From: Lara Cassia
 To: Ingrid Del Rey

Subject: Mold

So here's the gist of it.
The mold appears to be based on a form of cordyceps that is generally used to suppress the immune system during organ transplants, meaning it can spread throughout the central nervous system so fast that the immune system doesn't have a chance to form an effective resistance before the body succumbs to the disease.
To stop it, you need to train your immune system to attack the infection, and to do that, you need to give it something similar to practice on (might be easier/preferable to use HLA markers rather than a strain of the actual disease). Unfortunately, each strain of the mold is modified to be unique to prevent this exact thing from happening, mass producing a cure or a vaccine that would shield from all the variations is difficult if not impossible entirely.
There is nothing more I, or the DSO can do at this point. I recommend sharing our findings with the WHO and the CDC, and working with them and the BSAA to find a way to counter this if there is another outbreak.

The email was dated over three weeks ago, Hunnigan hadn't had a chance to check her inbox since she'd been locked out from her email on her phone, and the agency hadn't issued her a new laptop to take home, and while her presence at the office was allowed, it was frowned upon. Today, however, she did have an appointment with Shepard, one she'd insisted on, not one he'd called her to in order to let her know he'd let her come back to work. He hadn't said anything at all, and Hunnigan wasn't sure how to interpret his silence.

While at the agency, Hunnigan had made a detour to her office to use the desktop to check her DSO-email, and set up an out-of-office-reply, letting people know they should call her if they wanted to discuss something. Shepard hadn't taken her encrypted phone away, allowing agency business to be conducted via phone if necessary, she took that as a good sign. Then again, it could very well be that he just forgot about it.

It was like him to forget to cancel someone's thousand dollar phone subscription, Hunnigan would know, she was the one who had to constantly handle things like that for him, especially when it was time to review agency costs. Yes, it was a job better suited for his personal assistant, or anyone else, really, but it had become painfully clear that no one else seemed to give two shits about the little things that would pile up and end up costing the DSO.

Days like this, Hunnigan was tempted to just let it all go hell, see just how well they would do without her, that would show them. But, her immature bravado deflated rather quickly because the disappointing truth was, they would do just fine. Shepard wasn't wrong when he'd told her she was just as easily replaced as anyone else if she started being more trouble than she was worth. The minor details regarding the agency's finances wouldn't amount to anything significant one way or another, Leon's minibar-expenses were higher than what Hunnigan saved the agency by paying attention to the little things.

"There's that Ingrid Hunnigan-brand of arrogance", Shepard said that one time. Same thing my mother accuses me of being. Is it funny or sad that it is my arrogance that has kept me from realizing just how arrogant I truly can be? Hunnigan wondered silently as she made her way to the director's office.

He offered her coffee, and when she declined, he asked if she wanted something stronger, and him thinking she needed a drink to get through this, or needing one himself to get through this was not something Hunnigan took as a good sign.

"I spent a lot of time just reading your reports until it was pointed out to me that I'm wasting my time because obviously you're smart enough to not write down whenever you do things that are borderline illegal," Shepard said, leaning forward in his chair.

"Is that why the investigation is taking so long, you wasted time reading my reports?" Hunnigan asked and he scoffed.

"I stopped looking at your reports, and started looking at everyone else's, and what I found was...an overall lack of discipline, a lack of investigative competence, a lack of leadership under your command. I'm seeing a lot of failure...and failure is not something I would normally associate with you, Ingrid," he said, leaning to his forearms, and for an uncomfortably long moment of silence, he and Hunnigan just stared at each other. Hunnigan avoided looking into his blue eyes; instead she stared at the spot between his eyebrows, a little trick that made the other person think you were responding to their gaze when you weren't.

"Care to elaborate?" she asked, and he sighed deeply.

"You have repeatedly failed to keep Kennedy in check. Helena Harper, an agent you vetted, was an accessory in President Benford's death. You omitted details regarding Harper's mental health and Kennedy's substance abuse from your reports, putting other agents in jeopardy by allowing one mentally unstable agent and one inebriated agent to operate on the field. Mister Patel died in your custody after infecting agent Hawke, neither of those things should've ever happened, but they did, and all we're left with is substandard investigative outcomes," Shepard listed and stood up, turning to look out the window behind his desk. He reached his arms back, clasping his wrist in his hand.

"But you know what the thing is?" he asked, turning to look at Hunnigan over his shoulder.
"I do not," Hunnigan replied honestly, and he turned to face her once more.

"The thing is I know you are better than that, which leads me to only one conclusion," he said, and Hunnigan frowned as she waited for him to tell her. She couldn't decide if he was enjoying this or if he was stalling because he didn't want to do this either, but regardless, he took his time to sit back down, dig into his desk drawer to pull out a bottle and pour himself a drink. He held the bottle up, silently asking if she wanted him to pour her a drink too, and she declined the offer with a shake of her head.

"And what is that conclusion?" she asked instead. He downed his drink and put the glass down.

"That it's intentional. An agent of your caliber doesn't make mistakes like this by accident. Certainly not this frequently. I have yet to determine what exactly was your involvement in some of the DSO's equipment being used without permission, and some of it going missing," he said, and Hunnigan barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

He knew what her role was; she'd used the DSO's satellite to track Helena, Hawke, and Ada in Dulvey, and she'd had her laptop and the relevant data stolen by Ada. What he was trying to determine was whether or not she could actually be charged with anything, because as far as evidence went, there was no way to confirm or deny anything.

There were no pictures or video of what she'd looked at using the satellite, merely a log letting anyone know the satellite had been repositioned. If you looked through it now, Hunnigan assumed you wouldn't see anything anymore, at least if the EPA had done its job and cleared the bayou. Or if the tanker was still there, that was all there was to see, just a wreckage. Shepard could personally go check it out, Hunnigan supposed, or he could send in an agent, but they wouldn't find anything new, and they certainly wouldn't find anything relating to Hunnigan directly. As for Hunnigan's stolen laptop, well, proving she'd given it away would be just as impossible as proving she hadn't.

"You know, I have been wondering about something, and the longer I look at your track record, the more I wonder."
"What's that?" Hunnigan asked.

"With your skills, you could be deputy director, but for some reason you're still only the head of Field Operations Support. Why is that?"
"I'm getting whiplash here, John; first you call me a massive failure, then you tell me you think I should be deputy director, which is it?"

"You'll recall I said I think your failures are intentional and superficial. Which relates to what I'm wondering about, why are you just an FOS agent?"
"Are you offering to promote me? Because that would complete the emotional rollercoaster ride I'm on because of this," Hunnigan said, and Shepard smirked.

"If I offered, I know you wouldn't accept."

It was true, she preferred being an FOS agent. She liked the action. She wanted to see the results of her work in practice, not as words and numbers in a report. She wanted to have a chance to make a difference, she wanted to help if she could. When there was an active operation, she could do something in real time; give tactical advice, offer alternative ways to approach something. Being the deputy director or anything above her current position would render her bored and leave her stuck reading reports of events rather than seeing them unfold.

"What I'm wondering is why. Anyone else would jump at the higher pay grade alone," Shepard said.
"I personally don't think it's worth having to wear high heels to work every day," Hunnigan shrugged.

"And I think it's because you don't want to be seen. As the head of FOS, you're just powerful enough to do the things you do, but also invisible enough for no one to notice unless they are specifically looking," Shepard said, and Hunnigan didn't have an argument to that because he was right. Hell, he wouldn't be looking at her now either if it weren't for one persistent asshole-agent who had decided to do everything in her power to complicate Hunnigan's professional life.

"If you're going to fire me, just do it already," Hunnigan growled.

"What I'm trying to decide now goes way beyond simply firing you, I'm trying to decide should I just wait for the dust to settle and reinstate you after, or should I hand you over to Internal affairs, let them decide if they want to give you to the department of justice," Shepard said sharply. "And before you speak again, I want you to think your words over very carefully, and I want you to remember that any other agent would've been tried for treason and jailed over less than what you've done recently."

"I haven't forgotten," Hunnigan muttered.

"Good. As for the rest, consider yourself suspended indefinitely, I will get back to you when I have decided what to do with you. Now, is there anything else, or can I get back to work?"

Helena threw a frisbee, and Charlie and Grunt both scampered after it, their claws leaving grooves on the ground. Charlie was the nimble one, but he was also the smaller one, leaving Grunt to be the one to easily capture the flying object. Charlie grabbed onto it while it was in Grunt's mouth and they tugged it back and forth for a moment before Grunt let Charlie have it and return it to Helena, who threw it again.

"You know, sometimes I think you have the right idea," Helena said.
"Handcuffs, whipped cream, always be on top?" Hawke asked, and Helena laughed.

"No, I meant not caring so much about the big picture."

"When did I say I don't care?" Hawke frowned as she leaned down and gripped the frisbee with both hands, shaking it left and right playfully as both Charlie and Grunt pulled on it, both of them working together to pry it from her hands.

"In Dulvey, you said you don't bother obsessing over the details of your missions," Helena reminded her.

"Oh, yeah," Hawke said and let go of the frisbee, leaving Charlie and Grunt to wrestle over it with each other. "I take it Hunnigan isn't handling her suspension well," she then said and took a seat on the bench behind them, Helena joining her as their dogs played together.

"It took her almost two weeks to stop getting dressed for work in the morning," Helena said, and Hawke laughed. Helena didn't mention the part where she enjoyed taking her time undressing Hunnigan after it happened.

They hadn't made love since the first time, and Helena wasn't sure how to react to that because she had no frame of reference. On one hand, she was thrilled they'd managed to finally take their relationship to that level. On the other hand, she wondered what the expectations were for the future. Should she wait for Hunnigan to say or do something? Should Helena do something, could she even do something; just because she'd managed to focus once and had indeed enjoyed the sex didn't mean she was magically cured from her aversion to it.

The Internet had not been any help, the things said over there ranging from people saying they only had sex once a year to those who thought it was completely reasonable to dump someone if they refused to have sex with you at least three times a week. In hindsight, she figured it had been stupid of her to expect to find answers online, the overall average would hardly apply to her and Hunnigan anyway. Not to mention she knew better, she knew she should just talk to Hunnigan if she wanted to know something. It was just that...it was still kind of awkward and difficult to bring up.

"She's been obsessing over it. I mean, it makes sense. She helped build the agency, she's dedicated most of her adult life to it, and now it's been taken away from her. She tries to hide it, but I know she's devastated," Helena said.

"And you're stuck trying to solve the riddle of what went down in Louisiana because you feel that's the only way you can help her, but you can't really do anything because there is no intel, no leads, no nothing, and you don't even work for the DSO anymore," Hawke said, and Helena arched an eyebrow.

"That's too good for a guess."

"I may have been thinking about it myself, you know, when I'm not distracted by handcuffs and whipped cream," Hawke admitted with a grin. "Maybe you should try those to distract Hunnigan," she then suggested, and instead of coming up with a witty quip to respond, she blushed. That did not go unnoticed by Hawke.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God!" she gasped.
"What?" Helena frowned.

"Don't 'what' me, you know exactly what. Dish!"
"All right, all right, Hunnigan and I have...consummated our marriage."

"Oh, wow, so romantic," Hawke drawled sarcastically.
"What do you want me to say? We had sex. The end."

"I want you to tell me the details! Did you take video? I have Hunnigan pegged as someone who would record herself having sex but for educational reasons, she'd watch her performance and see how she could improve," Hawke said and Helena rolled her eyes at her.

Oh, hey, maybe she's onto something. Maybe the reason you haven't fucked since is because you were so bad at it Hunnigan doesn't want to waste her time going for another round, Sergeant Good suggested in the back of Helena's mind. Helena reacted by blinking in surprise at that because she realized it had never even occurred to her that perhaps that could be it. Now that she thought about it, it kind of made sense.

Hunnigan was confident, she knew what she wanted and could say it too, and she also knew what she was doing. Then there was Helena, who barely knew how to masturbate, and whose only previous experience of pleasing another person sexually was limited to what she had been forced to do, and while Sergeant Good had seemed to enjoy it, it was probably pleasure brought on by the depraved thrill she got from abusing her power, not so much a reaction to what Helena had actually been doing.
But, then again and at the same time, no, it didn't make sense. Hunnigan wasn't the type who wouldn't tell Helena what she was doing wrong; she'd bring it up and correct her, teach her to do it right instead.

"We had sex, I enjoyed it very much and I assume Hunnigan did too, no video was taken, and that's all the details I'm willing to share," Helena told Hawke.
"Fine, keep your secrets."

"Oh, I will."
"So, how's your own work doing? What's it like being a security guard at a hospital?" Hawke changed the subject.

"It varies a lot," Helena said.

There were days when all she needed to do was open doors, help move corpses to the freezers, and talk down someone whose final straw was the vending machine failing to deliver. At times it took some effort to remember that the people doing things like screaming at the nurses and spitting at Helena were only behaving that way because they were scared, because the only reason they were at the hospital in the first place was because they were having the worst day of their life.

Then there were the days when it was chaos; big accidents, big events that escalated into situations where people got hurt; sometimes all it took was a full moon. Helena didn't think she'd ever been exposed to this much foul language and bodily fluids before in her life, and that was saying something considering her history.

"But the weird thing is, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I mean, sure, I could do without someone flinging a literal bag of shit at me, but overall, I get to help people, and I love doing that."
"I don't know how you do it, I would bolt long before anyone even threw shit at me," Hawke shook her head.

"Yeah, I guess it's one of those jobs you really gotta have a calling for to want to do it," Helena chuckled.
"For what it's worth, I'm proud of you, buddy. And I definitely expect free check-ups when you're a doctor," Hawke smirked.

"I'm not gonna be a doctor."
"I expect a regular breast exam regardless," Hawke stated.

"You should ask Leon for one of those, I'm sure he'd be happy to provide," Helena laughed.

"Yeah, but I have a feeling he'd want me to check his balls for lumps in return, and I don't wanna," Hawke shook her head. "But, why not go all the way and be a doctor?" she then returned them to the subject, the first few words of her sentence confusing Helena for a moment when she thought Hawke was saying she saw no reason not to go all the way with Leon.

"Because med school takes a lot of time, and more importantly, it takes a lot of money, I don't really have either, but especially not money."

"If only rich people became doctors, we'd all be dead from the lack of empathy alone, so I don't think it's a profession reserved only to those who can afford to pay their tuition out of pocket just like that...meaning there's a way to work and study at the same time. Plus, you know, one spouse putting the other through school isn't unheard of," Hawke trailed off, and Helena shook her head.

"I know, and I know Hunnigan would throw money at me if I even hinted at it, but I don't want her to."
"If she can afford it, why not?"

"I don't know if she can afford it, I just know she'd do it. But either way, I don't want her to."
"Well, that's a shame."

"What do you mean?"

"You said it yourself, you gotta have a calling for that kind of work to be able to do it well, and you seem to not only have that but you're also good at it, so it's a shame to have all that go to waste just because you're too proud to let your wife financially support you a couple of years while you put yourself through med school," Hawke said, raising her eyebrows innocently.

"I know what you're doing and it's not working."
"I'm not doing anything, I am just mourning the loss of potential free medical care from my friend who would make an excellent doctor."

"And it's not just for a couple of years, it would be more like ten years before I'd even be a qualified doctor," Helena added.
"So...you have looked into it enough to know that much," Hawke smirked, and Helena sighed in defeat.

"I don't want to be a doctor, I played with the idea of becoming a nurse-midwife, but I'd need a degree in nursing and some licenses, and even if I got into accelerated programs, we're talking about seven years at least," Helena muttered.

Truth told, she still didn't have a clear idea of what she wanted to do exactly. Looking at her history, the amount of obvious indecision was rather embarrassing. Army, cop, Secret Service, DSO...aside from her career in the military, all of her jobs had been so temporary it looked rather bad on paper, to be honest. And now she was a security guard, studying to become an EMT, but even now the idea of being one was beginning to seem less and less like what she actually wanted to do. She'd gone from that to considering working as an emergency room technician after realizing she could do that with the same education. Then she'd finished her cuddler training, and during that the subject of nurse-midwifery had come up, and she'd been interested based on what she'd been told. After seeing the requirements for that particular profession, however, she'd quickly taken it off her "What I want to be when I grow up"-list.

"Midwifery, huh?" Hawke commented.
"Well, there's more to it than delivering babies, but yeah."

"I didn't realize you liked babies."
"Who doesn't like babies?"

"I don't."
"Why not? It's just a tiny human being, what did it ever do to you?" Helena quirked an eyebrow.

"It's not like I hate babies, I just don't want to be anywhere near them or touch them. All they do is shit and piss and whine and puke, who needs that?" Hawke shuddered.
"The babies do, humans are intellectually superior only because being a helpless baby for so long gives the brain time to develop."

"I prefer the way birds do it. When the mama-bird decides you're old enough, you're kicked out of the nest. Good luck, hope you can fly, but even if you can't, you're on your own."
"Yeah, and I think there's a reason we call dumb people 'birdbrain', might have something to do with that," Helena commented.

"Still. And just for the record, I don't like babies but I don't like many adults either, so it's just people in general that are the problem," Hawke laughed. "So, since you like them so much, are you and Hunnigan gonna have babies?" she then asked, and her question made Helena pause for a long moment.

"We haven't talked about that. We haven't been together for more than a few months, it's a little early to be discussing things like that."

"On the contrary, you should talk stuff like that out immediately, otherwise you'll spend a decade with someone who doesn't even like babies let alone want them."
"Well, seeing as Hunnigan has a kid of her own, I assume the risk of learning she actually doesn't like children is very low."

"Maybe, but I imagine it's different when it's your own kid," Hawke shrugged one shoulder, and once more her words gave Helena pause.

The only reason Hunnigan had a kid was because she'd gotten herself knocked up, after which her mother had pressured her into keeping the baby. For all Helena knew, Hawke was right, maybe Hunnigan didn't like children, maybe she just liked Seeley because he was her own.

"Well, either way, I can't really answer your question, I gotta talk with Hunnigan about it first," Helena finally said.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
"Since when?" Helena smirked.
"That's fair," Hawke laughed.