"Helena, you're practically skipping, what's got you in such a good mood and on a Monday of all days? Have they reinstated you?" Leon asked when he ran into her at the DSO. "And who's this stylish fella?" he asked and leaned down to greet Junkhouse-Charlie who stood dutifully at Helena's side, a red bandana loosely tied around his neck, a detail Hunnigan's son had insisted on after having seen a dog on TV wear one. She introduced the dog to Leon who gently ran his hand over the dog's head.
"I came here to see about doing desk duty," she said. It was beginning to seem that Doctor Wilkes had no intention of clearing Helena for field duty any time soon, and she was quickly getting more than a little bored, and as boring as desk duty was, it still beat staying at Hunnigan's apartment doing nothing all day.
Correction, staying at home, she mentally revised herself, still not quite used to the thought. Granted, it had only been a couple of days since she'd given herself the permission to call it home.
"You can't be that happy about the prospect of desk duty," Hawke commented as she walked up to them with a coffee mug in her hand. Helena repeated the introductions with Hawke who also took a moment to greet Charlie, telling him she was certain her dog Grunt would love to meet Charlie and hang out with him some time.
"Good to see you," she then smiled and reached to give Helena a half-hug, to which she responded in kind.
"Likewise, and you're right, that's not it, especially since I apparently don't qualify even for desk duty around here nowadays," Helena said, feeling a ridiculous grin spread on her face, the expression contradicting her words. "I spent yesterday in bed with the most amazing woman," she sighed happily. It was a slight exaggeration, she and Hunnigan had gone out to the park with Seeley before taking him over to Major's house, and they'd taken a couple of long walks with Charlie, and done their everyday chores, but beyond that they hadn't left the bed.
"In bed? You told me you don't like sex," Hawke pouted and Helena rolled her eyes with a smile, aware of the quirked eyebrow Leon directed at her in silent question, obviously wanting to know why would Hawke know that detail about her. At least he had the common sense not to ask out loud.
"I don't, we didn't have sex, it was better than sex! We held each other and talked and kissed," Helena listed.
"Gross," Hawke smirked and pretended to stick a finger down her throat to emphasize her disgust.
"Don't listen to her, you deserve to be happy and in love, and I'm happy for you," Leon smiled sincerely.
"Thanks," Helena smiled back.
"And I'm just busting your balls, I'm happy for you too," Hawke chimed in, "but now the people want to know who is the mystery lady?" she added then and Helena hesitated. She had no idea if she was allowed to tell, she hadn't discussed it with Hunnigan. Knowing her, Helena suspected she would prefer keeping her personal life well-guarded from the office gossips. Fortunately, Helena didn't need to resort to outright lying because a sudden and a very loud yell drew everyone's attention.
"You did what!"
"Uh-oh," Hawke winced, seeming to have an idea of what had upset Hunnigan badly enough to start yelling.
"What's going on?" Helena questioned and Hawke made an uncomfortable sound.
"Well, a couple of weeks ago Skylark and I went to check up on a guy who got picked up by biosecurity officers at the airport. The suspect set off all the alarms but none of the tests available over there told them what exactly was the problem, just that there was one, so we went in and tried to question the guy but he wasn't talking, so...we had him moved to Shadow post...without clearing it with Hunnigan first," she explained.
"Oh, shit," Leon said and clamped his hand over his chin and rubbed his unshaven cheeks causing a raspy scratching sound. "That would piss Hunnigan off," he scoffed amusedly.
"I'm sorry, what, what is happening?" Helena asked, and Leon chuckled.
"Aw, listen to baby-agent here," he said and raised his hand with the intention to ruffle Helena's hair and she dodged and swatted his hand away, held up her index finger in front of him and gave him a death glare until he raised his arms in surrender and took a step back.
"Shadow post is what people like to refer to as a black site," Hawke elaborated.
"We...the DSO has a black site?" Helena frowned, then wanted to slap herself for almost stating that it was illegal but that would've been like pointing out that water is wet and fire is hot. It came as no surprise that the agency nicknamed "The president's sword" would operate above the law to some extent at least, or that everyone was at the very least willing to turn a blind eye to their indiscretions.
The only surprise here was that Helena genuinely had thought better of the DSO. In the agency's defense, that was on her; they hadn't given her any reason to assume they were better than the military or the CIA, but she had anyway. She'd thought they were above unlawful detainment, torture, murder...but evidently not. What made it worse was realizing Hunnigan knew, and evidently didn't shy away from going that far or turning to look away from the atrocities committed in the name of the ends justifying the means.
I'm not even sure I want to work here anymore...but what else am I supposed to do, it's not like anyone would hire someone with my track record, Helena thought.
"Yeah, we just came back to give a debrief of what's been done so far and get advice on how to proceed," Hawke said. Helena didn't ask for more details, certain that Hawke wasn't in a position to disclose any, especially not to her, the DSO's infamous and very publicly disgraced problematic rookie agent who'd by now spent more time on furlough than actually working.
The door to Hunnigan's office opened and Skylark marched out, followed shortly by Hunnigan. No one brought up the yelling from earlier but rather pretended they hadn't even heard it.
"Hey, uh, I was just about to go grab some lunch, you guys wanna join me?" Leon asked.
"I could eat," Helena nodded.
"Yeah, sure. What about you?" Hawke asked Hunnigan.
"Sorry, I can't right now," she shook her head as she walked past them, but took a moment to pet Charlie's head and then paused to softly touch Helena's upper arm while continuing on her way, telling her she'd see her later.
"See you," Helena smiled at her and noticed the way Leon and Hawke exchanged a knowing glance and a smirk.
After a short walk to the nearby diner, they were seated in a booth and making their orders, Charlie taking a spot under the table, settling to lay at Helena's feet. Once the waitress had gone to deliver the order, Hawke leaned her elbows to the table, pressed her palms together and made a steeple of her fingers, resting her chin upon it. Leon crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in the corner of the booth, grinning a little bit, and Helena barely resisted the urge to reach over and smack that look off his face.
"Where were we? Ah, yes, you were about to tell us who the woman you literally just slept with is," Hawke said and wiggled an eyebrow.
"Why would I tell you, I don't kiss and tell. And most importantly, why do you care?" Helena laughed and took a drink from the glass bottle of Mexican Coke she'd ordered.
"I just need to know if I was right, so all you gotta do is just confirm what I already know," Hawke said, sounding very confident in herself. Granted, with good reason, but Helena didn't want her to know that.
"And what is it that you think you know?" she quirked an eyebrow.
"That it's obviously none other than a certain tall intelligence liaison."
"How would you react if I told you that you're wrong?"
"I'd be disappointed in you for being a liar," Hawke said.
"I've known Hunnigan for ten years and she's never touched my arm or given me a smile as nice as the one she just gave you," Leon chimed in and Helena scoffed.
"Yeah, there's a reason women don't generally touch men like they do other women, and it's because y'all tend to think that it means we want to fuck you even if we're just being friendly, so sorry, but lack of physical contact with you means absolutely nothing," Helena said.
"She's right, you know," Hawke nodded and then turned her attention back to Helena, "but that said, Hunnigan isn't as touchy-feely with me, nor have I seen her be that way with any other female agent either."
"She touched my arm as she was walking by, that's not touchy-feely!"
"What about the breastmilk-incident?" Leon interjected and Helena gave him the most furious glare she could muster before proceeding to kick his shin under the table, startling him and Charlie.
"The what-incident?" Hawke blinked in surprise.
"She drank Hunnigan's breastmilk," Leon grinned evilly while rubbing the sore spot on his shin and Helena buried her face in her hands, wondering if she could convince Charlie to tear out Leon's throat.
"For the love of...No, I didn't, not in the way you're imagining it anyway! There was nothing sexual about it, she had some in her fridge when she was still breastfeeding her son, I thought it was just milk and put it in my coffee, I didn't know, okay, so stop making it sound filthy, you perverts," Helena groaned.
The waitress came by with their meals, and judging from the look on her face, she'd heard just enough the conversation to regret having heard it. Helena had never felt this level of embarrassment, not even when the notorious breastmilk-incident had happened.
"So, how's everyone doing? I see the agency is still running without me, disappointing but expected," Helena changed the subject as she dug into her chicken sandwich, cut out a piece of meat and gave it to Charlie before proceeding to take a bite herself.
"You know, same old, same old," Hawke shrugged.
"I am going to be off-duty for the rest of the year. And before you make assumptions, no, I wasn't ordered to, I've just got a ton of vacation time accumulated and I told Shepard he'd better give me time off or I'll ask for the overtime in cash instead," Leon chuckled and ate a chunk of the breaded catfish fillet he'd ordered.
"That sounds like fun, any plans?" Hawke asked.
"I'm going on a road trip with Claire, we're gonna ride across the country on motorcycles. I know it's getting a bit late in the season for that, but we'll head South, it'll be fine," Leon smiled.
"The same Claire you embarrassed by drunkenly screaming about that Neil-guy under her window?" Helena taunted, and Leon blushed.
"It's beginning to sound like you two have a lot of inside stories I gotta get in on," Hawke chuckled.
Helena waited for Charlie to get into the backseat of Hunnigan's Audi A4 and sat in the driver's seat once he'd settled into his spot.
Oh, right, horse-legs, Helena smiled a little when she realized she needed to pull the seat forward noticeably to be able to drive, and just as she did that, Hunnigan sat into the passenger's seat and in contrast to Helena's action, she hit her knee against the glovebox.
"God...damn it!" she hissed and rubbed her knee vigorously to ease the pain. "I knew that was gonna happen, why don't I ever learn?"
"Want me to kiss it better?" Helena asked and Hunnigan smiled.
"Maybe later," she said, adjusting the seat and opening her laptop, the main reason Helena was doing the driving being that Hunnigan wanted to keep working during the drive home.
"So, is there anything I can help you with?" Helena asked, started the car and began making their way out from the parking garage.
"I'm just...I have a gut feeling that something's not right about this case. I mean, this guy was caught with an unknown viral agent because he got pulled aside for a 'random' screening by the TSA," Hunnigan muttered.
"And?"
"And if you were attempting to smuggle a viral sample from Europe to the US, why would you choose a smuggler who would almost certainly get caught because of racial profiling? The racism is an open secret so if you want to successfully smuggle something in, get a smuggler who's the modern equivalent of the white housewife from the fifties," Hunnigan said, and Helena pursed her lips as she thought about it and sadly had to agree with Hunnigan's point.
"Did they actually find a sample on him?" Helena continued questioning, a theory beginning to form in her mind the more she thought about it.
"No, but he came in contact with something that's a major red flag."
"So, we don't know what the virus is exactly?"
"We don't, just that it definitely looks like a biological weapon, there's some resemblance to known substances but nothing we can pinpoint...which is troubling because it just means it might be a new mutation against which we have no vaccines," Hunnigan blew out a breath and ran her hand through her hair in frustration.
"I take it the smuggler hasn't said anything," Helena cleared her throat a little, already knowing he hadn't based on what she'd overheard earlier.
"No. I don't get it."
"Maybe he wanted to get caught. Or, the person who hired or coerced him wanted him to get caught."
"But why?" Hunnigan frowned.
"...maybe it's a trap. He didn't have a virus on him, maybe he's infected. Maybe he wanted to expose people at the airport or maybe he knew he'd be caught and the DSO or any other government agency is the target," Helena theorized.
"We've had him in custody for a couple of weeks now, he hasn't shown any symptoms," Hunnigan shook her head a little.
"We have, have we?" Helena muttered.
"What does that tone of voice mean?" Hunnigan asked.
"I just...overheard Hawke say the suspect has been moved to a black site. And...I just didn't think sending people to Shadow post would be something you'd do," Helena shrugged one shoulder.
"Please, believe me, I don't condone it, but sometimes—"
"Yes, I am aware of all the excuses, and I know, a little torture in exchange for countless of lives saved shouldn't even be a debate if you ask some people, but I don't like it," Helena interrupted.
"It's not torture, not the way you think, and I'm willing to—"
"—willing to do whatever the fuck it takes to end this God damn war!" Jane's voice crashed through Helena's mind out of the blue and for a few seconds she could clearly see the redhead's furious face in front of her as she had the day she'd yelled those words into Helena's face when Helena had questioned her humanity when she'd expressed her support for the soldiers accused of murdering civilians and planting assault rifles on the bodies afterward to make it look like they'd instigated the violence.
"—live with those things on my conscience if it means it was necessary and worth it," Hunnigan defended her view before turning her attention to her laptop, beginning to type out an email, undoubtedly to whoever was on location at the black site to let them know of Helena's theory.
Helena didn't comment, still debating whether to get into it with Hunnigan now or not. It would happen eventually, it would need to because Helena had no intention of just accepting it, but this perhaps wasn't the right time.
Helena pulled to a stop at a red light and sighed. She sincerely hoped the suspect had been tested properly for every known virus. Just because there'd been no symptoms didn't mean he wasn't infectious. Had the agent in charge of the field operation been anyone other than Skylark, Helena would've felt more at ease.
"Has it ever not been worth it? Is the DSO responsible for illegally detaining and interrogating people who genuinely hadn't done anything wrong?" Helena questioned despite herself and Hunnigan exhaled deeply, took her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose, a long silence hanging over them as Hunnigan didn't answer. The light turned green.
"I don't want to do this anymore," Helena said, deciding to spare Hunnigan from having to lie.
"What are—"
The next thing Helena knew, she felt herself being violently thrown to the left, a loud crash of screeching metal, breaking glass, and the hellish noise of a car horn blaring faintly registering before she lost consciousness after the impact, her head resting against the cracked driver's side window.