Note: Sorry for the delay in posting. Life kept getting in the way, and I couldn't find the middle of this chapter (mentally). It ended up getting practically rewritten from scratch, thus the lateness.
Tim, slinks into the office a half hour early, plenty of time to start the coffee, pour himself a cup, and be safely ensconced behind his desk, face hidden behind a computer and paperwork by the time anyone else shows up.
A half hour later, nine a.m. on the dot, the doors open to admit Rachel, Art one step behind. He slouches just a little further down, squinting at the screen. Tim can smell the cinnamon roll that Rachel picked up for breakfast on the way in. If he weren't intent on avoiding their notice he'd slide on over to her desk and pester her until she gave him a piece. She always says 'a bite' and then complains when he takes as large a one as possible. Recently, she's learned to just tear off a bit and keep him away from the rest. Today he settles for the aroma and makes an extra effort to look occupied as Art passes him on the way into his office.
Art doesn't stop to talk, and Tim's beginning to relax, relieved his plan has worked, when a hip and the smell of up-close cinnamon roll intrude into his morning.
He refuses to look up.
The hip on his desk refuses to leave.
Tim shuffles some papers industriously and continues to type.
The hip continues to lean. A chunk of cinnamon roll lands on his keyboard with a spray of crumbs.
"Hey!" Tim looks up, falls into the trap.
"A truck stop bathroom?" Rachel smirks, "Really?"
Tim shoves the piece of cinnamon roll into his mouth and returns his glare to the keyboard.
"I'm starting to get why I never see you with a girlfriend."
Tim takes a half-chewed wad of cinnamon roll out of his mouth and tosses it at her.
Rachel jumps back with a loud "Ew!" and comes back to smack him over the head with one of his own files.
Saving them from further grossness or physical harm, Art appears at his door, and tells them both to get the hell in his office.
"Robbie Gates was found dead yesterday in his cell," he begins while they settle themselves, Rachel on the chair in front of the desk, Tim standing back with his shoulder blade against the doorjamb. "Apparently his cellmate took a sudden dislike and stabbed him."
"Cryin' shame, that. Can't imagine why."
Art tosses him a look and continues, "Somehow he managed to get ahold of an actual knife too. And given that Raylan was supposed to have gone down to question Gates yesterday, I find the whole thing to be a little too convenient."
"Have they figured out how he got it?" Rachel asks.
"All the warden found was that the driver's license of the cellmate's most recent visitor was a fake. The number traces to an eighty-seven year old man living in a nursing home outside Frankfort. They didn't dig too much after that, probably figured it wasn't worth the effort. No one tends to get too worked up about dead felons."
"Imagine that," Tim mutters, probably the least worked up that Robbie Gates is dead.
"I want you two to drive down and find out what you can about the whole mess, have a chat with the cellmate, Mason Kimball. See if Gates said anything useful to him that we might be able to use, like how he managed to track down a federal witness."
Marching orders received, they both nod and stand to leave.
"Tim?" Art calls him back, eyes narrowed.
"Yeah boss?"
"A feeb?"
Tim pulls a face and flips him the bird on his way out, and Art chuckles, pleased with himself for flapping the unflappable.
o.O.o
Tim was serious back in Art's office. There's not a shred of regret about Robbie Gates' death; however, sitting across from Mason Kimball, Tim is forced to reconsider the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' This is a man for whom the system can do no worse. He's a lifer, been in long enough that the routine has picked away at him, that he craves something – anything – new, and the only new experiences to be had in prison center around violence.
Kimball tries to look bored at first, but a twitch in his knee that he can't quite suppress gives him the lie. There's alertness, like he's waiting for them to trip up, let themselves be lulled into a false sense of safety by the shackles. Tim hasn't been a marshal for very long, but he's intimately familiar with the actions of desperate men.
"Girl," Mason drags out the r for lascivious effect and smacks his lips.
Rachel doesn't give him the satisfaction, just saunters over to the small window and picks at a nail. She's way better at faking bored. Mason stares at her back, enjoying the challenge.
"You must be the famous Agent Carlan." The famous Agent Carlan. "Robbie did say you was a cold bitch." Fuck. "I'll warm you up though. All you need is a –"
"I'm Deputy Marshal Brooks. And all you'll get is a long vacation in solitary you don't sit down and shut up."
"Oh I'll let you come with me." Kimball leers, happy to have a player in the game. "I like it when they bite."
"Then you're really gonna love the feel of her boot up your ass. She's good too, gets it way far up there. Might even give your lower intestine a bit of a tickle."
Kimball's face sours at the interruption, then decides he can still play a game. "You're kind of a scrawny bitch. Robbie was also a scrawny bitch." He leans forward, shoulders hunched aggressively. "Didn't put up much of a fight."
"Musta been real disappointing. My heart bleeds for you."
Kimball gives Tim the look other men in bars give him when they've had a bad day and a bit too much and see the tattoo on his wrist. He's short, solid enough for the jobs he's had, but Tim's no one's stereotype of a jacked army Ranger. But one look at that tattoo and all of the sudden he may as well be six five and two hundred and fifty pounds. Everyone wants to be able to say they got in a fight with the biggest and baddest and won. Everyone who's picked that fight with Tim realizes real quick that some fantasies are just that, fantasies, but when someone's just one this side of drunk and has something to prove they tend to forget that. These days Tim tries to remember to wear long sleeves when he goes out to drink.
Rachel swoops in under Tim's distraction and asks offhand, "Thought you two got along. Why'd you bother?"
He shrugs like she just asked him whether he preferred string or waffle fries. "It was somethin' to do."
"Seems like an awful lot of trouble just for a little entertainment." She steps over and slides a photo across the table. "And even more trouble to get a weapon like that inside."
Another shrug, less casual. "You know the right people, you can get anything."
She places a single finger over the glossy image and drags it slowly back, dragging Kimball's eyes with it. "I'd be willing to bet it was the other way around. You happened to be the right man for someone else."
"I don't get your meaning." He scratches his thumbnail over the fresh tear drop tattoo on his cheek, the newest of three.
"Think about it like this." Rachel returns the photo to its manila folder with unhurried confidence. "You go through the trouble of finding someone to bring you a knife, manage to sneak it past the guards, wait until your cellmate is asleep before stabbing him to death with it. A jury might see that as premeditated."
"Prison's a dangerous place. You gotta protect yourself. Everyone knows that."
Tim raises his eyebrows, smirks. "You had to protect yourself from your scrawny bitch cellie who didn't put up a fight?" He slaps his hand on the table, starts to rise, ready to get out like they got it all wrapped up. "You know, nice thing about Kentucky, everyone loves the death penalty here. They'll get to it pretty quick. 'Least you won't have to wait."
"Look, I didn't even know the guy. Guards told me I had a visitor. He gave me the knife and said I could keep it if I did him a favor. Said if I didn't do it he'd give someone else a knife to use on me."
"How'd you get it past the guards?"
"They never searched me." Tim and Rachel exchange a glance. Warden isn't going to like their next conversation.
"Did Robbie ever talk about having visitors?"
"Yeah, but I don't know who they were."
"The group Robbie worked for who wanted him dead, they're on the terror watch list. You killed Robbie for them. That's conspiracy. Hell, who needs the death penalty when you have Guantanamo?"
Kimball snorts. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Robbie worked for the Dixie mafia, and they ain't no terrorists."
Tim doesn't have to posture to be menacing, just smiles like he enjoys playing with his food. "Why did Robbie call Agent Carlan a cold bitch?"
"Cause she fuckin' waterboarded him."
"You think the FBI does that? You think this is about the Dixie mafia?"
He can see the seed of doubt take root. "Only person he ever talked about coming was his lawyer. I swear. Alls he said was that he was gonna get rewarded and that that bitch shouldn't never of shown her face 'cause she wasn't gonna be able to hide from what she had coming to her."
o.O.o
Rachel pauses with the key in the lock, assessing him from across the hood of her Lincoln.
"She really water boarded him? Gates?"
Tim nods, still replaying their conversation with Kimball. Shouldn't never of shown her face. Real problem wasn't the face but the name. He shouldn't have had the name.
"You knew?" The disapproval is loud and clear.
Another nod, this one more present, worried about trouble in front of him.
"Does Art know?"
"No." There's an unspoken request underneath that that things stay that way, and as Rachel ducks into the car she gives him an unhappy look with the unspoken understanding that, for now, they will.
o.O.o
Lena scans in a photo of another dead face.
"You're the state bitch? Where's your haji boyfriend?"
He'd called her 'the state bitch', and Sayeed had been a 'haji'. Whoever he was, he wasn't some rando thug GenCorp had sent after her. Americans who've never seen Afghanistan don't say 'haji'; they have other slurs. And he knew her as working for the State Department, a front she abandoned two years ago upon her return.
Lena passes the time impatiently scrolling through personnel files from GenCorp. She starts with mercenaries for hire and finally finds the face of her would-be murderer in the private security section. Chester Bonet. Try denying your involvement now, you shady assholes. Just to be safe she downloads everything GenCorp has on Mr. Bonet. There's a hit off a couple of the scanned faces, and Lena looks up their names in the employee database and downloads those files as well. GenCorp are the sort who would try to delete or alter records to muddy the waters, and it's best to cover one's bases. The IT team will thank her later.
Her phone pings, but she ignores it, intent on the task at hand. Whatever Oona's dug up can wait a few minutes. It pings again, then after a third it starts ringing.
Lena fumbles her over and swipes the green answer button without looking. "Jesus Christ, woman, what is it?"
"That's funny," a deep male voice full of mirth says on the other end, "I think I would have remembered getting a sex change."
"John?"
"Unless you gave any other dashing, slightly bald middle-aged men this number."
Lena smiles into the speaker. "You're my one and only, John."
"The hearing's been moved up." He doesn't sound happy about it, and that worries her. She says as much. "Senator Stratford has pushed through some rearrangements, said something like that needed to be a priority."
Stratford. The name sets a bell ringing in her mind, calling to a memory. "Since when is on the armed services committee?"
"Since a couple weeks ago."
"Crap."
"You know it's so much more fun to just say 'shit.'"
"You're the reason I don't have a professional filter. Also, Stratford's office is the one that called the Marshals a couple weeks back trying to find Sayeed."
"I know. We're digging up as much as we can on him right now, but so far we don't have a solid connection to GenCorp or Captain Brown or Private Welling."
"What about the drug company? Chivera?"
"So far nothing there either. The plane will be there in two days with Dave."
o.O.o
There's a pair of bright sequined high heels on his porch when he drives up. Tim kills the engine and crosses his arms over the steering wheel, contemplating the woman wearing them. Lena sits on the steps, feet thrown out in front of her and leaning casually back on her elbows in a way that reminds him of their shared time at the coffee wall. She tosses him a wide smile and a flippant two-fingered salute. It was a sight that relaxed him then, and if he hadn't spent the afternoon talking to Mason Kimball it might have done so now.
Right now he only sees the vulnerabilities – exposed skin, exposed position, clothes that'll be shit in a fight or a flight. For fucks sake she'd been sitting alone in the dark playing with her phone, not paying a lick of attention to her surroundings.
Shouldn't never of shown her face. But it was the name. There was only one person could have slipped up and given that out.
Instead of opening the door he rolls down the window and leans his head out. "Get in."
Lena hops up off his steps and into the passenger side of the suburban. "Where we headed?"
"It's a surprise."
It's a short drive to the range. It's not his favorite – the guy behind the counter always tries to engage him in conversation in an attempt to pry out a war story – but it's the closest indoor range, and he's not in the mood to be picky.
Lena grins, her playful tone scraping against his nerves. "Marshal, did you get me a howitzer?" She notices he isn't smiling, gives him a nudge. "Most people bring flowers on the first date, but nothing says romance like artillery rounds."
His fingers itch, and there's a static charge running through him fighting to get out. All he has is anger and a thousand worst case scenarios. He's angry at her, angry at Gates, angry at the people who paid him. He squeezes the wheel, trying to ground the charge.
"Tim?" she asks, voice filled with innocent concern.
But there's too much to dissipate, and it arcs towards the nearest target. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Lena stiffens, her frost clashing with his fire. "You can either explain yourself like a calm, rational adult or I'm calling a cab."
Tim does explain, rational but not calm. "You told him your goddamn name, Lena. Robbie Gates told GenCorp that he was kidnapped and water boarded by Agent Lena Carlan of the FBI. That's how they confirmed Sayeed was in Kentucky. All they had to do was wait for you to show up at the courthouse. Why did you fuckin' tell him who you were?"
The stiffness in her spine turns brittle, cracks, and Lena runs a shaky hand over her mouth. "Shit." She gropes behind her for the handle and pulls.
Tim throws open his own door and goes after her. When he catches up, she's walking in a straight line to nowhere, eyes focused on nothing.
"Sorry." It's a faraway whisper. "I'm so sorry." She's walking on autopilot, and considering her footwear, surprisingly fast.
Most people get called on fucking up big time, they make excuses, fight you, try to gaslight their way out of it. He didn't expect the stricken self-recrimination.
"Lena!"
She stops abruptly, facing him, and Tim can see her pulling at the strings, trying to tug everything back into place. "I'm sorry. They would have known anyways, even without the name. He'd have told them about the crazy bitch who water boarded him, and they'd have known it was me. Raylan was right, Jesus, FBI doesn't do that shit. I should never have made him take me along. I was so angry. Shit. I'm sorry." The words are pulling her along rather than the other way round, spewing forward. "You're right. Shit. They could have gotten Sayeed. I nearly got him killed. Fuck, I thought yesterday…that they'd just camped to see, not 'cause…I nearly got you all –"
"Lena, goddammit, you nearly got yourself killed. You put yourself in danger."
"I'm sorry." The phrase is a reflex at this point. That's the thing she's least sorry about. "I need to figure out…" she swipes the back of her hand across her mouth, staring past him, mind somewhere other than the dark lot they're standing in. "The hearing was moved up. If they know where he is, then it's going to be harder to move him, but…"
"Lena."
Her awareness snaps back to the parking lot. "Why did you bring me here?" Christ.
"Can you shoot that?" He points at her purse where he knows she keeps her stolen pistol. Jesus, what FBI agent keeps their weapon in a goddamn purse.
"Better than I used to." But she's looking at the ground, so that's where his expectations lie.
He makes her get a holster, something small to go under her coat. Lena buys the one he picks without argument or offering her own opinion. She's punishing herself, and it irritates him.
Once they have a target, ammunition, and a lane assignment she stops speaking entirely, just listens and pulls the trigger. Lena's practiced since they last did this – all the bullets hit the target – but she wouldn't pass a weapons qualification. He calls out corrections, but her heart isn't in it or she's too frustrated or too distracted, so the whole thing is mostly an exercise in wasting bullets. Frustrated with her lack of visible reaction, his becomes harsher in his critiques. Tim doesn't like this timid, self-flagellating version of her, and he tries to goad her into biting back. She never does, and by the end he just feels like an asshole.
With only a few rounds left, Tim takes the gun out of Lena's hands, intending to cool his own head by firing off a few before realizing that that would just be rubbing salt in her wounds. He settles for the familiar motions of clearing the chamber and flipping on the safety. As an apology he puts it back in her purse.
"I have to clean it." She's not the mumbling type, but it's so quiet that he barely hears her.
"Later."
By the time they're back at the house the car is carrying two miserable self-flagellating passengers instead of one.
She opens the door, but he stops her with a hand around her wrist, loose enough that she can pull away easily. "Lena, Sayeed's fine. We're all fine. And I don't think you're an idiot. I just –"
"It doesn't matter what you think." Quiet but clear. "You were right before. I messed up, and I'm lucky things didn't go a heck of a lot worse. Now I need to go figure out a way to salvage this."
Her wrist slips out of his hand and he makes a second grab. Lena looks at where he grips her but doesn't fight it. He's still not used to touching her and wonders suddenly if Lena's uncharacteristic acceptance of the restraint is part of the flogging she's giving herself and immediately lets go.
"Look…Back when I was first deployed…" Tim bites the inside of his cheek. He's told this story exactly once. "I missed a shot. Sat on the guy for three days, but when the time came…I hesitated, he moved, and I fucked it up." He gets it out fast, sticking to the bare necessities.
That day he'd walked out of the barracks and seen the boots and the rifles and the helmets all lined up and walked right back in and puked. Carter had crammed himself into the toilet stall with him and sat still and silent. He didn't move except to put Tim in a chokehold when he started slamming his head into the concrete wall.
'Alright fuckers, listen up. You're going to get blood on your hands. You'll probably be up to your goddamn elbows in it, enough to wash your faces in. It better be the right damn blood.'
That day it was the wrong blood. About a month later he went home on leave. First thing he did was walk straight into the first tattoo parlor he drove past and get the ink on his wrist. One shot, one kill. Don't hesitate. Don't fuck up. Don't miss.
Lena slowly pulls herself back into the car, letting the door fall shut. "What? I mean why did you…?"
His shoulder twitches up in a half-shrug, a turtle retracting into its shell. "The guy was nice to a stray dog. No one likes dogs there." He retracts further, wishing he really did have a shell. "And then that Friday he bombed a couple mosques that were too friendly with coalition forces, killed over a hundred people including a few soldiers."
Tim can see her struggling for the appropriate response. 'It's not your fault.' 'You couldn't have known.' 'Well thank goodness I didn't fuck up as bad as that.' They surface and then fall back under, but the one thing he doesn't see is blame, just sympathy.
"I didn't know."
"Didn't put it in the report."
She falls back into the seat. "I need a drink."
"No you don't." It's weird being on the other end of that conversation. "Have you eaten?"
"I was going to grab something later. I have to make some calls, see…see what I can do."
"I have some leftover chicken alfredo."
Her eyes flick towards the rental she drove here in.
"If you clean your plate you can have one glass of the good bourbon."
"I don't want the good stuff. Wouldn't appreciate it anyways."
Lena follows him in, kicks off her shoes by the door and tucks herself into one corner of his couch.
She takes the plate he hands her, and Tim sets a bottle and two glasses on the floor next to himself, and flips on the TV, something easy to follow but enough to keep the mind occupied.
When Lena finishes he pours her the promised glass. She takes it but doesn't drink right away, just holds it, thinking. After a little while of watching the internal debate play out on her face he takes it back and pulls her over to him instead. There is no internal debate for him – the image of a line of empty boots and battlefield crosses sticks and won't go away – and he drinks her glass and the rest of the bottle on top. He would have gotten up for a second bottle, but Lena's fallen asleep on him, so he turns his face back to the TV and concentrates as hard as he can on tired jokes and shitty laugh tracks.
o.O.o
When Tim wakes the TV is off and the room is dark. His head hurts, and when he climbs above the fog bank of sleep he realizes the weight that was on his chest when he fell asleep is no longer there. A human-shaped silhouette sits at the other end of the couch. It stays still for a while, so he decides to prod it, reaching out to skim the tips of his fingers along her hip.
"Hey."
She startles when he sits up, and again when his fingers touch her. The muscles in her back jump, a fleeting movement that settles quickly, and she turns. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." It's too dark for him to see her face clearly.
"You're up." It's an open-ended query, and he lets her consider it before prying further. Back in the barracks no one ever asked, just stared until you either talked or lay back down, but she wasn't raised like him, so he prods her again. "Bad dream?"
"Eh." She shrugs in a cheap imitation of casual. "I'm sure you've had plenty worse."
"It's not a competition."
Lena's silent for long enough that he thinks she may not answer, but then quietly, "I was drowning."
His fingers move from her hip up around her shoulders, but this time when he tries to pull her against him he meets resistance. He can feel the goose bumps on her shoulders and knows she's punishing herself again. Tim pulls his old woobie blanket off the back of the couch and covers them both. Deprived of her method of self-punishment, Lena leans back into him, and they shuffle around until they're both horizontal. He'd rather be in his bed, but somehow Tim knows that she'd insist on sleeping down here. Luckily Lena's small and the couch is big, so they'll survive the night without losing any limbs to loss of circulation.
He's just beginning to drop back off when the vibration of her voice against his ribs calls him back.
"After you hesitated…did that make it easier to take the next shot?"
"It made it simpler."