A/N: Better late than never, but I wanted to thank Tecwyn, Anaid, twobrothers, and all guests who reviewed my first NUM story "Worth It", so I hope you're reading this one too.

POSTING SCHEDULE: Every Sunday.

"T" is for Tension

"What the hell were you thinking, Colby?!" Don barely waited for Colby to shut the passenger side door of the SUV before shouting at his junior agent.

Colby studiously avoided looking at Don, grimacing as he reached for his shoulder strap and buckled in. His body radiated tension.

"I'm sorry, Don," he offered.

Don glared at him before shifting his eyes to the windshield and the vehicle into gear.

"You better have more to say than that. Because that's not good enough. Not this time."

And since when the hell had Colby become so apologetic anyway? His cocky, self-confident junior agent had been anything but since … well, since he came back to the office from…. From.

Don sighed. Still, something had happened two days ago, besides him lambasting Colby in front of the entire floor, for him to be so damn contrite and quiet. And, yeah, Don definitely could've handled the whole situation better. Taken Colby into a conference room for starters, and not castigated him for everyone to watch. But he'd been so damned mad at that 302….

"I was thinking we needed to change tactics," Colby said. "What we were trying wasn't working. I made a judgement call based on my experience and what was happening. I'm sorry, Don."

Don shot another glare at him, shaking his head.

Colby glanced at him, then back out the side window. "It worked," he observed. "No one got hurt. We got the bad guy."

"No one got hurt?" Don questioned incredulously. "Then why are we going to the hospital?"

He knew he was yelling, but he couldn't seem to stop. He hit the steering wheel in frustration.

"We're going to the hospital?" Colby sounded shocked. "Are you hurt?" He was looking at Don now, face drained of color. "Don … I'm so sorry. I—"

"What? Not me." Don threw him an exasperated look. "I was talking about you, you idiot!"

Colby's expression closed off. "I'm fine, Don."

"Oh, yeah," Don agreed sarcastically. "Because you just didn't get shot, and you just didn't jump two stories."

Colby turned his attention back to the window. "It doesn't matter."

"Yeah? And why's that?"

"I don't matter."

He said it quietly, but with conviction, as if he was stating a fact or maybe something that had been shoved down his throat for so long he believed it: the sky's blue, the sun rises in the east, I don't matter.

Shit.

What the hell was Don supposed to say to that? Especially with guilt crawling up and dying in his throat.

Something else he wasn't handling well. He wanted to be one of the guys, their friend they could come to. But it was both the friend and the team leader that felt betrayed by the man next to him. On one hand, what Colby did was his job, nothing more, nothing less. On the other, he couldn't help wondering about Colby and his loyalties and what he'd been reporting for the last two years. How he didn't know. How he believed Colby's guilt, even if something felt off, and how it took so long to do something about it. How he couldn't decide what he thought of Colby so left him floundering after letting him back on the team.

"Hey, man, that's not true," Don said lamely, glancing at his partner. "You know that."

Colby stared resolutely ahead, as if he had practice ignoring glares, furtive glances, and dark looks and hell, he probably did. Don wasn't blind, he'd seen how Colby was treated—by the team and by the office. No one stood up for Colby—not even Colby. Or Don.

And apparently Colby took that to mean he didn't matter. Goddammit. Could this situation get any more screwed up?

"You do know that, don't you, Colb?"

There was a fine tension in Colby's face. From pain or their conversation, Don didn't know. But Colby didn't answer.

The light ahead turned yellow and rather than speeding up as he normally would've done, Don slammed the brakes, delivering enough tension to the wheel to keep the heavy vehicle straight at the abrupt deceleration. It was no more than dumb luck that the truck hard on their ass didn't rear end them when the SUV came to a sudden stop. The light blinked over to red.

But Don didn't care about any of that. He wanted to talk to Colby, not be distracted by driving, which is why he insisted on taking him to the hospital rather than wait on paramedics. Of course, that was before Colby had revealed so much about his mindset; Don thought they'd need more than this quick trip to talk.

Now he was distracted by Colby as Don turned toward him and really looked at him.

Bruised smudges nested under his eyes, and there was a gauntness in Colby's face Don had never seen before. The suit must've been at least a size too big, though Don had seen him wear it before and it fit better then. Fine investigator he was, Don concluded Colby wasn't sleeping and had lost weight. Now he was looking, he could see it. Only thing, Colby didn't have weight to lose.

Colby's shoulders and back were rigid with tension, making Don rub the back of his own neck in an effort to relieve the sympathetic reaction to Granger's tension.

How could he work like that?

Don didn't remember this tension back at the scene. In fact, he remembered noting how loose Colby appeared because he'd been glad to see it. What did it mean?

He sifted through possibilities and was at first pleased: despite everything, Colby still trusted the team to have his back in a crisis. Just not in the office.

But then he recalled Colby's soft declaration: 'I don't matter.'

So … what? He relaxed going into danger because he didn't care if he died? Because he wasn't relying on the team covering his back?

He'd been taking more risks in the field too. This latest, jumping from two stories up, and, yeah, he tucked and rolled and, yeah, he landed in a grassy yard, but it was two stories. When Don found out he'd been shot first, through and through in the arm or not, he'd been practically spitting with fury.

Don's mind flitted back two days ago, even as his eyes traced the hollowness in Colby's cheek nearest him. Now that he thought about it, Don couldn't recall the last time he'd seen Colby eat anything; not lunch or even a snack.

Son of a bitch.

He'd thought a lesson needed to be learned, Colby having consequences for that 302 he dared turn in, so he sent him off with Megan as originally planned … without lunch. Now it seemed petty and childish. At the time, he figured they'd stop somewhere on the way back—he knew Megan would've insisted on feeding her partner. But the witness had pulled a runner, throwing all of Don's assumptions to hell.

And Colby … Colby apparently took that to mean he wasn't allowed to eat while on the job.

What the hell?

Where was his self-assured junior agent who wasn't afraid to stand up for himself, wasn't afraid to stand up to anybody? And wasn't afraid of losing his team. Because that's what was going on here: Colby asked to stay, Don let him, Don let everyone run roughshod over Colby, so Colby surmised he had to take it in order to stay. Goddammit, Don thought again, tiredly.

Eppes still thought something else had happened to Colby that he knew nothing about, but his junior agent's suppositions could be traced back to Don too. In wanting to be friends with the boys, he'd obviously picked David's side and allowed the other man's hurt and anger influence him. Though he was still dubious about trusting Colby and that had nothing to do with David. That was something else entirely. And then the one time he tried the hard-ass approach, Colby equated that to mean he needed permission to eat lunch.

Some team leader. He bet Lt. Walker wouldn't've let this happen in his squad.

Shit. Don didn't think he could've screwed Colby any harder if he'd tried.

He checked his watch.

His dad was right—about everything. Everything the team did was aboveboard so what did it matter if one more report had been written up about their activities? Don could no longer straddle the fence, balanced between allowing Colby back and leaving him to fend for himself. It was time for Don to let it go and truly accept Colby back. This he could do, whatever happened with the ADIC, especially if he paused for just a moment before opening his mouth or doing anything and remembered what he'd felt when storming that freighter and finding Colby strapped to that chair … not breathing.

He'd already lost him once—twice, counting the Janus List fallout—and he didn't want to go there again.

"Don? Light's green, man."

Granger's words were punctuated by a horn blaring behind them, as if the other driver leaned on it.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Don muttered, though most of his mind and concentration were on the man next to him, not the ass behind them or the road ahead.

They drove a few minutes in silence, Don trying to catch Colby's eyes. Hard to do since the younger man kept his face turned slightly toward his side window.

"Hey, man, we'll stop for some food on the way back from the hospital," he blurted, gauging Colby's reaction.

If anything, the tension escalated. He could practically feel Colby's muscles vibrating, they were stretched so tight. He cringed in sympathy.

"Why?"

Don frowned at him. "So we can eat. You do remember food, right?"

Colby huffed a breath.

Don chose to take it as a laugh and a good sign so added, "Yeah, you know what? While the docs are checking you out, I'll order something for the whole team, and we'll all eat when we get back."

Colby shot him a look, puzzled and doubtful and a little wary. Don forced down bile. What had they done?

But he's talking at least, Don tried to console himself. Yeah, because he probably thinks no one cares what he has to say anyway, he thought darkly. Not helpful, Eppes.

"You okay with that, buddy?"

He wanted a response—opinion, suggestion, answer, anything—so Colby would know he was still part of Don's team, that his input mattered, and wasn't some second-rate citizen so was prepared to outwait his agent and was prepared to ask the question as many times as it took. He glanced over at his passenger for what must've been the three hundredth time since they got in the SUV and nearly did a doubletake when he finally caught Colby's eyes. But he thought Granger might take it the wrong way and stopped himself.

"Yeah. Sure."

It wasn't exactly enthusiastic or all that encouraging, but Don was happy with whatever he could get. He'd work with it, work it to repair the trust and friendship between them. Between the whole team.

He hoped he'd hear from the ADIC soon.

/1234567890/

Don tucked his phone back into his pocket as he ducked back into the patient examining room.

"Hey, Colb," he said, "that was the ADIC. I have to go."

Colby's expression revealed nothing as he briefly raised his head. He was waiting for a doctor, though a nurse had already seen him preliminarily. "Okay, Don."

Don swallowed more guilt. Colby wasn't surprised, he was expecting it. Expecting to be abandoned without a ride or a vehicle. Because he didn't matter, and nothing that happened to him mattered. Don refused to let him think that.

"Hey," he said, sharper than he intended; he saw that immediately as Colby's head snapped up and felt it in the rock posing as a shoulder he squeezed. That much tension couldn't be good for him. "I don't know how long it's going to take, but I'm not leaving you here. I'll call you when my meeting's over, but if you're done before you hear from me, call the team. One of them will pick you up. But you'd damn well better have something signed by the doctor that says you can come back to work. Otherwise, they'll take you home. Understand?"

"Yeah, Don."

He surprised a quick glance from Colby and Don was starting to think this was the most frustrating, demented, and rewarding game he'd ever played: how many times in a conversation could he catch those elusive green eyes?

"Alright. I'll see you later."

Don didn't leave until Colby nodded slightly, the tension loosening minutely in those bowed shoulders.

It was a start.