A/N: Hi guys. Sorry for the wait, but this chapter was...heavy. It took me a long time to write and to get it just the way I want it. Enjoy!

Chapter3

Garrett left Mikayla to her own devices, telling her to meet him at his office at one o'clock. Mikayla stood off to the side, watching the hustle and bustle of Jack's team. She wondered what she should do. Normally, she would have gone over to Jack, but a quick glance towards her old friend told her that he was frustrated, stressed, and not to be disturbed. She saw the people from Jack's photo shooting interested glances her way, but no one moved to confront her.

As she stood there, a Golden Retriever loped up to her and sat at her feet, raising both his front paws.

Mikayla laughed as she crouched down to his height. "Well, hello to you too!" She held her hand out for the dog to sniff before petting him on the head.

"I see you've met Levi." Mikayla turned her attention to the blond female smiling down at her, standing up and saying: "He's a beautiful dog. He must be pretty special to be allowed in her."

Mikayla shook the blond woman's hand. "He is special, but don't say that too loudly. He might get a big ego. Sue Thomas. And this is Levi, my hearing dog."

"Mikayla Kennedy." She assumed that, by having a hearing dog, Sue was deaf. Mikayla was about to question her when she was wrapped up in a pair of arms and lifted off the ground. When her feet touched back to the floor, she turned to see her assailant. It was the attractive, tall man from a few of Jack's photos.

"Well Mikayla Kennedy. Welcome to the F.B.I!" He reached for her hand but, rather than shake it, he bent low over it and gave it a small kiss. Mikayla felt herself go red. No guy had kissed her hand since…forever. The man winked playfully at her before saying, "Bobby Manning, at your service."

Still stunned by his friendly greeting, she spewed the first words that came to her. "Is that an Australian accent I detect?"

"Good ear!" Bobby answered, thickening his accent to a comedic extent. "The Bureau wanted me because I spent my childhood in the outback, wrestling crocodiles and kangaroos, and fighting off poisonous snakes and spiders." Mikayla giggled, wondering who this guy thought he was; not that it mattered, as she was thankful that he was trying to relieve the obvious tension emanating from Jack.

"Please, koala boy! I doubt our lovely companion is interested in your delusions." A new man came up and clasped her hand in both of his. "Myles Leland the Third. May I say that it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The pleasure's all mine."

"You'll regret saying that." A pretty black woman approached the ever-growing group with a tiny blond in tow. "No, really," she added as Mikayla laughed. "You will regret it. 99% of the time, Myles is anything but a pleasure. You'll learn that quickly enough. I'm Lucy Dotson." Mikayla shook her hand.

She glanced quickly over Lucy's shoulder to see Jack staring at them, steaming silently. Mikayla looked down guiltily before she was bombarded with another hand in her face. "Tara Williams. It should be fun having another woman to outnumber these boys. We need all the help we can get."

Mikayla laughed aloud. "Well, I hope I can be of service."

"And I hope all of you can be of service by getting back to work." Jack's voice rang out from behind Lucy and Tara.

Bobby laughed. "Come on, Sparky! Can't we play with the new toy for a few more minutes?"

"I doubt Miss Kennedy appreciates being called a toy, Bobby. So let's try to get some work done, please."

As the crowd dispersed, Bobby wrapped his arm around Mikayla's shoulders and stage-whispered so the whole room could hear, "Ignore him. He's usually not this cranky. Must be old age."

Mikayla saw Sue and Tara try to conceal their laughter. She would have laughed too, but her ears were ringing. "Since when am I 'Miss Kennedy'?" Mikayla heard herself saying, "I know. Jack's usually very sweet and understanding. Not to mention forgiving! And Jack's not old. He's the same age as I am. So unless you're calling me old…"

"You know Jack?" Somewhere, she heard Sue ask the question.

Mikayla looked at her, her eyes passing over Jack as she did. He sat at his desk, tense and watching her. "Yeah," she answered, pulling her eyes away from Jack's. "We were best friends for 18 years. Birth through high school."

"What happened after high school?" Bobby asked. "I would assume that you kept in touch, but I've known Jack since college, and he never mentioned you."

Mikayla shrugged, as if it didn't matter, even though she was steaming inside. "Life intervened." She figured this was the easiest way to go, since it was part-way true. "After graduation, Jack went to Stanford, while I went to New York. We lost touch since we were on opposite ends of the country."

As Bobby nodded his head thoughtfully, she heard Jack say through clenched teeth, "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't lie to them."

Mikayla sighed heavily as she turned to face him. "How am I lying to them?" She met his angry gaze. "Life came between us Jack. You went to Stanford, I went to New York. We lost contact. Simple as that." As the tension grew in the room, Mikayla was super-aware of the other people in the bullpen. A few of the agents that she hadn't been introduced to were feigning ignorance as they worked at their computers. Bobby had moved to lean against a wall, standing in-between her and Jack, looking ready to jump to Jack's defence. In her peripheral vision, she saw Myles openly gawking at them.

"Your abandonment of me, your friends, and your family was anything but simple."

"ABANDONMENT? You have no idea what it's like to be abandoned Jack! Have you ever been completely alone? No friends or family to depend on? It's terrifying! Especially when you're only 18 years old!" Mikayla stared into Jack's usually warm brown eyes but was met with coldness like ice. She took a deep breath in an attempt to control her emotions. "This is not the time to lose it Mikayla, come on!" she thought to herself as she looked around the office. Lucy and Tara had escaped the bullpen somehow, probably wanting to avoid the conflict. Myles was still gawking at them. Bobby was watching them from his place against the wall. Only Sue seemed to be giving them privacy, as she had turned her back on them to read a report that had been deposited on her desk earlier that day. Mikayla turned back to Jack, who was still seated at his desk. "Look Jack. I know I probably didn't handle the situation as well as I could have all those years ago, but you have to see this from my perspective. When I told Drake I was going to have a baby, he laughed and told me to have a good life. My parents told me I had an hour to pack as much as I could into a duffle bag before leaving their property. I was 18, 2 months pregnant, homeless, and alone. I was so scared and I wasn't thinking properly."

"That's the thing though, Mikayla," Jack's eyes did not soften as she spoke, nor did his face show any trace of forgiveness. In fact, he looked as if he was trying to get a confession from a criminal. To Mikayla, he had never looked more intimidating. "You didn't have to be alone," he continued. "You know you could've come to me and I would've helped you out. You know that, and yet you still took off without a word."

"I left you that letter to -"

"Oh yeah, that damn letter!" Jack's façade cracked and his anger began seeping through. "All that letter told me was that you didn't trust me enough to stick around! Do you know how much that hurt? After 18 years I find out that you don't trust me!"

"Jack I didn't want you to end up hating me! I trust you too much; that was the problem! I knew you would've helped me but I couldn't let you!"

"What's that supposed to mean? That being alone was better than allowing your best friend to help you when you needed it?"

"At the time, it was better." Mikayla admitted quietly. Jack stared at her with stony eyes. Mikayla sighed audibly before continuing. "Of our entire graduation class, half went on to college, and maybe 5 went outside of Wisconsin to do it," she explained. "You got into Stanford's pre-law program! I didn't want to mess that up. If you had helped me, we both would've ended up stuck back in Cedar Lake because of my mistake! It was my mistake and I didn't want to pull you down with me! You had such big plans for your life and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, so I left to protect you!" Mikayla ignored the tears running down her face as she pleaded with her old best friend to forgive her. Her tears stopped as she saw that his face hadn't changed. She felt a spark of anger. "You know what, Jackson Samuel Hudson? I may have left home so you wouldn't feel obligated to take care of me, but I learned something when I was on my own. I needed to live those seven months of pregnancy by myself, to prove to myself that I could! I spent 18 years depending on you and my parents. Then I realized that my little baby boy was depending on me! And that I had to depend on myself too! I can't tell you how many times I wanted to call you and ask for help, but I wouldn't let myself! I handled everything by myself and I'm damn proud of it! So maybe if you stopped thinking about how you felt when I left, maybe you should think of what I went through!" Mikayla's voice got progressively louder until she was screaming at him, as the tears returned to her cheeks.

She was so loud that Levi put his head on Sue's lap, causing her to turn around. She saw that Dimetrius had entered the bullpen and was cautiously making his way over to Jack's desk. She saw him put a hand on Mikayla's shoulder, causing her to whip around and look at him.

"What?" Sue saw Mikayla say.

Though Sue couldn't hear D's answer, he said, "Is there a problem here?"

"No, D. There's no problem here." Sue saw Jack say. Sue saw D reach out his hand and introduce himself to Mikayla, who managed a weak smile before running out of the bullpen in the direction of the bathroom. Sue glanced at Jack, who looked like his mind was at war with his heart, before slipping out of the bullpen to follow Mikayla.

Bobby edged his way past D, who had turned to speak to Myles.

"I don't want to talk about it, Bobby." Jack said, putting his head down on his desk.

"Why don't you go talk to Garrett, mate? Just tell him there's a conflict of interests, and he'll transfer her to a different unit."

Jack was already shaking his head. "No, Crash. We'll work it out. It's just going to take some time."

"Jack, if she's going to cause problems –" Myles began.

"Can we just drop it please?" Jack snapped, and automatically felt bad. "Bobby, didn't you say that you have to go see Otis today about some information?"

"Yeah, he said something about a drug dealing ring. Why?"

"I'll come." Jack reached behind him and grabbed his jacket before following Bobby out of the bullpen.

"Mikayla?" Sue knocked on the bathroom door before peeking her head in. She caught a glimpse of Mikayla leaning over the basin of the sink. "You okay?"

Mikayla's head shot up as she tried to wipe the remaining traces of her tears off her face. "Sorry."

"What for?"

"For blowing a gasket in there. I guess I really lost it in there, huh?" Mikayla hoisted herself onto the sink counter and looked at Sue. "I think this must be the shortest F.B.I career in history. Jack's gonna want me out of here as quickly as possible."

"Why don't you come with me?" Sue asked suddenly. "I have to go see an informant, and then I'll take you to lunch. Maybe it will give Jack some time to cool off."

Having lost the will to argue, Mikayla followed Sue out of the bathroom and out of the Hoover Building.

A/N: Wow, so that was a pretty terrible ending. But I liked the rest of the chapter, so I hope you guys do too! Please review!