'I'm just a curious speck
That got caught up in orbit.
Like a magnet it beckoned
My metals toward it.'
"Jupiter" ~ Sleeping at Last
It's the newly instated leader of Team Six, Constable Hernandez, running their drill in the SRU stack house, so as to be an impartial judge of whether all those range and gym hours are paying off.
The fact it's her and not Jules or Sam or someone else from their family is either a comforting fact or a very bad one.
Spike's eyes flit between her and Ed, strapping on the last of his gear where they stand in the barren, frosted grass. No snow yet, even this close to December, and it's a mercy. The sensation of bone-gnawing cold is an ever present companion these days.
Some other rookies are being tested along with them, a catch-all drill for any SRU members needing assessment.
"Did they tell you?" he asks Ed.
"Nope."
"And not even Leah is here to—"
"Nope."
"No one?" Spike asks, stunned. "Not even a good luck?"
Ed at last slides on his sunglasses with a wry look for Spike. "I know when they're plotting something. For being so good at reading people, Greg is the worst at keeping secrets. I'll weasel it out of him eventually."
Spike shakes his head. He's finally moved back into his own apartment, but when he visited Greg's house this morning, before the big day, no one was there. Not at the Braddocks' either.
No one has texted him anything about the drill. He even pressed Winnie for details on what they'd be facing today.
Nada.
"My own wife and son are in on it," says Ed. "We'll find out when they're good and ready."
Despite the fact Spike has been given a clean—if tentative—bill of health from the toxicologist who flew in from the CDC and multiple doctors since then, he feels a roll of nausea. Usually one of the team is here to watch, to have their backs for reassessment.
It's highly suspect.
"Must be important," Ed adds, "for them to be absent for this."
Streamers still line the stack house, from their Halloween bash a few weeks ago. They'd transformed it into a haunted house for charity.
Spike eyes it, wary. "This should be fun."
Ed smirks. He loads paint balls into the barrel of a rifle clipped to his chest. "Think they left any skeletons in there for us?"
"If they did, I'm shooting them."
Ed hides his chuckles when Hernandez walks up, clipboard already in her hand. She spends some time with the rookies, their first time through.
Then she stops in front of them. "Are you gentlemen ready?"
"Let's do this," says Spike.
It's a simple formation: enter from opposite sides of the house, clear it out, and meet in the middle. It involves split second decisions on whether to arrest or 'kill' any targets they find, that are armed.
Ed is team lead for it, to see if his skills are sharp too. "Mic check."
Spike and the others murmur into their headsets.
"Alright. Fan out and take your positions."
Spike does so, glad he's been directed to a spot, the window, where he can still see Ed about to breach the front door. Ed's turned slightly at this angle, allowing Spike to see a scar at the very base of his skull.
Small, a stretched sphere—like the whorls on a galaxy.
A head scar is not something Spike thought he would ever have in common with the sniper, but it's fitting, somehow.
"Get ready to breach!"
Spike brings his own rifle up to eye level and waits for the countdown, just like that day at the tailor's shop. His heart misses a beat.
"…Two…one…Go!"
"SRU! Guns down!"
Spike's through the door and it's familiar, as simple as breathing. He shoots two men with 'weapons' and cuffs another three before he even makes it to the burned out kitchen.
There is, indeed, a skeleton. Spike shoots it when one of the rookies isn't looking.
"We've got one hidden in the closet!" comes a younger woman's call.
"I'm on it," says Ed. "Stay where you are!"
"Ed?" Spike lowers his rifle, now that he and some of the others have made it to the center command spot. "You need back up?"
No answer.
Spike's spine straightens in a strident motion. "Ed? Talk to me."
He's fine. This is a drill. The 'suspect' is a member of Team Six and probably just someone having a little fun. No one's going to grab him.
Only…Spike holds his breath and a thick line of sweat breaks out along his clavicle. He thinks about steel pipes and hidden alleyways and paint marked vans.
"Stay here," says Spike to the rookies. "I'm going."
"That's not part of the drill," argues a tall officer.
Ignoring him, Spike runs for the second floor, where Ed was clearing. It's empty.
There's a rooftop access, rarely used, and so Spike bolts up those stairs too. "Ed! I'm coming!"
This cannot be happening. Not again, notagainnotagain—
When he pushes open the hatch, he runs straight into Ed's chest, leading their red herring 'perp,' Hernandez herself, down the stairs.
Sniper and tech stare at each other. Ed responds viscerally to the frenzy in Spike's eyes, his other hand reaching out to grip Spike's shoulder.
"Good job," says Hernandez, not catching heavy look they exchange. "Most teams never catch my fugitive act!"
Ed returns to the present with a start. "Told you we were ready."
Hernandez unloops the faux cuffs from around her wrists and shakes their hands. "I'll have my final report tomorrow, but this is just a formality based on your other test scores. You're cleared for light fieldwork, gentlemen."
Once out in open air, relatively alone, Spike doubles over on his knees. A hand pats his back through all the gear.
"I'm fine, Spike."
"I know. Sorry."
"Don't apologize." Ed pulls him up and in for a quick embrace. "My heart was racing too."
"We'll be good."
Ed ruffles the sweaty hair. "Yeah, we'll be just fine come Monday morning."
"Is that a promise?" Spike squints up at him.
Deep, melting lines of affection crease Ed's face. "Every day. If you go out, so do I."
Spike breathes easier after that.
"There you are!" They turn to see Winnie jogging across the field, in a wool dress as it's her day off. "How'd it go?"
Spike beams, beholden to finally see someone here who remembered their requalification day. He's felt a bit put out, honestly. "You're looking at the reinstated members of Team One."
"That's amazing!" Winnie hugs them both. With an extra kiss for Spike, of course. "And yet I come bearing a message from Holleran."
Both men sober at the words and the tone she delivered them in.
"Bad news or good news?" asks Ed.
"I'm not sure." Winnie bites her lip. "I just popped into the station and he says he has to talk to you in the briefing room."
Spike's brows shoot up. "Now?"
"Like, now now. He says it's urgent and can't wait. Sorry, guys."
"Uh oh." Spike glances at Ed. "We can't have messed up already. We've only been cleared for five minutes."
Ed shrugs with that half smile. "Maybe he wants to congratulate us too."
"I can only dream of such luxury," Spike deadpans. "I'll catch up in a sec."
"If I'm dead, tell my wife and kids I love them!"
Spike and Winnie both snort, watching Ed head inside. Winnie slips her hand into Spike's. She's warm, glowing with the cooler weather, and yet Spike wonders why she's so fidgety at his side.
This whole saga has shaken her, obviously, but she's handled it with grace and fortitude so far, and he's physically fine now, so what…
A slow, knowing smile creeps over Spike's face. "Are they planning something?"
Winnie's eyes dart to either side. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Winnie?"
"Maybe."
He spies a piece of stuffing caught in her curls. "Does it have something to do with homemade food?"
Winnie deflates. "Oh man. I was supposed to keep it as some big secret. Greg's going to kill me."
Winnie's ringlets are frizzy, and they perfectly match the fizz bubbling in Spike's gut, surging all the way up into his nose. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"
"You have." Winnie saunters closer with a sultry look. "But it's never often enough."
She presses her lips to his in a dizzying rush of heat, and when she steps back, Spike feels a weight in his pocket. The gravity keeping his feet on the ground.
He blurts it before he can stop himself—"What if you could hear it every day?"
Winnie opens her mouth with that half lip curl, which says she's about to make a joke. Then she must see something in Spike's eyes, for her own blow wide.
"First thing in the morning," says Spike. "At lunch and at supper and at night and before every call and after every call and every time you laugh and at every single wink and…and always."
Winnie's voice is barely a breath. "Spike…"
He reaches for the planet inside his pocket. Spike takes in a full, huge breath, looking at this archery bow of a woman, ready to launch love and hope and light out into the world with such effortlessness.
When at last he exhales, he's already down on one knee.
