A/N: Well, hello everyone! I don't think it's possible to apologize enough for my ridiculous absence from this story. Long story short, things have been really busy lately, and I felt that it was better to take a break from this story than to fight with it and add more stress to my work load. Now, however, I've got free time on my hands. Over Thanksgiving break I got ahead by a few chapters, so I feel that it's only fair that I give all of you one of them now. Happy Holidays!
Chapter 13
June 3rd, 2011
"Good morning," Cam greeted them cheerfully, when they both came in the sliding doors together. She was smiling too widely, though, and as they stopped short in front of her, she nodded towards the platform, the smile still firmly on her face.
Booth saw the reason why at once. The platform was crowded with men and women in FBI jackets, and he recognized his boss and Culver among them, as well as Agents Shaw, Ohlsen, and Charlie Burns.
He put on a smile himself, nodding to Cam with a raised eyebrow, and then gently placed a hand on Brennan's back to nudge her forward, dropping it immediately afterwards. The team knew they were together, and he was glad of the fact. But right now, the focus—with so many of his coworkers around—was on the case. Not on his personal life. And they wouldn't be able to ignore that aspect if he made it so obvious.
She didn't seem offended at all, though, keeping pace with him. He watched her as she surveyed the platform, taking in the faces that she found there. He could see her recognition of a few of them, but he doubted she knew half of their names.
"Agent Booth," Hacker greeted him when they had come up the stairs, offering a nod for Brennan as well. It was clear they hadn't talked in a while, and even more clear that Hacker was more perceptive than someone might at first believe upon meeting. He looked the part of a loveable buffoon—slightly pompous, but slightly clumsy and self-deprecating as well. But he was by no means an idiot. He glanced between the two of them for a long moment before he spoke again, and Booth could read it in his eyes that there were questions. Questions he would want answered later on, when he would no doubt call Booth to his office.
Nobody else seemed to notice a thing.
"After reviewing the evidence on this case, we have decided that joining the homicide and narcotics divisions headed by yourself and Agent Culver will be the most effective way to handle the rest of this investigation. Culver will be taking lead."
Booth opened his mouth to protest but then shut it again with a snap, nodding sharply and feeling a wave of frustration go through him as he clenched his jaw. Brennan touched his arm, and he shot her a quick look of reassurance before returning his focus to his boss.
The other agents were splitting off, now, some of them departing and others grouping together to speak in hushed tones, and Hacker and Culver stepped forward with Agent Shaw to speak with him and Brennan more privately.
"It's clear that we aren't going to get anywhere with interviews and confrontation," Culver began, taking charge of the discussion. "So we've decided to send someone in undercover, to get the lay of the land and put a few names to faces while figuring out just how the shipments arrive, who knows about them, and who coordinates all the movements of the players involved."
Brennan was stiff beside him, and he could feel the tension radiating off of her even as she shifted her position so there was a gap between them and he no longer felt her shoulder brushing against his arm. When he glanced towards her, she wouldn't meet his eyes, even though he knew she could tell that he was trying to get her attention.
"Who?" Booth inquired.
"Agent Shaw has volunteered," Hacker informed them, looking quite proud and clapping a hand on the young agent's shoulder. Shaw smiled tightly, and Culver looked just plain disapproving.
"There is still the option of bringing in one of my team members," he said, and it was clear they had already had this discussion, several times, before Booth and Brennan had arrived.
"Nonsense. Shaw is well-trained, and she spent a lot of time studying in narcotics before changing her mind. Besides, you said yourself that this is one of the most sophisticated rings you've come across in a long time. They'll be looking for all the traditional makings of a rat. Shaw here is young and able; she can pull off a college student desperate for a job better than someone whose been doing this a long time."
Culver opened his mouth, a frown still set firmly between his eyebrows, but Hacker raised a hand to cut him off.
"We'll work out all the details later. For now, let's get these two up to speed!"
They spent the next twenty minutes going over a general synopsis of the investigation; comparing theories and going in depth on each other's notes and the possible suspect lists they had generated. He wished desperately for them to leave him alone with the team so he could pull Brennan aside and ask her what was wrong, but every time they drew towards a point of closure, Hacker brought up something else.
When the meeting finally came to a close and Hacker had finished finalizing plans for a follow-up later the same day, it took longer than Booth liked for everyone to fully clear out. And until they were all gone, he couldn't justify sweeping Brennan away and locking them in her office with the blinds drawn. Not without drawing a lot of unwanted attention.
Still, he didn't wait long at all after the last of the agents had disappeared and the background of lab noise reached them as the regular bustle of the atmosphere returned.
He placed a hand on her arm and pulled gently, tugging her towards her office. She complied, not looking at him, and when they were safely inside it was she who pulled the blinds and sealed them in the darkness. A moment later her desk lamp clicked on and illuminated the space, and she stood there in front of her desk, regarding him from under her bangs.
"Are you okay?" he asked falteringly.
"Fine," she answered at once, and there was honesty in her voice. But there was deception as well, and he narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms until she shifted her gaze away, a sigh escaping her lips. She said nothing, though, and he stepped forward enough that he drew a quick glance in his direction.
"You're not fine," he stated softly, reaching out a hand and turning her chin to face him. Eyes wide, she stared at him for a long moment, and then she nodded her head in reluctant agreement and pulled herself away from his touch before moving to sit lightly on the edge of a couch cushion. He followed like a shadow, settling down beside her and mirroring her position.
"Would you have gone?" she asked at last, and he frowned.
"Gone where?"
She huffed out a breath of air sharply, as though he were being ridiculous. "Undercover. Would you have… gone undercover?"
He frowned in consternation, leaning back and taking her in. She was stiff, her arms folding down onto her lap and her jaw set tightly. A muscle ticked in her neck. He saw her swallow, and it occurred to him that she was angry. So angry, she might even be fighting back tears. He was appalled.
"Bones, I… if they had asked me…"
"And if I had said no?" she demanded, cutting him off. Her eyes flashed, and they were dark and serious. Unwavering.
"You don't want me working undercover."
"No. I don't."
He stammered a moment. "Why?" he finally managed, unable to come up with any other suitable response.
She stared at him a long moment, conflicted and confused, and then finally she whispered, "I'll die, if I lose you."
All the breath vanished from his lungs in that moment, and he opened his mouth but found it dry and incapable of speech. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he just shook his head. He was about to reach out to pull her into his arms, but she dove into them without prompting, burying her head in his shoulder.
"I'm not leaving you, Bones," he finally managed to say, clutching her tightly to him and feeling the way she fit perfectly into his side, her arms thrown around him and they're breathing in sync even as they both struggled to keep their voices straight. "Not ever."
"I know," she mumbled into him. "But that doesn't mean… that doesn't mean things don't happen. We… we can't know how long this is going to… how long this will last."
"Bones, don't talk like that, okay? You and me… we're going to be around for a good long time. And we're going to raise this baby, together, and we… we're gonna be a family. Nothing is going to change that; I won't let it."
"Do you remember what I said to you?" she said at last, pulling away so she could meet his gaze. Her eyes were swirling with more emotions than he thought he'd ever seen in them before.
"When?"
"In the airport… before we both left."
He shook his head slowly, trying to remember a specific part of the conversation so he could figure out what she was referring to.
She looked down for a long time, and then she lifted her eyes again and began softly. "I asked you not to be a hero. And I know… I know that it's in your nature. But I just… I need you to be careful. For me."
He nodded, knowing exactly how she felt. "Compromise, then. I won't throw myself in the line of fire to be a hero… and you won't run off to foreign countries with questionable politics because of some new find."
She scowled at that, looking like she wanted to retort.
"Not without me," he specified. She couldn't give up her field, nor could she erase the innate need she possessed to be involved with the latest information science was providing. If she was going to go… she was going to have him by her side.
"That is a… reasonable compromise," she agreed thoughtfully. "And what about our child?"
"That was my other point. No seven month trips. Never again, okay?"
For a moment, a flicker of sadness crossed her face. But then it vanished and she nodded definitively. "I can do that."
He smiled in relief. "Good. Now, what do you say you and I go and get ourselves something to eat at the Diner?"
A grin spread immediately across her face. "That would be… very nice. I find that I'm rather hungry. I'm thinking I'd like some cheese fries and a tapioca pudding."
He raised an eyebrow, but she was already standing up and moving around her office, so he held his tongue and decided not to mention what an interesting combination that was. Especially when it was coming from her.
"Are you coming?" she asked, and he realized she was standing by the door, watching him with a frown on her face.
"Yeah, sorry," he said quickly, joining her. Without a word, they stepped over the threshold and linked their hands together, both feeling the rush of exhilaration that came with the moment. He did not feel any fear, any concern, when Angela waved to them from the platform and the others looked over and saw them. Instead, he felt a rush of pride. They were really doing this. The two of them were together, and they didn't have to keep it from anyone. It was better than he'd ever imagined it could be. If only they didn't have this case weighing on their minds.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
"You ready for this?" Booth asked, glancing to his right at the other agent. She was so young, so new to his team. Even with her eagerness earlier, he could see the nervousness rushing through her in this moment before the plunge.
"Of course," Shaw answered, nodding briskly. Her eyes were wider than they should have been, though, and she kept darting them around, taking in every movement outside of the SUV.
"Just because Hacker said—"
"I'm fine," she interrupted him firmly, and he shut up.
The radio crackled.
"All set, Agents."
Shaw shot him one last look, nodded abruptly, and then she was out the door and heading across the parking lot. And all the while, Booth was questioning whether or not he should have spoken up to Hacker, made sure someone with more experience was going in on this mission. He liked her; she was bright and smart and a great asset to his team. But she was still green. Still learning. And he wasn't prepared to deal with the aftermath if something went wrong on this mission.
He remembered Brennan's words. How she had been so determined that he not be the one going on this mission. It reminded him of what she had said to him in the aftermath of Nigel-Murray's death. She had felt terrible, not just because of the loss, but because she was glad. Glad that it had not been him. Booth was no stranger to that feeling. He was feeling it now, watching as Genny Shaw conversing at the doorway to the club, leaning casually on the wall and nodding her head to whatever the other woman was saying. The street lights highlighted her face as she turned back in his direction for a moment.
There was a time when Brennan would have been the one volunteering herself for this mission. It was just the sort of thing she would do, after all. She was a fairly good actress, when the need arose. In this moment, watching Shaw, he was grateful that Brennan was safe and sound. That she was not in the line of fire, as she had already been far too many times for his liking. No, this time she was staying back. Protecting herself, protecting their child.
He wished that relief would go away, though. Because Shaw was in very real danger, and if she didn't survive this mission, if they didn't pull this off properly, if he failed her… he wasn't sure he could handle the weight that the guilt would place on him.
Booth's family was Brennan, and it was the squints and Pops and Parker. But it was also the FBI, and his team. They needed his head in the game.
He cleared his throat and spoke into his radio, calling in his badge number and announcing the successful plant.
Hacker called him back to the Hoover, and he reluctantly turned the key and pulled away.
He had a bad feeling about this entire operation.
When he returned to the office, Hacker and the others were gathered around in the bullpen, where a makeshift control center had been set up surrounding a few empty cubicles on the end of a row. Computer monitors lined up in an arc, and he joined his fellow agents, his arms crossed as he glanced through them. One was tapped into a surveillance camera in the parking lot, showing a grainy black and white image of the door to the club. Two of the others were mostly still, but occasionally bobbed up and down. The undercover agents who were observing from the bar had been planted earlier in the evening. Shaw's camera was front and center, and he could see that right now she was speaking to a greasy haired man, who was smiling in an unsettling way, nodding his head.
Hacker was wearing a pair of headphones, as were two other agents seated at desks, focused intently on their laptops.
"How are we looking?" Booth asked.
"She's got a good rapport going with this guy," Charlie said, nodding towards the screen. Booth hadn't even realized his friend had come up beside him. "He looks like he might be the manager, at least from the conversation I was hearing."
"He's going for the bait," Hacker announced, lifting his gaze to sweep across his agents, landing on Booth for a fraction of a second longer than the others. They shared a nod.
A brief chorus of success murmured through them, but there was no outright celebration. This was a small step in a long journey. A good start, of course. But it didn't mean this was going to be easy. Not at all.
"Dr. Sweets?" Hacker said sharply, and the young man bobbed up suddenly, like a buoy in the sea of faces.
"Here, sir."
Hacker gestured for him to come closer, and Booth moved in as well, leaving Charlie on the outer edges. His boss looked up when he joined the small inner circle, but said nothing to indicate that he didn't belong. His focus returned to the psychologist.
"Are you ready?"
"Of course. As soon as the call comes in."
"What?" Booth said, his confusion taking over and getting the better of him. He had no idea what they were talking about, and he didn't like it. His skin crawled slightly, the feeling of foreboding from earlier returning in a rush.
"Dr. Sweets has agreed to pick up Agent Shaw, posing as her boyfriend in this situation."
Booth frowned, more annoyed about being left out of the loop than anything else. "Is this a new part of the plan?"
"As of the past few hours, yes," Hacker answered simply. Booth cut his eyes towards the younger man, surprised to see the eagerness in his expression. He'd had no idea that Sweets was so interested in field work, and certainly not in being involved in an undercover operation. He had always seen him work best behind the scenes, not out in the line of fire.
"Alright, she's making the call," Ohlsen said, pulling a headphone away from his ear and finding Hacker's face in the crowd. The boss nodded, turning his attention back to Sweets with a raised eyebrow. Sweets took a steadying breath, a nervous smile on his lips despite himself.
He almost jumped when his phone went off in his pocket. It wasn't his usual one, Booth noted, when he pulled it out. It was a new one, and the ringtone was standard rather than a theme song. He remembered that at one point it had had something to do with Saved By the Bell. That had been a while ago, though. Back when he had been dating Daisy.
Was he still dating her? Booth realized he didn't even know, and he made a mental note to find out at their next session. He found himself interested, annoyingly enough, but he reassured himself that it would make a good distraction point from Sweets questions about his and Bones' relationship. That was all. A good way to change the subject and save them from whatever God-awful questions the shrink had in mind.
"Lance," he said, pressing the phone to his ear.
Booth heard her saying something, but not the exact words. Glancing over at the screen, he could see that Shaw was still in the same back room, but she was turned away from the man, now. She paced a few steps, the camera scanning across the paintings that covered the wall as she spoke.
"Alright, be there in a few," Sweets said. "Good work."
Another, shorter response, and then the call cut off and Sweets shoved the phone back in his pocket. He cleared his throat, and flushed a light pink, glancing quickly over towards the monitors and then averting his eyes. Booth followed his line of sight, and saw the agents with their headsets still on wagging their eyebrows and grinning in his direction.
"Wait a few minutes before you start driving," Hacker directed. "We don't know how advanced they are, but we don't want them having any idea how far away you are actually coming from. And don't return directly here unless you're sure you're not being followed."
"I'll detour," Sweets promised, perking up again and returning to his typical pale-faced self.
Hacker tossed him a set of keys, and he jogged lightly off towards the elevator.
"Go slow!" Hacker called out, shaking his head. But there was an amused smile on his face that Booth managed to catch before it disappeared.
"Two inexperienced players in the game?" Booth said lowly, turning to face towards the monitors and crossing his arms. He didn't look at Hacker when he said it, but his boss knew who he was talking to.
"Two people who look the part," Hacker corrected smoothly. "Shaw knows what she's doing, and this is her chance to prove herself. She's earned it. And Dr. Sweets… well, he was eager. And all he has to do is play the part of the lover boy patsy. Shouldn't be too hard. He's never even going to step inside that club."
Booth nodded, agreeing with what he was hearing but still not feeling quite satisfied. For the first time, he spotted Culver in the office. He was off to the side, leaned against the wall and observing in silence. He didn't look very approving, either, but he wasn't interfering.
"Why don't you go home, Booth? Go be with your girlfriend; get some rest. We've got a lot of work to do on this case, starting tomorrow."
Booth looked up sharply at the mention of 'his girlfriend,' but Hacker was no longer focused on him, and had begun speaking to another agent nearby about getting satellite imagery of the target clubs.
If there was a storm coming, it wasn't happening just yet.
So he turned and walked away, accepting that as a suitable dismissal, and moved to his office to gather his belongings.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
Brennan was in his apartment when he came in, and he stopped short in the doorway, surprise drawing him to a halt.
"Hi," he said, moving forward so he could shut the door behind him. His keys jingled as he tossed them onto the table and moved to shed his coat.
"Hi," she echoed.
He wondered how long she'd been here, just waiting. Because clearly that was what she was doing; waiting for him. And there was a look on her face that said she was mulling over something, and had been for a while now.
Setting himself down beside her on the couch, he leaned back and allowed himself a satisfied sigh. It had been a long day, and he was glad to find her here, even if her motives were unclear. Calling her would have been the first thing on his agenda, to see what the arrangements were for the night, and he was glad to have that resolved. Glad to be with her sooner than he'd thought.
He slid an arm up and over the back of the couch so it rested just above her shoulders, and she turned towards him naturally, drawing her legs up onto the couch so they curled under her.
"What are you doing here?" he asked curiously, leaning forward to offer her a quick, tender kiss.
She regarded him for a moment, a crease between her eyebrows. "I've been thinking," she said at last, and he smiled despite himself. That was a dangerous sentence, if there ever was one. "What's funny?" she questioned, her frown deepening and her confusion taking precedence.
"Nothing, sorry. What have you been thinking about?"
Her frown did not go away, and she was slow to respond. "This back and forth between our apartments… we can't keep it up forever. And I was thinking… I have been for a while, but I wasn't sure if I should bring it up… about what we should do about our living arrangement."
"What prompted this?" he asked tentatively, curiosity getting the better of him. He was amazed that she was the one to bring it up and not him, and a wave of pride was surging through him, but he wanted to know if there was something else going on here, or if she was simply being practical.
She shook her head. "After today… I just found that I did not like the prospect of being without you. And… I want to be able to come home to… be with you, and with our child. I don't want anything getting in the way."
He knew she was referring to their discussion about how dangerous his job could be, and he knew that there was a deeper fear, there, but for now he could accept her reasoning. In fact, he rather loved her reasoning.
"I agree," he murmured, not even bothering to resist the urge to kiss her again.
She was the one to pull back, blinking up at him in characteristic surprise. "You do?"
"Of course," he said, chuckling softly. Only Bones would doubt something like that. "I've been thinking about it, too. And… I want a place for us."
A wide smile broke out across her face, her eyes shining with relief and the unmistakable glimmer of love. It felt good to recognize it for what it was. To no longer question its worth or the reality of its presence. It was there.
"I love you," he said.
She responded by recapturing his lips with hers, and a moment later he found himself pinned to the couch, with her hovering over him, a primal smile curling on her lips. "I love you, too," she answered, just before she began systematically unbuttoning his dress shirt.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
Shaw pecked him lightly on the cheek after she had climbed into the passenger seat of the corolla. "Drive," she said, yanking the door shut behind her and pulling on her seat belt. She glanced back towards the door to the club, which was open. The manager's shoulders were silhouetted in the neon light from the sign. Watching her—them.
"How'd it go?" he asked, glancing at her every five seconds between focusing on the road.
"Fine," she answered simply. He was only looking at her now, and she resisted the urge to grab the wheel. "It's raining," she stated, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Oh. Yeah." His focus returned to the road for a second, to acknowledge the truth of her words. But then it was back on her.
"Dr. Sweets, would you please watch the road?" she asked at last, tired and worn down. She leaned her head back into the headrest and closed her eyes, breathing out a slow sigh.
He turned away, and it was a long few seconds before he cleared his throat. "Sorry."
She shrugged.
All she wanted to do right now was get back to the apartment that Hacker had gotten set up for this mission. Her cover home, and her cover life. It wasn't as if she hadn't known what she was signing up for. She had been well aware of the implications. Still, she couldn't help but look back at the decision with fresh questions on her mind. There were things she had not taken into account. Things she couldn't have possibly anticipated. Like the desire to take a shower that had immediately swamped over her when she stepped into the club for the first time. The place itself was spotless. But she could feel the filth permeating into her skin.
The place was disgusting. The manager… he was disgusting, although she had pegged him as a harmless buffoon. A pawn in the grand scheme of things. A disgusting one, though, for certain.
"You're going the wrong way," she stated, barely opening her eyes.
"Uh… yeah." Sweets cleared his throat again. "Hacker wants us to detour around a little, and then head back to the office to debrief for the night."
She only just managed to suppress her sigh of distaste. Her shower would have to wait, as would that much needed sleep.
"So… when do you start work?" he asked, when she didn't respond to his explanation.
"Three days," she answered, finally opening her eyes and letting her attention stray out the windows. The rain was coming down harder, now. Three days wasn't much, but she could tell it was going to be an eternity of sitting around. Waiting for things that could not be put into motion until she was back in that club.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Did you want to… get something to eat? On our way back?"
She shook her head, her mind elsewhere—going over what she should expect after these three days were up. She was to be a server at Blue Fish. She needed to be in the right mindset. She was a college grad trying to pay her bills after failing to find work with her liberal arts degree. She had been dating Lance for a few months, and they had just gotten a new apartment with what little finances they shared between them. Her parents weren't in the picture, and she was an only child. She was not opposed to drugs, not religious, and she had a strong dislike towards the law. She was practically an alcoholic, although in denial about it. She had not worked in a club before, but her desperation for work made her an easy target; one that would not gain much attention and one that would do what she was told. When asked what experience she possessed, she explained that she had worked as a waitress for three years during college.
And the real Genny Shaw had, in fact. She knew what she was doing.
She did not catch the look of distinct disappointment on the psychologist's face.
"Alright," he said. "So… we'll just loop around a few times."
She shrugged, not really caring what he wanted to do so long as eventually she got back to the Hoover, through that meeting, and into a warm shower.
He cleared his throat. For the third time.
"Do you mind if I get something at a drive-through?"
"Go for it."
She didn't know him very well. He was generally quiet and focused, and she knew he was very strongly attached to Agent Booth and Doctor Brennan. From the talk she heard around the office, they had been working with each other for years now.
There was word—which was really more of a rumor—that something had changed between the agent and the anthropologist. Shaw had to say she agreed with it, too, from what she had seen in her limited interactions with the two of them. And even without seeing them together, she would have wagered a guess that there was something different. She saw Agent Booth on a far more frequent basis than Doctor Brennan, and from watching him alone she could see that he wasn't the same man he had been several months ago when she had first begun to work with him. There was a look in his eyes that hadn't been there before: a warm sparkle.
Sweets could see it too. Maybe he was even privy to information that had not yet leaked to the public and to Hacker. If that was the case, though, he wasn't giving it away. There was a surprising loyalty there; one that she admired. These people, all of them, not just Booth and Brennan, were bonded in some way that she couldn't quite yet begin to describe. They hadn't something, though. Something special.
She wasn't paying attention when Sweets stopped the vehicle, and she glanced up to find a large menu board just before she heard the familiar crackle and the "What can we get you?"
He glanced towards her, but she had already averted her eyes, leaning her head back and staring up. His head turned away again, and he poked it partially out the window. Like a turtle, she thought absently. A nervous, geeky sort of turtle. But he was cute, in his own way. And he was brilliant, she knew. She had read a few of his papers for research when she was first assigned to the DC branch of the FBI.
Still. Not her type.
Now, despite his age, if Booth wasn't so obviously taken…
"Could I get the number two?" Sweets said.
A pause, and then "Pull forward."
His head popped back inside and he shifted the vehicle and jerked them forward.
"Sure you, uh, don't want anything?"
She resisted the urge to say that it was a little late for that. "No, I'm good."
They waited in silence for a minute or so before a woman with out of control frizzy hair puffing out from under her standard-employee baseball cap leaned out the window to take his money and pass him his grease-stained bag of take-out.
He found them a parking lot and pulled into an empty space under a street lamp, loudly opening the crinkly bag and extracting a hamburger and a container overflowing with fries.
She had to admit, it did smell good. But she still wasn't hungry, her stomach knotted from the disgust she still felt for the club at which she would be working and the man who ran it. She didn't think she'd be eating at all tonight. An extra-long shower and some much-needed sleep—that was what she needed. Food could wait until tomorrow, or at least until she got back to the apartment.
Sweets turned on the radio and motioned for her to change the station as she pleased while he took another large bite of his burger. She didn't hesitate to reach forward and start fiddling with the dials, looking for something decent that would distract her and perhaps keep the conversation to a minimum.
Normally, she wouldn't mind the small-talk. She liked people, in general. Her parents had always proudly proclaimed that she was a people-person, and she hadn't understood what they meant for years, until she was older and already well aware of who she was. Genny Shaw hadn't grown up in the best part of town, and she been forced to work hard for the things she wanted, but she was very self-aware. She knew what she wanted. She knew how to get it. And she knew that there were things she couldn't live with.
She had fears about this job. Fears about what it could do to her, and they had nothing to do with getting shot, although that was always a very grounding reality. No, she was afraid of who this job could turn her into. The first time she had ever shot anyone had been on her first assignment with the narcotics division. He had lived; she had never killed anyone—not yet—and her concerns about the future of that statistic made up the basis of her fears.
After that incident, she had been sent to mandatory therapy to get cleared for a return to the field. For the most part, she had been okay with it. The man had been about to shoot her partner, after all, and he was a member of a drug cartel. He had deserved that bullet to the leg. What she had seen in the waiting room had been the worst part of the whole experience, really.
Her shrink was nothing like Sweets. He was an older man, with graying hair and a thick mustache. He asked her how she felt about the incident, about how she was coping, about her fears, and she had been honest about everything that pertained to the incident. And at the end of that meeting he had nodded and muttered to himself, making marks on her forms. Then he had handed them back to her and told her to come back again in a week.
It was infuriating, really, and the other agents had grinned and elbowed each other when she had said who it was she had been assigned to go see. They knew him, and his reputation. And it was clear she had been unlucky.
There was nothing wrong with her, and there still wasn't. Not yet.
The other patients, however, were a different case entirely. She saw ghosts in their eyes and on their pale faces. One young agent, a woman not much older than herself, had sat stiffly with her hands trembling on the armrests. She didn't meet anyone's eyes. An older agent, clearly on the verge of retirement, always came out with his head bowed and his eyes darting out under bushy eyebrows, surveying each member of the room and determining whether or not they were a viable threat.
She held out hope when she saw agents like Booth, though. He was still strong and still good at his job. He still smiled, still cracked jokes, and still took out bad guys like a pro. There was still hope that she had not chosen the wrong career.
When this mission was over, she would be in good standing for her future, heading towards her goal of Special Agent status.
Yes, she was going to make it, she thought firmly.
She glanced again over at Sweets and his delicious-smelling French fries. Oh, what the hell? she thought, and then she reached over and picked one out of the container and popped it into her mouth.
Share your thoughts? And please, no spoilers on the current season! In addition to being behind on my writing, I am behind on my watching. I will be catching up soon on both, though; no worries!
