Okay, I'm an asshole. This is a week late, but it's still here, so I hope you can forgive me. This story has been fun to write, and I'm so happy it has found such an enthusiastic audience. Thank you all for reading. For those who have, thank you for leaving your thoughts and reactions; it makes me smile to read them. :-) I already have a few pages of thoughts and notes for a new Tim story. Don't hold your breath. It's gonna be a long while. On a related note: someone else needs to write some Tim.
John bites out a caustic, "The fuck are they doing?" at the squad car moving up beside them and turns around, craning his head, phone out. "One of you get those plates." Lena has grown more cautious over the years, a consequence of nearly dying, but it's been little things – taking longer to look both ways before crossing the street, being extra nervous for the children climbing trees in the park. The level of suspicion with which John treats everyone and everything has always been downright paranoid in her book, but now Lena regards the flashing lights nervously and wonders if becoming like him is inevitable.
After a moment Suki reads the plate number back to John, who repeats them into his phone. "Alright, put me through to dispatch, and Jensen," he snaps at their driver, "toss me that scanner." The radio scanner is tossed to John who passed back to Suki with instructions to listen to whatever the car behind them is up to.
"They're not saying much, just seem to be wondering who we are. They've marked our plates as government." A pause while she listens. "They must have got the call about the shots and the rolled car," and after another moment, "We could use them. Either way, we can't go back to headquarters yet."
John doesn't say anything for a moment, looking around out the windows. "Get their badge numbers. If they check out then have them follow us. Head there." He smacks Jensen on the shoulder and points ahead to a construction site in the distance, empty and finished enough that it'll provide some nice, anonymous cover, and then back to Suki, "Can you get them on the radio?"
o.O.o
The construction site is a half-finished high rise, and they pull cautiously into the attached parking garage, stopping in the corner near a stairwell. Tim glances apprehensively at the half wall. A half wall is only a half shield, which isn't much of a shield. It would have been better if Sayeed and Lena stayed in the car, protected by bullet proof glass and armor, but she's the one with the FBI badge, so she stands just ahead, next to her boss.
The police officers pull in alongside them about fifteen yards away. One of them finishes talking into a phone before hanging up and giving them all a once over. The phone instead of a radio strikes him as strange.
Lena swipes her hair to the side – a move which does fuck all to mitigate her roughed up appearance – and pulls out her badge. The two men in the squad car wait a beat, as if sizing everyone up, looking for a threat, before opening their doors.
It's more of a gut feeling, a split-second spike in his heart rate before he consciously recognizes the familiarity of danger. Maybe they didn't look curious enough as they stepped out of the car, or maybe it was too much self-assurance. Maybe it was the look the two men wearing beat uniforms shared across the top of the car – like a ready signal. It's nothing more than a series of rapid impressions followed by fast, half-acknowledged reactions, and before he's conscious of the reason enough to properly justify the feeling, Tim knows, certain as the sky is blue and the grass is green and shit stinks, that these men didn't come out today with the intent to protect and serve.
He's done ambush before, some variation of this same situation too many times for fear to be the primary impetus for action. Instinct has Tim's pistol out of his holster and aimed forward in half the time it takes to blink. It's almost a relief, to face a threat directly rather than sitting in the back of a car waiting for it to take the next shot. Combat is goal-oriented, binary. It's about efficiency. Efficiency of killing. Efficiency of evasion. Dave and Suki understand this efficiency. Like Tim, they're already reaching for their weapons. Raylan understands it too to a large extent. To Tim's surprise, John reacts rather than freezing. He didn't expect the balding, polo-wearing soccer dad-imitation to move so quickly, but he does, ducking down behind a concrete pillar a bare split-second after Tim gets his pistol up.
Lena and Sayeed do not have the same instincts, the same knee-jerk reactions. The guns coming out startles them. They recognize the danger, but freeze. Deer in the headlights, Sayeed half-raises his hands as if to demonstrate his unarmed state. It's an instinct honed from a different environment. Lena flinches, turns, reaching for Sayeed.
Even as a backseat, logical piece of him knows he ought to be concerned first and foremost about his witness, his brain zeros in on Lena, who is standing in easy sight and range of bullets. Nor does she have a vest. At least Sayeed has a vest. She's a few yards ahead, out of his direct reach. Tim kicks her. A quick shuffle up and to the left and a quick jab in the meat of her thigh just below her hip and she stumbles sideways onto the ground. It probably gives her whiplash, maybe a skinned knee, definitely a couple bruises, but she's a step closer to safe, so for now he doesn't give much of a shit.
A crack of a gunshot and Tim stumbles, spinning in an involuntary half-circle to his left. If Lena weren't on her hands and knees on asphalt the bullet would have hit her instead, probably killed her. Jesus fucking Christ. He's recovering his axis, swinging the pistol back up to aim, moving more slowly than he'd like because of the sharp ache in his chest, when another bullet slams into his back, knocking him forward and towards the ground with far more force than the first knocked him back. Jesus fucking Christ. That was not from a handgun. Tim feels at least one broken rib, and instead of standing he lets himself fall and roll sideways, the animal part of his brain knowing it's the smart thing to do even if he's still trying to take aim at the two men coming towards him.
Breathing hurts. Deep breaths feel like being stabbed. Class four vests can withstand a couple high caliber rounds before breaking, but just because the bullet doesn't get all the way through doesn't mean it won't fuck you up if you stand there and take the hits.
Some things aren't easy, but they're familiar. He can't forget the pain in his ribs, but he pushes past it. Bigger problems. That phone call before they stepped out of the car must have been to someone else, alerting them to their position, and that someone has a long-range, high caliber rifle. The others have already found cover – spread out between cars and concrete – so he hand-crawl-sprints between the SUV and a pillar.
"Tim?"
Lena's looking at him, eyes a little too wide, hands a little unsteady, but she only stutters once. A few bullets thunk metallically into the side of the car, harmless, but she flinches and edges closer to the wheel well. This should be easier, considering their numbers, but no one wants to risk putting themselves in the sniper's line of fire. From the sounds moving closer and in stereo he can tell they're being flanked.
"I'm fine. You still got that Glock?"
She nods and raises one hand, showing him the pistol. Lena didn't wait for his okay before drawing it.
Tim gets up off the ground and squats, balancing on his toes. "When I say, lean down and fire under the car. Doesn't matter if you hit anything. Just make noise."
She nods, chambers a round, and flicks off the safety before lying back and aiming under the car.
Another couple rounds hit the SUV – cover fire from both the men on the ground and from the anonymous sniper as the two "police officers" continue moving closer – and Tim taps Lena's ankle. "Go."
She fires, and he pushes up to aim over the hood in the direction his ears told him to. His ears heard right; it's just a small adjustment to the left and Tim squeezes the trigger, putting a neat hole through one fake cop's cheek just under his eye. Efficient. "One down!"
Lena, who has taken his orders to heart, is still firing under the car. He realizes belatedly that he should have specifically told her to aim for something harmless, like the squad car or a wall. Tim grabs her ankle and gives it a shake. She startles and nearly points the gun at him before catching herself.
"Two down!" another voice calls. Dave, he thinks.
It's silent a moment, and then there's a quick alive check. Her boss, John, can be heard on his cell phone calling for back-up. "Anyone know where asshole number three is?"
No one moves out from cover. Given that asshole number three is still alive and armed with a rifle, there's no choice but to stay put, though Lena tries to crawl farther under the car to peek, and Tim claps another hand on her ankle. She doesn't startle this time and crawls back towards him.
"Put that away." Lena hesitates, and in a compromise he didn't agree to, flips on the safety instead.
Tim would cut of his left nut with a rusty razor blade and no anesthetic right now if it would get him his rifle back. With everyone ducked down, the third shooter is taking a break, and while he's happy not being shot at, it gives him no real information about their location. If he had a rifle and a scope this would be easier.
He was facing east when he was shot in the back, so their shooter must be somewhere west. There's another parking garage there, the twin to this one, though less finished. Tim relays this bit of information to John before standing to lean sideways in a half crouch. He clutches the side mirror, keeping his lower half behind the engine block and his torso protected by glass so he can look around. It wrenches his ribs painfully, and he drops back down with a grunt.
"Tim?" Lena's eyes have gone wide again, and she's crawling back over. "You said you were fine." It's the same accusatory tone he leveled at her in the truck stop bathroom.
"It is fine, just a couple ribs, no holes."
"And you tell me I'm the one who needs a dictionary. I bet you fifty bucks the word fine does not cover broken ribs."
Oh, now she wants to argue about the definition of fine. "And I bet you fifty bucks it does cover not being bullet swiss cheese." If he can just make it over to the abandoned squad car, he bets –
Lena's hand snags his cuff. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"I need a rifle."
"Oh no. Nonono. No, because if you die, then I'll steal your dog tags and make a ring out of one of them and wear it around until I've killed whoever killed you, and John will be pissed off that I'm running around killing people instead of doing my job, and I'll be fired and then because I'm shit at killing people and I stole government property I'll go to jail and rot there, and is that really what you want for my future 'cause that's fucking selfish, and I really don't see why you have to –"
Her whisper rises in pitch and volume with each word, and Tim claps a hand over her mouth. "Lena."
She takes the mature route and licks his palm. "Stop swearing." She licks his hand again. He too takes the mature route and makes sure to wipe his palm off on her face as he releases her.
"Jackass." He's not sure if that's an ornery reaction to his telling her to stop swearing or because he wiped her own saliva across her face. Maybe both.
"Tell Sayeed to give you his helmet. Say it in Pashto and make sure no one who's over there," he jerks his thumb vaguely west, "can see it."
He can almost see her think Not until you tell me what it's for, but in the end she doesn't argue. Later, when he thinks back on this he'll appreciate her trust.
"Sayeed?" Lena calls softly, and when he responds, a short phrase, and then a helmet is sliding and rolling towards them. Lena holds it out.
"You're gonna make that a distraction. Just hold it up and move it like you're a person moving. They'll shoot at that, not me."
"Raylan?"
"Yup?"
"In about five seconds, I need you to shoot west. Don't hit me. I'm gonna get whatever's in the trunk."
"Think they got a rifle?"
"I'm hoping."
Tim waits four seconds, gives Lena a quick nod, and sprints.
Over Raylan's firing there's a shot, a near simultaneous clang, followed by a yelp, followed by a fuck ton of swearing. The swearing is a comfort. Mostly. "You good?" he calls. Keep swearing, keep swearing.
A "yeah" comes from behind the SUV. "Just surprised." Tim lets out a breath he's only now aware of holding and turns to the car, leveling his gun at the trunk lock.
"Hoo, whoa, whoa." Apparently, Raylan had taken Tim's request to provide cover as an invitation to join him. Raylan loves reinterpreting requests. "Try keys first."
There's not a rifle in the trunk.
"Hoo-eeee." Raylan lets out a low whistle. "Who needs a gun when you have a rocket launcher?" He reaches inside, but Tim bats his hand away.
"That's a missile launcher, and if you don't know what it is, you don't get to fire it."
"Well, I know what it is now."
Tim would prefer the rifle, but in this case, he's inclined to agree with Raylan's earlier statement. This'll do just fine.
Tim hefts it onto his shoulder before Raylan can voice further protest, and with the words all young enlisted dread hearing from a master sergeant, says, "Hey, watch this shit."
A common misconception – all Hollywood's fault of course – is that explosions come with a big fireball. Really they're just a big puff of smoke and sound.
"Holy shit."
The fire ball is a bit of a surprise. "Must have been a full gas tank."
"I don't suppose there's another one in the trunk is there?" Raylan's expression turns from delighted hope to something that bodes ill, gaze locked over Tim's shoulder. Before Tim can turn, he hears the roar of multiple loud engines approaching.
o.O.o
"FBI! Come out with your hands up!"
"I am not falling for that again," Raylan mutters. No one moves, and there's another call repeating the instructions.
Dave leans forward a fraction, poking his head around the corner. "Well there's no way out except through…six cars."
"If you don't come out," the voice starts again.
"One of you toss us a fuckin' badge!" yells John.
"You can see one when you come out with your fuckin' hands up," is the response.
"Feebs," Raylan mutters, "assholes in every state. Art was right. It must be in their job description."
"It's a badge, not a security blanket!"
A little black flip cover with FBI creds lands near them with a scuff, and with a furtive look at the besieging agents John picks it up and types at his phone. "Back up is five minutes out," he says more quietly to the rest of them, "we just have to stall until then."
Someone must pick up because John suddenly looks away and starts reading off the badge number.
Tim doesn't see the point given how well that worked out last time, but his head snaps up when John reads the name. "Wait, did you say Kelsey McCoy?"
John looks at Tim and then into space as he chooses to pay attention to the person on the other end of the line instead. Tim decides not to wait for an answer and creeps forward. The light is making silhouettes out of everyone, and identifying faces is near impossible. Another reason to have a rifle with a good scope – a scope would make this easier. Not that pointing a rifle at a group of jumpy and possibly hostile feebs would be all that helpful.
He edges a little farther forward, staying behind a pillar just in case this gamble doesn't pay off. "Hey!" Tim calls out, "Is Chadwick spelled with a 'C'?"
"Holy shit, Tim?"
o.O.o
Lena gets the phone call while she's cooling her heels in Agent McCoy's office in FBI headquarters, swinging her feet from a swivel chair. The actual FBI had sent their counter-terrorism team to investigate when a car blew up in the middle of the city. After waiting for the CIA security team to show up, they decided the Bureau's headquarters would be safest. They've been kind enough to offer them crappy coffee and order take-out, but she wishes she were back in her own office. The CIA has better chairs. This one sags a bit sadly.
Her phone sings a merry rendition of 'God save the Queen'. "Oona?"
"'Eyyyy, boss'lady." The appellation runs together to form a single word heavy on the 'sssss' and the 'yyyyyyy'. Lena closes her eyes and mentally makes a note to murder her little brother.
"Oona, how drunk are you?"
"You didn' even ask if'm actually drunk." As if it's not obvious.
"Tell James he's in trouble."
"Now that's not fair. He…" There's a protracted silence, and Lena checks the phone to make sure there's still a connection. "He gave me two very delicious bottles of wine to make me feel better. I got one of each color." Lena digs a palm into her left eyeball as she hears James' aggrieved voice in the background ('It's called Cote de Nuit!'), and if Oona actually drank all two of them, she's not really going to be feeling better tomorrow.
"How lovely. Oona, is there a reason you're calling?"
"Oh yes, do you remember Angeliano? That lovely little pharma company in Ancona those janky fucks are using to smuggle opium?"
"Y–"
"Speaking of Ancona, James here was telling me all about this fabulous little town called Portonovo to the south of with all these amazing beach restaurants –"
"Oona."
"And this one where they literally catch your dinner right –"
"Oona."
"I 'ave no idea why you're not as excited about this as I am."
"Oona."
"He also said he has this friend, Peter, who's a," Oona lowers her voice, affecting a drunken Scottish accent, and given the amount of alcohol she appears to have consumed, it's not all that far off, "'feckin' good mate an' good fer a lark' that he'd be happy to introduce me to."
Jesus Christ in the trunk of a car with a dead hooker. Lena rests her forehead against the earpiece and takes a steadying breath. "Oona. Angeliano. Opium smuggling. Focus."
"Ugh, Jesus, Stratford's trust fund is for the kid of Angeliano's CEO, who by the way is alive and breathing and all those things that shit-eating drug smugglers like to do, so why would his kid need a trust fund from another dude, right? Anyways, all that money is coming straight out of the kid's account and right into daddy's, so you betch'er bottom dollar that those fuckers are in cahoots. Don't worry, he'll be arrested sometime around noon tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? What's wrong with right now?"
"Dude, he's got this fancy luncheon thing tomorrow for his upcoming campaign. Lots of donors and shit. It'll be way more hilarious if we do it then. GenCorp fuckers have already been picked up though."
Lena grins into the phone. "Oona, my life would be terrible without you."
"I've been trying to tell you that for years."
o.O.o
Tim waits until she's off the phone to open the door to Kelsey's office. Kelsey herself is with the rest of her team trying to get answers out of John. Lena's boss was enjoying being disappointingly vague. Tim and Raylan were enjoying watching the feebs being disappointed. It'll give Art a good chuckle when he hears about it. He'll send an extra bottle of bourbon to Kelsey to make up for everything later.
"Oh!" Lena leaps out of her chair to take the coffee he'd brought for both of them, and tries to wave Tim down into it. Out of a need to be obstinate, he declares he's fine and sets himself on the edge of the desk instead.
"You need to go to a hospital," she states, undeterred.
He takes her hand, gives it a gentle tug. "You promised me Thai food." Nothing's sticking into a lung, so he took six Tylenol, promised Kelsey he wouldn't drink (too much), and called it a good day to be alive. There are other things he'd rather be doing in an empty office than arguing.
Lena glares. "You'll get it after you've seen a doctor."
"Sayeed said I'm fine."
She opens her mouth, closes it, and gives in to his tug. Her head hits his shoulder, but there's no weight behind it. "Please tell me this is the most exciting thing you've done as a marshal."
"Well there was this one guy hopped up on bath salts who –"
"Tim."
He still doesn't know what to do with this, all this concern and worry and the way her fingers curl into his shirt with a sense of urgency. "It's not nearly as interesting as Afghanistan."
She huffs a warm breath against his collar. "I'd hope not."
"I am good at my job, you know," he says after a little while.
She pulls back, and he can see her rub her thumb across her ring. There's still a patch of shadow there. "Yeah, so am I." Somehow, he knows that even though this is all over she'll keep wearing it.
Tim takes one hand, then the other, and pulls her back in. "If the second most exciting day of this job was watching a dude high on bath salts wearing a sheet for a cape and waving his dick at us like a helicopter, you don't have to be too worried. The night shift at McDonald's sees crazier shit."
He gets the laugh he was looking for.
"A helicopter?"
"Yeah." But there are other things he'd rather do in an empty office besides talk about the job – or talk at all – especially when he's hyperaware of being alive, so when Lena steps closer, slipping her arms carefully up around his shoulders, he does the same and forgets about talking or thinking or anything else that isn't right in front of him.
o.O.o
"Art, it's fine."
"A missile."
"No one died."
"From a missile? You don't even have to aim."
"No one who didn't deserve it died."
A longsuffering sigh. "I'm really going to miss bacon." There's a pregnant pause that sinks Raylan's stomach. "Have you ever been to India, Raylan?"
"No."
"Well my second keeps bothering me about it, says she wants to study abroad there. Says it's where Buddhism was founded. Do you know anything about Buddhism, Raylan?" From the slow way Art's coming to the point and the way he keeps repeating his name, Raylan expects it to be sharp.
"Some."
"It's a religion of peace."
"Yeah," he says, wishing the axe would just drop so he knew which way to jump.
"Well maybe with all the leave you're about to have you can go see the sights, learn about Buddhism."
"Oh, come on, Art."
"Raylan, as much as you tell me you hate taking vacation, I'm inclined to think you're lying to me. Because a person who fires missiles at buildings would only do so because they're hoping to take leave."
"That was all Tim."
"You two can go on vacation together then. Hand him the phone. I'll tell him all about it." Art sounds both gleeful and put upon at the same time.
While Raylan trudges down the hall, phone in hand, he pours his mental energy into thinking of ways to wheedle down his 'leave'. Not that all this hadn't been a nice holiday from dealing with Boyd and Harlan, but he has plans that –
"Uh, he'll call you back." And Raylan hits 'end', belatedly remembering that hanging up on one's boss is not the best way to convince them to shorten your suspension.
He'd always wondered about Tim. From the occasional side-eye, he knows Art's wondered. If the dude had any kind of sex life he never talked about. Or at least never with Raylan, which is fine by him. He makes a point of avoiding that sort of office gossip, mostly a result of his personal life making a frequent appearance in it. He prefers to live and let live in privacy. If anyone actually knew anything it would be Rachel, but Rachel is the last person who blabs, so everyone else, is forced to wonder or nut up and ask. For his part, Raylan had always just kind of assumed…only time he ever saw Tim with someone was at the country bar on the edge of town he took Winona to when they were still being discreet…and it had seemed like Tim was being discreet…with a guy…Well.
Raylan turns around to head back down the hall to the conference room. Not that he had any investment in Tim's love life, but after seeing him tonguing Agent Carlan, any lingering uncertainty was definitely cleared up. Hopefully they close the blinds before they get too much more involved. Hands were reaching for inappropriate places as he started his retreat.
Raylan runs into one of the agents who picked them up coming the other way towards him. "Hey, you seen Tim?" The request is actually lighthearted and polite, a bit jarring in asshole central. He should probably feel bad about lying, but he'd feel worse if he ratted Tim out.
"Think he's taking a shit. Try the bathroom down the hall."