Happy Easter everybody! All your reviews have been amazing so thank you for that – I was worried about how I was going to go writing serious things again after the madcap insanity of the last four stories and all of your feedback has gone a long way towards convincing me I'm not completely hopeless at it.
Part III: XI-XV
xi.
The eleventh week is a blur of adrenaline and late night tactical exercises that leave Don pleasantly and quietly exhausted. Ian tells the four of them that he expects more of them than any of the other recruits and that they need to start thinking about what divisions they want to go into after they're done because, if they don't disappoint him, he may be able to pull some strings.
Discussing their options is the focus of what little animation and energy they can muster after their compulsory training on top of the sessions that occasionally devolve into badly disguised physical torture and Ian bursting into their rooms at various stages of the night barking orders interspersed with what he calls encouragement, not any kind of encouragement they've ever heard before, and various loud and alarming noises.
They have a new and unusual mix of healthy respect and utter fear of the man's creativity by now.
The girls don't believe their stories about Ian's unorthodox methods and he flatly refuses, despite Alex and Carter's pleading, to do the same to them. He instead says that he'll surprise them at some point on Saturday evening with an activity for all eight of them because he assumes that they'll all be together. Don flushes a little, Richard refuses to meet the man's eyes and Alex and Carter simply look smug.
On Saturday evening they're in what has become their favourite place on the field and practically vibrating with adrenaline, much to the girls' confusion and consternation.
Terry and Alice are the first to suspect that something is going on. Alice peppers Richard with rapid-fire questions that he valiantly attempts to withstand and Terry simply pins Don with a stare that simultaneously sets his stomach to fluttering and his lips twitching with the beginnings of a grin.
They know that Ian must have them under surveillance because it is barely two minutes later that the shrill whistle and small pop of a paintball breaks the relative calm. Richard pushes Alice down and is on his stomach, eyes scanning the darkness, within seconds. Don knocks Terry's elbows out so she lands flat on the ground with a vague 'oof' noise and rolls to the side instantly.
Erin and Charlotte beat Alex and Carter to it, hitting the grass with quiet hisses of surprise.
"Spread out," Carter breathes quietly as another paint projectile hits the grass barely six inches from his face. "Stay low."
"There'll be guns over the crest," Don says and he barely makes it out of the way as a third hits smack in the middle of he and Richard. "Eyes open, be fast, and no straight lines or you'll be out before you even make the tree."
Forty five minutes later every single one of them is panting, eyes alight with adrenaline, exposed skin glowing with sweat and paint in the moonlight. They don't catch sight of Ian the whole time but that is no surprise.
Don doesn't think he's ever felt more alive than in the moment when Terry, all shining eyes and smears of paint and mud, collides with his midsection. A rush of words leave her lips as his arms slide around her waist but he doesn't care what they are and crushes their mouths together instead because that says everything that needs to be said.
xii.
Michael Wells, the tactical instructor, is a friend of Ian's and in the twelfth week he joins their little extracurricular group. The man is an expert in psychological warfare, as they soon find out, and by the end of their first week at the combined mercies of the pair they find themselves off-kilter and alarmingly fragile.
Don doesn't think he manages to hide the betrayal in his eyes when he looks at Ian at the end of the session, soaked with a cool sweat and overcome with an itching, uncontrollable urge to crawl out of his skin that he thought he'd put behind him a long time ago.
Ian's answering expression is less than sympathetic and when Richard turns an exhaustedly belligerent stare on him it becomes blatantly confrontational.
"There isn't an agent in the Bureau that doesn't know how to bullshit their way through a psych evaluation," he says and his voice is low and dark. "But they let the scars bleed themselves out when they open and you need to learn to do the same if you're going to make it."
Not one of them will be able to remember much of that weekend once it is over but Don remembers that he isn't the only thing between them and breaking, that he doesn't have to be the one to fight and keep all the pieces from shattering.
Richard remembers the slightly bitter and unfamiliar sense of satisfaction when he manages to step up to the plate and hold the most important parts of all of them together.
Alex remembers the quiet sounds of hitched breathing and the patter of rain on the roof and the lack of panic that they instil this time.
Carter remembers the tired glaze of two pairs of brown, one blue and one green, eyes when the sun sets on the Sunday evening and the scars have bled themselves almost dry.
xiii.
The thirteenth week is quiet in comparison to the others.
Ian teaches them how to go unnoticed until they choose otherwise and Michael teaches them how to use someone's own mind against them. The pair seem almost unnaturally pleased with how easily the foursome take to the new activities.
"Your ideas of right and wrong don't mean anything unless you're both playing from the same rulebook," Ian says and his teeth flash in the faint dawn light. "And I'm telling you that nobody out there has a copy of yours."
Don writes to his parents and nothing he puts on paper means anything at all.
"Gain someone's trust and they'll hand you everything you need to destroy their guard from the inside out," Michael says and his eyes are stone. "Give no one yours and you'll be indestructible."
The girls ask them to help them improve their times in the final fitness test the next week and they spend every free moment running.
They run until their whole bodies are screaming so loud that their minds are finally silent.
They fall a little in love that week because somehow there is nothing but a peaceful, quiet exhaustion.
xiv.
Charlotte and Terry score higher on the week fourteen fitness test than any other female in the recruit pool. Alice and Erin score higher than a considerable number of the males.
Don doesn't falter even a little this time and is a solid two seconds ahead of Alex. Richard and Carter tie for third and Ian gives them the Friday morning off as a reward. There is something in the faint glimmer of pride in Ian's dark eyes that makes the four of them get up at dawn and run again for the sheer reason that they can.
The screaming is more muted than ever before until Don realises that there are only six weeks left before all of this is over and then it seems to ring, unshakeable, in his ears.
They end up in Ian's apartment that evening anyway and Don tells him that he wants to go into Fugitive Recovery. Richard asks whether Ian has an in to the Behavioural Analysis Unit and Ian tells Alex and Carter to talk to Michael Wells about getting into SWAT.
xv.
Don's parents reply to his letter in the fifteenth week and say that they miss him and can't wait for him to come home. He puts his face in his hands for a moment because there isn't a single cell in his body that wants to leave this place.
Ian's eyes are dark and knowing the next morning when Don steps into the range before dawn. "They can't take this," he says quietly. "What you were, are, become, not any of it. You've made your choice."
Two hours and two hundred rounds later, panting and shaking with exertion, Don still doesn't quite know what the other man meant by his words but he's just a little less terrified of this ending. Quantico has taught him that even little achievements add up to great things and he has a newly discovered hunger for great things.
Fifteen down and five to go.