Broken Wings - VII -

Jhondie

"That was quick work," Eye's Only said. I grinned big at the boss.

"Like you've come to expect anything less from us?" I teased. After almost three years working with him, we were entitled to a little joking around every now and then. Sometimes he was not in the mood and could be a total jerk, but usually he would deal with it. I guess us getting the information he needed in less than a day was putting him in a good mood. Whatever he wanted it for, he really wanted it bad.

"Actually we've known Dr. Bao Lee for a while," Justin interrupted. I glared at him for a second. He smiled sweetly back and tossed another grape in the air, catching it in his mouth and eating it. He was enjoying those grapes way too much. His absolute most favorite fruit there was a rare find at the market, and I think he had to beat off three old ladies to get to them first. Still wasn't an excuse to give away trade secrets, even if it was to our boss. I had wanted to string the boss along for a while and look like we were just too brilliant for words.

"You know him personally?" EO questioned.

"His son was murdered a few years ago," I explained. "We found the killer and made sure he got caught. He umm...offers discreet medical services to us now. You know, things hospitals might question." Yeah, like how come I have a weird blood type. "He knows that we can be trusted and we know that he can."

It's hard to tell expression when you can just see someone's eyes, but you start to learn after a while. EO was very relieved to hear that we had a good relationship with Dr. Lee. What was up with that? Dr. Lee had never been involved in anything weird that I knew of. The weirdest thing that he had done was decide to stay in the US after his son was killed. Actually it wasn't quite so weird; his daughter had gotten married here and had a kid. Guess he would rather be with the grandkids.

"So," Justin said. "What's going on here?" He ate another grape flamboyantly. He was starting to annoy me. Anyways, we knew that EO would probably tell us. It was rare now that he asked us to get some information and not tell us what it was for. I guess there was a weird kind of trust there now. Of course he wouldn't tell us everything, and I wasn't about to show him the back of my neck, so it all evened out.

"It's actually his brother I'm interested in," EO said. He paused, thinking for a minute. "I may be sending an operative to LA. Can you two act as liaison?"

"Of course."

"*I* will." We both said it at the same time. Justin glared at me. "You're not going anywhere," he said firmly. Oh was that a challenge? "My Chinese is just as good as yours now," he continued. "You are nowhere near ready to be running around on business."

We could tell the boss was waiting for some kind of explanation. Justin grabbed the camera and aimed it down so that my leg, propped up on another chair and tightly wrapped in a fiberglass cast, was visible. Not this again! EO looked at me, and I swear he had the same arrogant-male, aww poor helpless girl look that Justin kept having. I think Justin liked me being down for a little while. He better not be getting used to it. I heal very quickly, and I don't forget.

"It's just a greenstick fracture," I said. Justin rolled his eyes. Bite me! It wasn't that big of a deal. Not to me.

Justin smirked at the boss's unspoken agreement with him and tossed another grape in the air and ate it. That was it! I snatched the bowl out of his hands. The movement was all below the camera's view so that EO couldn't see how fast I moved. One second Justin was reaching for another grape, and the next the bowl was missing. Ha! He glared at me.

"Hey! Those were mine," he tried to protest. I cradled the bowl and refused to look at him.

"Were is the operative word," I replied sweetly. I then gave him a huge saccharine smile and bit into a grape. Seedless. Yum. "Mmm...mmm...good."

Justin turned back to the camera. "I get my own place and I still can't keep my fruit for myself," he complained. I think EO was trying to keep from laughing at us. I would swear this situation was making him think of personal experience somewhere.

"I'll let you know if I send the operative, and when the flight will arrive," he said.

"I'll be there," Justin said with emphasis on "I". "I'll have a sign that says, umm, Pat Standbrook on it."

"I'll get back to you," EO said, and then was gone. I turned to Justin. Time for a little battle.

Justin

"I am quite capable of greeting someone at the airport," Jhondie said, her eyes dark with anger. "And..."

"And..." I interrupted quickly. "You are hurt. If for some reason we have to do something crazy like dodge a gunman that followed the operative, you're at a big disadvantage."

"My leg is not a big deal!" she insisted. Not a big deal? Yeah right.

"Jhon, love," I said, taking her hand. Damn, she had too good of a grip on the grapes. They were really good. "You can tell everyone you want that it's only a greenstick fracture. But I know better. You're only saying that so people won't wonder how a compound fracture can heal in less than a month." She better stop eating my grapes. I used to think it was just her, but then I met Zack and learned that the genetically engineered tend to consume large amounts of food very quickly.

I knew I was feeling guilty and that's why I was being so over-protective of her. I should never have let her go to San Francisco by herself. I should have gone myself. Hell, the magazine article was going to have my by-line. I should have done it, but she had the skills to get in and out better than I did, and I wanted to do the LA work myself. The stuff in San Francisco was all grunt work, no glamour at all. She got into some major trouble, and if Zack hadn't shown up when he did...she almost got herself killed. I've told her a thousand times no story is worth risking her life over, but I had asked her to get the stuff for me, and she was determined to do it.

They ended up getting away from the bad guys, but got into a bad car accident in the process. Zack was cut up pretty bad, and Jhondie ended up with a very broken leg. The magazine got one hell of a story. The censor board toned it down some, but the evidence gathered still put a shiver into some people. I got the glory. She got a cast. Her leg was healing incredibly fast, but she was still in pain because of me. She was not going to meet this operative. She was going to stay put until Dr. Lee said she was 100% again.

"The cast is supposed to come off in a week," she said. "That's good enough. If I needed to run on it..."

"Then there would be a lot of people wondering what kind of training a girl could possibly have that could let her ignore a broken leg," I finished for her. I had spent too much time with Zack. The word "careless" was starting to come to mind when I thought about Jhondie and hiding her abilities. I smiled charmingly. She had a hard time resisting that. I hoped she would. "And in the week that it's still on you're just going to have to let me wait on you hand and foot."

I leaned over and kissed her. Success! She put the bowl down so that her arms could wrap around my neck. I grabbed the bowl and tried to pull back quickly. She wasn't letting go, and jerked me back to her.

"They're mine now," she said with a smile.

"Uh, huh, and I bet you think I'm taking you to the airport as well," I teased, kissing her nose and chin to distract. Wasn't working all that well. I was distracting myself more.

"You want your grapes back?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going?"

"Hell no!" She got a hand between us and ate another one. Damn! Time for the big guns. I started tickling her. She burst into giggles and somehow managed to keep me from the bowl while fending me off with the other hand.

"No fair!" she gasped between laughs. No fair was her trying to run off like nothing was wrong with her. Ah, hell, keeping her safe was worth a few grapes. They weren't that great anyways.