for a moment, before realizing that his boss had the wrong idea.
"Right. I know that boss. But this Marine had dog tags. Those didn't exist back then." Sam rambles, receiving a glare in return. " I know that you know that, being a Marine and all."
Quinn throws her papers down on the desk and huffs. "Get to the point, Evans."
Sam looks around the room to see that Puck, Santana and Rachel all pretending to work, while hiding their barely restrained laughter at him behind their paper work. Puck with one of his hands behind his head, while the other hand was around his neck, mimicking choking. Santana, snickered behind her computer and shaking her head. And Rachel, at least had the decency to have her hand covering her
mouth while looking on at him sympathetically. He gulps his nervousness down and makes eye contact with darkening hazel eyes.
"Well. They think that this Marine was killed recently, and um...somehow buried in a way..." Sam stops for a moment, trying his best to explain the situation better. "They can't quite explain it, but in a one hundred and forty year old sarcophagus."
"Dressed as a Union solider?" Quinn asks curiously.
"Basically, yeah."
The senior agent nods at him and reaches into her drawer. She tosses the probie a set of keys. He stands up and stumbles about to catch them before finally gaining a grip on the key ring.
"Go gas up the truck, Evans." Quinn said while she stands up. The probie grabs his black backpack and makes his way out of the team's bullpen and to the garage. The three remaining team members follow her lead and stand up as well. She turns to Puckerman, who has his arms stretched out in the air.
"Puckerman!"
"Yeah, boss?" Puck asks smoothly.
"This is a murder in your expertise." Quinn says while grabbing her gun.
Puck looks in Rachel's direction with a cocky look in his eye and a smug side grin. While Santana stood behind him and pretended to gag. "This happens to me a lot. You know, being a senior most field agent and all."
He points in Santana's direction. "Lopez, as always, take notes and learn something from this. Maybe someday you too can be your boss' number second in command."
The brunette junior agent roles her eyes and turns away from him, feeling her headache grow stronger.
"I'm sure it does Noah." Rachel nods, humoring him for the sake of junior agent's ego.
Puck grabs his gun out of the drawer and makes a show of holstering it. He walks from behind his desk with his hands on his hips. A stern, yet arrogant glint appears in his eyes and Quinn does everything within her power not to put him in his place. At least not yet." What do we got boss? Multiple homicides?"
"Nope." the senior agent shuts her computer down.
"Gang related?" Puck asks hopefully.
"Nope."
Puck's smirk turns into a slight confused frown. "Defenestration?"
Deciding to put her second in command out of his memory, she looks up at him and smirks.
"The Civil War." Quinn says simply, shaking her head at the man as his face completely droops to a frown. He slumps his shoulders and grabs his backpack and walks over to the bullpen's entrance. Agent Lopez follows right behind him and places a sympathetic hand on her teammate's shoulder.
"Great. I can't hardly wait. It's my favorite subject after all." Puck mutters to himself while sticking his hands in his jean pocket.
"Aww Puckerman you were right. I did learn something from that." Santana reassures him with a wide smile. The mohawked agent looks down at her and smiles.
"Really?" he asks hopefully.
"Yeah." Santana said gently. " I learned that you can kiss your delusions of grandeur goodbye. And that there is no way that you will get a promotion before Evans and I. Hell, even Berry has a better shot at moving up the ranks than you do."
Puckerman frowns and pushes her hand away. He scowls at he and stomps off to the elevator to the sounds of Lopez's laughter.
Meanwhile, Quinn grabs her backpack, slings it over her shoulder while ignoring an awaiting Rachel. She moves around to the other side of her desk and is ready to leave. It is only when she hears the new hire coughing that she looks in her direction. The senior agent turns around to find that the brunette has her arms crossed over her chest and tapped her heels patiently.
"What about me?" Rachel asks. "What do you need me to do, boss?"
"I don't need you to do anything." Quinn says sternly. "Because you are going with us, strictly as an observer. Hand over your weapons, Berry."
Rachel turns around and goes into her duffle bag and takes out her black blazer. She reaches into the inside pocket and pulls out her Sierra. She takes the magazines out of the weapon and hands them over to her new boss.
When she's done, Quinn raises a sculpted eyebrow in her direction. "I'm sorry if you misunderstood me the first time Berry, but I when I said to hand over your weapons, I meant all of them and not just your service. I want your back up piece too."
Rachel rolls her eyes, but relents anyway. She places her leg in the chair and rolls up her left pants leg to reveal a well toned, tanned leg with a black holster wrapped snuggly around it. She pulls out a silver sixty-sixth Smith and Wesson revolver and takes the six bullets out of the chamber.
"Your other backup piece as well." the senior agent says knowingly.
"What back up piece are you too?" Rachel asks innocently, putting on her puppy dog eyes for the blond. Unfortunately, it had little to no effect on the stoic blond.
"You have a revolver in your left leg and a smaller one on the inside of your right leg."
Setting it on the table, Rachel looks up at the senior agent shaking her head, causing her to huff. She removes her left leg out of the chair and puts her right leg in its place. The brunette does the same thing to her right leg that she did her left and pulls out a smaller revolver. Glancing up at the still dissatisfied senior agent, she sighs.
"The large knife concealed at your waist. Right side." Quinn tells her.
Rachel widens her eyes at the senior agent, not believing what the blond was asking. Going out into the field without any form of protection was preposterous to her. Sure, she would be fine if worse came to worse. The brunette could always use her hand to hand combat training. But going out into the field unarmed was completely insane.
"You can't be serious Agent Fabray?" Rachel tries to argue.
"Completely serious, Berry. I never joke around." Quinn says causally, holding her hand out for the knife.
Knowing that there was nothing that she could do to change the senior agent's mind, she reluctantly reaches into the right side of her waist and pulls out the large knife. The brunette drops it into her awaiting boss' hand, only to have Quinn hand it back to her.
"You can keep this." Quinn tells her, with a small smile playing on her lips. " I just wanted you to know that I know."
When she's done, the senior agent walks away from her desk and out of the bullpen entrance, leaving the perplexed and annoyed probie behind. After a few seconds, the brunette shakes her head and picks up duffle bag and moves as fast as her Jimmy Choos will take her to catch up with her boss.
12:30 pm
Smithsonian Institute, Manassas
Dr. Corcoran, with her light brown locks in a pony tail. She is wearing a blue jumpsuit with the word 'Examiner' in white letters, steps through the grass and over to the grey oblong shaped casket and reaches inside of the corpse's green overcoat. She pulls out the dog tags out of its hiding place in the dark blue overcoat with her translucent blue tweezers and examines it.
"According to his dog tags, this poor young man's name is Warren Sorrow, USMC." Shelby said, turning her head in Quinn's direction. The senior agent, who was holding a DSLR, takes a few pictures of the tags to log into evidence.
"How long has he been in there, Shel?" Quinn asks as she lowers the camera to her chest.
The medical examiner runs her fingers along the petrified jawline of the corpse. "He's remarkably well preserved. Could be months or even years."
She removes her hand and glances over at the senior agent, who moves in closer to take more pictures of the Sorrow's body. "We'll know more once we get him home."
The senior agent then moves up to the chest area of the body and snaps a few pictures of that.
"You know, in the seventies, grave robbers raided a southern colonel's cast-iron casket?" Shelby asks with her pointer finger and thumb rubbing her chin. "They took his weapons, jewelry, and for some strange reason, the poor man's head."
Quinn looks up from the camera as she moves over to the man's head, and stares quizzically at the medical examiner.A part of her wondering where in the world Shelby got her crazy stories and factoids from. While the other part of her didn't want to know at all. Either way, this story could kill a couple of minutes of time while they collected evidence.
"When the local authorities found the one hundred year old, decomposing corpse, they assumed that he was recently decapitated, and opened up a murder investigation." Shelby finishes with a shrug of her shoulders. "By the way, how is Rachel doing on her first day."
Quinn shakes her head the the medical examiner's ability to randomly jump from one extremely morbid topic to a completely normal one. It was no wonder some people in the office who didn't know her as well as she had, called her Queen of the dead. She moves closer to the top of the sarcophagus and takes a few pictures of Sorrow's head.
"This guy still has his head." Quinn said and the camera flashes. "And we're not local. I want to know how this guy died." The camera flashes once again as Quinn moves to the left side of the casket.
"And Berry's doing fine, considering the circumstances. Lopez hasn't killed her yet."
The senior agent continues to take photos of the crime scene, that she did not see the tall, tanned and handsome man in his mid forties approach her from behind. He had jet black hair with wisps of grey along the sides and he was wearing a white lab coat on top of his deep brown slacks and expensive leather loafers.
" I can help you with the cause of death." the man says in a Cardiff accent.
The senior agent and medical examiner turn around, noticing the man for the first time. He extends his hand out to the blond agent and smiles politely at her. But he focuses all of his attention on the stunning medical examiner.
"Dr. Corcoran." he says, taking her hand into his. He leans down and kisses it lightly, causing the medical examiner to blush. "What a pleasure it is to see you again."
The senior agent is tempted to laugh at the flushed face of her colleague. And if they weren't currently working a case, she might have done just that.
"Yes it is. How are you?" Shelby says politely, while trying to recall where she'd met him before.
"Dr. Aaron Burns." He says, not letting go of Shelby's hand. "We met in Hawaii almost-oh- eighteen years ago. The conference on identifying P.O.W. remains in Vietnam."
The medical examiner's eyes widen, vaguely remembering what conference he was talking about. Her old professor had asked her to be a keynote speaker at this conference and the brunette readily agreed after hearing where the location for the event was. Shelby recalls spending more time at the bar and on the beach than her actual speech.
"Yes, of course. It's wonderful to see you again Dr. Burns." Shelby said as she looks in his crystalline light blue eyes and suddenly remembering who he was.
He flashes her his brightest smile, with a hint of red tinting his tanned skin. "I-uh still have that puka shell necklace you gave me."
Dr. gorgeous baby blues.the medical examiner cheekily remembers the man in front of her. The medical examiner flushes harder as she specifically recalls the events of the last night of the conference and the nonchalant promise to keep in touch afterwards.
"Yes." Shelby said flirtatiously, flashing him her best smile. She didn't even notice that the senior agent had stopped taking pictures long ago and stood stewing at the two doctors in front of her. "They are quite the...keepsake, aren't they?"
Quinn stood there with her arms crossed over themselves glaring at the doctors. Normally, she would be thrilled for her friend finally having a social life outside of work. But at the moment, the body of Warren Sorrow is currently in that sarcophagus, for who knows how long. The only thing the senior agent was interested in is how he got there and who was responsible for putting him there.
Deciding to put their love connection temporarily on hold, Quinn turns to Dr. Burns and interrupts the two doctors' silent conversation. " Do you have any information on how this man died, Doctor?"
Looking away from stunning medical examiner, turns around and smiles politely at the rather rude senior agent. "Yes. Ms?"
"Special-Agent- In- Charge, Quinn Fabray, doc." the blond says annoyed, already over being anywhere near this doctor.
"Right, Agent Fabray. My apologies." Dr Burns corrects himself. " We took liberty of imaging the corpse before we knew for sure that we were dealing with an actual homicide and not some sick hoax."
"Meaning you disturbed my crime scene?" the senior agent says with her eyes narrowed at the doctor and her final judgement made. If there was one thing Quinn hated more than bullshitters is people who mess with her crime scene. Unfortunately for Burns, he fit both of her criteria of people that she can't stand. Shel, could do so much better than this clown.
Mike Chang, Shelby's assistant, chooses that moment to come in with the body bag. He quickly waves to the medical examiner, who politely waves back. When he gets to the senior agent, he awkwardly sidesteps the blond, who gratefully, pays no attention to him. He covers Sorrow's body up with a white sheet. He then lifts the body up and places it into the bag.
The doctor briefly looks at the senior agent scandalized, which is something the blond agent sees and makes it a point to file away for later. To his credit, the doctor is able to recover quickly and reverts back to his pleasant self. " As a forensic anthropologist, I can assure you that my examination was noninvasive."
The anthropologist walks over and turns the monitor and shows a live picture of Sorrow's decaying head. He then points toward an area of the head that the medical examiner and senior agent can't quite make out.
"There. Now, I've seen several images like these in the past, but you can't be certain until you get it out."
Mike looks up from his work on Sorrow's body.
"Get what out?" he asks, the assistant's curiosity getting the better of them.
Dr. Burns crosses his arms over himself. " In my opinion, it's a musket ball."
Shelby stares at in disbelief as she watches him turn the monitor off.
What a first case back on the job. Maybe I should have taken a little more vacation time after all. Quinn muses quietly to herself as she watches Dr. Corcoran and Chang place Sorrow's body in the bag.
On the storage side of the institute, Rachel found herself shaking her head as her three new colleagues, took selfies of themselves with a big stuffed brown bear. Santana, who was leaning on the bear, pouting her lips, intentionally making them look like duck lips, while her eyes stared up at the ceiling. While Sam clicked away, using the camera that they were supposed to be using to photograph evidence with.
As Puck stands in the middle of the bear and sticks his head inside, the new agent can't help but regret her decision to ditch Shelby and Agent Fabray to go with the team. On the drive to the Smithsonian, Santana and Puck told her that because she was the new probie, she had to sit in the back with the equipment. Unfortunately for her, Santana was the one who enthusiastically volunteered to drive on the way there. She spent the last twenty minutes in the back, being tossed around and bumping into the various equipment that they had back there. Needless to say, she thought the junior agent had done so on purpose. It was Santana after all, who gave her the black NCIS cap that was currently on top of her head. That also had a nine millimeter bullet hole at the top of it.
When they arrived, Rachel found herself lugging all of their equipment inside, since she wasn't actually investigating. Today, she would serve as the three most senior agent's glorified gopher and she was none too happy about it. She wanted to do something and actually take part in the investigation. Anything that didn't involve sitting back and watching Puck stick his head in the bear's mouth.
As Sam takes a few more pictures, Puck looks over at the new probie and frowns. He moves his head away from the bear and watches as Santana wraps one of her legs around the bear's stomach. He then runs his hands through his strip of hair and makes his way over to Berry.
"Come on Berry! Stop being such a sour puss and get in on some of this bear action."Puck said as he ruffles her hat. She moves away from him and slaps him on the chest.
"Tempting but I think I'll pass." Rachel huffs as she straightens her hat once more. "I don't think this is exactly what Quinn had in mind when she instructed me to observe."
Puck gasps, causing Santana and Sam to stop what they were doing to look at the senior most junior agent. The other junior agent rolls her eyes at the new agent and looks away from them. She had done everything in her power not to throw one of these artifacts at Berry
"Do you have any idea how many people are killed in America by bears every year, Berry?" Puck asks pretending to be slightly offended.
"No, I don't." Rachel said impatiently giving the senior most agent a pointed glare. Puck slowly moves his arm away from Rachel's shoulder, feeling a sudden chill around the former Mossad agent. "But I can't imagine a lot."
"You'd be surprised." Puck says as he makes his way over to Santana and the bear, just as Sam was taking the picture. He towers over her head and makes a face into the camera and then placing two fingers above Lopez's head. "Evans?"
Sam lowers the camera and stares at Puck. "Uh. I think it's about one."
"Lopez?" Puck asks, turning to the agent in question.
"What the probie says. He's usually right, most of the time when it comes to geeky factoids that nobody cares about" Santana says briefly before placing her hands around Puckerman's head and claws it. While Puck closed his eyes and frowns.
The probie places his eye back into the camera and clicks away. He looks on the screen of the camera's menu and goes over to the self timer menu. Sam sets it for ten seconds and kneels on the floor by the brown bear's feet. Santana moves away from the bear's arms and leans on his arm. While Puck stands on the right side of the bear and gives it a one shoulder hug.
"Isn't there something more constructive that we could be doing?" Rachel huffs impatiently.
"Like what Berry?" Santana replies, facing the new agent. "Holding your hand and babying you through protocol?"
Rachel turns to the other junior agent, who rolls her eyes at the new probie before ignoring her again.
"No, investigating."
The three field agents stare at Rachel incredulously for a moment before breaking down into loud, rambunctious laughter. The three senior most agents spend the next few minutes laughing at the new recruit, that they did not hear the footsteps of their boss' black combat boots approaching them.
Rachel turns to the approaching senior agent and smiles at the blond, who now had her hair tied up in a pony tail under her black NCIS hat. Before her neutral expression turns into a hard glare as she watches her agent's goofing off, the senior agent tips her hat at Rachel and nods politely, stopping in front of her.
Quinn turns to her laughing agents and takes a deep breath. She glares at them and has to repeatedly remind herself that Jesse would be pissed if he had to replace a majority of her team on her first day back. The blond agent puts her hands on her hips and narrows her eyes at the site.
"Puckerman! Lopez! Evans!" Quinn shouts, scaring the three agents out of their laughter. The camera flashes, capturing a picture of the three agent's stunned and confused faces. Just as Sam rolls over onto the floor, while the two junior agents scramble into the circle that Agent Fabray and Berry have started. A few seconds go by before Sam is finally able to stand up and brush the dust off his jacket. He places his arms at his side and stands stiffly at attention. "Report!"
The senior agent turns and points in Santana's direction. The junior agent put her arms behind her back and looked down at her shoes in shame.
"Casket was uncovered by a housing project going up near Bull Run battlefield in Manassas, boss." Santana tells her nervously. Quinn looks away from her and sets her chastising gaze on Puckerman.
"Got the name and address of the construction company, scheduled an interview and soil test for tomorrow." Puck said nervously. " The only thing removed from the casket was one cellphone, damaged and nonoperational."
The agent in charge finally turns to Sam, who was flushed a beat red and has started sweating bullets. She gazes directly into his eyes and the poor probie tries to look anywhere other than his boss' direction.
"I've also got the prints of the lab workers to work against any we find on the body and tomb." Sam stutters nervously as he reaches into his pocket and retrieves the bagged cellphone. He holds it up to his boss and waits for her to take it from him. "And Dr. Burns was wearing surgical gloves when he picked up this."
The senior agent takes the cellphone from his slippery grasp and quickly examines it. When she raises her hand, the probie prepares for the slap to the back of the head. But he is pleasantly surprised when he feels the boss pat him on the shoulder.
"Good work." Quinn compliments the team, but is looking at the terrified probie. The senior agent couldn't help but feel elated at the fact that in spite of her month long hiatus, she still had the ability to scare her team straight.
The blond agent turns to look at the new recruit. "Anything to report, ?"
The brunette in question, sticks her finger into the hole of her hat and wiggles it.
"No, just had one question." Rachel said looking at the hole skeptically. "Why is there a nine millimeter hole in my cap?"
The whole team finds themselves snickering at the recruit and the senior agent gazes fondly at the cap. She remembered the day at the shooting range two years ago, during Puck and Dani's ammunition's practice test. To help them with their respective aims, Quinn took the two things that Dani and Puck cherished the most. For Dani, it was her Iphone which served as her lifeline. Whenever they weren't working a case, Dani could always be seen texting away on the black cellphone. While Puck had his lucky black NCIS cap, that he had been using since his first day on the team.
The senior agent figured if their stuff meant that a lot them. So much so that two agents would do anything in their power not to hit their respective devices. At the time, she wasn't worried about Puckerman hitting her phone because he was secretly more afraid of Dani than he was of her. She was banking on his fear of the other junior agent to deter him from hitting her phone.
But when the mohawked agent stepped up to the platform to take his shot, she and Dani stood two feet away and watched in what felt like in slow motion, the senior agent being proven wrong. His bullet pierced a hole in the middle of her screen, damaging it beyond repair. When it was over, Dani turned around and hit both Puck and the senior agent in the back of their heads, hard. During her turn, she made sure to hit Puck's cap square in the middle.
After they were finished and the three agents left the range when they called for a case, the brunette held the senior agent back and said that as long as her phone was messed up, Dani would make sure that she paid for it and paid for it Quinn did.
The blond would spend the next three weeks on their old, uncomfortable couch that Dani had in her old apartment. To this day, the blond agent in charge was still working out the kinks from her time there.
"Ventilation." Quinn said simply, with a fond smile.
Rachel looks at the senior agent quizzically, but before she has a chance to ask the senior what that was about, the agent in charge's lips purse and her expression becomes stern once again.
"I'll escort the casket back with Shelby." Quinn says as she turns around and moves away from the agents. " We'll meet back up in the squad room."
Rachel takes a couple of steps forward and taps the departing senior agent on the shoulder.
"Agent Fabray." the new probie calls out. The blond turns around and raises an eyebrow at the new recruit. The brunette reluctantly stands her ground and tries not to step away from the senior agent's intimidating gaze.
"I would also like to know if I can drive the truck back to the base." Rachel says confidently. "Might make me feel as if I actually accomplished something today."
Quinn took a few moments to observe the glimmer of hope radiating in Rachel's eyes. She knew that it must be frustrating for the former Mossad agent to go from constantly having something to do and being at the top of her department to being demoted to a probationary agent. But at the same time all of the other agents, with the exception of Sam, had to observe on their first case with her. She couldn't give Berry special treatment just because she was a great shot. She needed to know that the brunette had the potential to quickly develop the investigative intuition needed for the job and this was the only way the blond knew how to determine that.
While she can't have the brunette doing anymore than she is right now, Quinn figured that she could give the new recruit a little bit of a break. Looking over to the other agents, she sees that the three of them were shaking their heads in the negative. Santana, with a pleading look pooling in her brown eyes, even mouthed 'hell no' to the suggestion. The blond looks away from them rubbing the back of her neck and sighs, making her decision.
"Evans! Hand the keys over to Berry!" Quinn shouts as Rachel's smile beams in her face. She takes one last look at the now horrified faces of her team, before making her way back over to Shelby, and the spastic assistant who's name she can't recall.
Her last hope as she leaves the four agents behind, is that she would still have a team left with Berry behind the wheel.
"Slow down!" Sam shouts in vain, as he is pulled forward in the back of the van. Thanks to the weaving and maneuvering that the new probie was doing, he has been to all four corners of the van twice in ten minutes.
Meanwhile in the front of the van, Puck is sitting in the passenger's side, clutching his armrest until his knuckles turned white. He was silently praying to himself that he would make it out of this van alive. If he does die, he hopes that God will overlook the fact that he skipped Temple last week to take a last minute trip to Virginia Beach with his visiting frat brothers.
Santana, who sat on the seat in between Rachel and Puck, glaring at the new agent, with her arms crossed and fighting the urge to strangle the other brunette, then toss her body out of the car. secretly terrified of spending her last moments on Earth with the smurf and the two stooges. That would have been the worst ending to an already horrifying day.
" I always drive this fast." Rachel shouts as she sharply turns the van around a curb. "It is the most effective way to avoid IED's and ambushes."
"You're not in Israel anymore, smurf!" Santana shouts as they hit another bump, while the new recruit cuts off a black Civic. The junior agent was hoping upon hope that Berry hadn't driven onto the sidewalk and hit a pedestrian. "You're in America now! That's not something that you need to worry about!"
Rachel turns her head and smiles at Lopez and Puckerman.
"How about this." she said sweetly, while putting her foot on the gas.
Lopez and Puckerman turn around at the sound of a loud thump coming from the back of the van.
"I'm okay back here!" Sam says through the door. "Don't worry about me!"
"We weren't." Santana mutters as she clutches the armrest, holding on for dear life.
Puck, using his hand to cover his mouth, scoots away from the seat and moves himself closest to the window. "Slow down Berry or I'll puke all over Lopez."
Santana quickly turns her head towards the mohawked agent and points in his direction.
"Don't you dare, Puckerman!" Santana hisses. " Hold that barf in or I swear, that'll be the last thing you ever do!"
Rachel chuckles a little as she starts to speed up once again. She flips the turn signal on and abruptly maneuvers her way into the next lane, nearly missing the blue Taurus by a couple of centimeters.
"So Noah," Rachel says, turning around to face the greenish looking junior agent. "Why don't you like the Civil War?"
Brown eyes glare tiredly at the new recruit, while he's simultaneously trying to calm the two day old burrito from this morning.
"I don't want to talk about it." Puck said as he crossed his arms over himself.
"It's because of his daddy issues." Santana says casually. "You should understand what that's like Berry. With your father being Captain hard ass and all."
"Screw you, Lopez." Puck sneers angrily, turning to face the other junior agent. "When was the last time you actually had a conversation with your father that didn't involve him paying for your crap! I'm starting to think the guy doesn't even exist and that your mom had to use a turkey baster to conceive you!"
Ignoring the biting remarks that the two agents have exchanged with one another, Rachel looks at Puck with pity through the van's mirror.
"That's understandable Noah." Rachel said sympathetically. "Father's can be very difficult to relate to. Especially when they're world class jackasses."
She watches Puck smile at her and Santana roll her eyes. The junior agent opens her mouth wide and gags at the two of them.
"I got along with my old man just fine." Puck said glaring at Santana. As long as he stayed away on business or with one of his girlfriends of the week, we were cool. The only time we ever had any issues was whenever he decided to come home and play daddy again. Broke my younger sister Hannah's heart whenever he had to leave again.
He turns away from the two agents and stares out the window longingly. He remembers all the times his younger sister would go into hysterics when the bastard had to leave again. She clung to his pants and begged him not to leave them. To be a family like all the other kids at her school had. Puck always hated the guy for the emotional roller coaster that he constantly put their family through. Mostly, he hated his father for not being there for him when he really needed him to be. The mohawked agent swore that once he settled down with his own family, that he would always be there for his kids no matter what. Even if it meant giving up his position at NCIS.
Rachel smiles gently at the mohawked agent.
"Whatever you say, Noah." Rachel said sympathetically. She turns around again and smiles brightly at the road. " Personally, I think it's best to talk about your feelings instead of burying them deep inside yourself. Bottled up emotions can be very unhealthy, especially in our line of work."
"What about your father, Rachel!" Sam asks, as he sits himself up on the edge of the window. "What's Deputy Director Berry like after hours?"
The smile on Rachel's face drops and her mouth widens slightly in pause at the mention of the deputy director. After the Brody situation, the former liaison has had no contact with the man in question. He's called her several times and left dozens of voicemails for her, but she has yet to respond to any of them. She wasn't ready to talk to him after everything he had done and Rachel certainly had no intentions of forgiving the man anytime soon.
Seeing the look on Rachel's face drop, Santana smiles deviously as she turns around towards Evan's direction.
"Oh yeah Evans, I'm sure Director Berry is a great guy and a real treat." Santana said sarcastically. " Teaching his daughter how to kill people in cold blood and pimping her off to a sociopath is something a real stand up guy like Berry would do. Wonder what he's gonna do with Beth when she's old enough to learn how to hold a crossbow properly? Teach her how to rig up a bomb and infiltrate the FBI to become exactly like her old man?"
Rachel's grip on the wheel tightens and her eyebrows scrunch together. She could take Santana's barbs about her with a grain of salt. But the latina junior agent crossed the line when talking about Beth and Hiram. Even though she currently wasn't speaking to the man in question, he was still her father. And no one had the right to talk about her family as if they actually knew what they were like.
Instead of confronting the other junior agent about her behavior, she does the next best thing. She puts her foot on the break and steps on it as hard as she can, sending the agent in question head first into the back of her seat. Sam is once again thrown into the very back of the van and this time, it takes a while for him to get back up.
Santana sits forward and rubs her head.
"Damn it Berry! Slow down!" Santana barks at her. Rachel plasters on a fake smile for the junior agent.
"My apologizes Agent Lopez." Rachel said cheerfully. "Thought I saw a squirrel crossing the highway. Turns out it was an old boot."
Agent Puckerman wraps an arm around his stomach and sinks lower into his seat, wishing that they were back at the naval yard already.
"We're taking the next left." the mohawked agent grumbles.
Rachel flips on the turn signal and starts moving over into the left lane just as the blue convertible in the next lane starts moving into the lane that they are going into.
"Car Rachel! The car!" Sam shouts from the backseat as the speeding convertible gets closer and closer. Thankfully at the last minute, the blue convertible is able to get into another lane before it crashed into their van.
Puck leans over, facing Santana, and starts hurling onto the other junior agent's shoes. The brunette's eyes and mouth widen in shock. She feels her hands begin to shake as the brown liquid begins to seep into her boots.
"Pull the damn van over, Berry!" Santana shrieks at the new recruit, as the mohawked agent's vomiting gets worse. " PULL IT OVER NOW, PROBIE!"
When the opportunity presents itself, Rachel manages to pull over into the lane farthest away from the highway. It takes fifteen minutes to clean out the puke off of the van's carpeted floors. Santana took off her boots and socks, leaving them in the grassy area by the highway. They managed to get Puck out of the car and laid the sick agent down in the back of the van. Sam took the wheel while Santana rode in the passenger seat. Rachel took the junior agent's spot in the cab.
As they took off, Santana crossed her arms over herself and glared at the new recruit with a scowl. Rachel shrugs off the steaming agent's attitude and looks away from her scrutinizing gaze.
"Sorry." Rachel said apologetically. " First time behind a wheel after a six-month mission in the UK."
Santana looks away from the new recruit and grunts in response.
"I said I was sorry, Agent Lopez."
"Say another word to me Berry and I swear I will throw you out of this van."
2:30 pm
Bullpen
The five NCIS agents sat on or around their perspective desks, facing the flat screens in the middle. They watched as Sam approached the middle of the room, with his laser pointer in hand.
"We ran his prints through AFIS." Sam explains as he uses the pointer and aims it at one of the flat screens behind him. "It is confirmed."
The image of a fingerprint and of a white and tanned, blond haired man with a jarhead cut, in his mid thirties dressed in his formal Marine uniform. He was placed behind a blue background with an American flag on the left side of him.
"Our union solider is Staff Sergeant Warren Sorrow. An MSG instructor at Quantico."
Puck, who changed into one of his spare, short sleeved black shirt after getting sick in the other, stood with his arms crossed. He turned his head to Rachel, who was standing behind him and covers his hand over the right side of his mouth.
"MSG stands for-" he starts to explain in a hushed whisper, but is interrupted by the new recruit.
"Marine Security Guard." Rachel whispers back knowingly, with an eyebrow raised. She looks at the junior agent to see that he was looking at her in surprise. " I've been to over two dozen embassies around the world, Noah."
Quinn, who stood over by her desk with her arms crossed and her eyes seemingly on Agent Evans, looked over at the two agents talking quietly. She noticed how close they seem to be and for some reason, she didn't like it. The senior agent has known Puck for nine years and outside of the inappropriate comments and propensity to be an airhead at times, he was an okay guy. She also knew of his well documented habit of dating his female coworkers, mainly the secretaries and the occasional agents in other departments. Most of those relationships ended badly after three dates and she would receive calls from angry agents-in charge about how they had to transfer some of their best people because of Puckerman. Since Berry is here now and apparently for the long run, Quinn did not want to have to replace her because things with Puckerman went south.
The senior agent made a note to herself to review rule number twelve with Puckerman.
"What do we have on the staff sergeant Evans?" Quinn says loudly, enough to startle the two agents whispering to themselves. She watches as Puckerman takes a few away from Rachel, who brushes her pants before turning back to Evans. When the blond is sure that the two agents were now paying attention, she turns back to Sam.
"Reported UA about a year ago." Sam said as he twirled the pointer between his fingers. " Currently building a profile of what his life was like before his disappearance."
"Not anymore." Quinn says as she steps away from her desk. " I want you with Tina. Find out what was on that cellphone in the casket."
The agent in charge turns to a sitting Santana and Puckerman. She points her pointer and middle finger in their direction. "You two are on the paper trail. I want to know everything about him by the time I get back."
She reaches over her chair and throws the leather jacket over her shoulder. Quinn turns to Rachel, who is looking a little too eager at her. "And you. You keep observing, you're doing a good job with that."
The senior agent walks away from the gapping new recruit and is about to exit the bullpen until she hears footsteps rapidly trailing behind her.
"Observe what exactly, Fabray?" Rachel says agitated with her arms crossed over herself.
"You think I care?" Quinn replies impatiently. "Whatever it is, just do it quietly."
The senior agent doesn't give Rachel a chance to say anything more before she is out of the bullpen and on her way up the stairs.
Rachel huffs and stomps back over to her temporary desk, regretting her decision to come in today. In between playing gopher for everyone else on the team, Santana's back handed comments and Quinn treating her like an office ornament, the former Mossad agent wondered if she would have been better off staying there instead of transferring to an agency where she is obviously not welcomed or wanted.
AN: Well that is the end of that chapter. The next one should wrap up their first case and once again, I am sorry for the delay. I have the next few chapters outlined and ready to go. But as I said, I have two other stories that I'm working on as well, so I might be able to update this every other week or so. Hope you enjoy this chapter and stick around for the next.
Until next time...