Walking Out of the Shadows

Chapter 11

Thank you for all the followers and favorites. Thank you for the reviews. Please review more It makes me really really really happy! It encourages me and gets me motivated! Anyway, I started this chapter three different times, and did not like where it was going each time. I knew where I needed it to go, but it just did not go in that direction. So, I decided to just go with my original idea.

Lincoln Ramsey is portrayed by David James Elliot. As a reminder, Sydney is portrayed by Lauren Cohen (of Walking Dead Fame, which I don't watch but she was carrying a gun, she worked!)

Sydney Pike stood in the back of the funeral for her former Captain, as she let her eyes scan the area. "Always be diligent," she told herself.

"Or risk being dead," a voice said from behind her. "Now isn't this a shame, you wearing an Academy uniform?" the man teased as he playfully elbowed her.

Sydney laughed as she turned and looked at the older man. "And look at you in a suit and tie. Decided to go honest and stop chasing the bad guys and put them behind bars?"

Lincoln nodded. "Let's take a walk," he told the younger woman. "When was the last time you spoke to Rich?"

"Two weeks ago, you?" she asked as they walked away from the crowd.

"Three nights before he died," Lincoln told her.

"Did he give you any indication that he was going to do this?" she asked.

"We made dinner plans for today, and I can assure you it wasn't for his funeral," the older man told her. He looked down at the younger woman. "I've known Rich since we were 18 and in school. We both went through the ranks together; there wasn't a week that went by that we didn't talk. I can tell you that the man I knew would never take his life," he informed her.

Sydney nodded. "We all deal with things our own way, Linc…maybe he wasn't handling it as well as we thought," she responded, as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"You don't believe that any more than I do," the older man protested.

Sydney nodded. "No I don't," she answered truthfully. "I didn't believe that he would do something like that when my dad and Admiral Archer told me about his taking his own life, and I got that uneasy feeling in my stomach."

"Like you knew something wasn't right but you just couldn't put your finger on it," Lincoln said as he nodded. "I got it too, when I was told."

"So, if he didn't kill himself…" she started to say.

"Someone did it," the man responded.

"To get that close, he would have had to trust them, even with him being blind. He wouldn't let anyone get that close to him without him being comfortable," Sydney told him.

He nodded. "That's what I was thinking myself."

"So what are we going to do to try to prove it?" she asked.

"We aren't going to do anything, I am going to do it," Lincoln told him.

"Hey, you know I can help. He was my friend too," Sydney insisted.

Lincoln tapped the shoulder of her Academy uniform. "I am not going to put your career in jeopardy. You've got a whole future to look forward to. The rules we followed, or in our case didn't follow, doesn't apply to the Federation. You can't be risking your career doing something that is possibly illegal," he told her.

"The same could be said about you, you know. You are Mr. lawyer now," she pointed out.

"I am, but I don't have as much to risk as you. Plus I have the gate code to his house," Lincoln answered with a grin.

Sydney punched his arm. "You could have mentioned that before!" she told him.

Lincoln laughed. "Now what fun would that be?" he asked. "Rich and I used to love seeing that look of frustration you get when you got told something you should have figured out," he told her.

"Yeah so does my dad and Admiral Archer," she admitted. "I am so glad that you all seem to get some pleasure out of proving me wrong," she answered sarcastically. "But if you got the code to the house, then you wouldn't be doing anything illegal and I could go with you," Sydney pointed out.

"I said I had the code, didn't say anything about having a key," Lincoln informed her.

"Oh," she told him.

Lincoln nodded. "So, see little Miss Fleet I can't in good conscious let you go with me and snoop around. It wouldn't be right."

Sydney rolled her eyes. "No wonder you and Rich were best friends, when I told him I was joining he called me Little Miss Fleet, of course it was jokingly."

"I was joking too," he said as he turned and looked at her. "He was proud of you, you know. He knew that you were hurting and missing them as much as he was," Lincoln informed her.

Sydney nodded. "You'll tell me what you find, if you find any proof right? I mean, who would want to hurt Rich?"

"We've all got enemies, Syd. Every one of us that decided to put on a different uniform then Fleet. There are some people who have been against us since day one, and those same people are the first ones to come recruiting us when we leave, because they know we didn't follow rules, so we may be willing to break them at Fleet," he told her. "You haven't been approached have you?" he asked.

"Rich asked me the same thing. Are you telling me that someone in Fleet is looking for people to break the rules?" she asked.

"People want a war; they are looking for a reason to bring war. They know it's just a matter of time until they are exploring more, getting into the unexplored territories with unknown races and aliens. There missions will be longer and more dangerous, so they want the people with the skills to handle it. Unfortunately, there's a thin line between right and wrong. What we did, we did because we were helping people, and out there the rules are still being written. But people in Fleet, well there's some that think the only way to rule is to be on top, to bring war by making it seem that it's the other side that's bringing it," he explained.

"They approached you? And Rich?" she asked.

Lincoln shook his head. "No, they only recruit from inside Fleet. Trust me when I say someone's watching you."

Sydney looked at him. "Well I'm not going to agree to it, I'm not going to be anyone that starts a war," she informed him.

"Well I don't know if they'll actually approach you, you do have friends in high places," Lincoln told her.

"You think Rich's death…they're trying to get me to break down? So if they approach me, they can use his 'suicide' as a reason to recruit me?" she asked.

"I can't say for sure yet, it may just be a wild unprovable theory," he told her.

"But your gut is telling you it's not?" she asked.

"My gut's telling me it's not," he agreed.

A little foreshadowing. Sorry no flashbacks. That took me 7 days to write! But I got it where I needed to go!