Just when it can't get worse, I've had a shit day (NO!)
Have you had a shit day? (NO!), we've had a shit day (NO!)
I think that life's too short for this, I want back my ignorance and bliss
I think I've had enough of this, blow me one last kiss.
Pink - Blow me (one last kiss)
Friday 16 September 2011, Bellevue Hospital, Seattle
Fear can be an insidious and all-consuming beast, with tentacles that extend into the farthest reaches of your being, leaching and strangling until it becomes impossible to move. It's an emotional state I pretty much tried to leave behind in my childhood, when I lived with the fear that both of my parents were about to check out on us, abandoning Kate and I in the aftermath of their overwhelming pain. At that tender young age, I set about making sure that my life and Kate's was as free of fear, as possible. Taking control of our environment, taking control of my own emotions, taking control of our futures, and teaching myself to keep a respectful distance while troubleshooting every possible outcome. Risk management, learned as a seven year old trying to hold the people in my life together.
Then Mia came into my life and fear took on a whole new meaning.
Mia, so full of life and love, so ready to take risks for those she cares about, so damaged and doubtful. Sixteen year old Mia was ready to step up to the challenges of her own life. And if I hadn't seen that strength in her, I'm not sure that I would have been able to say goodbye. But she stepped up to her own life when everything should have crumbled. Maybe its because, in spite of their many flaws, she had strong role models in her mothers. Maybe its because Bratva blood runs deep. Maybe its because any other choice was simply unacceptable.
Whoever said that courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something is more important that fear had never fallen in love with a woman like Mia Grey. If I was all about avoiding fear through risk management then she was all about standing up to fear by throwing herself in the deep end and that was how we ended up fighting for days leading up to the kidnapping. My fear battling hers.
Danir had tipped us off with that photo. Hyde had obviously set his sights on Mia long before his attempt to kidnap Ana had been foiled by Brendan Ryan. And, if we're right about that photo, Mia probably made herself a secondary target the day she stopped him from destroying Grey House and the GEH servers. As soon as Ryan fed us further intel from Elizabeth Morgan's phone records and revealed that Lincoln had posted bail, we pretty much knew what was going to happen. If I had had my way, the prick would have been stopped before he started.
Going anywhere near any of Christian's subs would have been enough of a parole violation and he had clearly been following Suzi and Leila when they visited Ana at SIP. But Mia wanted him off the streets with a charge he couldn't fight. She wanted him to succeed so that the police could put him in jail and throw away the key. I was pissed that she would put herself at risk. Christian would be pissed that she put Ana and the baby at risk. I couldn't fault that thinking on his part and for that reason, Christian can never know what she did.
Losing Mia hovers in the back of my brain, haunting and threatening like a looming migraine threatens a stroke victim. Every move feels like it could be our last. I always hoped that if it came to risking lives, I would be the one in the firing line. Although my family might become collateral damage, it isn't me that Lincoln is out to destroy. One Grey at a time. One Grey at a time. Eenie, meanie, minie, mo…which Grey will be the first to go.
She's asleep again. Having confronted her brothers in the hospital waiting room and confessing to Elliot and Kate some of the many secrets they didn't know, I had brought her back to her room, exhausted. A few more hours of sleep and then she wanted to check out. I wanted her to stay. Something was wrong. Something she was refusing to talk about but I knew. I knew what had happened in that apartment, with that prick, and if he ever set foot outside his guarded room, I would kill him. Mia knew that, so she was keeping her secrets, holding it all in. Protecting me when I should have been the one protecting her. She didn't want to leave for herself, she wanted me out of this hospital.
Thursday 15 September 2011, Seattle
It took less than forty minutes for the FBI to take control of the scene. Almost as soon as that happened, Jensen and I gained access and it didn't take a fucking genius to see the room for what it was. The chair, bottles of water laced with drugs, tape. The bed. Clothes on the floor, her ripped underwear amongst the stained sheets, screaming at me.
Rory and Brendan hauled me out of there as soon as they could, delivering me to the hospital where Mia had been sequestered with a counsellor. They wouldn't let me see her and I couldn't make anyone believe that I was her husband. After two hours of arguing the point with some harridan in sensible shoes, I ran into Mia's mother standing in the corridor reading her daughter's chart, red-eyed and stoic, who also handed me the professional line that only family could be admitted. I never thought I would call Grace Trevelyan-Grey a bitch and I don't much care if she forgives me or not. It was only the threat of security that made me stand down and find another way. The only person who didn't know enough to try to block me. Elliot. So I called my sister and begged her and her boyfriend to help me get into the room and Grace, god bless her, had the good sense not to make a scene when they made that happen.
Friday 16 September 2011, Bellevue Hospital, Seattle
Now I keep vigil by her bedside, watching her while she sleeps and flicking through the data we have on Farad, Volkov, Danir, Ong, Lincoln, Gelovani, Elena, Hyde. Every contact, every rap sheet, every possible connection. I forgo the details and focus on faces. Hundreds of faces circulating as I commit them to memory. The process is soothing when every other aspect of my life is fucking falling apart.
The hospital release Mia within a day and we go back to the Treehouse with Kate and Elliot because it's what they expect us to do but we can't stay. We need to talk. We need to fight. We need to cry. We need to bleed this pain out on the floor between us and hope to god that we can heal. And that's about where the fear kicks back in. My professional training, tells me that what I have to do is going to blur the boundaries with what I want to do. Objectivity has become a little fickle and Hyde is like a trigger ready to take me down. That's the problem with crimes of this nature. Everyone you love becomes a victim.
Saturday 17 September 2011, Seattle
As day breaks, Mia wraps herself in a blanket, using baggy sweats as a body armour. She's under the protection of my WSU hoodie, the one I left her with when she was sixteen that still overwhelms her frame. Fragility dances around her in pitiful circles, chipping away at her frozen veneer but each still breath reveals the heated strength of her core. I have no doubt that she is going to get through this but it frightens me to consider at what cost.
Oblivious, her mother brings her sweet tea and painkillers, attempting to tend to the physical. Meanwhile, her father has barricaded himself in his study, yelling at Elena down the phone, as if any of this can be taken away. I hover, unwanted in the mix. The professional in me knows that this is not an uncommon reaction. The husband in me rails against the shut out. No one else knows her body as intimately as I do and he has destroyed that for us. The thought of her not wanting to be touched again wars with my need to hold her tight. But then that would only be dealing with my own pain.
"Your brothers are going to be worried about you." Grace speaks into the chasm of silence. Having retreated for the last hour, she doesn't broach the doorway. I know she is waiting for my invitation to cross the threshold. She fucked up. I'm glad she knows that. "Mia? What should I tell them?"
Mia looks around, a little dazed still. "I…I just need a little time. Tell them you don't know where I am."
Grace looks at me, unsure of what to do. I nod. She doesn't look happy but she leaves the room, I suppose to do exactly that. Keep everyone at bay with more untruths. We're all getting really fucking good at that shit.
By the time night falls, I'm sure that Mia is going to kick me out. I've done nothing but watch, she's done nothing but stare. We haven't spoken about any of it, her absorbed by the fading view of the lake, me sinking my eyes into the back of her head, playing the role of guard dog because that is all that is left to me. Without a word, she stands and walks into the bathroom, locking the door. I hear the water, I hear the tears, they last for almost an hour. Thank god for gas water systems. I want to break the door down but it won't help me with the wall around her pain. She needs this space and it's fucking breaking me in two.
Finally, she emerges, dry-eyed, fully dressed in fresh sweats and climbs under the covers without a word. After she's settled, I make my way over and sit on the opposite side of the bed, letting her feel the weight of me but not getting close enough to touch.
"We need to talk."
This is greeted with silence that lasts for a few minutes. I wait. I can at least show her patience even though this nothingness is ripping me apart.
"Not yet." Which I suppose is better than not at all. I'm about to remove myself and head downstairs to the lounge when her hand reaches out. "Lie down with me."
It's such a small request, with big meaning. I don't want to do anything wrong. I don't want to miss this moment either. Tentatively, I lie down, fully clothed, on top of the blankets, my body spooning hers, and I reach out an arm to wrap her against my chest. She complies, her body soft but strong. None of the shaking that I expected to feel. We lie like that all night, neither of us sleeping nor truly awake.
Sunday 18 September 2011, Seattle
"What day is it?" The cracks in her voice shatter the silence of the dawn.
"Sunday." The police took statements yesterday morning, before we left the hospital. Rory will want to debrief but he'll have the good sense to leave that for another day. I'm going to make it my job to ensure that we are working on Mia's timetable. It's about all I can do to get us through the next few days, weeks, months. If that means we've fucked up the mission then so be it. Rape won't trump terrorism forever, but it does today.
"There are some things I'd like to do today. Will you help me?"
Do they include breaking into Hyde's room and ripping his heart out through his scrotum? Just as I think it, I feel the vibration of my phone in my pocket. Taking it out, I see a text from Rory. "Hyde's being transferred today. Remand cells. There'll be a hearing tomorrow but he'll be back in State by tomorrow night." I don't have to say it. Mia's mission was a success. Hyde will stand trial for rape, assault, extortion and kidnapping, eventually. Right now, they're putting him back inside because of parole violations including breaking the NVO that Christian had put in place for Ana. They're throwing the book at him, one charge at a time. Break out the champagne.
"Good." She doesn't offer anything else. We dress and eat quickly, or at least we fake it for Gretchen who hovers around us. We're keen to get out of the house before her folks can stall her with words of wisdom and more sympathetic looks. I wouldn't mind the opportunity to address the elephant in the room but we're running this show on her timetable. Conversations will happen when she's ready.
"Where to?"
"Let's pick up the bike." Half an hour later we're speeding along Aurora Ave heading toward Fremont. I haven't asked why and I'm riding pillion, trusting that whatever we are doing will help her work it all out. Finally, she pulls in to a shopping strip, bringing us to a careful halt.
All I can do is follow and trust. She seems to know exactly what she is looking for as she heads directly to the door of a shop. I'm so focused on her that I'm not really paying attention until we get inside and are greeted by a girl with multi-coloured ink over every surface of her arms and shoulders. She has that pin-up girl chic that makes her look like a 1950s rocker's wet dream and her wide smile is so infectious that even Mia responds. That small tight grin gives me the first real ounce of hope I've had for the past 36 hours.
"Hi. How can I help you?"
"I was hoping that Paulie would be here." That absolute certainty in Mia's voice stops me in my tracks. Who the hell is Paulie?. Impossibly, the girl's smile widens.
"Sure." She walks to the curtain covering a door that leads to the back and calls out, "Paulie! You've got a visitor."
After a few grunts and the scrape of a chair we hear, "Yeah, yeah. If this is more of your bs, Angela, I swear I'll…" A tattooed behemoth makes his way through the curtain, wiping what looks like breakfast off his hands and stops mid-stride, eyes wide and mouth wider. "Mimi?"
Mia chuckles. "How you doing, Paulie?"
"Fuck. Get over here, girl." I'm all for a happy reunion and shit but she walks straight into that fuckers arms, when she won't even look me in the eye, so I'm ready to incinerate him in his Docs.
"Hey, Paulie." And then there's that. The soft rasp of her voice as if he's the fucking answer to her prayers.
"What are you doing here, girl?" He steps back, spreading his arms wide so he can get a proper look at her, I guess. I don't know if I'm more pissed at the way he seems to think his arms belong around her or the way he's looking her up and down like he wants to lick her. I growl and he does a double take but Mia barrels on as if nothing is wrong. As if I'm not going to go down on all fours and bare my teeth.
"I need your mad skills, dude." She pulls out her phone and swipes across the screen before handing it to him. After studying for a moment, he rubs his fat mitt through his greasy hair and turns away for a moment. She had spent an hour or so playing with her phone yesterday. I figured she was gearing up to call someone, her brothers, Rory, the cops. I guess I was wrong.
"Damn, girl. You sure about this?" The look on his face says he's hoping this is a joke. Mia doesn't budge. Just stands there with her hands folded across her chest and stares him down. "Fuck. You know this isn't just any sort of ink, right?"
No words. The look on her face says it all. She's not stupid and she knows exactly what she's doing. My soul freezes when I see that look. I know exactly what she's doing, now, and I'm pretty sure I want to throw her over my shoulder and risk a major ass kicking rather than see her go through with this.
"Mia…" Her hand comes up to silence me. The messages are loud and clear, flying through the air like errant missiles between us. She's doing this, with or without me. I'm begging her to reconsider. She's claiming back her body the only way she knows how. I think she's wrong but I'm backing down because it's the only way I can show her how much I love her.
"We doing this?" She directs her question at Paulie but doesn't take her eyes off me. Paulie, bless his four day old, sweat-soaked, cotton socks, has worked out that I'm the guy she came with, even if she's chasing her own dance partner right now.
"Let's go." Pin up girl lets out a whistle as Paulie guides us back into a booth. Inside, Mia walks over to the chair and Paulie gets out his supplies, preparing to ink my woman. I think of all the men who have branded her emotionally over the course of her lifetime. I was one of many who left an invisible scar on her heart. Her father, her brothers, that fucker in jail. I would have liked my branding to be the deepest, the one that she would connect with love and a long life together. Instead, in true Mia style, she's having the last word on who gets to brand her. Fighting back tears, I settle down in a chair beside her, out of Paulie's way but close enough that I can hold her hand and look her in the eye while he works on her. Our gaze never falters while I let her know that I support her. After an hour, he puts the final touches on the nautical star on her left shoulder.
"Thanks, Paulie. One more thing." She flashes another picture his way and lies back to give him access to her body once more. "Same side, just below, near my heart."
"Mia, you should probably come back for this." Paulie is clearly uncomfortable which makes me curious about what she has chosen. I see a pale purple butterfly that looks like it could be an open lilac flower. This time I have to look away for a moment, brushing my stinging eyes with my thumb. I turn back to her and she's looking at me with the kind of defiance that says, 'this one is for you, babe. This one is for us. A giant fuck you to anyone who says otherwise.'
"No. Just do it." He sighs when I smile, knowing that I'm not going to challenge this one, either. Another half hour and he's reproduced it perfectly at the top of her left breast. It looks red and sore and fucking perfect.
I pay Paulie while the girl takes Mia through after care.
"Dude. She's one tough chick."
"How do you know her?" It's none of my business, and I'm not even sure I want to know, but I can't control the question. Dude just put my brand on her. I should know a little something about him, right?
"College, man. We were both loners, me because I was the resident gay and her because some ass broke her heart and she'd gone dark. We bonded over Grand Theft Auto and chai latte. How about you?"
I barely pause. She trusts this guy with her body. Who am I to challenge that kind of connection? "I'm the ass."
He blows out a breath between his teeth. "She's fucking special, man. I don't know what shit she's dealing with to turn up on my door step, right now, but if you hurt her again, I will ink that shit all over your pretty boy face."
"I'm her husband. I love her. And if today helps her deal with that shit you're alluding to, then I'll be back to get one of those butterflies inked on my ass." He chuckles as he hands me back my card.
"I'll look forward to it, man." Mia steps in to get another careful hug before we leave and this time she lets me take the lead so she can protect her shoulder.
"Where to, Shalunya?" After she gives me the instructions, I head south toward Tacoma.
After winding through the docks she directs me toward a container wharf. We pull in behind a building, out of sight of the regular traffic but where we can see the action. The ship we're watching is out of Turkey. Nothing out of the ordinary judging by the rest of the movement across the wharves. Most of the cargo appears to be off the ship and I have no idea what it is she is hoping to see.
"Hyde talks too much. He took a few phone calls while he had me tied up. I may have been floating but I got the gist of what he was saying. Somewhere down here is a container with a dead body in it and a truck load of C4 explosive destined for one of the GEH properties. I've got no idea which container, whose body or which property but I guess we can assume that Lincoln is out to do maximum damage to Christian, yet again."
"Fuck, Mia. We need to get people down here stat." I'm about to pull out my phone to call Rory but she stills my hand.
"We could be combing this place for weeks and not find what we're looking for. The only way to find it here involves bomb dogs and a warrant."
She's right. We mount up and ride out, heading back to share the intel with Rory. Which would have been fucking heroic except that the Director and whichever judge he's paying stalls, leaving us with 24 hours to climb the walls and just enough time for Lincoln to do the unthinkable. The best we can do is live and satellite surveillance but the amount of traffic, in a busy port like Tacoma, is insane.
Monday 19 September 2011, CIA Safehouse, Seattle
Our luck breaks late Monday night. Five Lincoln Corp trucks arrive on the wharf to load up. There's no time to set up a road stop so teams follow; three to developments, one south to Portland and the other back to Lincoln Timber in Richmond. By three a.m. we're still trying to work through the intelligence while a small team of field agents start sneaking around the five delivery sites undetected.
"Two of those developments are ones that Elliot's company is going to be involved in. Are you sure Lincoln isn't going after Casey-Grey Construction?" We're all standing over a map in the operations room. Mia is exhausted and her frustration at Jensen's question is clear in the set of her mouth.
"I don't know. Maybe. I assumed he said Grey that he meant Christian," she bites back. Worry has me powerless. She's refused to discuss the assault any further with us and since we've been holed up here at the safe house the better part of two days, she doesn't have to deal with any physical closeness with me. Since the movement of the trucks has taken our focus, we're all forced to sweep it under the rug until we can find that IOS container.
"How are we going with missing persons?" Rory directs his next question at me. I've been working with another agent to go through all of the police reports from the past two weeks, looking for any leads. People go missing all the time and any one of half a dozen in the greater Washington area could be inside that container so we need to make some sort of link. There has to be a reason why Lincoln would discuss the body with Hyde but since Mia is a little hazy on the details, we've got very little to work on so we've also been putting the feelers out to get sightings of all of our main Farad network around the world.
"None of the key players have gone to ground. Unfortunately." I'd love to get a message that Volkov or Danir have suddenly disappeared but they're both being tracked, as we speak. "No one connected with the club has been reported, either."
"Keep working on those membership lists. We need to know who the John Doe is before their remains get spread over the Western seaboard," Rory says to me. "Mia, what do we know about the ship."
"The containers came off the Turkish freighter. Port of origin was Odessa, and it stopped in Jeddah, Denpasar and Guangzhou before crossing the Pacific." There's nothing unusual in the route except that all of our majors have access along the way.
Tuesday 20 September 2011, Seattle
We keep working into the early dawn hours of Tuesday when we get a field report in to say that the container at Lincoln Corp has been transported to a dispatch centre and transferred to different trucking company. Our field agent finds out from the dispatcher that there's been a last minute driver change and from the licence paperwork he sends though, I manage to identify a couple of Lincoln's known Bratva associates. It's enough.
It takes more time to track the truck and then coordinate our team with the bomb experts. When we come screaming up to the private mansion property that Christian has recently bought as a gift for Ana, the sun is well and truly up and we see the container still on its trailer sitting in the middle of the main drive turnaround. A construction team is making its way around the back of the property while Elliot's foreman, TJ is pacing back and forth on his cell, waving paperwork in the air. It would have stood to reason that the bomb would be intended for a business interest but no. Lincoln wants that body where it can implicate Christian. The bonus would be having Elliot and his building crew here working. Lincoln must have known that someone, preferably the boss, was going to want to know what was in the crate. Once we saw it on the satellite, we mobilised a team to get up here but Elliot had to put his big fat foot in it just as we arrived to save the day.
In that way that agency acts first and asks questions later, every car stopped at some arbitrary safe zone and every agent poured out of their vehicle while simultaneously pulling their weapons. Fucking cowboys. Consequently, what happened next was not surprising but could have been avoidable.
Elliot is up on the trailer, about to stick is nose where it clearly doesn't belong. Jensen calls out to him, to try to stop him getting any closer but that isn't the most likely reaction is it. Elliot's facing us, his face in shock, reacting to the 'stop right there' and the sea of barrels pointed his way and he justifiably puts his hands in the air and takes a step back. No one has their safety off. No one has the need to do it now. So we all hear the click, loud and fucking crystal clear as Elliot's foot hits the detonator plate and for the next few seconds, you know those ones that feel like hours, you could have heard a pin drop.
Elliot looks down at his foot in confusion and it mobilises me while every other agent is quietly and metaphorically kissing their own ass goodbye.
"ELLIOT! DON'T MOVE!" He looks up at me, still confused and I'm figuring that dropping the gun might cause him to relax so I hold my ground and make it fairly fucking clear that I mean business because if he moves a muscle right now, I fucking pull the trigger and shoot the bastard where he stands before my own ass goes up in smoke. "I mean it, bro, not a fucking muscle. You keep perfectly still. Feel me?"
When I know I've got his attention, I relax my shoulders and start to move forward. I know that Mia is in the car behind me. I'm guessing that the symptoms of PTSD have reached a whole new level for her as she watches her own brother dealing with his mortality. I'm kind of glad that she hasn't gone gung-ho and leapt out of the car.
"Man, I promise you don't need to shoot. I don't know what this is about but I promise you I'm unarmed except for this tool belt which I will happily remove for you." I want to laugh. Only Elliot would think this was about him. The guy has such a complex about what he sees as his criminal and sordid past, as if anything he has ever done was ever unwarranted.
"No need, bro. Gun's not for your lily white ass. Who delivered the container?" At this point, I'm glad that Jensen is letting me take the lead. I can sense he's given the signal for everyone to hold their positions. No one wants to be the idiot that startles Elliot into lifting his foot. I just want to keep him talking long enough to get closer and check what we are dealing with.
"That would be Masons." Another voice, TJ's, calls out, drawing every gun in his direction. Jensen holds out an arm to stop the trigger-happy. Not that it's necessary. These guys are agency, not cops.
"Sir, stop where you are." Jensen slowly and carefully takes out his badge, flashing it in TJ's direction. He walks over to TJ and briefs him, quickly and efficiently. I turn my attention back to Elliot.
"Elliot. Bro, I need you to be real still, feel me?" The stunned nod shows me he knows a little of what is going on but his next question shows he needs some confirmation.
"Is it…?"
I nod. "Yeah, I think so but I'm gonna need you to keep real still while we check. Looks like you might be standing on a detonator of some sort. Until I can take a look you are not to move a muscle, you hear me? You so much as fart and I swear my last move will be to shoot your balls off. We clear?" More nodding and no more questions tells me he might be about to go into shock so I need to reassure him, even when I'm not sure there is any fucking hope that he's going to get out of this alive. "Good."
Now that I'm sure he isn't going to move, I start checking around the trailer, getting underneath it as far as I can to see what we have. To tell you the truth, it isn't good. I have to tell him what is there so he can understand why moving, even an inch right now, is not going to win him friends or influence people.
"From what I can see there are 6 x 1/2 pound Semtex blocks located under the trailer and on the door. It's a rush job, the wiring is barely hidden. Whoever did this either wanted to get in and out fast or was disturbed before they finished." I've stepped away from the trailer and opened up my comms line, letting everyone know what we're dealing with. It's enough to mobilise everyone and I can hear the orders to pull back and set up the safety cordon.
"They certainly wanted to hit whatever is in that trailer. That's a serious amount of explosive," he responds. I'm kind of glad that Elliot doesn't know what we're really dealing with. Telling him about the corpse is probably something that can wait. Jensen is evacuating everyone and I know that Mia is suiting up. As much as I want to keep her out of it, I know she's going to want to check Elliot for herself.
"I'm gonna climb up there, man, so no dancing."
"Dance card's all full, sunshine. You sure you want to come closer. I'm not confident about my anti-persperant."
"Yeah, well, I'm not getting up there to sniff your armpits, so we're good." Giving him a physical once-over allows me to suppress the abject fear of standing up here on top of a bomb that had the potential to turn Christian's new mansion into a giant swimming pool.
"So, CIA, huh? Never would have guessed that one. Explains why you're such a sneaky bastard."
Just as I'm about to respond, Mia arrives to tap me out. I don't want to go. I don't want to have her anywhere near this shitfest. But protocol means that I need to suit up and she's simply doing her job. Taking care of business. I leave the platform and head over to where Jensen is organising the evac of Elliot's crew.
"The medical equipment is in the van. Get Norris to help you move whatever you need to the blast zone. I'm sending a team underneath to document the set up for Mehta when he's ready and there will be another team sent around the rear to see if there is a way to get that body out without blowing you up." Jensen is all business and no fucking empathy. Any breach of the trailer might trigger the bomb and he knows it.
"You do realise that's her brother up there? We should be trying to replace the weight on the plate and getting him the fuck out of there." I'd like to punch Jensen in the face just for fun. I guess he and I are never going to be best buds.
"Our job is to secure the site, collect whatever evidence we can and diffuse that bomb. If we can. I need Mr Grey to stay exactly where he is until I can get that done. Your job is to keep him psychologically and physically up to the task. Get your suit on and get your job done." Yep, truce over. He walks away without another word.
A team has set up a scaffold platform in front of the trailer using some of the construction supplies that TJ has supplied. It allows us to move around Elliot easily as we strap monitoring equipment on him and get him as comfortable as possible. There is no room to give him a way to sit down and it's not the best idea anyway. Anything that runs the risk of shifting his weight off the detonator plate would get us all killed. So I put the call in to make sure that I have the best advice on how to keep him upright and limber for as long as it takes to disarm this motherfucker. Then I send the other members of my team, including Mia, away.
I can't even give him the false protection of a suit but I figure a flak jacket might be reassuring. He's not an idiot. He knows that the jacket is not going to do diddly-squat if that wire trips.
"What, no space suit for me?"
"Nah, if the bomb goes off, a suit won't do much for you. Besides we're cutting costs." I figure it will pay to be honest.
"How come you get one?" Like I said, the guy is no idiot.
"Orders. Look, you need to stay cool, keep your body loose. You could be standing here for a while. You can't do that in one of these portable rubber saunas. If it will keep you calm I'll dress you in a fucking tutu with a feather boa so if you want a suit, I'll get one."
"Nah, all good. Maybe we can get into that kinky shit later. Promise to buy me dinner first."
"You've got it, bro." I laugh. This is the Elliot we all know and love. The one who will take the tension out of any situation with a quick and usually inappropriate joke. Gotta love him for it. I get on with doing the health checks as the team moves in to examine the trailer. Right now, I'm hoping that Mia gets herself back to the tech van or better off site. She's been through enough in the past few days so she really needs to leave it to the rest of us to get Elliot out of this alive. I'm so sure of this that when I see her and Tandy approaching TJ, I'm convinced that he's being moved to the safety zone. So when they emerge with a trolley full of welding equipment it takes a moment for my brain to catch up. Then I hear Jensen on the comms.
"Kavanagh. Satellite data has shown a heat mass in the trailer. Maybe 10-15 live vics inside." Jesus Christ. I look back at Mia. Elliot looks from me to her without any understanding, and I'm not sure what to tell him but shit just got really real. He's not just standing here to save his own ass. I'm going to have to keep him healthy enough to save 15 other unknown people who are trapped inside this giant steel firecracker.
"Fuck!"
A/N: Hi everyone, thanks for reading. Please donate your review so that unicorns can have the life they deserve. Apologies if this is patchy and full of mistakes. You can't have everything. And apologies for making you wait for two weeks - life regularly gets in the way. If you've read Going Grey, you will recognise parts of this scene. I always loved the banter from Ells and Ethan so I've kept it fundamentally the same.
Please enjoy. Please let me know the fixes that need to be made if you see them. Please be kind when you do it, I'm a delicate flower. Sasha xx