Yay! Drama! I absolutely hate it in my life (seriously, anyone who knows me personally can assure you of this fact) but it's so damned entertaining to write. Especially when it involves espionage and betrayal and general craziness.

Today's the 25th, and I must say I'm cranking these chapters out pretty efficiently. Hopefully this should be finished soon—not like tomorrow soon, but hopefully by the end of the week, maybe the week after that, depending.

And if I can actually accomplish that it will be absolutely awesome.

$4$

Oh, you loved me because I'm fragile
But I thought that I was strong
But you touched me for a little while
And all my fragile strength is gone

- "Gravity," by Sara Bareilles

"It happened two years ago."

"I had only been working for the FBI for about a year. I was still doing what I do now—press releases, making nice with journalists—but Joan wanted me out in the field periodically, not only to get to know the journalist better, but also in the case I ever decided to become a field agent or something else—and I went out to Massachusetts. There had been a string of murders, starting in D.C. and heading straight for Boston, and we suspected that they tied back to the Irish mob. While I was there, I met this guy. He said his name was Ben Mercer and told me he was a photojournalist. He had just come back from writing this piece in Sri Lanka, and I don't know… we clicked."

"We only knew each other for like a week but we spent as much time as humanly possible together. It was surreal; our own little bubble of bliss. Everything seemed so perfect. I had been there three weeks, and then it all came crashing down. We had been chasing down leads left, right, and center about the dead bodies. But, this was the Irish mob, and the mob is the mob, so no one was talking. I admit, I wasn't paying as close attention to the murders as I should have. I was too wrapped up in myself and Ben, our whirlwind romance that I convinced myself would never end. I was an idiot."

"Finally, we caught a break. I had charmed my way into speaking with the head of the mob—before I started working for the FBI, I took two years to find myself of sorts and backpacked all around the world, and one of those places I visited was Ireland. I actually stopped at village where he was from—Kilmallock. I've been good at picking up languages since I was a kid, and while rusty, my Gaelic was pretty decent. I established a relationship with him, at which point he confided in me that he suspected one of his own to be at least partly responsible for the murders—one of his lieutenants, Colin McHugh. I told Schwimmer the intel I had learned, and the techs started scouring for any possible leads we could glean on McHugh."

"And we got lucky again. McHugh had a gambling problem, a major one, one he kept from everyone he knew, including the rest of the mafia. He was out hundreds of thousands of dollars and needed extra cash. Before he came to America, he used to be a member of the IRA, and was a professionally trained sniper. He decided to put his talents to good use and start selling contracts to the highest bidder. That bidder happened to be an extremely dangerous faction of Armenians, terrorists that were planning an attack on the U.S. and they were using McHugh to carry out the first step of their plans."

"We caught and arrested McHugh, and we decided we would stay one last night before heading back to D.C. McHugh would stay in my room at the hotel with Schwimmer next door. We were about to wrap up the case when the shit the proverbial fan. And then some. Ben had been asking me questions about our case, but I had been too oblivious. I thought he was simply interested in learning more about me and what I did at work. And then I walked in on him trying to look through my files in the hotel. He tried to play it off, but it was just… I knew something was wrong. He was lying to me. And then McHugh got one look at him and recognized him right off the bat. Blurted out everything—Ben was CIA, and was trying to flip him to get to the Armenians. He had lied about everything."

"I kicked Ben the hell out of my room and nearly kicked his ass—I think the only thing that saved me from actually murdering him was the fact that I hadn't told him anything important about the case or let him near any information. My whole world felt like it had imploded, but I still had to do my job. We had to take McHugh back to D.C. As much as I might have wanted to, I had to work. There was no time to mope or fall into a depression. We got back to D.C., worked through the paperwork, and I tried to pretend that Ben never happened."

"Yeah. That lasted exactly four nights. That was how long it took for the Armenians to come to town. You see, there were Armenians already set up here, feeding information back to their leaders. They knew what happened to McHugh, and they knew who Ben Mercer was. They had tracked Ben, McHugh, and all the Feds that were involved in the case. Including me. On the fourth night I was home, they broke in. Three of them, heavily armed with AK-47s and smoke bombs. They were planning on kidnapping me and using me as a bargaining chip for both the FBI and Ben. I actually got a couple good shots in—killed one of them and injured the other—and it got me enough time to call in the cavalry. Just as the FBI swarmed in, I was shot. In the end, I was pretty lucky—the bullet grazed my side."

"I was in the hospital for a couple days, was out of work for a week and then put it for another two weeks of vacation. And then I started to put my life back together. And I've been doing that for the last two years."

Annie let out a soft breath. She was sitting in Joan's office, along with the rest of this haphazardly titled team. She continued to stare down at her hands, as she had the entire span of her speech. Everyone was quiet—Joan had already heard the speech, Schwimmer was aware of the pertinent details, and Rossabi had a hazy idea from being the one to rescue her. Auggie didn't know about any of this, and as much as she didn't want to talk about it she knew there was no arguing. If the Armenians really were back, they all needed to be aware, and part of that included knowing about the past.

There was a long pause, and then Auggie was the first one to speak up. "I honestly have never heard of Ben Mercer," he began, and then frowned. "But that doesn't mean he didn't use a false identity. I can ask around—the guy I was with at the crime scene yesterday, Jai Wilcox, he might know who Mercer is. If not, I can look him up. Or talk to Arthur Campbell. If anyone was aware of an agent like him, he would be the one to ask."

Annie involuntarily glanced up at Joan—well, Campbell was a common last name. The older woman's face didn't flicker for a second—she was truly amazing—even as she nodded once. "Good," she said. "I would appreciate any information you could get us, Anderson. If we can figure out more about this Mercer person we might be able to glean something more about the Armenians and get ahead of them before they do any more damage."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Rossabi said, leaning back in his chair with a smile. "Let's go kick some Armenian ass."

Even Annie had to smile a little at that.

$4$

I know this was obviously very dialogue-heavy, but I don't ever write in first-person (and I'm anal enough that once I start writing in third person, I can't just switch willy-nilly because I'd lose my mind).

What do you guys think?