018: Tears of Time

Fridays were possibly Angela's favorite days ever. Especially when there weren't any cases. Truthfully, it had been a relatively slow day, and normally Angela would welcome any kind of case, but they had been running cases back to back, sometimes even overlapping for the last three weeks.

A little after four, Angela was turning off her computer when Vivian approached her.

"Oh, say it isn't so," Angela said apprehensively. "I thought we could have a nice weekend…"

Vivian just smiled. "Relax. You're in the clear."

"And through with all of the paperwork," she declared proudly. "You know if the bad guys with guns don't kill me, I swear to God all of those papers will."

"From a viciously bad paper cut?" Martin teased as he walked by the two of them on the way to his desk to finish his last few forms.

"Oh, ha ha, Martin," she said sarcastically. "You're just so clever."

"Ok, well, I'm heading out guys," Vivian announced to the bullpen. "I'll see you on Monday. If the shock of the weekend doesn't kill me first."

"That's a headline for you," Samantha grinned. "FBI agents killed off by paper cuts and weekends."

"You know, I'm starting to see why you and Martin get along so well," Angela laughed as she walked towards Danny's desk.

"Hey," he said, flipping through his many sheets of paper.

"Hey…" Angela put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm going to head to my place and maybe go for a run."

"A run?"

She shrugged. "Just to completely tire me out so that we can have a nice long, very lazy movie night tonight."

"That sounds good then. I'll be there when I finish this," Danny said, indicating his paperwork. "Hopefully I won't be too long."

"Ok. I'll see you then."

With another quick squeeze of his shoulder, Angela turned down the hall and headed home.

---

Angela hummed a song that she had stuck in her head from the radio playing in her car as she picked up the mail from her box down stairs. She was so happy that it was the weekend and that she had the next seventy-two hours with the man that she loved. There had been very little room for romantic play for the past three weeks: it had been hard enough getting four hours of sleep each night.

The elevator doors opened onto her floor and she sifted through the mail while also trying to search for her keys in her purse. Once the door opened, she set down the mail, not really looking at any of the letters, and went to her bedroom to change.

She tossed a tie of Danny's from the closet doorknob onto her unmade bed as she searched for some jogging clothes. She changed quickly and as she was lacing up her shoes, she finally looked at the mail.

"Junk… junk… junk… bill… oh, an invitation… bill…"

The last piece of mail she held in her hands for several seconds with a furrowed brow. It was addressed to her and the return address in the corner read "Dallas FBI Headquarters." What now? She wanted nothing to do with Dallas since… well, the Incident.

Curiosity got the best of her, and she opened the letter, leaving her left shoe only half-way tied.

Whatever she was expecting to be inside that envelope definitely wasn't what she found.

The lining of the envelope was a gold coloring and the card inside was a light cream color. On the front of the card was a black and white picture of small group of people gathered around a grave with their heads bowed. Angela knew what the inside of the card would read before she even opened it.

Please join us for the one year anniversary

Of the death of a great

Agent, brother, son, uncle, and man:

Brady Miller

Who was taken from the world

Far too early

But left us with such lasting memories

That we will never be able

To forget.

Angela stared at the card for an immeasurable amount of time, letting the words sink in all over again. All of the feelings and emotions that seemed to have slunk away from her since last year after the Incident seemed to begin to rise again. But instead of breaking down, Angela just sat there, unable to move.

She remained still, her mind blank, her emotions dead, and her left shoe still untied.

---

The sound of the key jingling in the door brought Angela to semi-awareness of where she was. She could barely make out Danny's voice coming from somewhere in the apartment.

"Angela!" he called. "Ang!"

He came into the bedroom to find her staring off at the corner of the room with the letter her in hand. She realized that he was there now, and quickly tucked the letter away.

"Hey! I thought you said you were going to go jogging!" he laughed, not noticing right away that there was something off about her. "Change your mind?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so," Angela said. Her voice seemed so distant.

Danny must have realized that something was wrong. His smile halted as his eyes ran over her face multiple times. "Is everything alright?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I just… I'm just tired… that's all," she lied quickly, trying to pull on a smile.

"Ok…" Danny said, not fully convinced, but he shrugged it off. "Well, then let's just plop ourselves on that little couch of yours out there and pop in a movie because I am so beat and I want nothing more than to watch John Cusack and Jeremy Piven."

Angela didn't reply but stayed where she was on the bed, looking at the floor, beginning to get lost in thought again.

"Ang… Angela… what's wrong with you? Serendipity is one of your favorite movies…"

"Oh, what? Yeah, yeah, it is," she said, jerking her head up, trying to recover. "I'm sorry I'm just tired, that's all."

Danny was once again not fully convinced. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Come on, let's go watch it."

---

Angela had drifted in and out of sleep for the past five hours. She had missed most of the movie, and only just now realized that she was in her bed with Danny's arm draped over her waist and his fingers intertwined with hers loosely. The skin on his hands and fingers was rough but it made Angela feel very well protected for some reason. She often traced the lines on his hands to help her get to sleep.

But not tonight. She knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep well tonight.

Untangling herself gently from Danny's hold, Angela slipped quietly out of her bedroom and into the living room. She pulled the card about Brady's service that she had hid under the other mail out and sat on the couch, reading it over and over and over again.

For a few minutes, the horrible images of Brady's death replayed in her mind. The men who had taken him from her life. The sound of the gunshot. The hole that he had left in everyone's hearts.

But after awhile, those images began to fade. They were replaced of memories of how things used to be when they were partners. He had this really quirky sense of humor that always made her smile, but he could change on a dime if the situation presented itself. Angela grinned at a memory of a Christmas party where Brady had single handedly managed to get every agent in the office to sing along with him "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

She remembered the whispers that used to spread around the office like wildfire that she and Brady were involved, but that was hardly the case. Brady was like a big brother to Angela, always watching her back, teasing her enough to get her smiling, but never letting anyone else lay a hand on her. Besides, he had always been heavily involved with another woman outside the office. They had had their rough patches though, and Angela was always the first person who Brady came to. He would go on and on about how women were impossible to understand which was enough to make Angela simply giggle.

Angela didn't know how long she had sat there before she heard the creaking of the bed from the next room. She turned and saw a very sleepy Danny emerge from the room. He ruffled his hair lazily and stopped when he saw her sitting on the couch.

He didn't say anything but simply sat down next to her. After a few moments, Angela handed him the card without saying anything. Danny read it, but still remained silent. After a few moments he put an arm around Angela's shoulder and brought her close to him and kissed her on her temple. She was only dimly aware that a large, fat tear had leaked from her eye.

"We can go," Danny finally whispered in her ear as he squeezed her shoulders tight.

"We?"

Danny smiled gently and kissed her on the cheek. "You're going to want someone there with you."

"You'd go?"

"To the ends of the earth."

Angela looked at him for several more seconds before blinking out two more fat tears and burying her face into his chest. She cried silently into his shirt until she could cry no more.

They didn't move. Danny and Angela lay on the couch holding each other as if daring fate to break them apart.

A/N: A little plot to keep the story going. It's a cute little plotline, and you'll see how Angela and Danny develop together. It's quite cute.

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