When You Saw Her With Him
-Case File 01.045, Status: Failure
Cali hops out of the shower feeling refreshed. She dresses slowly, enjoying the feeling of being clean and wearing something lighter than armour. As she gets clothed, she whistles tunelessly. The rest of Team One had their own mission early in the morning and were expected back any minute now.
She goes to close her locker when armoured stomping halts just outside. Cali sees Connie, face like a thunder cloud, in the one-way window set into the wall. The other woman's brown figure obscures the glow of the full Leader Board out in the hall as she reaches for the door. Wash chases after the other woman. His movements are jerky, as though he is trying to say something.
Acting on impulse, Cali shoves herself into her locker and closes the door until it is open the merest crack. A heartbeat later, Connie blasts in. The gold agent hears her estranged friend flop heavily onto the bench. Something is jabbing into the redhead's back painfully. When Wash enters noisily she shifts into a more comfortable position.
"It wasn't your fault, Connie," he says, standing behind her.
"Easy for you to say. You didn't drop the ball," she spits. Connie hunches her shoulders as if to block him out.
"The ball got dropped," objects Wash. "We were all there, it's everyone's responsibility."
Clearly their mission went well. Cali stops herself short of sighing.
"Damn it, why are you doing that?"
"What am I doing?" he asks in surprise.
"Making excuses for me. I'm not making excuses for myself, so why are you?" Connie explains in a hard voice.
Cali knows that, whatever their differences, whatever their reasons for breaking up so long ago, Wash still cares for the frustrated Freelancer moping in front of him. He sees her upset and just wants to help pick her back up. Apparently the mission didn't just go badly, it took a wrong turn and ended up at Shitsville.
"I'm trying to make you feel better," Wash replies. He seems uncertain now, wary almost, of Connie.
"Yeah? Great. Hey, how about you go make Carolina feel better," the brown agent suggests cuttingly. "Go pat Maine on the head, see how that works for you."
Wash spreads his hands soothingly. "We all make mistakes."
"No, we don't," Connie retorts. She is getting angrier by the second and leaps to her feet. She spins to face her teammate. "That's the point. We don't all make mistakes. Some of us very specifically make mistakes and others don't seem to make any at all!"
Wash glances down at Connie's hands, balled into fists around her helmet. "Connie, come on…"
"That's why they're doing this." She refuses to be placated, voice rising. "These missions, the rankings? They're drawing a line between us, Wash. And you're either on one side of that line, or you're on the other." She looks away and adds quietly. "It's getting pretty clear which side I'm on."
"No one thinks like that," argues Wash sensibly. "We're a team."
Connie shakes her head. "I'm not talking about you guys. I mean them . Him."
"The Director?" Wash defaults back to confusion. "he's given us everything. He's helping us."
"Helping us? Wake up," shouts Connie in incredulity. "Wake the fuck up! He's filtering us! This is a selection process, Wash. I don't know what for, but if you're not at the top of that Board, you aren't worth anything to him."
He shakes his head and reaches a hand out to her pleadingly. "You're just overreacting. You've always been hard on yourself, Connie," he reasons.
"Not as hard as they are," she counters. Connie puts her helmet in Wash's outstretched hand. "Not nearly as hard as they're going to be."
Cali feels a ball of ice form in her stomach as the conversation wears on. Why didn't Connie talk to her before? Why didn't she trust her? She stifles a frustrated shout and squeezes her hands into fists to keep silent.
Connie stalks a few steps toward the door. "Oh, and don't call be Connie. It makes me sound like a fucking kid. Call me CT." She lets her shoulders drop. "And that line I talked to you about? You had better hurry up and figure out what side you're on, Agent Washington," she sneers, "before they figure it out for you."
After she is gone, Wash sighs. He sets the brown helmet down and shakes his head. "You can come out now, Cali." His voice is flat.
She wiggles free of the tight space. She strides over to him. "Just give her some time."
"I'll apologize after lunch," he says with a nod. "Do you think she's right? About the Board?"
Cali chews her check as she ponders the question. "I don't know. I mean, it makes sense from a certain angle. But her angle is the Incompetent Team Member. Imagine always screwing up missions in front of Carolina."
"She didn't screw it up through," he protests.
Cali shrugs. "She certainly thinks she did. You know how she is."
"Yeah. I do know." A cold undercurrent soaks into his voice.
"Let's grab something to eat, I'm hungry."
XOX
After a frosty silence at lunch, Cali decides to give Connie and Wash some time. She and DC go to the skate park to meet York. The three spend an hour going over Grifball strategies in the large room. It rarely gets much traffic, so they get to be as loud as they want. Eventually, they get silly and collapse, howling with laughter, to the floor.
At some point, York dares Cali to try to run all the way through the loop-de-loop in the back of the room. She agrees to at least try and only makes it about a third of the way before spinning and stumbling back down.
DC tries next. He puts a helmet and knee pads on before pacing out his run up. He flashes Cali and unsure look. DC throws himself almost all the way up the loop before falling back.
"Come on, how hard could it be?" scoffs York.
Cali pushes him in front of it. "Go for it."
DC gets up and makes shooing motions at Number Two. He and Cali wait patiently as York prepares. He takes a long run up and nearly makes it before bailing.
Wash walks in, face pale, just as Cali and DC jump on the downed agent.
Cali glances at him and feels her good mood scurry off to play elsewhere. "We should go," she says apologetically to the others.
Wash takes her hand and follows, half in a daze. They wind through the passages of the Mother of Invention until they find a quiet corner. She sits down and pulls him onto the ledge beside her.
"What happened? What did she say?"
"I…" he trails off with a helpless shrug. "Con – I mean, CT didn't even talk to me."
"What?" she shrieks. "Why not?"
"Well, she – she was, um, busy with – with, uh with a video call," stammers David. He jerks out another shrug.
"Who was she talking to?"
He takes a full three minutes to scrape together a cohesive thought. "The Charon leader."
"No," whispers Cali. She can't believe it.
Connecticut? A traitor?