Before I begin, I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed this fanfiction. I really do appreciate the support and would also like to say that reviews are like kittens; little bundles of opinion that I'm really quite fond of. So without further adieu...
Alex watched out the window in a daze as they drove back to Grey Fox's home
Alex watched out the window in a daze as they drove back to Grey Fox's home. Cane and Hawk were arguing in the front but Alex wasn't listening; they didn't seem to be talking about anything particularly important. Hawk was muttering something about Grey Fox's stupidity, while Cane was insisting that it if it hadn't been for him, this wouldn't have happened. Hawk certainly didn't disagree with his comrade on that point though. But Alex was too deep in his own thoughts to notice.
There were many thoughts railing through his mind at high speed. How had Grey Fox been so careless as to be caught? What was going to happen to her? What was going to happen to him now? Grey Fox had been found outside of bank that had just been robbed; they'd hardly give her a slap on the wrist and send her home. And if she was already on record (which she probably was)—well that was even worse, wasn't it? There was no telling how long his mentor would be sent to prison for and if they could pin a murder or two on her, then she might even get a death sentence.
His thoughts kept spiralling in that manner to and fro in his head, wrapping up his attention of the outside world and focusing it within. Before Alex realised, they had already pulled up on the curb outside of Grey Fox's apartment.
They all grabbed a bag each and Alex kept a hand on the attaché case that Grey Fox had given him. They got out of the car and walked through the doors of the building. The doorman smiled and bid them a good morning as he held the door open for them and tipped his hat. Alex looked at his watch; it was half five in the morning—much too early, in his opinion, to arrive home with anything but a victory. However, despite Alex's strong opinion on the matter, that was what they were doing; they were coming home to lick their wounds with their tails between their legs.
They walked through the lobby and into one of the lifts. Hawk pressed the button and the doors closed. Within a second, the lift jerked and began to ascend to Grey Fox's floor. While they were in the lift Alex looked down at the attaché case. It was heavy and made out of some sort of metal, probably nigh on impossible to break. Alex wondered what was in the case that was so important that Grey Fox had risked her freedom for. Surely, there wasn't anything that would be valuable enough, was there? Well, what was he saying? Obviously there was if Grey Fox had gone back. Before Alex got lost in his thoughts for a second time in probably as many minutes, the lift dinged pleasantly and the doors opened. Alex followed Cane and Hawk to Grey Fox's apartment door. Cane dug his hand in his trouser pocket and took out a key. He put it in the door and twiddled it a bit before there was a clicking sound and the door opened. The door drifted open itself as Cane put the key back in his pocket. The light clicking sound of heavy paws on wood made everyone aware of the approach of the wolf, Red. Needless to say, before Cane or anyone else could make another move, the large pet had shown itself and had it's hackles raised in it's customary grumpy greeting. Hawk cut in front of Cane and reached out a hand to appease Red. It seemed to work as the wolf, nuzzled his hand for a moment then turned and went back to whatever it was doing. The three of them travelled into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
As they sat down, Alex got his first good look at the other two men. Cane seemed depressed and riddled with guilt, his head was bowed and his eyes seemed distant. Hawk had told Alex that Cane and Grey Fox had gone out for a short while some time ago and though Cane was still undeniably in love with her, she did not feel the same way. Alex figured it must have been a blow to the man, if that really was the case.
Hawk looked a little better but he had the look of someone who was lost. He was staring ahead of him, his fingers tapping on the table unconsciously; he always did that when he wasn't happy, it was one of the first things that Alex had learned about him.
Alex wondered how he was looking himself. He was tired, he knew that much, but how did he look? Did he look as lost as Hawk, or as distraught as Cane? Probably not. He liked Grey Fox, was very fond of her in fact. But she was a criminal and she must of known what the dangers were.
Alex hadn't thought about it before, but what did he feel about this? He guessed that he was sad… and disappointed—angry too. He was sad that Grey Fox was in trouble, which was straightforward enough. But angry? Disappointed? Why?
Alex scowled. He was angry that she had got caught; Grey Fox had given off an air of invincibility—nothing could get to her. So why had it happened? Grey Fox was only human after all, Alex realised bitterly. Really, he was an idiot to get caught up in the idea. And he was disappointed that it wasn't true. He was disappointed that Grey Fox hadn't lived up to her name.
Alex almost laughed when the thought came to him. But figuring that it would seem inappropriate to just burst out laughing in the silent, gloomy room he stayed quiet. It was a worrying thought though. That he, a MI6 agent, would want a killer to be unbeatable. God knew what she had done to people? How about the families she had broken or the people she had hurt? But Alex couldn't deny it; he liked her. And he really didn't consider her to be a 'bad' person. She certainly wasn't a good person, but she wasn't completely bad either.
Alex would have mused more or this thought, but at that moment, Hawk pulled himself away from the table. Causing his chair to make a screeching sound against the tile. Both Alex and Cane looked up, questioningly.
"I have to get home. The wife will be getting up soon. She'll worry if I'm not there. I told her I was working the night shift. She'll kill me if she finds out I was lying." Hawk explained as he opened his black bag and emptied it on the table. Once again, Alex was shocked at the amount of money that they now had. Hawk quickly counted his share of the money and shoved it into the bag again. He zipped it up and put on his back. Before he left he put his hand on Alex's shoulder.
"Don't worry Alex. I'm confident that Grey Fox will find a way out of this. She's resourceful and she knows the game. Have some faith in her."
What could Alex say to that? Have faith? The sheer definition of the word gave Alex reason to doubt. Sure he wanted to believe it, but if there was one thing this last year had thought him, it was to be cynical. To put faith in other people must surely be everyone's downfall right? After all, Alex had had faith that MI6 would be finished with him after Herod Sayle and the Stormbreaker incident, hadn't he? And here he was, on another mission for the damn organisation.
Back to that moment though, Alex just looked to Hawk and nodded his head. "Yeah," He told Hawk, "I will."
It seemed that Alex had lied sufficiently and Hawk accepted his words with an affirming grunt as he took his hand off of Alex shoulder and quietly left the apartment. It wasn't long after the sound of the front door closing, that Cane stood up and announced he was going to get a few hours rest.
"You should too." He advised Alex as he went to his own bedroom.
Alex sat at the kitchen for a little longer, staring at one of the wooden doors on a cupboard. It was where Grey Fox usually kept her bowls and plates, but Alex wasn't concentrating on that fact; he was wondering about what he was supposed to do now. Should he call MI6 and ask them to come home? Or should he stay here for a while? And what was expected of him now? Did Hawk and the others expect him to go? Or did MI6 expect him to stay despite the recent events? Alex shook his head. This was just too much; there were just too many questions for him to answer. At least before breakfast time, anyway. So, after a few moments, Alex concluded that the only thing to do was to take Cane's advice and get a few hours' shuteye. After that, he would see about this predicament. Alex got up and left the kitchen, making his way to his bedroom and closing the door with a dull click.
--
A little earlier and somewhere across the city was a building. In that building there were many men and women—cops, mostly. But some of the people were not. They were mostly criminals, or families of criminals. This was not entirely unexpected—the building was after all a police building. But when he came into work early that morning (due to a robbery, concerning Evergreen Bank), Sergeant Delaney certainly was not expecting the sort of criminal that he found in the interrogation room. The criminal was a young woman, no more than twenty-two or three. Hell, for all he knew she could have been a lot less—she certainly wasn't telling them, she had barely spoken a word since she came in. They had taken her picture and fingerprints when she had come in first, only to find that she didn't have any fingerprints; they had been chemically burned off. So it really didn't tell them much about her identity, other than she was obviously used to doing illegal things. That however was not enough evidence to convict her of anything…at least not on its own. And though she had been found outside of the bank, she didn't put up any resistance; which meant that technically, she could have been a passer-by that just got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. The picture they had taken of her did not match any previous offenders in the databanks either. Sometimes Sergeant Delaney hated his job; the woman was clearly as guilty as hell, but they had nothing that they could stick to her. Put simply, in the eyes of the law, she was innocent.
Sergeant Delaney growled in frustration as he walked through the busy office. The place was buzzing with activity—even more so than on a usual Saturday night. Crime didn't seem to care that he was missing a romantic evening with his wife, in fact; it seemed to relish it. But then, maybe that was just the natural cynicism that came with being a cop for forty odd years. He was old, tired and close to retirement; he didn't need this anymore. The wife was complaining that he didn't spend enough time with her. And he wanted to still have a Mrs. Delaney at the end of the day when the force asked for his badge and gun.
But back to that moment, Sergeant Delaney was standing outside a door. It was the door to the interrogation room. He looked in the grill of the door, just in time to see Matthews bang the table in frustration and yell and the silent woman. Clearly, she still wasn't talking.
Sergeant Delaney shook his head and opened the door, she was one tough cookie it seemed; Matthews could be damn intimidating when he wanted to be. That only made Delaney even surer that the woman was guilty; no one would be uncooperative unless they had something to hide, especially when Matthews was on the case. Even the sergeant shuddered when he thought of what had happened a few months back with a possible murder case. Matthews was just back from his suspension.
Matthews looked at his boss when he entered and straightened up. He walked over to the sergeant and began a hushed conversation.
"I can't get anything out of her, Serge." Matthews told him quietly. "And I've done everything except resort to violence."
The way Matthews told him this, made Sergeant Delaney realise that he was asking permission.
Sergeant Delaney scowled. "Take a brake, Matthews, go get yourself some coffee or something. I'll talk to her."
Matthews looked as if he was going to argue but then just grunted and with a roll of his eyes, he left the room.
With his comrade's departure, Sergeant Delaney was left in the room with Jane Doe. Apart from a clock ticking, the whole room was silent.
Sergeant Delaney clicked his tongue and then went over to sit on the uncomfortable metal chair, opposite the woman.
Grey Fox raised an eyebrow as if to challenge a change of tactics, but her mouth was firmly closed.
Sergeant Delaney clasped his hands in front of him, letting them rest on the table. For the first time, he got a good look at the potential convict. She was young, as he had already noticed. She had dark blond hair, bordering brown and unusual eyes; one was blue and the other green. It really wasn't noticeable until you got up close. She was skinny too, but then all the young ones were these days, weren't they? There was nothing really distinguishing about her features, she could easily be mistaken for a great many people, or no one at all. She was one of those people who could be forgotten easily, if the need required her to. Having said that, the woman in front of the aging cop was really quite pretty. She wasn't absolutely gorgeous but far from ugly and good looking in a quirky kind of way. Still, there was a sort of hardness to her eyes and face that he didn't like and it firmed his resolve to not take it easy on Jane Doe.
"So," Sergeant Delaney said eventually, as he turned on the recorder, "Please state your name for the record."
Silence meeting this as Grey Fox steadily held his gaze. The man sighed and reached to turn off the recorder.
But before he did, Grey Fox spoke for the first time. " P. Leila." She said.
Sergeant Delaney looked surprised. "So what does the "P" stand for?" He asked, pleased at the cooperation.
A shadow of a smile crossed Grey Fox's lips. "Princess." She answered.
The cop's brow furrowed for a moment before he realised she was joking and then he threw her an exasperated glare.
"Oh Great," Sergeant Delaney groaned to himself, "A Criminal Star Trek fan, just what I need…"
But he didn't voice this as he leaned closer to the Grey Fox. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?" He asked, "Anything you do to cooperate will be noted, but if you keep wasting our time, then nobody's going to be sympathetic towards you. Help us help you."
Grey Fox glanced down at her cuffed hands, with a sigh. "Listen," She said, in her business tone. "You seem like a good guy—probably one of the few cops that aren't crooked in this city. So do yourself a favour and let me go now, otherwise your not going to be going home happy to your wife tonight."
Sergeant Delaney's eyes narrowed, "Are you threatening me?" He asked with a low voice.
"No." She denied, "I'm just telling you what's going to happen."
"Oh? Well then, tell me what you think will happen in this deluded little world of yours."
Grey Fox shrugged. "It could be an hour, could be a day. It depends on how long you intend to revoke my right to a phone call. Of course I might not even need to call them, but that's irrelevant. Either way, some time in the near future some guy in a suit is going to come through the front doors, he's probably going to be arrogant—act like he owns the place; you know the sort. The type whose look just screams 'government'." She said the last sentence in quiet hiss. "He'll come in and ask to speak to whoever is in charge. That's you, I assume. You'll get called out and he'll ask you to let me go. Judging by what I've seen, you'll be likely to decline. Then he'll tell you. It'll be an offer that you won't be able to refuse. If you do happen to fight; you'll probably lose your job. These people don't like to be challenged. After that, I'll be let out free of charge and you and I will part ways. There's nothing more to it."
Sergeant Delaney leaned back and crossed his arms, trying to hide a smirk. "Oh really?" He asked, humouring the women, "And what makes you so special? Are you a spy? An undercover governmental agent? Or do you have some special secret powers?"
Grey Fox knew exactly what the cop thought of her, but she ignored him and answered the question. "Not quite." She told him, "I've done some work for them—nothing fancy."
"You know how I know you're a whack job?" The Sergeant asked.
"How?" Grey Fox asked, refusing to be offended.
Sergeant Delaney regarded her with a knowing smile, "Because you're telling me this. If you really were some government operative then you'd be sworn to secrecy."
Grey Fox looked bored as she gave a quick glance around the room. "I don't swear." She said.
Annoyance flashed through his features for a moment before he reigned his emotions in. "You think you're so smart, don't you?" He told her angrily, "Well, I've got news for you; whack job or not, you're in a lot of trouble. Now, we're going to start this again. State you're name for the record."
Grey Fox rolled her eyes but she did actually answer the barrage of questions thrown at her. Surprisingly enough, this time, she answered truthfully. But whether the old cop knew this or not, was not entirely clear. It didn't matter; this would all be covered up anyway.
--
It was about hour later when a knock came on the door of the interrogation room. Sergeant Delaney looked up as Brooks opened it.
"Sergeant," He said, sounding as if he was frustrated, "There's someone here to see you."
Sergeant Delaney sighed, "Who is it?" He asked, Brooks shrugged and said he had no idea, "Tell them I'm busy. Make them leave a message and get out of here." He turned back around to Grey Fox.
"I tried that already, Sergeant. But…" Brooks hesitated, "You're going to want to see this."
The Sergeant grudgingly got up out of his chair. "I'll be back in a minute." He told the suspect.
"Not likely." Grey Fox answered. Sergeant Delaney gave her a pointed look but said nothing as he left the room.
Grey Fox listened to the door close with a bang and hid a small grin. It was only a matter of time now before she was on the way home.
Grey Fox looked around the room to keep herself occupied. From outside she could hear raised voices and the hush from all other background noises—not even a printer seemed to be running.
Some of the words carried themselves to Grey Fox's ears.
"…Not a hope in hell… I've been a cop for…now listen here…will not be bullied into…"
She easily recognised the voice of the over-enthusiastic cop. It was all going to schedule. Then there was silence for a moment and another man spoke outside, but his voice was much quieter and she couldn't make out more than mumbling.
It didn't take long for the door to open once more and a very unhappy Sergeant Delaney to walk through. He grabbed keys out of his pocket and went over to Grey Fox. He opened her cuffs.
"You're free to go." He said gruffly and he turned on his heel and left. Grey Fox rubbed her wrists and looked up as the doorway was once again darkened with a figure. A tall, well-groomed man in a black suit was leaning up against it.
"A fine mess you got yourself into this time, Ms. Manning." He told her.
Grey Fox nodded and stood up. "Yeah I know. Come on, let's go, James." The two of them left the room.
--
On the way out of the building, they passed Sergeant Delaney. The man in the suit, James, stopped. "There will be a clean-up crew arriving shortly," He told the head of the department. "It would be appreciated if you gave us your full co-operation."
"Not bloody likely." Was the man's gruff reply.
James shrugged and turned to Grey Fox. "Would it help you any, for me to remove this man?" He asked.
Grey Fox raised her eyebrow. Remove generally meant kill. James seemed to realise this and cracked a small smile.
"Politely, I mean." He elaborated.
Oh, that was a different thing all together. "No," She declined, "He can keep his job."
"Very well."
They turned and left the building. Sergeant Delaney let out a frustrated growl and flung a few colourful profanities out at passers by. "Damn Feds." He muttered. He turned and walked into his office.
--
However, the good sergeant was wrong. It wasn't the Feds the picked Grey Fox up. It was a governmental agency, all right. But they were much higher up than the Feds and were run by a group that even Washington had only heard rumours of. Grey Fox sometimes wondered if the President knew about them. She looked over at James, who was driving at that moment. No, the president probably didn't know—not the specifics anyway.
James noticed Grey Fox's eyes on him and he took his eyes off of the road for a moment. "What?" He asked, before looking back.
Grey Fox shook her head. "Nothing. I was just thinking… Thanks by the way."
"No problem," He told her, "But just so you know, I had to cancel my plans for this. I wouldn't mind but it's not something you should have gotten caught for. What's going on?"
Grey Fox closed her eyes. "Nothing."
"Nothing? The bosses want to know what the deal is and all I have to tell them if nothing? If I'm lucky, I'll be fired…"
Grey Fox knew this. If he was unlucky he'd probably be killed. She had seen it happen to the organisation's operatives before. A few years ago, she would have done it on purpose, but then James had come along to fill in the place of her 'keeper'. Despite herself, she liked James. He wasn't like the other ones who had practically tried to leash her. He didn't try and prove anything. Grey Fox sighed; she had gone soft.
"Tell them there was mutiny and I'm going to deal with it myself."
James nodded. He didn't mind lying for her; she would be just as vulnerable as he was if they thought she was losing her touch.
A comfortable silence fell between them for a while. James turned a corner and cursed as someone cut across him, speeding down the road. He pursed his lips and took another glance over at Grey Fox.
" I know officially it's none of my business to care about what you do but… what the hell where you doing in Evergreen Bank? How the did you get caught there? Something like that should be a walk in the park for you."
"Off the record?"
"Of course."
Grey Fox licked her lips; she always did when she was about to divulge information about her past. "When I first came to America," She told him, "I had blood on my hands—a lot of blood on my hands. When I arrived, I carried three things with me; one of them I lost and I had two that I knew I could not appreciate at that time. So I hid them, I kept them safe. Later, the place I was staying in got broken into and though they were not found I realised that I needed someplace safer to keep them. I saved up, opened an account and bought a slot in Evergreen bank. Those two things were put into an attaché case and locked away, eventually I forgot about it. When a friend told me about Evergreen, I remembered it. I wanted to get it back so I did. But I left something out; something that could be traced right back to me; it was sloppy. Really I deserved to be caught."
"And what were these things that were so important?" James asked.
Grey Fox smiled. "Wouldn't you like to know? I'm afraid I don't like you enough to say."
"Hmm, suit yourself; I was only making conversation." He defended, "Speaking of secrets though, how come you never mentioned that new protégé of yours?"
"How do you know about Alex?" Grey Fox asked suspiciously.
James shrugged, "It's my job to know."
"Yeah well there was nothing to tell."
"He's British. He works for MI6—I think that's something to talk about."
"It was a favour to Alan Blunt, that's all."
James laughed. "Since when do you do favours for him?"
Grey Fox scowled. "You know you're becoming a bit of a know-it-all, you know that?"
James ignored her. "So why did you take him?"
"You ever hear of John Rider?"
James shook his head. "The name's familiar but I couldn't put a face to him."
"Yeah well, Alex is his son."
"And?"
"I owed John a favour that I never repaid him for."
"The kid knows you took him on because of that?"
"Nah, I don't think so. He asked me about him once though."
James raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"
Grey Fox bit her lip. "I lied." She said softly.
"Why? What could be so bad for you to lie?"
"Look, it was the best thing to do at the time—and before you start, I don't need to hear one of your lectures."
"Hey, hey, my lips are sealed." His said, looking offended.
And true to his word, James and Grey Fox didn't speak until he pulled up in front of her apartment building.
"Well," He said, "With any look I won't see you for at least another year."
"Yeah, the same to you." Grey Fox replied as she opened the car door and got out.
"See you around, Kit Manning." James said.
"Yeah, later James." Grey Fox closed the car door and headed for the door of the apartment building. She heard the sound of the car drive away. The doorman smiled at her and bid her a good morning as he opened the door.
She walked through and went to past the lobby into the lift. The lift did its job aptly and when the doors opened again, she was on her floor.
She looked at her watch; it was half eight in the morning. She took her keys out from her pocket; they jangled as she put them in the keyhole. From the other side of the door she could already hear Red's claws click from the other side. Grey Fox smiled; she was home.