1 Week Later.

The team had taken their mandatory week off, which had been hard but necessary. Will had taken his time off by following his own leads at home. He'd even pulled files from long before Ollerman shot Ray and came out as a traitor, just to see what they could've missed. Eventually, he closed his files and put them all away. Until they had something new, he couldn't keep spending all of his time on him. He also checked on Standish quite a bit and made a very bittersweet call to Paul's wife to check in on her and apologize over and over again. Iona was very kind to him though. Frankie wasn't the only one with guilt, but Will's had to do with asking Paul for help and then that got him killed. Iona swore she knew what his job meant and that it wasn't Will's Fault. Will knew it too. But in these situations, words don't help much, only time. Time and family, which Will was missing right now. His team was all out resting in their own way. Even Frankie he'd only spoken to by phone once briefly when he'd had a question about her mission to grab Standish hoping there'd be some intel on Ollerman. The rest of their communication had been via text.

Frankie spent her days with Jai at the Dead Drop watching over the crew working. It was coming along and the clean up was all done. The only thing left was the rest of Jai's security measures. So Jai made a call to Will and Susan, who'd called Ray to bring them all together.

Susan and Ray showed up first, congratulating the two of them for the work on the bar. Will showed up a moment later, slowly opening up the door and stepping in. He looked around in surprise and then smiled.

"Hey..guys what is this?"

"I know isn't it great?" Susan asked, excited.

"Yeah! But how did..."

Susan looked back and nodded toward Jai and Frankie. Ray smiled.

Frankie shrugged and Jai then pointed at her. "Her idea!"

"Jai!"

Will looked to Frankie.

"Really?"

"No..I mean..sort of. Jai was involved!"

Jai laughed. "I merely said it was a good idea and gave her my technological expertise."

"Jai, you've spent literally every day here bossing around the crew and making sure they got everything right. You did way more than I did, I made some calls."

"Well...Ok, that's true too." Jai smiled proudly.

Will slung an arm around Susan. "Well, I think it's great." Susan said.

"You Guys!" Will started.

"Nope. Don't make it sappy."

"Oh, I'm so making this sappy. We're here and we've got the band back together..."

Frankie rolled her eyes and Jai looked to her for help, but he didn't get it. "Ok enough. Let's just drink. Here!"
Frankie slid them all a glass.

They all took a shot to celebrate.

"So, I've got an early morning meeting tomorrow to get intel on our next assignment. Looks like we're all ready to roll.." said Ray, but he was interrupted.

"Well almost!" Came a voice from the door.

Everyone looked up to see Standish standing there smiling.

They all yelled their hellos simultaneously. Will met him halfway for a hug, then the other three jumped in, even Jai who gave a very brief shoulder squeeze.

Frankie smiled at him affectionately. "Hey kiddo."

"You're not going to let me hug you are you?"

"Not today". She shrugged, smirking.

"You don't have to hug me back."

"Maybe next time."

"Y'all heard her..she said next time."

She gave him a stern look. "What, Don't you dare get stabbed again."

Standish looked at his feet. "Oh right, never mind."

Everyone laughed.

"So anyways, I can't go with ya'll on this next one. But I get to do my thing from here."

He tried to hide his disappointment but it would be another couple of weeks before they were going to let him go out in the field.

"Hey don't worry about it, you're here and that's great!" Will said and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

They all had a drink together and spent time laughing and talking. Jai gave them the rundown of new security features that are nearly ready, including new shatterproof glass windows, and a new door with retina scan technology. It would mostly look like the same door as before, but with glass changes and the additional scanner entry should make it very difficult for anyone to just bust in. There would also be an alarm system put in, and his "Batcave" was getting a panic button that would automatically alert the team's phones and the FBI directors' office should anyone break-in.

Susan and Ray leave first, they seemed to be spending even more time together now that they were outed to the whole team. Standish follows Jai to his secret room to shake the rust off since it'd been a while since he'd done much. That left Frankie and Will alone in the back room.

—

Frankie grabbed them more beer, and when she handed Will his, he finally spoke up and asked if they could have that conversation she'd been avoiding.

"So.." Will started.

"No just let me say this before I decide to not."

"Ok.."

"I'm not saying I regret that...moment."

"It's called a kiss Frankie."

She rolled her eyes and huffed.

"Sorry, continue." He appeared to look embarrassed.

"Look what happened since, it just further proves what I told you before. We got careless and missed that call. What would've happened if those guys hadn't shown up? What if it was hours later before we got that message?"

"Frankie..that didn't happen."

"No, it didn't. But it could've." She stated calmly. She wasn't angry, or regretful of the kiss. She'd wanted it, they'd both wanted it since the first one all those months ago. But she needed him to understand why she couldn't do this.

"Hey, don't get me wrong I'm happy you're basically admitting out loud how much you care about Standish but.."

she sighs. "Hey I didn't say.."

"Oh stop. You do."

she shrugs, didn't correct him.

"Either way...Right now, this is how I feel."

"We couldn't have stopped what happened. He still went home before us and we'd still planned to stay another day to ID the body." He shivers. The body that wasn't Ollerman's.

"I know that. But I told you what I did for a reason. Maybe part of that reason was protecting myself but I also did mean it. So...I'm just not there yet."

Will nods, he can't argue with her, as it would only push her away. And he respected the decision she'd made months back so he had to respect it now. But things had changed so much since then. He meant what he told Ollerman. She'd changed him. He believed he was more grounded, and a better agent. Frankie had too, She was opening up, letting in those human emotions she'd denied for so long. They both knew it, but if he pushed her now, she could take steps back that he didn't want her to take.

"Look. I'm not saying never, maybe...maybe someday..but not today." Frankie stood up and leaned toward him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, surprising him. She turned and headed out without looking back at him.

Will watched her go, and despite being disappointed at her decision, she actually left him very hopeful. Frankie hadn't run, she'd explained herself and she also said not yet. Which implied if he gave her some space and time, while also being there with her as a partner like he was before, she would be ready at some point. And he was willing to take his time with her. He'd jumped into a few relationships already that didn't work out, and even if Ollerman and Tina had been to blame for the last one, he knew this time taking things slower with Frankie would be better. He'd really liked Emma, but he didn't sit and think about the future with her. At first because of Gigi, and obviously, he'd lost Emma before he had the time to think too much about it, but more than likely it's because he just hadn't seen a future with her yet the same way he had in past relationships. Hell, he'd talked more to Frankie about their hypothetical futures than he ever had with Emma. So Will would wait for her...not forever, but he would wait.

Frankie went home feeling torn. She'd meant what she said, but she also knew Will was right. Ollerman probably had back up plan after back up plan and what happened was going to happen. But knowing that and believing it was different. Having a moment with Will in Prague was so different than getting back on home turf. Because this was reality. It was easy to lose yourself in the moment, but dealing with something real while they were back home was something she wasn't quite comfortable with yet. Kelly had been right, and she knew she needed to start letting people in. Knew she didn't really have anything to feel guilty about. But she was good at denying herself of things that made her happy. It was a habit. Right now, just having the team and a place to belong to was a huge step. She was going to have to do this one step at a time.

—-

The next morning Will and Frankie met at Ray's office as they always did. They said their usual hellos and carried on with their old banter. Things seemed to be pretty normal, which Frankie appreciated.

"Hey guys. Feels like old times! Even better than old times because you're not giving me that look of indignation."

"Ray."

"Sorry! Anyways...so we have our next assignment...in Ireland."

Frankie smiled.

"What?" Will asked.

She shrugged. They had good bars. Not that she needed to say that out loud.

"So there have been a few different attacks by the IRA this past week. The reason we were brought in is that there is a journalist, Aileen O'Donnel, she's an American citizen but she is from Ireland originally. She's actually one of our undercover agents. She was there to get information about some IRA movements that would affect the US, but she was killed in a car bombing two days ago. She had a fiancé over there, who was also her informant. He's on the run from them, and our job is to find him and bring him to safety.

"Is he a suspect. I mean, how do we know it wasn't him?" Frankie asked.

"We don't, but Aileen seemed to trust him. So for now, we've got to go by her information." Ray answered, shrugging slightly.

Betrayal seemed to be a common theme lately for their team, and Frankie wasn't about to rule it out.

"Anyways, there's a rumor of a big attack from the IRA coming up. We also need to find out where and stop it."

"Great. We'll be ready." Will said. They were all ready to get back out there. For some reason, a mandatory week off after a rough time wasn't the same as a vacation.

"See you guys in the morning. Flight leaves at 7:15. I sent you everything you need."

They nodded their thanks at Ray and left his office.