Office Chatter
Settling into his desk for the day, Peter started going through the paperwork that he was still behind on. Seeing that some of it was from their current case, he couldn't help but remember how all of the changes had started.
The team was working a routine case of investment fraud. It was only different from the typical case in the size of the operation. Instead of one person, it was a whole company of persons arranging investments for investors who were either new to the market, persons who were trusting in them to be the 'new thing' in the hopes getting better returns, or persons who simply didn't exist which was another avenue to investigate.
Neal was placed undercover as a new customer seeking to invest in the hopes of making it big. He pretended to be young and naïve, so it was easy for him to use his charm and enthusiasm to gain broader access to investment opportunities. (On the surface, it looked like he was making great investments, but really, they were illegally profiting off of him).
Once the evidence was captured, Peter led the take down team and began processing the case for closure.
While the agents were making their arrest and collecting data, a man dressed in black swept through the crowd with a knife. Passing by Peter and Neal, he swiftly struck small cuts on each of the men's arms.
Some agents automatically went into pursuit, only to lose the man in the crowds outside of the building, while other agents focused on Peter and Neal.
At first Peter and Neal assured everyone that they were alright, 'it's just a small cut' and agreed to get it checked out. Then the two began to react to the poison that had been coated on the blade and had entered their blood streams through the cuts. As the situation worsened, Jones and Diana fought to keep the two alive until the paramedics were able to arrive.
Both men continued to get worse on the way to the hospital, and were dying by the time the doctors settled them into rooms for their loved ones to say goodbye. When they beat the odds and survived anyway, Peter and Neal went through extensive testing to understand how they were able to overcome the death sentence.
Getting the call for the meeting, he moved with Chuck and Neal to see what the team had discovered while they were otherwise occupied and distracted.
"We have more information on Xander 'Blade' Russell." Jones said. "Blade seems to have come from a rough family environment with several counts of abuse, drugs, and investigations into child abandonment. When he was thirteen, protective services were going to take him away so he struck out on his own. Growing up on the streets, he fell into bad company and has only continued to get into trouble. Based on some old police reports, he witnessed some events of police brutality as well. Combine that with his friends on the street teaching him that law enforcement hinders free spirits, and he quickly became a problem."
Pausing to pull up some police reports, Jones detailed some more information into Blade's perspective. "Based on the talk from the CIs, Blade sees law enforcement as a suppressive force that is working to keep the masses under their rule. As a result, he takes every opportunity to rebel by committing petty crimes, and minor attacks that are primarily directed at police. During their escalating heists, his mentors gave him a knife, and told him to keep the police from responding by distracting them."
Taking another moment to pull up some pictures, Jones showed how he distracted the police. "He began by cutting their tires so that they couldn't respond to the alarms, and so that back up would have to come from a greater distance, thereby giving his crew time to complete their tasks. When the cops started getting wise to the strategy, he escalated the situation by starting to physically cut the police. Since the injuries were intended to hurt, but not kill, only a few officers ended up in the hospital while most were checked out before being released. That led to the officers taking precautions as police in uniform are his favorite targets."
Picking up from there, Diana added the details that she had been able to discover. "According to chatter on the street, Blade was recently approached by someone with an offer of financial gain if he would take out Peter and Neal before they discovered too much information behind their case. Apparently, someone knew that they were our lead people on this, so they were targeted as the lead agent and lead person undercover. Unfortunately, we haven't yet been able to figure out who this person is, or how they connect to the investment fraud case. Since the financial side disappears into the black market, we assume that there is some kind of money laundering going on and that we have disrupted someone's monetary supply."
Taking the lead to finish the meeting, Hughes gave out the assignments. (He had been taking a more hands on position in the case due to the situation). "Jones and Diana, I want you to continue pursuing Blade. If we can find him, not only can we charge him with attempted murder, but we might be able to get information on who his contact is. Peter and Neal, since Neal has these mysterious contacts in government, see if anyone can shed any light on that black market side or discover who this contact might be. We are going to get these people, but we need more information before we can solve this case." Dismissing the team, he retreated to his office and the others went about their work.
Back in his office, Peter was zoning out into his own world while Neal was off checking with secret sources.
Chuck was on his computer doing his own thing on the other side of the desk, so he observed Peter. "Hmm…" He made a sound from his side.
At Peter's questioning look, he continued. "You are obviously struggling with this, but he appears to be having his own challenges."
"What brought that up?" Peter questioned the sudden choice in conversation.
Tilting his head at Peter, Chuck seemed to ignore his question by changing the subject again. "You're a lot like him you know?"
Surprised, Peter asked what he meant.
"Neal… has lived by the motto of doing the right thing as long as I have know him, and he said in the park that you live by that standard as best as you can. From what I can tell, you both have athletic interests, backgrounds in advanced mathematics, government careers, love of puzzles and fun, and there is something to your humor that reminds me of him. There are probably more similarities, and those have their difference when you go deeper, but you still have the vibe of brothers going."
"Thank you." Looking at Neal's empty desk below, and then at Chuck, Peter looked grateful for the comparisons. It helped to reaffirm in his mind that they were brothers. "A part of me has wrapped my heart around him being my brother easily, he was already family. It's getting my head used to the change that I am struggling with. This has all happened so fast and there is so much that I don't know… he was right when he said this is a lot to take in."
"And that is what I meant by you both struggling." Chuck swerved back to the first point of his conversation.
Trying to catch up, but not seeing the point, Peter's expression questioned what Chuck meant.
"My point, is that you are struggling to get your head to catch up to your heart with the new situation of Neal being your brother. Meanwhile, Neal's heart wants to open up to you because he trusts you, but his head keeps telling him to be careful and his job restricts how much he can share. You keep working to rethink of him as a government employee instead of the criminal that you caught, and he keeps battling his past where he has been betrayed and hurt many times. You are coming from different directions, but yet you are obviously brothers in some of the ways that you are handling your struggles."
Feeling a tension loosening in his system, Peter realized that Chuck had noticed and solved the tension before he had even realized that it was there. "So, I shouldn't feel like he is struggling to open up to me, because he is actually struggling to overcome his past." Peter summarized what he was getting from Chuck's words.
"Exactly, you've been wondering why he is struggling to take small steps of opening up to you, but you have also been struggling to drop small things that are ingrained habits. All you have to do for him is to keep doing what you're doing. Be the big brother that he can rely on, and he will continue to open up to you as he is ready." Chuck finished his point.
Smiling, Peter thanked Chuck again. "Neal said that you tended to do that with people, especially the people that you care about."
"Do what?" Chuck didn't know what he was talking about.
"Help people. Neal said that you used your childhood issues as lessons to understand and help other people." Peter complimented Chuck.
Shrugging off the compliment, Chuck didn't feel that he deserved it for simply doing what felt natural to him.
Reverting to their tasks again, the two of them settled back into the work and conversation switched to only being the necessary for their case.
Elizabeth and Sarah were working alone in her office. There weren't any clients to meet for the afternoon, so Elizabeth had delegated her staff to working on their paperwork in an effort to catch up some aspects of the business. Tackling her part, Elizabeth had Sarah help her in her effort to catch up from all of her time off.
"There is a lot to do in owning your own business isn't there." Sarah empathized.
"I don't think there is an aspect of it that doesn't have some form of paperwork to keep up with." Elizabeth sighed as she continued to work through the daunting pile.
"Try running a private contracting business that frequently works in tandem with the government… the paperwork often needs to be done in triplicate in order to satisfy government standards." Sarah smiled as she made the work seem lighter than it could be.
Since the subject of their work in relation to the government had come up again, Elizabeth asked one of the big questions that was still bothering her. "If you don't mind my asking, would you define more of why you quit working for the government?" She was cautious as she asked.
Taking a few moments to think through how she ought to word her answer, Sarah tried to come up with a way to satisfy Elizabeth's concerned interest.
Tensing for what was obviously going to be something bad, Elizabeth almost regretted asking. Still, knowing the truth would help her to understand these new friends better and give her more understanding of how to interact with them.
Answering like a report, Sarah tried to remain fairly factual in an effort to distance herself from the memories. "An agent in a position of control left me dying in a hospital and refused to do anything to help. Fighting for my life, my husband and team technically became traitors to save me." She paused for a moment as she tried to gather her composure again. It was a very difficult subject for her. "The agent said that my father in law's death, my near death, everything that has happened to Neal… that all of it was simply the elites playing a game of chess… with us being of no more value than pawns in a bigger game."
Gasping, Elizabeth had known that it wasn't going to be good, but she was horrified to hear what Sarah had been through. In addition, she had alluded to Neal having been through something terrible too. Not ready to ask about that, she continued to ask about Sarah. "How can you have anything to do with the government after that?" After everything that Sarah had shared, Elizabeth was surprised to see her smile slightly.
"Because of agents like your husband. Like Neal, I have a team that I love, and a boss that I can trust. Although I don't currently plan on going back into official government work, I don't mind working in tandem with agents that I can trust."
"That is why Neal has his trust issues isn't it? I mean, he has been through some bad situations before, so he is trying to be careful of whom he trusts?" Elizabeth also tried to understand Neal better too. He was obviously having trouble opening up to her and Peter, was this why?
"Yes. The last time I saw him, he was betrayed and nearly died because of it. He has dealt with a lot of messes in just the situations that I know of. Luckily, Neal has his big brother to watch his back now." Sarah tried to lighten up the mood as the conversation had gotten strained with emotional tension.
Unable to focus on the papers before her, Elizabeth sat in a horrified silence. "Neal… nearly died from a betrayal?"
Moving to comfort Elizabeth, Sarah mimicked some of what she had learned from Ellie. "Yes, he did." Getting Elizabeth's attention, Sarah had more to say. "Elizabeth, Neal has nearly died more times than you will ever want to know about, but each time, he has saved countless lives. Maybe, someday, Neal will both be allowed, and ready, to tell you something of what he has done. Until then, I hope you can trust that Neal does what he does to protect others."
Shaken, Elizabeth had a new detail about Neal to adjust too. "Although I don't like the danger that entails, I can't help but be proud of the person that Neal keeps turning out to be"
After taking a few moments to calm her emotions, Elizabeth picked the conversation back up. "How did Chuck adjust to all of this?"
"It took a while and a lot of rough patches, but we reached a point where we were able help Chuck believe in himself. While we were helping him, he helped to ground us with a safe atmosphere of family and acceptance." She paused for a few moments before she decided to add. "Neal didn't know how it would work out, but his actions have made all of our lives better because he caused our team to be brought together."
"Why wouldn't your team work well together?" Elizabeth had only seen them as a family group, so she didn't understand their early relationships.
"Casey is a soldier and agent who has worked as an assassin, which means that he needs to be cold and distant. My reputation has given me nicknames like the director's 'finisher,' a 'wild card,' and rescuing Chuck once earned me the nickname 'big blonde she man,' so I wasn't exactly the easiest person to work with. Then Chuck… he was this kind hearted nerd who loves his family, playful, loyal, a genius, and so many other good qualities that he seemed to be at odds with Casey and me. Even Chuck's depression from what Neal had done four years prior, and languishing as an underachiever with no faith in himself, didn't stop Chuck from getting Casey's and my attention as someone special." Having described who they were then, she finished her answer. "We were so different back then, it wasn't likely that we would make a long term team… but Chuck changed that, by changing us."
"Chuck does seem to be like that. I've noticed that he likes to watch out for people and he seems to have a calming effect on Neal too." Elizabeth mentioned her observations.
"Neal and Chuck have been friends for a long time, so Neal trusts him a great deal. In fact, he said that he trusts Peter just as much as he trusts Chuck." Smiling at Elizabeth encouragingly, Sarah continued. "He even seems to trust you and I nearly as much. That is a big compliment coming from Neal."
Relaxing in the knowledge that Neal did trust her and Peter, in the knowledge that she was gaining a better understanding of Chuck and Sarah, and relishing her growing relationship with Neal, Elizabeth had a few more hurdles in the recent changes overcome.
Having dealt with some personal emotions, they transitioned into their next task with a strengthened friendship.
"Do you want to join us for dinner tonight? We need to test another caterer before we have our meeting tomorrow and the more taste buds the better." Elizabeth offered.
Laughing slightly, Sarah was a willing guinea pig. "Chuck and I would love to. However, Peter doesn't seem to be too interested in these things based on his reaction to the snacks with the game last Saturday."
Smiling, Elizabeth explained. "No, Peter isn't always too thrilled to try the 'fancy' snacks." Getting a little mischievous, Elizabeth added. "That is how I came to be friends with Neal. He rather enjoys trying new foods and giving me his opinion on which ones are good and which ones I should skip over."
Seeing the humor, Sarah understood. "So although they are brothers and similar in many ways, that is one of their differences."
"It is. The brothers seem to have differences in their taste for fancy foods." Elizabeth noted.
Completing their paperwork, the two closed the office down after the others had gone home. Making a quick stop to pick up the order, they headed to the Burkes where they would meet the guys for dinner.
Settling in for another evening, they simply enjoyed the food and friendly banter as they critiqued the food and services of the caterer.
Thank you everyone for reading, reviewing/commenting, leaving kudos, following, and choosing to favorite :D
To those who have extended their condolences and have kept my family in their prayers, I want to extend a special thanks to you as well!
