AN: Thanks to all the readers and reviewers for their interest in this story so far. Especial thanks to missblueeyes63 for being such a good Flashpoint fanfiction author that I was inspired to try my own hand at this fandom, and for saying something in your original chapter 2 review that gave me an idea to add into this chapter.
I'd love to know what you think of this one. All reviews will be replied to just as soon as the site actually gets the bug worked out-again-and posts them publicly.
Greg parks his car in front of Jules' house and stares up at the graceful two-story structure. While to some people it might seem like an absurdly large home for a single woman to buy, Greg knows that the fixer-upper has been a godsend to Jules in so many ways. He reaches over to the passenger seat to retrieve the two items that are the reasons for his visit this morning. He isn't even really sure now when he and Jules had started their tradition of trading off treating each other to Timmy's coffee on the first Monday of each month—years ago, for sure. This month is his turn. He could so easily have waited to hand Jules her double-double with skim milk until the team's scheduled shift today, but he wants—maybe even needs—to do this now, privately. And not because of the envelope that lays on the seat next to the cardboard tray holding their coffee cups. Everyone will soon know about the professional honor Jules is being given, so it's not that it can or should be kept secret. No, it is what he's been suspecting for months now—what he is almost certain is true—that has him outsides Jules' house this morning. He almost feels like a rebellious teenager, coming here unannounced; daring fate to somehow prove his suspicions wrong. Greg tucks the envelope into the inside pocket of his blazer and picks up the to-go coffee tray. Sitting here in his car any longer won't get him any answers.
It takes a while before the door opened in response to his ringing of the doorbell. Jules looks surprised to see him.
"First Monday of the month. My turn," Parker offers up the to-go tray from the coffee shop, handing Jules her "Double-double, skim milk".
"Since when is home delivery part of our deal?" she askes, something in her tone and expression giving him a hint that company hadn't been on her to-do list for the free morning leading to the team's late shift.
"When I come bearing news." He pulls the envelope out of his jacket pocket and extends it to her. "Police Services announced the Law Enforcement Professional of the Year. Julianna Callaghan."
"You're kidding!" she leaves her coffee on the entry table and takes the envelope. As Greg tells her about the upcoming gala award ceremony, a noise from upstairs pulls away part of his attention.
"Hey, Jules! I'm starving. Want some eggs-?" Sam Braddock comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of descending Jules' staircase. The fact that Sam is here at such an early hour of the morning, is coming from the bedroom level of the house, and has bare feet and a completely unbuttoned shirt...all of it is a blatant slap in the face. Something that can't possibly be ignored or glossed over this time. The couple are busted but good-and they both know it, as the expressions on their faces attest. With experience he's recently begun to acquire through reconnecting with his teenage son, Parker can well guess that the regret he sees on both faces isn't for the fact that they are breaking the department's rules and the team's probation with their off-hours activities, but rather for the fact that they've just been caught at it. After a long moment of imitating a still-life painting, during which Sam and Jules lock eyes for a silent exchange, Sam reverses direction and went back upstairs, returning a couple minutes later with shirt buttoned and shoes on. He drops to sit on a step a few up from the bottom, bracing his elbows on his knees. Jules stands nearby, resting one hand on the banister finial.
"I put my neck on the line for you. For both of you. I gave them my word," Greg accuses. The last few minutes were spent silently fuming that they've put him in this position. A small, rational, part of him knows it is unfair to blame them completely, yet that's what he is doing right now. He really should assume some of the blame himself, though. He'd begun to suspect months ago that they were back together but had never done anything to prove or disprove the notion…until today.
"Have you seen our performance slip?" Sam retorts defensively. "Has there been one moment-"
"It takes one moment," snaps the team's commander, one arm lifting to point and shake a finger at the couple in front of him. "This whole team is still on probation. Everytime we go out on a call, its put under a microscope. The Priority of Life."
"Boss, we know that," Jules speaks urgently, "We put the lives of the public ahead of each other, ahead of our own That's not going to change."
"You know what the worst part is? I knew. I was hoping I was wrong, but I knew. Now it's my head on the block if this ever comes out."
Further conversation gets cut off by the ringing of Greg's cell phone. A second later, first Jules' and then Sam's phone chirp with incoming text messages.
"Gun call in McClendon Park. Team Four's already out-we got upped early," Greg informs the others, rather unnecessarily given the messages they've also received, as he starts for the front door. "And we will pick this up again later."
"Damn it!" Sam slams his fist against Jules' dashboard in an attempt to vent his frustration.
"Sam—"
"I'm sorry, Jules. I'm sorry. I blew it—again. I should have—"
"Sam!" Jules takes on hand off the steering wheel and reaches over to him, tapping her fingers as close to his mouth as she can get while aiming blind. "It's not your fault."
"I'm the one who just dances downstairs, blathering about breakfast, right in front of the Boss! Of course it's my fault. If I'd just stayed quiet and upstairs…"
"I guess you didn't hear the doorbell ring," Jules sees Sam shake his head out of the corner of her eye. "I didn't know it was him until I opened the door. There was no way I could warn you without giving it away myself. It's no one's fault, Sam. Just an accident."
"An accident? All three of our jobs are on the line! I'd say that's a bit more than an accident."
"Do you regret it?" her words are soft.
"Regret getting caught? Absolutely. Choosing to be with you, no matter what anyone else thinks or says? Never!"
"Me neither. I told you that night: there's no place else I would rather be, no one else I want to be with. That hasn't changed, either."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know. I guess it depends on what the Boss decides to do."
"Yeah." And the rest of the trip to the parking garage where Sam had left his car the night before passes in silence. Even though Sam and Jules both know they need to get to SRU fast, to respond to the hot call, they take a moment to embrace tightly, however awkward leaning together over the gearshift is, before Sam exits the Jeep.
If there is such a thing as "normal" in a profession that involves dealing with people on the worst days and at the worst moments of their lives, then this day is completely normal. Sam backs up Ed, while Jules seconds Greg, all of them fanned out around the man holding the gun in the park. And while Sam and Ed go to help Raf chase down the fleeing young man who'd dropped the bag of money, Jules goes looking for the girl whose 911 call had started their day early.
"Spike, do we have a picture of the girl?"
"Give me a minute," and the techie is as good as his word, quickly searching for and locating a school ID photo of the girl, sending it to Jules' PDA.
"Are you Hannah?" she asks a girl who broke from a cluster of skaters at the sight of Jules' police uniform.
"Yeah."
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"I found the bag of money, called 911. Then the man with the gun ran up and demanded it back. He took my phone and told me to get lost."
"Did he hurt you?"
"No. Scared me a bit, but he didn't hurt me. Really, he didn't even scare me much. I pretended to run away but only until he left. I snuck back with my video camera," and she points to a device attached to her skateboard," and saw him give the bag of money to another guy—he looked like a teenager, maybe."
"Did you record it?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Great, Hannah. That will really help us."
"Did you get them?"
"We have the man with the gun, and my team is looking for the other person now."
Even though she knows she should be using the drive to Esme Vargas' home to plan how she'll interview this kidnapping victim, Jules instead can't help but think back to earlier in the morning, and the what-if's. What if she and Sam had gotten around earlier, rather than engaging in a very pleasurable round of wake-up sex? What if Sam hadn't been in the shower when the Boss had rung her doorbell, and thus known to stay upstairs and silent? What if- Her mom had often said, 'If wishes were horses, we'd all have wings' anytime Jules or her brothers had complained about something. Well, she thinks, no horses or wings here. Like it or not, she and Sam are busted again, and not knowing what may happen next has her stomach tied up in knots. If the Boss follows the rules—and when does he not?—she and Sam will get reported to the Commander and Chief by the end of the day. And then? Reassignment for at least one of them, maybe booted from SRU altogether, suspension, loss of pay…the possibilities are almost endless, and none of them things she wants, not for herself, for Sam, or for the Boss. What will he do? He said he knew—but for how long? And how? What did we do before today to give it away? If he knew, why didn't he say anything before now? Jules stuffs the questions—for which she doesn't have and honestly doesn't want answers—into her inner vault as she pulls up in front of the Vargas home. "Going off comm," she announces to the team.
"Copy that," Sarge replies. "Guns and Gangs has a possible location for M2, so we're meeting up with them to recon and plan. Spike'll send you the address—join us when you can."
"Copy that."
Planning and executing the infiltration of the flower warehouse brings Sam back to his military days, to a time when things were simpler and the enemy obvious. Now… things are far from simple. He wants to play the game of 'what if', but that's pointless. Jules did wake him up this morning for mind-blowing sex, and he did walk downstairs half dressed to give everything away to their boss. Sam knows he should regret breaking the rules like he's done both times of starting a relationship with Jules, but he doesn't—now any more than he had before. He definitely won't give Jules up, no matter who lines up against them, and he won't let her walk away from him a second time, though he knows she won't try to do that again. Focus on the mission, Braddock, he delivers the stern self-warning, and practices what he's preaching.
The team follows the sound of an upset female voice that echoes up from the bowels of the ship.
"Boss, why don't you let me take this?" Jules suggests. "I can build off what I've already established."
"Okay, take it," agrees Greg. It makes sense, both for that reason, and for the fact that both Jules and Esme are women. He's been grateful many times to have Jules on the team to help negotiate with female subjects, or to comfort upset victims—sometimes a female touch has been the best thing the team has been able to offer.
"Esme has a knife in play," Sam announces. "Jules, buy me time to get down there." And he takes off along the elevated gantry in search of another way down to the lower level that will be out of sight of the subject and her brother.
'Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, fast is lethal' is one of Ed's favorite training sayings. Today they need the first three to try and prevent the fourth. Jules inches forward very slowly, trying to get a better view and judge when she needs to announce her presence to Esme. It will take a smooth and gentle touch to coax this subject down from the threat level red she seems to be at right now. They weren't close enough to hear what might have been said leading up to this moment, but most likely Terran Martin was right and his client said the wrong thing, not knowing what the team now does about Esme and Joaquin's motivation for this kidnapping. Sam will need to be fast to save Hamilton's life given the knife Esme is holding so close to the man's head.
"Twenty seconds away," Sam reports. Jules doesn't acknowledge him; she's waiting to see if Esme will put down the knife like Jules just asked her to. But she isn't listening—not to Jules, not even to her brother. But Sam's silent approach and sudden disarming of Esme prevents the Boss from having to order Spike to take a Sierra shot.
"I feel sorry for them," Jules voices her feelings to the entire team, after they've handed off custody of the two subjects to the uniformed cops. "She didn't get the help she needed after the kidnapping—if she had, maybe this wouldn't have happened."
"I know, Jules," Greg affirms. "But she will now."
"Yeah—in prison."
"She and her brother kidnapped a man. Esme was inches away from mutilating Hamilton just like the M2 thugs did to her. We can feel empathy for a victim who saw retaliation as her only option and for a brother who just wanted to help his sister, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't face the consequences of what they did," Ed offers.
Spike's mouth twists as he—as they all—see a crying Joaquin put into the back of a squad car. "He's just a kid—and had no record at all before now. Neither did Esme. Maybe that will count for something."
"Boss, what about Terran?" the team leader asks.
"Yeah, we do have to deal with him now, don't we?" the question Greg asks as he begins to walk toward the man standing next to the rescued hostage is rhetorical. "Team, I'll handle this. You pack up and we'll meet back at SRU to debrief."
"That was a good takedown," Jules tells Sam as they walk away from the cargo ship.
"Good talk," he replies.
"What are we going to do?"
Aware that their mics are still on and transmitting, and knowing that muting his now will not be ideal, Sam remains silent as he considers what—if anything—he might say.
"Good job today," Greg speaks from behind them. The pair stop and turn, exchanging a look along the way. "Again, what did I expect from the Law Enforcement Professional of the Year?"
Jules blinks. Praise for a job well-done—however true it may be—isn't what she expects from their boss right now, not with what he discovered this morning.
"What happens now, Boss?" Sam asks. Yes, Greg had told them that the morning's discussion would be continued later. And later is now. Throughout the day's hot call, it had been brewing in the back of the sergeant's mind. What exactly will happen now? Greg knows exactly what should happen: he ought to go straight to HQ and report the rule break and probation violation to Commander Holleran and Dr. Toth. Per Toth's warning back on the day of the team's last requalification, Sam and Jules would both be suspended, at least temporarily, and at least one of them forced to leave the team, if they rekindled their romance. It was an outcome that clearly neither of the couple wants, not with how they've been keeping this relationship a secret...again. Greg doesn't want to see the team split up, either. Part of what makes Team One the impressive force that it is comes in no small part from how well everyone works together. That seamless merging of skills and abilities, trade-offs in assignments based on those skills and the needs of each hot call.
He's watched both Jules and Sam today, and nothing he's seen or heard would have raised his suspicions beyond where they'd already been. Every word and action has been completely professional. The gunman at the skate park, the infiltration of M2's flower warehouse, even the hostage situation on the freighter at the waterfront. All of it done completely by the book and to the high standards that everyone on his team has always displayed. On the freighter, Jules had kept calm, knowing that Sam was approaching the subject from behind and that the distraught woman could just as easily turn her knife on Sam as on her hostage. And Sam had been just as cool and collected, even with Jules mere feet away from that same knife; he hadn't gone all overprotective boyfriend and inflamed the situation, but instead had coordinated his approach to Jules' delaying negotiation to ensure a good outcome for everyone. So while Parker knows what he ought to do, whether he will actually do it is the question. And based off today, he doesn't need to. Rules are rules, true, but Sam and Jules both have always been exceptional individuals professionally, and that seems to carry over to them as a couple.
After a pause that feels longer than it really is, Greg answers his officer. "We go home, and come back tomorrow and do our jobs."
The couple exchanges a sidelong glance, admirably concealing stunned surprise at their boss' unspoken approbation: if they can handle things going forward like they've done today, he won't be reporting them.
Jules responds quietly, "We won't let you down."
"I have faith," Greg replies. And he does. He just hopes his faith will be justified and not misplaced. Then he turns and walks back to the clearing call scene, while Team One's secret couple continues on toward their SRU vehicle.